Acts of Violence (Inspector Carlyle)

by James Craig

  ‘Ah.’ Blushing, Carlyle refused to meet Roche’s quizzical gaze.

  ‘Once they check my bona fides, they will ask him to give me a call.’

  Yes, yes, Carlyle thought, all right. Don’t rub it in. But Elmhirst was already heading back down the stairs in triumph.

  ‘I’ll leave you two to chat,’ was her parting shot.

  ‘Quite a woman,’ was Roche’s only comment as Elmhirst disappeared from view.

  ‘You’re not here to beat me up as well, are you?’ Carlyle asked.

  ‘Me?’ Roche widened her eyes in mock horror. ‘Would I ever?’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘So what can I do for you?’

  Roche gestured towards his desk. ‘Grab your coat. We’re going out.’

  Once they made it on to Chandos Place, Roche directed him towards a red Alfa Romeo.

  ‘Nice car,’ said Carlyle, as he slid into the passenger seat. ‘Nothing but the best for SO15, eh?’

  Roche mumbled something rude as she started the engine and pulled away from the kerb. Reaching the Strand, they made a right turn and were held up in a line of traffic at a red light.

  ‘So where are we going?’ he asked, finally tiring of waiting for an explanation.

  ‘I thought we would go and see Gerald Howard,’ she said, in a tone that suggested a casual social visit.

  It took the inspector a moment or two to place the name. ‘The drunk who saw the ninjas?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  The lights changed and they began edging forward. At this rate, he reckoned they might make it under Admiralty Arch in about an hour. ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘They found Michael Nicholson last night.’

  Tallow Business Services. Sonia Coverdale’s client.

  ‘Yes, indeed.’

  Roche kept her eyes firmly on the road ahead, even though they were travelling at barely five miles an hour. ‘He was found in the back of a burned-out Porsche Cayenne up in Camden.’

  ‘How did you identify him so quickly?’

  ‘We didn’t,’ Roche said tartly. ‘Some computer did. You find an incinerated corpse, you automatically cross-check it against the Missing Persons list. Nicholson was near the top, given he’s so recent, and his dental records checked out.’

  Carlyle nodded. ‘Impressive.’

  ‘Not as impressive as the way in which it’s being buried.’ She sent him a sideways glance. ‘For some reason, not obviously apparent to the likes of me, SO15 has dropped this like a steaming dog turd. They just want it all to go away as quickly as possible.’

  ‘So you came to me,’ Carlyle groaned.

  ‘Of course,’ Roche said cheerily. ‘I know that you’ll want to get to the bottom of this. You don’t look the other way.’ Seeing the doubtful expression on his face, she added: ‘Well, most of the time anyway.’

  Carlyle thought about that for a moment. The pieces were slowly coming together. ‘Ren Qi,’ he said, as they finally made it past Nelson’s Column.

  ‘Who?’

  The inspector ran through what the posh pimp Harry Cummins had told him about Ren Qi, aka Li Hang.

  ‘OK, Mr Bond,’ Roche said, changing gear, ‘explain to me why some Chinese big shot wants to assassinate a small-time London businessman?’

  ‘It might explain Mr Howard’s ninjas,’ he countered. ‘This guy Ren does seem to have quite an interesting entourage. If we make a working assumption that his people are responsible for what happened in Chelsea, then we can move on to their motives. That, in turn, will lead us to why SO15 want to look the other way.’

  ‘Simple, really.’ Spotting a gap in the traffic, Roche stomped on the accelerator and they shot on to The Mall.

  ‘Policework usually is,’ Carlyle said.

  ‘I’m not sure poor old Umar would agree,’ Roche sniggered as they headed towards Buckingham Palace.

  ‘Poor old Umar, my arse,’ the inspector snorted. As they reached the next line of stationary traffic, he told Roche about his sergeant’s photographic exploits.

  Laughing, Roche shook her head. ‘No way!’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Just as well the silly sod didn’t send me anything like that.’

  ‘Maybe he feels that your relationship hasn’t quite reached the right level yet,’ Carlyle chortled. Then: ‘All joking aside, it’s got serious consequences. It looks very much as if he’s for the high jump. Even getting shot won’t be enough to save him from the HR mullahs.’

