‘Is that an attempt at irony?’ Sticking his hands behind his head, Carlyle stared up at the rusting metal rods sticking out of the ceiling. ‘It’s hardly my fault you ended up in this mess, is it?’
For several moments, they glared at each other.
Finally, the inspector asked: ‘How did you end up on this wild-goose chase?’
Hawking up a gob of phlegm, Kortmann energetically spat it across the room into the gloom. Most of his anger seemed to go with it. When he spoke again, his tone was quieter, more reflective. ‘We have been looking for Sylvia Tosches for decades. Well, I say “we” but I really mean “I”. The rest of the family gave up long ago. After a few years, they wanted to forget all about what happened to Uli.’
‘So why did you keep going?’
Kortmann allowed himself a grim chuckle. ‘You know, that is the funny thing. I have been sitting here asking myself that very question.’
‘And?’
‘And I can’t really remember.’ Extending his leg, he listlessly pawed at the concrete with his boot. ‘After all these years, it’s just become a habit, I suppose.’ He turned and looked at Carlyle. ‘I don’t expect you found her, did you?’
‘Barbara Hutton? Er, no. She hasn’t turned up yet. When she does though, how do you expect to prove if she is Tosches or not?’ For a moment, he thought about his own question. ‘Assuming that she won’t confess, or voluntarily let us take a DNA sample.’
Kortmann simply grunted and stared off into space.
‘God knows, if it was me, I wouldn’t.’
Still the old man said nothing.
‘Glad we sorted that out,’ Carlyle mumbled. Closing his eyes, he tried to imagine he was somewhere – anywhere – other than lying on a slab of cold concrete in the middle of a field. ‘Now I can get back to my beauty sleep.’
Running, running, running. He was being chased down a dimly lit city street. Who was chasing him? All he knew was that he couldn’t stop or something terrible would happen. Slowly, he became aware of shouting in the distance. A moment later, someone kicked his leg. Carlyle tried to shuffle away from his assailant – but all he got for his trouble was another kick, harder this time.
‘Hey,’ Kortmann grunted, ‘policeman, wake up.’
‘Fuck off,’ Carlyle scowled. ‘I was asleep.’
Waving away his protests, the German pointed towards the window. ‘Listen . . .’
Shaking himself awake, the inspector realized that the voices were real, albeit indistinct as they ebbed and flowed on the wind. The rapid succession of gunshots that followed – one, two, three – were clear enough, however. In the subsequent silence, he glanced at Kortmann, who looked every inch a man who was resigned to his fate, before struggling to his feet. Still chained to the floor, he could make it almost to the doorway. Hands on hips, he stood and waited.
Behind him, Kortmann also pulled himself up on his feet. ‘I hope that the little shit only has one bullet left,’ he snorted, ‘and that he shoots you with it.’
Just as long as he leaves you here to endure a slow, painful, lonely death, the inspector thought. A shadow appeared out of the darkness. He felt his heart get ready for take-off as the shadow moved towards them.
This is it.
‘Inspector?’
Blinking, he slowly realized that the figure in front of him was not the psychotic Popp but, rather, the amused Elmhirst.
‘What happened to you?’ the sergeant grinned.
Carlyle simply stared at the semi-automatic hanging from her left hand.
‘Just because you haven’t been on the firearms course,’ she explained, ‘doesn’t mean I haven’t. I came third in my year in Hendon when it came to shooting.’
‘Good for you,’ the inspector responded tersely. Lifting his leg, he gave his chain a little jangle and pointed towards the corner of the room with his foot. ‘Now, just get me the fucking key for this thing.’
THIRTY-SIX
Carlyle gazed at the framed film poster on the kitchen wall as he tentatively sipped his oily coffee. Under the headline Leisure Rules a youthful Matthew Broderick grinned back at him. The inspector vaguely remembered seeing the movie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, decades earlier; an eighties comedy about a slacker school kid bunking off.
Quite appropriate for our Mr Umar Sligo, he thought.
Moments later, the sergeant himself shuffled through the doorway, pulling a Green Day T-shirt over his head.
‘Good morning,’ said Carlyle cheerily.
‘I hear that things went tits up again with that crazy German,’ Umar yawned. ‘Again.’ Reaching for the kettle, he dumped some hot water into a mug. Adding a heaped teaspoon of Nescafé, he gave it a stir. ‘Where’s Christina?’
‘She took Ella to the park.’
‘Fair enough. This place is very small if we’re all here all the time.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘One and a half bedrooms, £825 a month.’ He shook his head. ‘Shocking.’
The inspector mumbled something sympathetic.
‘It’s a long way from the station. Takes me more than an hour to get in, most days.’
‘It took me something like that to get here.’ Carlyle suddenly felt vaguely guilty about his own daily ten-minute walk to work.
‘So, why are you here, boss?’ Umar asked suddenly.
Carlyle shifted uneasily in his seat. It was a good question, to which he had no particular answer. ‘Oh, you know. I just wanted to see how you were getting on.’
‘I’m fine. It’s you who’s been pushing your luck. Again.’
‘Hardly.’
‘Don’t you think he would have killed you?’
‘Marcus Popp? Nah.’
‘He might have done.’
‘Not worth speculating about, really.’
‘I suppose not.’ There was a lull in the conversation before Umar said: ‘This time it was Amelia Elmhirst who saved your bacon.’
‘Not really,’ said Carlyle tartly, irked that the latest gossip had made it all the way from WC2 to SE12 so speedily.
Umar started to pick his nose, then remembered his manners. ‘At least she didn’t get shot,’ he observed, wiping a finger on his T-shirt.
‘How is the leg?’
Resting his backside against the sink, Umar placed his mug on the draining board and folded his arms. ‘I’ll make a full recovery.’
‘Good.’
‘It’s basically fine now, to be honest.’ Recovering his mug, Umar took a slurp of his coffee. ‘But there’s no real need to hurry back, is there?’
Carlyle imagined Ferris Bueller giving them a cheeky wink. ‘No, I suppose not.’
Umar gestured towards the letter lying on the kitchen table, the MPS logo at the top. ‘Did you know about that?’
Having already seen the disciplinary hearing notice, Carlyle didn’t bother trying to lie. ‘Simpson mentioned it.’
Accepting this, Umar nodded. Then he asked: ‘Want some toast?’
‘Nah, I’m good, thanks.’
Reaching over to the bread bin, the sergeant removed a couple of slices of white bread, dropped them into the toaster and switched it on. ‘It was only ever supposed to be a bit of fun.’ Opening the fridge door, he took out the remains of a block of salted butter and a jar of marmalade. ‘It’s what people do these days; not a big deal.’
Licking his lips, Carlyle wondered if he had been a bit hasty declining the offer of something to eat. ‘What does Christina make of it?’
‘I told her that the hearing is to do with an investigation into a suspect who claims he was assaulted in police custody.’
A bus trundled past the window. The inspector looked at the miserable faces on the top deck as they headed slowly through the dusty badlands of South London.
‘She’s not happy.’
‘She’d be a lot unhappier if she knew the truth,’ Carlyle pointed out. Part of him wanted to understand why the sergeant had done it; an equal part of him didn’t want to know. The pros and cons of photographing your genitals was not, to his mind, a suitable topic of conversation for two grown men.