London Calling

by James Craig

  ‘You get the picture.’

  ‘Sure. Give Gideon the list and we’ll see what we can find out.’

  ‘I appreciate it.’ Rummaging through his pocket, Carlyle found a piece of paper, a receipt for a sandwich he’d bought the day before. While he scribbled down the five names, he thought about whether there was anything else he could get from his host. Things needed to be pushed along a bit, so he showed a little more of his hand. ‘Do you ever supply the concierge at the Garden Hotel?’ he asked, without looking up.

  Dom glanced at Spanner and turned back to Carlyle. ‘Alex Miles? Yeah, now and again. Only the odd bit of business, though, nothing major. He likes to use different people. He wouldn’t make “my top hundred clients” list.’

  ‘Blake was the stiff found in his hotel last week.’

  Dom made a face to signify: OK … and?

  Gideon Spanner meanwhile kept staring blankly into space.

  ‘Blake was a fairly high-end drug user,’ Carlyle continued, ‘the type of guy who might buy from the likes of you through someone like Miles.’

  ‘There’s lots of those,’ Dom smiled. ‘Just leave it with us. We’ll doubtless dig up something. We usually do.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’ll walk you down the stairs.’

  At the front door, Dom followed Carlyle out into the street. ‘How’s the family?’

  ‘Fine,’ Carlyle said. ‘You?’

  ‘Good. The eldest two are at secondary school already.’ He grimaced. ‘The fees? Bloody hell!’

  ‘Tell me about it. Alice is at City in the Barbican now.’

  ‘That’s an excellent school.’

  ‘Yes, it is. We’re very pleased.’

  ‘How can you afford that?’

  ‘Good question.’

  ‘If you ever—’

  ‘No, no,’ Carlyle interrupted quickly. He wasn’t going down that road again. ‘We’re fine. She’ll get a scholarship soon … I hope.’

  ‘Good luck.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Would Carlyle ever take Dominic’s cash? It didn’t get any less tempting as the years went by. He’d discussed it with Helen a few times, in a What if? kind of a way. But it was never a serious possibility. They knew that if he ever crossed that line, he could never go back. The bottom line was that it wasn’t worth it, since it would be incredibly stupid to risk everything just for money. Never say never, of course, but things would have to become truly desperate.

  Dom moved the conversation quickly on to less choppy waters. ‘We should get the kids together over the summer hols.’

  ‘Helen would like that. She’s always worried about Alice not having enough company, being an only child.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  Dom wasn’t always this chatty, so Carlyle thought he might as well do a bit more fishing. ‘How’s business? Getting squeezed by the recession?’

  ‘Nah … well, maybe. Like you, I’ll never be out of work. It might be tough for a while, though, as I’m a discretionary spend.’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Yeah, sometimes,’ Dom laughed. ‘But, I’ll tell you this, we’ve just turned off easy street and on to shit street. The good old days are over. The easy money has run for the hills and the dirty money is getting dirtier. Things could get quite nasty for your average punter.’

  ‘Sure.’ A sociology lesson from a drug dealer, Carlyle thought. That’s just what I need.

  ‘You think about it, no more buying a house in London, watching the price going up, and then thinking you’re Warren Buffett. We’re off on a bumpy ride: industrial unrest, unemployment, stagflation – back to the bad old days of the seventies and eighties. You remember them?’

  Yes, Carlyle thought, I do indeed.

  Dom was off again on one of those monologues he’s perfected over the years: ‘Back to the days of power cuts, the rise of the National Front – or, rather, the bloody BNP,’ Dom continued. ‘Back to the days of mortgage rationing, holidays in Southend rather than Jamaica.’

  Carlyle, who hadn’t been on holiday anywhere more exotic than Brighton since before Alice was born, said nothing. Dom probably spent more on his holidays than an inspector’s annual salary afforded.

