Acts of Violence (Inspector Carlyle)

by James Craig

  Is there any organization in the world that is as addicted to forms as the Met? Carlyle wondered. Getting to his feet, he yawned. ‘All done?’

  ‘I’ll just leave this for the owners,’ Wilson replied, coming down the stairs. ‘They can give me a call if they see anything on the CCTV.’

  ‘Huh?’

  With his biro, Wilson pointed towards a small wall-light in the hallway. ‘They’ve got cameras all the way up to the top. Set them up to look like lights. Not bad.’

  Carlyle stared at the camera. It looked like a normal light to him.

  ‘If you look inside, you’ll see that the “bulb” is a camera.’ Carefully placing the form on the bottom step of the stairs, Wilson went and stood directly underneath the fitting. ‘You can just see the little red light to indicate it’s on.’ He gestured for Carlyle to come and take a look.

  ‘It’s OK,’ the inspector said grumpily. ‘I need to get going.’ Who the fuck has CCTV inside their house? He cursed Derek Hutton under his breath.

  ‘I’ll let you know if they find anything.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Bolting from the house, he gave Constable Garner the briefest of nods before heading down Doughty Street and turning on to Gray’s Inn Road. Seeking out the sanctuary of Andrews Café, he ordered All Day Breakfast Number 3 and dialled Umar’s number.

  ‘I need you to get up here,’ he commanded when the sergeant finally answered.

  ‘Why?’ Umar whined.

  ‘I’ll explain when you get here.’ Carlyle gave him the Huttons’ address. ‘Meet me there in half an hour . . . no, make it twenty minutes.’ The service in Andrews was always quick; he would have enough time to finish his food before trying to clean up this latest self-inflicted mess.

  SIXTEEN

  ‘Ren Qi is not going to be happy.’ Guo Miao looked down at the body of Michael Nicholson lying peacefully on the bed. ‘What happened?’

  ‘They gave him a sedative,’ Xue Xi explained, ‘in preparation for the journey. Maybe they gave him too much. Or maybe his heart just gave out. He might have had a pre-existing medical condition. We have no way of knowing.’

  The State Security man shook his head. ‘The boss does not deal in “maybes”. He will want to know.’

  ‘That is a matter for the doctor,’ Xue replied, her tone a shade more dismissive than she had intended.

  ‘We’re hardly going to do an autopsy,’ Guo snapped back.

  ‘No. Of course not.’ For a moment, the pair of them stared at the corpse in silence. The man didn’t look any more appealing dead than he did alive. An image of Nicholson on top of the tiny Wang Lei flashed through Xue’s mind and she shuddered. ‘What are we going to do with the body?’ she asked finally.

  ‘That remains to be seen.’ The major eyed his underling carefully. Xue Xi was turning into something of a disappointment and it pained him more than he would have imagined. She had been his star student but her efficiency was beginning to be undermined by a lack of discipline. First she almost takes the security guard’s head clean off, and then this. Perhaps the deaths were indeed due to circumstances beyond their control. But wasn’t it the job of Ministry personnel to control all circumstances at all times?

  Sensing her boss’s displeasure, Xue stared at her boots. A gift from her father when she had joined the MSS, she knew that they would last her whole career. As always, they were polished to an impressive shine. Flexing her toes, she felt the leather creak.

  ‘Did you hit him?’ Guo asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did you hit him?’

  Xue paused. She should deny it but she could not lie completely. ‘I used appropriate force,’ she said quietly, ‘when it came to restraining the prisoner. He struggled when the doctor came to give him the injection. It was hard to find a vein.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Guo was old enough to remember the Cultural Revolution. ‘Appropriate force’ meant anything up to and including throwing people out of tenth-floor windows.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Guo looked around the room. I should have installed a surveillance camera, he thought, up there in the corner. In the event, there simply hadn’t been time. It was just one more way in which this wasn’t a secure location. That’s what happened when you went off on these private adventures; everything got compromised. He had always considered his loyalty to Ren Qi as unwavering but now he could see that it had its limits. His patron was becoming increasingly erratic in his decision-making. Driven by hubris and lust, it seemed that the man’s fall from grace was written in the stars. It was a story as old as the hills. The final chapter was only a matter of time and there could only be one ending.

