The Circus

by James Craig

  ‘She’s screaming blue murder, and there’s already press gathering outside. The powers-that-be want someone senior down here right away.’

  ‘Well, go and find someone senior then.’

  ‘They want you down here right away,’ Joe persisted.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ Carlyle yawned. ‘Fucking hell . . .’

  ‘Thanks, boss.’

  ‘I’ll be there as quick as I can.’ He switched off the phone and let the handset fall to the floor, adding to himself: ‘After I’ve had a two-minute kip.’

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ It was now almost eight o’clock and Joe’s previous cheeriness was long gone.

  Feeling more than a little sheepish, Carlyle held up a hand by way of apology. ‘Sorry, sorry.’

  ‘I left you loads of messages.’

  ‘The battery died,’ the inspector lied.

  ‘It’s now been five hours. I was going to call your home number.’

  Carlyle gave him a surprised look. ‘Just as well you didn’t. Helen would have killed you – immediately after having killed me.’

  ‘That’s what I assumed.’

  ‘Anyway, I fell asleep again. End of. Sorry.’

  Grudgingly accepting his boss’s apology, Joe gestured towards the police station entrance where a dozen or so reporters were milling about on the steps. ‘They’ve been a pain in the arse all night.’

  ‘Get the uniforms to handle them,’ Carlyle said brusquely.

  ‘It’s been all over the TV news.’

  ‘Why? She’s hardly a fucking celebrity, is she?’

  ‘You know what it’s like,’ Joe shrugged. ‘The media loves the media.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘And it’s made the later editions of the papers.’ Joe handed the inspector a copy of the Daily Witness, sister paper to the Sunday edition. ‘Top of page four.’

  Carlyle opened the tabloid and found himself staring at a picture of Edgar Carlton and Sonia Claesens deep in discussion at some charity reception. Briefly scanning the article, he burst out laughing. ‘Fuck me, that was quick.’

  ‘It’s a dog-eat-dog world,’ the sergeant shrugged. ‘Do you want to go in and see her?’

  ‘Not really.’

  Joe shot him a look that indicated it wasn’t really a question.

  ‘Okay, in a minute. But first I need some caffeine.’

  A double espresso had improved his mood somewhat by the time Sonia Claesens was brought into interview room seven. Dressed in black jeans and a pearl cashmere sweater over a grey T-shirt, she looked tired but composed.

  ‘Why am I still here?’ she demanded.

  ‘There are various charges—’ Carlyle began.

  Claesens spoke over him. ‘I have meetings.’

  Good for you, Carlyle thought. ‘Maybe when your lawyer gets here—’

  Once again, she cut him off. ‘The useless sod has switched his mobile off. So, God knows when he’ll turn up.’

  ‘In that case,’ Carlyle smiled, ‘I’m afraid that you’ll have to wait.’

  ‘That’s impossible!’ Irritated by this stupid policeman’s refusal to comply with her demands, Claesens angrily slapped the palm of one hand on the table. ‘I’ve got too many things to do.’

  The inspector’s grin widened.

  Claesens’s face darkened, and for a moment he thought she might jump up and hit him. ‘What’s so funny?’

  Carlyle tossed Joe’s copy of the Daily Witness on to the table. ‘You’re in your own newspaper today.’

  ‘Not an uncommon occurrence,’ she snapped, grabbing the tabloid and tearing it open.

  ‘Top of page four.’ Carlyle eyed her maliciously. ‘Nice picture. The story says you’ve been sacked by the Zenger Corporation.’

  ‘What?’ Claesens shrieked. ‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding!’

  ‘It’s there in black and white,’ Carlyle deadpanned, ‘so I guess that it must be true. After all, newspapers don’t lie, do they?’ Pushing back his chair, he got to his feet and turned towards the door.

  Finding the article in question, Claesens began scanning the text with a bony finger. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’

  ‘Looks like they’ve cut you loose.’

  ‘The bastards!’

  ‘I guess you just became too much of a liability for them,’ Carlyle mused, happy to turn the knife while he had the chance.

  Rereading the article, Claesens muttered something under her breath.

  ‘Look on the bright side,’ the inspector beamed. ‘At least that frees up your day to help us here with our enquiries.’

