‘Yeah.’
‘Excellent,’ Bernie beamed. ‘Julie Postic’s a good sort.’
I hope you’re not saying that about me to anyone.
Leaning forward, Bernie gave the inspector a gentle pat on the arm with his free hand. ‘Almost as good as you.’
Fuck. ‘Can we get down to the matter in hand?’ Carlyle asked, his patience exhausted.
Downing the last of his drink, Bernie daintily placed the empty can back on the table. ‘You called this meeting, Inspector. What exactly is the matter in hand?’
‘Taimur Rage.’
‘Ah, yes. I wrote about him this morning.’
‘I read it,’ Carlyle lied. ‘Nice piece.’
‘I did what I could. But really, it’s watery gruel.’
‘Not according to the spooks.’
‘Ha. All this terrorist stuff is just so much nonsense.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘What I don’t understand is why you didn’t go and speak to his psychiatrist.’
Psychiatrist? What bloody psychiatrist? ‘Well,’ Carlyle blustered, ‘to be fair, once he topped himself, it was case over.’
‘Surely you have to tie up the loose ends?’
The inspector chuckled. ‘That would be a waste of precious time and resources.’
‘Well, anyway, I thought that she was a very eloquent and engaging woman.’
‘Name?’
‘Janice Anderson. She works at a place called the Doppio Clinic.’
Carlyle pulled his BlackBerry out of his pocket and began typing. ‘How do you spell that?’
Bernie obliged. Then: ‘It’s just off Southampton Row, up towards Euston.’
‘Okay. Thanks.’
‘Like I said, Janice is very impressive. I think she tried very hard to bring the young man out of his dreamlike state. In the end, some people are just beyond help.’
‘Hm.’ Carlyle didn’t set much store by this. He knew that journalists were very much like policemen – very good at making snap judgements based only on their superficial first impressions. Even so, it would be worth chasing down the shrink to see what she had to say about her patient.
‘Surely it’s clear to anyone who bothers to look that poor Taimur Rage was just another social inadequate living in a fantasy world,’ Bernie said. ‘There are so many of them these days.’
‘Yes.’
‘Maybe you should mention it to your colleagues in M15 – save them wasting their precious time and resources in the fight for freedom.’
‘They’re not my colleagues,’ Carlyle said stiffly. ‘Hopefully, they’ll have read your wonderful article and gone off to chase someone else.’
‘The price of freedom,’ Bernie sighed, ‘is eternal vigilance.’
‘Handy, that.’
The fat man laughed. ‘You are such a complete cynic, Inspector. That’s why I like you.’
Carlyle gave a small bow. ‘Don’t you get fed up,’ he asked, ‘writing about this bollocks all the time?’
Sitting back on his chair and gazing out at the endless stream of people floating past, Bernie adopted a sage tone: ‘It is, simply, the stuff of life.’
‘And death.’
‘Of course. Poor Taimur. But he is yesterday’s story. Gone and forgotten. It’s as if he never existed. Happens to everyone.’
‘What about his father?’
Bernie raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘What about him?’
‘I hear that he’s quite a character.’ Carlyle recounted what the Hammersmith officers, Flux and Napper, had told him about Calvin Safi and the missing girl, Sandra Middlemass.
‘So, the Hammersmith plods, they think . . . what?’ Bernie asked when he had finished. ‘That the guy was using his kebab shop as a brothel?’
‘Dunno,’ Carlyle shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
‘And he killed the girl because she wanted to get off the game?’
‘No idea.’
Bernie let out a deep breath. ‘It’s all a bit speculative – even for me – but it might make a story. I’ll take a look.’ He scratched his nose, distracted by the engine of a canary-yellow Porsche as it roared sixty yards down the road at what seemed like eighty miles an hour. He waited until the car disappeared round the next corner. ‘The boy Taimur lived with his father?’
‘Yes.’
‘So where’s the mother?’
