The Circus ic-4

by James Craig

  ‘Kings of Britpop.’

  ‘Mm.’ The PM was more a Spandau Ballet man himself: anything after ‘Gold’ left him rather cold.

  An idea floated through Shakermaker’s brain. ‘Maybe you could start serving Everything’s Gone Green cheese at Number Ten.’

  Edgar frowned.

  ‘You know, at receptions and that.’

  ‘Well. .’

  ‘It could be part of a celebration of the new wave of British cuisine,’ continued Shakermaker, slipping into marketeering mode. ‘You know that we already export to more than twenty countries.’

  ‘It’s an idea,’ Edgar agreed. ‘I will talk to the Cabinet Secretary about it.’ It would give Sir Gavin O’Dowd something to do.

  ‘Cool.’ Winking at the journalist, Shakermaker gave Edgar a hearty slap on the back. Christ, thought the PM sourly, I’m being set up by a bloody cheese maker.

  ‘It’s a bit early for that, isn’t it?’

  ‘We’re stuck in the middle of a muddy field, waiting for a KT-fucking-Tunstall concert.’ Sonia Claesens defiantly downed the rest of her large glass of Pinot Auxerrois and signalled for the bartender to pour her another. ‘It’s time to either get pissed or throw yourself under a tractor.’

  Seymour Rowntree tried to recall who KT Tunstall was but couldn’t quite manage to place her.

  ‘Or maybe walk straight into a combine harvester.’

  Seymour realized that he was getting seriously bored with this cougar thing. The fact that his girlfriend here was only two-and-a-half years younger than his mother didn’t bother him; after all, Sonia was a good-looking woman, she had cash, and she got invited to cool parties every night of the week. But she could also be bloody hard work. And her moods recently had become terrible. Maybe it was time to go back to his Spaces and Objects course at Central St Martin’s and start fucking some girls his own age, or thereabouts.

  ‘Folk rock is such shit.’

  ‘Stop winding yourself up.’ Seymour looked around nervously. Fortunately there was no one around to listen to her ranting. ‘We didn’t have to come here.’

  ‘That bastard flunky of Edgar Carlton’s can’t tell me what to do,’ Sonia hissed. ‘He can’t tell me what to do and where to go. What next? House arrest? Fucking politicians, we own them. We fucking own them. And the moment there’s any turbulence, they think they can just run off and pretend they’ve got some fucking principles.’ The bartender placed a fresh glass of wine on the bar. Sonia fished a fifty-pound note out of her purse and slapped it down. ‘Just leave the bottle. Thanks.’ Dropping the purse into her Chloe Marcie python tote, she took out a packet of Regal King Size and a lighter.

  The bartender shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, but you can’t smoke in here.’

  ‘What do you mean, I can’t smoke in here?’ Sonia squawked. ‘We’re in a fucking tent! I haven’t seen this much fresh air since my bloody Duke of Edinburgh course.’

  ‘Sonia. .’ Seymour placed a hand on her arm and she shook it off. This damn toyboy was becoming more hassle than he was worth. He might be hung like a donkey but he had the brain of one as well.

  ‘Just fuck off.’ Lifting her glass, she tilted back her throat and downed the contents in one, before storming towards the exit.

  * * *

  Liam Shakermaker squinted at Edgar from behind his Tom Ford aviator sunglasses. ‘You know, I never realized just how interesting cheese could be. I can honestly say that it gives me as much pleasure as cocaine did twenty years ago.’

  Edgar simply had no idea how to respond to that. A female TV presenter wandered past and he tried, unsuccessfully, to catch her eye. Taking matters into his own hands, he pulled out his phone. ‘Excuse me for a second.’ Looking for a quiet corner of the field, he scrolled through his contacts. But who to call? He was the Prime Minister, therefore other people usually called him. Finding Yulissa’s number on the screen, he hit the call button, staring with resigned dismay at the mud on his Loake tan brogues as he listened to the ringtone.

  ‘Edgar.’

  ‘What?’ Turning to face his wife, he quickly ended the call. ‘Yes?’

  Anastasia had one of those stock ‘cross looks’ on her face. ‘Why are you hiding over here?’

  ‘I wanted to. . er. . check out some of the gardening workshops.’ He gestured lamely at a handwritten sign that read: Success with seeds and cuttings.

