THIRTEEN
‘I’m guessing that it wasn’t natural causes.’
‘London’s leading detective. .’ Susan Phillips gave him a cheery wave with a latex-gloved hand.
‘So they say,’ Carlyle answered, pleased to see a friendly face at a crime scene for once. Phillips had been a staff pathologist with the Met for almost twenty years; she was a quick, no-nonsense operator and he enjoyed working with her. He gestured towards the pair of legs protruding from under the rubbish. ‘What happened?’
‘I don’t know yet. We’ve worked all the way from the front gate right here to the truck but haven’t picked up anything useful so far. I’m going to have to get in there.’
Carlyle grimaced. ‘Rather you than me. The smell’s bad enough from here.’
‘Tell me about it.’ Phillips stepped away from the back of the refuse truck and wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her left wrist. A couple of assistants hovered in the background, awaiting instruction. ‘At least I’m dressed for the occasion.’
Yes you are, Carlyle thought. Slim and blonde, Phillips had a healthy glow that even her present surroundings could not diminish. In a pair of Converse All Stars, skinny jeans and a Nirvana T-shirt, she could easily have passed for early thirties rather than mid-to-late forties. All in all, she was rather glamorous. . for the Met.
Phillips caught him checking her out and grinned. ‘You like Nirvana, Inspector?’
‘Nah.’ He shook his head, embarrassed at being caught gawping for the second time this morning. ‘A bit after my time, really. Punk was more my thing — The Clash, Stiff Little Fingers. .’ Shut up, warned a voice inside his head, you’re showing your age. ‘. . and The Jam.’
‘Mm.’ She gestured vaguely across the depot. ‘Not really punk, were they, The Jam?’
‘That’s Entertainment’ started playing in his head and he laughed to himself. ‘Not really, I suppose.’
‘More like Mod revivalists.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Anyway, Joe’s up in the office, running through the CCTV footage.’ From under the next truck along, a squirrel appeared and eyed them both inquisitively.
‘No nuts here, mate,’ Carlyle told him.
‘What?’
Carlyle pointed towards the squirrel, but it was already gone.
Phillips gave him a funny look. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ He couldn’t be bothered to explain.
‘How’s the family?’
‘Fine. You?’
‘The usual.’ Phillips shrugged. ‘I’ve been going out with a doctor for a few months.’
‘Uh-huh?’
‘Yeah.’ She stared off into the middle distance. ‘Nice guy. His ex-wife is a pain in the arse though.’
‘Mm.’ Carlyle had little sympathy. If you insisted on making your private life as complicated as possible, aggravation was inevitable.
Picking up on his obvious lack of interest, Phillips abandoned the topic of her love-life. Stripping off her latex gloves, the pathologist pulled a BlackBerry from the back pocket of her jeans and started typing away on its keyboard with her thumbs. Looking up, she caught the quizzical look on the inspector’s face. ‘It’s a twenty-four-hour tweet,’ she explained. ‘The PR department thought it would be a good idea if we tweeted live from our crime scenes so as to provide the public with some insight into what we do.’
‘Sweet Jesus!’ Hands on hips, Carlyle raised his eyes to the heavens.
‘You should check it out,’ Phillips grinned. ‘You might learn something. The Twitter handle is @metpolice121. We’ve got more than ten thousand followers.’
‘Good for you,’ replied the inspector grumpily.
‘Arrived at scene,’ said Phillips, reading aloud from the screen, ‘body to be examined.’
‘Very bloody insightful. Can we get on with it now?’
‘You’re such a dinosaur, John.’
That was hardly the worst thing that anyone had ever called him. ‘I’m a dinosaur in a hurry.’
‘Yes, yes.’ She jerked a thumb at the rear of the truck. ‘Give me half an hour and I’ll be able to offer you some initial thoughts.’
‘That would be great.’ He was already heading for the stairs leading to the office. ‘I’ll come back and see you then.’
London was such a shitty city.
Shitty.
There was just no other word for it.
As an endless procession of grey rainclouds scudded across the sky outside the window of his office on the thirteenth floor of New Scotland Yard, Sir Chester Forsyth-Walker flicked a speck of lint from the lapel of his uniform and let out a heartfelt sigh. Being Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service was no fun at all. Not for the first time, he wondered just how he’d managed to get himself into quite such a pickle.
Up until four years ago, Sir Chester’s career arc had appeared perfect: the 1980s on Merseyside had been spent working in uniformed policing, road traffic, personnel, Professional Standards and the Control Room; the 1990s took him to Greater Manchester Police, first as a Superintendent and later as Commander of the Wigan Division; then the first decade of the new century saw him move to Lancashire Constabulary as Assistant Chief Constable — with responsibility for Human Resources and Training — before skipping over the Pennines to become Deputy Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, Acting Chief Constable and later full-time Chief Constable.
The progression had been smooth, effortless, almost trouble-free. He had been well on the way to enjoying a near-perfect career in public service. There had even been a Queen’s Policing Medal in Her Majesty’s New Year’s Honours List, with the promise of more to come if he kept his nose clean.
And then he’d allowed his head to be turned by a smarmy politician named Christian Holyrod. The mere thought of the Mayor of London now made him grimace. He should have known better! Running the MPS — the Metropolitan Police Service — was a bit like trying to run Tesco after a lifetime of running a corner shop. Sure, it had fast-tracked his knighthood, but he would have got one of those anyway.
Even in the beginning, Sir Chester wasn’t dumb enough to think he could handle a job like this. But he wasn’t smart enough to say no either. So now, at a time of life when the most taxing part of his job should be giving a speech to the local Rotarians, he instead found himself having to deal with one ridiculous high-profile mess after another.
Even by the Met’s standards, today’s fiasco was quite something. Only with immense effort did Sir Chester manage to pick up the sheet of white A4 paper on which was typed a summary of the Horatio Mosman case. Good God, he thought sadly, what was going on here? You would never get this kind of nonsense up in Wakefield or Batley. Pining for a return to the real world populated by normal people, he dropped the report back on to his desk and looked up.
‘Well?’
‘Well what, sir?’ Despite her best intentions, Commander Carole Simpson couldn’t help but sound snappy. Getting dragged out of bed for a crisis meeting with the Commissioner was never the best way to start your day. She had yet to have any breakfast; it would take a double espresso at least before her mood approached anything resembling decent.
Sir Chester shifted uneasily in his seat. One of the other things he hated about the Met was the uppity nature of many of the senior officers. Especially the women. Staff in the provinces seemed to find it easier to know their place, and to do what they were told. ‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘we have a child-’
‘Teenager,’ Simpson corrected him.
‘Young adult,’ giggled Simon Shelbourne, Sir Chester’s Communications Director, who was standing in the corner behind Simpson.
The Commander turned sideways in her seat, in order to be able to see both men at once. This was her first chance to get a good look at Shelbourne: a weedy-looking guy in a Richard James slate-grey pinstripe suit with a ridiculous lime-green shirt. Although in his mid-thirties, the PR man looked about twelve, with pale blue eyes blinking behind chunky burgundy-coloured spectacles, sandy hair and a chin that looked like it had never seen a five o’clock shadow.