by James Craig
It’s okay, Carlyle thought, we’re only pretending. Make it seem real but don’t overdo it.
Method acting. Like Paul Newman.
As he pushed harder, McGowan’s face turned puce.
Al Pacino.
‘John!’ Roche grabbed him by the shoulder and tried to pull him away. ‘For fuck’s sake! You’re going to kill him!’
Shrugging her off, Carlyle pushed even harder. ‘Where’s the boy?’
Robert DeNiro.
McGowan’s lips moved but nothing came out. His eyes rolled back in his head as he started drifting out of consciousness.
‘Where,’ Carlyle screamed, ‘is the fucking boy?’
‘JOHN!!’ Roche stuck an arm round his neck and finally managed to drag him backwards.
CUT! That’s a wrap, everybody. Great scene.
Slumping forwards, McGowan vomited across the table.
Carlyle let Roche push him to the far side of the room. He was buzzing, as high as if he were 18 and he’d just done a line of his mate Dom Silver’s Grade A, top-notch amphetamine sulphate.
Fucking BUZZING.
His brain overloaded, thinking about the victims, thinking about fantasies of revenge, thinking about this sad excuse for a man sitting in front of him. Letting the sour smell of sick fill his nostrils, Carlyle waited until McGowan had lifted his head and was breathing more normally. ‘If you don’t tell me exactly where the boy is,’ he said, his voice calm now, ‘I will kill you.’
Travis Bickle eat your heart out.
Wiping a tear from his eye, McGowan allowed himself the merest hint of a smile. ‘Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem,’ he said quietly. ‘Creatorem coeli et terrae. Et in Iesum Christum, Filium eius unicum, Dominum nostrum, qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria Virgine, passus sub Pontio Pilato, crucifixus, mortuus, et sepultus, descendit ad inferos, tertia die resurrexit a mortuis, ascendit ad caelos, sedet ad dexteram Dei Patris omnipotentis, inde venturus est iudicare vivos et mortuos. Credo in Spiritum Sanctum, sanctam Ecclesiam catholicam, sanctorum communionem, remissionem peccatorum, carnis resurrectionem, vitam aeternam. Amen.’
Folding his arms, Carlyle waited for the priest to finish. ‘Give me what I want or I will kill you,’ he said finally. ‘A-fucking-men to that.’
Max fucking Cady.
‘I believe in God,’ McGowan stated, his voice refusing to waver, ‘the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord; Who was conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into Hell; the third day He arose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty: from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.’
TWO
Checking that the store manager had turned his back, Paula Coulter raised her hands above her head and let out a massive yawn. Her legs ached and Paula was dying to sit down and have a cup of tea. It had been a shit day, nothing but tourists and window shoppers; pitiful sales that left them way down on their weekly target. After almost three years working at St James’s Diamonds on New Bond Street, Paula could spot a timewaster as soon as they walked through the door. It never ceased to amaze and annoy her that people who didn’t look like they had enough for a McDonald’s would saunter in and expect you to treat them as if they were the Prince of bloody Wales or something. Almost as bad were the people who had the money but who just seemed to want to dangle it in front of you and never spend anything. Sighing, she glanced up at the clock above the till which read 4.57 p.m. Half an hour to go. Maybe tomorrow would be better.
The buzzer rang. Mohammed, St James’s security guy, glanced at the CCTV monitor and stepped out from behind the counter. Unlocking the door, he pulled it open and stepped aside to let the customers enter.
‘Good afternoon, gentlemen.’
‘Good afternoon,’ the two men smiled in unison, as Mohammed closed the door behind them.
‘Nice,’ Paula murmured under her breath, putting on a big smile and trying to make some eye-contact with the two guys approaching the counter.
They made a handsome pair, one black, one white, with tanned skin, both tall, with the black guy maybe a shade over six foot and the white guy a shade under. Both were dressed in expensive-looking grey suits and white shirts. The black guy had a green tie, while his friend wore his shirt open at the neck. Both were wearing oversized Ray-Bans, making them harder to age, but Paula put them at late twenties. Hopefully, City boys looking to blow their bonuses on something flash. Crash or no crash, those guys always had money to burn. She remembered reading something in that morning’s Metro about bankers getting record bonuses this year. Paula couldn’t work out why that was, given that bankers were supposed to be the people responsible for pushing everyone into recession, but she supposed it was one of those things. Bigger bonuses every year were just a fact of life. If that was the case, the least these two could do was spend some of their money in her store.
