Acts of Violence (Inspector Carlyle)

by James Craig

  ‘You can keep it.’

  ‘No thanks. Bloody Umar.’

  Reluctantly, Simpson took the picture and shoved it back into her bag. ‘Sergeant Sligo is in quite a bit of trouble.’

  Carlyle nodded. ‘Who complained? Elmhirst?’

  ‘There have been two complaints from colleagues who both received a copy of that picture but I don’t believe that Sergeant Elmhirst was one of them.’ Simpson removed her purse from the bag. ‘That is one of the problems the Federation is going to have; once disciplinary proceedings begin, more complaints may well emerge. It’s going to be hard enough for Umar to survive this as it is, but if there are four or five, well . . .’

  ‘Quite.’ The Police Federation might be one of the most successful trade unions ever, but even it would have trouble saving a member who liked to flash his member so indiscriminately. ‘What the hell did he think he was doing?’

  ‘People do strange things,’ was all Simpson could offer in response.

  ‘I suppose. Anyway, thanks for the heads-up. What happens next?’

  ‘I need to conduct a preliminary inquiry,’ Simpson said briskly, her inner line manager kicking in, ‘and then, if there is deemed a case to answer – which seems a formality in this situation – we will have a meeting with Sergeant Sligo and ask him to explain his side of the story. Then, barring some miraculous explanation, he will be suspended pending a formal hearing.’

  ‘OK.’ Carlyle thought about that for a moment. ‘The thing is, I could do with him right now, what with this German business.’ And the ‘ninjas’.

  ‘I can’t sit on it for too long but one of the girls who made a complaint is on holiday this week and next, so you’ve got a bit of time. Of course, you have to keep this under your hat,’ Simpson chuckled to herself, ‘no pun intended.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Umar will have plenty of time to prepare his response but you mustn’t warn him in advance. We can’t have him running around trying to nobble the witnesses.’

  ‘I don’t think he’d try to do that.’ Carlyle felt a sudden urge to protect his wayward colleague. ‘He might be a bit immature but he’s not threatening.’

  ‘That’s not really for you or me to decide, is it?’

  ‘Perhaps not. But you know what I mean.’

  ‘Whatever we think privately,’ Simpson stated, ‘we have to be above reproach in the way that we are seen to handle these matters. Apart from anything else, this kind of thing is manna from heaven for the papers.’ Picking up her bag, she hoisted it onto her shoulder. ‘Which reminds me, I see that your journalist chum Bernie Gilmore has been writing about Operation Oakwood.’

  ‘He’s hardly my chum,’ said Carlyle rather defensively.

  Simpson waved away his protests. ‘There is considerable unhappiness upstairs about leaks on this one.’

  ‘Nothing to do with me, this Operation . . .’

  ‘Oakwood.’

  ‘Don’t know anything about it.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Simpson looked disbelieving.

  ‘Speaking of leaks,’ Carlyle said brightly, ‘do you think we should let the press know about the Kortmann kidnapping?’

  ‘Ah, yes, exactly. That was the other thing I wanted to discuss. Where are we on that?’

  Carlyle explained about the sleeping pills he had discovered at the Garden Hotel, glossing over how exactly they had come into his possession.

  ‘And that’s your only line of enquiry?’ she scoffed. ‘Kortmann’s private eye? What about Sylvia Tosches?’

  ‘If you mean Barbara Hutton and her husband,’ Carlyle replied, ‘we’re still looking for them. But there’s something about this guy Sebastian Gregori . . . I think he’s trying to run some scam.’

  ‘Well, get some proof, dammit. Used to be you’d never act on a hunch; now it’s all you seem to do.’

  ‘Hardly.’

  Simpson jabbed an angry finger in Carlyle’s direction. ‘Getting old and lazy, that’s what it is.’

  ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence, boss.’

  ‘Prove me wrong.’ She gestured for him to get out of the doorway. ‘Have you informed Kortmann’s family yet?’

  ‘No. I was waiting to see if Gregori did that.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He’s not made any contact, as far as I know.’

  ‘Hmm. Maybe he is bent. Keep digging. But don’t be too long about it. At the very least, we will have to speak to the German Embassy before your mate Bernie gets the scoop.’