  The chatter in Beijing was getting louder. Guo had already been approached on two separate occasions, with offers to dish the dirt on his boss. So far, he had refused. Next time, however, his answer might very well be different. His gaze once again fell on the dead Englishman. ‘Leave him for now,’ he commanded. ‘He’s not going anywhere.’

  * * *

  Looking exceedingly pleased with himself, Umar sucked down another mouthful of Coke. ‘It was really straightforward. Once we found their box of tricks under the stairs, all I had to do was erase the hard drive.’

  Carlyle grunted. His All Day Breakfast had settled in his stomach and he was feeling less than chipper. What he really needed was a lie-down in a dark room with a damp towel over his head.

  ‘Basically, everything gets stored for a month.’ The sergeant paused, taking another mouthful of his drink. ‘I’ve cleared it all and set it to start up again in a couple of hours.’

  ‘And there’s no back-up?’

  ‘Let’s hope not,’ Umar played with his can, ‘for your sake.’ Acknowledging the look of vague distress on his boss’s face, he quickly added: ‘I couldn’t see any evidence of anything else. It’ll be fine.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Carlyle said grudgingly. ‘Seems like a lot of kit to have in your house.’

  ‘Not really,’ Umar countered. ‘It’s quite common these days. Apart from deterring burglars,’ he shot Carlyle a look, ‘attentive burglars, that is, people use it for spying on the nanny, things like that.’

  Umar finished his drink. ‘Bit risky, wasn’t it?’

  No more risky than sending everyone in the station pictures of your willy, Carlyle thought sarkily. ‘I just wanted to take a look.’

  ‘What were you doing in there anyway?’

  With what he liked to think was commendable brevity, Carlyle brought his sergeant up to speed on the situation with Gregori and Kortmann and his earlier visit to see Barbara Hutton.

  ‘So you think she is this other woman?’ Umar asked. ‘The German terrorist?’

  ‘That,’ Carlyle replied rather wearily, ‘is what we’re gonna have to find out.’

  * * *

  The receptionist at Horse, Kellaway & George was not in the mood to take any nonsense from the man who had just dropped in on the off-chance of a word with one of her senior partners. A sturdy fifty-something, the woman had clearly spent decades perfecting various looks of displeasure as she contemplated the broad array of miscreants that arrived at her desk. Smiling lamely, Carlyle imagined that she couldn’t have looked more put out if she realized that he had recently broken in to her boss’s home.

  ‘I do not have an appointment,’ he said patiently, ‘but I think that Mr Hutton will want to see me.’

  ‘What is it concerning?’ the woman asked brusquely, making it clear that she doubted that very much.

  Resisting the temptation to start flashing his warrant card, the inspector went for the enigmatic approach. ‘It’s a private matter.’

  Without another word, the woman shot out of her seat, buzzed herself through the door to the left of her desk and disappeared, leaving Carlyle to peruse the mug shots of grinning lawyers that lined the wall behind the desk. He found the chubby, cheery face of Derek Hutton on the top row, directly underneath HK&G’s mission statement. With nothing better to do, Carlyle read it car
efully: Our human rights experts provide access to justice for our clients, despite the notoriously expensive and complex UK legal system. Combining civil liberties, discrimination and social care expertise, we act for individuals, groups and organizations who find themselves challenging the lawfulness of decisions, acts, omissions and policies of public bodies and authorities.

  ‘Guardian-reading, sandal-wearing, lentil-sucking lefties,’ Carlyle scoffed.

  ‘Sorry?’ The receptionist pushed her way back through the doors looking even more irritated than she had when she’d left her station.

  ‘Nothing,’ Carlyle mumbled, blushing slightly as he moved away from the desk.

  ‘Mr Hutton is not here,’ she said firmly. Sliding back into her seat, she began tapping at the keyboard of her computer, in order to underscore the inspector’s dismissal.

  ‘Not here?’ Carlyle acted bemused. Rudeness rarely bothered him and he had made a conscious decision that he wasn’t going to let this woman wind him up.

