Carlyle looked up at her and replied, ‘You sound just like my wife.’ Logging off, he dropped the device on the table and took a swig of his beer.
Weighing up whether to have another, Roche played with her beer bottle, turning it this way and that. ‘There’s a couple of new things that Simpson wants us to take a look at,’ she announced.
‘Mm.’ The inspector wondered if maybe his boss should take retirement after all. The last thing he wanted now was any more work. His desk was relatively clear at the moment, and he wanted to keep it that way. He eyed Roche with a pained expression, only to find that she was looking at someone behind him. Before he had time to turn around and check, a woman sat down next to him on the bench. Placing a large glass of white wine on the table, she deposited a red leather shoulder bag on the floor by her feet. Carlyle checked her out. Underneath a Burberry raincoat, she wore a pale blue V-neck sweater offering just the slightest hint of décolletage. At first glance, he’d say she was a foreigner, probably a tourist. A good-looking one too: slim, with long auburn hair and a pretty face, youthful-looking for someone Carlyle guessed to be somewhere in her mid-thirties.
Turning to face him, she smiled and offered her hand. ‘Inspector Carlyle?’ she enquired in a vaguely American accent.
‘Yes,’ he said reluctantly, before shaking her hand limply.
Roche waved her empty bottle at the new arrival. ‘And I’m Sergeant Roche,’ she said, not waiting to be introduced.
The woman smiled blandly and moved closer to Carlyle. ‘I am Sylvia Swain,’ she said, taking out a business card and placing it on the table in front of him. Then she produced a small tape recorder and placed it next to the card. ‘I work for the
Globe and Mail
in Canada. I’m doing a piece on the current spate of political killings in London and their impact, both on people in the city and on the wider geopolitical situation.’
Good for you
.
‘And I wondered if I could possibly speak to you for a few moments about the murder of your partner?’
The inspector picked up the card and scanned it slowly. Swain bore the title of Senior Foreign Correspondent and she had an office address in Toronto. A mobile started ringing. He recognized the opening bars of U2’s ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ – as Roche began fumbling in the pocket of her jacket. Checking the number on the screen, she took the call, clamping the phone to one ear and sticking a finger in the other to block out the noise of the busy pub. ‘Hi!’ she shouted to the caller. ‘Hold on a minute.’ Giving him a crooked smile, she headed outside for the relative quiet of the street.
Annoyed at being abandoned by his colleague, he turned to face the journalist, who was waiting politely for him to respond to her question. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but this is an ongoing investigation. I am not at liberty to discuss it.’
Swain took a mouthful of wine and nodded. ‘I completely understand.’
‘Thank you.’
However, she went on: ‘But you worked closely with Sergeant Sy . . .’
Carlyle glanced at the tape machine, double-checking that it was switched off. ‘Szyszkowski. Joe Szyszkowski.’
‘Interesting name. Where was he from?’
‘He was English,’ said Carlyle, not wishing to elaborate.
‘Could you at least tell me what kind of an officer he was?’ She noticed Carlyle again eyeing the machine on the table. ‘Don’t worry, Inspector,’ she said, reaching over and tapping him gently on the arm. ‘I am not recording this. This is all background. I will not quote you on anything.’ Picking the machine up off the table, she dropped it into her bag, before pulling out a small Moleskine notebook and a cheap biro in its place.
Carlyle sighed. ‘Joe Szyszkowski was an experienced officer,’ he said quickly, ‘a very dedicated officer who worked extremely hard on behalf of the people of London. He left a wife and two kids, and the very least that they deserve is that his killer should be brought to justice.’ While the journalist scribbled down what he had just said, Carlyle glanced outside. Roche was standing on the far side of the road, still chatting away on her mobile. He felt weary and had developed an overwhelming need to go home.
Swain finished writing. Pen hovering over the page, she looked up expectantly, as if waiting for more.
‘That’s it,’ said Carlyle, as he rose to his feet. ‘I have to go now.’
‘Thank you for your time, Inspector,’ Swain told him. ‘I appreciate it, and I will send you a copy of my story.’
‘Good.’
‘If you could let me have your email address?’
‘Oh – right.’ Carlyle dug out one of his cards. ‘I look forward to reading it,’ he lied, walking away.
‘Get on with it.’
