by James Craig
My people? Carlyle wondered what he meant. Maybe Inspector Cutler was outperforming any expectations. ‘Okay.’
‘If Jake gets hurt,’ Hagger continued, sounding more agitated, ‘it will be your fault.’
‘No one wants Jake to get hurt,’ Carlyle said, as soothingly as he could manage.
‘Well, tell your chum Silver to behave himself, then.’
Silver? Carlyle frowned. ‘What’s he got to do with all this?’
Thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets, Hagger turned on his heel and began walking briskly away. ‘Just bloody tell him,’ he shouted over his shoulder.
Carlyle watched him go, while replaying in his head what had just been said. As Hagger disappeared round a corner, he reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out his private and untraceable (he hoped) mobile, and called Dominic Silver’s number. Almost immediately, it went to voicemail. Gripping the handset tighter in frustration, he spat out a message: Dominic, it’s me. Call me back asap. I am waiting for your call, so I will definitely pick up.
For a few moments, he stared at his phone, willing it to ring, while wondering whether he had time to pop up to Il Buffone for lunch. But the phone didn’t ring and he decided, regretfully, that he didn’t have time for a proper lunch. Plan B was a cheese sandwich and an orange juice, which he bought from a cheerful girl working in Kylie’s trailer to take back to the station.
Five minutes later, aware of the rumbling in his stomach, Carlyle stepped out of the lift and headed towards his desk. As he approached, he wasn’t best pleased to find someone sitting in his chair.
‘John Carlyle?’
‘Yes.’
The tall Asian-looking bloke lifted his spotless Nike trainers off Carlyle’s desk and planted them on the floor. ‘I’m Inspector Nick Chan.’ He nodded at another man hovering nearby. ‘That is Sergeant Greg Brown.’
Both men wore a smug look that said We know something you don’t.
Chan and Brown? After a few seconds’ thought, Carlyle came to the conclusion that he didn’t know anything about this duo. That made it doubly certain that now was a good time for caution.
‘What can I do for you gentlemen?’ Carlyle asked. He couldn’t wait any longer for some food, so he flopped into a nearby chair and began unwrapping his sandwich.
Chan took that as his cue to stand up. ‘Let’s go into one of the conference rooms.’
‘Fine.’ Carlyle took a large bite out of his sandwich and chewed it vigorously, getting back to his feet and following his two colleagues towards the row of empty rooms situated at the rear of that floor.
Conference room number seven was filled by a long rectangular table, surrounded by a dozen chairs. Carlyle quickly took a seat at the far end of the table, by the window. Someone had left a copy of the Mirror on the table. The newspaper was folded in half and Carlyle could only see part of the front-page headline: television presenter. . . Resisting the temptation to open it out, he polished off the last of his sandwich and took a long swig of juice.
Behind him, Brown entered the room, followed by Chan, who closed the door and then removed his jacket, dropping it over the back of a chair. Both policemen remained standing. ‘Do you know Sandra Groves?’ Chan asked.
Carlyle downed the last of the juice and screwed the cap back on the empty bottle. ‘Yes.’
‘She claims you assaulted her.’
‘So I hear.’ Knowing now what this was about, Carlyle relaxed a little.
‘And did you?’
‘No.’ Carlyle smiled at Brown, who stared grimly back at him. ‘Have you guys not seen the reports?’
‘She’s in hospital,’ said Brown.
‘As far as I’m aware,’ Carlyle said, as casually as he could manage, ‘she was fine when she left this station.’
Brown folded his arms and leaned against the wall. ‘She’s in intensive care.’
Carlyle squeezed the juice bottle tightly, saying nothing. The room was hot and stuffy, but now was not the time to get up and try to open a window. In the breast pocket of his jacket, his phone started vibrating. That would be Dominic, but now was not the time to answer it. In fact, now was not the time to do anything but sit very still and listen.
‘Someone tried to run her over last night,’ Brown continued.
‘So?’