  ‘Fuck you!’ she screamed, jumping to her feet and hurling the newspaper in the general direction of his head.

  Laughing, Carlyle walked out of the room and headed down the corridor.

  FORTY-ONE

  Trying not to sound too cheery in front of the nurse, Carlyle pointed at the window. ‘What happened?’

  Yawning, the young man scratched at the stubble on his chin before folding his arms. ‘He suffered a stroke. Quite a serious one too. It looks like he was lying on his living-room floor all night. No one found him until the cleaner came in the next morning. You never really know with these things, but I would expect a lot of the damage will be irreversible.’

  Maybe there is a God, after all. Carlyle peered through the glass at Charlie Ross lying comatose in the hospital bed, tubes everywhere. It looked like there was enough technology to run a space shuttle being deployed to keep the old bastard alive. ‘Can I talk to him?’

  The nurse shook his head. ‘Family only.’ Exhausted, he hopped from foot to foot, desperate to get off shift.

  Shit, Carlyle thought, I shouldn’t have shown this little jobsworth my bloody warrant card. ‘I understand.’

  ‘Sorry,’ the nurse mumbled unconvincingly.

  ‘To be honest though, I’m the nearest thing he has to family,’ he pleaded, hoping that he looked suitably concerned about the sick man. ‘We worked together on the Force for more than twenty years. He taught me a hell of a lot.’

  ‘Mm.’

  Carlyle gestured towards the private room. ‘He saved my life once.’ It was a blatant lie, but worth a go. When the nurse showed a flicker of interest, he added: ‘Took out a guy who was just about to brain me with an axe.’

  The nurse’s eyes grew wide. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Carlyle nodded, getting into it now. ‘It was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen on The Job.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Obviously, it was a long time ago now.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘But still . . .’

  ‘Yes.’ The nurse glanced up and down the empty corridor. Unfolding his arms, he held up a finger. ‘One minute. Just talk gently to him, and see if you can get a response.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The nurse started off down the hallway. ‘I’m going to get a coffee. Once I get back, you’ll have to go.’

  ‘Understood,’ Carlyle said. ‘Thank you.’

  Stepping inside the room, he pulled up a chair and sat down, leaning forward until his face was barely eight inches from the ex-sergeant’s head.

  ‘Charlie . . .’

  The old man’s eyes slowly opened. As he focused on Carlyle’s grinning mug, a palpable look of concern spread across his crumpled features.

  Conscious of the CCTV camera high on the wall, focused on the bed, Carlyle kept a fixed smile. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said quietly, ‘I’m not going to put a pillow over your face – tempting though that may be.’

  A bony hand appeared from under the covers. Carlyle reached out and grabbed it in his own before it could reach for the panic button. ‘Relax, I’m not going to do you any harm. Unlike your boy, Trevor, you’re not about to go down fighting.’

  Ross eyed him anxiously.

  ‘No,’ Carlyle continued, ‘I don’t have to do a thing. You’re a fucking vegetable now, and that’s never going to change.’ He gestured around the room. ‘Even if you get
out of here, the best you can hope for is some kind of hospice: a modern bedlam where they make you sit in your own shit while you’re singing along to Cliff Richard records with all the other nutters.’

  Charlie Ross let out the merest whimper. Maybe Cliff wasn’t his thing.

  ‘You know how we treat old people in this country. We fucking hate them. You become invisible, your human rights go straight out the window; you won’t get washed, you won’t get fed, you won’t get your colostomy bag changed. Some bastard “carer” will steal your money and any possessions you have left, and give you a good slap if you complain.’ The inspector let out a breath. ‘In a lot of ways, I think Trevor got the better deal.’

  The nurse reappeared outside, signalling through the window that it was time to go. Carlyle got to his feet. ‘Good luck, Charlie,’ he whispered, patting the old man on the head like he was a dog. ‘I look forward to reading your obituary in the Police Review before too long.’ Smiling broadly, he left the room, strolling past the bemused nurse without uttering another word.

  As he returned to the station, there was a buzz of excitement on the third floor that made the inspector worry that some disaster was unfolding: maybe some bastard had just set off a bomb in the centre of the city, or the Mayor had been pelted with eggs by anarchists again.

