by James Craig
Which church? Carlyle wondered. That’s the thing about churches; they all think they’re ‘the’ church. His irritation level rose another notch, but again he said nothing.
‘We want to help people who are poor, marginalised or oppressed,’ the boy continued, ‘and to fight injustice and poverty. There needs to be a global community that respects the rights and dignity of everyone. Discrimination must be ended.’
Good luck, sunshine, Carlyle thought. He wondered what all this had to do with filming the antics of Clive the nutty bus driver and making the traffic congestion on St Giles High Street even worse than normal.
‘The bounty of creation should be shared by all. To do that we need social justice, underpinned by the Christian faith and the values of the Gospel.’
Carlyle failed to stifle a yawn.
‘Am I boring you?’ the boy asked sharply.
Of course you bloody are, Carlyle thought. ‘No, no,’ he mumbled, yawning again. ‘Sorry, it’s just that it has been a very long day.’
The boy looked at him doubtfully.
The next yawn the inspector managed to stifle – third time lucky. ‘The Church – the campaign against unfairness – do you do any work in Latin America?’
‘Of course. We campaign wherever there is injustice and poverty.’
‘Anything specifically in Chile?’
The boy eyed him. ‘Why?’
Just answer the fucking question. ‘Humour me.’
‘Maybe,’ Joyce said. ‘I’d have to check.’
‘That organisation Sandra mentioned – the Daughters of Something or other – is that what you use to achieve all this?’
‘Daughters of Dismas is one of the organisations that gets involved in the campaign, yes,’ Joyce replied. ‘But, obviously, it’s for women only, so I can’t really get involved that much.’
‘How many members does it have?’
‘Quite a few.’
I bet, Carlyle thought. ‘What does that mean? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?’
‘I wouldn’t know exactly.’
Probably less than ten, Carlyle thought dismissively. He ploughed on. ‘What type of people are members?’
‘There are all sorts, from young activists like Sandra, through to old-timers – women who remember Greenham Common, things like that.’
Old-timers, thought Carlyle. Helen would love that. His wife had been to Greenham, the Women’s Peace camp in Berkshire, several times in the early 1980s, protesting against American cruise missiles being based there. Carlyle hadn’t thought about that for a long time. It was from before they had got together; before he’d even joined the police force – which was just as well or they might have met under very different circumstances. CND – the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament – had been a big deal back then, in the days when the Russians were the number one enemy and no one had heard of Muslim fundamentalism. Now, it was all you heard. Carlyle wondered if CND was still going.
For all their time, effort and commitment, had those protestors ever achieved anything of note? Not as far as he could recall. The situation now was as bad as ever. The country was skint and yet the politicians were still spending billions on fantastically expensive weapons systems. Were they still pointed at the Russians? Who knew?
He wondered if he dared ask Helen about it. Looking back, she was as ambivalent as most middle-aged people were about their youthful idealism. Holding hands and singing songs – it all seemed so naïve now; just one of those things you did when you didn’t really understand the way the world worked. Still, the idea of people fighting the same battles almost thirty years on filled him with sadness. He looked at the boy directly. ‘Have you ever heard of a woman called Agatha Mills?’
Joyce shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, no.’
Carlyle considered him, unsure if he was telling the truth. Sandra Groves let out a low moan, then shifted in the bed and started snoring lightly. Joyce looked at her, until he was happy that she was still sleeping soundly. ‘I usually only tagged along with Sandra when she was on her own,’ he told Carlyle, ‘like that day on the bus. When she was with her “sisters”, she didn’t like me being there. The Daughters of Dismas is supposed to be a women-only organisation.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Carlyle mumbled to himself. ‘The sisterhood in action.’
Joyce gave him a funny look. ‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Where would I find a membership list?’
‘You wouldn’t,’ said Joyce. ‘We are law-abiding people. We don’t need to be harassed by the police.’
Harassment? Carlyle thought wearily. You don’t know you’re born, you middle-class muppet. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘if I wanted to find out if my Mrs Mills had been involved in Sandra’s group, how might I do that?’