  ‘We’re running out of power, too,’ Dom continued, really on a roll now. ‘Our ageing power stations are closing and we haven’t bothered to build new ones. Power cuts, shutting down the tube service, reducing hospital services, three-day working weeks, Alice doing her homework by candlelight … it’s all on the cards.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘No maybes about it, mate. Civilisation requires electricity. Without it, it’s chaos and anarchy, here we damn well come. I wouldn’t want to be stuck at the top of your block of flats when the power fails.’

  ‘Thank you for that happy thought.’

  ‘Have you got a gun?’

  ‘Are you kidding?’

  ‘I wouldn’t rule it out,’ Dom smiled. ‘We are in serious, serious shit here. History is repeating itself in ever shorter cycles. Scumbag capitalism has been running out of control. The Russians are invading other countries again. They’ve even remade Brideshead Revisited. Even worse, that bunch of idiot public schoolboys will be running the country soon, or trying to.’

  ‘Helen wants me to take her to some film about the Baader-Meinhof,’ said Carlyle glumly. He couldn’t understand why his wife would want to spend two hours watching a film about German terrorists. Maybe it offered a gossamer thread to her lefty past.

  ‘Great date movie,’ Dominic sniggered. He flashed one of his trademark, old-style smiles. They were rarer these days, and usually of the sixty-watt rather than the hundred-watt variety, but this one was a decent approximation of the days gone by. ‘At least all this shit makes it interesting, eh? Just as long as they don’t bring back Spandau fucking Ballet.’

  On her knees in a bathroom at Party HQ, Yulexis Monagas slipped Xavier Carlton’s penis out of her mouth and began gently flicking its tip with her thumbnail.

  Xavier grunted with a mixture of surprise and pleasure. His member twitched on the brink of orgasm.

  Yulexis released her grip and carefully moved her face out of the line of fire. She looked up at her boss. ‘Xavier?’ she said quietly.

  ‘Yes?’ he gasped.

  ‘Xavier … I’m pregnant.’

  His eyes widened in surprise but he was incapable of speech as a stream of ejaculate flew past her left ear.

  Yulexis quickly moved backwards and handed him a small towel. ‘I’m pregnant.’

  He frowned, not wanting to believe it.

  ‘Almost twenty weeks,’ she added.

  ‘Twenty weeks?’ Xavier sniffed. That sounded quite a lot. He looked her up and down and felt himself begin to harden again. Shouldn’t he be able to notice that sort of thing? She didn’t look any different. Giving himself a quick wipe, he resisted the urge for seconds and zipped up his trousers. ‘Are you sure it’s mine?’

  Buttoning up her blouse, she fought back a sob. ‘Of course it’s yours. Who else’s could it be?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said airily, ‘we can get it sorted. I know a good man in Harley Street.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Yulexis asked, taking a step backwards.

  Xavier frowned. He was beginning to think this girl was a bit dumb. ‘Well, you can’t keep it, obviously.’

  ‘Xavier! It’s too late for an abortion! Anyway, I want to keep it.’

  The look that passed across his face made her shiver. But then he managed a smile. Not much of a smile, but a smile nonetheless. Taking hold of her shoulders, he reached over and kissed her on the top of the head.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll get an appointment arranged.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Harry Allen stepped through the non-existent Customs check and into the arrivals hall, scanning the assorted taxi boards until he found the one with his name on it. Nodding curtly to the driver, he handed over his bag and followed him out to th
e waiting car. Settling in the back seat, he reached into his pocket, and instantly realised that he’d left his mobile in the bag which was now secured in the boot. Cursing gently to himself, he thought about getting back out to retrieve it, but he couldn’t summon up the energy. Half a bottle of wine on the plane had made him sleepy, besides he’d be home in an hour. There was nothing so important that it couldn’t wait until then.

  Allen opened the car window an inch, as they pulled away from the kerb and into the slowly moving traffic. For once the weather was fine, but that only served to make him more depressed to be back. London was a place designed for poor weather: whenever the sun came out, you should be somewhere else. Closing his eyes, he tried to tune out the traffic noise and began planning his next trip.

