Where the hell was Ronan? Should he stay? Or should he go? Carlyle was feeling paralysed by indecision when he suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder.
‘About bloody time!’ he hissed, turning to face the detective inspector.
‘Enjoying the show?’
It took him a moment to realize that it was Sylvia Swain – or at least the woman he knew as Sylvia Swain – who was standing next to him. Her hair had been cut short and she was dressed in cowboy boots, jeans and a Foo Fighters T-shirt. The overall effect was to make her look older.
‘I didn’t know you worked here,’ he grinned, after getting over his initial surprise.
‘I’m not sure I could live with the competition,’ she replied, gesturing at the stripper, who had just managed to struggle out of her bra.
‘So what can I do for you?’
Swain slipped her arm through his and led him away from the bar. ‘We have to take a little walk.’
‘And if I don’t want to do that?’ Carlyle asked.
She gave his arm a gentle squeeze. ‘That’s fine by me, but it means your colleague Dave will be dead within the next ten minutes.’
‘I think he prefers to be called David,’ Carlyle said, falling in step with her as she headed for the door.
Swain led Carlyle down an alley that ran alongside the pub, and past a couple of dilapidated apartment buildings. A young girl who looked like she was walking home from school stared at them as they passed, otherwise the street was empty. Stopping outside a boarded-up newsagents, Swain rapped firmly on the door. After a few moments, it opened and he was ushered inside.
‘Inspector Carlyle, how very good of you to join us.’
Carlyle forced out the thinnest of smiles. ‘My pleasure, Mr Lieberman.’
The room had been completely gutted. Everything that might have been of any value had been stripped out, including the electrical wiring from the walls and even some of the floorboards. ‘Over there.’ Lieberman gestured towards a door at the rear with the Browning Hi-Power semi-automatic held in his right hand. ‘Head right to the back. The room on your left. Be careful where you put your feet.’
Carlyle followed Swain down the corridor, with Lieberman bringing up the rear. The room at the back was maybe fifteen feet by twelve. It had also been stripped bare. In one corner, handcuffed to a narrow metal pipe protruding from the wall, about two feet off the floor, Ronan looked in bad shape. With a nasty gash on his forehead and his left eye closed up, it was clear that he’d taken a severe beating. There was blood-spatter on the wall behind his head and the DI looked barely conscious. When Carlyle gave him a gentle nudge with his boot, he got no response.
‘Not a great advert for your people, is he?’ Lieberman gestured for Carlyle to sit down next to the SO15 man.
‘Fuck off,’ Carlyle snorted. ‘You’re not doing that to me.’
‘Sit down,’ ordered Lieberman quietly. ‘Take out your cuffs and attach yourself to that pipe.’ Kneeling down, he aimed the barrel of the Browning directly into Ronan’s face. ‘Otherwise your friend dies now.’
Well done
,
excellent effort
, Carlyle said to himself.
You
’
ve got yourself into a really great situation here
. Slowly lowering himself to the floor, he attached one cuff to the pipe and clicked the other around his left wrist.
‘Good,’ Lieberman approved.
‘What do you want?’ Carlyle asked.
‘We want our man back,’ Swain said. Standing over Carlyle, she gently massaged his crotch with the toe of her boot. ‘It would have been easier if you’d let me just fuck it out of you, but there you go.’ She gave him another prod. ‘Or maybe you’d like to fuck now?’
‘Why not?’ Carlyle smiled. ‘Just take these cuffs off and I’ll see what I can do.’
‘But, Inspector,’ she mocked, ‘there’s nothing happening down there.’ Swain glanced at Lieberman in mock disappointment. ‘Maybe he’s a faggot.’
If Helen could see me now
, Carlyle thought.
Sid shrugged. ‘That doesn’t stop him from telling us what we want to know.’
‘I’ve been looking for your guy,’ Carlyle told him, ‘but I haven’t found him.’
Swain kicked him hard in the groin with her heel. ‘Don’t be such a fag!’
Grunting, Carlyle took a deep breath. Beside him, Ronan groaned in apparent sympathy.
‘Hey!’ Sid said, placing a hand on Swain’s arm. ‘There’s no need for any of that rough stuff.’ He turned to Carlyle. ‘It’s very simple now. You have two more chances to answer the question.’
‘I don’t know.’
Lieberman waved the Browning at Ronan. ‘If you fail to answer, he dies.’
‘I don’t—’
‘If he dies and you still don’t answer, we will leave you here while we go and get your wife.’
