by James Craig
‘Red Notices can’t be taken at face value,’ Carlyle persisted. ‘Countries send them out all the time these days, trying to track down people they don’t like for one reason or another.’ He knew a little bit about this from his wife; Helen’s charity had launched a campaign to support one of their doctors who had recently turned up on one of Interpol’s ‘wanted’ posters. According to Helen, the guy’s only crime was to have criticized his home government. The number of Red Notices being issued had almost doubled, to reach 30,000 in the previous year. Increasingly, the system was being abused by dictatorships wanting to hunt down opponents in exile.
‘Yes, but this is Germany we’re talking about,’ Simpson countered. ‘The Germans don’t do these things on a whim. And this one has been out for a long time. The issue is whether this woman is really Tosches, not whether Tosches should be sent home to face justice.’
‘She could be dead,’ Carlyle suggested.
‘Let’s find out, shall we?’
Reluctant to admit defeat, Carlyle stared at the ceiling. ‘Bit of a wild-goose chase, if you ask me.’
‘I didn’t ask you.’
‘Should this really be a priority? I still don’t understand why these guys appear at the station and I have to jump to attention.’
‘John . . .’ Simpson kicked out at an empty cigarette packet which had been discarded on the pavement, sending it flying into the gutter. Despite her lengthy experience of dealing with the inspector, he could still try her patience, quibbling over every request and instruction. As the saying went, he was the kind of man who could start an argument in an empty room. Every time she thought he might be mellowing a little with age, something would set him off again and he would be right back in her face. The Commander thought back to all the times she had pulled his balls out of the fire. Was it really worth it? Carlyle was a good cop, but maybe that was no longer enough. One day, he would stray too far over the line.
‘Kortmann,’ she said finally, ‘has clout.’
‘Not with me, he hasn’t.’
‘Maybe not,’ said Simpson curtly, ‘but with the Commissioner he does. His family firm donated more than a million pounds to various Met-related good causes last year. Apparently, they are also being lined up to be a major sponsor of the new police sports facilities in Ealing.’
‘And you get what you pay for.’ Like all frontline officers, Carlyle was aware of their increasing reliance on the financial support of private companies. The Force took support in the form of everything from concert tickets and football shirts, to high-end SUVs for use by Special Branch and Royal Protection Officers. Cash donations were funnelled into specialist investigation units. It was the kind of creeping privatization that had been eating away at all manner of public services for years and it created a rent-a-cop image that was, at best, unhelpful.
‘Yes, you do,’ Simpson agreed. ‘I don’t like it any more than you do, but that doesn’t do anything to change the facts of the situation.’
‘Which are—’
‘Which are,’ she said shrilly, ‘that we have been instructed to investigate the Hutton matter properly.’
What’s all this ‘we’ business all of a sudden, Carlyle wondered grumpily. I’m the one left holding the baby.
‘Do you understand? I don’t want to find another memo about you on my desk in the next few days,’ she paused, as if to catch her breath, ‘or ever for that matter.’
‘Fat chance of that,’ Carlyle said ruefully. They both knew that he could rarely manage more than six months between complaints.
‘Well, quite. Let’s aim for a realistic target then, shall we? Just mind your Ps and Qs for the next day or so, while you help facilitate Mr Kortmann’s query.’
‘During which time I will, of course, be paying due care and attention to the rights of Mrs Hutton.’
‘Yes, yes. Of course.’ Simpson was interrupted by the sounds of an argument erupting in the street.
‘Sounds like you might have to make an arrest, boss,’ Carlyle quipped.
‘Don’t think I wouldn’t,’ Simpson shot back, ‘if the situation demanded it.’
Happily for the Commander, however, the dispute died as quickly as it had begun, both parties heading on their way. She returned her attention to the vexatious inspector. ‘How good is the evidence against Hutton, by the way?’
Carlyle stared morosely at the file on his desk. ‘I dunno. Haven’t had a chance to look at it yet.’
‘Very well, but keep me posted.’
‘Will do.’
‘Good. Thank you.’