  ‘He’s not in today,’ the woman said huffily, keeping her eyes on her computer screen.

  ‘On holiday?’ Carlyle persisted. ‘Off sick? With a client?’

  ‘Out.’ Was all he got by way of reply.

  Deciding not to push the matter any further, Carlyle admitted defeat. ‘OK. Thank you for all your help.’ Ignoring her petulant toss of the head, he headed for the exit.

  Walking down the street, he checked his phone and was dismayed to find he had four missed calls and a text from Helen that simply said: where are you? ‘I’m at work,’ Carlyle muttered crossly, almost dropping the phone as he walked into a young woman pushing a pram. ‘Where do you expect me to be?’ Glaring at the woman, he jumped into the gutter and continued on his way.

  ‘Here. You can hold the baby while I make some coffee.’ Before he could protest, Caroline Hutton placed the sleeping infant on Umar’s lap and headed for the kitchen. Shifting uncomfortably on the sofa, the sergeant grimaced.

  ‘What’s his name?’ he called after her.

  ‘Sssh,’ she admonished him, before adding in a theatrical whisper: ‘Her name is Mary.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘She was named after my grandmother, on my father’s side.’

  ‘I see.’ Although he was now a father himself, Umar felt anxious about the responsibility of holding someone else’s child. Mary, on the other hand, seemed perfectly content. Wrapped in a blanket, in a red babygro, she snored peacefully as he took stock of his surroundings.

  Tracking them down hadn’t been difficult; a quick check of the Electoral Register had brought him to a crumbling block of flats off Gower Street, south of Euston Road. The one-bedroom flat was a third-floor walk-up, clean but in need of a lick of paint. Some random pieces of cheap furniture were clustered around a small TV. The usual baby paraphernalia was scattered everywhere. The decoration consisted of a few family photographs taped to the far wall next to a framed poster for a movie called The Marriage of Maria Braun. The image – a woman in a black basque doing up her stockings – seemed completely out of place in this room. Umar had never heard of the film, but the image certainly commanded his attention; maybe he would check it out.

  The politest word you could use to describe the place was modest. Compared to her parents’ digs, less than a mile away, this looked rather like genteel poverty. Most importantly, however, as far as Umar was concerned, there was no evidence of a bloke in residence.

  Mary sighed and wriggled in his lap. He scanned the room again to reaffirm his assessment. No discarded trainers, no men’s mags, no football DVDs under the telly. All the evidence pointed to Caroline Hutton being a single mum.

  His observations were interrupted by a familiar noise from inside the romper suit.

  ‘Urgh.’ Getting to his feet, he took three careful steps towards the door. ‘I think she’s just—’

  ‘The Pampers are on the sideboard,’ Caroline shouted back, ‘behind you.’

  He was just tying up the nappy sack when Caroline walked in with two steaming mugs of black coffee. Lying on the changing mat, Mary was still happily asleep. Swapping one of the mugs for the sack, her mum inspected his work. ‘Good job,’ she grinned. ‘Far better than her father ever managed, anyway.’

  Umar took a sip of his coffee. ‘Her dad isn’t around then?’ Trying to sound casual about it.

  Handing him the second mug, she gently lifted Mary from the mat and placed her in a cot in the corner of the room. ‘He was released back into the wild before Mary was born.’

  ‘Bummer.’

  ‘These things happen.’ Caroline picked up her coffee and took a seat on the ratty green sofa. ‘It’s not the end of the world.’

  ‘No, but still . . .’ Plonking himself down on the room’s only other seat, an uncomfortable black swivel chair, Umar checked out the curve of her breasts under her crumpled white blouse before lifting his gaze to give her some empathetic eye contact.

  Glancing at the wedding band on his right hand, she said, ‘So, how can I help you, Sergeant? Do you work with that creep I met in Doughty Street yesterday?’

  ‘Yes,’ Umar laughed, not bothering to correct her impression of the inspector, ‘that’s right.’

  ‘And it seems like the demon burglar has struck.’