  ‘He’s not—’ Carlyle began, but Simpson darted out into the hallway. He chased after her. ‘One final thing.’

  Pausing at the top of the stairs, Simpson checked her watch. ‘Make it quick, Inspector, I’m due to see Maverick in less than an hour.’

  ‘Maverick?’

  ‘My mount for the Trooping the Colour. He’s quite a specimen.’

  ‘Good for him.’

  ‘After that, I’ve got to go and talk to an MP who claims he’s been the victim of a bullying campaign on Twitter.’

  Carlyle gave a sympathetic tut. ‘Busy day.’

  ‘People are so bloody thin-skinned these days.’ Simpson heaved a sigh. ‘Tea and sympathy, that’s just about all I do.’

  ‘And riding the horse.’ Ignoring her glare, the inspector quickly ran through what he had come across in relation to Marvin Taylor’s death, Tallow Business Services and the mysterious Li Hang, aka Ren Qi.

  ‘Give it to SO15.’ Digging out a credit card from her purse, the Commander began down the stairs. ‘No doubt Alison Roche will make sure it gets properly looked at. After all, she learned at the feet of the master – John Carlyle himself.’ Laughing at her own joke, she disappeared to collect her fancy titfer.

  On the way back to Charing Cross, he put a call in to Roche. The phone rang for what seemed like an eternity before the sergeant picked up.

  ‘Inspector. What can I do you for?’

  Carlyle was conscious of a strange humming noise in the background. ‘This isn’t a bad time, is it?’

  ‘I’m not on duty,’ Roche pointed out, ‘but it’s OK. I can talk.’

  The noise was getting louder. ‘Where are you?’ Carlyle asked.

  There was a pause before Roche said: ‘I’m at the Beekeeping Club.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The Beekeeping Club,’ she repeated. ‘SO15 set it up a couple of months ago to help firearms officers de-stress.’

  ‘And is it working?’ Carlyle asked, intrigued.

  ‘This is only my second visit, but I’ll keep you posted.’

  ‘Just make sure you don’t get caught in any sting operations,’ the inspector giggled.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Roche said flatly. ‘Very good. Never heard that one before. Not in the last ten seconds anyway.’

  ‘Sorry.’ The inspector bit his upper lip.

  ‘Was there something I could help you with?’

  Was there? Distracted by the bees, it took Carlyle a moment to remember the purpose of his call. ‘I was just wondering,’ he said finally, ‘did you ever find out any more about those “ninjas”?’

  ‘Nah. They eventually tracked down the bloke who made the call but he turned out to be a complete alkie. I spoke to him myself, or at least I tried. It was barely eleven in the morning and the guy was already sozzled.’

  ‘A quality wino then?’

  ‘Oh, a perfectly nice bloke. Lives in a flat that’s probably worth a couple of million, if not more.’

  Carlyle let out a low whistle.

  ‘Easily. Gerald Howard’s certainly no dosser. More of your nice middle-class dipso. A functioning alcoholic, at least up until lunchtime. The problem is, he was probably on bottle number four or five by the time it all happened. By that stage he could barely remember his own name. Hardly what you could call a reliable witness.’

  Carlyle recalled the statuesque associate of Ren Qi who had turned up at the police station. ‘I was wondering if one of the ninjas could have been a
woman.’

  ‘Boss,’ Roche responded, exasperated, ‘they could have been little green men for all we know. There’s nothing to show that they existed at all.’

  ‘Someone sliced Marvin’s head off,’ he reminded her. ‘That was hardly a figment of Mr Howard’s imagination.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Could a woman have done it?’

  ‘Yes, in theory. You’d need a strong stomach, as well as strong arms though.’

  Stepping off the pavement, he was almost knocked down by a Lycra-clad cyclist racing round the corner. ‘Watch where you’re fucking going,’ the rider snarled. Carlyle flipped him the finger but the guy was already fifty yards down the road, shooting through the next red light.

  ‘I hope you get taken out by a bus, you git,’ the inspector shouted after him, to the amusement of his fellow pedestrians nearby.

  ‘What?’ Roche demanded on the other end of the phone.

  ‘Nothing,’ he replied, stepping back onto the pavement.

  ‘So, have you got anything? How’s the widow bearing up?’

