The Circus

by James Craig

  Ryan’s five-man unit – a driver and four loaders – was one of twenty crews working out of this Camden depot. Their route took them from Covent Garden in the west, to the edge of the City of London, emptying the oversized green bags full of old newspapers, glass and plastic bottles that households had left out for them. In the three months since he’d been promoted to driving the truck, Ryan had managed to get their daily run down to just under five hours. That meant that, with a bit of luck, he could be home in time to catch a CSI rerun on Sky before taking his afternoon kip. They were showing series six at the moment, which suited Ryan fine. He only watched up to series nine; after that, it wasn’t worth watching. In his opinion, the whole thing had taken a nosedive once William Petersen had left.

  Ryan believed in time management, especially when it came to getting his truck out of the depot. A good start was essential; they had to get in and out of the West End while most people were still in their beds, otherwise they would get snarled up in the morning rush-hour.

  ‘Come on, Dan, we’re ready to go.’

  ‘Patience, patience.’ Danimir didn’t look up as he scratched the tip of his nose with the end of his blue biro.

  Bloody bureaucrat! Ryan glanced at the row of keys lined up on the desk. Each was attached to a key-ring. Each key-ring had a number. ‘Give me number six.’

  ‘Six needs to go to the garage.’ Danimir tapped his left index finger on the top of the desk for a moment, weighing up all the options before coming to a decision. He picked up a key and tossed it to Ryan. ‘Take number four. It was fixed last week.’

  ‘Great.’ Ryan caught the key with a sigh. Once a truck went into the garage, it was pretty much guaranteed never to run properly again. He thought about making a grab for one of the other keys. ‘What about . . . ?’

  ‘What about you get outta here?’ Danimir waved him away with an angry frown. ‘Take four, like I tell you.’ He fixed the young Englishman with a hard stare. ‘Why are you never happy with what you get? Now, leave me to sort out the rest.’

  None of the other crews have managed to turn up yet, thought Ryan, frustrated by his boss’s pedantry, so what does it matter which one I take? But the clock on the wall told him that it was almost 6 a.m. He had to get going right now or the whole day would be buggered.

  Danimir gave him a searching look. ‘Okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ Ryan agreed, turning and reaching for the door handle.

  ‘And don’t miss out Doughty Street this time,’ Danimir called after him. ‘I don’t want that bloody woman at number twenty-nine ringing me up again. Pain in the arse says she’s going to write to the bloody Mayor.’ Danimir shook his head at the injustice of it all.

  ‘A lot of good that will do her,’ Ryan laughed.

  ‘Bloody woman! Just make sure you empty her bag properly, put it back where she left it, and don’t leave a mess.’

  ‘Sure thing, boss.’ Ryan grinned. He would make sure to tell the lads to leave number 29’s recycling untouched for another week.

  Halfway down the outer stairs, Ryan pointed towards the hulking Dennis Elite 2 parked at the end of a row of trucks on the far side of the yard. ‘We’ve got number four,’ he shouted to one of his loaders, Steve McKitten, a Camden veteran with more than twenty years on the bins. Giving his driver a thumbs-up, McKitten jogged over to the truck indicated.

  Ryan nodded to two of the other loaders – a Hungarian and a Welshman – and headed for the driver’s cab. Grabbing the door handle, he was just about to pull himself up when McKitten popped his head round the side of the vehicle. ‘Ryan!’ he yelled. ‘You’d better come and see this.’

  I knew it! Ryan thought angrily. That Serbian twat’s given us a knackered truck. Jumping back down on to the tarmac, he jogged round to the rear.

  ‘Look.’ Steve pointed at the pair of legs sticking out from under a pile of soggy cardboard boxes in the loading hopper.

  ‘Holy shit.’ Ryan realized immediately that there would be no early start for them today. He wouldn’t be getting home in time to catch a CSI rerun, even if it was one of the proper ones with William Petersen in it. He scratched his head, wondering what to do. ‘Stay here,’ he eventually told McKitten. ‘Don’t touch anything. I’ll go and tell Dan.’