‘So,’ Chan replied, trying and failing to keep a grin from his face, ‘she says that it was you.’
TWENTY-FOUR
After a further twenty minutes, Chan and Brown departed. Carlyle had explained that firstly, he didn’t know how to drive, and secondly his wife could provide him with an alibi for the time when Sandra Groves was suffering a vehicular assault. The pair didn’t seem particularly concerned by what he had to say one way or another and, after mumbling the usual stuff about being back after making further enquiries, they left him sitting alone in the conference room, wondering what to do next.
The first thing he did was check his voicemail. As expected, it was Dominic Silver: John, it’s me. I thought you were definitely going to pick up? Anyway, don’t call me back. I’m busy this afternoon. I’ll try you again tonight.
It took Carlyle a moment to remember what he had called Dominic about in the first place, even though it was barely an hour ago. When he remembered, it didn’t seem so much of a priority any more. Standing up, he dropped his empty juice bottle into a bin in one corner of the room. Then he unfolded the newspaper and laid it out on the table. Reading the full headline, he grimaced:
TELEVISION PRESENTER FOUND DEAD AT HER FLAT
With a sick feeling in his stomach, he read on:
Leading London television presenter Rosanna Snowdon was found dead at her flat in Fulham early this morning. She had fallen down some stairs and it is believed she suffered a broken neck, as well as arm and head injuries. The police have declined to comment, but at this stage, sources suggest that foul play has not been ruled out.
Under a picture of Reith Mansions, the block where Rosanna had lived, the rest of the article consisted of filler about her career-history and her personal life. Thinking back to their meeting, Carlyle reread the article. If she fell down the stairs, maybe it was an accident. But if the police hadn’t ruled out something more sinister then they must have some serious doubts.
There was no reference in the paper to the stalker that Rosanna had been worried about. Carlyle tried and failed to recall the guy’s name. Perhaps he was involved? Refolding the paper, he dropped it back on the table.
Should he have taken her concerns more seriously?
Could he have stopped this?
As usual, there were lots of questions and no answers.
‘John,’ he whispered to himself as he left the room, ‘this is really not looking like it’s going to be a great day.’
Under the circumstances, Carlyle decided that it would be sensible to make himself scarce, for a while at least. That meant switching off his work mobile and getting out of the station for the rest of the afternoon. Deciding to head for the one place where he knew that he wouldn’t be disturbed, he took the keys to the Mills flat from his desk and headed for the street. Once outside, he walked slowly up through Covent Garden to Ridgemount Mansions, taking care to avoid any more arguments with bus drivers, protestors or anyone else on his way there.
Stepping inside, however, he realised that coming back to the flat had been a bad idea. The place had not been aired for a fortnight. The heat was oppressive and the atmosphere was rank. Closing the front door behind him, Carlyle stepped quickly down the hallway, heading for the kitchen. Glancing round the room, he saw that nothing had been touched since the original investigation. A chair lay overturned beside the kitchen table and Agatha Mills’s dried blood was still caked on the floor. Carlyle wondered how long the place would stay like this. It could take months, if not years due to legal reasons for the flat to get sold and have someone else move in. It struck him that this place would be great for Helen and Alice and himself, but it was way out of thei
r league – probably about a million quid out of their league. He wondered who actually owned it now – whether the Millses had left it to anyone in their wills, or whether it would just revert to the Government, to help pay down the National Debt. God knows, the public finances needed all the help they could get.
Moving over to the kitchen window, he flicked open the latch and stepped out on to the same fire escape where he had found Sylvester Bassett, the pathologist, having a smoke on the morning after Agatha Mills’s death. Sitting on the small landing just below the windowsill, Carlyle let his head rest against the metal handrail of the fire escape and closed his eyes. In the cool silence of the stairwell, he spent a minute or so running through the day’s events in his head. Reaching no particular conclusions, he dug into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a list of the Chilean guests who had attended the Mayor’s reception at City Hall, a week earlier.