Maybe I’ll get Umar to take a look at it. Glancing across the room, Carlyle watched his sergeant still surfing YouTube and wondered if he might not just dump the whole case on to the lazy bugger’s lap. At the very least, he could get Umar to do a quick Google search, check if Baader Meinhof had its own online TV channel or whatever.
‘Look, John,’ mistaking his silence for acquiescence, Simpson adopted a more conciliatory tone, ‘I know this is a bit of a hospital pass but we’ve just got to get on with it.’
There was that ‘we’ again, getting on his nerves.
‘I don’t like it any more than you do,’ Simpson repeated.
‘No.’ Normally, Carlyle would give his boss the benefit of the doubt, but today he wasn’t in the mood.
‘But just remember, if this woman does turn out to be Tosches, she’s wanted for some very serious crimes.’
There was more shouting in the street. From his end, it was impossible for Carlyle to make out if it was the same dispute being revisited.
‘Christ,’ Simpson groaned, ‘I’m never going to get any bloody lunch at this rate. Look, one final thing – I managed to dig out some information that you can share with Naomi Taylor.’
‘Great,’ said Carlyle, cheered that Simpson had at least managed to make good on that particular promise.
‘The body should be released to the family tomorrow.’
There was a pause while Carlyle waited for her to continue. The commotion in the background had dissipated again, to be replaced by the generic hum that rose from a thousand city streets.
‘It’s not a hundred per cent,’ Simpson added, ‘but that is the hope . . . at this stage.’
‘Is that it?’ Carlyle tried to sound disappointed and incredulous at the same time. ‘I think Mrs Taylor was looking for a bit more info, like who killed her husband? And is his head still in any way attached to his body?’
‘It will be a closed casket,’ Simpson responded, ‘under the strict instructions of the undertaker. It is a matter for his discretion.’
‘Jeez. He must be a right old mess then.’
‘Apparently so. But that is not something you want to have to get into with the widow.’
‘No.’
‘Leave it to the liaison officer.’
‘Sure. So who killed him then?’
There was a long pause, filled by the sound of traffic.
‘Commander?’
‘All I can say is that it appears to be really quite complicated.’
It’s always complicated, Carlyle observed, when you don’t want to explain it. ‘So what am I supposed to tell Naomi Taylor?’
‘Just tell her that we’re doing all we can,’ Simpson said irritably. ‘Didn’t you go on the Emotional Outreach Training Module that was run last year?’
‘No,’ Carlyle scoffed. ‘Of course not.’
‘Then you’ll have to damn well work it out for yourself, won’t you.’ Simpson ended the call and stalked off in search of her lunch.
Placing the receiver on the cradle, Carlyle got to his feet. Sensing movement, Umar looked round hopefully. ‘Time for lunch?’
Carlyle smiled. ‘Slight change of plan.’ He gestured towards the file on his desk. ‘Take a look at that lot and see what you think. It’s about a woman called Sylvia Tosches. See what you can find out about her online as well.’ Umar started to protest, but Carlyle kept going. ‘And see if you can
dig up anything on a woman called Barbara Hutton. Her address is in the file. I’ll be back in an hour or so.’
‘But I’m starving,’ Umar spluttered.
‘I’ll bring you a sandwich,’ Carlyle promised. ‘I won’t be long. It’ll do you good to have some work to do for a change.’
ELEVEN
Sipping from a glass of Evian, Wang Lei paced around the room in ever-decreasing circles until she felt dizzy. She had spent the last hour trying to clear her head and decide how best to handle the situation. To her immense frustration, however, no plan presented itself. As a lawyer, improvisation was not one of her strong points. Coming to a halt in the middle of the floor, she let her head flop to one side in a half-hearted attempt to clear the pressure that was steadily building at the top of her spine. As it became clear that wasn’t going to work, she spun around, projecting her ill temper onto her host.
‘What is the interest of the MSS in all of this?’ she demanded, in a staccato Cantonese that threatened to blow the top off her skull. ‘What are you doing here?’
Standing by the window, Xue Xi looked on impassively. Years of training had taught her not to respond to this kind of desperate aggression.