  ‘There was a break-in, yes.’ He took another mouthful of coffee and placed his mug on the carpet. ‘It doesn’t look as if anything was taken, and the mess is fairly minimal, but we’ve been trying to contact your parents to inform them.’ He pulled a small business card from his pocket with the details of a locksmith on Gray’s Inn Road. ‘Give these guys a call, they can make it secure.’

  ‘Such service,’ she said archly. ‘I’m sure that they will be very grateful.’

  Umar gave a small bow. ‘In the Metropolitan Police we are always working hard to enhance our customer-service culture.’

  ‘That’s good to know.’

  ‘Next time though, I would get your parents to keep their gate locked,’ he added, gilding the lily somewhat. ‘Someone walks down the road, sees easy access to the basement . . .’ With a shrug, he let the story play out in her head.

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Pulling her legs up underneath her, she sat back, waiting patiently for him to get to the point.

  ‘So – we’ve been trying to get hold of your parents,’ he repeated, ‘and we wondered if you might know where they are at the moment?’

  ‘No idea, sorry.’ She gestured airily in the direction of the window. ‘My folks like to take off every now and again. Lets them imagine that they’re still free spirits.’

  ‘Free spirits?’

  ‘My dad always wished he’d been ten years older. He was a bit of a radical when he was younger, in the 1970s and early ’80s. But he would really have liked to be around in the 1960s.’

  ‘An old hippie.’

  ‘No, no.’ She shot him a disapproving look. ‘Absolutely not. He would have loved to be a student back then. Paris 1968, Grosvenor Square – that kind of thing. Before the forces of the state got their act together properly, as he likes to put it. Now, with the legal practice and the big house in Bloomsbury, he frets endlessly about selling out.’

  ‘And your mum?’

  ‘Technically, Barbara’s not my mum,’ she corrected him. ‘She’s my step-mum. She and my dad hooked up when I was little. She was a client of his, a bit older than Dad. She really was around in the sixties. And quite the firebrand, by all accounts.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Sensing his interest, she backtracked. ‘They’re just a pair of old lefties really. They like to run off now and again, get pissed, shag like superannuated rabbits and pretend they’re both twenty-one again.’

  ‘Yes.’ Dazzled by her smile and talk of youthful couplings, Umar momentarily quite forgot why he was sitting there. He was only brought back to reality by the baby starting to cry in the corner.

  Jumping to her feet, Caroline Hutton began unbuttoning her blouse. ‘Time for a feed.’

&n
bsp; Unable to control himself, Umar licked his lips.

  She shot him an amused look. ‘Apologies for kicking you out.’

  ‘Er, yes.’ Slowly, he stood up.

  ‘Thanks for the visit.’ Reaching into the cot, she recovered the child and began manoeuvring her into position. ‘I’ll call the locksmith and get my parents to give you a call when they resurface.’

  ‘That would be great,’ he replied, reluctantly heading for the door.

  SEVENTEEN

  On closer inspection, the mess on the pavement was a dead mouse. It had been squashed across the concrete, like a cartoon character or a mini art installation. How did that happen? Carlyle wondered. What has flattened a poor mouse in the middle of a London street? It was a mystery.

  People were walking past it, backing up and queuing to get round it. He watched a procession of people going past but none stepped on the expired rodent. That was the city; you quickly learned to watch where you put your feet.

  ‘Boss?’ Miffed by his boss’s apparent disinterest in what he had been saying, Umar did a little dance on the pavement as a couple of tourists appeared and started photographing the mouse on their smartphones.

  ‘Huh?’ Reluctantly the inspector focused on his Sancho Panza.

  ‘Derek Hutton.’

  Carlyle recalled his meeting with the sweaty lawyer. ‘He didn’t seem like much of a revolutionary to me,’ he said.

  ‘He’s gotten old, that’s all,’ Umar chortled, ‘just like you.’

  ‘Ha.’ Looking at his younger colleague, an unhappy thought entered the inspector’s head. ‘You didn’t hit on her, did you?’

  ‘What, the daughter?’ Umar tried to look offended. ‘Of course not. She’s got a tiny kid, for God’s sake.’

  Liar.

  For a moment, they contemplated each other in sullen silence.

  ‘What do you want to do now?’ Umar asked finally.