London Calling

by James Craig

  ‘But it was a woman at the press conference.’ This time it was Xavier’s voice that crackled down the line, fighting to be heard above the background traffic noise.

  The Merrion Club was back in session – sort of. This morning, however, expensive booze and obnoxious behaviour were off the menu. The club’s surviving members had dialled in to a conference call to discuss the unfortunate situation that they now found themselves in. While Edgar and his aide sat in a private room in Pakenham’s Gentlemen’s Club in central London, Xavier was busy campaigning somewhere in Surrey. Christian Holyrod was also out on the election campaign, while the other two – Sebastian Lloyd and Harry Allen – were both abroad.

  ‘The woman who conducted the press conference yesterday,’ Murray replied, looking down at his papers again, ‘is a Superintendent Carole Simpson. She is the inspector’s boss.’

  ‘Simpson will doubtless be very helpful in all this,’ Holyrod remarked. ‘Her husband is Joshua Hunt, who runs McGowan Capital.’

  Murray waited for some sign of recognition on Edgar’s face. When none was forthcoming, he whispered, ‘He’s a member of the Pack.’

  ‘Don’t use that expression,’ Edgar snapped, quickly hitting the mute button on the phone. The so-called ‘Wolf Pack’ was a group of City investors who had each given the party a donation of at least a million pounds at the beginning of the year, in anticipation of the upcoming campaign. The details of who had donated what had been duly disclosed, as part of Edgar’s much-hyped commitment to financial transparency. Sadly, the fact that a couple of Pack members had made more than three hundred million each by unpatriotically shorting sterling during the recent financial crisis had not gone down so well in the press. The row was still bubbling along. Edgar, who could be thin skinned on certain matters, needed the money, but hated the hassle. He now eyed Murray like he was a naughty schoolboy in line for a caning. ‘Even in private,’ he hissed, ‘we never call them that.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Murray quietly, looking down at his hands.

  Edgar felt his anger fade. ‘Loose lips sink ships, and all that,’ he grinned.

  ‘Yes,’ said Murray again, wondering what the hell his boss was talking about.

  Edgar sighed and tried again. ‘Don’t start using the language of the media, because that will only help them destroy us.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Murray, trying to find his way back to the matter in hand, ‘it has to be convenient for us to have a connection with Superintendent Simpson through Mr Hunt. Although, I suppose that to her it might appear a potential conflict of interest.’

  ‘A mere coincidence,’ Carlton sniffed. ‘Anyway, it’s not like it’s actually her case, is it?’

  ‘No,’ Murray stood corrected. ‘It seems this guy Carlyle is in charge of the investigation.’

  ‘But she was the one made the running with the press?’

  ‘Yes,’ Murray nodded, ‘as far as we can tell.’

  ‘Edgar? Are you still there?’ It was Sebastian Lloyd, speaking from halfway up a mountain in Chile or Peru, or somewhere. Wherever it was, he was safe enough. ‘I’ve got to go in a minute.’

  Edgar unmuted the phone. ‘Yes, sorry. Let’s wrap it up, then. Rest assured that we will deal with this problem at our end, and we will also make sure it’s dealt with as quickly and efficiently as possible.’

  There was silence for a few seconds, and then Harry Allen spoke: ‘That’s fine, Edgar, but just remember that we’re all in this together and there is more to worry about here than just your bloody career.’

  ‘It’s being dealt with,’ intervened Xavier huffily.

  For the first time, it crossed Edgar’s mind that some of his so-called chums might not even care to vote for him. He shook his head impatiently and leant over the phone. ‘Xavier is right. It is being dealt with. And you are absolutely right, we are all in this together. So we must deal with this quickly, efficiently and in the best interests of the Club and its members. Good to speak to you all this morning, gentlemen. If we need to arrange another of these calls, William Murray will let you know. But, meanwhile, don’t worry. You can consider the matter resolved.’ Without waiting for any comeback, he ended the call with a quick stab of his finger. Closing his eyes, he slumped back into his seat.

  ‘That was fine,’ Murray ventured.