‘You are from the Ministry, aren’t you?’ Sitting in an overstuffed armchair in the corner, Ren Jiong didn’t look up from his Wii console. The boy had been playing a soccer game for almost four hours straight; it was an excellent way of keeping him quiet.
The opium of the masses.
Xue smiled to herself, which only served to enrage Wang further.
‘What is so funny?’ she thundered. ‘You have no right to keep us here. Your actions are completely illegal.’
Illegal? The mission of the Ministry of State Security, of which I am an important member, is to control the people, in order to maintain the rule of the Party. Legality doesn’t come into it.
‘I know the Deputy Under-Secretary responsible for the MSS,’ Wang continued. ‘He is a close personal friend.’
I very much doubt that, not now. After your little foreign adventure, I’d be surprised if you have any friends at all back in Beijing.
‘Think about that. Your boss’s boss’s boss.’
‘Times ten,’ Ren chipped in.
‘When they get to hear about this,’ his mother added, ‘they will crush you like a bug.’
And who do you think ordered this mission? Xue said nothing.
‘Like a bug!’ Wang squawked, pushing an unruly strand of hair from her tired and puffy face. Dressed in baggy grey sweatpants, trainers and a ratty red cardigan over a grimy T-shirt, she looked far removed from the creature who had, until recently, been described as one of the most powerful women in the People’s Republic.
What did Ren Qi ever see in you, Xue wondered. And how does he feel now, after so much of his power and influence has been squandered in chasing his unfaithful wife around the world, only to drag her home in shame?
Wang’s eyes bored into her, as if she was reading the young security agent’s thoughts. ‘Where is my husband? Is he here?’
Tired of the woman’s ranting, Xue finally broke her silence. ‘We must wait.’
Draping a leg over the arm of his chair, Ren looked up from his game and shot Xue a lascivious look, his tongue hanging out of the corner of his mouth like a parched dog. When Xue stiffened, the boy made a show of checking out her backside. ‘You are quite sexy,’ he said insolently, speaking English in a mid-Atlantic accent that spoke of too many wasted hours spent watching American police shows on TV. ‘You know, for a spy.’
Xue allowed herself the smallest of smiles. The boy was appalling, but all the same, he was easier to deal with than the grotesque mother.
‘Ren.’ Wang glared at her son. ‘Now is not the time.’
‘It’s always the time, Mama,’ the boy smirked as he returned his attention to FIFA 22.
For a moment, Wang looked as if she was on the point of an aneurysm. Lifting the glass to her mouth, she gulped down the last of her water, before returning her gimlet eye to Xue. ‘And where is my adviser, Michael Nicholson? What have you done with him?’
A snort of derision came from the corner. ‘Who cares about your adviser?’ Ren gestured towards Xue with his controller. ‘I hope she’s killed the bastard. I never understood why you were fucking him in the first place.’
‘Enough.’ In one fluid movement, Wang arched her back, raised her right arm and hurled the glass at her son’s head.
Her aim was high and wide. Ren did not even flinch as the glass smashed on the wall behind him.
What a family. Xue Xi watched the glass fragments bounce across the oak floor and come to rest near her feet. If it were down to me I would have shot the lot of you. The MSS agent was not yet out of her twenties, but she liked to think of herself as a traditionalist when it came to matters of personal deportment and discipline. Her father, a Commissar in the People’s Armed Police, had always taught her that there could only be one fate for people who betray the faith and the Party: a single bullet to the back of the head with the cost of that bullet invoiced to the surviving family members. All of this skulking around in the shadows, trying to gather up the Politburo’s dirty laundry, was both demeaning and an abuse of privilege. She had no doubt what her father, dead almost a decade now, would have made of it all.
Wang stepped forward until her forehead was almost under Xue’s chin. ‘Well? Where is he?’
‘You’d better tell her what she wants to know,’ Ren Junior warned Xue. ‘She can be terrible when she’s angry.’
Maybe you would be worth two bullets. ‘He is in a secure location,’ was all Xue offered by way of reply, her English clean and classical by comparison to the boy’s drawl.