  The next thing he realised was that they had come to a stop. Slowly, he opened his eyes, yawned and stretched. His body felt stiff after his nap, his legs ached and his mouth was dry. The atmosphere inside the car was stuffy and he felt dizzy. Fumbling with the handle, he tried to open the door. It was locked.

  ‘Hello?’ he said in a feeble voice that could barely be heard even inside the car.

  Where was the driver?

  More to the point, where was Allen?

  Shielding his eyes against the glare, he looked around. The car was parked by the side of a single-lane road in the middle of a patch of wasteland that stretched for as far as he could see. In the distance rose some electricity pylons. To his right, a goods train slowly made its way across the horizon. A jet screamed low overhead as it approached the airport.

  Fully awake now, he could feel his heart racing. He tried the door again, to no effect, and began banging his palm on the window.

  ‘Hello? HELLO?’

  The sudden beep made him flinch. For a second, after the door popped open, he didn’t move. Then, pushing himself up, he stumbled out of the car. Standing with his hands on his hips, he took a moment to clear his head. Feeling a little better, he started walking. Knowing that he had no idea of where he was, he struck out in the direction of the train tracks, walking away from the road. He kept up a steady pace without ever quite breaking into a run.

  Minutes later, the sound of the car engine starting up again made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Beginning to jog, he immediately felt his chest tighten and cursed the fact that he hadn’t done enough exercise for years. Behind him, the car gently bounced towards him over the uneven ground. Ignoring the pain, Allen started to run. But the vehicle was on him in seconds. When he sensed it right behind him, he finally turned to look – just in time to glance off the left-side wing and cartwheel into the air, before landing in the dust in a broken heap.

  Spitting blood from his mouth, he gasped in agony. Rolling on to his back, he tried to sit up but fell back into the dirt. Through the tears in his eyes, he squinted up at the sky. The excruciating pain in his left leg told him that it was broken even before he saw bone protruding through the skin. But that was a mere distraction from the footsteps now steadily heading towards him. Allen turned his head to see a pair of dirty trainers stop just inches away from his face. Looking directly into the sun, he could only make out the silhouette of a man. There was something glinting in one of his hands.

  ‘Who are you?’ Allen croaked through teeth gritted against the pain.

  ‘Don’t worry about me.’ The shadow leaned forward to show him the knife. ‘You just worry about this.’

  Allen felt the toe of a trainer in his back as he was flipped on to his stomach. A mixture of soil and gravel shot into his mouth and up his nose. He was crying like a baby now, as he realised that he would be found like this.

  Humiliated.

  Destroyed.

  Violated.

  ‘Don’t hurt me,’ he whimpered, ‘please.’

  ‘You people are all the same,’ the silouette grunted. ‘Stop whining. I haven’t got much time to waste. This won’t last long.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  With three days left until the election, Carlyle had read in the paper that Edgar Carlton would be holding a press conference to discuss his party’s social policies. Despite the narrowing opinion polls, victory still seemed the most likely outcome for the golden twins. The conference was scheduled to start at 10 a.m. at the Royal Academy of Engineering building, close to St James’s Park. Joe Szyszkowski had left for Cambridge, to visit Clement Hawley’s brother, so Carlyle decided to decamp to the park with a coffee and a copy of The Times while he waited for the presser to start.

  It was a beautiful morning, with a clear blue sky. The temperature had not yet climbed above fifteen or sixteen degrees, so there was a pleasant nip in the air. He sat on a bench, with Buckingham Palace way off to his left, Downing Street on his right, and watched other people going about their business while he himself took a short time out. If he wasn’t exactly feeling blissed out, there was still a distinctly positive vibe flowing through the Carlyle veins. Things were moving now. Harry Allen’s death had been a new blow to the investigation, though not as big a blow as it had been to Allen himself. The silly sod should have spoken to me sooner, Carlyle thought. But at least his death showed that it was still game on. While that was the case, he remained confident that they would get their man.

