All Kinds of Dead

by James Craig

  ‘Yes, I am. It was my sergeant who tried to stop them and got a smack in the face for her trouble.’

  Hunter nodded and rubbed a hand over his face. ‘So what do you think?’

  Carlyle grimaced. ‘That’s what I was going to ask you.’

  TWELVE

  Leaving the school, they found a greasy-spoon café on North Audley Street, a block south of Oxford Street. The lunchtime rush was over and the place was empty apart from a couple of students sitting in the back, hunched over their iPads. Stepping up to the counter, Carlyle contemplated the range of cakes and pastries on offer. The girl behind the counter waited patiently while he wrestled with his conscience. After several moments, he chose the side of the angels, settling for a small pot of green tea.

  ‘Anything to eat?’ the girl enquired, her accent suggesting that she hailed from somewhere east of the Oder-Neisse Line – the border between Germany and Poland.

  Carlyle hesitated. ‘No.’

  With a brisk nod, she turned her attention to Hunter.

  ‘Double espresso, please.’

  Waiting patiently at the counter, each man kept his own counsel as the girl banged away at the coffee machine. Once they had retreated to a table by the window, Hunter slipped a small wallet across the table. ‘That’s me.’

  Carlyle inspected the warrant card and handed it back. ‘So you’re a cop?’

  Hunter nodded. ‘Military Police.’

  ‘Must be interesting.’

  ‘It has its moments.’ Looking edgy, Hunter downed his coffee in a single gulp.

  ‘I bet.’ Removing the tea bag from the pot, the inspector dropped it on his saucer. Half-filling the cup, he took a cautious sip. Basking in the imagined approval of his wife, he made a mental note to point out his reduced caffeine intake when he got home. Then he thought how he would feel if his own wife and daughter had been kidnapped, and his guts cramped involuntarily.

  ‘It can be quite tricky.’ Hunter was holding it together like a pro. ‘You’ve got to be a bit of a politician and a diplomat, as well as a cop.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ Carlyle, who was neither, chuckled knowingly.

  ‘I’ve been doing it a long time,’ Hunter said quietly. ‘And I like to think I’m good at it. But now . . . it’s the reason Mel and the kids got snatched.’ So saying, he pulled a crumpled envelope from the front pocket of his trousers and dropped it on the table.

  Eyeing Hunter, Carlyle made no move to touch it.

  ‘Go on, take a look.’

  Carlyle obliged. Picking up the single sheet of paper, he scanned its simple message. Lay off Andy Carson. We know where you live. The inspector frowned. ‘Who’s Andy Carson?’

  ‘Aka Soldier A.’ Hunter slowly talked Carlyle through the Andy Carson investigation, the court-martial and Carson’s violent escape. Once he’d finished, he signalled to the girl behind the counter that he’d like another coffee.

  Putting the paper back in the envelope, Carlyle poured the last of his tea from the pot into the cup. ‘I didn’t know that the Army had its own prison.’

  ‘The Military Corrective Training Centre is not officially a prison.’ Hunter parroted the official line.

  ‘Sounds like a prison to me.’

  ‘It exists to detain personnel of the three Services and civilians subject to the Armed Forces Act, in accordance with the provisions of the Service Custody and Service of Relevant Sentences Rules 2009, and provide them with corrective training while they’re there.’ Hunter paused and looked Carlyle in the face. ‘I’ve sent quite a few soldiers there over the years, as you can imagine.’

  Carlyle scratched his chin. ‘It’s a bit late to be trying to warn you off Carson.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. Mel and I have been getting these notes for ages, since the beginning of my investigation. They were hardly the most sophisticated of threats but enough to spook the wife a little bit. I just ignored them. They stopped before the court-martial got underway. Anyway, we’d moved off base by then and were given a flat in London, so I thought they wouldn’t be able to trace us and that it was all over.’ Hunter took the letter and shoved it back into his pocket. ‘Then this one turns up. To be honest, I thought it was a joke. Carson’s family, some of them are a bit dim, know what I mean? Looks like I should have taken it more seriously.’ A murderous look crossed his face. ‘When I get hold of them . . .’

  ‘Inspector Ward thinks it’s a domestic. Did you explain all of this to her?’