  ‘That’s the problem with all this digital technology,’ Roche observed, ‘it allows boys to be even more badly behaved than they were before. In my day, they’d just sit in their bedrooms, playing with themselves. Now they want to share what they get up to with the world.’

  ‘He’s hardly a boy,’ Carlyle corrected her.

  ‘We live in an infantilized culture.’

  ‘But why would you take pictures of your willy and send them to people you barely know?’

  ‘Because you can.’

  ‘I just don’t get it.’

  ‘Just as well,’ were Roche’s final words on the subject.

  For a while, they sat in silence.

  Heading along Constitution Hill, the inspector watched a steady stream of joggers making their way through Green Park. A statuesque blonde accelerated past a fat man who looked like he was about to have a heart attack, while an angry-looking bloke in a Radiohead T-shirt stopped by a tree to do a set of squats, moving up and down too quickly for the exercises to be of any use. Carlyle’s mind drifted back to an evening, years earlier, when he himself had been jogging past that very tree. It was late in the day as the inspector stumbled across a young girl, alone and seemingly lost. The child spoke no English. Eventually, he discovered that her name was Alzbetha. She had been brought to London from the Ukraine by people traffickers. After he had placed her in the care of Social Services, the criminals had snatched her back.

  Carlyle was not the kind of man who believed in things like ‘fate’ or ‘destiny’. The fact that he had been in that park at the same time as the girl had temporarily eluded her captors was nothing more than a coincidence. Even so, from the first moment that he had come across her, something deep inside the inspector’s being screamed that he had been meant to find this child. Having done so, it was his duty to look after her, keep her safe and do what he could to see that she had at least a chance of something approaching a decent life.

  If he had been able to do only one thing of merit in his entire police career, that should have been it. He was a policeman. He should have been able to protect one single child.

  Alzbetha, I am truly sorry.

  Roche caught a glimpse of the look on his face. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

  Remembering how she had always been good at reading what was going on in his head, the inspector turned his expression into a grimace. ‘Just a bit of pain in my foot,’ he told her. It was a convenient lie; the reality was that his foot had been much improved of late. ‘Sprained ligaments.’

  ‘You should get that looked at,’ Roche said blandly. ‘You’re reaching that age where things start to go wrong.’

  ‘I’m not that old.’

  ‘I’m just talking about proper care and maintenance,’ Roche scolded.

  ‘You sound like Helen.’

  ‘That’s because we’re both right.’ Roche cackled. ‘You don’t know how lucky you are, having two smart women looking out for you.’

  ‘How very true.’ Placing his hands in his lap, Carlyle took a deep breath. Now felt like a good time to pop the question. ‘If Umar does get the chop, would you be interested in coming back?’ The words came out in a rush, causing Roche to do a double take.

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yes, why not? I can’t think of anyone better. There’s certainly no one I’d rather have take the job.’

  ‘I’m honoured,’ Roche laughed, placing a hand on her chest. ‘But what about that Amazon you’ve already got working for you b
ack at Charing Cross?’

  ‘Sergeant Elmhirst is great,’ Carlyle explained, ‘but she’s only going to be temporary.’

  ‘Things have a way of starting out as temporary,’ Roche observed, ‘and ending up as permanent. Anyway, I’m sure that you could get Simpson to extend her stay if you wanted to.’

  The inspector shook his head. ‘She’s being fast tracked – that girl’s going places. She’ll be after Simpson’s job before too long.’

  ‘Ah. And you’d rather have someone who’s going nowhere, like me?’

  ‘No, no,’ Carlyle protested. ‘You know what I mean.’

  Another red light loomed in front of them. Roche brought them to a gentle stop behind a sightseeing bus. ‘Not really,’ she said.

  ‘If Umar is on the way out, I’m going to need a proper long-term replacement. And if you’re not happy at SO15.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’ she shot back, shifting the car into gear as the lights changed in their favour.

  ‘Why are we sitting here?’ Carlyle countered ‘If SO15 finds out you’re going behind their back to breathe life into an investigation they want to bury, your days there are going to be numbered anyway. You’ll need to have a contingency plan, if nothing else.’

