The Circus

by James Craig

  He couldn’t have been asleep for long. Slowly, slowly, slowly, the room came into focus. Shelbourne found himself staring at the crown of the girl’s head as she vigorously worked on his whiskey-flavoured member. Her roots need doing, he thought. Gingerly, he reached out to grab her hair.

  ‘Fuck off,’ was the muffled reply as she slapped his hand away, digging her teeth ever so slightly into his skin as a gentle reminder of who was in charge.

  ‘Maybe we should just fuck,’ he grumbled.

  Her response was to pitch forward on to his chest, before sliding off the bed.

  ‘Jesus,’ Shelbourne laughed, ‘you’re even more fucked than I am!’

  ‘Not for long,’ interjected another voice. Standing in the doorway, Trevor Miller took in the sordid scene.

  Simon Shelbourne sobered up in an instant once he registered the silenced gun in Miller’s left hand.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked. Forcing himself into a sitting position, he could now see the two bloody holes in the girl’s back. He tried to scream, but only succeeded in vomiting into his own lap.

  Trevor shook his head. ‘This isn’t going to look good when the police get here.’

  ‘Hold on,’ Shelbourne whimpered, trying to shuffle off the bed. ‘You can’t do this. I didn’t tell that girl anything.’

  ‘I can’t hold on any longer,’ Miller said grimly. Then he lifted the gun and fired four shots into the naked man’s chest.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Yawning, Carlyle stepped into the R6 newsagent on Drury Lane, nodding at Suraj behind the counter, who was patiently waiting for one of the local drunks to count out sufficient copper coins to pay for a can of Red Stripe.

  Easy like Sunday morning . . . Covent Garden style.

  It’s 9:30 a.m., Carlyle thought groggily, a bit early to be hitting the booze. Sucking on a latte from the Ecco café up the road, he scanned the front covers of the newspapers laid out by the till. It was the usual mix of celebrities, sex, drugs and disaster. As he did every weekend, Carlyle wondered why his family bothered purchasing newspapers any more. In his book, they were just a waste of time and effort – a bloated mix of no news and the noxious opinions of ridiculous columnists that you would happily cross the road to avoid if they ever came walking down your street. It was Helen who insisted that they keep buying them; more out of habit than anything else. Somehow, he still managed to waste an hour or so of his free time restlessly flicking through pages brimming with bile and manufactured outrages in a vain search for something that might catch his interest.

  Finally coming up with the right cash, the dosser grabbed his lager and shuffled towards the door, giving off a rather nasty niff as he did so.

  ‘The usual?’ Suraj pulled a Sunday Times and Sunday Mirror from their respective piles and set them in front of the inspector.

  ‘Thanks,’ Carlyle smiled, handing over a fiver. Waiting for his change, his gaze fell on the front page of the Sunday Witness.

  HANNAH PARENTS: ‘CALL US’

  Carlyle’s heart sank as he reached for a copy. ‘I’d better have one of those as well.’

  ‘What did you get that for?’ Helen asked, as he dropped the pile of newspapers on the living-room floor. Sitting on the sofa with a cup of green tea, she carefully considered which bit of which paper she wanted to read first.

  ‘Work,’ Carlyle grumped, annoyed that his wife would think he would have bought the Witness through choice. Grabbing the tabloid, he slumped into an armchair and began reading. Under an ‘Exclusive’ tag, the front page was dominated by a picture of a smiling Hannah Gillespie, along with a strapline that said: Full story, pages 4, 5 and 6. ‘Jesus,’ he mumbled, ‘misery sells.’

  ‘Nothing new in that,’ sniffed Helen, as she tore open the plastic wrapper containing the Sunday Times magazines.

  ‘Thank you for that stunning insight,’ said Carlyle, flicking to page four and starting to read:

  The parents of a missing schoolgirl yesterday begged her to come home as the police admitted they didn’t have enough men available to find her.

  Fuck, Carlyle thought, Simpson isn’t going to like that comment. He quickly scanned down through the article.

  Accused of being slow to react, police have admitted that they are no closer to finding Hannah. Despite listening in to her phone messages, they still have no idea where she is. One said: ‘We are just not getting anywhere on this. There’s simply not enough officers deployed on it. At this rate, we’re not going to find her – and we’ll end up getting sued by the parents.’