She watched as both of them checked her out and wondered if they might be interested in her phone number. She might even be able to wangle a double date with her mate Debbie. Debbie was a bit on the lardy side, but she scrubbed up well. Business first though, she told herself firmly, pulling back her shoulders and sticking out her chest, so stop daydreaming. Maybe today wouldn’t be a total washout, after all.
The store manager, Martin Luckman, was obviously having similar thoughts as he appeared at her shoulder. He’s practically licking his lips, Paula thought disgustedly.
‘How can we help you gentlemen today?’ Bouncing on the balls of his feet, Luckman almost did a little bow.
The black guy looked directly at Paula. ‘We’re interested in a selection of things,’ he said pleasantly.
Uh oh. Paula’s heart sank. Timewasters. If you were a serious buyer, you didn’t walk into a place like St James’s without a decent idea of what you wanted to buy.
Luckman gestured around the store, the sweep of his arm taking in tens of millions of pounds’ worth of rings, watches, earrings, necklaces and other jewellery. ‘Do you have anything particular in mind?’ he asked, the tiniest change in the tone of his voice indicating to Paula that he had marked their cards as she had.
Trying not to let the smile fall from her face, Paula let her gaze drift from the customers to Mohammed at the door. The security guard was intently checking his watch; clearly he was as keen to get home as she was. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a rapid movement and the glint of metal, followed by a gasp from Luckman.
‘Huh?’ Paula looked back at the two men to see the white guy pointing a pistol at her. The black guy also had a gun, with which he was gesturing to Mohammed to get away from the door.
‘Hands where I can see ’em!’ the white guy shouted. ‘Stay well away from the panic button.’ Luckman did as he was told in the blink of an eye. Paula felt stupid putting her hands in the air, but duly followed suit. ‘Good,’ the white guy smiled. ‘Now we don’t want to stay too long, so let’s start with the expensive stuff, shall we?’
THREE
Keen to avoid Father McGowan’s lawyer, Roche frogmarched Carlyle out of the station and took him off to do some interviews relating to a fraud case they had been ignoring for too long. Eventually, they ended up all the way across Covent Garden at Il Buffone, the tiny 1950s-style Italian café, on Macklin Street, at the north end of Drury Lane. It stood opposite the block of flats where Carlyle lived and was therefore deep in ‘home’ territory. At this time of the day, the place was empty.
As they walked in, Marcello Aversa looked up from behind the counter and smiled. Normally, the place would have been shut by now. But Marcello and his wife were having to work ever longer hours to try to keep the place afloat. ‘Ciao!’ their host shouted over t
he noise of the ancient Gaggia coffee machine which laboured behind the counter.
‘Two espressos please, Marcello,’ Roche said, pushing Carlyle into the back booth, under the poster of AC Milan’s ’94 Champions League winning team, a present from Roche which had place of honour on the wall, next to the counter.
‘I’ll have a green tea,’ Carlyle corrected her.
Roche looked at the inspector then laughed. ‘What? Are you ill or something?’
‘Wife’s orders,’ Marcello chuckled.
Changing the subject, Carlyle pointed at Donadoni, Maldini and the rest. ‘You got a new poster!’ He had been quite impressed when Roche had found a copy for Marcello the first time. When that had been defaced by yobs, he was even more impressed by her ability to come up with a replacement.
‘Si,’ Marcello shouted happily. ‘Otherwise, I was going to have to put up one of the Azzurri.’
‘Jesus!’ Carlyle threw up his hands in mock horror. ‘That would simply not do.’ The Italian national team, world champions not so long ago, was going through one of its periodic troughs. The star players had stayed on too long past their peak and stopped the next generation coming through.
‘No, I know,’ Marcello agreed with regret. ‘They don’t deserve the place of honour on my wall.’