  ‘Nothing worth reporting – not so far, at least. Naomi’s doing OK, I suppose, under the circumstances. Your boyfriend hasn’t been to see her again, has he?’

  ‘Oliver Steed is not my boyfriend,’ Roche responded curtly, ‘and no, he hasn’t been to see Mrs Taylor again.’

  ‘Just as well,’ Carlyle chuckled.

  Ending the call, Carlyle approached the next crossing with care, looking round for any more rogue cyclists before stepping tentatively off the kerb.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Lying on the bed in Room 226, staring at the ceiling, he finally realized what was bothering him. Swinging his feet on to the floor, Sebastian Gregori padded into the bathroom and stood in front of the sink. All of his pots and bottles were lined up in front of the mirror, in the usual fashion. Missing, however, were the sleeping pills: Werner Kortmann’s prescription.

  ‘Hell.’

  The only possible explanation was that the cop had taken the tablets.

  His plan was beginning to unravel. Gregori had assumed that the Huttons would have been arrested by now, paving the way for Kortmann’s brutalized body to be found in a remote ditch, a final victim of a long-forgotten class war. The Huttons, however, were refusing to play their part in the drama that he had so carefully constructed. With their unexpected disappearing act, his whole timetable had been thrown out of kilter. Worse still, that arsehole cop was making no effort to track them down. Instead, he seemed more interested in Sebastian himself.

  For several moments, Gregori stared blankly at the mirror. Then he grabbed his wash bag and began packing.

  Carlyle was walking along Orange Street when his phone started vibrating.

  ‘He’s leaving.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s leaving,’ Rosalind McDonald repeated. ‘Sebastian Gregori just came downstairs and said he was checking out. I thought that you’d want to know right away.’

  ‘Yes, thanks.’ Calculating that he was only a couple of minutes from the hotel, Carlyle upped his pace as he passed the back of the National Gallery. ‘How much luggage has he got?’

  ‘Just a weekend bag, I think,’ McDonald replied, understanding immediately what the inspector was getting at. ‘He hasn’t asked for a cab. Then again, there’s roadworks outside at the moment, so he’ll have to walk a bit to find one.’

  ‘OK. I’m not far away. Get the desk to delay him for a couple of minutes if you can. I’ll see if I can pick him up when he comes out.’ Breaking into a brisk jog, he ended the call and immediately pulled up another number.

  Umar picked up on the third ring. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘You sound like you’re out of breath.’

  Ignoring his sergeant’s amused tone, Carlyle explained what he needed.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘No rush,’ said Carlyle sarcastically, ending the call. This time he didn’t worry about the traffic, challenging drivers and cyclists alike as he strode across Charing Cross Road and nipped down the pedestrianized Cecil Court.

  In the event, he had a good two minutes to spare. Using the cover provided by a utility company van, one of several that had been parked on that stretch of St Martin’s Lane, Carlyle watched the entrance to the hotel.

  He was just starting to fear that he had missed his man when Gregori appeared. Hesitating on the pavement, he began moving in the direction of Trafalgar Square before turning 180 degrees and heading north. The inspector let the man get twenty yards ahead; as he started following, Umar fell in step next to him.

  ‘Did you see our man?’ Carlyle asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Umar nodded. ‘Gapper’s trying to make his way up Charing Cross Road, if we need him.’ Joel Gapper was one of the drivers at Charing Cross. ‘He’s in a green Astra.’

  ‘Nice,’ Carlyle scoffed, keeping an eye on Gregori on the far side of the road. ‘Not going to be much use in this traffic, is he?’

  ‘If it’s gridlocked for us,’ Umar said chirpily, ‘it’s the same for the bad guys.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Carlyle mused. ‘Maybe he’s not going very far.’

  ‘Or maybe he’ll take the tube.’

  Irritatingly, the sergeant’s prediction was almost instantly proved to be correct. Reaching Long Acre, Gregori hustled across the road, heading west.

  ‘Looks like he is going underground,’ Carlyle groaned, ignoring Umar’s smirk as he upped the pace. ‘Bugger.’

  Following his quarry into Leicester Square station, the inspector assumed that Gregori must be heading for the Piccadilly Line and the airport. Instead, however, the private eye took the escalators for the Northern Line, ducking into a passage for the northbound platform when he reached the bottom.