  ‘Her eyes glazed over after about two seconds. She obviously thinks I’m spinning her a line. In her mind, the most likely explanation is that it’s just some marital row that’s got way out of hand.’

  ‘It’s a not unreasonable assumption,’ Carlyle mused, surprised to find himself in the position of defending the hatchet-faced Ward.

  ‘Who would fake a kidnapping, for God’s sake?’ Hunter’s control was slipping. He took out his pack of cigarettes and put them on the table, obviously dying for a smoke.

  ‘Stranger things have happened. When people get desperate, normal judgement goes out the window.’

  ‘If that’s the story you want to create . . .’

  ‘I’m just trying to see it from Ward’s point of view. She lands this case, which is a bit strange. And then you turn up with a story that makes it a whole lot stranger.’

  ‘I can see that.’ Hunter nodded, but his leg was jiggling up and down.

  ‘She doesn’t want to swallow anyone’s line.’

  ‘Naturally suspicious.’

  ‘Not a bad thing in a cop,’ Carlyle pointed out.

  ‘No,’ Hunter agreed. ‘I see quite a few cases of domestic violence myself. When guys come home, a lot of them find it hard to adjust.’

  Carlyle looked across the table, expressionless. ‘Do you beat your wife?’

  ‘No!’ Recoiling from the question, Hunter sat back and put his hands on his head.

  ‘Any domestic problems?’

  ‘Other than the fact that I’m away all the bloody time? No, not really. I don’t think so.’ Sitting up, Hunter folded his arms.

  ‘Are you on the road a lot?’

  ‘Yeah. The investigations we get could be anywhere: Afghanistan, Cyprus, the Falklands – you name it. I would say that I spend almost half my time out of the country. On average, I only get to sleep in my own bed four or five nights a month.’

  ‘It must be tough.’

  ‘Yeah. Do you have kids?’

  Carlyle nodded. ‘One.’

  ‘I’ve got two. Susannah is eight and Robert is almost six. You know what it’s like. They’re growing up fast. What I do, it’s not a job for a family man. I’ve got to pack it in before it’s too late. Otherwise I’m going to walk through the door one day and there’ll be no one there.’

  Looks like that day’s arrived. Carlyle was startled by his phone squawking into life, with the blast of some techno track – Alice’s idea of a joke. ‘Sorry, my daughter’s been fiddling with my phone again.’ Checking the screen, he was even more surprised to see Sheelagh Buttimer’s name. He lifted the handset to his ear.

  This time, Sheelagh was all business. ‘That van you were asking about. It’s just been found abandoned.’ She gave him an address a little way north of the Westway. ‘I thought you’d want to know.’

  ‘Great. Thanks.’ He signalled to Hunter for a pen. ‘Could you give me that address again?’

  ‘Bell Street. Ironically enough, it’s only about two minutes from Paddington Green.’

  The captain took a biro from his pocket and handed it over.

  ‘Ta.’ Carlyle grabbed a Metro that had been discarded on the next table and scribbled the address down. ‘Thanks for the heads-up, Sheelagh.’

  ‘Just don’t get me any Milk Tray this time,’ she warned him. ‘I’m on a diet at the moment.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, genuinely grateful. ‘Speak soon.’

  Finishing his tea, he tore the address from the newspaper.

  ‘A d
evelopment?’ Hunter asked.

  Getting to his feet, Carlyle made a snap decision. ‘They’ve found the van. C’mon, let’s go and take a look.’

  Arms folded, Hunter’s impassive expression faltered as a technician emerged from the back of the parked van, a small backpack in each hand. On the other side of the road, a couple of scruffy old blokes in cardigans stood in the doorway of a second-hand bookshop, occasionally sipping from large mugs of tea as they watched the proceedings.

  ‘Are these your children’s bags?’ Returning from a fruitless recce, Carlyle appeared at Hunter’s shoulder.

  The captain nodded.

  ‘The van can’t have been here for very long. We were lucky.’ The inspector lifted his chin in the direction of the bookshop. ‘They left the back doors open. One of those two had a snoop around, saw that it had been hotwired and called it in.’