Joyce told him: ‘If we checked and she was a member, she’d need to agree to let us share the information.’
‘She won’t be able to do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘She’s dead.’
Joyce looked confused. ‘Dead?’
‘She was murdered,’ sad Carlyle, without going into any of the details.
‘Um.’ Joyce looked a bit sick.
‘So,’ Carlyle continued, ‘I am wondering if there is any connection between Agatha Mills and Sandra here. Maybe the person who killed Agatha was the same person who tried to run Sandra over. If there is a connection, that is very important for our investigation. It will help us track him down.’
He didn’t add before he tries again, not wanting to wind the boy up any more.
Joyce sat and thought about it. As the colour began returning to his cheeks, he pulled a mobile out of the back pocket of his jeans and started a text message. ‘I’ll see what I can find out,’ he said, concentrating on his texting.
‘Thanks,’ said Carlyle limply. His stomach growled and he suddenly realised how hungry he felt. He remembered seeing a coffee shop on the ground floor as he came in. With luck, it would still be open. He waited for Joyce to send his message. ‘I’m going to buy a coffee and something to eat. Can I get you anything?’
The boy grunted. Carlyle took that as a yes – or maybe a no? – and wandered off.
He reached the ground floor to find the café shuttered. Inevitably, his stomach complained loudly. Carlyle issued a curse under his breath which got him a censorious look from an old woman shuffling by with the help of a walking frame. For a moment, he stood there unable to decide what to do next. Finally, he strode through the main doors and headed down Westminster Bridge Road, in search of some sustenance.
A greasy spoon that catered for cab drivers and other servants of the twilight economy allowed the inspector to refuel with a fried-egg roll, a jam doughnut and a double espresso. Half an hour later, he strolled back into the hospital carrying a small latte for Joyce. After another couple of minutes waiting for the lift, he reached the third floor. Walking into Groves’s room, he saw Joyce slumped face-down over the bed. Stepping closer, he could see a small hole where the boy had been shot in the back of the head. The stench indicated that he’d voided his bowels, and a pool of urine had collected at his feet.
‘Jesus Christ Almighty,’ the inspector groaned, ‘what a fucking mess.’ With his legs turning to jelly, he had to force himself to step closer to the bed. Careful not to disturb anything, he made himself look at the pulverized face of Sandra Groves lying on a pillow stained black with blood. Shot several times in the face, she was, to all intents and purposes, no longer recognisable, no longer obviously human. Carlyle’s gaze followed the blood splatter, his eyes stopping on a clump of hair and skin that had stuck to the wall above the bed. He felt sick to his stomach.
‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled, for his own benefit rather than anything else. Taking a couple of deep breaths, he swallowed the bile in his throat and waited for the risk of his meal regurgitating to subside. Quickly, he took in the rest of the scene. The machines that Groves was still hooked up to stood silently by her
bed, their screens blank. The killer had been careful to switch them off, to stop the alarm going off when her vital organs stopped functioning. On the bed, by Joyce’s head, lay a small semi-automatic pistol. Carlyle took out his mobile phone and called the front desk at Charing Cross. This business wouldn’t fall to them, but if he didn’t get things started on the right foot, Carlyle knew that he could be in for an even longer night than the one he was already facing.
Sensing movement behind him, he swivelled round to confront the Ward Sister. ‘What in the name of . . . ?’ She tried to look beyond him, at the mess in the corner, so he shuffled a couple of steps sideways in a half-hearted attempt to block her view.
They were distracted from this stand-off by some movement from the bed nearest the door. A head emerged from under the covers, followed by a bony finger which pointed at the inspector. ‘It was him! It was him!’ the patient yelled through her a drug-induced haze. ‘He did it!’
The Sister looked at Carlyle cautiously, unsure of whether she should stand her ground or run for help. Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she looked ready to bolt, but his accuser’s glassy, unfocused eyes gave her pause. The woman was so out of it, it was amazing she even realised that a shooting had occurred. Holding up a hand, Carlyle issued precise instructions over the phone, speaking loudly enough for the Ward Sister to understand that he had the situation under control.
