The Circus

by James Craig

  Ross held his gaze for one, two, three seconds. ‘What I want, son,’ he said finally, ‘is to give you Trevor Miller’s head on a fucking plate.’

  Unsure what to make of his conversation with Charlie Ross, Carlyle watched the old man skip down the front steps of Charing Cross police station and slip into the back seat of a black Lexus sedan which had been ostentatiously idling in front of a No Parking sign.

  ‘Who was that?’ Maude Hall appeared at his shoulder, carrying a file stuffed with documents. Wearing jeans and a washed-out red T-shirt under a grey cardigan, she looked about sixteen.

  ‘His name is Charlie Ross,’ said Carlyle, watching the Lexus nose out into the traffic. ‘He works with Trevor Miller.’

  ‘I met Miller yesterday.’

  ‘Oh?’ Trying not to look concerned, the inspector took a half-step backwards.

  ‘Yeah. Simon Shelbourne introduced us.’

  ‘Mm.’ Maybe sending the girl to spy on the Commissioner’s PR man hadn’t been such a good idea, after all. ‘Let’s go to the canteen and get a coffee,’ he suggested. ‘Then you can tell me what happened.’

  Three small crumbs were all that remained of his chocolate doughnut. Feeling better and worse at the same time, Carlyle looked guiltily at his plate before finishing off his coffee. Munching on an apple, Hall said nothing.

  ‘So,’ he said, waiting for her to finish chewing, ‘how did it go with Shelbourne?’

  ‘What a creep!’ Dropping the apple core on her plate, Hall wiped her hands on a paper napkin. ‘He was obviously pissed and offered to give me the guided tour of his club. They have bedrooms on the top floor, and he thought . . .’

  A couple of male officers at the next table began tuning into their conversation, so Carlyle signalled for Hall to lower her voice.

  ‘He thought,’ she whispered, ‘that I would go up there with him and – well, you know.’

  Gritting his teeth, Carlyle told himself, Sending Hall off to act as your spy was definitely not one of your better ideas. Apart from anything else, Simpson would have a fit if she ever found out.

  ‘Not that I was falling for that,’ she grinned. ‘I let him show me round quickly, and then legged it.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘My dad boxed for the Army. I can look after myself.’

  ‘I’m sure you can,’ Carlyle nodded, not sure what the connection there was.

  Her grin widened. ‘And then, of course, there is the Krav Maga.’

  ‘Yes.’ Carlyle smiled, remembering the unfortunate Francis Clegg. Hall’s obvious ability to look after herself made him feel a little better about having sent her to try and butter up the deeply unpleasant Simon Shelbourne. ‘What did you two talk about? Did he tell you anything useful?’

  Hall shook her head. ‘Not really. He moaned about Miller being on his case the whole time, clearly because of the phone-hacking business, but he didn’t go into any details. Oh, and apparently Sir Chester’s stay in a health farm is costing almost thirty grand.’

  ‘Thirty grand?’

  ‘I know. Simon says he’s particularly keen on the colonic irrigation, and he’s also having kriotherapy for his back twice a day.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘No idea. Just some kind of treatment.’

  ‘So how can Sir Chester afford thirty k?’

  ‘He doesn’t have to. The guy who owns the health farm is letting Sir Chester and his wife stay for free.’

  ‘Interesting.’ Pushing back his chair, the inspector got to his feet. ‘Do you know when he’s back at work?’

  ‘Probably sometime next week. Depends on how his recovery is coming along.’

  ‘Have you told anyone else about the thirty grand?’

  Hall looked vaguely affronted. ‘No.’

  ‘Good. Then keep it to yourself.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Carlyle wondered if she would really be able to keep her mouth shut. In his experience, coppers were terrible when it came to gossiping. ‘Right, go and see what Joe needs help with. We really have to find Monty Laws. Now that Hannah Gillespie has hit the press, we’ll have to keep feeding the beast.’

  Not really sure what the inspector was wittering on about, Hall nodded enthusiastically.

  ‘And let’s give Shelbourne a wide berth for a while.’

  ‘With pleasure!’

  ‘Tell Joe I’ll catch up with you guys later on.’ Should he have another doughnut? Unable to make his mind up, Carlyle sent Hall on her way. At least he would have some more caffeine. Heading back to the coffee machine, he pressed the button for a double espresso and waited.