  Carlyle frowned as he reread the quote. ‘You have got to be kidding me.’

  ‘What?’ Helen asked, looking up from her article on winter soups.

  Carlyle gestured at the phone sitting on the arm of the sofa.

  ‘Throw me my mobile, will you?’

  Reaching over, Helen grabbed the phone and handed it to him.

  ‘Ta.’ Carlyle pulled up 901 and hit call.

  You have no new messages and twelve old messages.

  Quickly deleting the first three, he came to the one that Joe had left for him a couple of days earlier.

  ‘Boss, it’s me. What 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 on this. She’s still checking her voicemails, so that’s okay, but she’s not responding to any of them. With the benefit of hindsight, people are gonna say there’s just not enough officers 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.’

  Carlyle replayed the message. Then he looked back at the newspaper. ‘Bugger me,’ he groaned. ‘It looks like my phone’s been hacked.’

  ‘Hah!’ Helen chuckled. ‘Who’d want to hack your phone?’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’ Right on cue, the mobile started vibrating in his hand. It was Joe. Mightily relieved that it wasn’t Carole Simpson, Carlyle squeezed the receive button with his thumb. ‘I’ve seen it,’ he said, by way of introduction.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Sunday Witness.’

  ‘Well, forget about that,’ Joe replied brusquely. ‘Sorry to interrupt your Sunday-morning reading but we’ve found a body.’

  Standing behind the police tape in an Army surplus jacket, Bernie Gilmore caught Carlyle’s eye. Filled with an overwhelming sense of grim resignation about the turn of events, the inspector left his sergeant dealing with the pathologist, and wandered slowly towards the journalist.

  ‘Bernie.’

  ‘Inspector.’

  A few yards away, a small knot of hacks eyed them suspiciously. ‘Not really a great place to talk,’ Carlyle mumbled, pawing the greasy cobbles with the sole of his shoe.

  ‘No. You wouldn’t want to be marked out as my bitch, would you?’

  Carlyle smiled grimly. ‘I’m not sure I’d quite like that either but no, I certainly wouldn’t want our . . . relationship to be misconstrued.’

  ‘Do you know the Constitution on St Pancras Way?’

  ‘I can find it.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll see you there in ten minutes.’

  ‘Make it twenty.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll have a Jameson’s ready for you.’

  Turning on his heel, Carlyle trudged back towards the crime scene. ‘Make it a double.’

  ‘So . . .’ Sitting underneath a muted 50-inch TV screen showing Sky Sports News, Bernie at least had the good grace not to say, ‘I told you so.’

  ‘So . . .’ Carlyle took a mouthful of whiskey and placed his glass on the table. ‘It’s Hannah.’

  Saying nothing, Bernie supped at his pint of IPA.

  ‘The parents haven’t been formally told yet, so you’ll have to hold off for a while.’

  ‘Of course,’ Bernie said, returning his glass to the table, where it sat next to a blue biro and an unopened notebook.

  ‘The body was discovered in the boot of a Vauxhall Vectra that was reported stol
en two days ago. The vehicle was found dumped in the alley earlier this morning. The boot was already open. We think she’s been dead for at least a day.’ Grabbing his glass, he took another swig. ‘That’s all I’ve got at this stage. I don’t know precisely how she was killed or any other . . . details.’ Details like whether the girl had been sexually assaulted, which was always the first thing that the hacks wanted to know.

  ‘Okay, where do you go from here?’ Bernie listened to Carlyle run through the backstory which had so far been kept from the press, concerning Francis Clegg and Monty Laws. ‘You gonna go public on that?’ he asked when the inspector had finished.

  ‘Dunno yet. Not my call.’ Carlyle finished his drink. He wanted another but that was not advisable, given that he had a long day in front of him. ‘We’ve urgently got to find Laws, but if we go public now, we’re gonna get a lot of shit.’

  Bernie looked disapproving. ‘Are you a cop or a PR man?’ he snorted.