  Hunter kept his bloodshot eyes on the empty van as if he was trying to absorb any information it contained via some kind of ESP. ‘Did they see anything?’

  ‘Sadly not. They rarely open up before lunchtime. It was here when they arrived.’

  Hunter nodded. ‘Anyway, we know who did it.’

  More or less. ‘They’re dusting for prints now but it looks like it’s clean.’

  ‘It will be.’

  ‘Maybe not. You said that Carson’s mates were a bit dim. They could have left something.’

  ‘His family, not his mates. Some of his family are a bit thick, particularly his brother. Five foot four and he wanted to take me down an alley for a scrap.’ Hunter shook his head at the memory. ‘I would have killed him.’

  ‘People usually mess up,’ Carlyle observed.

  ‘This wasn’t his family.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’ Hunter’s voice was clear; his statement definitive, if not very illuminating. Beginning to feel confused, Carlyle started to review the wisdom of showing some faith in Hunter. Just because he was a cop didn’t mean he couldn’t be a flake; a wife-beating flake at that.

  His only interest in this was Roche. Roche was okay. Why had he felt the need to jump in and stick his nose in Ward’s case? You berk, he admonished himself. You can never just leave things alone, can you?

  ‘The people who got him out – the people who did this . . . they’re professionals. No one in the Carson family could do this.’ Hunter stared at Carlyle as if challenging him to disagree.

  ‘So who did?’

  ‘Military guys.’ Hunter scratched his cheek. He was weary and he needed a shave. ‘Military guys who need Carson for something. They wouldn’t go to all this trouble for nothing.’

  Really? Carlyle gave an indistinct grunt.

  ‘Carson kept some interesting company. It came up in my investigation but wasn’t really relevant to what happened to some Taliban muppets in a field in the middle of nowhere. There’s a murky world of servicemen, ex-servicemen and gangsters that most people don’t know about.’ Hunter corrected himself. ‘That most people don’t want to know about.’

  Carlyle nodded. This was a world of which he was well aware. It was his pal Dominic Silver’s preferred labour pool, back in his drug-dealing days. Dom’s long-time lieutenant, Gideon Spanner, had come out of the Army with an exemplary service record and an excellent contacts book.

  ‘Carson was plugged into that world.’ Hunter mentioned a few names that meant nothing to Carlyle. ‘I know for a fact that he had done a couple of freelance jobs, quite big too. He was part of a gang that knocked off a bookmakers at York Racecourse and took off with nigh on a million quid.’

  ‘I read about that. I thought they were never caught?’

  ‘They weren’t. Not my problem. I was running a murder investigation.’

  ‘Fair point.’

  ‘It’s my problem now though. I reckon that Carson’s crew needed him for a job.’ Hunter lifted his gaze towards the end of the road and the traffic hurtling in the direction of Heathrow on the Westway. ‘It must be one hell of a job for them to go to this much trouble to scare me off.’

  Carlyle kicked a small stone down the road. ‘Well, they picked a good place to dump the van. They could have gone anywhere from here.’ He gestured in both directions. ‘And this must be just about the only street in London with next to no CCTV. Perfect.’

  Hunter nodded. ‘Like I said, these are serious guys. Smart. Organized. Disciplined.’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ Carlyle said, ‘we should get out of here before Ward turns up.’

  ‘Too late.’ Hunter pointed to the hunched figure striding towards them. A mobile phone was clamped to her ear; as she got closer it was clear that she was having an argument with the poor sod on the other end of the line.

  ‘Shit,’ Carlyle muttered. He already had more than enough women in his life, bossing him about; he didn’t need another one. Looking around, he searched in vain for an escape route.

  ‘Uh oh,’ Hunter smirked. ‘You are so busted.’

  Ending her call, Ward caught sight of the two men. Her eyes narrowed and Carlyle could have sworn that her hands instinctively balled up into fists.

  I’m busted all right. Taking a deep breath, Carlyle braced himself for the inevitable bollocking.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, addressing the pair of them simultaneously.

  Carlyle shrugged. ‘I heard that they’d found the van.’

  Coming to a halt a couple of yards in front of them, Ward pointed at Hunter with the phone. ‘And what the fuck is he doing here?’

  ‘I thought he could come and have a look.’

