by James Craig
‘Smithy’s still there though, isn’t he?’
Daniel smiled. Sergeant Giles Smith was the only comrade whose name Mel ever remembered. Right now, Sergeant Smith, a fifteen-year veteran with a wife and three kids of his own, should be about 27,000 feet above Croatia, heading for Kandahar, the advance party of their murder investigation. Hopefully, Smithy would have started to bring some order to the Leatherneck investigation by the time Daniel got there. Maybe even found a bit of bloody evidence. ‘Yeah, he’s still around. Run off his feet, like me.’ Depressed by the conversation, he glanced at his watch. ‘School will be out soon. We should get going.’
‘We’ve got a little more time.’ Mel reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out a thin brown envelope. ‘This arrived yesterday.’
‘Fuck. Not another one.’ Taking it from her hand, he looked at the address. The usual careful handwriting in blue ink, all capitals: MRS DANIEL HUNTER, 36 MORRISEY GARDENS, WC2M 5RG. ‘I thought all this shit had stopped.’ With a sigh, he tore open the envelope, even though he knew what would be inside. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I didn’t want to worry you.’
Daniel pulled out a single sheet of A4 paper. ‘You should have said.’ He scanned the contents and offered it to Mel. ‘It’s just the usual: Lay off Andy Carson. We know where you live.’ She waved it away. Daniel re-folded the sheet of paper and placed it back in the envelope. ‘Of course you know where we live, you dicks, you sent us a bloody letter!’ He shoved the envelope into the pocket of his jeans.
Mel stared into the middle distance. ‘I thought this was all over.’
‘It is. The investigation finished months ago. With that bloody video footage, the court-martial is a formality. The only question is how long he gets. And that’s nothing to do with me.’
‘It’s been all over the papers.’
‘I know. Andrew Stephen Carson – aka Soldier A – come on down.’
‘So why bother to send us another letter?’
‘I don’t know.’ Looking around the park, he saw that the tramp had reappeared and was sitting on a bench with a can of lager in his hand. At his feet was a blue plastic bag, doubtless containing more cans. Daniel shook his head. ‘Carson’s got a couple of brothers. They’re not necessarily the sharpest tools in the box.’
‘You said we would get away from all of this.’ She fought back a sob.
‘We will, I promise.’
‘It’s one of the reasons we came down to London, after all.’
‘Yes.’
‘So how did they get our new address?’
Good question. ‘How many letters is that now? Four? Five?’
‘Six. We had five before we moved.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Daniel!’ She gave him a gentle shove. ‘Don’t use that language. The kids pick up everything.’
‘The kids aren’t here.’
‘You don’t want to get into bad habits.’
‘Fair enough.’ It was an easy thing to concede.
‘Dr Fry would have a fit if he heard you using language like that at the school.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Daniel smiled. ‘I’ll be on my best behaviour.’
‘Good.’ Levering herself up, Mel began fussing with her coat. ‘Now come on, let’s get going. We don’t want to be late.’
THREE
The two men were turning into Cork Street by the time Carlyle got round to explaining the reason for his appearance in the West End. ‘I need a favour,’ he said, stepping off the pavement in order to dodge some scaffolding.
‘Big surprise,’ Dom grunted, not slowing his pace in the face of the building works. ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch, even if it’s only a Pret sandwich.’
‘It’s about Alexander,’ Carlyle added, jumping back out of the gutter.
‘Your dad?’
Carlyle nodded.
Reaching the Molby-Nicol Gallery, Dom stopped in front of a large poster in the window advertising his latest exhibition, ‘Mega-Dams’, and turned to face Carlyle. A look of genuine concern appeared on his face. ‘That must be a bastard. How’s he doing?’
‘Oh, you know.’ Carlyle stared at his shoes and noticed that the soles were coming away from the uppers. ‘He’s okay, under the circumstances.’
‘It’s been, what – three months now?’
Five, Carlyle thought, nearly six. ‘More or less.’ Feeling a hand on his shoulder, he looked up. ‘I mean, cancer – what can you do? I think he’d known for a while that something was wrong; it was almost a relief when the diagnosis confirmed the worst.’