The list had arrived, as promised, from the Ambassador’s office the day after the actual event. A couple of days after that, Carlyle had stuck it in his jacket pocket and basically forgotten about it. Now, for want of anything better to do, he began scanning the rows of names and organisations, none of which meant anything to him. After a short while, his eyes glazed over. Putting the list back in his pocket, he just sat there, staring into the darkened windows of the empty flats opposite.
After a while, his thoughts turned to Rosanna Snowdon. She had asked for his help: had he let her down? He really had no idea. Had he got her killed? Surely not. The bastard who killed her was the bastard who killed her. He had long ago realised that he was not the kind of guy who tried on other people’s guilt for size.
He was spared any extended reflection by the phone vibrating in the breast pocket of his jacket. He frowned, convinced that he had switched it off, before realising that the one ringing was his private phone. Muttering to himself, he checked the incoming number – Dominic Silver.
‘Hello?’ he barked.
‘So you do actually know how to answer your phone,’ Dominic chuckled.
‘I thought you were supposed to be busy,’ Carlyle said, remembering the man’s last message.
‘I was . . . I am, but you sounded harassed.’
‘I am.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ said Dominic, exuding unreasonable reasonableness. ‘So how can I help?’
Carlyle took a moment to remember the problem in question. ‘Michael Hagger.’
‘Yes,’ Dominic said breezily, ‘what about him?’
‘He came to see me.’
‘Did he indeed?’ Dominic’s tone remained determinedly cheery, but Carlyle could now detect an underlying wariness. ‘Did he bring the boy?’
‘No, but he said that Jake was okay.’
‘That’s something, I suppose.’
‘Hagger also said that he would be returning him soon.’
Dominic said nothing to that.
‘And he also said,’ Carlyle continued, ‘that I was to tell you to back off.’
Dominic laughed. ‘And what did you say?’
‘What could I say?’ Carlyle shot back, with more than a hint of exasperation in his voice. ‘I didn’t have a bloody clue what he was talking about.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘How should I know?’ Carlyle snapped.
‘You let him go?’
‘Dominic, what was I supposed to do? We don’t know where the kid is or even why he’s being held,’ Carlyle pointed out, glossing over the fact that Hagger could have easily decked him if he had been silly enough to try and arrest him.
‘Ever the pragmatist,’ Silver joked. ‘Let’s hope that no one finds out how you let London’s Most Wanted walk away from you.’
‘Hardly,’ Carlyle muttered.
There was a pause on the other end of the line. ‘No, but you can see how it could look.’
Carlyle felt a stab of anger. ‘Are you threatening me?’
‘No, no,’ Dominic said quickly. ‘Of course not.’
Carlyle grunted.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Dominic continued. ‘All I’m suggesting is, don’t go round telling anyone.’
‘As if.’
‘Good.’
‘So,’ Carlyle asked, ‘what is going on here?’ There was a pause and the inspector could almost hear the hum of his mate’s brain as he edited the information that he was about to share.
Finally, Dominic spoke. ‘As you know, Hagger sometimes worked for Jerome Sullivan.’
‘Who?’
‘You know – the bloke on that video I showed you; the genius who shot himself and fell off the roof of his own building. The clip on the mobile phone where you spotted Hagger in the background?’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Carlyle, not liking where this was going.
‘Well, it seems that Hagger and Jerome’s other idiot mate, Eric Christian, have been trying to keep the show on the road since the demise of their glorious leader. But they’re clearly not up to it. One of my . . . associates has asked me to sort it out.’
‘Asked you?’
‘Instructed me.’
Carlyle sighed. Normally, he didn’t like knowing too much about the mechanics of Dominic Silver’s profession, but here he needed to know what he was getting wrapped up in. ‘I didn’t think you did that sort of thing,’ he remarked.
‘I don’t,’ Dominic said. ‘All I’m trying to do is facilitate a satisfactory resolution for the mess.’
‘Including Jake?’
‘Including Jake.’
