The Circus

by James Craig

  ‘I understand that,’ Carlyle said patiently, ‘but what does it say . . . in draft form.’

  Segel glanced over his shoulder before lowering his voice to the level where the inspector had to concentrate hard to hear him. ‘The audit shows that there are more than one hundred and twenty paintings unaccounted for in the collection.’ He let out a nervous giggle. ‘Art worth tens of millions of pounds has . . . disappeared.’

  ‘Stolen?’

  ‘Most likely, I’d say. Stolen or lost. Probably a bit of both.’

  Carlyle thought about that for a moment. ‘Can’t you track these things?’

  Segel shook his head. ‘Not in this case. The systems and controls were either rudimentary or non-existent. That was quite amazing really.’

  ‘Sounds like a mess.’

  ‘Yes,’ Segel nodded. ‘When the news gets out, it’ll be quite a scandal. I think that Mrs Mosman would have resigned, for sure – if she hadn’t been shot, that is. Otherwise the Minister would have certainly sacked her.’

  ‘Interesting.’ The phone in Carlyle’s pocket started vibrating: he had a text message from Joe. Reading it, he jumped to his feet, grabbed the magazine, shoved it under his arm and hurried towards the door. ‘Thank you for your time . . .’

  ‘Mark.’

  ‘Yes, Mark, that was very helpful.’

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  ‘This way. Be careful and watch your footing.’ MPU Sergeant Ian Sidbury signalled for Joe Szyszkowski to follow him down a narrow metal gangplank running alongside the north bank of the river, by Wapping. With some considerable reluctance, Carlyle brought up the rear.

  The wind whipped off the water and the inspector stopped to button up his overcoat, complaining about the cold.

  ‘If you fell in here,’ Sergeant Sidbury remarked cheerfully, ‘we’d only have a couple of minutes in which to fish you out.’

  ‘Fucking great,’ Carlyle grumbled as he tiptoed along carefully.

  ‘The Thames is two hundred and thirteen miles in length,’ Sidbury explained, sounding more like a tour guide now than a member of the Marine Policing Unit – the Met’s river police.

  ‘Interesting.’ Joe nodded politely.

  ‘We normally get a dead body washed up about once a week, but there’s been more of them than usual so far this year. This one is DB32.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Carlyle, trying to inject some cheeriness into his voice, ‘let’s just hope Dead Body Thirty-Two is our man.’

  ‘That’ll be for you to decide,’ Sidbury replied. Shuffling between a pair of Targa 31 fast-response boats, they came to a stop in front of a small wooden jetty. On the jetty was a single-storey structure about ten feet high and eight feet wide, built out of metal scaffolding poles and covered with blue plastic sheeting.

  ‘This is where we bring all the bodies we find,’ Sidbury continued. ‘We wash ’em down and do a preliminary examination, looking for anything suspicious and that, before they go to the morgue for a proper post-mortem.’

  Great, thought Carlyle. Squeamish at the best of times, he reckoned that he had seen more than enough dead bodies just recently. Worried about puking, he took a series of deep breaths as a precaution against the onset of nausea.

  ‘Do you want to go inside?’ Sidbury gestured towards the blue-covered structure. ‘This one’s definitely a bit of a mess, I’m afraid. We’ve got nothing left below the waist.’

  Nothing below the waist? The inspector inhaled again, trying hard not to make it obvious.

  ‘Where’s the rest?’ Joe asked casually.

  Sidbury waved a helpless hand across the shit-coloured waters. ‘Could be anywhere. The size of the river down here and the strength of the current will make it impossible to search for it. I doubt if we’ll ever find any more. Shall we go and take a look?’

  This was definitely time to delegate. Half-turning back in the direction whence they’d come, Carlyle gazed thoughtfully at Tower Bridge and, beyond that, the London Assembly building.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ said Joe, finally picking up his cue.

  ‘Thanks,’ said the inspector, already making his way back towards dry land.

  Twenty minutes later, Joe was looking more than a little green around the gills himself. Carlyle shot his sergeant an amused look as he entered the canteen in the Wapping police station. ‘Feeling okay?’

  ‘Not nice.’ Joe made a face. ‘I need a coffee.’

  ‘Good idea,’ his boss nodded. ‘Get me another espresso while you’re at it.’