  THIRTY-THREE

  The BBC’s news channel was showing live coverage of the House of Commons’ Select Committee hearing into the slowly emerging phone-hacking scandal. Yawning, the inspector was surprised to see Margaretha Zelle’s pixellated face suddenly appear on the TV screen. ‘What the fuck’s she doing?’

  ‘Playing the victim.’ Leaning across the sofa, Dominic Silver picked up the remote control from the floor and muted the sound. Sitting in an armchair in the far corner of the room, Gideon Spanner momentarily looked up from his book – a paperback copy of GB84, David Peace’s novel about the miners’ strike – before returning to his reading without otherwise acknowledging the inspector’s arrival. Spanner, an ex-soldier, was Dom’s right-hand man, and he was not the kind of guy to waste his words.

  ‘Talking a load of rubbish,’ Dom continued, ‘as per usual. Lots of guff about how she’s been violated by the invasion of her privacy . . . yada, yada, yada. All that happened was someone listened in to her poxy messages.’

  ‘Why do people bother?’ Carlyle wondered aloud. ‘Half the time, I can’t be bothered to listen to my own bloody messages.’

  ‘Half the time you don’t remember to listen to your own bloody messages,’ Dom chided him.

  ‘Fair point,’ Carlyle conceded.

  Dom waved airily at the screen. ‘Just as well for her that the media didn’t hack any of her messages from me,’ he chortled.

  The inspector raised an eyebrow. ‘She’s a client?’

  ‘Now and again,’ Dom sighed. ‘A pain in the arse, basically.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ said Carlyle sympathetically.

  ‘Having given it some thought, I would have to say that she is one of the most stupid, self-obsessed people that I’ve ever met in my life.’

  ‘That must be saying something.’

  ‘And I find it impossible to believe that she’s ever had any conversation worth listening in to, ever.’

  ‘Phone hacking is a serious crime,’ Carlyle mused, slipping into an empty chair, ‘apparently.’

  Silver shot him the kind of amused stare that had been perfected over several decades. A former policeman turned drug dealer, he had a somewhat ambivalent attitude towards matters of law and order. In that respect, he wasn’t so different from Carlyle himself. ‘Now that we’ve cleared that up, Inspector, what is it that I can do for you?’

  ‘Trevor Miller.’

  A look of disgust swept across Silver’s face. ‘That wanker! What’s he up to now?’

  While Margaretha Zelle prattled away silently, Carlyle quickly ran through a potted history of the Duncan Brown case and its connection to Operation Redhead, omitting the bit about Miller turning up at his block of flats to give him a shoeing.

  ‘It’s amazing what people get wound up about,’ was Dom’s only response.

  ‘Yeah. But at the end of the day, we are talking about murder,’ Carlyle reminded him.

  ‘Of a bloody journalist,’ Dom sniffed. ‘Mitigating circumstances personified.’

  ‘Journalists have rights too,’ the inspector said primly.

  On the TV, Ms Zelle pulled a handkerchief from the sleeve of her jacket and wiped away a tear. Dom waved an exasperated arm at the sobbing celeb. ‘This shows what a fucked-up society we are. In other places, when journalists get killed it’s because they are trying to uncover some big story,
trying to shine a spotlight on some social injustice, or whatever. A newspaper editor in Mexico was decapitated last week for trying to write about the drugs war.’

  ‘Mm.’ Where did that come from? Carlyle wondered. And aren’t you with the other side in that particular war? But their successful long-standing relationship was built on an understanding, among other things, that life was full of ironies.

  ‘Over here, on the other hand,’ Dom complained, ‘journalists are just lobotomized morons. Everything’s just about who’s fucking whom or promoting whatever shit show is on the telly on Saturday night.’

  ‘That’s just the way of the world.’ Leaning forward in his chair, Carlyle held up a hand. He didn’t have time for his mate going off on one about the shortcomings of contemporary British society. In small doses, Dom’s drug-dealer-as-sociologist shtick was interesting enough – but there was a time and a place. ‘Do you remember Charlie Ross?’

  Dom thought about it for a moment. ‘Sergeant Charlie Ross?’

