A thought danced across Carlyle’s brain. ‘Let me talk to my source,’ he said, ‘and see what he has to say for himself.’
‘Okay. But I could really do with something to help me out of this hole.’
Carlyle adopted his most reassuring tone. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll get back to you asap.’ Ending the call, he jumped onto a downward escalator and descended into the bowels of the underground network.
‘Hi, Harry. How’s it going?’
‘Fine. You?’ Sticking his copy of the
Daily Telegraph
under his arm, Harry Ripley held open the front door of Winter Garden House to let Luke Patten step inside. Short, bald and chronically overweight, Luke had joined the Royal Mail around the time that Harry had left it. Working out of the Mount Pleasant sorting office near King’s Cross, he had been delivering the post to this part of Covent Garden for more than fifteen years. He waved the fat packet of letters that he held in his left hand. ‘Got a lot this morning,’ he said, slipping off the red rubber band that had been holding them together. ‘Don’t think I’ve got anything for you, though.’ Letting the elastic band fall to the entrance-hall floor, he walked on.
Harry grunted. Letting the door swing shut, he bent down and picked up the rubber band before slowly straightening himself up and shuffling towards the lift, scowling at the back of the postman’s head. As far as Harry was concerned, Patten typified the way that the postal service had gone downhill. The pensioner was always collecting other people’s post that had been incorrectly put through his letterbox. Muttering under his breath, he would take it to a different flat in the building or even to a completely different address down the street. It vexed him sorely that there was no pride in the job any more; no one cared. They just wanted to get through their round as quickly as possible and bugger off home.
With his free hand, Patten flipped open his oversized satchel and pulled out an A4-sized jiffy bag. ‘I’ve got this packet for Carlyle,’ he said. ‘Is anyone in, do you know? I don’t want to schlep all that way up there for nothing.’
Harry pressed the button for the lift, which slowly began making its way down from the third floor. He knew that the wife and daughter had gone on holiday but that wasn’t the kind of information you just shared around casually. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said, gesturing at the parcel. ‘If it’s too big to go through the letterbox, just leave it by the front door.’
‘Needs a signature.’ Patten rubbed his nose. ‘Must be important. Don’t want to leave it lying around.’
‘What is it?’
‘No idea.’
Harry sighed. ‘Give it here then.’ The lift arrived and he held his foot in the door as he signed for the packet.
‘There you go,’ said Patten. ‘Ta, mate.’ After handing over the package, he headed for the stairs.
‘Don’t you want a ride up?’ Harry asked, stepping inside.
‘Nah.’ Patten shook his head cheerily. ‘My wife’s got me on this new exercise regime. It’s a killer.’
‘About bloody time,’ Harry grumbled under his breath as the doors closed.
Back at the station, Carlyle was staring into space when Angie Middleton appeared behind his desk and put a hand on his shoulder. Leaning back in his chair, he looked up at her. ‘What is it?’
‘There’s been a small explosion on Macklin Street. In your building.’
Carlyle almost fell out of his chair before leaping to his feet and grabbing his jacket. Then he remembered that Helen and Alice should be in Monrovia by now and his panic subsided a little. ‘A bomb?’
‘Looks like it,’ Middleton nodded. ‘One fatality, apparently. The Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit is already there.’
‘Okay,’ he said, heading swiftly for the exit. ‘If you get anything else, let me know.’
The building had been emptied and the road sealed off. Carlyle slipped under the tape and showed his ID to a succession of uniforms
until he reached Winter Garden House. As he stepped inside, his mobile signalled that he’d received a text. He was pleased to see that it was a message from Helen:
Arrived safely. Amazing place. H+A xx
. Smiling with relief, he typed out a short reply and hit Send.
‘Who are you?’
Carlyle looked up from the screen of the phone and recognized the scowling face of the young EOD inspector from the time that he now referred to as ‘the Amazon false alarm’. The officer didn’t, however, remember him, which was probably a good thing. Carlyle flashed his warrant card for the fifth time in as many minutes. ‘I live in the building,’ he told him. ‘What happened?’
‘A device detonated in the lift,’ the EOD guy grudgingly explained, ‘just as it was reaching the eighth floor.’ Carlyle belatedly noticed the name stencilled on to the officer’s navy jumpsuit in small white letters:
Gravesen
. ‘The guy carrying it must have had it stuck under his arm; the whole thing came clean off at the shoulder.’
