Acts of Violence (Inspector Carlyle)

by James Craig

  ‘Fair comment, but keep it to yourself, eh?’ Sonia nodded at Sammy as she helped Morag stop swaying as discreetly as possible. ‘We’re on. Just try not to puke in the guy’s lap.’

  With Sammy leading the way, Ren headed up the stairs, a girl on each arm. It was a struggle to hold the redhead up straight, but Ren took each step with the same grim determination with which he had risen up through the Party hierarchy. At least his reward tonight would be a lot quicker in coming. Reaching the top-floor landing, Sammy turned left and ambled down a long, dimly lit corridor. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Ren saw there was a set of double doors at the end, guarded by the largest bouncer he’d ever seen.

  ‘That’s Kendrick,’ Sammy shouted over his shoulder, as if reading his guest’s mind. ‘He’s from American Samoa.’ On mention of his name, the bodyguard reached down and opened the door. With the air of a reigning monarch, Sammy disappeared inside. The redhead stumbled and Ren had to strain to stop her from falling. The other girl gave him an apologetic smile.

  ‘Morag’ll be OK,’ she whispered. ‘I think she might have just had a dodgy prawn or something.’

  Or something, Ren thought. With a sense of weary shame, he realized that this was the type of place better suited to his wastrel son. Pushing that thought as far away as possible, he kept moving forward. ‘Let’s just get her inside.’

  ‘Welcome to the ultra-VIP suite!’ Sammy shouted over the relentless drive of generic rap lyrics blaring out of speakers built into the ceiling. Extending an arm, he bade them contemplate what looked like the scene from a particularly debauched music video. In front of a buffet table groaning with food of all descriptions, a dozen or so women lay around the floor in various states of undress. As far as Ren could make out, there were only two other male guests. One, sprawled on a white leather sofa pushed up against the far wall, underneath a large poster advertising the residency of Oscar 451 downstairs, had his trousers around his ankles and an almost empty bottle of Jim Beam in his hand. Despite appearing to be asleep, he was being fellated by a white girl while her black colleague filmed the action on a smartphone and offered up the occasional shout of encouragement.

  ‘You should be able to watch that on the internet in about five minutes,’ Sammy grinned. ‘Hey,’ he called to the girl with the phone, ‘make sure you get the branding in the background.’

  The second man was sitting in the middle of the room on what could only be described as a throne. A flunky stood beside him with a flute of champagne while the man tapped repeatedly on the screen of his phone. Ren felt Morag wobble again and reflexively tightened his grip on her arm. However, she wriggled out of his grasp and staggered towards the King.

  ‘Oh my God. You’re . . .’ Unable to finish her sentence, the hapless girl sent a stream of projectile vomit straight into the man’s lap.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Before anyone had the chance to react, the man jumped up. Tossing his sick-covered phone to the flunky, he began frantically wiping at his clothes. ‘You stupid fucking bitch. What have you done?’ He raised his fist but Morag was so far gone that she was halfway to the floor before the punch was unleashed.

  The sour smell rising from the throne sent people scurrying for the door.

  ‘Towels,’ Sammy squealed. ‘Someone get some towels and some hot water.’

  ‘Fuck that,’ the King screamed, ‘I need a whole new outfit – and a shower.’ Eyeing Ren for the first time, he bared his fangs. ‘What you doin’, man,’ he poked at the comatose Morag with the toe of his defiled Nikes, ‘bringin’ that in ’ere?’

  Edging backwards, Ren looked for Sammy. But his host had now fled, along with most of his guests.

  ‘Well?’ The King grabbed the lapels of Ren’s jacket.

  Not able to think of any kind of reply, Ren tried to pull himself away, stumbling on the slick floor as the man released his grip. Righting himself, he tried to make for the door, only to find his escape blocked off by the flunky. There was a groan as Morag disgorged the further contents of her stomach at their feet. Ren felt bemused. How could such a small creature have so much inside her? He felt a hand on his shoulder, spinning him round, followed by a succession of blows, which smashed the cartilage in his nose. As he went down for a second time, he tried to angle his fall away from the pool of vomit soaking into the carpet.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Playing with his BlackBerry, Carlyle stood patiently in line, waiting to be seen. He knew it was his turn when the old codger who was standing behind him gave him a quick poke in the ribs.

