Harry cackled. ‘What kind of policeman are you? It’s at your bloody feet.’
‘Eh?’ Carlyle looked down. Next to his feet on the doormat was a small brown cardboard box that had been left next to the front door of the flat. Ten out of ten for observation, Inspector, he said wryly to himself.
‘I opened the door and saw it there,’ the old man explained, ‘so I shut it again and called the police.’
Carlyle frowned. ‘And what makes you think it’s a bomb?’
‘They’re all over the place,’ Harry panted, ‘I saw it on the news. There’s a whatdyacallit . . . a terror alert thingy. Bloody nutters trying to blow everything up. Those Al . . . kayeeda folk, they’re everywhere. They should be deported, the lot of them. Send ’em back to where they came from.’
That would be the provinces, then.
‘You’ve got to stay alert,’ the old man protested. ‘I wouldn’t stand there. You don’t want to get blown to smithereens.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ Carlyle took a step backwards and peered at the box. There was some writing on it but he couldn’t make it out. You really need to get your eyes tested, he thought, and vowed to make an appointment at his local opticians as soon as possible. Less reluctant to bow to the inevitable than her husband, Helen had been there a few months earlier to get a pair of reading glasses. Now she spent half of her life wandering round the flat trying to find the damn things and accusing him of misplacing them. It drove him mad.
Squatting down, he carefully lifted up the box and brought it closer to his face so that he could make out what it said.
Unbelievable.
Carlyle did a double-take.
Un-fucking-believable.
Bursting out laughing, he said, ‘Harry?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Did you order anything from Amazon recently?’
TWO
Dino Mottram finished his Suntory Whisky Cappuccino and signalled to a nearby waiter that he would like an espresso. Watching the last of his directors unsteadily leave the in-house private dining facility next to the main restaurant floor of Nobu London on Old Park Lane, he grunted his displeasure. ‘Fitzroy is pissed – again.’
Dropping his napkin on the table, the soon to be ex-Mayor of London Christian Holyrod, watched one of the waiters scuttle over and take the elderly gent by the arm before he had the chance to walk into a broom cupboard. He then let out a small groan of pleasure and patted his ever-expanding stomach. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you did put on an excellent lunch. And not just the wine; the Beef Tenderloin was excellent.’
‘That’s no excuse for over-indulging.’ Mottram shook his silver head sadly. ‘I just hope he doesn’t go back to the office and grope his secretary.’
Holyrod narrowed his eyes against the glare from the skylight atrium. ‘How very 1950s,’ he drawled.
‘I’m not joking,’ Dino said tersely. ‘We had to pay tens of thousands in compensation to the last one when he dropped his trousers in her office and asked for a blow job.’
‘Not ideal.’
‘No. The old bugger claimed he was having some kind of flashback to his days in the Diplomatic Service in Africa. Ridiculous. Anyway, I’ve told the new girl that if he does it again, just to kick him between the legs and run.’
‘Good advice.’
‘I’ll get him pensioned off as soon as I can,’ said Dino. ‘Monty Fitzroy pinpoints exactly why we need fresh blood like you to drag us kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century.’
Christian Holyrod smiled.
‘I am genuinely delighted that we have got you at last.’ The older man gripped him firmly by the arm. ‘The Hero of Helmand residing in the boardroom of Entomophagous Industries – what a coup!’
Holyrod bit his lip. Introduced to Dino Mottram only six weeks earlier, he’d only joined Entomophagous Industries on a whim, largely because of the name. Entomophagy – from the Greek éntomos or ‘insect’, and phăgein, ‘to eat’ – meaning ‘insect eating’, had tickled his fancy. That, and the six hundred thousand pounds per annum for three days’ work a month. He tried to affect something approaching humility. ‘Helmand . . . that was quite a while ago now.’
Mottram jabbed a meaty finger into the space between them, his green eyes gleaming with passion. ‘It wasn’t that long ago. Anyway, the time doesn’t matter. What matters is that you did it.’
‘I suppose so,’ Holyrod agreed, although it seemed that his Army days were several lifetimes ago.
‘A Boy’s Own story made flesh,’ Mottram beamed. ‘One of Britain’s best soldiers – and then a stellar political career to boot.’
‘You are too kind,’ said Holyrod, grimacing slightly. The reality was that if his political career had indeed been ‘stellar’, or anything like it, he wouldn’t be here now, touting himself around the business world, looking to earn some proper cash for once in his life. As Mayor, he had been Prime Minister Edgar Carlton’s natural successor. But somehow, despite all the polls, Carlton had scraped a second election win and appeared to have every intention of holding on to the real political power at Number Ten for as long as possible. For Holyrod, well into a second term as Mayor, there was nowhere to go. No one was surprised when he announced that he would not stand for a third term. If, as the saying goes, all political careers end in failure, at least he had avoided failing on the biggest stage. Now, however, he had to earn a living. ‘I’m looking forward to getting started.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Mottram agreed, nodding vigorously.
‘I’m afraid that I don’t really know much about the company and what it does.’
‘Don’t worry about that.’ Mottram gestured towards the door. ‘Half of that lot have been on the board for years and they haven’t got a clue either. The trick is never to admit to your ignorance. You know what they say: never apologize, never explain and all that.’
‘Even so, I need to get up to speed with what it is you – we – do.’
Mottram’s espresso appeared and he took a noisy sip. ‘We do lots of things,’ he said airily. ‘Cars, property, natural resources – it’s a real old-fashioned conglomerate. We even own a football club.’
Holyrod made a face. ‘Football’s not really my thing.’
‘You surprise me.’
‘Why?’
‘You know what they say,’ Dino smiled. ‘Sport is really nothing more than war without the shooting.’
‘And what,’ Holyrod said, ‘is the point of that?’
Dino gave him a quizzical look. ‘So you’re really not into sport?’
Holyrod pondered the question for a moment. ‘I’ll watch a bit of rugby now and again, maybe go to Twickenham for the odd international, but I can’t say that I follow football. It is all so totally . . . base.’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t make you go to any of the games.’ Dino sighed. ‘We’re not having a great season. Then again, we rarely do. What we do have, though, is Gavin Swann.’
Even the Mayor couldn’t have gone through life without coming across Swann, a regular on the front pages of the tabloids for reasons that had nothing to do with his sporting prowess. ‘Now him,’ Holyrod nodded, eager to show willing to his new boss, ‘I have heard of. More for what he’s got up to off the pitch, though.’
Dino smiled wanly. ‘He seems to have put the gambling and prostitutes behind him and have become a proper family man – or he will be soon. Now all he needs to do is score some goals. Apparently, he has helped sell almost half a million replica shirts in the last couple of years. And when he is not fit enough to play, which is fairly often, we can always pack him off to Taiwan or Singapore to open another of our themed restaurants.’
‘Do you – we – make any money out of it all?’ Holyrod asked.
‘Some. Not as much as we should. Swann’s agent bleeds us dry. He agreed a new contract less than a year ago and already wants to renegotiate. Every time he does that, he raises the bar for all the others. It’s a never-ending cycle.’