Buckingham Palace Blues (5 page)

Release for Joshua Hunt – aka Mr Carole Simpson – was still quite a way off. He was almost eighteen months into a seven-year stretch for fraud, conspiracy to defraud and embezzlement. Even with time off for good behaviour, it would be at least another year, more likely two, before he could begin to think about parole. However long it was, she could wait. Alone in the outside world, Simpson was surviving perfectly well – far better than she might have imagined back when Joshua’s investment firm had collapsed and he was arrested.

When they’d seized his assets and hit him with a £15 million fine, she had been forced to radically downsize, moving from an elegant house in Highgate to a modest two-bedroom flat in Hammersmith. The fancy restaurants, the charity dinners and the celebrity ‘friends’ were a thing of the past as well, along with the expensive holidays in the Caribbean, Italy and South Africa. But the new reduced lifestyle didn’t bother her in the least. The most important thing was that she was still working; she had kept her rank and most of her responsibilities. As a commander, she was still one of the thirty or so most senior women on the Force. There would be no more promotions – the dream of making deputy commissioner was over – but she hadn’t been kicked out.

That had been a major surprise. On the one hand, she had not been involved in any of her husband’s financial misdeeds. On the other hand, she had become a major embarrassment to the Met. As such, she had been expecting the boot. But they had bottled it, and Simpson had gruffly declined to fall on her sword.

Walking away with her tail between her legs would have been seen as an admission of guilt. More importantly, it would have left her with nothing to do. Simpson knew that retirement would have bored her out of her skull. Barely into her fifties, she had a good decade of productive working life left in the tank. By standing her ground, she would at least be allowed to retire at a time of her own choosing, which would be as late as possible.

Even the annoyance of being dubbed ‘the clueless copper wife of Britain’s biggest conman’, as one tabloid newspaper so elegantly put it, had dissipated over time. The world still kept turning. The thing was, Simpson realised, that she still didn’t really know if Joshua was a fraudster or not. As far as she could make out, he had been doing the same things all through the good years, when he was hailed as a hero and a genius, as he had when things went south. It was just that the market had gone bad. No one had cared what he had been up to when he was making them money.

When the market crashed, however, the hunt was on for someone to blame. What was the saying?
When the tide goes out, you see who’s been swimming naked.
Well, Joshua, it seemed, was wearing not a stitch. But then neither were plenty of other people. Now the whole world had seen his hairy arse. Well, so be it. He was her husband. She was sticking with him the same way she was sticking with the job; she had too much of her life invested in their marriage – almost twenty-five years – to cut and run now.

Reaching the car park, Simpson pulled out her keys and watched the other prison WAGs as they headed for their cars. She hadn’t spoken to a single one of them in all the time she had been coming here. Most of the other wives and girlfriends were much younger than her. They looked harder, but at the same time seemed relaxed about their fate.

A couple of them – all blonde hair, high heels and short skirts – were laughing and joking as they headed for their cars, casually going about their business here as if they were simply visiting the supermarket or the hairdresser’s. What were their husbands in for? Nothing too terrible, Simpson supposed, if they were in an open prison.
Nothing too terrible?
She laughed at herself: what a thing for a copper to think!

She reached her car and opened the driver’s door. On the seat lay her mobile phone. It must have fallen out of her pocket when she was getting out. Cursing her absentmindedness, she picked it up. Immediately, the phone started vibrating in her hand.

‘Hello?’

‘Carole? It’s John Carlyle.’

‘John,’ she said warmly. ‘How are you?’

‘Fine,’ Carlyle replied. ‘And you?’

‘I’m good,’ Simpson said evenly.

A seagull started yapping overhead. ‘Are you at the seaside?’ Carlyle asked.

‘Yes, I’ve just come out from visiting . . .’ She stopped short. Their relationship had warmed considerably since Carlyle had been one of the few, one of the very few people on the Force to offer her any sympathy and support after Joshua was nicked, but the relationship was still a formal one. Professional. There was a better understanding between the two of them, but they still weren’t close.

‘How is Joshua?’ Carlyle asked, not picking up on her sense of discomfort as it came down the line.

‘He’s fine.’ Simpson sighed. ‘Sometimes I think he quite likes it in there, with all his books and his small group of students to teach, and no distractions from the outside world.’