  ‘It’s the Commissioner,’ explained Joe Szyszkowski, after catching his eye. ‘He resigned ten minutes ago.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Carlyle, relaxing again as he flopped into his chair.

  ‘That story about his free thirty-grand visit to a health farm was what did for him.’

  ‘Serves him right,’ Carlyle said airily. ‘People like that think they’re entitled to everything they can grab.’ As if on cue, his mobile started ringing. Pulling it from his pocket, he checked the number on the screen, laughing as he hit receive.

  ‘The man himself.’

  ‘Have you seen the news?’

  ‘Yeah. Are you ringing me up so that I can congratulate you?’ ‘No, no,’ Bernie Gilmore chuckled, ‘I was just ringing up to say thank you.’

  ‘For what?’ Carlyle said, turning away from Joe and lowering his voice. ‘I don’t know where you get your stuff from and, more to the point, I don’t want to know.’

  ‘Sure, sure. Anyway, thanks for the tip. Things are really cooking at the moment; my agent is negotiating a deal for a book on this whole Trevor Miller stroke phone-hacking scandal, and there’s talk of me presenting a new version of London Crime.’

  ‘Be careful,’ Carlyle said solemnly. ‘Remember what happened to the last person to present that show.’

  ‘Ah, yes, Rosanna Snowdon, RIP. What do you think about this rumour that she was one of Miller’s victims?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘C’mon,’ Bernie protested, ‘it’s me you’re talking to.’

  ‘You know that I never speak to the press,’ Carlyle laughed, ‘and I’m not going to start now.’

  ‘Fair enough. I’ll be in touch.’

  ‘I’m sure you will,’ the inspector replied, the smile fading from his face. But by then he was talking to himself because, moving on to his next source, his next story, his next exclusive, Bernie had already hung up. Tossing the handset on to the desk, Carlyle’s thoughts turned to the various delights of the station canteen. Joe was hovering nearby, with a look of concern. ‘We’ve got a problem,’ he said.

  Carlyle’s heart sank.

  ‘Gemma Millington.’

  Suppressing a grin, the inspector thought back to Duncan Brown’s déshabillée girlfriend in her pink wig. ‘What about her?’

  ‘That picture of her from the memory stick?’ Making a show of trying to dredge a long-forgotten image from the depths of his memory bank, Carlyle nodded. ‘Well, someone put it on the internet along with a few others. Apparently, it was viewed four hundred and seventeen thousand times before it got taken down.’

  I’m not surprised, Carlyle thought.

  ‘Her lawyer has been on the phone. She’s going to sue.’

  ‘Sue for what?’

  ‘Dunno,’ Joe shrugged. ‘Breach of data-protection laws, maybe?’

  The inspector stared at Joe. ‘It wasn’t you, was it?’

  ‘No, no,’ Joe said quickly. ‘But I might have shown it to a few people.’

  Listening to his stomach rumble, Carlyle told him, ‘Well, it wasn’t me.’

  ‘What should we do?’

  ‘No idea,’ the inspector said honestly. ‘Wait and see what happens, I suppose.’

  ‘That’s not much of a plan, is it?’

  ‘Well,’ said Carlyle with mock cheer, ‘it’s the only one we’ve got.’

  FORTY-TWO

  Striding forward, a stressed-looking Daniel Brabo was intercepted by a uniform before he could step through the door.

  ‘Inspector!’ His face was flushed and he looked like he’d been drinking.

  ‘Not now,’ Carlyle said sharply. ‘You shouldn’t be allowed in here.’ He gestured to the uniform. ‘Get him outside.’

  ‘Who was that?’ Simpson asked, as Brabo was unceremoniously hustled away.

  ‘Dario Untersander’s lawyer,’ said Carlyle, as he carefully selected a shortbread finger from the plate on the art dealer’s desk. Shortbread still wasn’t his favourite but it would do; he could sense his sugar levels dropping and he needed something to eat before he turned irritable.

  Or, rather, even more irritable.

  ‘He doesn’t look very happy.’

  Carlyle nibbled at one corner of the biscuit and gave a nod of appreciation. Not bad . . . for shortbread. ‘Neither does his client.’