Ending the call, he held the Sister’s gaze. She was a chunky, no-nonsense-looking blonde, maybe ten years younger than he was. Not a bad-looking woman but, you could clearly see, well on the way to being crushed by the daily grind. Excitement like this she could do without. ‘The police . . .’ Carlyle started. ‘More police will be here in a couple of minutes, along with a team of technicians and a pathologist – the usual crew.’
‘Yes,’ the Sister replied, her voice shaking just a little.
‘Make sure that they are shown straight here.’
The woman nodded.
‘In the meantime,’ Carlyle told her, ‘I don’t want anyone passing up and down that corridor outside.’
‘I understand,’ the Sister said, more composed now. She half-turned and then stopped. ‘What about the others?’ She gestured at the other beds occupying the room. The woman who had pointed the finger at Carlyle had retreated back under her sheets; the other patient was snoring away happily, as she had been when he had first arrived. Either she was the world’s soundest sleeper, Carlyle reckoned, or she was on some truly excellent medication.
He made a snap judgement. ‘Leave them where they are for the moment. We’ll need to talk to them. But I’ll make sure you can get them moved as soon as possible.’
‘Okay.’ She turned and swiftly left the room.
After she had gone, Carlyle stepped away from the murder scene and took the lid off Joyce’s coffee. He sipped it carefully. It was at best lukewarm now, but it was strong and it tasted good. He certainly wasn’t going to throw it away. ‘Waste not, want not,’ he said to no one in particular. ‘After all, this is going to be a long night.’
In the end, Carlyle spent almost four hours hanging around the hospital corridor before he was able to go home. It had taken a couple of hours for his new pals, Nick Chan and Greg Brown, to show up, and another hour before they were ready to talk to him. As far as Carlyle was concerned, that was fine. On this occasion, he would have to be professional courtesy and co-operation personified. For a start, he knew that he had a bit of explaining to do. Chan and Brown could really drop him in it if they wanted to. He could appeal to their goodwill but Carlyle knew that was not a good idea. Otherwise, all he could do was share his thoughts on a possible connection with the Agatha Mills killing and see if that might spark their imaginations.
‘Sounds like a load of rubbish to me,’ Brown snorted, after he had talked them through it.
Carlyle looked to Chan.
Chan shook his head. ‘“Rubbish” is the polite way of putting it.’
Recognising the reasonableness of their reaction, Carlyle gave a shrug. ‘The late Mr Joyce here sent a text to someone before I went off to the café, to check if Mills was part of the same group as his girlfriend. Did he get a reply?’
‘Let me see.’ Brown wandered off.
Chan watched him go and turned to Carlyle. ‘The gun is an Israeli semi-automatic, the Jericho 941, about fifteen years old. Not very common in this country.’
‘Not very common at all,’ Carlyle agreed.
Brown reappeared. ‘No texts for Mr Joyce this evening, but we can try and track down the recipient of the message he sent.’
‘Good.’ Chan turned away from his colleague to face Carlyle. ‘Inspector,’ he said, ‘you can go home now. We’ll be in touch.’
‘Fine,’ said Carlyle as he headed towards the main lifts. ‘You know where to find me.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
Carefully balancing a fragile but expensive-looking cup and saucer on his knee, Carlyle sat quietly waiting for Claudio Orb to take a sip of his own tea. High on the wall to Carlyle’s left was a large photograph of a Chanel-clad woman who presumably was the current Chilean President. From behind the Ambassador, light flooded in through the French windows opening on to a small balcony which looked over the busy square just outside.
He had arrived almost on a whim. When Henry Mills had walked out in front of that van, his case had apparently solved itself. It could be easily put to bed, and no one would give it another thought. Sandra Groves was Chan’s problem. Carlyle could put his feet up for a while and wait for the next pile of shit to come along. Being a restless soul, however, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to leave it alone. The sense that there was more to this than met the eye was lodged in his brain. It was a feeling that he’d experienced many times before. He hated the idea of being taken for a ride – whether it was due to professional pride or personal vanity – and he wasn’t minded to let things drop just yet.