  ‘Get out the way, you bloody idiot!’ Smacking the horn, Roche gestured angrily at a cyclist who suddenly cut across her.

  Carlyle looked at her expectantly.

  ‘One thing at a time,’ Roche said crossly. ‘Let’s just go and see Gerald Howard and take it from there, shall we?’

  TWENTY-NINE

  Gerald Howard was a small, trim man in a green cardigan and slippers. He had a couple of days’ worth of stubble on his chin and his hair was in need of a comb. Clearly delighted to have some company, even if it was only a couple of coppers, he waved them inside his flat.

  Standing in the living room, Howard announced that he had been enjoying a cigarette and a ‘very nice bottle of Merlot’ and immediately offered the pair of them something to drink. Not knowing a good Merlot from a smack in the face, the inspector found it easy to decline the offer of a glass of wine, accepting instead a black coffee. With Roche taking a cup of tea, Howard shuffled off into the kitchen after instructing the two police officers to make themselves at home.

  Out of habit, Carlyle looked slowly round the room. It was barely large enough for a sofa and an armchair, with a coffee table in the middle, but it seemed cosy enough. In the corner, a small TV was surrounded by DVD box sets for TV shows that he didn’t recognize. The far wall was lined with books from floor to ceiling; mainly world history and political biographies, with a sprinkling of management guides. On several shelves were framed photographs showing a younger Howard in various exotic locales. In each one he was smiling, with a protective arm around a small, mousey, uncomfortable-looking blonde woman, presumably, was Mrs Howard.

  ‘What do you think?’ Roche whispered, once their host started banging about in the kitchen.

  The inspector’s gaze returned to the coffee table, on which sat a wine glass and the half-empty bottle of red wine, along with an ashtray and a packet of cigarettes. ‘He looks like a sozzled old maths teacher from a provincial fifties boarding school,’ was the inspector’s verdict. ‘A nice enough sort of chap, but functioning on less than full power once you get into the afternoon.’

  ‘Quite.’

  Carlyle gestured at the photographs. ‘I wonder what happened to the wife?’

  ‘Dunno. But I certainly think he lives here on his own.’

  ‘It would certainly help explain the boozing.’ Carlyle wondered if he would go downhill if Helen wasn’t around. Probably. He seemed to remember reading somewhere about how men needed marriage more than women and struggled to cope on their own. It wasn’t a theory he felt any particular need to test himself.

  ‘This is where he saw it happen.’ Roche walked over to the window. When Carlyle joined her, she pointed to the street below. ‘Marvin Taylor’s car was down there, on the corner.’

  Carlyle nodded. He could still see a scrap of police tape hanging limply from a nearby lamppost; the last remnants of an already forgotten crime scene.

  ‘Marvin’s guys were killed in an alley on this side,’ Roche continued. ‘You can’t see it from here, but I’ll walk you down there later. We didn’t find much but you might as well have a look.’

  ‘Quiet, isn’t it?’ was the inspector’s only observation.

  ‘You’ve got to be seriously loaded to live around here,’ Roche reminded him. ‘You don’t get many people on the streets at any time of the day.’

  ‘No, I suppose not. Why walk if you can take the Daimler?’

  ‘Here we go.’ Howard appeared with their drinks on a tray. Much to the inspector’s delight, there was also a large plate of chocolate biscuits. Placing the tray on the glass coffee table, Howard gestured towards the sofa. ‘Please,’ he said pleasantly, ‘take a seat.’

  For a few moments, they busied themselves with the drinks. Helping himself to a biscuit, the inspector took a nibble and beamed.

  ‘Very nice.’

  ‘You can’t beat a chocolate digestive,’ Howard agreed, offering the plate to Roche. When she declined, he placed it back on the table and grabbed one for himself. Breaking it in two, he popped half into his mouth and chewed happily. ‘That’s one of the nice things about being back in London. In my last posting, they were almost impossible to lay your hands on. In the end, my mother started sending us food parcels every month.’

