‘But Bernie Gilmore said-’
Carlyle quickly cut her off. ‘Bernie Gilmore will say anything to get you to talk to him. Personally, I never take his calls.’ As Umar reached the desk, he held up a finger, to indicate that the conversation was almost over. ‘Anyway, Julie, I’ve got to go. Good luck with the investigation and don’t let Bernie wind you up.’ Without waiting for a reply, he quickly dropped the receiver on to the cradle.
‘What was all that about?’ Umar asked, pulling up a chair.
‘Nothing, nothing.’ Carlyle dismissed all thoughts of the Detective Inspector with a wave of his hand. ‘And where the hell have you been?’ He looked his sergeant up and down. The boy looked crumpled, as if he’d just had a nap in one of the interview rooms downstairs, which for all Carlyle knew he might well have done.
‘I did what you told me,’ Umar replied defensively.
‘What did you get from the widow?’
‘She was quite helpful; went on a bit, though. It took me ages to get out of there.’
Carlyle grunted. ‘Good-looking then, was she?’ He knew Umar well; his sergeant wouldn’t have hung around for long if the lady of the house wasn’t seriously fit. Married or not, he was still a ladies’ man.
Umar made a show of thinking about the question. ‘Not bad, I suppose, for her age. Anyway, why do you have it in for Brennan?’
‘He’s a lawyer,’ Carlyle grumbled.
‘Yes, but there are lots of lawyers. Did you have a run-in with him?’
The inspector sighed, said, ‘Some other time. It was a long while ago.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘What did you find out?’
‘Right, okay. Brennan and Winters were at loggerheads over the sale of the business, but there was nothing that Brian Winters could do about it because, essentially, it belongs to Brennan.’
‘So where does that get us?’ Carlyle wondered.
‘Giselle . . . Mrs Winters thinks that the real issue was Kenneth Ashton.’
‘Bloody hell.’ The inspector was surprised. ‘What’s that crooked bastard got to do with any of this?’
‘Apparently he was one of Brian Winters’ major clients. Brennan was pushing for Winters to drop him. The new American owners of the business were not best pleased about having one of London’s most senior criminals on their books.’
‘Senior is the word,’ Carlyle said. ‘He’s got to be eighty, at least. He was a name even before I started on the Force. He was mainly into dodgy property deals and tax scams, but he wasn’t beyond getting his boys to break your legs – or worse – if you got in his way. I could see how he could be an embarrassment to Chris Brennan.’
‘Enough to have Brian Winters killed?’
Carlyle thought about it for a moment. ‘No idea. Maybe it’s just a coincidence. It certainly looked like a heart attack. But I could ask Susan Phillips to take another look.’
‘Too late. They cremated him the day before yesterday.’
‘So much for that idea.’
‘The widow reckons that there must be something in her husband’s papers relating to Brennan that he needs to get his hands on.’
‘Good job I made some copies, then.’ Pulling open the top drawer, Carlyle took out a sheaf of photocopies and placed them on the desk.
Umar frowned. ‘Are we allowed to do that?’
‘No idea.’ Carlyle jumped to his feet. ‘Take a look at these with a fresh eye. See if you can find anything relating to Ashton.’
Umar glanced at his watch. ‘I was going to go for a swim.’
‘It won’t take long,’ said Carlyle firmly. ‘Give me a call when you’re done.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To talk to a man . . .’
THIRTY-FOUR
The latest anti-smoking laws had clearly not reached the executive suite above the Clivenden Club, a Members Only establishment located behind a discreet green door in an alley off Wardour Street. Angus Muirhead contemplated the inspector through a haze of cigarette smoke while the incessant beat of some techno music rose up from the bar next door. Muirhead wore a navy blazer and a white shirt, with a red cravat at the neck. It was, more or less, the same uniform he’d worn for the last forty-five years. Stubbing out his Macanudo cigar in an already overflowing ashtray, he immediately reached for a replacement from the box on his desk.
‘How long do the doctors say?’ Carlyle asked, hoping his voice sounded suitably sympathetic.
Muirhead grunted. Underneath his shock of white hair, his face was gaunt. Maybe it was his imagination, but it seemed to the inspector that the figure in front of him had shrunk since their last conversation. For sure, some of the sparkle had gone out of the old fellow’s eyes. ‘They say I could keel over at any time,’ he cackled. ‘Nice of them to spare my feelings, isn’t it?’
‘That’s doctors for you,’ Carlyle observed, ‘social skills of plankton.’
‘Quite. Anyway, however you dress it up it seems that even on a best-case scenario it’s going to be a matter of months rather than years.’
‘Sorry to hear that.’
‘What can you do?’ Angus waved the unlit cigar in the air. ‘You just have to keep going. Then again, the doctors have been saying the same thing for the best part of a decade now.’
‘Bummer.’
‘No, not really.’ Muirhead reached for his Zippo lighter. ‘Apart from anything else, there are plenty of people who are really pissed off that I’ve lasted this long. That is some consolation in itself.’
‘I suppose you’ve got to take all the positives you can,’ said Carlyle doubtfully.
‘Look, the thing that I’ve discovered is that it’s really not worth worrying about. Once I could see the end of the tunnel, I felt a strange calm descend on me. Anyway, we’ve all got to go sometime.’ Lighting up, Angus took a couple of quick puffs and settled back into his chair. ‘And at least I’ll go happy.’
‘Fair enough.’ Carlyle glanced at the window, wondering if it would be rude to ask if he could open it.
‘Go ahead,’ Muirhead chuckled. ‘I wouldn’t want to take you with me.’
‘Thanks.’ Getting to his feet, Carlyle unlocked the window and pushed up the frame.
‘Not too far though, the noise is terrible.’
‘Okay.’
Muirhead waited for the inspector to sit down again. ‘So, why are you interested in Ken Ashton all of a sudden? He’s a bit old hat these days.’
‘Is he?’
‘As far as I know,’ Muirhead took another drag on his Macanudo, ‘he is more or less legit, which is as much as you can say for anyone, just about.’
‘Yes.’
‘At least, I don’t think he douses people in petrol and threatens to torch them any longer,’ Muirhead joked. Thirty years on, he could laugh about it. At the time, shivering in the dark, in a damp Soho basement, it wasn’t so funny. He shook his head. ‘You know, that building on Harley Street is worth more than fifteen million now.’
Carlyle let out a low whistle.
‘Fifteen mil that should be in my pocket.’
‘That’s the law of the jungle,’ Carlyle sympathized.
‘Naturally.’ Muirhead gave a rueful smile. ‘It took me a long while to get over that; if I ever did. It was only around the time that we first met that I was getting back on my feet.’
Carlyle looked around the room. ‘You’ve done okay in Soho.’
‘I could have done a bit better but, equally, it could have been a lot worse.’ Leaning across the table, he stabbed the cigar in Carlyle’s direction. ‘Now, if you hadn’t sorted out those bloody drug dealers next door . . .’
It was a conversation that they’d had many times before and Carlyle knew his lines well. ‘I was only doing my job,’ he said defensively.
‘Only doing your job?’ Muirhead snorted. ‘That’s what you’ve never understood, Inspector. Maybe 1 per cent of people do their job properly; the other 99 per cent don’t get anywhere near. If everyone only did their job, the world would be a much better place.’
‘Mm.’ They both knew that there was no way that the Met could have ignored a bunch of bikers trying to sell heroin and ecstasy out of a Georgian townhouse slap bang in the centre of tourist London. The fact that they were also destroying the takings at Muirhead’s club was hardly a significant consideration, from the police’s point of view.