Buckingham Palace Blues (7 page)

Adam smiled benignly. ‘Did you actually see him exit or enter the Palace?’

‘No.’

‘There are more than five hundred people working in here at any given time . . .’

‘I know that.’

‘At the weekend, there was a State Banquet for the Sultan of Brunei, so you can double that figure – even triple it.’ Adam laid his palms on the table. ‘Then there are the tourists . . . and that’s just inside.’ He let out a long breath. ‘Outside, goodness knows how many people are milling about at any given time. You, my friend, really are looking for the needle in the haystack.’

‘Fore!’

The sound of breaking glass was followed by the angry whinny of a horse.

Carlyle rose halfway out of his chair and peered through the window. In front of the shrubbery, three men stood holding plastic buckets in which they were collecting the golf balls being pinged across the lawn by a gent in a tweed cap, standing two hundred or so yards away. ‘I see the Duke still likes to practise his game in the back garden.’ He smirked.

Adam groaned. ‘His youngest son has just taken up the game, too. If anything, he’s even worse than his father.’

‘Are those your guys on ball collection duty?’ Carlyle asked, sitting back down.

Adam coloured slightly, but did not respond.

‘A great use of public money, I reckon.’

‘Ours not to reason why, Inspector,’ Adam bridled. ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’

‘I was wondering,’ Carlyle said, ‘if I could have a list of all staff currently working at the Palace – including the SO14 roster, of course.’

‘Why?’

‘I would like to speak to everyone who was on duty on Saturday night.’

Adam frowned. ‘Is that really necessary?’

Carlyle shrugged. ‘I have to start somewhere.’

‘Inspector,’ Adam let out an exasperated snort, ‘I have just explained how many people we have here, as if you didn’t already know that. It would take forever to interview them all. And because of what? A hunch?’

Carlyle said nothing.

Adam raised an eyebrow. ‘How much manpower would such an investigation require? How much time?’

Carlyle smiled weakly but said nothing. After almost thirty years in the Metropolitan Police, he knew that efficiency and value for money were alien concepts to the Force. The only time anyone ever raised cost as an issue was when they wanted an excuse to stop you from doing something.

‘I have to say,’ Adam continued, ‘that it sounds like a complete waste of time to me. And there was me thinking that you seemed so keen on seeing the efficient use of public funds.’

‘It’s
my
investigation,’ Carlyle replied evenly. ‘I would also like to see the CCTV images taken from the Constitution Hill side of the property around the time I found the girl on Saturday night.’

Adam eyed him carefully. ‘Does Carole Simpson know about this?’

‘Yes.’ Carlyle nodded. It was, he decided, kind of true.

Adam sat back in his chair and stared at his precious tea caddy. ‘Well,’ he said mechanically, ‘if the commander sends me a formal request, in line with the established and agreed protocols, I will see what I can do.’

Carlyle realised that this was the best he was going to get. ‘That is very kind.’ He smiled as he stood up. ‘Thank you very much for your help, sir.’

‘My pleasure,’ Adam said, reaching across the table and offering him another limp handshake. ‘It’s good to meet you at last. I must say, I’m glad you weren’t here on my watch. We run a tight ship here now.’

‘I’m sure you do,’ Carlyle said politely. ‘I’m sure you do.’

He got back to the office to find a stack of documents sitting on his desk. On top of it was a large yellow Post-it note. Carlyle read the scribble –
Don’t ask where these came from and burn after reading, Joe
– and laughed. Sitting back in his chair, he put his feet up on the desk and flipped through the papers. They contained summary details of everyone currently working in Royal Protection. It wasn’t as much information as Charlie Adam could have provided, but it was a start.

In all, SO14 had more than 400 officers, including 256 on active duty: of these, 152 currently worked primarily in London, 60 worked at Buckingham Palace itself and 14 had been on shift the previous Saturday evening. For each officer, he now had a name, rank, summary career details and a passport-style photo. He looked through the 14, then the 60, then the 152, but none of them was the posh man from the park. Relief mixed with frustration; the idea of a police colleague being involved in something like this would have been simply too dispiriting – even for a hardened cynic like Carlyle.

