He also knew that, out of eight million people, London managed less than a hundred and thirty murders in the previous year. As always, more than half of those were domestics – when the victim usually knew the killer– so you always knew where to look first.
Then there was the fact that around 90 per cent of murderers are men.
In any given year, the murder clean-up rate was 90 per cent plus, often as high as 97 or 98 per cent; you either find them, or they come to you.
Those were good odds, statistics that gave Carlyle a great sense of wellbeing. It told him that he lived in a very safe city. Of course, some places in London were safer than others. And some people were safer than others. But most people – by a very, very big majority – had nothing whatsoever to worry about.
Sadly for Sandy Carroll, she was not most people.
The inspector had never been a ‘
let’s do it for the victim
’ kind of guy. The victim was dead, what did he or she care? Do it for the family? Maybe, but in Carlyle’s experience, the family sometimes cared, sometimes didn’t. No, his primary motivation was catching the perpetrators. He just hated the thought of the bastards getting away with it. Maybe Paul Groom landed the fatal blow on Carroll’s jaw, maybe not, but there were two men involved, and in his book, they were both responsible. It was Gavin Swann, with his poisonous mix of money, arrogance and stupidity that had put them all in that room, and it was Swann who thought his money could buy him a free pass.
The thought really pissed Carlyle off. It bounced around his brain like a migraine while he told himself that, one way or another, he would nail the stupid little fucker.
As he climbed the stairs to the third floor, he called Phillips again on her mobile. The call went to voicemail and he hesitated before deciding not to leave another message. Arriving at his desk, he tried to work out what to do next, but his mind was blank. Switching on his PC, he remembered that a call to Simpson was long overdue, even by his standards. The thought of having to talk to the Commander filled him with something approaching physical pain. Picking up the handset on his desk, he began dialling the number for Simpson’s office in Paddington Green before changing his mind and calling her mobile instead. Holding his breath for a moment, he punched the air when the call went to voicemail.
‘Result!’ A passing WPC gave him a funny look. After the beep, he left a desultory message and promised to call back later. Hanging up, he headed for the canteen, just in case Simpson called straight back.
Twenty minutes and a double espresso later, he was back at his desk, sifting through his emails. The Police Federation had sent him a draft letter to send to his MP complaining about attempts to reduce police pensions. ‘Good luck with that,’ Carlyle mumbled to himself as he deleted it.
Next up was a children’s ticket offer from Fulham FC. Carlyle was tempted but he knew that trying to convince Alice to go to a football match with him was a lost cause. Her mother’s virulent hostility towards the sport had infected their daughter at an early age and she had always refused his attempts to drag her along to Craven Cottage. Sadly, that too went into the cyber bin. Moving on to the BBC website, he checked out upcoming fixtures. Carlyle knew that if he didn’t start going to more games, Helen would start to complain about the cost of his season ticket.
According to the BBC, there were six games being played that evening. Sadly, Fulham were playing in Manchester, which was
pretty much another guaranteed defeat. Glancing down the list, he noted two other games in London.
‘Interesting . . .’ As the germ of an idea formed in his head, a call came in on his mobile. Seeing Simpson’s number on the screen, he ignored it and went back to cleaning out his inbox.
Five minutes later, Angie Middleton puffed up the stairs and staggered in his direction. Reaching his desk, she took a moment to catch her breath. ‘Simpson’s looking for you . . . again,’ she wheezed.
Don’t have a heart attack
, Carlyle thought. ‘I’ll get back to her straight away,’ he lied.
Middleton looked doubtful. ‘She’s not very happy.’
‘She never is,’ Carlyle grunted.
‘We seem to be having this conversation a lot recently.’
‘Yeah, like a couple of losers in a Samuel Beckett play.’
‘Eh?’
‘Never mind.’ Switching off his computer, Carlyle got to his feet.
‘So, are you going to call her?’
‘Angie,’ Carlyle said patiently, ‘I can walk and talk at the same time.’
Middleton looked doubtful.
‘I need to check something out,’ Carlyle improvised. ‘I’ll call her on the way.’ Then, seeing her expression, he grinned, crossing his heart with his index finger. ‘I promise.’
Susan Phillips gestured with her fork for Carlyle to sit down in the empty chair on the opposite side of the table.
‘Nice of you to come and see me,’ she smiled, spearing a tomato and popping it into her mouth.