‘After your mum going, as well.’
‘Yes,’ Carlyle nodded. ‘He’s got the right mentality for it though. Very stoical. No wailing and gnashing of teeth. He just keeps going about his business. Taken it all in his stride, really.’
‘And you?’
‘Me?’ Carlyle frowned. ‘I’m fine.’
‘The whole thing must be taking its toll though.’
The inspector shrugged. ‘It’s something we all have to go through.’
‘Yeah, but still.’ Dom waited as an elderly couple shuffled out of the gallery. Giving them a polite smile, he caught the door before it shut and ushered Carlyle inside. ‘C’mon, we can talk in my office.’
The gallery space consisted of a single large room with whitewashed walls. On the far side of the room, halfway towards the back, a tall elegant young woman, dressed all in black, sat behind a desk on which were piled a number of exhibition catalogues. Busily tapping away on a MacBook, she did not acknowledge the new arrivals.
On the walls were hung a series of massive photographic prints. Carlyle glanced at the image closest to the door, a large colour photograph of a group of jackbooted soldiers goose-stepping through a building site next to a river. A small notice next to the picture explained what he was looking at: Chunqiao Dam. Number 6 Chromogenic print, 122×162cm, 48¼×64in. Edition 22. Multiple sizes available. Carlyle knew better than to enquire as to the price.
Dom noticed him taking a look and automatically slipped into salesman mode. ‘This is the mega-dams project. You know that the Chinese are building more than a hundred and thirty of them at the moment?’
‘I had no idea,’ Carlyle confessed.
‘It’s the next great environmental disaster – one of the next great environmental disasters. And this is a chronicle of that folly.’ Dom mentioned the name of the photographer. ‘It’s a vast, ten-year undertaking. Quite remarkable. It has won loads of awards all over the world.’
‘Nice,’ Carlyle responded, somewhat disconcerted by the speed with which Dom moved from environmental catastrophe to photographic awards in the space of a single breath.
‘The exhibition here’s been a great success. Best we’ve ever had. It’s going to go over to a gallery I work with in New York next month.’
‘Mm.’
Dom turned towards the desk. ‘Sorry I’m late, Fiona.’
Without looking up, the girl pushed back her chair and stood up, hoisting an oversized tan bag over her shoulder as she did so. ‘I’m just off to Tutti’s for some lunch.’ She smiled unconvincingly. ‘I won’t be too long.’
‘Er . . . could you give me another ten minutes, please?’ Dom asked, rather apologetically, Carlyle thought, considering he was supposed to be the boss. ‘I just need to sort something with Insp— er, Mr Carlyle out in the back.’
‘Very well.’ Dropping her bag back on to the desk, Fiona’s shallow smile evaporated and she sat back down with a bump. ‘That’s no problem.’ Unzipping the bag, she fumbled inside for a moment, before produing an apple. ‘Don’t forget that you’ve got Mr Spargo in half an hour.’
Did the inspector imagine it, or did Dom’s shoulders sag a little at the mention of his imminent meeting? Spargo. Unusual name. Instinctively, the inspector filed it away in his cranial Outlook.
‘His office confirmed this morning,’ the receptionist added. ‘They said half an hour sho
uld be fine.’
‘I bet it is,’ Dom muttered.
The girl scrunched up her face, making her look about twelve years old. ‘What?’
‘Nothing. Thanks.’ Head bowed, Dom shuffled off before Fiona could ask any more questions or, worse, change her mind about further delaying her lunch. Careful to avoid eye contact with the hungry receptionist, Carlyle followed on in his wake.
At the back of the gallery, off to the right, a door led to a small space, maybe ten feet by twelve. This was Dom’s office and storeroom. Carlyle regularly ventured inside and was always distinctly unimpressed. The room had no windows, just a small skylight in the ceiling, leaving it in a permanent state of twilight. Worse, it was always cold. The temperature was at least five degrees lower here than in the gallery proper and there was a strong smell of damp. For a man who was supposed to be worth somewhere north of £20 million, Carlyle didn’t understand why Dom was happy to spend so much time in here.