  Now her hands were definitely balled into fists. ‘Why did you think that?’

  ‘Why not?’ Carlyle edged backwards. He didn’t want to find out how good Ward’s left hook might be. At the same time, he knew that he couldn’t lift his hands under any circumstances. If he were to give in to temptation and belt the stupid woman, even in self-defence, he would be out of a job in less time than you could say ‘gender equality has its limits’, or something similar.

  ‘And I thought that this was my investigation.’ Ward jerked a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of Paddington Green police station on the other side of the Edgware Road. ‘Maybe I should nip back and have a word with Carole Simpson. See what she has to say about all this.’

  You know the Commander? Carlyle smiled weakly. ‘She’s not around at the moment. She’s on a course.’

  ‘And while she’s on this course, did the Commander give you a green light to stick your nose into my case?’

  ‘She knows what I’m up to.’ The truth was that Simpson had not returned his call. Carlyle hoped that she had at least listened to her voicemail. The message he had left did give a fig leaf of credibility to his statement.

  They had reached a stand-off. Placing her hands on her hips, Ward turned her attention to Hunter. ‘Well?’ she demanded, ‘Have you seen anything interesting – anything that supports the version of events that you outlined to me at the school?’

  Eyes fixed on the van, Hunter shook his head. ‘Nope.’

  ‘Okay. Well, you need to come with me now, so that we can take your formal statement.’

  Hunter glanced at Carlyle, the annoyance on his face clear. Being a soldier, however, he knew when to pick his battles. ‘Very well,’ he said meekly.

  ‘Fine.’ Ward did a pirouette and began marching back in the direction from which she’d come. ‘Let’s go.’

  Before Hunter could follow after her, Carlyle quickly fished a business card out of his pocket and offered it to the soldier. ‘Give me a call on the mobile when you’re done. I’ll do a bit more digging in the meantime.’

  Ward was already the best part of ten yards down the road. Nodding, Hunter took the card and jogged slowly after her.

  Carlyle watched him catch her up. Reaching the end of the street, they had disappeared into the hustle and bustle of the Edgware Road before he remembered why he’d wanted to speak to Ward in the first place. ‘Bollocks,’ he said
aloud. ‘She still hasn’t told me about Lucio Spargo.’

  THIRTEEN

  The middle-aged woman standing at the front of the class nodded in appreciation of her charges. ‘Good! Very good.’

  An uncomfortable silence descended on the room. The teacher then used an extendable baton to point at the mantra which had been scribbled on to the whiteboard in green pen.

  ‘One more time, ladies and gentlemen – with feeling!’ The cheery desperation in her voice suggested she was well aware of the deep pools of scepticism within her audience. ‘You have to really believe it, if you are going to make it work.’

  A low groan went round the classroom, mixed with a few mutterings of discontent, which reluctantly, painfully morphed into the grim chant that the group had been repeating for the last ten minutes or so.

  ‘Positive energy will flow from my being. I will destroy negative energy with empathy and compassion. I will promote social good through my professionalism and dedication.’

  ‘Good!’ A rictus grin plastered on her face, the facilitator placed her free hand on her stomach. ‘Remember, I want you to breathe from the diaphragm. Feel what you are saying. Let the words flow from your inner depths.’ She surveyed the blank faces in front of her and ploughed on. ‘This is a very serious business. It is about transforming the way that you live your lives in a positive and empowering manner. I want the words to connect with your innermost self. I want you to become the words.’

  A number of bemused looks were exchanged, quickly followed by the sound of the baton tapping on the board.

  ‘Last time! Positive energy will flow from my being. I will destroy negative energy with empathy and compassion. I will promote social good through my professionalism and dedication.’

  It sounded more like a dirge than an outpouring of optimism.

  Sitting at the back of the classroom, Commander Carole Simpson mumbled the words into the palm of her hand. Despite nine hours’ sleep, a series of back-to-back ‘empowerment sessions’ had left her feeling exhausted, not to mention seriously depressed. Struggling to stay awake, Simpson imagined she had gone back in time and was sitting in Mrs Campbell’s Advanced French class, wondering if she should let the dishy Steve Bucknell take her to the Scala on Saturday night.