You look even worse than I feel, Carlyle thought. He imagined Yates to be an insurance salesman from Birmingham, or maybe something in IT from Manchester. The inspector’s metropolitan snobbery kicked in and he felt a pang of sympathy for the bloke. More to be pitied than scorned, no doubt.
Umar looked at Yates’s outstretched hand but made no attempt to shake it.
‘Mr Yates feels that he has been a victim of fraud,’ Stapleton smirked, his exasperation evaporating as he effortlessly passed the buck to his colleagues. ‘But I am sure that you officers will be able to help him.’
Umar glanced at Carlyle, but the inspector simply took another step backwards to underline his disinclination to get involved.
‘Like I said to the sergeant,’ Yates said brightly, happy now that his complaint was finally being acknowledged and that he was moving up the food chain, ‘I tried calling 999, but couldn’t get any joy. No one would take me seriously.’
‘So he came to the station,’ Stapleton explained with the tone of a man building up his joke in anticipation of the punchline.
‘So what was the fraud?’ Umar asked.
‘Contravention of the Sale of Goods Act 1979,’ said Yates, with all the authority of a man with Google on his side. ‘I checked it on the internet.’
Letting his smirk mutate into a full-blown grin, Stapleton looked at Carlyle. ‘He wasn’t happy with Sonia.’
‘Sonia?’ the inspector asked, allowing himself to be drawn into the conversation despite his better judgement.
‘Sonia Coverdale,’ Stapleton explained.
Carlyle recognized the name but said nothing.
‘Who’s Sonia Coverdale?’ Umar asked.
‘Sexy Sonia,’ Yates jumped in, ‘a Platinum girl from Royal Escorts. Except that she wasn’t.’
‘Eh?’ said Carlyle and Umar in unison.
‘I paid three hundred quid for a quote-unquote “stunning beauty” – one of their top girls – and that’s not what I got. The law says goods must be of satisfactory quality, be fit for purpose and match the seller’s description.’
Carlyle took a moment to retrieve a mental image of the hooker. He probably hadn’t seen her in the last year or so, but, as far as he could recall, Sonia was a perfectly good-looking girl.
‘I mean she was all right, but nothing special. It was a clear case of mis-selling if ever there was one. But when I asked for my money back, she told me to get stuffed and stormed out of the hotel.’
‘You paid in advance?’ Umar asked.
‘Yes,’ Yates blinked. ‘I said – three hundred quid. Why?’
Careful not to make eye contact with the chortling Stapleton, Carlyle gestured towards the stairs. ‘I think you’d better come with us, sir.’
More blinking. ‘Aren’t you going to make a report?’ Yates asked, his tone more pleading than demanding.
‘First things first,’ said Carlyle, leading the way. ‘Let’s go and get a coffee.’
* * *
Sitting in the canteen, Carlyle rested his injured foot on a free chair. Should he put some ice on it? Deciding that it would make too much mess, he distracted himself by watching one of the dinner ladies chalk up a list of the day’s lunch specials on a blackboard on the wall next to the serving area. Seeing nothing that took his fancy, he then considered where else he might take his lunchtime custom. Unable to reach a decision, he turned his attention back to Brian Yates, who was morosely toying with a packet of sweetener.
‘So let me get this straight.’ Yates tossed the sachet on to the table and leaned back in his chair. ‘I’m three hundred quid down, the woman nicked my cash, and I’m the one who broke the law?’
‘Soliciting is a crime,’ Umar pointed out, ‘under the Street Offences Act 1959.’
‘But I didn’t solicit,’ Yates protested. ‘I only looked at Sonia’s picture on the internet; her very flattering picture. I’m not even sure it was her. It was airbrushed to hell, at the very least. Or Photoshopped, whatever they do to pictures these days. And they say that the camera never lies.’
Let’s not go there again, Carlyle thought. ‘You contacted her. You met. You handed over the cash. It’s an open and shut case.’
Yates shifted uneasily in his seat. ‘But the bloody internet didn’t even exist in 1959,’ he wailed.
‘Even if we didn’t go for soliciting,’ Umar said cheerily, ‘there’s the Criminal Law Act of 1967.’
Carlyle looked at his sergeant in disbelief. When did you swallow a copy of Black’s Law Dictionary? he wondered.
‘Oh?’ Yates looked as if he might have a stroke at any moment.
‘Yes,’ said Umar, dropping a piece of chocolate chip muffin into his mouth. ‘If you’d taken a look at it, you’d have found out that wasting police time is a serious offence, one which carries a maximum sentence of six months’ imprisonment.’
Yates’s face crumpled and he looked like he was going to start crying. ‘But . . .’
Tiring of the conversation, the inspector held up a hand. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Yates,’ he said gently. ‘We are not going to take this any further.’
Hope battled with despair on Yates’s face. ‘No?’
‘No. But you need to put this down to experience.’
‘What would your wife think?’ Umar added.
‘Haven’t got one,’ Yates muttered. ‘We got divorced four years ago.’
Why am I not surprised? ‘Even so,’ Carlyle advised, ‘I think you should maybe give the escort agencies a rest for a while.’
Yates looked at each of the officers in turn. ‘So I’m not being prosecuted but I’m not getting my money back either?’
‘Get a few blank taxi receipts,’ Umar ventured, ‘claw it back on expenses.’
Yates thought that one through for a few moments, saying nothing. Then, glancing at his watch, he jumped to his feet. ‘Goodness, I’m going to be late for my next appointment.’
‘What is it you do?’ Carlyle asked.
A renewed look of concern passed across the man’s face. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘No reason,’ the inspector shrugged. ‘Just curious.’
‘I sell satellite capacity to telcos and ISPs.’ Pulling a business card from the pocket of his jacket, he handed it to the inspector.
‘I see,’ Carlyle nodded, none the wiser. ‘Anyway, good luck. And I don’t want to see you back here.’
‘Yes, well, quite.’ Skipping towards the door, Yates didn’t look back.
Umar watched him disappear before turning to the inspector. ‘Why did you let him go?’
‘Good old-fashioned customer service,’ Carlyle grinned.
‘Like the 15 bus.’
‘Something like that,’ Carlyle replied, surprised that Umar had been paying attention to their earlier conversation. We should be grateful to Mr Yates; he gave us a rare opportunity to use our common sense. Arresting him for time-wasting would simply have wasted more time. And it wasn’t like we were going to go after Sonia, was it?’
‘I wonder if she’s as bad as he made out?’ Umar asked, stuffing the last piece of the muffin into his mouth.
‘Not as far as I recall.’
‘You know her?’
‘I’ve met her a few times,’ Carlyle admitted.
‘And she’s a looker?’
‘She’s a pretty girl.’ Noting the wheels turning in his sergeant’s brain, the inspector quickly added: ‘Not that it should be of much concern to you.’ Now that Umar was married, with a kid, the inspector felt some kind of vague responsibility for trying to keep him on the straight and narrow when it came to the ladies. Never a player himself, the setting of the younger man’s moral compass made Carlyle distinctly uncomfortable. Still, he had been quite happy when the boy’s hopes of leaving the police were dashed; Umar was his third sergeant in quick succession and a bit of continuity was most welcome.