  Anastasia ignored this blatant lie. ‘The children want you to take them to Charlie amp; Lola Live!’

  ‘Why can’t Pammi do it?’ he whined. ‘Isn’t that what we bloody pay her for?’ The thought of having to sit through a stage version of some kiddies’ cartoon made his heart sink to a new low.

  ‘Because,’ said Anastasia firmly, ‘lovely though she is, the children have already spent all week with the au pair. At the weekend, believe it or not, they would like to spend some quality time with their father.’

  ‘I seriously doubt that,’ Edgar grumbled.

  ‘Anyway, if they spend any more time with that girl than they do already, they’re going to sound as if they come from Sydney!’

  ‘Well, whose fault is that? You’re the one who hired a bloody Australian nanny off Skype!’ He shook his head at the folly of it all. It had taken the Daily Mirror about ten seconds to find Pammi Kewell on Facebook — complete with pictures of her smoking the biggest spliff you had ever seen in your life. His wife might have laughed it off, but it was another PR disaster he could have done without.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ Anastasia nagged, ‘pull yourself together. We both agreed she was the best one for the job.’

  Edgar grunted non-committally. He had been secretly hoping for some blonde East European hard body, a cross between Mary Poppins and a Moscow call girl, but the au pair agency had singularly failed to deliver on that one. Taking a deep breath, he told himself that there really was no point in going over this same old argument for the umpteenth time. He was just about to cave in and head off dutifully to see Charlie amp; Lola, when he caught sight of Sonia Claesens steaming out of the Wonderful Wessex Wine tent on the far side of the field, with her callow boyfriend trailing after her. Spotting her quarry, Sonia made a beeline towards the Carltons, a look of grim determination on her face.

  ‘Oh, no.’ Edgar was about to turn and run when he felt a firm hand on his shoulder.

  ‘I’m very sorry, Mrs Carlton,’ said Trevor Miller, bowing ever so lightly, ‘but I need to get you and your husband out of here right now.’

  The Prime Minister’s wife contemplated Miller as she might inspect some cow shit on her shoe. The man had cuts and bruises all over his face, looking like he’d recently been in a fight. ‘What happened to you?’ she asked.

  ‘We need to go,’ Miller repeated.

  ‘But I wanted to see KT Tunstall,’ Edgar objected.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ said Miller, already pushing him towards a waiting Range Rover. ‘Maybe next time.’

  ‘I was wondering when you were likely to turn up.’ Sitting in a largely empty Starbucks situated a block from the Fulham police station, Sergeant Fiona Singleton cradled her grande cafe mocha carefully, as she settled back into her seat.

  ‘It’s been on my “to do” list for a while,’ Carlyle admitted apologetically, ‘but stuff keeps getting in the way.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’ She nodded sympathetically. ‘And anyway, it’s not as if Rosanna Snowdon is really your problem, is it?’ A thin, thoughtful woman with a rather unflattering pageboy haircut, it was over a year since Carlyle had last seen her. Although she had to be a good fifteen years younger than the inspector, it crossed his mind that she seemed to have aged considerably during that time. The ring on her wedding finger suggested that she’d got married as well. Maybe the two things were not unconnected.

  ‘No,’ Carlyle shrugged, ‘but you know how. .’

  Singleton understood. That didn’t mean, however, that she had much time to help him out. She glanced at her watch. ‘I can’t hang around, I’m afr
aid. Got a case meeting about a bunch of car thieves who have been relieving the locals of their Chelsea tractors at an alarming rate.’

  ‘Poor dears,’ Carlyle scoffed. SUV owners were not high on his sympathy list. In fact, they weren’t on that list at all.

  ‘We’ll get ’em soon enough,’ Singleton grinned. ‘Anyway, where do you now want to start?’

  Carlyle looked down at the small cup that had previously contained his double espresso. It was already empty, he noted sadly. ‘Simon Lovell,’ he said. ‘Have you actually seen him?’

  ‘A couple of times.’ From behind her own outsized cup, Singleton made a face. ‘If anything, he seems even weirder than the last time round.’

  ‘If his original confession to the Snowdon killing was ruled inadmissible,’ Carlyle said, ‘the new DNA evidence must be strong?’

  ‘I don’t know about that. There’s still a lot of pressure to get a result on this one, coming from the media and the family.’