  Stifling a grin, the Commander gazed at the inert body of Dario Untersander, slumped in his chair with a bemused expression on his bloodied face.

  ‘Ivor Mosman smashed in his skull with an antique silver candlestick,’ Carlyle explained.

  ‘How quaint.’

  ‘I guess Dario shagging his wife was one thing, but having her and their son killed was quite another.’

  ‘Mm. And where is Mr Mosman now?’

  ‘They’ve taken him to the Savile Row station, along with the candlestick in question.’

  ‘Very efficient of them.’

  ‘It was all rather straightforward,’ said Carlyle, ignoring her sarcasm. ‘After offing Untersander, Mosman called 999 and waited patiently for the police to arrive. When they got here, he was enjoying a cup of coffee and a shortbread finger. He explained precisely what had happened, and they arrested him on the spot.’

  ‘That was considerate of him,’ Simpson mused.

  ‘Yes,’ Carlyle agreed. ‘If only everyone who committed a violent crime could be as accommodating towards the forces of law and order, our lives would be a lot easier.’

  ‘I trust that the judge will take such exemplary behaviour into account when it comes to his sentencing.’

  ‘Who knows?’ Carlyle popped the rest of the shortbread into his mouth, chewing happily.

  Simpson checked her watch. ‘I would be surprised if he hasn’t signed his confession by now.’

  Top man, the inspector thought.

  ‘We still have to find the paintings though.’

  ‘That’s the Arts Unit’s job,’ Carlyle observed.

  ‘Don’t you want to see it through?’

  ‘I have seen it through,’ Carlyle said firmly. ‘The paintings are incidental.’

  ‘That’s an interesting point of view for a policeman to take,’ the Commander said archly.

  ‘Isn’t the stuff insured?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Carlyle continued, ‘from what I hear, it’s all fairly second-rate stuff. There’s nothing involved likely to make much of a dent in the national debt.’

  ‘So now you’re an art critic?’

  ‘Isn’t everyone?’ Carlyle shrugged.

  ‘I suppose,’ Simpson moved on, ‘it looks like you did call it correctly, broadly speaking.’

  Carlyle gave a modest bow. ‘It
happens now and again.’

  ‘It would have been much better though, if there had been rather less mess involved.’ A patronizing smile skipped across her face and for a moment he caught a glimpse of the old, bitch-from-hell Commander Simpson. ‘It’s nice to actually prevent the odd crime, you know, rather than just wait for them to happen and then bang up the perpetrator.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, not rising to the bait.

  ‘We were never in control of this situation.’

  ‘No.’ To Carlyle, she sounded just like a football manager trying to find fault with his team after they had just won a game.

  ‘And then this happens.’ She fixed him with a grim stare. ‘You know that I had to be called away from Maude Hall’s funeral?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘At least Joe Szyszkowski was there,’ the Commander sniffed.

  ‘We decided that one of us should go.’ Carlyle didn’t really want to discuss WPC Hall. ‘What do you make of Sir Chester’s resignation?’ he asked, trying to change the subject.

  ‘He was the author of his own misfortune,’ she said simply. ‘I can’t say that I have much sympathy.’

  ‘Any idea who’ll get his job?’

  She shook her head. ‘No idea. These days I’m as out of the loop as you are – well, almost.’

  ‘Not our problem, eh?’

  ‘No.’ Simpson gave him a thin smile. ‘By the way, I spoke to Maude’s father at the funeral.’

  Carlyle thought back to his own conversation with Mervyn Hall on the street outside his daughter’s flat, and he nodded.

  ‘He asked me,’ said Simpson, lowering her voice as if the dead man might be listening in to their conversation, ‘to thank you.’

  The inspector tried to look bemused. ‘For what?’

  ‘You tell me. Maybe he thought you had more of a hand in Trevor Miller’s death than you are letting on.’

  Carlyle stared at his shoes. ‘And why would he think that?’

  ‘You tell me,’ Simpson repeated.

  ‘I explained to you what happened.’

  ‘The whole story?’

  ‘The whole story.’

  The Commander eyed him carefully, the look on her face a mixture of annoyance and affection. ‘You never change, do you, John?’ Without waiting for a reply, she walked away, slipping through the door, before heading for the blessed relief of the street outside.