When you put it like that, Carlyle thought, it sounds quite good. Like a little holiday. ‘He’ll be out in no time.’

Yes, he will, Simpson thought, not altogether happily. ‘What can I do for you, John?’

‘Well . . .’ Carlyle quickly outlined what was contained in his report.

Jamming the phone between her shoulder and her ear, Simpson rummaged in her bag until she found her BlackBerry Curve 8900. Scrolling down through her emails, she opened the latest one from Carlyle. ‘I’ve got it here. Let me read it tonight and we can discuss it tomorrow.’

‘All right,’ said Carlyle, trying to ignore the stab of impatience that he felt.

‘But,’ Simpson continued, tossing the machine onto the passenger seat, ‘it sounds from what you’ve said as if we should hand this one over.’

No bloody way, Carlyle thought. Not a fucking chance. ‘Maybe,’ he said.

‘The girl is now in care,’ Simpson said. ‘You don’t think it’s a domestic, so you should speak to Vice.’

‘Joe is doing that right now,’ Carlyle said, wondering now if that was such a good idea.

‘Good.’ Simpson eased herself into her seat. ‘Let me know how that goes. It’s best that the right people handle it.’

Meaning:
it sounds nasty, it looks like a dead end, the kid’ll probably get sent back home, so let’s make sure we can pass the buck
.

‘Sure,’ he said, as casually as he could manage. ‘In the meantime, I thought that I would check in with some of my old friends in SO14.’

There was a pause on the line. He heard some muffled noises in the background as she closed the car door, smiling as he imagined his boss banging her head on the steering wheel. ‘John,’ she said finally, ‘you don’t
have
any friends in SO14 – old or otherwise.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Anyway, why would you want to talk to the Royal Protection Unit about this?’

‘Because that’s where I found the girl.’

‘You found the girl in Green Park,’ Simpson corrected him. ‘Thousands of people use Green Park every day. The Queen, as far as I know, is not one of them.’

‘The girl said she lived there,’ he persisted. ‘At Buckingham Palace.’

‘That’s what you
think
she said,’ Simpson snapped, tired of holding this conversation on what had been a stressful day to start with. ‘Even if that’s what she did say, so what? She’s a little girl. All little girls want to be a princess and live in a castle.’

‘I know—’

‘Look, John,’ she sighed. ‘I—’

‘I know,’ he repeated hastily. ‘I know.’

Simpson looked out at the grey horizon. ‘You say that you do, but then you act like you don’t.’ She felt herself slipping into schoolteacher mode, but kept going anyway. ‘It’s like my dad used to say: you should ignore everything that a boy
says
, and pay very close attention to everything that a boy
does
. Best advice I ever had. And it applies just as well to my professional life as it ever did to dating boyfriends. I remind myself of it every day.’

I must remember to tell Alice that one, Carlyle thought.

‘Leaving aside the fact that, based on what you’ve told me, you have absolutely no grounds for snooping around Buckingham Palace,’ Simpson continued, on a roll now, ‘your history with SO14 is such that I can’t honestly believe that there is anyone there who would even give you the time of day.’

‘Are you telling me to abandon this child?’ Carlyle asked.

‘No one is abandoning anything,’ Simpson said, aggrieved. ‘From what you have told me, she is not your responsibility any longer.’

‘I found her.’

‘John . . .’

He kept pushing. ‘Nine years old.’

‘Don’t come all Mother bloody Teresa with me, Inspector Carlyle.’ Despite herself, Simpson laughed audibly, allowing them both to step back from the row that was brewing.

Interesting, Carlyle thought. Having a husband in prison has helped her develop something approaching a sense of humour. ‘Look, all I’m saying is—’

‘Don’t push me, John. Let me read the report tonight, and we’ll discuss it tomorrow.’

‘Okay.’ He knew that was as much as he could hope to get right now. ‘Have a safe journey back to London.’

‘Thank you.’

Ending the call, he dropped the phone back in his pocket. ‘Score draw, mate,’ he said to himself. Maybe he had expected too much from the ‘new’, humbled Commander Simpson. At least, however, he could say that he had kept her in the loop. He could argue his case again tomorrow. And, in the meantime, he could continue with his enquiries.