  ‘Both. You know the way it works. The girl is dead. Whose fault is that?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘It’s the fault of the bastard who did it, obviously . . .’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘But we get the shit for not stopping it.’

  ‘That sounds more than a little self-pitying to me,’ Bernie commented. ‘And it doesn’t leave me with much in the way of a story.’

  ‘I would have thought you’d have moved on by now,’ said Carlyle, keen to return the barb with one of his own, ‘seeing as how you always seem to be so far ahead of the game.’

  ‘Now, now,’ Bernie waved an admonishing finger, ‘let’s not descend into acrimony. Don’t forget you need all the friends in the media you can get. Did you see the Sunday Witness this morning?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Carlyle said dolefully.

  ‘What idiot copper admitted that they were fucking up?’ A sly grin spread across his face. ‘It wasn’t you, was it?’

  ‘No, no,’ replied Carlyle defensively.

  ‘Whoever said it – if they said it – it was a strangely unguarded remark.’

  ‘I wonder,’ Carlyle mused, trying to sound as if it was a casual thought that had just popped into his head, ‘if they’re now tapping our phones.’

  Bernie pondered. ‘Possible. It would be an incredibly stupid thing to do, under the circumstances, but it’s certainly possible. What makes you think that’s happened?’

  ‘No reason.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Bernie went on, ‘the real problem is that you really are seriously off the pace.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Sorry, Inspector, but sometimes the truth hurts. This has all been a complete pile of shite.’

  ‘Constructive criticism, please.’

  ‘On the bright side, things will move on quickly enough.’ Gilmore paused, looking round the pub. ‘By the way, Trevor Miller’s been sacked by Number Ten.’

  Carlyle raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s news to me.’

  ‘Yes?’ queried Bernie, eyeing him suspiciously. ‘They’re trying to stonewall me at the moment but something’s definitely going on.’

  ‘Bernie,’ Carlyle quipped, ‘there’s always something going on.’

  ‘You wouldn’t happen to know anything about it, would you?’

  ‘No,’ Carlyle shook his head, ‘but I’ll see what I can find out.’

  ‘Thanks. What else is happening?’

  ‘Well, there’s Sir Chester’s trip to the health farm.’ The words slipped out before he had the chance to properly consider the wisdom of using them.

  ‘Everyone knows about that,’ Bernie said dismissively.

  ‘I hear the bill was thirty grand.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘Which he didn’t pay for.’

  ‘So who did?’

  ‘The guy who owns the place. Can’t remember his name. I’ve no idea why he’d do that.’

  ‘That’s certainly a nice present. Has he declared it yet?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  Bernie thought about it further for a moment. ‘In the current febrile atmosphere, if he hasn’t, he will be in trouble, silly boy. Things like this can make you look either bent or naive.’

  Sitting patiently, Carlyle watched the cogs turning in the journalist’s brain.

  ‘Does anyone else know about this?’

  Happy to be gaining some credit with the Bank of Bernie, the inspector smiled. ‘Not as far as I know.’

  After his conversation with Bernie Gilmore, the inspector simply wanted to go and hide. The best place to do that was at work. As expected, the third floor of the Charing Cross police station was empty, as he sat down at his desk and switched on his computer. It was a Sunday and, nominally at least, he was off duty but he felt agitated, and with this agitation came the need to at least feel like he was doing something effective. Helen had sent him a text saying that she and Alice had gone to Brighton to see Helen’s mother, so there was no pressure for him to get home. Sitting back, he suddenly felt overwhelmed by tiredness. ‘I shouldn’t have had that whiskey,’ he mumbled to himself, closing his eyes.

  ‘What a great way to spend a Sunday,’ came a voice from nearby.

  ‘Huh?’ Jerking awake, it took him a moment to focus on the grinning face of Susan Phillips, standing by his desk. She was dressed in jeans and a black leather biker’s jacket over a green Noah & The Whale T-shirt; and altogether it was a rather fetching ensemble.

  ‘Nice kip?’

  ‘I was thinking,’ said Carlyle, massaging a crick in his neck.

  Phillips’s grin grew wider. ‘You were snoring happily away.’

  Whatever. ‘How did you know I was here?’

