Nobody's Hero (Inspector Carlyle) Read online

  James Craig has worked as a journalist and consultant for more than thirty years. He lives in Central London with his family. His previous Inspector Carlyle novels, London Calling; Never Apologise, Never Explain; Buckingham Palace Blues; The Circus; Then We Die; A Man of Sorrows and Shoot To Kill are also available from Constable & Robinson.

  For more information visit www.james-craig.co.uk, or follow him on Twitter: @byjamescraig.

  Praise for London Calling

  ‘A cracking read.’ BBC Radio 4

  ‘Fast paced and very easy to get quickly lost in.’ Lovereading.com

  Praise for Never Apologise, Never Explain

  ‘Pacy and entertaining.’ The Times

  ‘Engaging, fast paced . . . a satisfying modern British crime novel.’ Shots

  ‘Never Apologise, Never Explain is as close as you can get to the heartbeat of London. It may even cause palpitations when reading.’ It’s A Crime! Reviews

  Also by James Craig

  Novels

  London Calling

  Never Apologise, Never Explain

  Buckingham Palace Blues

  The Circus

  Then We Die

  A Man of Sorrows

  Shoot To Kill

  Sins of the Fathers

  Short Stories

  The Enemy Within

  What Dies Inside

  The Hand of God

  NOBODY’S HERO

  James Craig

  Constable • London

  CONSTABLE

  First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Constable

  Copyright © James Craig, 2015

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-47211-510-2 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-47211-511-9 (ebook)

  Constable

  is an imprint of

  Little, Brown Book Group

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  An Hachette UK Company

  www.hachette.co.uk

  www.littlebrown.com

  For Catherine and Cate

  Thanks to Gary Carverhill for his help in all things related to Stiff Little Fingers. For more SLF info, please go to www.slf.com

  Contents

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  FORTY-EIGHT

  FORTY-NINE

  FIFTY

  FIFTY-ONE

  FIFTY-TWO

  FIFTY-THREE

  FIFTY-FOUR

  FIFTY-FIVE

  FIFTY-SIX

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  FIFTY-NINE

  SIXTY

  SIXTY-ONE

  SIXTY-TWO

  SIXTY-THREE

  SIXTY-FOUR

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ONE

  Struggling to shift away from the damp patch sticking to the small of her back, Sandra Middlemass wrinkled her nose. With the benefit of hindsight, opening the window would have been a good idea. Even the waves of pollution rising up from the thousands of vehicles making their way along the road outside would have been an improvement on the fetid atmosphere inside the room.

  From the other side of the thin glass, the relentless hum of early evening traffic rumbling past at six miles an hour was suddenly interrupted by a series of screaming police sirens trying to force their way through the capital’s near-gridlock.

  ‘Ugh.’ With his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth, the fat man half-pushed himself up as he gave a nervous glance towards the window.

  The idiot thinks they’re coming for him, Sandra thought, feeling him beginning to soften inside her. As if. Scratching her nose, she watched the guy struggle to put his tongue back in his mouth. Who was he? She tried to remember the name. Steve something or other.

  Whatever. He was one of Aqib’s white mates. Not the kind of bloke to waste any money on deodorant. And not very good when it came to putting on a condom.

  Had she screwed him before? Sandra had no idea.

  ‘Fucking coppers,’ the guy grunted, still looking through the window at the milky sky.

  Don’t you worry, Sandra thought wearily, it’s not like they’re coming to save me. They never come for me.

  As if on cue, the sirens immediately reached a crescendo and began dying away.

  See?

  Sandra had learned over the last six months that there was no danger of any of her abusers being caught in the act. Once, she’d even been to the police station to beg for help; ended up sitting in an airless waiting room for four hours without even an offer of something to drink.

  No one came then, either. In the end, she just walked out. An hour or so later, she had been back on the job.

  Most likely, the coppers dutifully rushing across West London tonight were responding to reports of another gang of shoplifters targeting the nearby shopping centre. It was a routine occurrence – one that always got a prompt response from the boys in blue at the nearby police station. That was the thing about the police in this city – they only dealt with the right sort of crime. Protecting iPhones and Rolexes was one thing. People, on the other hand, were nowhere near as important. Leave them to their own devices and they would eventually go away. Crumble to dust. Disappear.

  If that was the name of the game, well fine. She would play the game. She would disappear. Problem solved.

  Mumbling to himself, Steve – if that was his name – rubbed at the tattoo on his left forearm. It was a crude drawing of some bloke’s face. The bloke had spiky hair and shifty eyes. Underneath the face, in small letters, was tattooed Captain, Leader, Legend.

  Legend? Bell-end, more like, Sandra thought, stifling a giggle. Inside her, Steve was continuing to wilt. She hoped that the Durex would stay on. Even more, she hoped that he managed to restore his erection. Otherwise, there would doubtless be a beating in it for her.

