The Circus ic-4

by James Craig

  She opened her mouth but no words came out.

  ‘Real value for money.’ The accent that she used to find so sexy now made her skin crawl.

  ‘You’ve told me before,’ she mumbled, determined not to start crying.

  ‘And you are still as beautiful as ever.’ He patted his soft belly. ‘Me? My cock might still be hard but I’m going to seed. For a man, that’s inevitable. But women, they fight it. And you. .’

  Blinking back a tear, she dropped to her knees.

  ‘No, no.’ He gestured for her to get back up. ‘Not yet.’

  Slowly, Zoe did as she was told.

  ‘We’ve come a long way together.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And I am sorry that it has to end like this.’

  As she nodded, great heaving sobs welled up inside her chest.

  ‘There, there,’ he said, making no effort to dry her tears. ‘At least we can part as friends.’

  Stroking himself gently, he waited for the crying to stop. ‘Poor Horatio. Did you know he was addicted to pornography? Or maybe he was just an average teenage boy these days. You know, there have been times when I have wondered: maybe he was mine?’

  ‘Fuck you,’ Zoe hissed, lunging for the scalpel. But she was too slow. Pulling the blade away from her grasp, he caught her on the jaw with a sharp jab from his free hand, sending her sprawling backwards. Before she could get to her feet, he was dragging her by the hair towards the bed.

  ‘Come here.’ Breathing heavily, he pushed her on to the duvet, waving the blade in front of her face. If anything, her attempt to fight back had excited him even more. ‘There is no need for that. You have to be pragmatic.’

  Pragmatic? That was the story of her life.

  The sobs came again but no more tears. She was all cried out.

  ‘I am sorry about Horatio, truly I am. But you have to realize how serious this is. We have got ourselves into this situation — yes, “we”, because I include myself in that — and now we have to sort it out. If we are successful, no one else needs to get hurt.’ He smirked. ‘At least, no one else in your family.’

  ‘And if not?’

  He looked at her with a mixture of lust and contempt. ‘I wouldn’t think like that, if I were you.’

  ‘I only ever did this for Ivor and the kids,’ she whimpered. Squirming on the bed, she suddenly felt a desperate need to pee.

  ‘Zoe, Zoe, Zoe. . don’t lie to yourself. You did it because of who you are. You needed the excitement, the drama, the money and the drugs. Remember how it made you wet. Don’t lie to yourself about it now, because it isn’t worth it. You’ve got to be true to yourself.’ Leaning forward, he brought the scalpel down towards her abdomen, slitting the skirt so that it fell from her like the dead skin of a snake. With the tip of the blade tickling the inside of her thigh, he traced the outline of her Coco Blues briefs. ‘And you know what you are, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Zoe could barely hear her own voice over the furious beating of her heart.

  ‘It was clear that motherhood was always going to be the wrong choice for you.’ The big man let out a theatrical sigh. ‘And why you married that English loser will always be a complete mystery to me. God! You must have been bored out of your skull for years now!’

  Saying nothing, she tried to struggle off the bed.

  ‘Not now,’ he warned her, grabbing her arm with his free hand.

  ‘But-’

  ‘But nothing!’ As he pulled her roughly towards him, she felt her bladder give way. The arc of golden urine spilling across the linen sheets only seemed to excite him more. ‘Do I scare you that much?’ His eyes sparkled with delight. ‘Surely not.’ He gestured to the side of the bed that was still dry. ‘Lie back.’

  Engulfed in shame, Zoe did as she was told. Pushing her legs apart, he sliced open the sodden briefs. Carefully peeling the scraps of silk from her skin, he lifted them to his face and inhaled deeply. ‘Ahhh!’ Tossing the destroyed underwear and the scalpel on to the bed, he barely managed to force himself inside her before delivering a shuddering climax.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Sliding off the wet bed, Zoe Mosman skulked into the bathroom. After cleaning herself up, she returned to inspect the tattered remains of her clothing. Her skirt was now unwearable, not to mention her panties. How the hell was she going to get home?

  A loud fart came from the direction of the bed. ‘There are some jeans you can use.’