Carlyle thought back to the recent case of the Moscow suicide bomber who was killed in her flat after a spam text message from her mobile phone company triggered the device early. ‘Was it the bomber?’ he asked hopefully.
‘Nah,’ Gravesen grinned, ‘not unless they’re using pensioners now.’
Oh fuck
. Carlyle’s heart sank. ‘Have you identified the victim?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Let me take a look,’ said Carlyle. ‘I might be able to tell you who he is.’
The lift doors were open, but only the top three feet of the lift protruded above the edge of the eighth-floor landing. Squatting down, Carlyle peered inside.
‘Don’t get too close,’ one of the technicians admonished him. ‘We haven’t started processing the scene yet.’
‘Okay.’ Carlyle edged back a centimetre or so. He gazed down at Harry Ripley’s body, slumped in the far corner of the blackened elevator. From the way he had fallen, it wasn’t clear that Harry had lost an arm, but the dark mess on the floor indicated a
large amount of blood loss. Incinerated debris littered the lift floor around him.
‘He signed for a package from the postman,’ Gravesen informed Carlyle. ‘We found him on the sixth floor. He’s a lucky sod; using the stairs because he was on a health kick. Mind you, the exertion damn near killed him as well.’
Turning awkwardly on the balls of his feet, Carlyle gestured inside the lift. ‘How did he die?’
‘Take your pick,’ Gravesen replied, ‘but the explosion probably gave him a heart attack.’
‘Heart-attack Harry.’ Carlyle cleared his throat. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
‘What?’ Gravesen asked.
‘Nothing. His name is Harry Ripley. He lives –
lived
in number twenty.’
‘Why would anyone want to blow him up?’
Carlyle shook his head. ‘They wouldn’t.’
A young female officer appeared at Gravesen’s side. She whispered something in his ear and they stepped away from Carlyle, moving five yards down the hall. Carlyle tried not to look too interested as she handed over a piece of A5 paper. Gravesen made a show of reading it carefully before stepping back to Carlyle.
‘Looks like you’re right,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’ Carlyle asked, irritated that he was having to drag the information out of the EOD.
‘No one was trying to blow up Mr Ripley,’ Gravesen said. ‘The parcel was addressed to you.’
Upstairs, he tried to call Helen on her mobile but couldn’t get through. Pottering around the cold, empty flat, Carlyle checked and re-checked his passport and his travel documents, before making himself a cup of green tea. Not knowing what to do with himself, he called Umar to see how the Gasparino investigation was going. But when his sergeant’s mobile went to voicemail, he felt too lethargic to even leave a message. Finishing his tea, he put his empty mug in the sink and looked out of the window, thinking about what he should be doing next. Harry was gone; now he had to look after his family.
But how exactly?
For a long while, the inspector simply stared out of the window at the sullen sky, letting his thoughts slowly come into focus. When he finally came to a conclusion, he grabbed his jacket and headed back out of the door.
It was his first time and, clearly, he hadn’t done it right. Christian Holyrod looked down at the massive erection threatening to burst out of his trousers and winced. Had he done too much? Had he taken it too early? One thing was for certain: the Viagra Professional that Dino had given him had done the job all right; to the extent that he dared not get up from behind his desk for fear of provoking much hilarity amongst the underlings and perhaps also a sexual harassment suit.
The Mayor glanced at his expensive watch and groaned – he
wasn’t supposed to see Abigail for another three hours. How could he subdue his ridiculous boner? He wondered if a quick hand job might relieve the situation; maybe he should call Dino and ask.
‘You realize what time it is?’ Clara Hay, his hot new assistant, stuck her head round the door of his office.
Go away, woman!
Holyrod pulled his chair in as far as he could, lest she catch a glimpse of his problem. ‘I do,’ he nodded, trying to smile.
‘Are you okay?’ Clara stepped into the room and, despite everything, he was compelled to gaze into the possibilities that lay beneath her ruffle blouse.
‘I’m fine.’
Standing in front of the desk, hands on hips, she gave him a funny look. ‘We have to get going.’
‘Mm.’ He caught a whiff of her perfume –
Blossom Bomb
– mixed with just the merest hint of perspiration.