  ‘Hurry up, son,’ the man muttered. ‘Some of us haven’t got all day.’

  Ignoring the old git, Carlyle nodded at the woman behind the counter.

  Vicky Collingridge, manager of the Drury Lane pharmacy, gave him a cheery smile. ‘Good morning, Inspector. How’s the foot?’

  Carlyle winced. ‘So-so.’ The truth was it had been less painful of late but he knew that the respite would only be temporary.

  ‘Are you wearing the support?’

  ‘Well, sometimes.’ In reality he found it too much of a hassle; he couldn’t get his shoe on with an athletic support under his sock.

  ‘You’ve got to stick with it.’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘Anyway, what can I do for you this morning?’

  ‘I wondered if I could ask you about something.’ Conscious of the pensioner shuffling behind him, Carlyle moved further along the counter and lowered his voice. ‘In my professional capacity.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Vicky gestured towards the small storeroom at the back of the shop that doubled as her office. ‘Why don’t we go in there?’

  ‘I need my bloody prescription,’ the man huffed.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mr Halliwell, I’ll get Hayley to come over and sort it out for you.’

  With Hayley despatched to deal with the grumpy Halliwell, Carlyle stood next to a pile of cardboard boxes, while Vicky perched on the edge of a tiny desk that looked as if it had been nicked from the infant school round the corner.

  ‘He’s a cheery old sod, isn’t he?’ Carlyle said about the pensioner.

  ‘Mr H? He’s OK, just a bit lonely. He lives on Stukeley Street, just above the tattoo parlour. He’s been in the neighbourhood for almost sixty years. His wife died a few years ago and he doesn’t get out that much these days.’

  That could be me, soon enough, Carlyle thought morosely. He tried to push the idea from his mind. ‘Do you know the names of all your customers?’

  ‘Just a few of the regulars. How’s the family?’

  ‘All good, thanks.’ Reaching into his pocket, he produced the bottle of pills swiped from Sebastian Gregori’s hotel room. ‘I was wondering if you could tell me what these are.’

  Vicky took the bottle and inspected the label. ‘Triazolam is a sleeping pill. Probably not the most common type that we would see prescribed these days, but fairly common.’

  ‘Could you abuse them?’ He realized it was a stupid question before it had even left his mouth.

  ‘Trust me,’ Vicky grinned, ‘you can abuse anything. With prescription drugs, you have to follow the instructions to the letter.’

  ‘Of course,’ Carlyle nodded.

  ‘Why do you ask?’ She took another look at the label. ‘Has Mr . . . Kortmann come a cropper?’

  ‘Come a cropper?’ Carlyle laughed.

  ‘You know what I mean.’ She handed him back the bottle. ‘Did you find the victim face down in his own . . .?’

  ‘That’s CSI Miami, not boring old Covent Garden.’ Carlyle put the bottle back into his pocket.

  ‘Come on, Inspector, it’s not that boring.’

  ‘No, I suppose not. But there is no victim.’ Not yet, anyway. ‘And all this is strictly between us.’

  Vicky knitted her eyebrows. ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Just a few preliminary enquiries.’

  ‘So I won’t be reading about it in the papers then?’

  Carlyle stood up straight. ‘I mos
t certainly hope not.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘That’s it. Very helpful.’

  ‘Glad to be of assistance.’ Vicky slipped off the desk and led him out of the room. ‘Give Helen and Alice my best.’

  ‘Will do.’

  Heading back through the shop, Carlyle saw Mr Halliwell chatting away happily to Hayley, wilfully oblivious of the queue of people that was building up behind him. Heading behind the counter, Vicky opened up a second till and got back to work.

  Approaching the police station, Carlyle was still pondering the significance – if any – of finding Kortmann’s sleeping pills in Sebastian Gregori’s hotel room. Waiting to cross the road, he saw a council worker steam-cleaning the pavement at the spot where the flattened rodent had previously come to rest. RIP, Mousey, Carlyle thought, your fifteen minutes of fame are over. From the other side of the street came the sound of a dozen cameras whirring into action. Looking up, he saw a well-built black guy hurrying down the front steps of the station, trying to ignore the snappers as he pushed his way into the back of a black Lexus which slowly pulled away from the kerb. A couple of the photographers made a half-hearted attempt to follow it down the road but most reckoned that they’d already got their shot. By the time the car had disappeared round the corner, the majority were sitting on the pavement, laptops out, emailing the best shots to their picture desks.