He picked up a message from Green confirming that the girl had been taken to a small ‘interim holding facility’ i.e. hostel on Bolsover Street, just south of Regents Park. Carver House was a four-storey Georgian building containing six bedrooms and thirteen beds. It was used as emergency accommodation for children between eight and twelve while Social Services sorted something more permanent for them, whether a foster home, a ‘special school’ or maybe deportation.

Before heading up there, Carlyle made another trip home – Helen and Alice were still out – and ‘borrowed’ some colouring pens and a small cuddly rabbit that he was fairly sure his daughter hadn’t looked at for at least five years.

The walk up to Bolsover Street took him about twenty minutes, ideas bouncing around his head in a random, desperate fashion. He might not be able to solve this case but he was clear that he still had to help the girl. If he couldn’t do that, he was lost. He was a copper with the full weight of one of the world’s biggest and well-resourced police forces behind him. If, despite all that, he still couldn’t protect a little girl, what was the fucking point?

Standing on the doorstep of Carver House, he felt tired and anxious. He rang the buzzer and waited. No one came. He rang it a second time, and then a third. In the end, he just kept his thumb pressed down and let it ring incessantly.

‘Okay! Okay!’ Finally the door clicked open. A gaunt, middle-aged woman wearing a dark pink tracksuit and green trainers peered out at him. ‘Yes?’

Carlyle retreated down a step, flashing her his badge. ‘I’m Inspector Carlyle of the Metropolitan Police. I’m here to see Hilary Green from Social Services.’

‘It’s like Piccadilly Circus here today,’ the woman grumbled.

‘Hilary Green,’ repeated Carlyle impatiently.

‘She’s not here,’ the woman replied. ‘Her shift finished hours ago.’ She tut-tutted. ‘Poor woman, do you know how much overtime she has to do each and every week?’

Biting his tongue, Carlyle made a face that might have been a grimace, might have been a scowl. ‘Is the girl here?’

Leaning against the doorframe, the woman folded her arms. ‘Which one d’ya mean? I’ve got five of them here at the moment.’

‘The one that Hilary brought here earlier. The Ukrainian girl.’

‘Ukrainian, is she?’ The woman sniffed. ‘Why am I not surprised? We get all sorts here.’

‘Look,’ Carlyle snapped, ‘I don’t need the social commentary. I just want to see the girl.’

Shocked, the woman took a step backwards, as if getting ready to slam the door in his face. He quickly jumped up a couple of steps and put his foot in the door.

The woman eyed the rabbit in Carlyle’s hand then stared at him suspiciously. ‘Who did you say you were again?’

With a sigh, Carlyle took out his warrant card a second time and thrust it in her face. ‘Carlyle,’ he said slowly. ‘I work out of the Charing Cross police station. Maybe I should ask you for
your
ID.’

‘Okay, okay.’ The woman moved back out of the way. ‘Keep yer hair on.’

‘Now,’ Carlyle hissed through gritted teeth, ‘can I see the girl?’

The woman edged back further. ‘She’s not here either.’

‘What?’

‘Your colleague took her about an hour ago. Not long after Ms Green left.’

Carlyle frowned. ‘What colleague?’

‘The other policeman.’ The woman still gripped the handle of the door tightly. ‘He was far more polite than you.’ She looked Carlyle up and down. ‘Far better dressed too. Much more of a gentleman.’

‘For fuck’s sake!’

‘He didn’t swear either.’

‘Fuck!’ Carlyle hurled the rabbit at the woman, who ducked out of the way.

‘Hey!’ she cried. ‘I’ll report you for that. Wait ’til I tell Ms Green what you did.’

Carlyle stepped inside, slamming the door against the wall. Ignoring some whispering at the top of the stairs, he demanded of the cowering woman: ‘This ‘‘colleague’’ – what did he say his name was?’

She made a hissing noise, but said nothing.

Carlyle had to resist the almost overwhelming temptation to give her a kick. ‘Did he show you a badge?’

Arms wrapped around herself, the woman nodded.

‘What did it say?’

‘I don’t know,’ she whimpered. ‘It was like yours.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘I dunno.’ The woman gingerly lifted a hand to her face and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. ‘Like I said, he was smarter dressed than you.’ She began edging away from Carlyle. ‘Taller. Blond hair. Younger.’

‘English?’

‘What?’

‘Was he English or was he a foreigner?’

‘Oh, he was English. He had a very polite accent.’