‘More important than the fate of that English fool, what about my mother and I?’ Ren asked. Getting to his feet, he dropped the controller onto the chair and took up a position at his mother’s side. ‘What are you planning to do with us?’
Steely Dan’s ‘Dirty Work’ was playing in his head as Carlyle finally walked into the Box Café on Henrietta Street.
‘Hey.’ Alison Roche looked concerned as he hobbled towards her table. ‘What happened to your foot?’
‘Nothing, nothing.’
Folding her copy of that morning’s Metro, she dropped it on the chair next to her and watched him sit down opposite.
‘Sorry I’m late.’
‘No worries.’ After a year or so working with the inspector during a stint at Charing Cross, Roche took his shortcomings in her stride.
Carlyle tried to catch the eye of the owner, Myron, so that he could place his order. Ignoring his loyal customer, Myron allowed himself to be distracted by a pretty blonde who proceeded to order a complicated smoothie. Carlyle’s stomach rumbled with dismay and he stared forlornly at Roche’s empty plate. ‘What did you have?’
‘Just a salad. Look, I don’t want to be rude, but I’ve got a few things I need to do this afternoon and—’
‘Sure, sure.’ Carlyle sat back in his chair and looked her up and down. Catching him staring, Roche grinned from behind her cup of builder’s tea.
‘Are you checking me out, Inspector?’
‘No, no.’ Blushing slightly, he quickly turned his attention to the street outside. Across the road, on the south-west corner of the Piazza, they were turning an office building into a selection of eye-wateringly expensive flats. Carlyle calculated that the cheapest studio cost more than he had earned in the last twenty-five years. The thought made him more than a little depressed.
‘So . . . Chelsea.’
‘Yes. Marvin Taylor.’
Roche placed her tea cup on her saucer. ‘It’s all a bit of a mess.’
‘So I’ve heard.’ Carlyle was distracted by the sight of the blonde girl leaving the café with her drink. This time he waved at the owner for some service but Myron had already ducked into the kitchen. Turning back to the smirking Roche, he tried to look philosophical. ‘But all Naomi really needs is a few k
ind words and the return of the body. That shouldn’t be so difficult, even for you geniuses at SO15.’
‘Ha,’ said Roche mirthlessly, ‘you’d be surprised.’
Carlyle raised an eyebrow. ‘Getting a bit bored with the big guns and the fast cars?’
‘Mm. Maybe a little. Sometimes.’ Roche gestured at Myron, who had reappeared behind the counter. Waiting patiently for him to lumber over, she let the inspector order some food before continuing. ‘Marvin,’ she said sotto voce, ‘as you know, had his head sliced off. Two of his staff were shot in the head; both of them were serving soldiers who were supposed to be on leave.’
‘Yeah,’ Carlyle said, ‘a massacre.’
‘The official line is that it was some kind of organized crime dispute,’ Roche continued, ‘and people have bought that, so far.’
Carlyle folded his arms. ‘But that wouldn’t explain why you are involved.’
‘No. SO15 took control of the scene less than two hours after the initial 999 call. A man reported six quote-unquote “ninjas” entering the building Taylor’s men were guarding around the time of the murders.’
‘Have you spoken to him?’
Roche shook her head. ‘He didn’t leave any details. We haven’t found him.’
Showing some belated urgency, Myron arrived with a cheese and tomato sandwich and a Diet Coke. Carlyle nodded his thanks, opened the can and took a swig. ‘Neither have the media though, which is a big plus.’
‘Whoever he was, the guy sounded a bit drunk on the tape but he definitely described them as “ninjas”.’
‘So what were Marvin and co. doing there?’ Carlyle took a bite of his sandwich, chewing rapidly.
‘They were looking after some clients in one of the penthouse flats. The assumption is that the ninjas got rid of the bodyguards, grabbed the clients and took off. We’ve got a bit of CCTV coverage showing a van going into the basement garage and then leaving twenty minutes later. That’s about it.’ Roche fished a tenner out of her pocket.