‘They’ve already been sent over to SERIS,’ Joe told him. ‘They’re going to take a look today.’ SERIS — Specialist Evidence Recovery Imaging Services — was part of Specialist Crime Directorate 4, the Met’s Forensic Services Unit.
‘Good.’ Pointing at the time-code stamped in one corner of the screen, Carlyle looked up at his sergeant. ‘This wasn’t that late. What about witnesses?’
‘There aren’t that many residential properties around here,’ Joe replied. ‘It’s mainly offices but there’s a council block nearby. There’s also a pub round the corner, and a theatre. We’re getting some uniforms to go door-to-door right now, and again this evening.’
‘Okay.’ Carlyle straightened up. ‘The bin men are downstairs?’
‘Yeah.’ Joe nodded. ‘There’s a rest room on the ground floor.’
‘They’re not bin men,’ said Danimir huffily, looking up from his computer. ‘They’re Street Environment Officers.’
‘Whatever,’ said Carlyle, heading for the door.
The Street Environment Officers had nothing of any use to tell him. After some desultory questioning, the inspector strolled across the depot yard where, having climbed into the back of the refuse truck, Susan Phillips was standing directly over the body.
‘Having fun?’ he asked.
‘Help me down.’
Rather reluctantly, he held out a hand. Grasping it, the pathologist jumped back down on to the tarmac.
‘Thanks.’
‘No problem,’ Carlyle replied, carefully wiping his hand on the arse of his trousers.
Phillips scratched her nose with a gloved finger. Like Joe, she didn’t smell too good but, ever the gentleman, the inspector once again said nothing. ‘Well,’ she said brightly, ‘there’s no doubt about what killed your victim; he was stabbed in the chest three times.’
‘Robbery?’
‘Doesn’t look like it. His wallet was still in his jacket pocket.’
‘Jolly good.’
‘There was quite a bit of cash in it — at least a couple of hundred, I’d say. He also had a fancy-looking watch which wasn’t taken.’ She gestured towards one of her assistants, who was standing in the middle of the yard surrounded by a collection of police-branded transparent plastic evidence bags of differing sizes. ‘Kara’s got it over there. The guy’s name was Duncan Brown. Looks like he was a journalist — there was a union card in his wallet.’
‘Journalists and policemen,’ Carlyle mused, ‘the only people who are still unionized these days.’ A Redskins song popped into his head — stop, strike, unionize — and he smiled. Forget The Jam, that really was punk rock.
Post-punk punk.
Or something like that.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ Kicking the Redskins into touch, he gestured towards the back of the refuse truck. ‘This is all great information. Can you tell me who killed him, too?’
‘That’s your job. We’ll get him out of here first and I’ll do my report. But you know the basics.’
‘That’s great, Susan, thanks.’ The inspector pulled out his phone and found the number for the front desk at Charing Cross police station, where he and Joe worked. ‘Where are you taking him?’
‘Dunno. We haven’t found a free slab yet.’
‘Okay. Let me know when you do, and I’ll get a formal identification of the body.’
‘Thanks.’
‘My pleasure. See you later.’ Walking away, he hit the call button and listened to it ring. After a few moments, the desk sergeant picked up. Explaining what he wanted, Carlyle listened to the guy bash away at a keyboard for a few seconds before coming back on the line.
‘We got a call at one thirty-two this morning from a Gemma Millington.’ He gave the inspector the woman’s contact details.
‘Thanks.’ Ending the call, Carlyle went to retrieve the victim’s effects from Kara.
FIFTEEN
Gemma Millington’s roots needed attention.
‘What?’ The tired-looking near-blonde had looked up from her steaming glass of jasmine tea and caught the inspector staring at the crown of her head.
‘Er. . nothing. ‘ How many times was he going to get caught staring at women today? Carlyle placed his demitasse on the table and pulled up a red plastic chair. They were in the canteen on the top floor of the office block where she worked on Buckingham Palace Road. It was too early for the lunchtime rush, but the place was still fairly full. In the background, there was the clack of ball on ball as a couple of staffers played at one of the blue-baize billiards tables lined up at the far end of the room. To his left, the floor-to-ceiling windows gave an excellent view over the back gardens of the royal palace itself. ‘This is quite some place you have here.’
‘The Financial Times did a piece on it recently.’ She took a mouthful of tea. ‘They called it “a twenty-first-century playschool for grown-ups”, something like that.’
‘Nice.’ Trying not to make it too obvious this time, he gave her the once-over as he sipped his green tea. Late twenties slash early thirties, smartly dressed in a dark business suit and pale pink blouse, pretty enough but with a hard edge to her features that would, under different circumstances, have encouraged him to give her a wide berth.
This morning, she looked pissed off rather than upset. Indeed, he had gained an impression that ‘annoyed’ was Gemma Millington’s default demeanour. London can do that to you, Carlyle thought. It puts you on your guard.
At any rate, she did not look like the grieving girlfriend. In truth, that was a bit of a result. The inspector hated having to do the ‘my condolences’ routine with the friends and family of the victims of crime. The social-worker aspect of the job was something he had never been any good at.
‘Napoleon once said an army marches on its stomach,’ she remarked. ‘Here they just want us to stay inside the building — get more work done.’ This was clearly an opinion that she had expressed many times before.
‘And do you?’
She looked at him blankly.
‘Stay inside the building.’
‘Yes. I mean, the food’s good.’ She gestured at the blackboard menu which covered most of one wall, listing a wide choice of dishes from sashimi and courgette tapenade to shepherd’s pie, each offering colour-coded with a little yellow, green or red dot. ‘And it’s all free.’
‘Free? Jesus, that must cost a fortune.’
She gave him a look. ‘This company made more than two billion pounds in profit last quarter.’
‘I guess they can throw you the odd pie then.’ Carlyle pointed at the board. ‘What do the coloured dots mean?’
‘Everything is ranked by its nutritional value. Red essentially means pudding, cheesecake and stuff. Green is the healthy stuff. Yellow is somewhere in the middle.’
‘I’m a red man,’ Carlyle grinned.
‘Apart from the restaurant, downstairs in the basement there’s a newsagent, a chemist, and even a dry cleaner’s.’
‘Maybe I could come and work here,’ Carlyle quipped.
‘All the security is outsourced,’ she replied quickly.
‘It was a joke.’
‘Ah.’
Carlyle finished his tea. ‘So, what is it that you do exactly?’
‘I’m one of the in-house legal team.’
A lawyer and a journalist, Carlyle reflected. Her relationship with Duncan Brown must have been a barrel of laughs.
She pulled a business card from the overstuffed handbag sitting on the table between them and handed it across. ‘I’m the sixth youngest VP of Legal that they’ve ever hired in Europe.’
‘Wow!’ Carlyle tried to look impressed. ‘Congratulations.’
‘I cover the whole waterfront: government relations, corporate development and new business development.’
‘I see. That sounds. . interesting.’
‘This is a great place to be working — there is so much going on.’
‘I’m sure.’ He stuffed the card into his jacket pocket. ‘And you’re okay talking about Duncan here, at work?’