  Zoe reached for the wardrobe door.

  ‘Not yet. When we’ve finished.’

  ‘But-’

  ‘Take off your shirt. And the bra.’

  Descending into a fresh circle of hell, Zoe once again did as she was instructed.

  He let out a low whistle. ‘God, you really are in great shape. You must starve yourself.’

  Momentarily lost in thought, she ran a finger round her belly button.

  ‘It’s amazing how you can still excite me after all these years.’

  In spite of everything, a small grin crept across Zoe’s face. Hands on hips, she stood at the end of the bed watching him try, and fail, to restore his erection. Finally, tiring of this losing battle, he propped himself up with a pillow. It was time to get down to business.

  ‘So,’ he began, trying to sound casual, ‘how are we going to solve this little problem of ours? Do you think you can handle the police?’

  ‘Maybe the police wouldn’t have gotten involved if you hadn’t-’

  ‘Don’t be silly. It was only a matter of time. Better to deal with it and move on.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘I know that if you hadn’t been so determined to bury your head in the sand, I wouldn’t have had to take such. . drastic action.’ He held her eye. ‘Now: can you deal with the police?’

  Thinking about it, she scratched an itch between her legs. ‘They know nothing. I would be more worried about the CAG investigation. Harris Highman should be able to complete his audit in a matter of weeks. Then they will know what’s missing. It will come back to me eventually — probably sooner rather than later.’

  ‘But this guy Highman is just some tiresome old civil servant. We can handle him, don’t you think?’

  Feeling tears rising up again, she said nothing.

  ‘Zoe?’

  Wiping her nose on the back of her wrist, she nodded.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good,’ he smiled. ‘That’s settled. Now come back over here.’

  Slowly, slowly, slowly, Carlyle slid back into the here and now. The disconcerting noise that he could no longer ignore meant that either the mice were back or his mobile was dancing on the table next to the bed. Sticking a hand out from under the duvet, he answered it.

  ‘Hello?’ said a man’s voice. In the background he could hear traffic noises. ‘Were you asleep?’

  ‘No, no.’ Carlyle yawned. The clock by the bed said 10.02, so he must have slept in. How did that happen?

  ‘Why didn’t you give me a call?’

  ‘Well. .’ He still wasn’t quite sure who he was speaking to.

  ‘Have you got anything for me yet? I can’t sit on this Hannah Gillespie thing forever, you know.’

  One small mystery solved. Needing a piss, he rolled out of bed and padded towards the bathroom. ‘I know, Bernie, I know.’

  ‘Where are you now?’ Bernie Gilmore demanded.

  ‘Drury Lane.’ It was close enough.

  There was a pause while the journalist scanned his mental A-Z. ‘Okay, do you know a place called Il Buffone?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Carlyle mumbled as he entered the bathroom, navigating his way around the piles of clothing that Helen had left on the floor.

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

  He was somewhat perturbed by the idea that one of his favourite haunts was known to a hack like Bernie, but that couldn’t be helped. ‘Fine. See you there.’ Ending the call, he pushed up the toilet seat with his big t
oe and took aim at the porcelain.

  In the event, Gilmore took almost half an hour to reach the cafe. By the time he arrived, the inspector was on his second macchiato and already buzzing nicely. Apart from the two of them and the cafe’s owner, Marcello, the place was empty.

  ‘What happened to you?’ Bernie asked, as he slipped into the back booth. Today, he was wearing a T-shirt featuring Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street, under a black leather biker’s jacket. His beard looked even more out of control than Carlyle remembered it. The overall effect was of someone who had spent the previous night in a hedge.

  For his part, having been somewhat refreshed by his extended sleep, the inspector had almost managed to forget about his run-in with Trevor Miller the day before. His face still looked a mess, but Marcello, busy preparing for the lunchtime rush, had been too polite to mention it.

  Carlyle gave a half-hearted grin. ‘You should see the other guy.’

  ‘Mm.’ Gilmore gave him a look suggesting that he didn’t think the inspector could give anyone a run for their money in the fisticuffs department, before turning his full attention to the menu. ‘It’s been a long day already,’ he mused. ‘I think I’ll go for the all-day breakfast.’