‘The reception for the Women’s Institute,’ Clara persisted. She waved the papers she had been holding in front of his nose. ‘You’re giving a speech on City Hall’s commitment to sexual equality in the twenty-first century. It’s called
Smashing the Glass Ceiling for Good
.’
‘I can’t,’ Holyrod moaned. Then a thought crept very slowly across his addled brain. He gestured at the speech. ‘Is it any good?’
‘Very,’ Clara beamed, ‘I wrote it myself. We are a best practice thought leader, striving for three hundred and sixty-degree transparency and continuous improvement.’
‘Good, good,’ the Mayor nodded, not having the remotest clue what she was talking about. ‘In that case, I want
you
to give the speech.’ He smiled slyly. ‘It will be a definitive
proof point
of our good intentions.’
‘But—’
‘Yes,’ Holyrod continued, on a roll now, ‘you are a role model for those who want to smash the, er, glass ceiling and ensure that London is a beacon in the ongoing fight for gender equality.’ It was amazing how easy it was to churn out this verbiage once you got
started. He gestured at the door. ‘Send my apologies to the ladies for being unable to make it. And tell the girls outside that I am not to be disturbed. I need to get on with some very pressing work.’
Undecided, Clara stood for a moment before turning and heading out of the room. As the door clicked behind her, Holyrod pushed his chair back from the desk and unbuttoned his trousers. Opening the bottom drawer of his desk, he pulled out a well-thumbed copy of
Readers Wives
and gave it an appreciative sniff. Now it really was time to deal with the matter in hand.
Behind the bar at Zatoichi, Michela was in good form. She was still in the black vest Carlyle remembered from last time, but her orange hair was now platinum blonde. Chatting up a couple of awestruck boys while pouring bourbon into outsized shot glasses, she seemed in her element. As he headed for the stairs, Carlyle tried unsuccessfully to catch her eye. He fancied a drink; hell, he fancied several drinks, but doubtless he could get them upstairs.
When the inspector burst into his office, Dom tried to look surprised, failing miserably. Lounging on the sofa under the screen print of
The Island
was Gideon Spanner. Carlyle nodded at Gideon and threw himself into the armchair between the two men.
‘We’ve got a few things to talk about.’
‘Want a drink?’
Carlyle nodded. ‘Maybe you could see if Lisbeth Salander could bring up a bottle of Jameson’s.’
‘He means Michela,’ Dom explained.
Gideon almost laughed. ‘I see her more as Charly Baltimore.’ Sliding off the sofa, he headed for the door.
Carlyle was so shocked by Gideon’s reaction – the man rarely spoke and he certainly never smiled – that it took him a moment to recall Charly Baltimore, the CIA assassin played by Geena Davis in
The Long Kiss Goodnight
. As it happened, it was one of his favourite films. He remembered that he had the DVD at home and, with Helen and Alice away, there was no one to stop him from watching it. He looked at Dom. ‘We could do with Charly Baltimore now. Or,’
he laughed humourlessly, remembering Samuel L. Jackson’s useless sidekick, ‘even Mitch fucking Henessey.’
‘Bad day?’
Carlyle talked him through the bomb problem. The drugs problem could wait until after he’d had a drink.
‘Tuco?’ Dom asked.
‘The so-called Samurai.’ Carlyle made a face. ‘Who else could it be?’
‘I dunno.’ Dom decided to make a joke of it. ‘The possibilities are endless. You have always been quite good at pissing people off.’
‘Ha fucking ha.’
Gideon reappeared with the whiskey, three shot glasses and three open bottles of Peroni Red. Placing them all on the desk, he helped himself to a Peroni and repaired to the sofa. Ignoring the beer, Carlyle reached over, poured himself a double and took a mouthful. Immediately, he felt a little better.
Dom took one of the beers. ‘Cheers.’
‘By the way,’ Carlyle asked, ‘what did you do with Tuco’s coke?’
Dom took a long drag on his beer. ‘Your people got there too late.’
You fucking nicked it, is what you mean
, Carlyle thought. ‘I gave them the tip-off; I need to be able to deliver something to justify the cost of the operation.’
All Dom offered him was a non-committal shrug.
Carlyle changed tack. ‘So what are you going to do about Tuco now?’
A look of annoyance flashed across Silver’s face. ‘Just leave him to me.’
‘How can I do that?’ Carlyle shot back. ‘He blew up a fucking pensioner with a bomb meant for me. EOD are all over it.’