  ‘She’s never done anything like this before.’ Alison Gillespie stared at Joe Szyszkowski as if daring him to contradict her.

  ‘No.’ The sergeant glanced at WPC Hall, who was sitting next to Mrs Gillespie on the sofa. At this time of the morning, the sergeant decided, she didn’t look quite so cute. With nothing else to do, he stared at his notes.

  Hannah Gillespie. Fourteen. Five foot two. Eight stone or thereabouts. One sister, safely tucked up in bed. Attends St Marylebone C of E, a good school. Good student. No obvious problems. No boyfriend (according to her parents). Went out to see a friend but never turned up. Not answering her mobile. A list of other friends who she hadn’t gone to see either.

  Joe sighed. His handwriting really was terrible.

  So, what about young Hannah? It was probably something and nothing. On his way over, he had checked whether the kid had turned up at a local A&E or police station. Nothing. She was probably just partying somewhere with a boyfriend that her parents didn’t know about.

  The parents seemed a fairly nondescript pair. Their anxiety was real enough, however.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ Roger Gillespie asked for the third time in the last ten minutes.

  Joe held up a hand. ‘I’m fine, sir, thanks all the same.’ Flipping his notebook closed, he replaced it in the back pocket of his jeans. ‘And thank you for your time. We have all the details and we will now see what we can do. I’ll be in touch as soon as possible. Of course, if Hannah does turn up, let us know straight away.’ A familiar look of dismay passed across the faces of both parents, and he offered them what he hoped might pass for a comforting smile. ‘I’m sure there’s a simple explanation,’ he added gently. ‘We see this kind of thing all the time. Maybe Hannah’s staying with a different friend and her mobile’s simply died.’

  ‘But . . .’ Roger Gillespie wanted to protest, but he didn’t quite know how.

  Joe beckoned to Hall. As the WPC jumped to her feet, he handed the father a business card with his mobile number on it. ‘Let us know immediately if – when – Hannah comes home,’ he repeated.

  ‘Yes.’ Gillespie stared intently at the card as if in search of something – hope, maybe.

  ‘Good.’ Stifling a yawn, the sergeant stepped towards the door. ‘Otherwise, I will give you a call later in the day for a catch-up.’ Ducking into the hall, he quickly opened the front door and disappeared down the communal stairs before they could think of anything else to ask him.

  TWELVE

  Sitting in the back booth of Il Buffone, Carlyle yawned expressively. The tiny 1950s-style Italian café was located on the north side of Macklin Street, in the north-east corner of Covent Garden, just across the road from his own small apartment in Winter Garden House. Daughter Alice had left for school and he was enjoying the rare opportunity for breakfast with his wife.

  ‘John!’ Helen gestured for him to cover his mouth.

  ‘Sorry, it was a loooong night.’ Inhaling her perfume – Chanel No. 5 Eau de Parfum – he meekly complied. She was wearing the Paul Smith polka-dot jacket – the one he’d splashed out on last Christmas – over a conservative pearl-coloured blouse, with a single button undone at the neck. With her hair pulled back in a ponytail and minimal make-up, he caught more than a glimpse of the girl he’d fallen for, all those years ago. I’m a lucky, lucky man, he thought, with a beautiful wife who puts up with me rolling in at all hours, looking like shit.

  Catching him staring at her, she gave him a quizzical look. ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he smiled. ‘I was just thinking how lovely you look.’ There was nothing he would have liked better than for them to finish their breakfast and head back to bed for another kip, and maybe something else. If only .
. .

  ‘You do look very tired.’

  ‘I look old,’ he grumbled.

  ‘No, just tired.’ Reaching across the table, she ran her hand through his hair. ‘With some extra grey around the temples, perhaps.’

  ‘Comes with the territory.’

  ‘You could always go and see my guy in Berwick Street.’

  ‘Ha!’ Carlyle studiously avoided thinking about how much Helen spent on her Aussie hairdresser in Soho.

  ‘Scott is really good.’

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding. I’m not going to get it dyed.’

  ‘Okay, okay.’ His wife gave him a consoling squeeze on the arm. ‘How was it last night? What a terrible situation!’