  ‘A heart attack on a plate,’ Carlyle observed, sotto voce so as not to offend Marcello.

  ‘All the best things in life come at a price.’

  Wiping his hands on the tea-towel draped over his left shoulder, Marcello appeared from behind the counter to take Bernie’s order. ‘Another coffee?’ he asked the inspector.

  Carlyle shook his head. Any more caffeine and his head might explode. ‘I’m fine, thanks, Marcello.’

  ‘Okay.’ Marcello disappeared into the back and almost immediately the sound of bacon sizzling in a pan could be heard.

  Gilmore returned the menu to its holder. ‘So I’m guessing that you had a visit from Trevor Miller.’

  How the hell did you know that? Carlyle wondered. Trying to hide his surprise behind his demitasse, he drained the last of the coffee from the cup.

  Marcello reappeared from the kitchen with some slices of buttered white bread and a mug of milky tea.

  ‘Maybe I will have another, Marcello,’ Carlyle decided.

  ‘Sure.’ The cafe-owner scooped up the cup and saucer and disappeared again. At that moment, the door opened and a young woman came in. She took a long look at Carlyle before turning on her heel and walking out. Maybe I look worse than I thought, Carlyle guessed. He felt a small pang of guilt. It was hard enough for Marcello to make ends meet as it was, without the policeman scaring away potential customers.

  Gilmore folded up one slice of bread and pushed it into his mouth, chewing it twice before swallowing. ‘What do you know about Wickford Associates?’ he asked, before washing the food down with a mouthful of tea.

  ‘Never heard of them,’ Carlyle said.

  Marcello reappeared with Bernie’s breakfast and Carlyle’s coffee, placing each carefully on the table before retreating to a discreet distance behind the counter.

  ‘Wickford Associates’, Gilmore informed him, ‘was set up by Trevor Miller after he left the police force. It employs ex-police officers and also some Army types. They provide a range of services to private-sector clients. It’s quite a lucrative business.’

  Sitting up straighter on the banquette, Carlyle blew on his coffee before taking a sip. The smell of the sausage and bacon was making him feel a bit sick. ‘So how did he end up working for Edgar Carlton?’

  ‘For such a dullard, old Trevor really has been quite successful.’ Gilmore unwrapped a serviette and pulled out a knife and fork. ‘And lucky, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Trevor was great mates with a man called Will Clay.’ Gilmore held the cutlery over his plate while looking for some flicker of recognition on the inspector’s face. Seeing none, he went on, ‘Clay was one of Edgar’s cronies, as Party Chairman and a major fundraiser. He was found dead in a toilet at the Glastonbury Festival a couple of years ago.’

  ‘Unusual.’

  ‘According to the coroner, he died of natural causes — heart disease, apparently. There was no sign of foul play, which is a shame.’

  Carlyle frowned, not comprehending.

  ‘That would have made it a much bigger story,’ the journalist explained.

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘The poor bugger was only in his mid-fifties.’ Gilmore shook his head as he cut into a pork sausage. ‘Anyway, Clay had hired Miller’s company to work for the Party on various things — conferences, fundraisers and so on. Remember the row about private dinners being held in Downing Street?’

  ‘Vaguely.’

  ‘Make a donation of two hundred and fifty grand to the Party and the PM’s wife will cook your tea.’ Popping the sausage into his mouth, he chewed happily.

  ‘Money well spent.’

  ‘No doubt. Anyway, Clay organized some of these, and he got Miller to handle the security. That’s how good old Trevor got to know Edgar Carlton so well.’

  ‘I don’t really know much about this,’ Carlyle admitted as he watched Gilmore work relentlessly through the food on his plate. ‘I know Trevor isn’t the sharpest tool in the box, but why is he trying to interfere so crudely in a murder investigation?’

  Gilmore waved his fork airily in front of his face. ‘Because,’ he said, having finally managed to swallow, ‘he’s playing both sides of this particular game.’

  ‘What particular game do you mean?’ Carlyle asked, feeling even more stupid than usual.