  ‘The self-same,’ Carlyle nodded.

  ‘Rucking at Orgreave Colliery.’

  ‘Amongst other places.’

  ‘Hard bastard.’

  ‘I reckon he’s somewhere in his eighties now, but still looking good. He came to see me this morning. Said he could offer me Miller’s head on a plate.’

  ‘What’s he got to do with Trevor?’

  ‘They run a private security and investigations firm together, called Wickford Associates.’

  ‘So why would good old Charlie want to fuck over his business partner?’

  ‘That,’ Carlyle smiled, ‘is what I need some help in working out.’

  A horn blared in the distance and the sounds of a passing argument came up from the street below. Lost in thought, Dom stared out of the window at the grey Soho sky, as a plane whined overhead on its approach to Heathrow. All the reassuring sounds of the city.

  Carlyle checked his BlackBerry. He was slightly disgruntled to find that no one had sent him a message since he’d last looked.

  ‘You should leave it alone,’ Dom said finally. ‘Let the Redhead guy . . .’

  ‘Meyer?’ Carlyle put the BlackBerry away and looked up.

  ‘Yeah. Let Meyer deal with it. Don’t own other people’s problems. Don’t be ruled by your ego.’

  ‘What?’

  Getting to his feet, Dom began pacing backwards and forwards in front of the window. ‘You’ve been obsessed by Miller all through your career.’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘Yes, you have – ever since that bloody Shoesmith woman sued him for sexual assault.’

  Carlyle was surprised that Dom remembered her name but he kept his mouth shut.

  ‘I told you at the time, you should have just said you saw nothing.’

  ‘Look the other way, you mean?’

  ‘Ye-es. And it’s exactly the same now as it was back then. Trevor Miller is not your problem, so leave him alone.’

  ‘Fuck that,’ said Carlyle angrily.

  ‘Be careful, Johnny boy. Remember – you’re getting old. These days, I’m not sure I’d be able to offer you alternative employment.’

  ‘Hah!’ Carlyle laughed. It had been a running gag down the years that Dom had a place for Carlyle in his organization, should the inspector ever leave the Force. They both knew though, that it was something that would never happen.

  Dom spread his hands wide. ‘Behind the carefully constructed exterior of a useless fat cunt, Trevor has always been quite a shrewd operator. Whatever he’s been up to, he’s made sure that he has contacts, and that his back is covered. Now he works for the bloody Prime Minister, for fuck’s sake!’

  ‘He’ll crash and burn in the end,’ said Carlyle grimly.

  ‘Exactly!’ Dom did a little jig of triumph. ‘So sit back and enjoy the fucking show. It’s like the old Japanese proverb . . .’

  Fuck me, Carlyle thought, here we go now with the bloody proverbs. On the TV, Zelle had finished her testimony. Her place in front of the Committee had been taken by a middle-aged suit he didn’t recognize. The clock in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen told him it was time to go.

  ‘If you sit by the side of the river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy floating past.’

  ‘Thanks for that.’ Carlyle stood up. ‘So will you help me or not?’

  Dom laughed. ‘You’re not going to sit on the river bank?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What a big fucking surprise,’ Dom cackled.

  ‘It’s been thirty years already.’

  ‘You never fucking grow up, do you?’

  ‘You going to help me?’

  Dom held up his hands in surrender. ‘Don’t I always?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘No promises – but I’ll see what I can do.’

  THIRTY-FOUR

  ‘Boss, it’s me. What exactly do you want me to do on this Hannah Gillespie thing? I’m worried that it’s dragging on and we are just not getting anywhere. She’s still checking her voicemails, so that’s kind of okay, but she’s not responding to any of them. With the benefit of hindsight, people are gonna say there’s just not enough people on the case. At this rate, we’re not going to find her. And Simpson’ll go mad if we end up getting sued by the parents. Give me a call.’

  ‘What do you want me to do about it?’ Carlyle grumbled to himself. It was late and he simply didn’t have the energy to respond to Joe Szyszkowski’s voicemail, not least because he didn’t have any answer.

  ‘Dad, you’re on TV!’