The owner of Tutti’s café on Lambs Conduit Street, up the road from Holborn police station, gave him an enquiring look. Having had more than enough coffee already, Carlyle ordered a green tea.
Phillips picked through the remains of her salad before letting the fork fall on the plate. ‘Don’t you want anything to eat?’ She lifted a small glass bottle of peach and mango juice to her lips and took a swig.
Carlyle shook his head. ‘I just thought I’d try and catch you before I head home.’
Phillips nodded. ‘How are the family?’
‘Good,’ Carlyle replied enthusiastically. ‘All good. You?’ He wasn’t sure what Phillips’ domestic arrangements were but he wanted to show willing.
‘Good,’ Phillips parroted.
His reserves of small talk exhausted, Carlyle turned to the matter in hand. ‘About Sandy Carroll . . .’
‘Didn’t you read my report?’
‘Haven’t had a chance yet.’
The café-owner arrived with Carlyle’s tea. Sweeping up Phillips’ plate, he retreated behind the counter. Shaking her head, the pathologist glanced at her watch. ‘Look, I’ve got to go in five minutes.’
‘Just give me the highlights.’
She gave him a sly smile. ‘Well, one of them killed her, but we can’t be sure which one. We have nothing which corroborates Groom’s story and, of course, we haven’t been able to process Swann – yet.’
Ignoring the barb, Carlyle took a sip of his tea. ‘What are the odds?’
Phillips finished her juice. ‘Based on what we know?’ She screwed the cap back on to the empty bottle. ‘Fifty-fifty. Assuming it wasn’t a joint effort, of course.’
‘So we have nothing.’
Phillips pulled a small red leather notebook from her bag. ‘That’s the way it goes. We might have had more if I could have seen Mr Swann.’
Okay, okay
, Carlyle thought,
give it a rest
.
‘But, anyway,’ she said, taking a crisp twenty-pound note from her purse, ‘I hear that you, or rather your dishy new sergeant, have already got a confession.’
Fucking Umar
. Carlyle raised his eyes to the heavens. ‘Good news travels fast.’
‘It sure does,’ Phillips agreed. ‘That’s because there’s so little of it about.’ Getting to her feet, she walked over to the counter and paid for her lunch and for Carlyle’s tea.
‘Thanks.’
‘My pleasure,’ said Phillips, putting away her change. Leaving the café, they walked to the corner of Theobald’s Road. ‘Surely,’ said Phillips, ‘the confession solves your problem?’
Carlyle sighed. ‘It depends what you think the problem is.’
‘You don’t reckon Groom did it?’ Phillips asked, dangling a toe over the edge of the kerb.
Carlyle smiled mirthlessly. ‘I think it’s fifty-fifty.’
Alex Miles ushered Kelly Kellaway towards the table at the back of the Light Bar occupied by Clifford Blitz. Recognizing Gavin Swann’s agent, Kelly gave her best smile as she dropped her designer leather hobo bag on the floor and slipped off her Juicy Couture faux fur jacket, draping it over the back of a chair.
‘Sit.’ Blitz nodded at the chair.
‘Thank you,’ said Kelly, primly lowering her rump into the seat.
Blitz glowered at the concierge. ‘Leave us.’ Kelly tried and failed to suppress a smirk.
‘If you need anything . . .’ Miles said, the exasperation clear in his voice.
‘Sure, sure.’ Blitz waved him away with a dismissive hand. ‘For now, what I need is to be able to have a private conversation with the young lady here.’ Kelly’s smirk got wider. Tut-tutting to himself, Miles trotted off.
Turning to the girl, Blitz looked her up and down. With her hair pulled back into a ponytail, she was wearing minimal make-up, making her look even younger than her twenty-two years. He spent several moments contemplating her décolletage – a black bra clearly visible beneath her expensive silk blouse – before dragging his gaze back up to eye-level. Not a bad-looking girl, if you liked that kind of thing. Definitely pretty. Her face, however, was disfigured by a blandness that suggested laziness and a lack of imagination.
Kelly caught him looking at her chest. That was the great thing about men, they were all the same, totally predictable. Emboldened, she grabbed the litre bottle of Evian on the table and filled one of
the two glasses that had been left beside it. She pointed the bottle at Blitz. ‘Want some?’
The agent shook his head.
Kelly took a mouthful of water. ‘So,’ she said, as casually as she could manage, ‘what happened to Sandy?’