  As the sirens faded
further into the distance, she felt the guy’s attention finally return to her naked body. After toying with Sandra’s left nipple for a couple of seconds, he flopped down on top of her and began grinding away. The weight on her chest was crushing and she could barely breathe as he picked up speed.

  Get on with it, you stupid bastard.

  Looking past the punter’s left shoulder, Sandra noticed that there was a large cobweb in the far corner of the room, near to where the ceiling met the wall. Next to it was a massive spider. It looked like the spider was watching them. For some reason, the idea struck her as amusing. This time she allowed herself a laugh.

  ‘What’s so funny, huh?’ The fat man pushed himself off her chest, balling his right hand into a fist as he did so.

  He just can’t manage it. Taking a deep breath, the girl braced herself for the inevitable blow. When it came, his wedding ring split her lip. Sandra hadn’t noticed the ring before. What kind of idiot would marry a loser like this?

  Running her tongue across her gums, she tasted the salty blood. ‘Is it still in?’ she grinned, sticking out her chin, defying him to hit her again.

  ‘You little bitch,’ the man hissed, sliding off her. Standing by the bed, he tore off the empty condom and tossed it on to the floor.

  Wiping the sweat from her left breast, a sense of giddiness enveloped her. Sandra finally realized that she knew how this should end. What was it called? Short-term pain for long-term gain. A few more minutes and it would be all over. She could say goodbye to all the fat men and their tattoos, forever.

  It was time to disappear.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she propped herself up on her elbows, ‘it’s just that for such a big man, you have such a small cock. Tiny, in fact.’

  The guy stepped forward and Sandra was sure that she could see his dick shrink even further, getting smaller and smaller until it had almost disappeared into an unkempt nest of black pubes. Her grin grew wider as the second blow rammed her nose back into her face. Her head bounced back onto the pillow but immediately she lifted herself up again, inviting more punishment.

  ‘I’ve never had anyone who couldn’t get it up before,’ she managed to say. ‘But I’m sure there’s an explanation. Maybe you’re gay?’

  The look on the guy’s face as he reached for her throat was a mixture of confusion, hatred and pure rage.

  Got you. ‘Not that there’s anything wrong with that,’ she smiled sweetly as his hands tightened around her windpipe. Then gurgled: ‘Nothing at all.’

  TWO

  Overwhelmed by a sense of ennui, Joseph Belsky pushed his chair back from his desk, stretched out his arms and yawned theatrically. Closing his mouth, he looked past his reflection, gazing out of the window at the orange glow of the lurid metropolitan sky. From somewhere in the heavens came the whining of jet engines as an aircraft made its descent towards Heathrow. Were the flights becoming more frequent, or was it just his imagination? One day, Belsky thought unhappily, one of the planes would inevitably fall from the sky, for some reason or another. Still staring blankly at the rain, his thoughts turned to long-gone skyscrapers far away as he listened to the aircraft’s Rolls-Royce engines slip off into the distance.

  The city below lay silent and uncomplaining. Not for the first time, Belsky wondered just how he had managed to end up living so far from the ground. Never having a head for heights, he had been the most reluctant buyer of a seventeen-hundred square foot, three-bedroom home on the twenty-second floor of the Whitehouse Apartment building on the South Bank. It was his late wife, Winnifred, who had chosen it. At the time, Belsky had been too meek to resist; after Winnifred keeled over – felled by a fatal heart attack during a visit to a garden centre in Elephant and Castle – he simply didn’t have the energy to pack up and move on.

  From the moment she first walked into the place, Winnifred had been hooked on the views that the flat offered across the historic centre of the city. When he had tried to complain that the price was way beyond their budget, the look on her face had sent him scurrying back to the bank to beg for a massively increased loan, underpinned by a ludicrously optimistic assessment of his future income. When the teenage mortgage adviser had signed it off with barely a second glance, Belsky knew he was sunk. Those were the days before the credit crunch, the sub-prime crisis, the banking crisis and the seemingly endless recession that had seen home loans for ordinary people dry up. Thank God London property prices hadn’t crashed too, otherwise he would have been taking his monster debt with him to the grave.

  Following Winnifred’s funeral, her ashes – those that Belsky hadn’t tried to smoke, à la Keith Richards – had been kept in a small Chinese lacquer box on the windowsill. He had been keen that – even in death – she should still be able to enjoy the vista. Tonight, however, there wasn’t much to see; the weather had closed in, cutting visibility to a minimum. Two hundred and fifty feet below him, even the mighty River Thames was barely visible. Jeez, Belsky thought, it’s almost June but it feels like November. More than forty years had passed since he’d left the sunny optimism of California and headed to Europe, finally settling down and making his home in London. It was a decision that he rarely regretted but sometimes, boy, this city could be hard to love. Maybe he would bring his summer holidays forward this year and head for the South of France, or maybe Barcelona – anywhere with some light and some warmth.