  ‘Yes,’ Carlton yawned, ‘but the last thing I – we – need right now is this kind of problem. I must get back on the campaign trail. I need to be out on the road, like Xavier and Christian.’

  ‘Yes,’ Murray nodded.

  ‘And we need to draw the public’s attention away from the polls.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Better still, we need some new bloody polls.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ones that show us what we damn well want to see.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Three days of narrowing polls meant that Edgar Carlton’s lead was slipping towards single digits, just as the election itself headed towards its penultimate week. Unbelievably, given their appalling track record, the other side was regaining some momentum. That had to be stopped – and fast. The last thing he could afford now that he was fighting for his political life, was to be dragged into a multiple murder case.

  ‘I wish we could have more confidence in the way the investigation is currently being handled,’ Edgar mused. Why the police needed to crank up media interest by holding a damn press conference was beyond him. Indeed it was galling beyond belief that these people were so unbelievably incompetent when it came to handling the media. But it was a fait accompli. ‘This Simpson woman, does she know about the … context of the case?’

  Murray sucked in his cheeks, then exhaled. ‘No, I don’t think so. The police don’t seem to have put the pieces together yet. But, of course, we have to assume that they will get there in the end.’

  ‘What about this Carlyle chap?’ Edgar asked breezily. ‘Should we just get rid of him? See that it’s handed to someone else?’

  ‘I think that would be premature,’ Murray replied. ‘There’s no obvious need at this stage. If it becomes necessary, Simpson can easily take care of Carlyle.’

  ‘So, what about the good inspector? What do we know about him?’

  The aide took another peek at his notes. ‘Well … he seems a bit of a strange one.’ He shuffled some papers. ‘He’s a Londoner, joined the police in 1979, has done various jobs at various stations, received several citations. But there’s nothing that impressive in his file, and his career seems to have flat-lined in recent years. You get the impression that he’s never been able to fit in that well. Wherever he goes, he seems to do OK for a while, but then every couple of years the wheels come off. After the latest such incident, it was made clear to him that he really should be thinking about retirement.’

  This sounds good, thought Carlton. ‘What happened?’

  ‘For some reason, a few years back, he was put on Royal Protection Duty—’

  ‘Seems a strange decision. Do we know why?’

  ‘Probably just some administrative error. Anyway, on one particular occasion he was responsible for looking after a couple of the young royals while they were conducting their civic duties at Pomegranate.’

  ‘I know it well,’ Edgar nodded. ‘At least, I’ve been there a few times.’ Personally, he felt that the Chelsea nightclub in question was like a school disco with silly prices, but he had been there quite regularly since royal patronage had made it ultra-fashionable among his own set. After all, it was good to show that you could still get down with the kids. Getting his picture in the newspapers along with ‘the boys’ – the two young princes who alternated between playing at being soldiers and playing at being playboys – didn’t hurt either. And the fact that his wife Anastasia wouldn’t go near the place was another big plus.

  ‘It gets to three a.m.,’ Murray continued, ‘and Carlyle’s charges fall out of the club, blind drunk as usual.’

  ‘Well,’ Carlton said airily, ‘everyone’s entitled
to some fun.’

  ‘Of course,’ Murray nodded. ‘But then one of the young chaps got into an altercation with a press photographer.’

  Carlton yawned. ‘So far, so unremarkable.’

  ‘Yes, but the suggestion was that Carlyle was rather slow to step in and sort things out. It was even suggested that he let the snapper – a big chap who had been in both the South African army and the French Foreign Legion – give HRH a few hard slaps, before he dragged the boy away, covered in his own blood and vomit.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Carlton scoured the farthest regions of his memory. ‘I think I remember the pictures. It looked to me fairly much like a normal night out for His Highness.’

  ‘There was an investigation but nothing could be proved. The young royal in question wanted Carlyle kicked off the Force, but it was considered that might cause too much of a scene, particularly if the Police Federation got involved.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Carlton nodded, ‘the most obnoxious trade union in the world.’ He would make very sure that his own government did nothing to annoy them. Best to let sleeping police dogs lie, and all that.