‘Or maybe his daughter,’ Swain chipped in. ‘Don’t you think that would have more impact?’
‘Maybe.’ Lieberman stroked his chin in apparent thought. ‘But no, let’s bring them both. Then we’ll let you sit around together a while, a happy family, before we kill you all.’
‘Fuck you,’ Carlyle hissed.
Jesus Christ Almighty
, his brain complained,
how the hell did I get into this fucking mess?
Lieberman stepped to the far side of the room and gestured Swain out of the line of fire. ‘Last chance . . .’
Oh shit
, Carlyle thought. ‘Sol Abramyan.’
‘Who?’ Swain asked.
‘Sol Abramyan is the arms trader who set up the London deal for Hamas. He has your guy and I’ve been trying to get him back.’
‘Well done –
Mazel tov
,’ Lieberman said. ‘You got there in the end.’ Then, raising the Browning, he put two shots into the middle of Ronan’s chest. ‘At last, we’re making some progress.’
‘At least he won’t be banging the sister-in-law any more,’ Carlyle quipped, as they watched Ronan’s body being placed in the back of an ambulance and driven slowly away.
‘I’m sure that the skanky little bitch will be heartbroken,’ Roche said.
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’
‘Me? Oh yes.’ She gave him a shaky grin. ‘And before you ask, I have an alibi.’
‘Just as well,’ he replied. ‘But I’m sure that the shrink will still have a field day with you.’
‘That poor sod has got more than enough on his plate dealing with
you
.’
‘I have got to be one of the most straightforward cases he’s ever come across,’ Carlyle deadpanned. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me at all.’
‘Yeah, right.’
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Simpson emerge from the building where Ronan had been shot. Directly behind her was a senior-looking guy in uniform whom the inspector didn’t recognize. He flicked again through his story. The key thing was to sprinkle the lies sparingly among the facts. Carlyle knew he was quite good at that, but there was no room for complacency.
‘What happened?’ Simpson asked.
Ignoring the question, Carlyle held out a hand to her companion. ‘Inspector John Carlyle. And this is my colleague, Sergeant Alison Roche.’
Overcoming an obvious reluctance, the man shook Carlyle’s hand. ‘Commander Gavin Dugdale. I’m Simpson’s opposite number at SO15, and Ronan’s boss.’
Carlyle nodded. ‘We were working with Ronan on this investigation. Sergeant Roche here was also his partner.’ While Simpson and Dugdale exchanged bemused looks, Roche gave him a sly kick. Undeterred, he ploughed on. ‘His girlfriend.’
An angry look passed over Dugdale’s face. There were so many things wrong about this situation that he clearly didn’t know what to complain about first. In the end, all he said was, ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’
It sounded hollow and insincere but, with head bowed, Roche managed to mumble something that might just about have been construed as a ‘Thank you’.
‘So, what actually happened?’ Simpson repeated.
‘Ronan was shot twice by Sid Lieberman,’ Carlyle said matter-of-factly. ‘It appears that he was severely beaten in advance of his murder. Lieberman was being assisted by a woman who’d previously approached me claiming to be a journalist called Sylvia Swain.’
Simpson waited for him to go on. When he didn’t, she asked, ‘And how did you happen upon the scene?’
Carlyle gave both of his superiors some good eye-contact as he took his mobile from his jacket pocket. ‘I received a text from Ronan’s phone,’ he said, pulling up the message and handing the phone to Simpson, ‘asking me to come to the pub down the road.’
Simpson read the message and showed it to Dugdale. ‘What does
have found our man
mean?’ she asked.
‘I presume that he was referring to Lieberman,’ Carlyle lied. ‘However, I can only speculate. When I got to the pub, Swain led me here. She told me that if I didn’t go with her, Ronan would be killed. When we arrived, Ronan was still alive but in a bad way. He did not seem conscious. Lieberman seemed to believe that Ronan or I could help him find a missing member of the Mossad hit squad that killed Joe. Neither of us were able to give him what he wanted, so he shot Ronan. He was going to shoot me, but then his gun jammed – so they just left.’
‘Why didn’t they stab you,’ Simpson mused, ‘or strangle you?’
‘I don’t know,’ Carlyle replied, ignoring the wistfulness in her tone. ‘Maybe you can ask him yourself, if we catch him.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Dugdale, ‘we’ll get them both.’
