Acts of Violence (Inspector Carlyle)

by James Craig

  Oh, bollocks.

  The glass slipped from his fingers and he pitched forward into darkness.

  ‘I thought we were on a date.’ Pushing away the half-eaten pizza on his plate, Oliver Steed scratched at his Coldplay T-shirt and stared sullenly into his beer.

  ‘Oli,’ Alison Roche said, exasperated, ‘I’m old enough to be your mother.’ She took another mouthful of the rather acidic house white and grimaced. ‘Well, almost.’

  ‘But I like older women,’ the boy whined. ‘It’s my thing. Cougars and all that.’

  ‘I am not a bloody cougar,’ Roche snapped, her voice a bit too loud. An older couple at the next table broke off their own conversation and started grinning at the two supposed lovebirds. The sergeant gripped her glass tightly. Dinner had been a mistake. She should have gone with the inspector to check out the Chinese bigwig instead. An hour in the presence of this snivelling brat had yielded no useful information whatsoever. Under the table, she felt a sweaty hand on her knee. ‘For God’s sake,’ she hissed, grabbing one of his fingers and pulling it sharply backwards, ‘behave.’

  ‘Ow.’ The boy sat upright, rubbing his finger. ‘What did you do that for?’

  ‘You can’t put your hands on me.’ Leaning across the table, her voice was barely a whisper now. ‘If you don’t get a grip, I’ll go and speak to your mum. Now, for the last time, explain to me why you didn’t properly log Gerald Howard’s video.’

  Oli’s eyebrows knitted together as he struggled to assemble the building blocks of a vaguely credible story. ‘Who says I didn’t?’

  ‘I do,’ Roche insisted. ‘And if you don’t explain to me what’s going on, I will make a formal complaint. Your career will be toast before it’s even started.’ She felt uncomfortable bullying the boy like this, but it was for his own good. If he didn’t learn now, he would come a cropper sooner rather than later.

  Oli took a sip of his beer and stifled a small burp.

  God, Roche thought, some poor girl is really going to luck out, pulling you.

  ‘Craven told me to ignore it,’ Steed said finally, fingering Inspector John Craven, SO15’s second-in-command, sidekick to the boss, Chief Inspector Will Dick.

  Finally, we’re making some progress. ‘Why?’

  ‘Dunno.’ Oli stared at the table. ‘He just said, this was going on the back burner. Not a priority.’ Looking up, he smiled maliciously. ‘And he said that I wasn’t to talk to you about it because you were a loose cannon who had a problem with authority.’

  Keeping her anger in check, Roche glided over the personal slight. ‘Presumably this order came from Dick himself?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Don’t know much, do you?’

  Stung by the barb, the boy retorted, ‘I heard some gossip that the spooks had asked for the matter to be shelved in the interests of national security.’

  In the interests of national security, my arse, Roche reflected. In the interests of doing business with China, no doubt. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘That’s all I heard.’ Finishing his beer, the boy stood up. ‘I’ve told you everything I know, so I’m going to push off.’ He grabbed his jacket and began weaving his way past the other diners, heading for the door. The couple at the next table gave Roche a sympathetic smirk as she watched him disappear out into the street. With a sigh of relief, the sergeant took a final sip of her wine and signalled for the bill.

  * * *

  Slowly coming to his senses, Carlyle blinked twice and wiggled first his toes and then his fingers. Everything seemed to be in working order, more or less. He had a thumping headache but at least the room wasn’t spinning.

  They had left him where he fell. Laboriously getting to his feet, the inspector headed out into the hallway. Moving at a glacial pace, he went from room to room in order to confirm what he already knew: the Chinese were gone.

  He glanced at his watch.

  ‘They’re probably on a plane somewhere over Germany by now,’ he grumbled to himself.

  He slowly realised that the throbbing in his head was being accompanied by a banging that was external to his skull. He tracked the noise to a large, spotless and apparently unused kitchen, where his gaze fell on a small wooden door in the far corner.

  ‘Hey. Open this bloody door!’ came a muffled voice.