Snivelling like a beaten child, Rollo Kasabian gingerly fingered the electrical cable looped around his neck. Clenching his buttocks tightly, he tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry.
‘Just take the photo and hit the Send button.’ The voice behind him was calm but insistent. ‘The sooner you do that, the sooner I can get you down.’
Rollo wobbled on the chair and felt the cable dig into the flesh underneath his chin. Regaining his balance, he carefully extended his arm, so as to position the camera on his phone directly in front of his face.
‘Good man.’
Tears streaming down his cheeks, Rollo hesitated. A small voice in the depths of his brain was urging him not to take the picture. But he had been standing this way in the middle of his living room for almost an hour now, till his whole body ached with tiredness. He needed rest, lots of rest. All he wanted to do was to get down from here and crawl into bed. As his hand started to shake, he pressed the button. Flipping the camera round, he stared at the grotesque image of his bloated face on the screen. It looked like he was already dead.
‘Send it.’
Fumbling with the handset, Rollo pulled up the number from his contacts book and pressed Send. The image disappeared from the screen and he let the handset slip from his fingers. Hitting the parquet floor hard, it disintegrated into a mess of plastic and metal components.
‘Thank you.’ The big man with the shaven head stepped in front of the fashion designer and smiled. ‘That wasn’t too difficult, was it?’
‘Get me down!’ Rollo gasped.
The man’s smile grew wider. Stepping forward, he kicked away the chair, leaving the fat man clawing at thin air.
This time, Sam Hooper didn’t bother to knock. A couple of swift kicks sent Rollo Kasabian’s front door flying open, and the sudden stench led him straight to the living room, where the fashion designer was hanging from a noose that had been rigged from the light fitting in the centre of the ceiling.
Hooper didn’t bother checking for a pulse. ‘You useless fat fucker,’ he hissed. ‘You could have waited till I’d finished with you.’ Pulling out his mobile, he hesitated before summoning an ambulance, knowing that he should give the flat a quick once-over first.
‘Drop the phone,’ a voice ordered.
Hooper heard the click of a safety-catch being released, and did just as he was told. The mobile bounced just once, then landed in the pool of urine that had collected beneath Rollo’s corpse. Hooper raised his gaze to the ceiling. ‘Shit!’
The muzzle of a semi-automatic was pushed firmly into the nape of his neck. ‘Don’t worry, you won’t be needing that any more.’
Feeling relatively relaxed about his situation, Hooper didn’t try to look round. He had been threatened before. The worst that was likely to happen to him would be a smack over the head. Drugs were one thing, but very few people indeed had the balls to off a copper. ‘I’m a policeman,’ he said confidently.
‘I know,’ said the man behind him, pulling the trigger.
Carlyle was in the middle of brushing his teeth when he heard the doorbell ring. Sitting on the toilet, Helen looked up at him expectantly. Carlyle shrugged and continued brushing. Alice was tucked up in bed and the rest of the world could look after itself. Whoever was buzzing them at eleven o’clock at night could sod off.
A second ring was quickly followed by a third. ‘Go and answer it!’ Helen snapped.
Grumbling to himself, Carlyle rinsed out his mouth, pulled on a moth-eaten SLF
Nobody’s Hero
T-shirt and padded down the hallway. Pulling open the front door, he was genuinely shocked to see his boss, Carole Simpson, standing on his doorstep. The smell of whisky on her breath hit him immediately but her eyes looked sharp and focused. Not waiting to be invited in, she marched through the door and headed into the living room. Scratching his head in puzzlement, Carlyle closed the door and followed her.
‘How did you get in the building?’
‘I hit a few buttons. Someone buzzed me in.’
Typical, Carlyle thought. So much for having security. ‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’
Simpson shook her head and lowered herself carefully into an armchair. ‘Sit down, John.’
Doing as he was told, he waited patiently for her to explain precisely what was going on.
Simpson waited for several seconds. Finally she announced: ‘Sam Hooper was murdered about two hours ago.’
Carlyle felt sick to his stomach but said nothing.
‘He was killed execution-style, with a bullet to the back of the head.’
A million thoughts raced through Carlyle’s mind, none of them good.