  ‘I thought that Rosanna’s parents were dealing with it quite well.’ Under the circumstances.

  ‘Oh, they are,’ Singleton agreed. ‘Very dignified, indeed, but you know what it’s like. The father still has some political clout, and Rosanna was herself a bit of a celebrity.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Carlyle sighed. ‘Who’s Lovell’s lawyer these days?’

  ‘He’s acquired a few, as you could imagine, but the main one’s still a woman called Abigail Slater.’

  Carlyle shook his head. ‘Never heard of her.’

  ‘Ambulance-chasing bitch. She’ll have made a real killing on Legal Aid by now, but she’s only going through the motions, if you ask me. It’s a high-profile case and she likes that kind of attention — wants all the publicity she can get.’

  ‘Lawyers,’ Carlyle groaned. He didn’t like them any more than anyone else did.

  ‘Slater will string this thing out for as long as she can, but she’s only delaying the inevitable. You can tell the parents that they’ll probably get a result this time.’

  ‘Probably?’

  Singleton thought about it for a moment. ‘Almost certainly.’

  ‘That’s not the same as saying he did it,’ Carlyle grumped.

  Singleton’s eyes narrowed. ‘Whose side are you on?’

  ‘I’m not on anyone’s side,’ Carlyle replied, rather too sharply. ‘The Job is not about taking sides. I want this case closed — for Rosanna and for her parents, of course.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But it comes down to reasonable doubt. Unless I’m missing something here, we still don’t actually know that he did it.’

  ‘The DNA?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Well,’ Singleton sniffed, ‘I think that he probably did it.’

  Carlyle gave her an enquiring look. ‘Fair enough, but is that good enough? You don’t know. No one does.’

  ‘No,’ she said, reasonableness personified, ‘but you can’t say for sure that he didn’t do it either, can you?’

  The inspector felt a bubble of frustration growing in his chest. The ability of people to believe what they wanted to believe — what it suited them to believe — annoyed the hell out of him. ‘If this is bullshit, we’re just going to end up making ourselves look stupid again.’

  ‘I honestly don’t think it is bullshit,’ Singleton said stubbornly. ‘Look at all the other crazy theories knocking about — Russian hitmen, angry viewers, and all that crap. Dear old Mr Lovell was always the only credible suspect. It wasn’t like we had to beat the crap out of him to get his original confession either.’

  Carlyle nodded. The sergeant had a point.

  ‘Anyway, you’re not the one who’s had this case sitting on your desk for the last couple of years.’ Singleton was then distracted as her mobile began vibrating across the cafe table. ‘Shit.’ Putting down her cup, she grabbed the phone and answered it. ‘I’m coming,’ she said quickly, before whoever was on the other end of the call had time to say anything. ‘I’m just round the corner. I’ll be there in two minutes.’ Ending the call, she said, ‘Sorry, but I’m really under the cosh today.’

  ‘No worries.’ Carlyle held up a hand. ‘It was good to have a catch-up.’

  ‘This might be of more use.’ Rooting around in her shoulder bag, Singleton pulled out an A4 manila envelope stuffed with papers. ‘These are copies of some of the stuff we found in Rosanna’s flat. They might be of interest — and if nothing else, the parents might want to have them. But make sure these get properly looked after. After all, the case has still to be concluded.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Carlyle, accepting the envelope from her. He was grateful for her thoughtfulness, because Singleton needn’t have bothered. She was putting herself out here and he was genuinely grateful. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘No problem.’ Hoisting the bag over her shoulder, she got to her feet. ‘You can return the favour one day.’

  ‘It’ll be my pleasure,’ Carlyle smiled.

  As she disappeared out of the door, his gaze fell on the largely untouched mocha. What a waste of an expensive cup of coffee. With an unhappy sigh, he ripped open the envelope and pulled out a stack of papers more than an inch thick. ‘That’s a lot of reading,’ he mumbled to himself. Top of the pile was a selection of stories printed off from the BBC website. The inspector was just about to start reading when his phone vibrated in the breast pocket of his jacket. Looking at the screen, he saw that he had already accumulated four missed calls.

  Bloody phones. How the hell did that happen?

  Tutting, he answered it. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Boss, it’s Joe.’ His sergeant’s voice sounded strained. ‘Where the hell are you?’