Roche nodded. ‘Too old.’
‘I know the feeling,’ Carlyle joked.
‘Me too,’ said Marcello. ‘This job is getting too tough for me.’
Carlyle felt a ripple of panic in his chest. Christ on a bike, not more change. He had been coming to Il Buffone most days for more than a decade. The place was a delight, a throwback to the days when cafés had an individual identity. Walking five minutes in any direction, you could probably find close to a hundred other cafés, most of them part of big chains. Some franchises had maybe four or five branches in and around Covent Garden alone. But there was only one Il Buffone.
And, sadly, it was up for sale.
Carlyle looked at Marcello. The old man did appear more tired than usual. ‘You haven’t found a buyer, have you?’ he asked warily.
‘I wish,’ Marcello sighed, wiping his hands on the dishcloth hanging over his left shoulder. ‘Now it’s getting to the point where I’m basically trying to pay someone to take it off my hands. There are a couple of people interested. We’ll see.’ He smiled at Roche. ‘But don’t worry, I’ve told ’em that the poster has to stay.’
‘I’m glad to hear it, Marcello.’ Reading the unhappiness on Carlyle’s face, Roche slipped into the seat opposite him. ‘We have to talk about what happened back at the station this morning,’ she said quietly but firmly, ‘and how it will never, ever happen again.’
Placing the drinks on the table, Marcello registered the tone of Roche’s grim ‘thank you’ and beat a hasty retreat.
‘What the hell do you think you were doing with McGowan?’
Carlyle stared into his mug.
‘He’s an old man,’ Roche continued.
‘He’s a fucking paedophile,’ Carlyle hissed, turning round to check that no one was listening to the conversation, almost embarrassed to say the word.
‘Whatever he is,’ Roche said icily, ‘you cannot lose control like that. You could have bloody killed him.’
Carlyle grunted in a way that suggested the idea of a swift and violent end for Father Francis McGowan did not totally displease him. ‘I didn’t lose control,’ he said, trying to keep his voice even, his words clipped and precise. ‘He knows now that we are serious.’
‘He knows that we are dangerous,’ Roche snapped back.
I wasn’t the one who smacked him about, bringing him into the station, Carlyle thought, his anger more than tempered by the knowledge that he should have done that job himself and not dumped it on his sergeant. ‘Look, I want to find the boy,’ he said. ‘I know that I have dragged you into this and I’m sorry—’
Roche dismissed his apology with a curt shake of the head.
‘– but if there are any repercussions, they will come back on me, not you.’
‘His lawyer is bound to make a complaint.’
‘Any complaint will focus on what happened in the interview room,’ Carlyle insisted. ‘That falls on me. You are in the clear, I promise.’
‘It’s not even our bloody case.’
Fumbling in his jacket pocket, Carlyle pulled out a small photograph, barely twice the size of a passport mug shot, and dropped it on the table. ‘Simon Murphy.’
Roche sighed. ‘I know who he is.’
‘Twelve years old. He was taken into care when he was two.’
‘I know the story.’
‘Moved in and out of various foster-homes for more than twelve years. Expelled from three different Camden schools before he was ten. Dumped into a Boys’ Club run by a sixty-three-year-old priest who has not one but two banning orders which are supposed to prevent him working with children.’
Roche smacked her fist on the table. ‘John, I know all this – you’ve told me already.’
‘Six complaints from children who have come into contact with McGowan in the last five years. Two have withdrawn their statements, three are pursuing civil claims against the Church and one committed suicide. Simon is the best, if not the only chance of bringing a criminal conviction against this scumbag. And now he’s vanished.’
Pushing a strand of red hair behind her ear, she sat back on the bench and folded her arms. ‘We have no evidence that McGowan has anything to do with his disappearance. The kid has run away before.’
‘You saw that sick old bastard in there,’ Carlyle said. ‘He thinks he’s untouchable. He thinks he’s put the boy beyond our grasp.’
‘Listen to yourself,’ she scolded him. ‘What happened to John Carlyle the arch pragmatist?’
