Buckingham Palace Blues Read online

  The girl had a sharp turn of speed. By the time Carlyle got going, she had a start of maybe twenty metres. After tripping over a drain-cover, it took him the best part of a minute to catch up with her. Once he did, however, she stopped in her tracks, with a resigned look on her face, and let him lead her back to the now waiting police car.

  Nicole Sawyer gave them a friendly greeting and ushered the girl carefully into the back of the car.

  ‘Where’s the bloke?’ Carlyle asked, looking around for the young man in the expensive suit.

  Sawyer eyed him quizzically. ‘What bloke?’

  Declining the offer of a lift back to the station, Carlyle took a direct route home to Winter Garden House, running the whole way in a little over ten minutes. After a quick shower, he threw on some fresh clothes before grabbing a banana and a couple of Jaffa Cakes. As he headed back out the door, he stopped to give his wife the briefest of explanations about what had happened in the park.

  ‘Poor girl.’ Helen grimaced, glancing up from the television. ‘God knows what they’ve done to her.’

  Not interested in stopping to discuss who ‘they’ might be, Carlyle just shrugged and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead. ‘I’ll be back as soon as possible,’ he promised limply.

  ‘Sure.’ From years of experience, she knew that ‘as soon as possible’ could mean anything between half an hour and three or four days. Blowing him a half-hearted kiss in return, she returned her attention to the television.

  Fifteen minutes later, he was standing in one of the ‘friendly’ interview rooms located on the third floor of Charing Cross police station, which looked out over Agar Street. The girl was now sitting at a table, happily munching a bag of cheese and onion crisps and doodling in a colouring book that Nicole Sawyer – God bless her – had rustled up from somewhere. Also on the table were the remains of a chocolate bar and an empty Coke can. If Alice gobbled that lot, Helen would have a fit, Carlyle thought. This, however, wasn’t the time or the place to be too choosy about the child’s diet.

  Standing by the window, Sawyer had her back to him. She was talking on the phone and he could tell by her hushed tone that it wasn’t about work. Catching his reflection in the window, Sawyer quickly ended the call and turned around, signalling that they should step into the corridor. Finally acknowledging his presence, the girl looked up, gave Carlyle a wary stare and went back to her drawing.

  Outside, Carlyle waited for Sawyer to close the door behind her. ‘Has she said anything yet?’

  Sawyer shook her head. ‘Nothing I could understand. She did say something, but it wasn’t English.’

  ‘So she’s foreign?’ Carlyle asked in surprise, thinking about her very English ‘uncle’.

  ‘I suppose so,’ Sawyer shrugged.

  ‘Have we got a translator?’

  ‘Nothing doing till tomorrow morning,’ Sawyer said. ‘Do you have any idea where she’s from?’

  ‘Not a clue.’ Carlyle said. ‘What about a doctor?’

  ‘On the way . . . apparently.’

  ‘Social Services?’

  Sawyer rolled her eyes to the ceiling. ‘We’ve left a message. No one’s picking up, as usual.’

  ‘Christ!’ Carlyle hated dealing with Social Services. Almost without exception, the social workers he came across were unmotivated and uninspiring, he thought, always looking to do the bare minimum while hiding behind the rule book, their union agreements and political correctness. As far as he could see, it was a profession where everyone hated their job and couldn’t wait to retire on some grossly inflated public sector pension. Looking forward to his own pension, Carlyle was fairly ambivalent about that ambition. What he couldn’t abide was the general reluctance to earn their corn while they were still working.

  Sawyer looked at her watch theatrically. ‘Sorry, Inspector,’ she said, ‘but my shift ended half an hour ago. I need to get home.’

  ‘No problem,’ Carlyle replied, through clenched teeth. Now he was left holding the baby. Literally. He resisted the temptation to point out that he himself wasn’t supposed to be working at all today. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes. Thanks.’ Sawyer turned and propelled her fat arse along the corridor as fast as possible, before Carlyle changed his mind and condemned her to some more involuntary overtime.

  Stepping back into the room, Carlyle took a seat opposite the girl. She stared at him for a moment, then glanced at the door, as if she was weighing up whether she could try and make another break for freedom.