On three sides, large canvases cocooned in bubble wrap stood against the wall, leaving just enough space in the middle for a small desk and two chairs. Even then, Carlyle had to remove three boxes of catalogues from the chair nearest the door before he could sit down.
‘Still the same old hole, I see.’
Dom carefully pulled the door shut. ‘It’s home.’
‘Don’t the customers expect better?’
‘The customers,’ said Dom, slipping behind the desk, ‘expect a Cork Street address and some traditional English hospitality.’
‘Eh?’
‘Polite but relentless ass-kissing,’ Dom explained.
‘I didn’t think that was your kind of thing,’ Carlyle chuckled.
‘I don’t mind,’ Dom grinned. ‘I find that as I get older it’s easier to fake these kinds of things.’
‘I don’t,’ Carlyle grumped.
‘Which is why you will never make it past Inspector, my friend, even if you were to stay in the Force for fifty years.’
‘As you’ve always told me.’
‘As I’ve always told you. Not that I would want you to change now. It’s part of your great charm.’
‘Ass-kisser!’
‘Guilty as charged.’ Dom held up both hands in mock surrender. ‘Like I said, I’m getting quite good at it. You have to be if you work in the service economy. Not all of us can suck on the tit of the public finances, you know.’
‘Ha!’ Carlyle gestured back in the direction of Berkeley Square. ‘You could still do all your brown-nosing in one of those nice new developments up the road.’ He shivered theatrically. ‘I’m sure they have central heating, for a start.’
‘Very expensive central heating.’ A pained expression crossed Dom’s face. ‘The rents they are proposing are totally unbelievable. They are putting up 80,000 feet of new space – with the threat of more to come – and think that they can charge more than double what anyone has ever charged before. It’s insane. The only people who can afford costs like those are private equity firms and the kind of retailers who sell handbags for three grand a pop.’
‘Yeah,’ Carlyle nodded. It was a common theme you heard these days: Central London neighbourhoods being turned into homogeneous ghettoes for the super-rich. It was a kind of ethnic cleansing, less violent than the versions that you saw in the Balkans or in Rwanda, but ultimately just as effective.
‘I would be bankrupt within six months,’ Dom continued. ‘Probably less.’
Carlyle raised an eyebrow.
‘I know that you – suspicious little sod that you are – think that the gallery is just a hobby, or some money-laundering scam, but it’s not. It’s what I do now. I enjoy it – but only because it’s a proper business. It has to stand on its own two feet. Do you understand?’
No. ‘Yes.’
‘Plus, when I bought it I made two promises to the previous owners, Mr Molby and Mr Nicol. One, I wouldn’t change the name, which was fine by me anyway; and two, I wouldn’t move from this location, which also makes sense. The gallery has been here ever since it was founded in 1947. They exhibited Bacon in the 1950s, Hockney in the 1970s.’ He mentioned the name of a famous American painter. ‘Twenty-odd years ago, he turned up at an opening totally off his face. They found him in this very room getting a blow job from one of the waiters.’
‘I don’t see a commemorative plaque anywhere,’ said Carlyle wryly.
‘There’s a famous photograph of him stumbling out of the gallery at the end of the night. If you look closely, you can see that his fly’s still undone.’
‘Nice.’
‘It’s all just part of the legend. The point is that you can’t take that history with you. I reckon that if we moved – even if we just moved to the other end of the street – I would lose maybe twenty per cent of my clients straight off the bat.’ Dom tapped determinedly on the desk with an index finger. ‘They like coming here.’
A phone started ringing in the gallery. Carlyle counted eight rings before the caller gave up. ‘You could get yourself a new receptionist, at least.’
Dom smiled. ‘Fiona’s a very nice girl. She can be a bit highly strung but the clients like her.’
‘How highly strung do you have to be, to be unable to answer the telephone?’
‘She’s just hungry.’
‘Mm.’ As the sustaining effect of his cheese and pickle sandwich began to wear off, Carlyle was beginning to feel a bit peckish himself.