  ‘Whoever that guy is,’ Carlyle mumbled to himself, ‘he’ll be all over the internet before I manage to get my computer switched on.’

  On his way to the third floor, he bumped into Sergeant Elmhirst on the stairs. ‘Who was that who just left?’ he asked, manoeuvring himself up a couple of steps so that she was not towering over him.

  ‘Dunno. It’s been a total circus downstairs this morning and I’ve been keeping well out of it.’ Wearing no make-up, with her hair pulled back into a ponytail, Amelia Elmhirst looked ridiculously pretty and it was a struggle not to gawp.

  ‘Smart.’ He edged up another step. ‘And how’s Umar getting on?’

  She frowned. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘No more photographs, I hope.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that either,’ she replied frostily.

  ‘But—’

  ‘You’d really need to ask him.’ Taking hold of the handrail, Elmhirst continued on her way before he could quiz her any further.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Sitting at Carlyle’s desk, Sonia Coverdale looked up from the game she was playing on his PC. There were dark bags under her eyes and she looked like she hadn’t slept. ‘And how did you get on to my computer?’

  ‘Your sergeant got me started,’ she explained, adding: ‘He’s quite cute, isn’t he?’

  ‘He’s married with a kid,’ Carlyle grumped.

  ‘Lots of men are . . . you, for example.’ She returned her attention to the screen.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he repeated.

  ‘There was no room downstairs, so they brought me up here.’ She giggled. ‘It’s like me getting an upgrade on my points, I suppose.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I must have a lot of points on my police loyalty card by now. I’m one of your best customers, surely.’

  ‘That’s one way of looking at it.’ Resting on the edge of a nearby desk, Carlyle folded his arms. ‘Sonia,’ he said wearily, ‘why were you arrested?’

  ‘There was a bit of a fight at the Racetrack last night. Someone called the police.’

  ‘And your involvement was?’

  ‘Innocent bystander,’ she said, carefully tapping on his keyboard.

  ‘You are turning into a right shit magnet, aren’t you?’

  She giggled again. ‘More like a puke magnet.’ Pushing the chair back from the desk, she gave him a blow-by-blow account of the night’s events. ‘Poor old Morag was sent to A&E at UCH. The rest of them are downstairs.’

  ‘I suppose I’d better go and take a look, then.’ Heading for the stairs, he shouted over his shoulder, ‘Can I get you a coffee, or anything?’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ she said cheerily. ‘Umar’s gone to get me something from the canteen.’

  ‘Good for him,’ Carlyle muttered, ‘the smarmy sod.’

  A look of profound disappointment swept across the face of Constable Mike Proctor as the inspector appeared in front of him. ‘I was hoping you were Vaughan,’ he said dolefully.

  Having no idea who Vaughan was, Carlyle simply nodded.

  ‘He should have relieved me by now,’ Proctor yawned. ‘I’ve been here all night.’

  ‘Think of the overtime,’ was the only consolation that the inspector could offer.

  Proctor patted his already ample stomach. ‘I’m thinking of a bacon sandwich.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ Carlyle gestured over his shoulder towards the cells. ‘I hear that you had a busy night last night.’

  Proctor raised his eyes to the heavens. ‘It was like Piccadilly Circus in here. Most of them have gone now though. Sammy Baldwin-Lee was screaming and moaning till his lawyer got him out.’ He looked up at the inspector. ‘You know who he is, don’t ya?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Carlyle said, making a mental note to go and visit Sammy in his lair before too long – encouraged by a vague sense that he might be able to dig up something to his advantage. ‘Everyone knows Sammy.’

  ‘Great club, the Racetrack. Great grub too.’

  Carlyle shot the portly constable a sharp look.

  ‘So I’ve heard,’ Proctor added swiftly.

  ‘So who’s left?’

  ‘Just the one bloke. Sonia’s punter.’

  Stands to reason, Carlyle thought tiredly. ‘Why hasn’t he been sprung yet?’