‘Hooper had gone to the home of Rollo Kasabian,’ Simpson continued flatly. ‘It appears that Kasabian had hanged himself. Someone was waiting for Hooper when he found him.’ She stopped, as if inviting Carlyle to speak, but still he said nothing. He knew that his next words would be crucial for his relationship with Simpson. It was vital that he stuck to the truth, but that was not the same as spilling your guts and revealing all of it.
‘This will become very nasty,’ Simpson sighed. ‘Tomorrow, you and I will be having a very formal conversation.’
‘But tonight?’
Simpson coughed. ‘There will be no record of what is said now. That is why I came here. No one will ever know that we have even spoken. So, this is your chance to let me know what the hell you’ve been up to.’
‘And then?’ Carlyle was conscious of the adrenalin coursing round his body.
‘And then we’ll work out the best way to proceed.’
‘Thank you.’ He stood up and began to pace the room, his hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans. Helen appeared in the doorway and gave them an enquiring look. Simpson nodded to her but said nothing. Helen retreated, and a few seconds later Carlyle heard the familiar strains of Radio 4 coming from the bedroom. He was a long, long way from that BBC middle-class fantasy land now.
‘Hooper called me earlier today,’ he said, turning back to Simpson. ‘We were due to meet at Charing Cross in the morning.’
‘What did he want to talk about?’
Carlyle hesitated, but only for a fraction of a second. ‘A guy called Dominic Silver.’
Simpson nodded. ‘I’ve heard of him.’
Oh you have
,
have you?
Carlyle thought. ‘Hooper was trying to get to Silver through Kasabian.’
Simpson sat back in the armchair and closed her eyes. ‘Maybe a cup of tea would be good. Do you have any peppermint?’
Carlyle returned from the kitchen with two mugs of peppermint tea. Handing one to Simpson, he took a sip from the other. Finding it too hot, he placed it on the coffee table to cool down.
Simpson waited for him to sit down. ‘So Dominic Silver gave you Charlotte Gondomar?’
Carlyle knew that there was no point in trying to fudge it. ‘Yes.’
She blew on her tea. ‘Why?’
Carlyle shrugged. While waiting for the kettle to boil, he had been trying to get the answers straight in his head. ‘He saw the chance to do me a favour,’ he said. It was the best he had been able to come up with, at such short notice.
‘You guys go back a long way?’
‘Yes, all the way back to the beginning. We did our training at Hendon together.’
‘Before he left the police force.’
Obviously
, Carlyle thought. ‘Yes.’
‘And you have maintained a close relationship with a known drug dealer for years,’ her voice hardened, ‘indeed, for decades.’
‘Silver has never been convicted of anything,’ Carlyle mumbled.
Simpson sat up sharply, spilling tea over her coat. ‘Christ!’ She placed the mug on the carpet. ‘For God’s sake, John, do you have a professional death wish?’
Maybe
, thought Carlyle glumly.
‘Why did Silver want Gondomar arrested?’
Carlyle picked up his own mug and took a mouthful of tea. The truth couldn’t carry him any further. ‘We didn’t discuss it.’
‘Did you discuss Hooper with Silver?’
‘No.’
Simpson stood up, looking pissed off. ‘You’ll need some rather better answers in the morning,’ she hissed. ‘What happens if it was your mate Silver who had Hooper killed?’
Good fucking question
, Carlyle reckoned. He watched as Simpson let herself out, all hope of developing a credible strategy for the morning disappearing out of the door with her.
Helen was asleep by the time he went to bed, with thoughts racing endlessly round inside his head. In the darkness of the room, a woman on the radio was burbling away about religious imagery in India. Switching the set off, he crawled wearily into bed, managing to wake his wife as he tried to work his way under the duvet.
‘John!’ she complained, turning away from him, ‘it’s very late.’
‘Sorry,’ he whispered, giving the duvet another little tug.
‘What was all that about, anyway?’ she asked sleepily.
‘Nothing really. Just something I need to sort out in the morning.’
Turning to face him, she draped one arm over his chest and cuddled up to him. ‘If it’s nothing, why the late-night visit?’ Moving her hand to his chest, she noticed the rapid beating of his heart. ‘That doesn’t sound like
nothing
to me.’
‘I’ll sort it in the morning,’ he repeated.
‘Okay,’ she yawned.
Wondering what the hell he was going to do, Carlyle stared up at the ceiling. After a short while, he felt his wife’s warm hand move gently down his body. Slowly and expertly, she eased him towards sleep.