TWENTY-FOUR
Striding towards the front desk, the inspector watched a familiar figure approaching and allowed himself a wry smile. Ambrose Watson must be pushing forty now; his hair was greyer than Carlyle remembered it and his hairline had receded further than the inspector would have thought possible. As usual, Ambrose was squeezed into a suit that seemed at least two sizes too small for him, and a garish tie hung limply from his neck.
The inspector stuck out a hand. ‘How are you?’
‘I am well, Inspector.’ Shaking his hand, Watson returned the smile. ‘And I see that you are keeping as busy as usual.’
‘It’s nice to know that the IIC carefully follows my progress.’ Internal Investigations Command had looked into a couple of Carlyle’s cases in recent years. Commander Simpson had seen to it that the fair and decent Watson had handled the enquiry, rather than one of his more aggressive colleagues. Watson knew that Carlyle sailed close to the wind, but that came with the territory: he wasn’t going to go out of his way to destroy the inspector’s career.
Watson dropped his gaze to the floor. ‘Sadly, that is fairly inevitable, given past events.’
‘Are you looking into this Catholic Legal Network thing?’
‘No, that would be me.’ From behind Watson’s bulk appeared a sallow-looking woman of indeterminate age. With short blonde hair and dull brown eyes, she had an expression on her pinched face that could only be described as threatening. ‘Superintendent Rebecca Buck.’ She held out a hand. ‘I will be coordinating both the IIC and IPCC investigations into this matter.’
Carlyle gave her hand the briefest of shakes. He glanced at Ambrose, who shrugged apologetically.
‘Ambrose will provide me with administrative support.’
Seeing Dugdale’s hand at work, Carlyle slipped a studiously neutral expression onto his face. ‘Is it usual for you to manage what is primarily an IPCC matter?’ he asked casually. Just as with the IIC, he was no stranger to investigations by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. But if the IIC could take away his job – and his pension – Carlyle was far less concerned about the prospects of the IPCC, which was run by a bunch of outsiders, ever doing the same.
‘That is the way we are running this one,’ Buck said stiffly.
‘Your call,’ Carlyle said, without enthusiasm.
Ambrose gestured in the direction of the desk. ‘The sergeant is just finding us a room.’
‘Good.’ Carlyle smiled as he spied Roche walking down the corridor towards them. He signalled her over and made the necessary introductions. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse us, Sergeant Roche and I have to go and conduct a very important interview. Get yourselves installed here and I will be back as quickly as possible.’
Buck opened her mouth to protest but Carlyle had already wheeled away, dragging Roche towards the door.
Outside, he set a sharp pace along Bedford Street, heading north. Roche, struggling to keep up, broke into a jog. ‘Where are we going?’ she panted, annoyed.
Carlyle grinned. ‘It’s a surprise.’
‘Fuck off,’ Roche huffed. ‘I’m not in the mood.’
‘Okay, fine.’ Carlyle held up his hands. ‘FYI, just in case you
get
into to the mood, we’re going fishing.’
‘Caught anything yet?’
‘Nothing, so far.’ Trevor Cole, the agent from Gotha Insurance, placed his rod carefully on the towpath, with the line still in the water. Pushing himself up off his folding stool, he shook Carlyle by the hand. Looking over the inspector’s shoulder, he smiled at Roche. ‘I thought you were good on TV this morning.’
Carlyle gave his sergeant a quizzical look which she returned with an
I
’
ll tell you about it later
shrug. Moving swiftly on, she gestured at the murky waters of the Regent’s Canal. ‘Is there anything actually alive in there?’
‘Oh yes,’ Cole replied, checking his rod. ‘This is one of the best spots.’ From the far side of the canal came the rumble of a train heading into King’s Cross. ‘You can find bream, carp, perch, pike – all sorts.’
Carlyle peered into a small pot of maggots next to the stool. The attraction of fishing was something that he had never understood.
‘As you get nearer to Camden,’ Cole continued, ‘there are so many shopping trolleys under the water that your line gets snagged all the time, but here it’s fairly okay.’
‘Interesting,’ Carlyle yawned.
Roche gave him a meaningful elbow in the ribs. ‘It must be very relaxing.’
‘I enjoy it,’ Cole agreed. ‘You really do get a sense of being away from the hustle and bustle of London.’
Similar to what it might be like if they drop a neutron bomb
, Carlyle mused –
kill all the people but leave the buildings standing
. An image flashed through his brain of radio-active mutant fish swimming up and down the canal between Limehouse and Little Venice, with no one to catch them.