  ‘You were working abroad?’ Roche asked.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Howard smiled. ‘I was in the Diplomatic Service.’ He mentioned a country Carlyle had never heard of. ‘In East Africa,’ he added, helpfully. ‘I was the Deputy Ambassador there until nine months ago.’

  Carlyle had no particular interest in their host’s career history, but he knew he was going to get it anyway, so he nodded politely.

  ‘Then I had the misfortune to be sent on a team-building exercise in Wales by the Foreign Office. Run by a bunch of management consultants. Not surprisingly, they were total idiots. When I wouldn’t join in with their silly games, they said I wasn’t a team player. The next thing I knew, I was being sized up for a desk job back in London, to sit out the rest of my days.’

  ‘So what did you do?’ the sergeant enquired. Unlike her boss, Roche seemed genuinely interested in the man’s story.

  ‘I got the lawyers involved, threatened to sue for constructive dismissal and took them to the cleaners.’ Howard raised a chuckle, but Carlyle could see that he considered it a pyrrhic victory. ‘Got a lump sum and my full pension – five years early. A terrible waste of taxpayers’ money really.’

  ‘Not the first,’ Carlyle mused, ‘and it won’t be the last.’

  ‘Not to mention a thirty-year career down the drain.’

  Roche gestured at one of the photographs with her mug. ‘So where is Mrs Howard?’

  Howard’s bottom lip began to quiver and for a moment it looked as if he might burst into tears. However, much to the inspector’s relief, he managed to pull himself together. ‘Ellen is still out there. She works for the Service too. They won’t let her come back to London and if she leaves now, well, she’s a few years younger than me, so her pension wouldn’t be up to much. For the moment, we have a bit of a long-distance relationship.’

  What you might call a trial separation, Carlyle decided.

  ‘Couldn’t you have just stayed on, out there?’ Roche asked.

  Saying nothing, Howard simply shook his head. Popping the other half of the biscuit into his mouth, he chewed it with a grim determination.

  You’re not telling us the whole story, Carlyle thought, are you? Happily, it was none of his business. Tiring of the idle chit chat, he pointed at Roche. ‘The reason we’re here, sir, is that the sergeant thought that you might be able to explain to me what you saw on the night that Marvin Taylor and his colleagues were killed.’

  Howard washed down the digestive with a m
outhful of Merlot. ‘I think I can do rather better than that, Inspector.’

  Carlyle glanced at Roche who made a no idea what he’s taking about gesture. ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes.’ Howard finished the wine left in his glass and reached for the bottle. ‘I don’t have to explain what I saw. I can show you.’

  The spare bedroom was scarcely big enough for the three of them to stand in at the same time. In the corner, by the window, a large computer screen perched precariously on a tiny table. Switching on the machine, Howard tapped a couple of times on the keyboard, bringing up a video player. ‘I shot this on my new phone,’ he explained. ‘My daughter-in-law got it for me as a retirement present. She showed me how to work it too. A lovely girl. Lives in Maidenhead with the grandkids.’

  ‘The phone is registered to the daughter-in-law,’ Roche explained, ‘which is why it took us a while to track Mr Howard down.’

  That, and the fact that he was too drunk to give his name, Carlyle thought.

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Howard sheepishly. ‘I’m very sorry about that.’

  ‘We got there in the end,’ the inspector responded. ‘It was lucky that you were filming in the first place.’

  ‘It’s not something I make a habit of,’ Howard told them. ‘I was playing with the phone, trying it out, when I saw what happened. I’d had one or two and, I have to say, I didn’t know what to do, whether to record what was happening or call the police.’

  Carlyle nodded.

  ‘Anyway, this is what I got.’ Enlarging the video so that it almost filled the whole screen, he hit the Play button and stood aside to allow them a better view. Carlyle and Roche stood in silence as they studied the shaky footage of the street outside. Parked on the corner, you could see the bonnet of Marvin Taylor’s van but not the cab, or the man inside. The time code on the bottom of the screen showed fifteen seconds of nothing – just an empty street. Then the first figure appeared, dressed all in black, with a baseball cap pulled down over its eyes.

  Then a second.

  Then a third.

  ‘The ninjas,’ Howard said. ‘It was the first word that came into my mind, I’m afraid.’