  ‘In the end, Carlyle was simply yanked off royal duties and put back on the taxi rank, to wait for whatever else came along.’

  ‘So, he’s a bit of a republican?’ Carlton shook his head in disbelief. ‘How can a man like that become a policeman in the first place?’

  ‘It’s not entirely clear,’ said Murray. ‘Generally, he’s thought to be a bit too liberal for the police, or maybe just a bit too … cerebral.’

  ‘So you mean he thinks too much,’ Carlton frowned. ‘Great, that’s all we need. How in the name of sweet Jesus did we end up getting someone like him?’

  Murray shrugged. ‘You’re always going to get one or two like that in an organisation as big as the police.’

  Pouting unhappily, Edgar checked his watch. It really was time he should be getting along to the House of Commons. ‘Anything else we know about this Inspector Carlyle, other than the fact that he is completely unreliable? What’s his family situation?’ He gave Murray a stern look. ‘You’re probably now going to tell me he lives in a hippie commune with a gay lover called Gerald, who runs a basket-weaving collective.’

  Murray made a face. ‘No, he has a wife and daughter.’

  ‘First marriage?’

  ‘Yes. The wife works for a liberal charity called Avalon. It sends doctors to the Third World, begs for money, moans about “imperialism”, that kind of thing.’

  ‘And the kid?’

  ‘She goes to City School for Girls in the Barbican.’

  ‘Good school,’ said Carlton, impressed. He himself had four children, two boys and two girls, and all were attending top-notch London schools. Public schools like City. ‘Public’ as in ‘private’. It seemed a very English way of using the language, hiding the reality behind the words.

  ‘Expensive,’ Murray commented.

  ‘I’m sure,’ Carlton shivered. The fees for his brood had been killing him even before the damn credit crunch had started kicking in. God knows what Mr Plod made of it, despite having only the one kid to worry about. ‘We thought about sending our girls to City a few years ago,’ he mused, ‘and the cost was pretty impressive even then. Presumably she is on a scholarship?’

  Murray shook his head. ‘No, they’re paying full whack, for the moment at least. Apparently that school doesn’t hand out any scholarships before the age of eleven. I’m sure they’ll be trying to get one when the child is older, but they’ll have to cough up for a while yet.’

  ‘That must eat into the family budget, so it explains why he is not too interested in retirement. A police pension is not going to be anywhere near enough for our inspector, not if young …’

  ‘Alice.’

  ‘Not if young Alice doesn’t then deliver on the scholarship front. Imagine having to take her out of City School for Girls and drop her back into some local state school. What a nightmare! I’m sure Mrs Carlyle would never forgive him.’ He paused, reflecting, not for the first time, on the reality that domestic hegemony was far harder to achieve than high political office. ‘But good for them, anyway, for not taking the easy option. For being ambitious for their daughter. For being fans of private education. Maybe we can count on their votes, after all.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  Clement Hawley might be considered a Renaissance man for the early twenty-first century. He was a trader in the highly pressurised world of the London money markets, as well as running a lucrative sideline in recreational pharmaceuticals. This allowed him to deploy his considerable social and marketing skills while exploiting the synergies that existed between those two jobs. The boys in the City want to make money and do drugs, often in large quantities and at the same time, while Clement was at hand to help facilitate either, or both, of those ambitions.

  Young master Hawley had stumbled out of the Sir John Lydon Imperial Grammar School for Boys in Canterbury more than fifteen years earlier, wandering the beaches of Thailand and Goa for a while before strolling into London’s booming financial services industry. There, in the bright, gleaming, non-judgemental, ultra-short-term, fuck-everything-and-then-fuck-it-again world of high finance, he found his metier through dealing in foreign exchange. He established a niche in obscure currencies like the Turkish lira, Lebanese pound and Israeli shekel. These had a tendency to gyrate wildly against the major currencies – namely the dollar, sterling and the Euro – with every car bomb and airstrike occurring in the Middle East, of which, of course, there were plenty. It didn’t matter what was going up or down because, as long as things were moving, you could trade. If you could trade, you could make a profit, which was good for your end-of-year bonus, or a loss involving someone else’s money.