  Carlyle leaned back in his chair. What the fuck do I do now? he wondered.

  The girl picked up a red crayon and began smearing it across the paper.

  With some effort, he tried to assume what he hoped was his friendliest demeanour. ‘Hello, again,’ he said gently. ‘Remember me? I’m the man from the park.’ He pulled out his warrant card and slid it across the table. ‘I’m a policeman. My name is John.’

  The girl looked at the ID but did not touch it.

  ‘What’s your name?’ What had the guy called her back at the park? Alzbetha? ‘Elizabeth?’

  The girl looked at the crayon, squeezing it so tightly between her fingers that it snapped in two.

  ‘Is that your name?’

  Carlyle watched her eyes welling up. Her bottom lip trembled. He leaned forward, waiting for the words to spill out.

  Suddenly, she wiped her nose and looked at him defiantly. ‘We fuck now?’ There was no hesitation in her tone. It was almost a challenge.

  ‘What?’ Carlyle pushed himself away from the table, wanting to pretend that he hadn’t heard what he had just heard.

  The girl stood up. ‘You want?’ she asked, trying to put on an approximation of the same cut-glass accent spoken by the man in the park. ‘We fuck?’

  Without another word, Carlyle left the room. Closing the door behind him, he headed a couple of yards down the corridor. Standing in front of a road safety poster, he headbutted it twice.

  Ow!

  The pain felt good. After it had subsided, he pulled out his mobile phone and called the desk downstairs. ‘Is the doctor here yet?’ he asked, feeling more than a little desperate.

  ‘Two minutes,’ Patrick replied.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Weber.’

  Carlyle knew Thomas Weber. He was a very nice guy. German. Very thorough. Very professional. Not the man for this job, though. ‘Get me a woman,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Trust me,’ Carlyle hissed, fighting to keep his tone even. ‘It should be a woman.’

  ‘But Weber is on call . . .’

  ‘I don’t care if the King of fucking Siam is on call,’ he ranted. ‘Get – me – a – woman doctor. Please.’

  ‘Inspector . . .’

  Calm down, Carlyle told himself. Just calm down. Shouting won’t get you what you want. He took a deep breath. ‘Look, George, I’m sorry but this could be nasty. Really nasty. Not the usual day-to-day bullshit that we have to put up with. It’s important and it’s urgent. I’ll stay with the kid till we get it sorted. See what you can do.’

  ‘Okay.’ Patrick slammed the phone down in a fuck you too kind of a way.

  Carlyle stood in the corridor, feeling dizzy. For want of anything better to do, he went back into the interview room. The girl had abandoned her colouring book and was now crayoning on the table. This time, she didn’t even acknowledge his presence. Leaning against the wall, he watched her destroy one crayon after another until there was nothing left but a pile of stubs. When there were none left, she sat back in her chair, folded her arms and admired her handiwork. It looked pretty good to Carlyle. Maybe they should take the table over Waterloo Bridge to Tate Modern.

  ‘Elizabeth,’ he said, more to himself than to the girl, ‘where the hell are you from?’

  She rolled one half of the broken red crayon across the table, muttering something under her breath that he didn’t catch. She sounded Eastern European. Russian maybe? Polish? He didn’t kn
ow. The kid looked European, but she wasn’t speaking French, Italian, German or Spanish. Presumably she wasn’t from Scandinavia. He had never heard of children – or anyone else for that matter – being trafficked from there.

  He was still mulling it over a few minutes later, when Thomas Weber arrived. The doctor was accompanied by a small, mousy-looking WPC Carlyle didn’t recognise. She smiled wanly but said nothing. Seeing the annoyance on the inspector’s face, Weber held up a hand before Carlyle could say anything. ‘I know what you asked for,’ he said firmly, ‘but I’m all you’ve got.’

  Carlyle studied the tired-looking man in front of him and nodded sheepishly. Now was not the time for any more shouting.

  ‘Okay.’ Weber looked at the little girl and smiled. ‘Let’s go downstairs.’

  The WPC took the girl by the hand and led her out of the room. Carlyle let Weber go next and brought up the rear.