‘She’s very bright.’ Dom kept his voice low, as if he was worried that the lovely Fiona might be listening on the other side of the door. ‘And I’m very lucky to have her.’
‘I would have thought she’s lucky to have you,’ Carlyle snapped. ‘Isn’t everyone under thirty supposed to be out of work these days?’ His thoughts turned to his own daughter. Alice would need to start working on her CV soon. Maybe Dom might be able to give her a Saturday job or, at least, some work experience. He thought about mentioning it then checked himself. Asking for two favours in one day would be a bit much.
‘Fiona would never have a problem getting a job,’ Dom explained. ‘I know for a fact, she’s been offered jobs in at least three other Mayfair galleries.’
‘Good for her.’
‘She’s currently doing a PhD on Contemporary Chinese Art at the Courtauld.’ Dom gestured at a poster taped to the wall behind his head. It was a smaller version of the one in the window, advertising the gallery’s current exhibition. ‘Which is perfect for me. Half of my artists these days are Chinese. And almost as many of my buyers.’
Carlyle nodded, trying to feign interest. The truth was that he had found Dom’s previous career far more engaging than his reincarnation as a respectable art dealer. After more than twenty years as a successful – and discreet – London drug dealer, Dom had cashed in his chips and pursued a new vocation. From the inspector’s point of view, the modern art market was harder to understand – and less professionally relevant – than illegal narcotics.
‘The flipside is, I can’t afford to piss her off.’ Dom glanced nervously at his watch. Carlyle couldn’t remember the model, but he knew it had cost roughly the equivalent of three months of his salary. Before tax. ‘I’ve had three assistants in the last twelve months. None of them ever stay. Eva says that I have to keep hold of this one.’
Carlyle allowed himself a rueful smile. Dom was the one person he knew who was as under the thumb as much as he was himself. Eva Hollander, aka Mrs Silver, kept him on a short leash.
‘She says it is a test of my management skills.’
‘From what I remember,’ Carlyle said drily, ‘your management skills were quite good.’
‘Keeping my crew in line was a piece of cake compared to the girls that waltz through here. They all think they can wrap you around their little finger.’ Dom grinned sheepishly. ‘And they do.’
‘I bet.’
‘Anyway, about your dad . . .’
‘Alexander is doing okay,’ Carlyle started up where he’d left off. ‘But we’re tal
king months, rather than years.’
‘Treatment?’
Carlyle shook his head. ‘He’s decided against it. And I can see his point. Tests, surgery, doctors will only mess about with whatever quality of life he has left, and for what? It might buy him a little more time. Then, again, it might not. Better to have six months living a relatively normal life than nine sitting in a hospital bed, surrounded by sick people.’
Dom nodded. He had a fair idea as to what was coming next, but he waited patiently for his friend to come out with it.
‘So . . . the matter in hand is pain relief. It gets pretty bad at times. And it’s only going to get worse. Alexander is adamant that the stuff they are giving him at the Royal Marsden is pretty shit. He needs some help. So, I wondered . . .’
He was interrupted by a knock at the door. Turning in his seat, he saw Fiona’s head appear.
‘Mr Spargo’s here.’
Dom glanced again at his watch. ‘For fuck’s sake. He’s twenty minutes early.’
The assistant shot him a look that said, There’s not a lot I can do about that. ‘Anyway, I’m off to lunch. Be back soon.’
‘But—’
Before Dom could protest, the head disappeared and the door clicked shut. Carlyle listened to the young woman say, ‘Mr Silver will be with you in a minute,’ followed by a reply which was inaudible.
‘Bollocks,’ Dom hissed.
‘Not a valuable client then?’
‘No, no.’
Carlyle realized he had to get on with it. ‘Alexander.’
‘C’mon, John, you know I don’t dabble in any of that these days.’
‘As I recall,’ Carlyle said flatly, ‘you never “dabbled”. You were one of the most successful dealers in London for a couple of decades at least.’
‘Flattery will get you nowhere,’ Dom told him.