  ‘I rang the desk. They told me that you’d come in about an hour ago.’

  Shit, had he been asleep for an hour? ‘And what are you doing here?’

  ‘Richard is taking me to see the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition at the National Gallery.’

  ‘Mm.’ Carlyle didn’t ask her who Richard was. He didn’t keep track of the Phillips men; there was no point, as they never lasted long. ‘I hear it’s really good.’ He didn’t have a clue on the score, but it was Leonardo, so what were the odds?

  ‘Yes. But we’ve got timed tickets, so I need to get going.’

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘It’s more what I can do for you, Inspector.’ Taking a step backwards, Phillips perched on the edge of Joe’s desk.

  ‘That’s what I like to hear,’ Carlyle grinned.

  ‘I checked out the Rosanna Snowdon evidence.’

  ‘That was quick.’

  ‘That was very quick,’ she smiled, clearly pleased with herself. ‘I had to call in a couple of favours . . .’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘But it was worth it.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Sitting up in his chair, Carlyle already knew what was coming but wanted to hear her say it.

  ‘We got a match: Miller’s prints both inside and outside the dead journalist’s flat.’ She folded her arms. ‘So it seems you were right.’

  ‘It happens – every now and then.’

  ‘What I don’t understand though, is why they weren’t checked at the time.’

  ‘This whole thing has been a complete balls-up from the start. The officers investigating Rosanna’s death were so fixated on Simon Lovell that they simply didn’t bother to check all the other leads properly.’

  ‘Someone will cop some flak for that now,’ Phillips said.

  ‘Let’s hope so.’ He wondered, however, if that someone would be Fiona Singleton. The sergeant had helped him and now she could get dropped right in it. Nothing much he could do about that. ‘Who else knows about this?’

  ‘No one yet.’

  ‘Okay, can you sit on it for now? I’m going to get Simpson to deal with it.’

  ‘Fine.’ Phillips pushed herself off the desk. ‘I’m supposed to be having time off, anyway. I’ll get Richard to take me to Suffolk for a couple of days.’ She gave him a sly grin. ‘You have to m
ake your own entertainment there, as there’s no mobile coverage. I’ll write up my report when I get back.’

  ‘Perfect,’ Carlyle smiled. ‘And thanks again.’

  ‘No problem. You can get back to having your nap now.’

  ‘Ha! Enjoy the exhibition.’ As he watched her saunter towards the lifts, his mind drifted to thoughts of a couple of days’ R&R in Suffolk with Susan Phillips. ‘Richard,’ he mumbled to himself, ‘you are a very lucky bloke.’

  For once, Simpson picked up on the first ring. ‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’ she snapped. ‘I’ve left you three messages already.’

  Nice to speak to you, too, Carlyle thought. Jumping to his feet, he inspected his phone as he began pacing the room. There were no missed calls listed on the screen. The vagaries of the network? ‘Sorry, none of them came through.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘Your messages will probably turn up the day after tomorrow.’

  The Commander let out a deep sigh which suggested she wasn’t interested in any of his technology-based excuses. ‘What are you up to, then?’

  Quickly, Carlyle explained about Trevor Miller and Maude Hall. Not quickly enough, as it turned out, for she cut him off with a curt: ‘Enough.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I know all about this. Sir Chester’s gone into overdrive. Someone also shot Simon Shelbourne last night.’

  The inspector momentarily struggled to place the name.

  ‘The Commissioner’s PR man,’ Simpson reminded him.

  ‘Yes, yes.’ He took a breath, trying not to sound too excited. ‘Miller has totally lost it.’

  ‘We don’t know that it was him.’

  ‘It’s got to be.’ Carlyle then ran through the backstory of Anton Fox, Charlie Ross and Rosanna Snowdon. ‘The guy has been out of control for years. Now it’s all coming down around his ears.’

  There was a long silence at the other end of the call.

  ‘Carole?’

  ‘Don’t sound so bloody smug,’ she said finally. ‘This is all your fault.’

  Carlyle managed a nervous chuckle. ‘My fault?’

  ‘You were supposed to be focusing on the Mosman case,’ Simpson said grimly.

  ‘That’s well in hand,’ Carlyle lied airily.