I
’
ve heard that before
, Carlyle thought. ‘They seemed extremely stressed and in a considerable hurry. They left me with my phone and the keys to my handcuffs. Once I was sure that they were gone, I was able to call you straight away.’
Dugdale glanced doubtfully at Simpson, but her expression was giving nothing away. ‘Very well, Inspector,’ he said, ‘go and get yourself cleaned up. We’ll deal with this from now on.’
Returning to the bar in the Stern Arms, the inspector downed a triple measure of Jameson’s and a couple of Budweisers in less than five minutes. The barman gave him a funny look, but said nothing as Carlyle ordered another round.
‘I haven’t finished the first one yet,’ Roche protested.
‘Don’t worry,’ Carlyle told her, ‘I can always drink it for you.’
‘I think you should slow down a bit.’
‘You didn’t have someone just point a gun on you and pull the fucking trigger.’ Across the room, a lithe black girl with an outsized Afro swayed unconvincingly to ‘Wonderwall’ by Oasis. She was a lot prettier than the earlier stripper, so Carlyle reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple of pound coins.
Roche followed his gaze and smiled.
‘Just don’t bloody tell my wife I was in here,’ he joked.
Roche sipped at her beer in a rather amateurish fashion. ‘Why did you tell them that I was David’s girlfriend?’
Mm
,
that was a good question
. The alcohol was quickly pickling his brain and Carlyle had to stop and think about it for a moment. ‘Two reasons,’ he said finally.
‘Yes?’
‘First, and most important, they are going to find out anyway. Everything he’s ever done will now come out in the wash, so you might as well be upfront with them.’ Taking a large mouthful of the whiskey, he gently clinked his glass against her beer bottle. ‘And, second, there might be some compo in it for you.’
‘What?’
‘Compensation. We live in a compensation culture these days, especially in the Met. You can get awarded thousands for mental distress if someone says they don’t like your bloody haircut. Having your boyfriend brutally slain in the line of duty must be worth a few bob, even if he was playing away.’
Laughing, Roche almost choked on her beer. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘You never know.’
‘Anyway, I wouldn’t want their bloody money.’
Carlyle looked aghast. ‘You can always give it to me.’ Oasis had finally stopped their racket and he watched as the black girl did the rounds with her pint pot, trying to catch any punters she hadn’t tapped up before starting her act. Disappointed that she had put her clothes back on, he waited patiently to hand over his contribution.
Helen smacked him hard on the arm. ‘Put the paper down!’
Reluctantly, Carlyle did what he was told. They were waiting outside the Headmaster’s office, sitting side by side like two sixth-formers who had been caught smoking in the bogs. Ahead of his telling-off, he wasn’t feeling in the mood for conversation.
‘I thought you said that it was all over,’ Helen whispered as one of the office secretaries walked past, giving them a stern look.
‘It was,’ Carlyle said, trying not to let his exasperation show. ‘And then it wasn’t.’ He shrugged. ‘These things happen. You know what it’s like.’
‘No.’ Helen shook her head. ‘I don’t know what it’s like. You are running around like a big kid, trying to get yourself killed. It’s almost as if you feel guilty because Joe got shot and you didn’t.’
‘You sound like the shrink,’ Carlyle snorted.
Helen folded her arms and stared into the middle distance. ‘Well, maybe you should go back and see him again.’
‘I will,’ Carlyle said, happy to concede something. ‘Simpson has already set it up.’ He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘But there is nothing to worry about. A, I’m not going loopy and B, this issue really is under control now. There will be no more bloodshed.’
She reciprocated the squeeze. ‘I’m not convinced about either of those things,’ she said. ‘We both know that the Met isn’t likely to do much to protect you, mentally or physically.’
He leaned over and gave her a gentle peck on the cheek. ‘And so far, I’ve never relied on them to do either, have I?’
She turned to look at him. ‘What does that mean?’
It means that we
’
re going to deploy the skills and resources of Dominic Silver and his boys
, Carlyle thought. He shot Helen the best smile he could manage. ‘It means that we’ll be fine.’
The door to the Headmaster’s office opened and out popped the bald head of Dr Terence Myers. ‘Mr and Mrs Carlyle? Please come in.’ He held the door open while the condemned parents shuffled inside. ‘Please take a seat.’
Once he had resumed residence behind the massive desk, Myers gave them the smallest of smiles. ‘Thank you for coming in at such short notice. I realize that this is a difficult issue, but let me tell you that I have to deal with situations like this on a fairly regular basis, and I am sure that we can get it sorted out.’