Not meeting her gaze, the inspector looked to Marcel Desailly – on the wall behind Roche’s head – for inspiration. None was forthcoming. He had put himself on the hook and she wasn’t going to let him wriggle off. They had been working together for less than a year but Roche had quickly come to understand how his mind worked. He was getting used to her often disarmingly accurate commentaries on his moods and the contradictions in his behaviour.
‘You have to get a grip – put the chimp back in its box.’
He looked up. ‘Eh?’
‘It’s a psychological model,’ she explained briskly. ‘The chimp is your emotional side. In difficult situations you have to keep it under control or you will make mistakes. In a stressful situation, like the one with McGowan, you have to stop your chimp from preventing you dealing with the problem logically.’
‘Sounds like a load of bollocks to me,’ he snorted.
‘Sports people use it.’ She mentioned a few names, a couple of footballers, cyclists, even a snooker player.
‘Good for them.’
‘Maybe you should go and see a shrink,’ Roche said gently, ‘help you cage your chimp.’
‘I am seeing a shrink,’ Carlyle pointed out. ‘Boss’s orders.’ He shook his head at the absurdity of it all. ‘The silly old bugger couldn’t cage a kitten.’
‘Maybe you need to try someone else,’ she persisted.
‘Life’s too short.’
‘Life’s too short for all this hopeless crusading,’ she countered. ‘Whatever happened to “don’t fight battles you can’t win”?’
Carlyle shrugged. ‘Some battles you have to fight, even if you’re going to lose. But this is one that I certainly don’t want to lose. You can’t give people who abuse children a free pass.’
‘Well,’ she replied, lifting her demitasse to her lips, ‘there seem to be plenty of people who disagree with you.’
‘Tell me about it.’ Carlyle took a sip from his own mug and winced. Wherever Marcello got his supplies from, his green tea wasn’t a patch on Helen’s. ‘This case has been knocking around for years now. No one wants to touch it with a barge-pole. It only ended up on our desk by accident.’ That was literally true. Carlyle ha
d been waiting for a file on the case of a local politician who had been burgled three times in six weeks. Instead, Archives had sent him the McGowan file. Once he’d read it, he’d dropped an email to his boss, Commander Carole Simpson, telling her that he was going to take another look at it. He knew that Simpson could be very hit and miss when it came to email communication, so there was every chance she would not try and stop him until he’d either made some progress or reached a dead end.
Roche gave him a look.
‘Okay. It only ended up on my desk by accident.’
A sad smile spread across her face as she put a hand on his forearm. ‘Your burden is my burden, Kimosabe.’
‘Thank you, Tonto.’
Her smile vanished. ‘But now McGowan’s lawyer will have a field day – police harassment, brutality, assault with intent; you’ve really dropped yourself in the shit on this one.’
‘I know. I’ll speak to the boss about it.’
‘Simpson? She’s not around.’
‘What?’ In recent years, the Commander had a good track record when it came to watching his back. He relied on her network inside the Met more than he cared to admit. If Simpson wasn’t around, he could find himself very exposed indeed.
‘I heard that she’s been sent on some work experience jolly to Canada for three months.’
‘Great.’ Carlyle’s heart sank. ‘So who’s replacing her?’
Roche shrugged. ‘Dunno.’
‘Okay.’ Digging some change out of his pocket, he got up and walked over to the till. ‘We’d better get back to the station then and see how bad things are.’
FOUR
Biting her bottom lip, Paula Coulter tried not to cry as she glanced at Luckman and Mohammed, spread-eagled on the floor in the middle of the store, guns to their heads. A pool of dark liquid was trickling across the wooden floor where one of the men – the manager, she presumed – had pissed himself. Squeezing her legs together, Paula swore to herself that she wouldn’t lose control of her bodily functions, difficult though that might be. She glanced at the door, praying that someone might ring the buzzer and realize that something was wrong. The clock on the wall had just ticked past five, but the sign on the door clearly said that they stayed open until five thirty. She tried to clear the sour feeling in her throat. Someone had to come, surely? The window blinds had been drawn and she watched one shadow, illuminated by the late-afternoon sunshine, saunter past, quickly followed by another. She could hear a couple of women chatting outside.