It took Carlyle less than a second to understand what was going on. Another woman had been walking behind the downed police officers, ice cream in hand: as soon as she saw the blood spreading across the concrete, she started screaming her head off. Racing round to the rear of the kiosk, Carlyle almost tripped over the bodies of Louisa Arbillot and Adnan. Kneeling, he quickly confirmed that they were both dead. Not even needing to check on Fadi, he rushed back to inspect the two coppers.
Someone started retching. Looking up, the inspector saw that a crowd was quickly growing. Waving his badge above his head, he screamed at the gawkers to stay back. As the sirens approached from the direction of Oxford Street, he wondered just how the fuck he was going to explain this latest fiasco.
‘Do you want a drink?’ Alison Roche asked.
‘Got any whisky?’
‘Of course not.’
‘In that case, a coffee would be great. The stronger the better.’
He watched Roche disappear inside the empty kiosk and start banging about, trying to work the complicated-looking coffee machine.
‘What happened to the guy serving here?’ Carlyle asked no one in particular.
‘He took two in the head as well,’ David Ronan replied, matter-of-factly.
‘Ah.’ With a terrible sick feeling gnawing at his intestines, Carlyle scanned the scene. A forty-yard stretch of the park on either side of the kiosk had been sealed off. Beyond the police tape, a crowd of maybe 100 people had gathered, swelled by half-a-dozen or so TV crews and a deal more reporters. The satellite trucks illegally parked all along Park Lane had attracted a swarm of traffic wardens, who were happily writing ticket after ticket as excited television producers equally happily ignored them. Somewhere amid the scrum, Commander Simpson was doing a round of interviews, dispensing the usual platitudes, promising that the perpetrators would be brought to justice. As if.
‘Makes a grand total of six,’ Ronan remarked. ‘Four men and two women.’
I can fucking count
, Carlyle thought angrily, but he knew that all of his frustration should rightly be directed at himself.
‘Both women and two of the men were taken out with one shot each.’ Ronan gestured over his shoulder. ‘The PC on the bike and the guy in the kiosk were both shot twice.’
‘Eight shots, six bodies. Professional job.’
‘Extremely professional,’ Ronan agreed.
With his hands resting on his hips, Carlyle closed his eyes. Pushing his head back and then down, he tried to halt the progress of the monster migraine relentlessly building at the base of his skull.
‘You were fucking lucky. That was a very good time to go for a leak.’
‘Yeah.’
What was it with him and toilets?
Carlyle wondered. Not so long ago he’d survived a bomb blast by going for a timely dump.
I must be the only bloke in the world who’s escaped death twice by answering the call of nature
. Struck by the stupidity of it all, he started laughing.
‘What’s so funny?’ the detective inspector demanded.
‘Nothing.’ Carlyle opened his eyes and quickly composed himself. ‘I was taking a piss over there,’ he explained, gesturing towards the toilets. ‘I came out, saw the guys on the bikes, saw them get shot . . .’
‘Did you see who did it?’
‘No,’ Carlyle said, ‘the kiosk blocked my line of sight. I came round the back and saw the other three bodies.’
‘And the gunman was already gone?’
I wouldn
’
t know
, Carlyle thought,
because I didn
’
t bloody look
. ‘Yes.’
‘We found the gun dumped amongst the rubbish over there.’ Ronan pointed to a waste-bin about five feet away from where Fadi’s corpse lay under a blue plastic sheet.
‘If he dumped it, it will be clean,’ Carlyle sighed.
‘Of course.’
After a short while, Roche returned with three small paper cups, each filled near to the brim with a steaming black oily liquid.
Carlyle took a mouthful and almost had the back of his throat burned off. Once he’d finished coughing, he turned to Roche and smiled grimly. ‘Perfect.’
Ronan sipped his coffee more carefully. ‘Could you maybe have kept us more in the loop on this?’ he asked, raising his eyes from his plastic cup.
They were both studying him. Carlyle took a deep breath and slowly explained the connection to Fadi, via Louisa Arbillot, taking time to work out how he was going to spin himself being the catalyst for a massacre in Hyde bloody Park. ‘I didn’t know for sure that Fadi would turn up,’ he said by way of a conclusion. ‘And I had no idea that he would bring the other guy. Mossad must have already had them under surveillance.’
‘We’ve already identified the guy in the tracksuit as Adnan Al Bzoor,’ said Ronan. ‘A relatively low-level Hamas fixer.’
Carlyle nodded. ‘Fadi told me that he was the last of the cell left in London.’ He aimlessly scanned the middle distance. ‘Job now done for the Israelis. At least that should be the end of it.’