  Filled with light, the flat was spartan but not depressing; 550 square feet on the top floor of a converted Victorian mansion block in Tufnell Park, divided into a bedroom, bathroom and tiny kitchen/living room. Hands resting on hips, Carlyle stood behind the breakfast bar, trying to stay out of the way of the technicians as they went about their business.

  Inside, he wanted to cry.

  ‘It looks like she put up a hell of a fight.’ Joe Szyszkowski appeared from the landing, looking ashen-faced.

  The inspector nodded. He couldn’t bear to go and view the body. All he could think about was that, in all likelihood, he himself was responsible for her death.

  ‘What about the neighbours?’

  Joe shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake!’ Carlyle threw up his hands in despair. ‘Someone must have seen something!’ The general public were never of any help when you needed it, always in your face when you didn’t.

  Joe dropped his gaze to the floor. ‘Her father. .’

  Carlyle grimaced. ‘Yes?’

  ‘He’s waiting downstairs.’

  * * *

  For a man who must have been somewhere in his late fifties, Mervyn Hall was in good shape. Stocky but without any signs of middle-age spread, he looked like he could step back into the boxing ring at a moment’s notice. It had taken Carlyle a good ten minutes to persuade Maude’s father that they should stay away from Maude’s flat and leave the crime scene to Forensics. He felt sick to his stomach telling the man that he couldn’t see his daughter, but it was for the best. The poor bastard would have to formally identify the body soon enough. For now, they sat in uncomfortable silence in an empty cafe on Brecknock Road, a block away from the flat, both lost in their respective thoughts. Meanwhile the rest of the city continued about its business as usual, untroubled by the violence that had turned their world on its head.

  Shit happens.

  Life goes on.

  No one really gives a fuck.

  After an eternity of staring into his greasy black coffee, Hall looked up, clearing his throat. ‘So what happens now?’

  Carlyle finished his espresso. It was disgusting. What he really wanted, he decided, was a large glass of Jameson’s, or maybe more. His gaze lingered on Willy’s Saloon Bar, the Irish pub across the road, befor
e returning to Hall. ‘Now,’ he sighed, ‘we have to find out who did this.’

  Leaning across the table, Hall placed a hand on the inspector’s forearm. ‘Make sure you do. And then, let me know.’

  ‘Of course,’ Carlyle nodded.

  ‘And I will kill the fucker.’

  The inspector really did need that drink. ‘I didn’t know Maude for very long,’ he said finally, ‘but I really enjoyed working with her. She had great energy and charm, and she was an excellent police officer.’ Looking round, he realized that Hall wasn’t listening to him. He was busy typing a text message on his mobile.

  ‘I’ve got to go and see Maude’s mum,’ he said, hitting the send button. Pulling a pen from his jacket pocket, he scribbled down a mobile phone number on a napkin and handed it to Carlyle. ‘Let me know when I can see my daughter.’ Slowly getting to his feet, he looked down on the inspector, his expression more detached than grim. ‘And remember what I said.’

  ‘Mister. .’

  Carlyle looked up from his papers to see a blonde girl in a red Michael Jackson T-shirt, green bikini bottoms and a pair of brown cowboy boots standing at his table with an impatient look on her face. ‘Pardon?’

  She began waving a pint glass in front of his face. The glass was empty apart from a couple of pound coins and a fifty-pence piece, which rattled about noisily. ‘Put some money in the glass and I will do a dance.’ She gestured with the glass towards the tiny stage that had been raised maybe eight inches off the floor at the far end of the room. In the middle of the stage was a pole. Another girl, in a grubby yellow evening dress, was giving it a clean ahead of the next performance with some Cif anti-bacterial spray and a rag.

  ‘A pound,’ the girl repeated. He guessed that her accent was West Country, or maybe Welsh.

  Embracing the warm, comforting buzz of the whiskey, Carlyle looked around the bar. The lunchtime rush was over and the only other patron he could see was an old guy sitting at a nearby table with his head stuck in the Racing Post.

  ‘I don’t want to watch a dance.’

  The girl shook the glass angrily. ‘It’s only a pound, you cheap git.’

  With a sigh, Carlyle brought out his warrant card and waved it at the girl. ‘Fuck off and leave me alone.’