  Despite his condition, Carlyle managed to muster the feeblest of smiles. ‘Hold on a sec.’ Fortunately, they had left the key in the lock. Opening it, he took a step back as Amelia Elmhirst staggered out of the pantry.

  ‘The buggers locked me up,’ she scowled.

  ‘I can see that.’

  Looking Carlyle up and down, her face darkened even further. ‘What the hell did you take that bloody drink for?’ she thundered.

  Holding up his hand, Carlyle signalled that he was not in the mood for an argument; especially when the sergeant was one hundred per cent in the right. Turning, he headed for the door.

  ‘What do we do now?’ Elmhirst asked, following after him.

  ‘Go home. Try and get some sleep.’ Carlyle stopped and waggled a weary finger at his colleague. ‘I’ll see you in the office tomorrow.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘And,’ Carlyle talked over her, ‘most importantly, not a word about this to anyone.’

  THIRTY-ONE

  Werner Kortmann munched listlessly on a slice of pizza. ‘I have never really liked Italian food,’ he said, tossing the crust back into the box and closing the garishly coloured lid. The pizza firm had an address in a town he had never heard of and a phone number he had no way of dialling.

  ‘My most sincere apologies,’ said Sebastian Gregori, cranking up the sarcasm, ‘but the choice was rather limited.’ Grabbing a slice of his own pepperoni pizza, he wolfed it down in three speedy bites.

  Kortmann washed the taste away with a mouthful of cola. ‘I have never really liked the Italians at all. Too theatrical, all of them. Everything has to be a drama . . . even lunch.’

  ‘Well, don’t worry,’ Gregori reassured him, ‘you won’t be going there any time soon.’

  ‘Why is that?’ Kortmann looked around the dirty room, feebly illuminated by a couple of battery-powered lamps, and shivered. The concrete floor was cold and damp; within hours of being moved here, he found himself thinking wistfully of the straw-filled cage that had been his previous home. Their current accommodation was another countryside retreat, on the ground floor of a shell of a house. Gregori had explained that the development, a ghost estate in the middle of nowhere, had been abandoned when the developer went bust after the financial crash and had never been completed.

  Through the gloom, Kortmann looked his captor in the eye. ‘Are you going to kill me?’

  Gregori patted the gun that bulged in his jacket pocket. ‘That depends.’

  Kortmann rubbed his ankle. His leg had been chained to a metal hook embedded in a block of concrete abandoned in the middle of the room when the builders had left. The dull ache in his lower back never left him and he would have paid a fortune for a few hours in a clean, crisp bed. Catching a whiff of his own body odour, he recoiled. ‘Depends on what?’

  The other man said nothing.

  ‘People will be looking for me.’ Kortmann tried to ignore his aching bladder. The chain only allowed him the freedom to move about a metre in any direction, and the place smelled enough like a toilet already.

  Munching on another slice of pizza, Gregori nodded. ‘Let them look,’ he said with his mouth full. ‘Do you really think that useless English policeman will find you in this – or any other – lifetime?’

  ‘He almost found you once,’ Kortmann countered, recalling when he had been bundled away from the farmhouse, Gregori screaming like a madman about ‘those damn cops’.

  ‘Pure chance.’ Gregori spat a mouthful of pizza towards his captive, the semi-masticated ball of cheese, dough and sausage landing at Kortmann’s feet. ‘He’ll never manage it again.’

  Kortmann sighed. Unfortunately, he shared his
captor’s view of the lugubrious police inspector. As a boy, he had grown up believing that the British police were the best in the world. It had taken just two days in London to fully disabuse him of that notion. He tried to change tack. ‘So, what is it that you want?’

  ‘You’ll see.’ Wiping his hands on his jeans, Gregori stood up. ‘In the meantime, you should just sit back and enjoy the show.’ He stepped up to the pizza box and kicked it into the corner. ‘Don’t think of this as being in captivity. Think of it more as an immersive interactive experience.’ He gestured around the room. ‘This is an opportunity to experience what Uli Eichinger went through all those years ago. It’s your chance to get closer to him.’