  On the first floor was the station’s ‘medical suite’: a couple of rooms that had been kitted out in a fair imitation of a GP’s surgery. Once they got there, Weber turned to Carlyle. ‘It’s probably better if you let us handle this from here. Why don’t you go and get a cup of coffee and come back in half an hour?’

  ‘Will do,’ Carlyle agreed, secretly quite relieved.

  While the child was being examined, he nipped out of the station and headed for a nearby bookstore on New Row that he knew would still be open. The children’s department was in the basement. With help from a friendly assistant, he found a copy of My First Atlas and a couple more colouring books – one with pictures of ballerinas, the other of princesses. The books made him smile; they were the kind of thing he would have bought for Alice only a couple of years ago. Then he remembered the girl back in the station, and the smile died on his face.

  ‘Is there anything wrong?’ The assistant seemed genuinely concerned by the thunderous look on Carlyle’s face.

  ‘No, no,’ replied Carlyle almost absentmindedly. ‘Thanks for your help. That’s just what I was looking for.’

  Back at the station, the doctor was already waiting for him outside the medical suite. As he approached along the corridor, Carlyle could see from the look on Weber’s face that things were at least as bad as he had feared. Squeamish at the best of times, the last thing Carlyle wanted was a discussion of the ugly details.

  ‘One for Social Services?’ he asked quickly, before Weber could say a word.

  Weber nodded solemnly. ‘I’ll give them a call straight away.’

  ‘Good luck with that,’ Carlyle growled. ‘What am I supposed to do in the meantime?’ It was a stupid question, the result of tiredness and frustration.

  ‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ Weber said evenly, picking up the briefcase at his feet and heading for the stairs.

  Gritting his teeth, Carlyle watched him go. Not for the first time, he cursed himself for getting into this type of situation. His stomach rumbled and he realised that he was starving. The station canteen would be shut by now and he would need to go out again if he wanted to get something to eat. He thought it through. If he took the girl with him, it would be a breach of protocol. On the other hand, maybe it would help her open up a bit. Carlyle doubted, however, that her English extended much beyond the terrifying handful of words she had already come out with. But maybe, just maybe, he could start to build up some trust with her over a burger and some chips.

  Bracing himself, he stepped into the medical suite. The WPC jumped up from her seat, nodded in his general direction and quickly left the room. In the corner, he could see the girl asleep on the examination table. She lay with her back to him and was wearing a paper gown. In the silence of the room, he could hear her snoring quietly. Carefully placing the books on an empty desk on the other side of the room, he found a blanket in a cupboard and gently placed it over her. For a while he stood there, watching the slight rise and fall of her chest. A pretty girl, though. Almost all kids are pretty at that age, he mused. Eyes closed, and without the frown, she looked at peace for the first time since he’d met her.

  Switching the light off, he sat down on the chair vacated by the WPC. His stomach rumbled again. He told it to shut up. It didn’t matter how hungry he was; all that he could do now was wait.

  Waking with a start, Carlyle slowly came to terms with the darkness. After a while he could vaguely make out the time, by the clock on the wall. He groaned when he saw that it was 2.15 a.m. Rubbing the back of his neck, he got reluctantly to his feet and ran through a mental checklist of all the places where his body ached. It was a long one. The girl was still fast asleep, curled up in the foetal position, her breathing steady.

  Stepping quietly out of the room, Carlyle checked his phone. To his dismay, he had four missed calls and a text message from his wife – Where are you? – timed at just after 11 p.m. Carlyle yawned. How had he slept through all that? Par for the course. He had a very mixed record with mobile phones. Sometimes he could go for days without managing to pick up any of his calls. It drove him – and everyone else – mad.

  Now was not the time to call Helen back. He felt an ache in his bladder and realised he needed to piss. After a trip to the gents, he headed downstairs to the front desk. By now, George Patrick had gone off shift. He had been replaced by Gerry Armstrong, an Irishman Carlyle knew reasonably well. Beyond the security doors, the reception area was relatively empty for Saturday night–Sunday morning. There were a couple of drunks and one guy with blood oozing from a cut above his eyebrow, but it seemed that tonight the loser count was relatively low.