  Scratching his two-day-old stubble, Belsky glanced over at the iMac sitting in the corner of the room. Maybe he should nip online and book something for next week. ‘No, no,’ he mumbled to himself, ‘back to work.’ Before he could properly rouse himself, however, the strains of the theme tune from the Mickey Mouse Club began percolating through from the living room. Good old Mickey; a constant in an ever-changing, endlessly disappointing world.

  Resisting the urge to sing along, he felt the merest ripple of guilt. Belsky had faithfully promised Stephanie, his daughter, that he would not use the TV as a babysitter for Joanne this evening. Then again, he was on a deadline. And floundering, at that – a not so uncommon occurrence these days.

  Anyway, his daughter had gone out dancing and left Grandpa in charge. Joanne, nine, seemed more than happy with a can of Coke and a cartoon – just as her mother had been, thirty years before. Hopefully, his granddaughter wouldn’t shop him in the morning, but even if she did, what would Stephanie be able to do about it?

  After carefully refilling his glass from the bottle of Bordeaux perched next to Winnifred on the windowsill, Belsky took a mouthful of wine and considered the rough sketch taped to his drawing board. The drawing – of a jolly fat woman dressed as a circus performer being fired out of a cannon – was shit, but it was too late in the day to rip it up and start again. Lifting the glass back to his lips, Belsky sighed. How much longer could he keep churning this stuff out? His editor had wanted him to poke fun at the latest politician caught fiddling their expenses – some junior minister Belsky had never even heard of. ‘The problem is,’ he mumbled to himself, ‘it’s just not very funny, is it?’ More to the point, after a long succession of such scandals, it was hardly news any more. A sense of despair washed over him. Maybe it was time to start thinking about retirement.

  Belsky’s stomach growled; the wine was giving him the munchies. His thoughts were turning to pepperoni pizza when he became aware of a loud banging noise.

  ‘Grandpa,’ Joanne shouted over the sound of Donald Duck’s sniggering, ‘someone’s at the door.’

  Putting down his wine glass, Belsky forced himself out of his chair and shuffled into the living room.

  ‘Someone’s at the door,’ Joanne repeated, giggling as Goofy fell over Donald’s outstretched leg and webbed foot.

  ‘Why don’t they ring the goddamn doorbell then?’ Belsky grumbled as he headed for the hallway. ‘That’s what it’s there for.’

  Sucking down some Coke, his granddaughter did not lift her gaze from the TV. ‘It’s probably Mum.’

  Belsky grunted, knowing full well that the
child was most probably correct. The likelihood was that Stephanie would have had another row with her boyfriend and the dancing would be off. They were a disastrous couple, it seemed to him; unable to do anything without arguing about it, loudly and at length. Why Stephanie hadn’t stayed with Joanne’s father . . . well, Belsky didn’t want to go there.

  As he switched on the hall light, there was a crash, as if someone was trying to kick the door down. Belsky shook his head; it looked like Stephanie had forgotten her key again, as well.

  ‘Hold on. I’m coming. What’s the hurry?’ Just as he was about to reach for the lock, there was the sound of splintering wood and the door burst open. ‘What the . . .’ The cartoonist jumped backwards as a young man appeared on the threshold. About Belsky’s height, the man was wearing a pair of dirty jeans and a heavy parka zipped up to his chin; the invader was sweating from the exertion of breaking down the door. As Belsky caught sight of the axe in the man’s hand, his mouth fell open in disbelief. Belatedly, he realized that this was the moment he had been waiting for. For a split second, he felt paralysed. Then, as the adrenaline kicked in, he turned on his heels and fled back through the flat.

  THREE

  A steady stream of tourists passed aimlessly through the lobby of the King’s Cross Novotel. Almost all of them stopped to admire the banner, thirty feet wide and ten feet tall, covering the wall next to Reception. Quite a few pointed. Some laughed. On the banner was an image of a spaceship travelling serenely through the cosmos, heading towards a bright shining sun in the far distance, above the rather cryptic message: A fantastic journey.

  Standing in the middle of the lobby, Elma Reyes sucked her teeth in annoyance as she watched a couple of Dutch tourists in replica Arsenal shirts pose in front of it, giving the thumbs-up, while a third took a photo. As the person who would ultimately have to pay for the banner, Elma was not happy.

  She was not happy at all.

  The damn thing had cost more than six hundred pounds and the end result was something that looked like an advert for a Sci-Fi conference. Space – the final frontier, and all that nonsense.