‘Maybe,’ said Ronan doubtfully.
‘We still have to bloody catch them,’ said Roche. ‘Three dead officers . . .’
‘Of course,’ Carlyle nodded. ‘Absolutely.’ The adrenalin was wearing off and he felt a huge weariness descend on his shoulders. He drank the rest of his oily coffee and crushed the cup in his fist. ‘We have to catch them.’ It wasn’t the same as saying they
would
catch them, but it was the best he could manage.
‘You’ve got a long night ahead of you, then,’ Ronan declared. ‘At this rate, you’ll get your own IPCC team.’
‘IIC too,’ Roche laughed.
‘Great,’ Carlyle replied. Over Roche’s shoulder, he saw Simpson duck under the police tape and head towards them. As she got closer, he could make out the look on her face and knew that he had more immediate things to worry about than any internal investigations.
Carlyle watched Roche and Ronan melt away as the Commander approached. At first, Simpson seemed too angry to speak.
‘You haven’t resigned, then?’ Despite everything, Carlyle couldn’t resist the quip.
‘The way the bodies are piling up,’ she said brusquely, ‘it has been rather hard to find the time.’
Together they turned to watch a trio of ambulances slowly roll up to the police tape, in preparation for the removal of the bodies.
Suddenly solicitous, Simpson eyed Carlyle. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said earnestly, before breaking into a grin. ‘It was certainly one of the most memorable pit stops of my life.’
She gently took hold of his arm. ‘Can you try and be serious for just one minute?’
Hating this kind of lecture, Carlyle took half a step away from her.
‘You have been incredibly,
incredibly
lucky here today. You can joke about it all you like but no one, least of all you, knows what the psychiatric impact might be.’
Carlyle sighed theatrically, lowering his gaze to the ground.
‘You can continue to work with Ronan,’ Simpson said, ‘but you will have to see a police psychiatrist as a matter of routine.’
‘But last time—’
Simpson raised her hand and cut him off. ‘By “last time”, I presume you are referring to when young Horatio Mosman got blown to kingdom come.’
‘When, once again, I was in the bog, taking a—’
‘Yes, yes,’ she said irritably. ‘I would assume there are shorter odds on winning the lottery. Anyway, the point is I should have sent you to get some help back then. The Federation were very unhappy about the way things were handled. This time, they will insist on counselling for every officer who attends this crime scene, even me. Apart from anything else, it will be necessary for any compensation claim that might be forthcoming.’
‘Compensation?’
‘If you end up wanting to make a claim for stress or emotional damage or something.’
‘Me?’ Carlyle snorted. ‘So you’re worried that I might sue the Met because I
didn
’
t
get shot dead?’
‘No, I know that you wouldn’t,’ said Simpson crossly. ‘You are not that kind of officer. But for once, please, just go by the book.’
Carlyle watched as the first of the corpses, the policewoman, was lifted onto a trolley and loaded into the back of an ambulance. ‘Who was she?’ he asked.
‘WPC Karen Abbot,’ said Simpson grimly. ‘Twenty-five. No kids thankfully, but she was engaged. The wedding was due—’
Now it was Carlyle’s turn to raise his hand. ‘Okay, okay. I get the picture.’
Simpson gave him a hard stare.
‘And, yes, I’ll go and see the shrink.’
‘Good,’ said Simpson. ‘I’ll have one turn up at Charing Cross at nine a.m.’
He was about to protest but thought better of it.
‘Now go home and see your family. Give Alice a big kiss.’
Surprised that Simpson remembered his daughter’s name, Carlyle said nothing. After a moment’s pause, he began walking slowly in the direction of Hyde Park Corner, away from the crowds and the journalists.
‘And, John,’ Simpson shouted after him, ‘you’re right. I have decided to stay. I’m not retiring – not yet anyway.’
‘Never doubted it for a minute,’ he yelled back over his shoulder, quickly lengthening his stride.
‘Dad’s home!’
When Alice rushed into the hallway and jumped into his arms, almost knocking him over, he felt an overwhelming urge to burst into tears. After Helen appeared a moment later, he buried his head in her shoulder as he fought for control.
‘We saw you on the TV!’ Alice proclaimed.
‘You could have bloody called,’ Helen scolded, embracing him tightly.
‘Yes,’ he said, and cleared his throat. ‘Sorry.’ Composing himself, he stepped back to close the door.
‘What happened?’ Alice asked.
Carlyle smiled wanly. ‘Just a bad day at the office.’ Slipping off his shoes, he headed for the kitchen.