Carlyle shifted uneasily on his perch. ‘Will it involve more people falling off buildings?’
‘Let’s hope not,’ was the best Dominic could manage.
‘So where does the kid fit into all of this?’ Carlyle asked.
‘Hagger put him up as collateral for a debt owed by Jerome.’
‘Collateral?’ Carlyle snorted. ‘How much can the boy be worth?’
There was another pause. ‘Quite a bit, if you know the wrong sort of people.’
Carlyle felt his stomach turn. ‘How much?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Who holds the debt?’
‘Not sure.’
‘Speculate.’
‘No, I won’t. Not at this stage.’
‘How long have we got?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What happens if Hagger doesn’t come up with the money?’
‘The kid gets auctioned off,’ said Dominic matter-of-factly, as if it was obvious.
‘C’mon,’ Carlyle whined, ‘don’t give me this bollocks.’
‘I’m not giving you any bollocks,’ Dominic retorted. ‘I’m just telling you how it is. Don’t shoot the fucking messenger. I’m only trying to help you here.’
‘Jesus,’ Carlyle said wearily. ‘What are you doing, getting involved in this type of shit?’
‘I’m trying to sort it out,’ Dominic said testily.
Carlyle coughed up a wad of phlegm and spat it out over the side of the fire escape and into the alley below. His mouth was dry and he felt terrible. What type of degenerate scumbag would sell their own kid? Never mind Dominic: how did he manage to get involved in these type of situations?
‘John, I’ve got to go . . .’
‘Okay.’ Carlyle pulled himself together. ‘All I want is the boy. Whatever you need to do to get him back, I will do my best to make sure that any official fallout gets dealt with.’
‘I appreciate that,’ Dominic said.
‘Just fucking get him back,’ Carlyle growled. ‘Unhurt and unmolested.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll make sure nothing happens to Jake, even if I have to pay for him out of my own pocket.’
‘You’d better.’
‘What sort of a man do you think I am?’
You really don’t expect me to answer that, do you? Carlyle thought. ‘Where is he now?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Can’t or won’t?’
‘Can’t, because I
have no idea. Look, just sit tight – this thing will get resolved soon.’
‘Do I have a choice?’ Carlyle said resentfully.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll be in touch. I’ll make sure you get the tip-off, rather than that idiot Cutler.’
With that gentle reminder to Carlyle that he wasn’t the only policeman in town, the line went dead. The inspector put the phone back in his pocket and scratched his ear. Stepping back to the window, he tried to lift it open again, but it was stuck. Cursing, he gave the frame a push with both hands, but with no success. Peering inside, he could see that the latch must have re-engaged itself after he had stepped outside. His initial thought was to break the glass, then he realised he could just walk on down the fire escape and out on to the street. He thought about that for the moment. Even if the window had been locked when they found Agatha Mills – and he would have to check that with Bassett – someone could still have left the flat and exited the building this same way. Maybe they could have got in this way too. With the possibilities bouncing round in his brain, Carlyle carefully made his way down to the alley below.
Reaching the bottom of the fire escape, Carlyle opened a metal gate and stepped out into a short passageway filled with waste bins and bags of rubbish, which led out on to Great Russell Street. Noting the familiar stench of rotting food and urine, he lengthened his stride and held his breath. He was about ten feet from the street itself when a large black sack in front of him started moving. Assuming that it was disturbed by a rat, Carlyle kept moving. However, his further progress was impeded when the mound of rubbish stood up in front of him, yawned and let out an enormous belch. Unable to hold his breath any longer, Carlyle was forced to inhale an eye-watering mix of curry, eggs and Special Brew. Taking a step backwards, he watched the tramp shake himself fully awake. The guy was dressed for winter, with at least three layers of clothing under a heavy black woollen overcoat. He wore a pair of grey slacks that looked as if they had not been cleaned during this century, and some fairly expensive-looking but heavily worn tan shoes. A blue Chelsea beanie hat rounded off the ensemble nicely.