After a couple of hours of careful sifting, he was left with three sorted piles. By his left hand was one for the 126 officers he didn’t know, plus another for the 25 he did. The former had no obvious reason to help him with his enquiries; the latter, he was fairly sure, wouldn’t even piss on him if he was on fire. The third selection to his right was very much smaller. It consisted of just one person; the only person he knew who might, perhaps, be willing to give him some help.

The number rang for what seemed like an eternity before the voicemail kicked in:
This is Alexa Matthews. Leave a message and I might get back to you in due course
.

Friendly as ever, he thought. ‘Alexa, this is John Carlyle. Long time no speak. Give me a call – I’m still at Charing Cross. I wondered if I could ask you about something. Thanks.’

Two minutes later, his phone rang.

‘Hello?’

‘John,’ Carole Simpson said shrilly, ‘what the hell are you doing?’

‘Er . . .’ Carlyle shifted uneasily in his seat. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You know exactly what I bloody mean,’ she snapped. ‘I’ve just got off the phone to Charlie Adam.’

‘Did he try and sell you some organic tea?’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I’ll tell you what he did do,’ Simpson said crossly. ‘He told me, very politely but very firmly, to keep you under control.’

‘I’m always under control,’ Carlyle joked.

‘John, please, try and
listen
for once. Adam asked me why you thought you could just bowl up to SO14 and basically look to put the whole bloody lot of them under investigation when you’ve got absolutely no reason to do so. When it’s not even your case.’

‘What did you say to him?’

‘What
could
I say?’

There was a pause.

‘Have you read my report?’ he asked finally.

‘Adam made it very clear that you are not welcome over there. He doesn’t want you wasting any more of his time.’

‘Have – you – read – the report?’

‘Er . . .’

At least she can’t bring herself to lie, Carlyle thought, which puts Simpson a cut above a lot of people I know. ‘A child has been physically and sexually assaulted,’ he said grimly. ‘And now she has been kidnapped. This is a very serious investigation. A young child suffering horrible and despicable abuse – and yet no one seems interested. No one seems to give a flying fuck.’

There was another longer pause while Simpson thought of something to say. Finally she asked: ‘What about Social Services? What about the social worker?’

‘She knows nothing,’ Carlyle snorted. ‘She wasn’t there when the kid was snatched. Still, it hasn’t stopped her taking stress-related sick leave. She’ll probably be off for months.’

‘Have you heard anything from Vice?’

‘Not a dickie-bird.’

‘Okay.’ Simpson let out a deep sigh. ‘I’ll read the report right now. Come up to Paddington in an hour.’

The two men stood in the doorway and looked at the sullen girl sitting on the bed in front of them. A single low-energy bulb hanging from the ceiling above her head bathed the room in a grubby light that hid the dirt and the flaking paint on the walls, but only added to the sense of gloom. Outside, from the suburban North London street, came the constant hum of traffic. Inside, there was nothing in the room apart from the girl and the bed. It looked like a prison cell. It
was
a prison cell.

‘So . . . what shall we do with her?’

The older man looked surprised at the question. ‘It’s business as usual. We have bills to pay.’

‘Isn’t that a bit risky?’

‘What do you want to do? Shut the whole thing down?’

The younger man looked at the business card in his hand. ‘No, but—’

‘You worry too much. The police will lose interest very quickly. They had already handed the kid over to Social Services before you got her back.’

‘That’s
how
I got her back.’

‘So everything now is sorted.’

‘It’s just so damned annoying to have this type of problem.’

‘It’s nothing. Think about it from their point of view. They have lost the girl, and they have no leads. The last thing they want is anyone asking questions about how they managed to lose a nine-year-old girl who was supposedly in their care. Within a week they will have forgotten that she even existed.’

The girl was quiet, resigned now. It was almost as if she was in a trance. The older man marched over to the bed and pulled her upright by the hair. ‘No more running away,’ he hissed.

The girl started screaming.

‘Calm down!’ The younger man gently freed her and she slumped back on to the bed. ‘She can’t understand you anyway.’

The older man made a fist. ‘Oh, yes, she can, the little bitch! It’s time that she earned us some money.’

The younger man stepped back out of the room. ‘She will. In the meantime, if it’s bothering you that much, see what you can find out about the policeman who found her. If it comes to it, we can have him dealt with.’