Helen appeared in the doorway as he filled the kettle. ‘Was it the same people that killed Joe?’
‘Yeah,’ Carlyle replied, closing the lid and switching the kettle on. ‘I think so.’
Alice squeezed past her mother, her brow creased with concern. ‘Is someone trying to get you, Dad?’
‘No, sweetheart.’ He bent over, kissing her hard on the top of her forehead. ‘I’m trying to get
them
.’ He ignored Helen, who was rolling her eyes to the ceiling, and changed the subject. ‘Your mum tells me that we’re having your friend Stuart round to tea.’
Alice’s cheeks went a shade of bright pink. ‘Dad!’ She folded her arms and gave him a fierce look. ‘I haven’t even asked him, or anything.’
‘Well,’ said Carlyle, grinning at Helen, ‘we’re looking forward to meeting him.’
‘Yeah, whatever.’ Still blushing furiously, Alice turned and fled to the safety of her bedroom.
‘That was well handled,’ said Helen sarkily, dropping a couple of teabags – white for her, green for Carlyle – into two mugs and adding boiling water from the kettle.
‘Thanks.’ Using the very tips of his fingers, Carlyle carefully dunked the bag a couple of times, before lifting it out and dropping it on a saucer waiting on the draining board.
Leaving her own teabag in the mug, Helen took a cautious sip of her tea. ‘There was no need for you to embarrass her like that.’
‘Come on,’ Carlyle protested, ‘it’s not a big deal.’
‘It is to her.’
‘Would you prefer me to talk about how six people got shot in the park today?’ he asked angrily. ‘Including your friend Louisa – who was despatched to the great hotdog-stand in the sky.’ He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth, but at least Helen was used to his potential for crassness.
She blanched. ‘They’re not saying a lot on the news. What exactly happened?’
Carlyle quickly ran through some heavily edited highlights.
‘Fucking hell, John,’ was her only response.
Putting down his tea, he gave her a hug. ‘The important thing to realize is that it’s over now. Everybody who the Israelis wanted dead is now dead. To them, Joe was only collateral damage. No one is coming after me either.’
‘What about you going after them, like you told Alice?’ she asked, pulling away from him.
He shook his head. ‘Never going to happen. The people responsible for this will be long gone by now. Even if they were still in London, which they’re not, the Met doesn’t have any jurisdiction. These guys are soldiers and I’m just a cop – a British cop at that. Not much use to anyone when the shooting starts.’
‘Jesus, John.’
For a moment, they stood silently sipping their tea, each keeping any doubts and fears unspoken.
The psychiatrist that Simpson had sent him was a short, wizened gent with long grey hair, a complete inability to maintain eye-contact, and an accent that Carlyle couldn’t place. Every time he spoke, the shrink would end up staring at his shoes as if lost in his own thoughts. Carlyle simply nodded and watched the minute hand of the clock on the wall tick round increasingly slowly.
After twenty minutes, there was a knock and Alison Roche stuck her head round the door. The shrink looked up, bemused.
‘I’m very sorry, Inspector,’ Roche said, trying her best to look disconcerted, ‘but I need to speak to you.’
Just about managing to keep a straight face, Carlyle nodded towards the psychiatrist. ‘Can it wait?’ he asked. ‘I’m in a meeting right now.’
Roche dropped her gaze to the floor. ‘I’m afraid that it’s really quite urgent, sir.’
‘Okay,’ Carlyle sighed, slowly getting to his feet. He turned to the shrink. ‘Apologies, but I need to confer with my sergeant.’
The man shrugged but said nothing.
Trying not to break into a run, Carlyle shuffled out of the door, pushing Roche in front of him.
‘You took your time,’ he said in mock annoyance once they had retreated further along the corridor.
‘You said twenty minutes,’ Roche smiled, ‘so I gave you precisely twenty minutes. Was he any use?’
‘Of course not,’ Carlyle snorted. ‘Now let’s go and get a coffee.’
* * *
They celebrated his escape from the forces of psychobabble with a trip to Carluccio’s on Rose Street. Sitting in one of the red leather booths, Carlyle sipped a double macchiato and nibbled on an almond croissant, while Roche had a glass of herbal tea. Waiting until he had finished his pastry, she reached into her bag and took out a copy of a grainy black-and-white photo. Placing it on the table, she pushed it over to Carlyle, who gave the image a careful once-over. It was clearly a still taken from a security camera positioned in the entrance to a tube station. Various people were entering and exiting through the barriers, but it wasn’t clear which one he should be interested in.