Cole went to his knapsack and pulled out a small flask. Pouring some black coffee into a small plastic cup, he offered some to Carlyle and Roche, both of whom politely refused. Cole took a mouthful and let out a satisfied sigh. ‘So,’ he said, ‘where have we got to?’
Roche jumped in before Carlyle could open his mouth. ‘We’ve logged most of the stuff we’ve recovered,’ she said matter-of-factly, ‘and referenced it to your list.’
‘Good job,’ said Cole, glancing at his rod.
Carlyle watched a beer can float idly by.
‘My best guess right now,’ Roche continued, ‘is that we’ve got maybe eighty per cent of the pieces. How much that will turn out to be by value, I don’t know.’
Something started tugging on the line. Cole quickly stepped over and picked up the rod. After a couple of gentle pulls, he seemed satisfied that there was nothing there and placed it back on the ground.
What a bloody tedious carry-on
, the inspector thought.
‘It’s like I said,’ Cole told her. ‘We’re convinced that some of the items were taken
after
the robbery took place.’
‘I have gone through the CCTV footage twice now,’ said Roche, ‘and we haven’t come up with anything to support that idea.’
‘The CCTV footage,’ said Cole evenly, ‘only covers the period up until an hour after the police arrived.’
‘That’s right,’ said Roche rather defensively, knowing where this was going. ‘Once the scene had been secured, checking the images on the camera’s hard drive was one of the first things that we did.’
And you switched the camera off in the process
, Carlyle thought, trying not to grimace. No point in worrying about that now. He turned to Cole. ‘What do you think happened?’
Cole took another mouthful of coffee and poured the dregs into the canal. ‘It’s just a theory.’
‘A theory that you want us to check out,’ Carlyle said sharply.
Cole smiled. ‘Indeed.’
Leaving Cole to his fishing, they walked slowly back along the towpath in the direction of King’s Cross. ‘I pulled someone out of there once,’ said Carlyle as he watched a small barge chug slowly by, heading west.
Roche stared at the water, saying nothing.
He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. ‘A woman called Hayley Flood stuffed the body of her murdered five-year-old daughter, Danielle, in a suitcase weighed down with bricks, before dumping it about half a mile back that way. The mother’s boyfriend had pushed the kid down a flight of stairs. She was too scared of him – so she said – to report it. When police divers found her, Danielle had been dead for three months.’ Carlyle cleared his throat. ‘The mother had continued to cash in her Child Benefit. The only reason it came out was that the boyfriend got drunk down the pub one night and started talking about what they’d done.’
‘Unbelievable.’
‘No,’ said Carlyle sadly, ‘no, it’s not. People can be complete fucking animals. It doesn’t take a lot.’
‘At least you got them.’
‘I suppose.’ He was gripped by an overwhelming melancholy. ‘The boyfriend got life. If I remember rightly, the mother got eight years. She’ll be out by now for sure. Who knows? Maybe he is too.’ Gritting his teeth, he fought back an embarrassing tear. ‘Anyway,’ he said grimly, ‘cases like Danielle Flood are the ones that really get to you. Personally, I can’t get too worked up about someone nicking a load of diamonds.’
‘What about Paula Coulter?’
‘Fair point,’ Carlyle nodded. ‘But it sounds like you’ve got that all sewn up.’
Coulter and her family deserved justice – of course they did. But, still, he knew that this was never going to be a case that emotionally engaged him the same way that the Danielle Flood case had done. It was always different when kids were involved. Adults could look after themselves.
Roche looked at him thoughtfully. An uneasy silence descended as they made their way back towards the dull, insistent hum of civilization.
TWENTY-FIVE
In no hurry to get back to Rebecca Buck and her IIC investigation, Carlyle decided that they should stop for lunch in the Venezia café on York Way. The lunchtime rush was still more than half an hour away and they had the place to themselves. Taking a table at the back, they settled down to choosing their food.
‘What was this about a press conference?’ Carlyle asked casually from behind the oversized laminated menu.
Roche talked him through Dugdale’s appearance at the station the night before and the consequent press conference, which had taken place while the inspector was at Great Ormond Street with his wife.
‘My, my,’ Carlyle said meanly, ‘we
are
flavour of the month, aren’t we?’