Alzbetha rubbed her tingling head as she watched the two men leave the room. The door clicked shut behind them and she heard the key turn in the lock. Pulling her knees up to her chest, she began slowly rocking backwards and forwards on the bed. Looking round the bare cell, she wished that they had at least let her bring her colouring book. She hoped that the nice man who had bought it for her would come and get her, but she knew that he wouldn’t.

Sitting in Simpson’s office in Paddington Green police station, Carlyle noticed that she had removed the picture of her husband from her desk. As far as he could tell, the photo had been the only personal touch she had ever allowed herself in all the years spent in this cramped, over-heated office. Now it was gone, presumably never to return. Wondering why she hadn’t filed for divorce, he quickly concluded that it was none of his business. He wasn’t really that interested anyway.

Simpson sneezed, bringing him back to the present.

‘Bless you.’

‘Thank you.’ She looked up, as if awaiting some barbed comment.

Carlyle said nothing. Returning her gaze to the desk, she made a scribble on a memo. Arms folded, he waited for her to read the various reports and tried not to look bored.

After a couple more minutes, she pulled a file from the bottom of the heap and flipped it open. Quickly, she scanned the text in the hope that it had somehow changed since she had read it last. It hadn’t. With a sigh, she closed the file and pushed it across the desk towards Carlyle. ‘We don’t have a lot, do we?’

‘No.’

‘What other work have you got on at the moment?’ It was an admission of defeat.

Trying not to smile, Carlyle ran through a dispiriting list of misdemeanours and anti-social behaviour that he was supposed to be sorting out.

‘Fine,’ Simpson said. ‘Go and talk to Superintendent Warren Shen in Vice. I’ve sent him a copy of your report. He’ll decide if there’s anything they can do. In the meantime, feel free to shake things up a bit. See what you can find.’

‘Okay.’ Carlyle grinned.

‘You are right,’ Simpson sniffed, ‘this
is
horrible. We should give it some of our time.’

‘Thank you.’

‘But if you find you’re not getting anywhere,’ Simpson said flatly, ‘don’t drag it out.’

SIX

Carlyle walked out of the train station, heading in the direction of Windsor Castle. According to a tourist brochure he had read on the train, Windsor Castle was the Official Residence of Her Majesty the Queen and the oldest and largest still-occupied castle in the world. At the moment, however, the old girl wasn’t at home. Rather, she was on a state visit to Costa Rica, doing whatever it was that you did on state visits. During his time in Royal Protection, Carlyle had never travelled anywhere more exotic than Cardiff. That was more than far enough away from home, where he was concerned. Anyway, wasn’t Wales considered a kind of foreign country these days?

It had turned cold. When the wind blew, Carlyle realised it was time to be breaking out his winter wardrobe. Walking through the town centre, he buttoned up his raincoat and lengthened his stride. After five minutes, he turned down Peascod Street and headed for the Royal Joker public house.

The Royal Joker occupied the ground and lower-ground floors of a nondescript 1970s office block. Given that it was barely eleven o’clock in the morning, Carlyle was not surprised to find the place completely empty when he stepped inside the pub. On the wall at the back was a sign pointing to a games room and the beer garden. Nodding at the girl cleaning the tables, Carlyle went through the main bar and down some stairs into a large room that, if anything, seemed even colder than the street outside. At the far end, a pair of French windows led out on to a patio on which stood a few forlorn plastic tables. Inside, a couple of tatty leather sofas sat next to a wall. Above one was a large poster of Mount Iron in Wanaka, advertising holidays in New Zealand. In the middle of the room was a coin-operated, red-topped pool table. A handwritten sign on the side said
£2 a game
. Two half-empty pints of lager stood on the rim of the table, next to a small cube of blue chalk.

Ignoring his arrival, two women were engrossed in a game that had clearly just started. The one leaning over the table was bulky, with a low centre of gravity. Her short dark curly hair and pained expression gave her more than a passing resemblance to Diego Maradona in his post-playing days. One foot off the ground, she bent forward, searching for the right angle for her next shot. Watching her intently was her companion, a tall, thin woman in black jeans and a black T-shirt. With too much make-up and violently black hair, she looked to Carlyle like a Goth pensioner. He was pretty sure she was the girlfriend. He remembered meeting her once or twice during his time in Royal Protection but couldn’t remember her name. Studiously ignoring him, she picked up her pint and took a dainty sip.