Turning up at the Embassy, he had been cheered that his arrival had been greeted with neither surprise nor dismay. After passing through the most rudimentary of security checks, he had been sent up, on his own, to the Ambassador’s office, where a very pretty, very young-looking secretary told him that Orb would see him in a couple of minutes. Barely ninety seconds later, he was sitting in front of the Ambassador’s desk, while his host weighed up the relative merits of Fortnum’s Smoky Earl Grey or their Piccadilly Blend. Having decided on the latter, Orb surprised Carlyle by getting up and scooting out of his office to go and make the tea himself. By the time he came back, Carlyle’s opinion of Chile and Chileans couldn’t have been higher.
After a tentative sip, Orb returned his cup to its saucer in the middle of his otherwise uncluttered desk, and looked up at Carlyle. ‘It’s a pleasure to see you again, Inspector,’ he smiled. ‘Tell me, how is your investigation going?’
Carlyle made a vague gesture with one hand, while keeping a firm grasp of his saucer with the other. ‘These things always need to run their course.’
‘Indeed they do.’ Orb clasped his hands together over the desk as if in prayer. ‘And what, if I may ask, happened to the husband?’
Having had enough of the balancing act, Carlyle reached down and placed his cup and saucer on the carpet beside his chair. ‘He walked in front of a van,’ he said, sitting back up.
‘An accident?’
‘Suicide.’
‘Oh?’ Orb looked nonplussed. ‘But he was your main suspect?’
‘Yes.’
‘So is that it?’ Orb asked. ‘Is the case now closed?’
Carlyle shifted in his seat. ‘Maybe.’
‘Maybe?’ Orb repeated. ‘Don’t be coy, Inspector, you must be here for more than a cup of tea, very nice though it is.’
Carlyle grinned. ‘Maybe.’
‘So . . .’ The Ambassador’s smile faded slightly, indicating that, although his welcome was genuine, neither his time nor his patience were infinite. ‘How can I help you?’
‘That gentleman
I saw you standing with at City Hall . . . at the reception when we were first introduced?’
Orb reflected on it for a moment. ‘You mean the Mayor, Mr Holyrod?’
‘No. The other man. About your height, in his thirties, had a beard – good-looking guy, with a nice tan.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Orb said. ‘Matias Gori.’
‘Who is he?’
‘He works here at the Embassy, as one of our military attachés. Does he have anything to do with this?’
Carlyle ignored the question. ‘I’ve always wondered,’ he mused. ‘What does a military attaché actually do?’
‘I know what you mean.’ Orb picked up his cup and again sipped his tea, content to wait a little longer for the policeman to get to the point. ‘I’m only the Ambassador, Inspector, so much of it is a mystery to me too. I think most people would probably assume that “military attaché” is just a polite way of saying someone is a spy. But it is usually more mundane than that.’
‘Not everyone can be James Bond, I suppose.’
‘No, especially nowadays. You can find out about most things you want to know about on the Internet, assuming that you can be bothered to spend some time searching. It’s an amazing invention – my grandchildren simply have no concept of how we could have ever lived without it.’
‘No,’ Carlyle agreed. ‘So where does that leave a military attaché these days? Are spies now basically redundant?’
‘More or less,’ Orb said, ‘as far as I can see. Certainly for a small country like Chile they are not particularly important. Our military attachés do a bit of marketing for our defence companies, and a bit of research to keep the folks back home up to speed on the latest developments in important markets like Britain.’
‘Has Gori been here long?’
Orb drained his cup and shrugged. ‘I don’t really know. He was already here when I arrived.’ He did the sums in his head. ‘So . . . I suppose that means he’s been here for at least three years.’
‘Where was he before he came to London?’
‘We all move around, Inspector,’ Orb told him. ‘Gori has had various postings in the US, Spain, Iraq—’