  By the time Joe returned with their drinks, the colour had begun to come back to his cheeks.

  ‘Well?’ Carlyle asked. ‘Is it our guy?’

  ‘Could be. There are bruises on the face and chest consistent with being hit by a vehicle.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘But that doesn’t matter much if we can’t get an ID.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Carlyle agreed, sipping his espresso. ‘If we can’t work out who it was that shot Zoe Mosman, we’re fairly fucked.’

  ‘The MPU are running his prints through the system. I’ve asked them to do Interpol as well. We should know in a couple of hours.’

  ‘What about his phone?’

  ‘For some reason, we couldn’t get any usable prints from that.’

  ‘No, no. I mean did the phone have a service contract?’

  ‘Nah.’ Joe shook his head. ‘It was just a cheapo pay-as-you-go.’

  ‘Okay,’ Carlyle sighed. ‘So what have we got now? We know that Dario Untersander was acquainted with Mrs Mosman.’ He gestured to the magazine he’d taken from Harris Highman’s office, which lay on the table between them. ‘There’s a photo of them together there, looking very friendly. Maybe there was more to their relationship than he’s letting on.’

  ‘She was shagging him, you mean?’

  Carlyle adopted a philosophical demeanour. ‘That kind of carry-on is not unheard of, Joseph, particularly in artistic circles.’

  ‘No, but—’

  Ignoring his colleague’s reservations, Carlyle went on, ‘Indulge me here. Zoe Mosman was responsible for the GAC. There have been significant thefts from the collection. So, maybe Mosman was nicking them for Untersander to sell?’

  ‘Thin.’

  ‘Maybe they were worried that the thefts were about to come to light as a result of Highman’s audit . . .’

  ‘Getting thinner.’

  ‘. . . and they had some kind of falling-out.’

  ‘Thinner than Kate Moss after a three-month detox.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Carlyle insisted. ‘Business deals go wrong all the time.’

  ‘So he got a hitman to blow up her son and shoot one of the neighbours?’

  ‘It’s just a theory.’

  ‘It’s just a totally crap theory. Why would Mosman get into bed with a Euro-sleazeball like Dario Untersander?’

  ‘Physically or metaphorically?’

  ‘Whichever way you like.’

  ‘Money.’ Carlyle rubbed together the thumb and index finger of his right hand.

  ‘You saw Mosman’s house,’ Joe protested. ‘Why would she need the money?’

  ‘She could have been living beyond her means. Did we check her finances?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’ Joe scratched his head. ‘And I’d be surprised if we were allowed to. Technically we are investigating her son’s murder and I doubt if we could get a warrant.’

  Carlyle waved away this objection. ‘Let’s try. Go to a friendly judge.’ He mentioned a couple of names. ‘If you don’t ask, you don’t get. Check the husband’s bank accounts, as well. Doesn’t he run some business or other?’

  ‘Yeah, a vehicle-leasing company.’

  ‘Okay, let’s find out about that, too.’

  ‘Fine,’ Joe sighed, ‘but this is a fairly scattergun approach. We need more help on this one if we are going to know what to focus on.’

  ‘Fair point,’ Carlyle agreed. ‘I’ll speak to Sir Michael Snowdon about how best to approac
h the GAC end of it. It’s another reason to go and see him. I’ve put it off for too long already.’

  ‘I’ll come with you, if you want.’

  Getting to his feet, Carlyle smiled at him. Joe clearly didn’t want another excruciating visit to Rosanna’s parents any more than he did, but it was good of him to offer. ‘It’s okay, I can handle it.’

  A look of relief washed over the sergeant’s face. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I’ve got someone else to see first, then I’ll head up to North London and report in with the old man. Let me know if we get a lead on the floater’s fingerprints.’

  ‘Sure thing.’

  ‘And remember, next time there’s a body to be fished out of the river, you’re on your own.’

  Standing in a semi-derelict fruit warehouse just south of Covent Garden’s piazza, Carlyle waited patiently while a tiny make-up girl fluttered around the D-list celebrity Margaretha Zelle. Finally satisfied with the job done, the girl bounced off, leaving the two of them alone in the makeshift changing room. Under a red Puffa jacket, Zelle was dressed in a white silk maxi-dress with crystals scattered around the neck. Her hair had been cut short and the inspector had to admit that she was looking good.