Sighing, Clifford Blitz reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a cheque. A fucking cheque! It had taken his PA three bloody hours to find the company cheque book. Clifford – proud owner of eight different credit cards – couldn’t even remember the last time he had written one. He vaguely recalled seeing something on television that said they were going to be phased out. He dropped it on the table. ‘Here.’
Kelly scooped it up quickly, her tongue running along her upper lip as she read and re-read what it said. Finally, she looked up at Blitz. ‘A hundred grand?’
Blitz nodded. He wasn’t sure of the wisdom of giving her a cheque but it was too much cash to carry around. ‘Take it,’ he said quietly.
Kelly folded the cheque, then unfolded it again.
Blitz leaned across the table. ‘Take it,’ he repeated. ‘Put it in the bank and fuck off back to the provinces. Get a husband who works for the council or something. Have some kids. Just fuck off.’
Kelly took another look at the cheque. ‘A measly hundred grand,’ she hissed, her pseudo-Sloane Square accent washed away in a wave of estuary English, ‘is fuck all. Get real.’
Blitz glanced round the largely empty bar to check that no one was paying them any attention. Leaning closer, he opened his jacket just enough for the girl to be able to get a glimpse of the handle of the Smith & Wesson .45 in his inside pocket. The gun was a replica he’d bought from a model shop in Holborn but it was realistic enough. ‘It’s either a hundred k,’ he said grimly, ‘or a bullet in the face.’
‘You wouldn’t . . .’ She tried to sound defiant, but her bottom lip had started to quiver and he could see the fear in her eyes. He slipped a hand under the table and ran it along her leg, squeezing her thigh tightly when she tried to smack it away. Tears appeared in her eyes.
‘Try me.’
After a moment’s reflection, Kelly refolded the cheque and dropped it in her bag. ‘You wouldn’t be doing this,’ she complained, ‘if Gavin wasn’t guilty.’ Finally removing his hand from her leg, she thrust her chest out defiantly. ‘How did you get that idiot Paul Groom to take the blame?’
Getting to his feet, Blitz reached across the table and grabbed the collar of her blouse. ‘One more word . . .’ He pulled her close, letting her feel his breath on her face. ‘One more word out of you and you know what will happen. Don’t try and get fucking clever with me.’ Biting her lip, Kelly tried to free herself but he hoisted her even closer. He could smell the mix of her body odour and perfume. ‘You will never say anything about this to anyone.’
She nodded, and this time he let her go.
‘What if someone asks about the cash?’ she queried shakily, straightening her blouse.
Blitz shook his head. ‘They won’t.’
‘But if they do?’ she persisted.
‘Just send them to me,’ Blitz sighed. ‘I’ll explain it was a pay-off for a story that never happened. If you stay out of London, no one will care,’ he added. ‘I don’t want to hear that you’re round and about here ever again.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Kelly said huffily. Getting to her feet, she took her jacket from the back of the chair. ‘I’m going. Who needs London anyway? They have footballers in Manchester, you know.’
As she bent over to pick up her bag, Blitz eyed her rear, displayed to good effect in a pair of Moschino jeans. He fingered the room-card key in his pocket.
‘Hey, Kelly.’
Hoisting the bag over her shoulder, she straightened up. ‘What?’ she scowled.
‘I suppose a quick blow job is out of the question?’
Alison Roche glanced at her watch. She was a third of the way through her session with Wolf, and the psychiatrist had yet to say a single word. That was fine by her but, after more than fifteen minutes of silence, she was beginning to worry that something might be wrong with the doctor. ‘Just your bloody luck,’ she mumbled to herself. ‘They send you to see a shrink and he starts losing his own bloody marbles!’
‘Huh?’ Wolf brought his gaze down from the ceiling as if he was recognizing her presence in his office for the first time. Today he was wearing a shapeless grey Nike sweatshirt. His hair had been cut short, making him look about ten years older, and his blue eyes seemed paler than Roche remembered. His wedding band lay on the desk, next to Roche’s file. ‘I’m sorry . . . Sergeant,’ he said softly. ‘I missed that.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Roche replied, ‘it was nothing.’ Shifting her position in the armchair, she looked around the room; as far as she could tell, it was still littered with the same family photos and books. The only change was that the framed poster for
The Wild Bunch
had been removed and replaced by one for
Alien
.
‘You’ve changed the poster.’ Roche pointed at the wall.