  ‘What?’ Carlyle ambled out of the kitchen with a cup of green tea in his hand. By the time he’d flopped down on the sofa next to Helen, the news had moved on from his presser to a story about a new lion cub in the London Zoo.

  ‘Missed it,’ Alice grinned from her armchair. ‘You looked old.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Carlyle groaned.

  ‘And knackered,’ Helen added for good measure.

  ‘How kind of you to say so.’

  Alice stood up. ‘I’m off to listen to some Clash.’ Bending over, she kissed her father on the forehead. ‘Maybe you should take a holiday.’

  ‘Maybe I should.’

  ‘Anyway, I hope you find that girl.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Will you find her?’ Helen asked him, once Alice had gone.

  ‘Sure,’ said Carlyle, blowing on his tea, ‘one way or another.’

  Wearing nothing but a towel, Trevor Miller sat in a booth in the Treasures of Heaven sauna on the Euston Road waiting for ‘Melissa’ to come and give him his executive deep-tissue Swedish massage. Struggling to get into the right frame of mind, he looked up at the TV that hung from the ceiling above the bed. Rather than the usual porn, it was showing the local news. The cable feed must be down again, he thought sourly, picking up the remote control. He was just about to change channels when a shot of Charing Cross police station appeared, quickly followed by pictures of a press conference hosted by a familiar face.

  ‘That cunt Carlyle,’ he grunted to himself, watching as his one-time nemesis made an appeal for finding a missing teenager. At least it wasn’t about the Duncan Brown fiasco.

  A shot of a plain-looking girl in her school uniform flashed up on the screen, along with a phone number. Then back to some closing shots of the presser. Suddenly a woman appeared on the platform and whispered something to the inspector. Recognizing her immediately, Miller’s eyes narrowed. ‘What was your name?’ he asked himself, thinking back to their brief meeting in the Balmoral Club at the end of his lunch with Simon Shelbourne. ‘Jenny – Jenny . . . Southerton.’ He was pleased with himself for remembering. ‘Is that right? We’ll have to see.’

  As he was making a mental note to check out the name that the woman had given, the door opened and a tired-looking brunette in hot pants and a London 2012 Union Jack T-shirt entered. Without saying a word, she placed a large bottle of Johnson’s Baby Lotion on the table by the bed. Removing Miller’s t
owel, she looked down and smiled. ‘Looks like we’ve got a bit of work to do there, sweetie.’

  After pushing out a rather fruity fart, Miller scratched his arse. That’s what I’m paying you for, he thought.

  Wrinkling her nose, the girl pointed to the bed. ‘Better lie down for me and we’ll get started.’

  Alice and Helen had already gone to bed. Sprawled on the sofa, Carlyle was working his way steadily through Return of the Last Gang in Town, the monster biography of The Clash which Alice had picked out for him at Holborn Library. It was slow going – Helen had already twice extended the loan period – but he was making steady progress. Deep in the messy detail of the recording of London Calling, he became conscious that his mobile had started vibrating its way across the coffee table. With a deep sigh, he put the book down and picked up the phone.

  ‘Carlyle.’

  ‘Inspector, it’s Melvin Boduka.’

  With his head full of thoughts of rock’n’roll, the inspector struggled for a moment to place the name.

  ‘The Mosmans’ lawyer,’ Boduka reminded him. ‘Sorry to be ringing you so late.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ said Carlyle, sitting up. ‘What can I do for you?’

  There was a pause. ‘Mrs Mosman would like a meeting.’

  ‘Mrs Mosman?’

  ‘That’s what I said,’ Boduka replied testily.

  The inspector leaped up and began prowling the room. ‘She has something to tell me?’

  ‘Yes.’ The lawyer didn’t sound too happy about it. ‘I am not party to the details, but she has indicated that she now believes she may be able to help you further in your investigation.’

  About bloody time, Carlyle thought. He could feel the adrenalin buzz building in his system. ‘She wants to meet now?’

  ‘No, no, I was wondering, could you come to our offices in the morning?’

  ‘Now would be good,’ Carlyle replied, trying to take control of the situation.

  Boduka was having none of it. ‘She suggested the morning.’

  ‘Fine, fine. What time?’

  ‘How about ten?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘That’s agreed, then. We will see you tomorrow.’ Without another word, Boduka rang off.