  When he finally made it home, Carlyle was surprised to find Helen still awake. The moment he walked into the bedroom, she dropped her iPad onto the bed and eyed him coolly over the top of her reading glasses.

  ‘Have you been drinking?’

  ‘Not really,’ Carlyle said tiredly, his head still thick from the Mickey Finn. Stripping off his shirt, he was looking forward to having a shower before clambering into bed. ‘Tough day.’

  Helen grunted something that he chose to interpret as an expression of sympathy.

  Carlyle gestured at the tablet. ‘What are you reading?’

  ‘Some stuff from Cancer Research.’ She shot him another challenging look. ‘You haven’t forgotten about your dad’s MRI scan tomorrow?’

  Oh, bollocks. ‘No, no,’ he lied hastily, kicking off his trousers.

  ‘Good. I spoke to him today. I think he’s a little bit nervous about it.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Carlyle quipped. ‘I’m quite nervous about it myself.’

  ‘So nervous that you forgot all about it.’

  ‘I didn’t—’

  Cutting him off, Helen reached over and switched off her bedside light, leaving the room in the weak orange gloom created by the light pollution from the city outside. ‘Remember to look after his wallet and his keys. Otherwise the magnet in the machine will knacker them.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Apparently the machine is very noisy. You’ll be able to see the scanning room through a window. And be prepared – the whole thing can take up to an hour and a half.’

  ‘Great,’ Carlyle sighed. He wished that Helen would just do it for him but he kept his mouth firmly shut. It was, after all, his responsibility. ‘At least we’ll know what’s going on.’

  ‘You won’t know there and then,’ Helen pointed out. ‘It’ll take a couple of weeks for the results to come through.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Carlyle groused, ‘what a palaver.’

  ‘Just be grateful that it’s not you having the scan.’ Plumping up her pillows, she disappeared under the duvet. ‘Your dad needs you.’ Suitably dismissed, he retreated to the shower.

  Ignoring the alarm clock, Carlyle stayed in bed, only surfacing when both Alice and Helen had left the flat. After a shave, and a further shower, he threw on some clothes and headed out. On the back of the front door, Helen had stuck a Post-it note on which she had scribbled Don’t forget the scan x.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Carlyle grumbled, ‘I won’t bloody forget.’

  Feeling the need for a little personal time in order to improve his mood, he took a leisurely stroll across Covent Garden, heading for work via a detour to a new café that had opened up on Maiden Lane the week before. Ordering a flat white and a large pastry, he took his time going through a copy of that morning’s Metro. The royal baby had finally popped out while Carlyle had been out for the count on Ren Qi’s carpet and bookies were now taking millions of pounds in bets on what the sprog would be called. ‘At least Bernie will be pleased,’ Carlyle muttered as he turned to the sports pages, ‘now that there’ll be more space again for his muck-raking.’

  Finally arriving at Charing Cross, he was dismayed to find Simpson waiting for him on the third floor. Perched on Umar’s desk, the Commander was deep in conversation with Amelia Elmhirst. As he approached, it was apparent that the sergeant was showing no ill-effects from her unfortunate detention the previous evening. Indeed, clear-eyed and freshly scrubbed, dressed in a pair of black jeans and a red leather jacket over a grey blouse, she looked very much her usual elegant self. By comparison, the Commander, dressed in what Carlyle imagined to be a trouser suit from M&S, looked positively dowdy.

  Turning to face the latecomer, the Commander appraised him coolly. ‘Inspector,’ she said satirically, ‘how nice to see you.’

  ‘Boss.’ Trying to gauge the lie of the land, Carlyle glanced at Elmhirst, but the sergeant was giving nothing away.

  ‘Heavy night?’ the Commander asked.

  Carlyle flopped into his chair.

  ‘I hear that you were off on another of your little adventures last night.’

  Ah. He glared at Elmhirst.

  ‘Don’t blame Amelia, John.’

  Amelia? The Sisterhood was ganging up on him. He made to protest but thought better of it. Better just to take his bollocking and move on.

  ‘I had a call from a Chief Inspector Will Dick at four-thirty this morning.’

  Who?

  ‘He’s the Head of SO15,’ Simpson explained, recognizing his blank look.