  Thinking of Allen, he pulled out his phone and deleted the dead man’s voicemail. No sense in leaving that hanging around in case there were any accusations of slackness further down the line. With hindsight, Carlyle knew that he should have tracked Allen down while he was abroad, rather than waiting for him to come back to London. He didn’t need Simpson or anyone else using that mistake as a stick to beat him with later.

  Closer inspection of the phone indicated that he had missed another three calls. When did that happen? How come he had never heard the bloody thing ring? There was one voicemail as well, but he wasn’t going to check it just yet. It would doubtless be Simpson, and he didn’t want to speak to Simpson until after he’d seen Carlton. At the earliest. Instead, he called home and gave Helen an update on the situation.

  ‘Looks like you’re still quite a bit behind the game,’ she said, gently pulling his leg.

  ‘I know,’ said Carlyle, laughing, ‘but at least now I can start to shake things up a bit.’

  ‘You could be in for a busy few days?’

  ‘We’ll see,’ he said, watching a duck waddle towards him. It stopped about two feet away and looked at him expectantly. When he didn’t come up with some bread, it turned around and crapped on the path, before heading back the way it had come.

  ‘Be careful,’ she added.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’m serious, John,’ she said reproachfully, ‘these are not normal people you’re dealing with here.’

  ‘They never are.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, ‘but this is the other end of the spectrum. Normally you’re wading through the bottom end of the gene pool. This is different.’

  ‘You mean I’m playing out of my league?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ he said, with mock indignation.

  ‘Don’t be silly. It’s not about you. With people like that, it never is. It’s all about them. Don’t get in their faces.’

  ‘Me? Never!’

  Helen sighed loudly. ‘You never learn, do you? Just be careful. And good luck. I’ve got to get Alice to school now. Let’s talk later.’

  ‘Give her a kiss from me. Tell her I’ll try and take her sometime soon.’

  After hanging up on his wife, Carlyle scoured the back pages of the newspaper for any decent football news. Finding nothing of interest, he folded the paper and tossed it on to the bench beside him, before checking his emails. There was nothing of interest on his BlackBerry either, so he moved on to his private mobile. There were yet more unanswered calls and another message, timed at 8.30 the previous evening. This time he checked his voicemail.

  Dominic Silver’s message was short and to the point: ‘Why didn’t you tell me about the Merrion Clu
b? Call me back.’

  ‘Why do you think?’ Carlyle said to himself. He switched the phone off and stuck it back into an inside pocket of his jacket. That was another conversation to be delayed until later in the day. Yawning, he got up from the bench and stretched. It was almost twenty past eight now and the rush hour was in full swing. The park was getting busier, with a steady stream of people using it as a pleasant short cut on their way to work. Carlyle picked up his newspaper and dropped it in a nearby bin.

  Then he headed off to see Mr Carlton.

  Everyone likes a winner, and the Royal Academy of Engineering was full to bursting. Simpson would kill for a crowd like this, Carlyle thought. More than a hundred journalists and a dozen camera crews had turned up to listen as Edgar Carlton, flanked by two severe but eager-looking women, whom Carlyle didn’t recognise, revealed the secret of how precisely he was going to fix Britain’s ‘broken society’.

  Waiting for it to finish, Carlyle quietly sat at the back, playing the BrickBreaker game on his BlackBerry. After about twenty minutes, they went to Q&A. After another ten, a PR flunky called a halt to the proceedings. Immediately, the journalists and cameramen swarmed to the front of the room to grab the man of the moment and ask him the same questions all over again.

  Carlyle moved in the direction of the crowd. He was happily hovering behind a rather foxy-looking German reporter when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Good morning, Inspector,’ said Rosanna Snowdon, ‘how nice to see you again.’

  ‘Er … yes. You too.’

  ‘You didn’t return my call,’ Rosanna said sweetly.

  He casually feigned ignorance. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I left three or four messages on your mobile.’

  Three or four? He vaguely remembered one.

  She gave him just the slightest pout. ‘You never called me back.’

  Had that been deliberate or not? He couldn’t remember. ‘Sorry.’