  ‘It was all a bit of a mess, really.’ Explaining further what had happened, Carlyle was careful to imply that neither he nor Joe had been anywhere near poor Horatio Mosman when he departed this earth.

  Listening attentively to her husband, Helen blew on her green tea before taking a cautious sip. When he had finished, she looked him carefully up and down, making it clear that she understood he was being economical with the actualité. ‘It sounds appalling even by your standards.’

  ‘It was fairly rough,’ Carlyle admitted, reaching for his own mug. With more than enough coffee in his system already, he had passed on his usual double macchiato and gone for a green tea like his wife. There was no way, however, he was going to pass on the outsized raisin Danish which Marcello, the café’s Italian owner, had placed on the table almost before they had sat down. Picking up a knife, he carefully cut the pastry into quarters. Popping one section into his mouth, he began chewing.

  ‘Who would want to blow up a teenage boy?’ Helen asked, nibbling on a slice of brown toast lightly covered in raspberry jam.

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Will you catch them?’

  ‘No idea.’ Keen to change the subject, Carlyle gestured at the hardback book Helen had placed on the table. On the spine, the title MONEY HONEY was blocked out in capital letters. ‘Any good?’

  ‘So-so.’ Helen shrugged. ‘I borrowed it from someone at work.’

  Carlyle grinned lasciviously. ‘Mummy porn, is it?’

  ‘No, no,’ Helen said. ‘It’s written by an academic who argues that women should exploit their erotic assets to get ahead.’

  ‘I thought they already did.’

  She shot him a sharp look.

  ‘Joke,’ Carlyle said.

  ‘It’s just written to be provocative and get reviews,’ Helen told him.

  ‘Like that woman who wrote about her divorce?’

  ‘Exactly. It’s amazing how some people can generate ink.’

  ‘Meanwhile, writers like Lee Child get ignored by the literary snobs. After all, writing good stories and selling books – where’s the interest in that?’ Carlyle was himself a Lee Child man. He gestured once more to the book on the table. ‘So, how does one exploit one’s erotic assets then?’

  ‘It’s all about where you draw the line,’ Helen explained. ‘For instance, is it okay to marry a footballer for lifestyle reasons? Should prostitution be legalized?’

  Prostitution is legal, Carlyle thought. Kind of.

  ‘Is surrogate pregnancy a legitimate source of income?’

  ‘Interesting questions.’

  ‘A lot of it is quite offensive.’

  So why are you reading it then? Carlyle wondered, keeping his mouth clamped firmly shut.

  ‘Maybe,’ Helen sighed, ‘I’m just a prisoner of my post-feminist Puritan Anglo-Saxon antagonism to sexuality.’

  He had no idea what she was talking about. ‘Good for you.’

  She tapped the cover of the book. ‘I don’t think I’ll bother finishing it.’ Then after taking another sip of her tea, she asked, ‘Oh, by the way, did you read the thing in the paper about your celebrity friend?’

  ‘Which celebrity friend?’ Carlyle waved a hand airily. ‘I have so many.’

  ‘Rosanna Snowdon.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’

  ‘Marcello?’ Helen flashed the café-owner the kind of winning smile she no longer needed to waste on her husband. ‘Do you happen to have a copy of yesterday’s Standard?’

  Behind the counter, the old man wiped his hands on a tea-towel draped over his left shoulder. ‘Probably,’ he said, ducking into the back room. A few moments later he was back, newspaper in hand.

  ‘Thanks.’ Helen began flicking through the pages, reading off various headlines as she did so. ‘ “Madame Tussauds forced to employ guards to prevent tourists making offensive Hitler salutes next to a waxwork of the dictator” . . . It was here somewhere.’ She turned another page. ‘Ah yes, here you go. “TV presenter death. Suspect arrested for a second time”.’

  Folding the newspaper in half, she placed it on the table between them. Carlyle scanned the article. The gist of it seemed to be that new, unspecified forensic evidence had convinced the Crown Prosecution Service that they could now successfully place Rosanna’s stalker, Simon Lovell, at the scene of the crime.

  ‘Better late than never,’ Carlyle said.

  ‘If they’re actually right this time.’