  Trading forex was a nice little earner, but it was nowhere near as profitable as the drugs Hawley sold on the side. His was an uncomplicated business, essentially providing grass, ecstasy and cocaine to between sixty and a hundred recreational users within his extended social set. Clement observed certain standards: he didn’t sell crack, the drug of choice for the truly degenerate, and he didn’t sell anything to those that he didn’t know, or to anyone who didn’t arrive at his table with a personal recommendation from an existing customer. Even without chasing every last pound, it was a very lucrative set-up, and Clement was comfortably clearing three hundred thousand pounds a year. Added to the money from his trading job, this sideline pushed his overall income towards half a million.

  There were scores of dealers like Clement throughout London. For the police, most were a useful source of market intelligence, people to trade information with rather than to close down. Arresting them was pointless, since there was always someone else to fill the void. Better to make use of them out on the street.

  Clement had been arrested just twice, once for being drunk and disorderly, the second time for possession. The first time, three years ago, he was taken to Charing Cross, where Carlyle, after a short but frank discussion regarding the six grand’s worth of ecstasy in his pockets, had him released without charge (but minus the drugs). The second time he was arrested, eight months later in Camden Town, Hawley declined his right to a phone call and asked for Inspector Carlyle, straight off the bat. All in all, Carlyle felt that he had built up a lot of credit at the Bank of Hawley, and now it was time to make a small withdrawal.

  Hawley’s normal stomping ground was Brick Lane, in the heart of a run-down East London neighbourhood just east of Spitalfields Market, and less than five minutes’ walk from the Liverpool Street offices of the Australian bank where he worked. One of the poorest districts in the whole country, it was historically famous for housing successive waves of immigrants: the Huguenots, the Irish and the Jews. It gained a small but important mention in twentieth-century British history with the Battle of Cable Street in 1936, when anti-Nazis fought the British Blackshirts. More recently, it had become a centre of the Bangladeshi community and was now famous for its curry houses. It was not an ar
ea that Carlyle knew well but, constantly changing and full of hustle, bustle and hardship, it lay at the heart of what made London the heaving, restless metropolis that it was. As a Londoner, therefore, he felt that he could relate to it well enough.

  Brick Lane had once been home to more than twenty pubs. With names like the Duke’s Motto, the Jolly Butchers, the Seven Stars and the Monkey’s Tackle, they had eagerly competed for the pound in the working man’s pocket. Now, with a decent round of drinks easily costing well north of thirty quid, just one of them, the Frying Pan, remained. The others had been turned into more profitable businesses: Indian and Chinese restaurants, cafés, a hairdresser’s shop, clothes shops, fast-food outlets, a canoe centre (who went canoeing in E1?), a money-transfer kiosk and a church for some religion that Carlyle had never heard of. There was also a travel shop offering Jack the Ripper tours – the Ripper being the leading local celebrity.

  Landlords in the ‘wet trade’ had taken a right kicking in recent years, victims of falling custom, the smoking ban, higher taxes and ridiculously cheap supermarket beer. By the more nostalgically inclined, pub closures were seen as a symbol of the death of London’s community spirit. Carlyle, who was most certainly not nostalgically inclined, personally considered this a load of old bollocks. For the fastidious inspector, the demise of these hovels, offering crap service and plenty of second-hand smoke, had to be considered a good thing. As far as he was concerned, that fake East End bonhomie, mixed with an undercurrent of prejudice and menace, would never be missed. More than a hundred London pubs might have closed during every year for the last decade, but he still didn’t notice any great shortage. That meant that there were still plenty of options for the likes of Clement Hawley to go about their business.

  Carlyle tried to think of the last time he’d been inside a pub, other than for the purposes of work. He reckoned it had to be at least three years. Probably so he could watch Fulham lose to some fellow no-hopers on one of the various subscription-TV services that he couldn’t afford at home.