  A sly grin crossed her face as she caught him gawping. ‘Armani.’

  ‘You look like you’re going to the Oscars.’

  ‘Hardly,’ she sighed. ‘I’m supposed to be an ordinary hostess. Imagine you’re a guest at my Christmas drinks party . . .’

  ‘Thank you.’ Carlyle gave a small bow.

  ‘And I am introducing you to the delights of Prince Percy’s Perfect Peanuts.’ Shifting round in her chair, she grabbed a 500g tin from the table behind her and waved it in the air. ‘They’re be-yond tasty!’

  ‘Mm, I’m not really a nut man myself.’

  ‘I don’t blame you,’ said Zelle, tossing the tin back on to the table. ‘But this was the only thing that my agent could get for me, useless cow.’

  Why did a woman who had made millions from her divorce have to do adverts at all? And why would anyone go out and buy a tin of nuts on the basis of her endorsement? Keeping his questions to himself, Carlyle gave her a sympathetic nod.

  ‘I mean, I should be doing Ferrero Rocher – craftsmanship, perfection, excellence. Or maybe Disaronno. In other words, products with class.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s not like I’m even getting paid properly for this. We recorded the original ad months ago, but then the British Nutrition Foundation complained that we’d oversold the health benefits and the Advertising Standards Authority made us pull it.’

  ‘Health benefits?’

  ‘I don’t know the details,’ she said airily, as a hassled-looking man with a beard stuck his head round the dressing-room door.

  ‘We’re ready for you now, Margaretha.’

  ‘I’ll be there in a minute,’ she snapped, gesturing towards the inspector. ‘Can’t you see that I’m helping the police with their enquiries here?’

  The bearded man glared at Carlyle, who gave an apologetic shrug. ‘As soon as possible then, please,’ he muttered.

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Zelle turned her attention back to the inspector. ‘I suppose I should thank you, really.’

  Carlyle frowned. ‘Why?’

  ‘Now that the police have broken open this phone-hacking scandal, I’m in line for a nice payday.’ Reaching forward, she gave his arm a gentle squeeze. ‘Zenger Media is going to have to pay out compensation for all the victims. My agent reckons I should get something in the low hundreds of thousands – maybe even half a million.’

  ‘Wow.’ Carlyle let out a low whistle. ‘Not bad for letting someone listen to your voicemails.’

  Sitting back in her chair, Zelle shot him a sharp look. ‘It’s for misuse of private information,’ she rebuked him, ‘for breach of confidence, publication of articles derived from voicemail hacking and a sustained campaign of harassment over a period of more than eighteen months.’

  ‘Of course,’ Carlyle said stiffly. ‘Anyway, that’s not what I came to talk about.’ From his jacket pocket, he pulled out the pages that he had carefully cut from the magazine he had found in Harris Highman’s office. Opening them out, he showed her one of the smaller photos they contained.

  ‘God, I remember that!’ Zelle squawked. ‘It was soooo totally boring. No one in Berlin seemed to know who I was.’ She pointed to one of the other women in the picture. ‘They were all fawning over that stupid bitch Yulissa Vasconzuelo. Just because she’s fucking the Prime Minister doesn’t mean she’s any good, you know.’

  Trying to stick to the point, Carlyle put his finger against the third woman in the picture. ‘You knew Mrs Mosman?’

  ‘Zoe? Yes, I’ve known her forever.’ Zelle’s face darkened. ‘Terrible what happened.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Carlyle showed her another photo. ‘What about this guy?’

  ‘Dario, yes. We all go back a long way.’

  ‘So he knew Zoe, too?’

  Zelle shot him an amused look. ‘Oh, yes, he knew her intimately.’

  ‘Before she was married?’

  ‘Before . . . and after.’ Zelle waved her hand in the air. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if he even fucked her on her wedding day. That kind of thing would have amused Dario,’ she arched a heavily pencilled eyebrow, ‘and aroused him considerably.’

  ‘Did her husband know about the affair?’

  ‘Ivor Mosman,’ Zelle sighed, ‘is not a man of any great passion. He’s a bit of a wimp, really. Altogether very English.’ She thought about that for a moment. ‘With a tiny dick – I can vouch for that.’