  ‘Of course.’ He finished reading the article. Rosanna’s parents themselves had declined to comment but Lovell’s current lawyer – an ambulance-chaser by the name of Nigel Bradfield – was talking a good game.

  ‘The police and the CPS should be focused on trying to catch the real killer of Rosanna Snowdon,’ Bradfield was quoted as saying. ‘This attempt to railroad my client does not help anyone, including Rosanna’s family. The previous trial was stopped almost even before it had begun. This time we may well not even get to court. Simon Lovell has already been a victim of this investigation. His chances of a normal life have been severely diminished and we will be seeking substantial compensation in due course.’

  ‘Lovell did it, didn’t he?’ Helen asked once he’d finished reading the piece.

  Carlyle placed the newspaper at the far end of the table. ‘No idea. You have to assume so. The CPS is very risk-averse, so I can’t believe they would come back for a second go at this guy if they weren’t supremely confident. I just hope they’ve got it right. Apart from anything else, it would be very cruel to get her parents’ hopes up again after all this time.’ He popped another quarter of the Danish into his mouth and washed it down with some more green tea.

  Helen smiled. ‘It’s good, the way you and Joe go and visit them from time to time.’

  ‘It’s not a big deal,’ Carlyle grunted. Just then, his mobile started vibrating in the breast pocket of his jacket. Fishing it out, he studied the screen. ‘It’s Joe.’

  Waving at Marcello for the bill, he hit the receive button. ‘Morning.’ Wedging the phone between his head and shoulder, he pulled out his wallet and handed Helen a tenner. ‘Where? . . . Are you there now? . . . Okay, I’m only five minutes away. I’ll be right there.’

  Ending the call, he jumped to his feet.

  ‘Problem?’ Helen asked.

  ‘Yeah. It’s certainly all happening today.’ Leaning across the table, he gave her a kiss on the top of her head, then scooped up the plate containing the remaining quarters of his pastry. ‘Marcello,’ he asked, ‘can I have a bag to put these in, please?

  THIRTEEN

  ‘I’m guessing that it wasn’t natural causes.’

  ‘London’s leading detective . . .’ Susan Phillips gave him a cheery wave with a latex-gloved hand.

  ‘So they say,’ Carlyle answered, pleased to see a friendly face at a crime scene for once. Phillips had been a staff pathologist with the Met for almost twenty years; she was a quick, no-nonsense operator and he enjoyed working with her. He gestured towards the pair of legs protruding from under the rubbish. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. We’ve worked all the way from the front gate right here to the truck but haven’t picked up anything useful so far. I’m going to have to get in there.’

  Carlyle grimaced. ‘Rather yo
u than me. The smell’s bad enough from here.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ Phillips stepped away from the back of the refuse truck and wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her left wrist. A couple of assistants hovered in the background, awaiting instruction. ‘At least I’m dressed for the occasion.’

  Yes you are, Carlyle thought. Slim and blonde, Phillips had a healthy glow that even her present surroundings could not diminish. In a pair of Converse All Stars, skinny jeans and a Nirvana T-shirt, she could easily have passed for early thirties rather than mid-to-late forties. All in all, she was rather glamorous . . . for the Met.

  Phillips caught him checking her out and grinned. ‘You like Nirvana, Inspector?’

  ‘Nah.’ He shook his head, embarrassed at being caught gawping for the second time this morning. ‘A bit after my time, really. Punk was more my thing – The Clash, Stiff Little Fingers . . .’ Shut up, warned a voice inside his head, you’re showing your age. ‘. . . and The Jam.’

  ‘Mm.’ She gestured vaguely across the depot. ‘Not really punk, were they, The Jam?’

  ‘That’s Entertainment’ started playing in his head and he laughed to himself. ‘Not really, I suppose.’

  ‘More like Mod revivalists.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Anyway, Joe’s up in the office, running through the CCTV footage.’ From under the next truck along, a squirrel appeared and eyed them both inquisitively.

  ‘No nuts here, mate,’ Carlyle told him.

  ‘What?’

  Carlyle pointed towards the squirrel, but it was already gone.