  ‘Refuses to give his name. Not sure he speaks English. He’s a Chinese bloke, I think.’

  Wrinkling his nose at the smell, Carlyle stopped Proctor from closing the door behind him. Happy enough to oblige, the constable lumbered off back down the corridor to dream of bacon and await his tardy replacement.

  Not venturing any further into the cell than was absolutely necessary, the inspector surveyed the figure lying on the bench in front of him. Even in his dishevelled and malodorous state, the man had a patrician air. Long-limbed and lean, he had a shock of expertly dyed black hair, and his firm jawline was encased in salt and pepper stubble. His dark suit, albeit crumpled and stained, was clearly of excellent quality, and his brogues, which had been placed neatly by the door, bore the logo of an ultra-expensive English brand.

  From down the corridor came the sound of voices; it looked like Vaughan had finally turned up. Slowly, the mystery man swung his feet off the bench and slid into a sitting position. With his hands by his sides, he looked at Carlyle through expressionless eyes.

  ‘OK.’ Placing his hands in his pockets, the inspector remained in the centre of the doorway. ‘I assume you speak English, otherwise you wouldn’t have been in Sammy’s VIP room last night. My name is Carlyle, I am an inspector at this police station. From what I understand, you were the victim of an assault. You could have been out of here hours ago, if you had simply explained who you were and given a statement. I assume you’re keeping schtum because you’re embarrassed about the hookers.’ The man kept his expression blank, but Carlyle could see that he understood. ‘Well, I don’t care about that.’ He looked down the hallway. ‘Let’s get out of here. You can get cleaned up, make a phone call if you need to. We’ll grab some breakfast and I’ll help you get this sorted out.’

  Sitting stock still, Ren Qi looked at the inspector suspiciously. Finally he spoke: ‘What does schtum mean?’

  TWENTY-TWO

  Edna Holmes, the head dinner lady at Charing Cross, was chalking up the Specials for the day on the blackboard when Carlyle walked into the empty canteen, a rather sheepish Ren Qi in tow. ‘We’re closed,’ she told them.

  Turning on the Celtic charm, Carlyle put a friendly hand on her shoulder. ‘Not for me, surely.’

  She shrugged off his hand. ‘Don’t try to schmooz
e me, Inspector Carlyle. And as for your friend there,’ she waved a piece of chalk in the direction of Ren, like a referee administering a red card, ‘tough night, was it? He looks like he was dragged through a hedge backwards.’ Sniffing the air, she added, ‘Amongst other things.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Carlyle sighed, ‘he doesn’t quite meet the dress code, but we are in dire need of sustenance. And anyway, I thought this fine establishment was supposed to be a twenty-four-hour operation.’

  ‘Maybe in the minds of folk who don’t have to actually run a kitchen,’ Edna grumbled, her accent as pronounced as it had been on the day that the young Miss Edna Hardy had left Kilkenny, almost thirty-five years earlier. She tapped on the board with her chalk.

  He scanned the menu. ‘It can’t be goulash again, surely?’

  Edna, whose culinary heritage was strictly 1970s fare, had long since dispensed with any pretence of interest in customer feedback. ‘Whaddya mean? It’s good for you. It’s just stew. I gave it to my own kids all the time.’

  ‘How are the family?’ Carlyle asked. He knew that the longer he kept the conversation going, the more likely Edna was to relent and let them have something to eat.

  Crossing herself, the dinner lady raised her eyes to the heavens and muttered a reference to the power of sin. Taking that as his cue, the inspector ordered a couple of coffees and directed Ren to go and sit at a table in the corner.

  ‘And Father Zukowski?’ he asked, keen to keep Edna talking as she moved automatically to the ancient coffee machine behind the counter. Aside from family, religion was the one totally reliable area of small talk he could fall back on. The woman would visit nearby Corpus Christi after work almost every day.

  ‘He’s struggling, Inspector, to be honest.’ She placed two mugs of black coffee on a tray, spilling both of them in the process.

  ‘Oh? How so?’ Peering over the counter, he tried to locate any filled rolls that had been hidden away back in the kitchen.

  ‘The congregation, Inspector, it’s all Filipinos these days. The Father and I, we’re the only white people left. It’s hard for the poor man. How can he relate to his flock?’