  Gilmore speared a couple of chips with his fork. ‘Once he went to work for Carlton, Trevor had to stand back from Wickford. He was no longer running the company, but he was still the owner or, to be more precise, the largest shareholder. And his broadening list of political contacts proved very handy when it came to landing the Zenger Media contract.’

  ‘And you know all this stuff how, exactly?’ Carlyle was playing for time while he tried to work out where the story was leading.

  ‘It’s my job to know things,’ Gilmore smiled.

  ‘But you haven’t written about any of this?’

  ‘Lawyers, my friend, lawyers,’ Bernie sighed before the last of the bacon disappeared into his mouth.

  ‘Said you couldn’t publish?’

  Bernie nodded. ‘Always worried about getting their arses sued off, even though what I write always stands up in a court of law.’

  The inspector raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Well,’ Bernie chuckled, ‘almost always. Anyway, even if we were to come a cropper in front of the beak, there’s always the libel insurance to fall back on. The bloody lawyers just don’t want to make a claim, even though that’s what it’s there for.’

  ‘Worried about their premiums.’

  ‘Precisely! The useless buggers are just put on this earth to drive the rest of us mad.’

  ‘Okay.’ Carlyle was finally beginning to understand what their conversation was all about. The journalist needed him to try and flush out Miller, so that he could publish his story. That was fine by the inspector. All he wanted was to nail the evil bastard any way he could. Whether that was in a court of law, or in the court of public opinion, didn’t really matter.

  Dropping the cutlery onto his plate, Gilmore fished another paper napkin from the dispenser on the table and began clearing the detritus that had collected in his beard. When he was satisfied with the job achieved, he crumpled up the napkin in one meaty fist and dropped it on the table. ‘For years now, Wickford has been working with journalists like Duncan Brown, tapping people’s phones in order to get stories.’

  Carlyle thought about Margaretha Zelle. ‘You have proof?’

  Gilmore nodded.

  ‘So why don’t you go and talk to the good people at Operation Redhead? This is specifically their thing.’

  Sitting back on the bench, Gilmore pawed at his T-shirt, scratching Bert on the nose — or maybe it was Ernie. ‘Because, Inspector, I’m not simply a concern
ed citizen, I’m a man who needs to make a living.’

  Fair enough, Carlyle decided.

  Shifting in his seat, Gilmore settled into lecture mode. ‘These days,’ he said, ‘there’s no real money to be made from conventional journalism. No money at all, in fact.’

  Aware that he needed to get up to speed, Carlyle sat and listened, happy to let the other man talk.

  ‘Most information isn’t worth shit. There’s far too much of it about — in fact, we spend all our time trying to fight it off. No one wants more of it. There’s more information in one single edition of a daily newspaper — a broadsheet anyway — than an ordinary person would have been exposed to in their whole lives, two hundred years ago.’

  All of it crap, too, Carlyle reflected.

  ‘And that’s just newspapers. Then there’s television, radio and the universe’s great intellectual garbage dump known as the internet.’ He looked the inspector up and down to make sure he was keeping up. ‘Know what I mean?’

  ‘Yes,’ Carlyle lied.

  ‘So,’ he continued, ‘your basic law of supply and demand tells you that information is now effectively worth nothing. That’s bad news for someone like me who sells information for a living.’

  ‘You could always become a plumber,’ Carlyle smirked. ‘Or even a copper.’

  Gilmore ignored this feeble attempt at humour. ‘Of course, some types of information will always be worth something. . in particular circumstances. But even the stuff that is worth something is only worth something if you know that it’s worth something.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘And even then, that same information may have a value that changes over time.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So,’ said Gilmore, finally getting to the point, ‘what I knew about Trevor Miller wasn’t really that useful — until I ran into you.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Sir Chester Forsyth-Walker winced in pain. The operation on his bad back had been declared a success but it didn’t feel much like that to him. The painkillers provided by the hospital were simply not up to the job. Even after downing four of them in quick succession, it still felt as if someone was stabbing him repeatedly in the lower spine with a hot needle.