  Hm. Carlyle made a mental note to give Roche a call asap.

  ‘The man whose investigation you and Roche blundered into.’

  Not much of an investigation.

  ‘Causing the targets to up and leave the country on a private jet less than three hours after you confronted them.’

  Carlyle frowned. ‘If the SO15 bods knew we were in there, why didn’t they come and get us out?’

  ‘They doubtless had better things to worry about.’

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ Carlyle huffed. ‘Anything could have happened to us.’

  But the Commander was in no mood for tea and sympathy. ‘It was your own fault,’ she snapped. ‘I thought I told you to prioritize the Germans?’

  ‘Well . . .’

  Simpson shook her head. ‘If I had told you not to focus on the Germans, you would probably be spending your every waking hour chasing the Teutonic buggers down, wouldn’t you? Maybe I should be trying a bit more reverse psychology.’

  Maybe you should just get to the point. Leaning forward, he switched on his computer, listening to it splutter into action like an asthmatic pensioner. ‘Is there something I can help you with, boss?’

  ‘Yes, there is.’

  ‘Good.’ Sitting up in his chair, Carlyle tried to look suitably keen.

  ‘We’ve had a possible sighting of Sebastian Gregori.’ Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a scrap of paper and handed it to him. The inspector scanned the address. ‘It’s about thirty-five miles from where you ran into him last time. I want you two to go and check it out. Gapper is downstairs ready to go.’ Slipping off the desk, the Commander allowed herself the tiniest of grins. ‘He can play the responsible adult role.’

  ‘Ha, bloody, ha.’

  ‘Just make sure you don’t get another sergeant shot.’ Simpson gestured at Elmhirst. ‘This one we need to keep. She’s got a great future ahead of her.’

  ‘OK, OK.’ Getting to his feet, Carlyle ignored the blushing Elmhirst, glancing instead at his computer screen, which was still wheezing into life. The clock on the wall told him that he should really think about heading off. ‘That’s fine. We’ll leave when I get back.’

  A black look descended on Simpson’s face; she looked like she wanted to reach out and strangle him. ‘John.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, jogging towards the lifts, ‘but there’s something important I just have to do first.’

  Maybe we should have gone private. It was amazing how everyone could love the NHS in abstract but when it came to actually using the bloody thing it turned out to be a total pain in the arse. Sitting on a bench in an empty corridor, Carlyle looked at his watch. ‘For God’s sake.’ He gritted his teeth in disbelief. They had been there for the best part of three hours and now he was havin
g to wait for his father to get changed back into his regular clothes before they could finally leave the hospital. ‘How long can it take?’

  As if on cue, the door opened and Alexander Carlyle appeared.

  ‘There you are.’ The old man said nothing, concentrating on adjusting his tie. What do you need a tie for? Carlyle thought sullenly.

  Alex tightened and straightened his knot. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘C’mon,’ said Carlyle, already bouncing down the corridor. ‘Let’s get going.’

  ‘Yes,’ Alex replied, following his son, ‘After all that, I could do with a bite to eat.’

  Nooo. The inspector was about to protest, but caught himself in time. He imagined Helen giving him hell for not looking after his dad properly. ‘Sure,’ he said dully, ‘good idea.’

  Leaving the hospital at a brisk pace, they found a café a hundred yards down the road. Alexander took a seat at a window table while Carlyle went and ordered. Fifteen minutes later, he watched the old man shovel the last of his egg and chips into his mouth, washing it down with a swig from a large mug of builder’s tea.

  At least he hasn’t lost his bloody appetite, Carlyle thought.

  Alexander carefully placed his knife and fork together on the empty plate and sat back in his chair. ‘I needed that. It’s the first thing I’ve had to eat today.’ He cast a covetous eye towards the selection of cakes lined up on the counter. ‘They starve you before the scan, you know.’

  ‘Yeah, Helen told me.’ Carlyle sipped at a bottle of carbonated water, feeling virtuous.

  Still looking at the counter, Alex took another slurp of his tea. ‘I think I might have one of those doughnuts. Want one?’