‘They divorced years ago.’ Looking across the room, the inspector signalled to the girl behind the counter that he wanted the bill. ‘She seems quite a piece of work, as well.’
‘You’ve met her?’
‘Yeah.’ Carlyle struggled to remember the woman’s name. ‘Very in your face.’
‘Aren’t they all?’ Bernie sighed.
‘Ella . . .’ no, he was getting his names muddled up, ‘or rather, Elma. Elma Reyes.’ The waitress appeared and placed the bill on the table. Carlyle hesitated for a second, just in case Bernie felt like offering to pay. He should have known better; when the two of them dined out, the convention was always that the inspector picked up the tab.
‘Elma Reyes?’ Bernie watched as Carlyle found his wallet, reluctantly pulled out a twenty-pound note and put it with the bill. ‘A small black woman who likes speaking in tongues?’
‘Small black woman, yes. But when I met her, she was speaking normally.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘No, no. She was speaking the Queen’s English. More or less.’
‘No, I meant: Elma is Taimur Rage’s mother? Are you sure? The Elma Reyes?’
‘I suppose so.’ The inspector had no idea what Bernie was banging on about. ‘How many of them are there?’
The waitress appeared to scoop up the cash and Bernie cheerily waved her away. ‘Keep the change.’ The girl smiled and scuttled back behind the counter.
That’s very generous of you, Carlyle thought resentfully. ‘What’s the big deal about Elma Reyes?’
‘She runs her own church in South London,’ Bernie explained. ‘The Salvation Church of Something or other. I did an exposé on her a couple of years ago. It was a nice little scam she had going, fleecing the lame-brained of Crystal Palace. And she was shagging her masseur, or someone, if I remember rightly.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ Carlyle recalled what Calvin Safi had told him. ‘She runs her own church. So what?’
‘So what?’ Bernie cackled. ‘So what? You really don’t know what makes news, do you?’
‘No, that’s why I’m a policeman.’
Bernie quoted: ‘Suicide bomber’s mum born-again preacher – good story.’
‘Taimur had an axe, not a bomb.’
‘Whatever.’
‘And he wasn’t trying to kill himself.’
‘You can be so bloody literal. It’s a broad term – the readers will know what I’m banging on about. Anyway, he died in the end, didn’t he?’
Carlyle groaned. The meeting had gone tits up and lunch had cost him twenty quid. Why did he bother? ‘Bernie . . .’
An alarming gleam had appeared in the hack’s eye. He smiled at a little old woman shuffling along on the street outside. Studiously ignoring him, the woman went on her way. ‘I can get the front page for this. With a bit of luck. On a slow day’
‘She’s got a lawyer – a guy called Federici.’
‘Doesn’t matter. Even if Elma won’t talk to me, it’s gonna be page two or three. I have good contacts in her organization.’ The journalist jumped to his feet. ‘Looks like you might have redeemed yourself after the Seymour Erikssen fiasco.’
The inspector’s mood lightened somewhat at the thought of redemption. ‘Jolly good.’
‘This is one of those stories that writes itself.’ He patted Carlyle on the shoulder. ‘They’re the best kind.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘And, as my special bonus gift for you, I’ll see what I can find out about the father.’
‘Thanks.’
‘My pleasure. I’ll be in touch.’
THIRTY-ONE
Feeling rather sorry for himself, Umar Sligo walked down the Strand, his hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets as an unseasonably chilly wind whistled past his head. His dinner with Christina had been flat; a combination of poor food, poor service and continual fretting about Ella meant that their date had been only marginally more fun than the night spent trying to rescue Joseph Belsky from his toilet. Christina had insisted on calling Helen as soon as they had arrived at the table. When the number had been engaged, it had taken him almost five minutes to talk her out of immediately fleeing the restaurant and rushing straight back to the Carlyles’ flat. Even then, she had managed another three calls and two texts in the course of a meal lasting barely an hour and a quarter.