The financial and political context? ‘What the hell does that mean?’
‘It means that you have to get your arse back out there and find out exactly who put this boy . . .’
‘Taimur Rage.’
‘Who put him up to it. Go and speak to his family, friends, associates. We need a more rounded picture of this young man, his thought processes, his networks. His connections.’
Christ, thought Carlyle sullenly, talk about creating work. ‘But-’
‘We need more action,’ said Simpson, cutting him off. ‘We need more arrests. The public want to know that we can protect them.’
We can’t always protect them, that’s the point.
‘It has to be zero tolerance.’
For the truth.
‘Otherwise the security boys take over. You lose your conviction and the MPS is seen as being sidelined when it comes to keeping London safe.’
So that’s what it’s about. Carlyle had no time for turf wars. ‘Let them have it.’
‘No, I will not let them have it,’ Simpson insisted. ‘The Commissioner will not let them have it. This is our responsibility. To hand a case like this over to someone else would be seen as an admission that the Metropolitan Police can’t do its job; that we can’t protect our own city. I will not allow it.’ She pointed towards the window. ‘So get out there right now and damn well find me something.’
Carlyle was taken aback. It had been a long time since he had heard the Commander sound so strident. Looking round the room, he realized that a group of colleagues had stopped to listen in on their conversation. Irritated, Simpson waved them all back to work. As he watched them slope off, the inspector considered arguing back. He had done his job – and done it in double-quick time too. The idea that he was somehow failing to protect his fellow Londoners was ludicrous. He was about to open his mouth but, catching Simpson’s glare, he thought better of it. ‘Okay,’ he sighed, ‘okay. You’re the boss. I’m on it.’
‘Inspector.’
Bollocks. He was just about to make a dash for the exit when he was cut off by a slack-looking woman pushing a baby buggy. Narrowly avoiding falling on top of the child, the inspector admitted defeat. Trying to escape was futile. He turned to face his pursuer.
Dressed in a garish Prince of Wales check suit, Chris Brennan had gone to seed since their last meeting. His cheeks were puffy and his hairline not so much receding as running away. The deep lines around his eyes suggested that decades of partying were finally catching up with him.
‘I wondered if I could have a word.’
You’ve got a bloody nerve, turning up here. Sticking his hands firmly in his pockets, Carlyle glared at the lawyer, ‘Mr Brennan. What can I do for you?’
Brennan waved for him to come closer. Reluctantly, the inspector complied. ‘It’s about my colleague,’ he said quietly.
‘Yes.’
‘Brian Winters.’
‘Uh-huh?’
‘His briefcase.’
Get to the point. Hopping from foot to foot, the inspector was keen to get going. He didn’t want Simpson to find him still here when she made her own exit. ‘What about it?’
‘You have it.’ Brennan smiled, like a fox might smile at a chicken. ‘I need it.’
Carlyle frowned. ‘I do?’
‘Poor Brian had a fatal cardiac arrest while crossing Waterloo Bridge,’ Brennan explained. ‘I understand that you were the officer on the scene. He had certain important client documents in his briefcase. I need to get hold of them.’
The briefcase in the evidence room. He’d forgotten all about it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Simpson heading down the corridor in his direction.
‘Well?’
‘Sorry, you’ve got that wrong.’ Carlyle began edging towards the door. ‘I was dealing with something else.’ Ignoring the dark look on Brennan’s face, he ploughed on. ‘Your colleague was handled by a couple of officers from the Waterloo station. You’d better go and talk to the desk sergeant over there.’
Brennan knew that he was being fobbed off and he didn’t like it one little bit. ‘But-’
The Commander was getting closer. Catching Carlyle’s eye, she scowled.
‘Sorry, but I’ve really got to run.’ Turning on his heel, Carlyle broke into a trot, heading for the relative sanctuary of the street.
NINETEEN
The Persian Palace was a nondescript kebab shop in the middle of a row of single-storey properties on the north side of Shepherd’s Bush Green. Catering for punters eschewing the more refined delights of the nearby Westfield shopping centre, it served fare of largely indeterminate content from 11 a.m. until 2 a.m., seven days a week. Like all coppers, Carlyle knew that peak hours for this kind of takeaway establishment were 11 p.m.-1 a.m.; the two-hour window after most of the pubs closed accounted for something like 80 per cent of kebab sales and probably in excess of 90 per cent of sales of whatever illegal shit was being peddled under the counter at any given time. In the middle of a weekday afternoon, however, the place was devoid of customers, save for a girl sitting in a back booth, underneath a tattered poster of Kylie Minogue that had to be at least fifteen years old. Bursting out of a pair of tiny gold lamé shorts, the young singer was in the kind of nubile nymphet pose that the inspector had frequently admired across the decades. That would have been back in the days before Michael Hutchence got his paws on her, he thought jealously.
Putting such generic disappointment behind him, Carlyle looked around the shop. The floor was filthy and the windows had clearly not been cleaned in an age. The inspector didn’t want to think what the kitchen was like; presumably the health inspectors hadn’t been round in quite a while. There was no one behind the counter but he could make out movement in the back. Barge straight in, or wait? There was no need to be pushy – this was supposed to be a pastoral visit, after all – so he decided to hang on.
Shuffling from foot to foot, Carlyle waited for a member of staff to put in an appearance. Gazing out of the window, the girl in the back did not acknowledge his presence. In a leather jacket, wearing too much eye-liner, she looked barely fourteen. On the table in front of her was a plate containing the remains of a burger and a few chips, next to a can of Coke with a straw poking out of the top. From a small speaker stuck to the wall next to the counter, the radio started playing ‘Call Me Maybe’. The inspector recognized the song; it was one of Alice’s current favourites and he liked it too. Even in his advancing years, Carlyle wanted to think that he recognized good pop music when he heard it – timeless, meaningless, cheery. When the song was playing at home, he would join in on the jaunty chorus, happily oblivious to any of the other words. There was no chance of that happening here, however. The Persian Palace was not the type of place for a cheery sing-along. Instead, he pulled out his BlackBerry and began checking his emails.
Of the sixteen unread messages in his inbox, fifteen were junk. The other was a reminder from Helen to pick up some groceries on the way home. The joys of modern technology. Always on call.
As he slipped the handset back into his pocket, the song finished and was quickly replaced by an annoying advert for car insurance. There was still no sign of anyone coming to see what he wanted. With a sigh, Carlyle watched the girl pick up a chip. Tipping back her head, she opened her mouth and tried to drop the chip inside, somehow managing to miss from less than two inches; she was left with tomato sauce on her chin and the chip on the floor. Laughing, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand while mashing the chip into the floor.