  ‘Gerry,’ he nodded in greeting. ‘Quiet tonight.’

  The desk sergeant looked up from an early edition of the Sunday Mirror. ‘John,’ he replied, sounding far too cheery for this time of night. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Carlyle explained the situation.

  ‘Christ!’ Armstrong exclaimed. ‘No one told me. Mind you, I was a bit late in getting in tonight.’

  Maybe you should read the duty log then, Carlyle thought. But he let it slide. It was too late and he was too tired to allow himself to get annoyed again. ‘That’s okay. But I need you to get one of the PCSOs – a woman – to sit with the kid for an hour or so. She’s asleep now, but just in case she wakes up. I’m going home to get a bite to eat and pick up some stuff. Then I’ll be right back.’

  Police Community Support Officers, known as ‘plastic policemen’, were staff hired to help with the grunt work. Regular officers, like Carlyle, generally had a very low opinion of the plastics. Bored, with no power to arrest suspected criminals, they were responsible for most cases of gross misconduct among Metropolitan Police staff. Carlyle avoided them wherever possible. For now, however, they would have to do. Surely even a PCSO was capable of looking after a sleeping kid for an hour.

  ‘No problem,’ Armstrong said. ‘They’re all in the smoking room, watching videos, anyway.’

  Safer than having them on the streets, Carlyle thought. ‘Thanks. And could you call Thomas Weber for me? See if he’s made any progress with Social Services.’

  ‘Will do.’ But Armstrong had already returned his attention to his newspaper – a story about some bisexual, drug-dealing minor member of the royal family – and Carlyle realised that he had been gently dismissed. Zipping up his jacket, he headed off into the night.

  The girl finally awoke just after seven in the morning. If not exactly happy to see Carlyle, she didn’t immediately try to make a dash for the door. Taking the clothes he had brought for her – some of Alice’s cast-offs that Helen hadn’t found a home for – she dressed quickly. When she was finished, he looked her up and down, feeling a small stab of satisfaction at a job well done. Even in the middle of the night, he had managed to come up with a reasonable ensemble – jeans, sweatshirt, trainers – without waking up either wife or daughter, which was a major result.

  He opened his mouth and pointed a finger at his tongue. ‘Food?’

  The girl nodded.

  ‘Good.’ Carlyle smiled, ha
ppy to be making at least a little progress. He held out a hand, but the girl refused to take it. Ignoring the snub, he stepped over to the door. ‘Come on, let’s go and get some breakfast.’

  Official police protocol or not, they had to eat. Carlyle knew that the only place open at this time of a Sunday morning would be the Box café on Henrietta Street, a minute from the station, just down from the piazza. As they arrived, the owner was just opening up. He nodded his welcome as they slipped inside and took a table by the window. The girl immediately grabbed the outsized laminated menu and scrutinised the pictures, before pointing to the Full English Breakfast. ‘Two English, please,’ Carlyle called over to the owner. ‘I’ll have a coffee and she’ll have orange juice.’

  While they waited for their food to arrive, Carlyle showed the girl the books that he had bought for her the night before. Looking through the colouring books, the girl muttered unhappily under her breath and Carlyle realised that he hadn’t brought along any pens.

  ‘Sorry,’ he shrugged.

  Seeming to ignore him, the girl carefully put the books to one side.

  ‘Here.’ Carlyle picked up the atlas and offered it to her. When she didn’t take it, he opened it, found the pages covering Eastern Europe and laid it down in front of her. ‘Is this where you are from?’

  The girl scanned the countries without showing any sign of recognition. Carlyle tapped Russia on the page and pointed at the girl. ‘Russia,’ he said clearly. ‘Are you from there?’

  She shook her head and turned to the next page. They were interrupted just then by the arrival of two large plates of food and both spent the next five minutes eating in hungry silence. Carlyle ate quickly and methodically, swallowing his last piece of toast and washing it down with coffee while the girl was still munching on her second sausage.

  In the end, she was not able to eat all of her breakfast. Never one to let food go to waste, Carlyle quickly swapped plates. Eyes down, he began gobbling up the girl’s leftovers. As he finished off the last mouthful of beans, he looked up. The girl gave him a dirty look.