‘Look,’ Roche shot back, tapping the back of his menu smartly with her own, ‘don’t give me any shit about this, all right? The whole thing was Dugdale’s idea. Meanwhile, you had buggered off to God knows where.’
Placing the menu on the table, Carlyle looked her in the face. ‘Did you talk to him about Leyne?’
Roche kept her gaze fixed on her menu. ‘Let’s order first. What are you having?’
‘I think I’ll go for the fried eggs, chips and beans and some black coffee,’ decided Carlyle.
‘Sounds good,’ said Roche, getting to her feet. ‘I’ll have the same.’
Carlyle watched her move over to the counter and place their order.
Are you going to stitch me up?
he wondered. Given the way she had been handling the McGowan situation, he would have said not, but now he wasn’t so sure. He watched her return to the table with some napkins and cutlery.
‘I did ask Dugdale about Leyne,’ she said, handing him a knife and fork as she sat back down. ‘He denies that you were offered any “deal” and insists that the IIC investigation will have to run its course.’
Carlyle grimaced. ‘The fucker!’
‘He’s a slimy bastard, all right,’ Roche agreed.
‘And what about you?’
‘What about me?’
Carlyle held her gaze. ‘Have you been offered a deal?’
Refusing to blink, Roche thought about it for a moment. ‘I think,’ she said finally, ‘that they are much keener to get you. I’m not really relevant to this game.’
Carlyle nodded, acknowledging the back-handed compliment of sorts.
‘But,’ Roche continued, ‘as long as we stick to our original statements, I don’t see what they can do.’ She placed a gentle hand on his forearm. ‘Don’t worry, I
am
sticking to what I said.’
He smiled wanly. ‘Thanks.’
‘Dugdale’s really got it in for you, though.’
‘I know.’
‘I suppose he blames you for the shit storm that led to him getting kicked out of SO15.’
‘As if that was my fault.’
‘People like that always have to have someone to blame,’ Roche shrugged. ‘That’s just the way they are.’ She pulled a packet of Benson & Hedges out of her pocket and began turning it round in her hand.
‘If you need a smoke,’ Carlyle said, gesturing to the door, ‘don’t let me stop you.’
Roche shook her head. ‘I’m trying to give up. But I like to know that they’re there.’
‘Does it work?’
She said unhappily, ‘I haven’t had one for almost two months.’
Carlyle changed the subject. ‘I never thought I’d see the day when I would miss bloody Simpson.’
‘I hear she’s being lined up for the Presidency of the IAWP.’
‘The what?’
Roche smiled. ‘The International Association of Women Police.’
‘Great,’ said Carlyle flatly. ‘What the fuck is that?’
‘Dunno. Some kind of international association for women police, at a guess. Whatever it is, she seems set to be staying in Canada for a while.’
‘In the meantime, we’re stuck with Dudgale.’
‘Yeah,’ Roche said. ‘He thinks he can buy me off, but I intend to give him the widest possible berth.’
Carlyle tried to affect a disinterested tone. ‘So what’s he offering?’
‘He’ll leave me out of the McGowan investigation.’
‘Can he do that?’
‘I suppose so.’ Roche paused as their coffees arrived. ‘He’s also trying to dangle the carrot of a transfer to SO15.’
Carlyle tasted the coffee – it was truly terrible. ‘And are you interested?’ he asked, once he had recovered from the assault on his taste buds.
Roche gazed at the table. ‘Yes, I’m interested.’
‘Because of Ronan?’
She looked up at him. ‘In the sense that he gave me a chance to see a bit of what it was like? Yes. Counter Terrorism Command would be great. In the sense of doing it for his memory? No. Just because he got shot, doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten that David was shagging his nineteen-year-old sister-in-law in our bed.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘I dumped him before he got shot, remember?’
‘Yes.’
She gave him a harsh look while the café-owner placed their plates of food on the table. ‘And he would have stayed dumped.’
Carlyle held up both hands. ‘I don’t doubt it for a second.’
‘Anyway,’ Roche sighed, ‘Dugdale may or may not come through. But I won’t leg you over to make it happen.’
‘I appreciate it.’ Picking up his cutlery, Carlyle started on his meal, wondering what he might be able to do, to try and keep her at Charing Cross.
It took him about two minutes to clear his plate. The terrible coffee didn’t stop him ordering a second cup, drinking it slowly while watching Roche finish her meal. Inside his brain a dark mood was brewing, one that prevented him from being able to think through how he should progress the cases in front of them.