  ‘What do we do?’ Umar asked.

  ‘Keep following,’ said the inspector, elbowing a tourist out of the way as he clattered down the left-hand side of the escalator, his sergeant following reluctantly behind.

  ‘What are we looking for?’

  ‘How the hell should I know?’ the inspector muttered under his breath. ‘We’ll know it when we see it.’

  ‘What do we do if he recognizes us?’

  ‘Let’s just see what happens, shall we?’ Carlyle said impatiently.

  ‘You’re the boss,’ Umar responded sullenly.

  ‘God give me strength.’ Jumping off the escalator, Carlyle headed after his man.

  With the Northern Line enduring one of its all too frequent service glitches, the platform was almost completely full. After some searching, Carlyle caught a glimpse of Gregori under the indicator board, staring at an advert for Greek holidays. In the event, he let two Edgware Road trains go through the station without getting on either. According to the board, the next train, due in three minutes, was for the High Barnet branch. Carlyle consulted the map on the wall on the far side of the tracks. ‘If he’s going on the High Barnet line, that means he’s not gonna get off before Kentish Town at the earliest.’

  ‘There’s another nine or ten stations after that,’ Umar fretted.

  ‘I know, but we’ll have to busk it.’ Carlyle gestured back towards the escalators. ‘Get Gapper and head towards Kentish Town. I’ll give you a bell once I know what’s going on.’

  ‘Not much of a plan,’ Umar grumbled.

  ‘Thank you for your support,’ Carlyle replied politely. ‘Now bugger off and find the driver.’

  By the time the tube train rumbled into Finchley Central, the passengers had thinned out to the point where, apart from a pensioner and a couple of schoolboys playing hookey, Carlyle had an entire carriage to himself. Gregori was in the next carriage along, towards the far end; far enough away to be unconscious of the inspector’s presence but close enough to make it hard for Carlyle to disembark unnoticed. They were back above ground now; once the mobile operator had finally condescended to provide him with a signal, he sent Umar a text: go to the end of the line.

  Someone had discarded a cop
y of the Telegraph on the seat next to him. Picking it up, Carlyle was disappointed to find the Sport section missing. Ignoring all the political nonsense, he went to the Obituaries section, alighting on the story of a Spitfire pilot from Tunbridge Wells who had been shot down over Sicily during World War II. After escaping from a German firing squad and trekking over the Alps to Switzerland, the guy had survived to the ripe old age of ninety-one.

  ‘Not a bad innings,’ the inspector mumbled to himself. ‘Not bad at all. If you offered me that, I’d bite your hand off.’

  As the train pulled into Woodside Park, two stops from the end of the line, Carlyle returned the paper to where he had found it. Looking up, he saw Sebastian Gregori get up out of his seat and move towards the doors. ‘Shit.’ Quickly he rang Umar’s number. The sergeant answered on the first ring.

  ‘Where are you?’ the inspector demanded.

  ‘About ten minutes or so away.’

  ‘Change of plan – he’s getting off at Woodside Park.’ He paused while Umar held a quick conflab with Gapper.

  ‘We’ll meet you there.’

  ‘OK, hurry up.’ Keeping the line open, Carlyle glumly surveyed the empty platform. With no one else around, it would be impossible for him to follow Gregori undetected. As the tube came to a halt, he watched the doors open and gave a quick glance to his right to confirm that the German had indeed got off. Fortunately, he was walking away from the inspector. Jumping to his feet, Carlyle hovered at the doors for as long as possible. As they began to close, he slipped on to the platform, head bowed.

  To leave the station by the main exit, you had to take a bridge over the tracks. Jogging up the steps, Carlyle kept himself out of Gregori’s line of vision, staying well behind the German until he had disappeared into the station building. Counting to ten, the inspector followed cautiously. As he stepped through the ticket barriers, he heard the sound of a car engine revving up, and saw Gregori driving out of the car park behind the wheel of a black BMW.

  ‘Brilliant,’ he hissed. ‘What are you going to do now, genius?’

  It was almost fifteen minutes later when Gapper screeched up to the kerb in the green Astra. The passenger window buzzed down and Umar looked at his boss expectantly.