  Carlyle didn’t want to know about that.

  ‘I think,’ Zelle continued, ‘that he decided at an early stage that he could just ignore what was going on. I’m sure it bothered him, but he could live with it. In my experience that’s quite common; a lot of people just decide to put up with things.’

  That particular situation seemed rather a lot to put up with, but the inspector said nothing.

  She noticed the scepticism in his face. ‘Maybe it was more than that. Maybe he found it convenient, especially as the kids grew older. The couple lived fairly separate lives. After all, Zoe was financially independent. Indeed, I know for a fact that she bankrolled his business for a while, when things were tough. But as a marriage it was fairly hollow.’ She shook her head. ‘They’d had separate bedrooms for years.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘Marriage is tough,’ Zelle said ruefully, and then she grinned. ‘A man in your life is like a car – you need to change them every couple of years.’

  The inspector was wondering quite how to respond to this when the door reopened and a woman’s voice shouted, ‘Margaretha! We’re ready. They’re all waiting for you.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ Zelle grumbled. ‘I’m coming.’ Getting to her feet, she slipped off the Puffa jacket. ‘Prince Percy’s Perfect Peanuts,’ she mumbled under her breath ‘They’re be-yond tasty!’

  ‘What do you think about Dario?’ Carlyle asked her, as she reached the door.

  Zelle didn’t miss a beat. ‘I think he’s easily the biggest bastard I ever met.’ She said it quietly but with feeling. ‘If you’re looking for someone who might have killed Zoe, I would start with him.’

  ‘For you.’

  Simpson eyed the party-sized tin of peanuts, which the inspector had just placed on her desk, with a mixture of suspicion and disgust.

  ‘Apparently, Prince Percy’s are all the rage if you are hosting a drinks party,’ the inspector explained innocently.

  Ignoring the nuts, she fixed him with a wary look. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘Mosman,’ he said cheerily.

  ‘You mean the case that you were supposed to be prioritizing?’

  ‘The case that I am prioritizing.’

  ‘Oh?’ Simpson frowned. ‘Did I miss an arrest? Can we put another tick in the “case-solved” box?’

  Ignoring his boss’s sarcasm, C
arlyle told her, ‘The guy we think is responsible is called Dario Untersander, a Swiss national. He and Zoe Mosman go way back. The suggestion is that she did a bit of escorting to pay her way through university and—’

  Simpson held up a hand. ‘Are you saying that she was a hooker?’

  ‘Grey area.’ Carlyle shrugged. ‘When she was younger, it seems that there were lots of parties and expensive holidays paid for by rich boyfriends of various ages and tastes. Was she on the game? It’s a matter of semantics. The point, however, is that it was at this time she met Untersander.’

  ‘And who told you all of this?’

  ‘A reliable source,’ Carlyle said. For the purposes of this conversation, he was prepared to stretch his definition of reliable to include someone as flaky as Margaretha Zelle. ‘Someone who has known both of them reasonably well.’

  Simpson grunted, unconvinced.

  ‘Anyway,’ Carlyle ploughed on, ‘Mrs Mosman and Untersander had a sexual relationship which apparently was continuing, sporadically, despite both of them since being married to other people.’

  Simpson gave him a Get on with it look.

  The inspector took a deep breath. ‘Sooo . . . the theory is this. Mosman stole a significant number of middling-quality paintings from the Government Art Collection for Untersander to sell under the counter in his gallery. Then the government decides to do an audit, so that it can start flogging some of the pictures itself. Mosman and Untersander are naturally worried about their little scam being uncovered. They argue about what best to do and have a falling-out. Untersander first threatens Mosman through her son, then he kills her.’

  It didn’t sound any more convincing than when he’d run it past Joe earlier. In fact, second time round, it sounded even flimsier.

  ‘And you can put Mr Untersander at either crime scene?’

  ‘No.’ Carlyle shook his head. ‘He used a hitman.’ Simpson began to say something else, but he held up a hand to cut her off. ‘We have a series of phone calls and we have the hitman – at least, we have the top half of him.’ Simpson’s eyes rolled heavenwards as he explained about his trip down to the river. ‘We are now waiting to see if we can get an ID.’

  ‘And Untersander?’