A Man of Sorrows Page 7

  ‘Thanks.’ Head down, the inspector began marching back towards his waiting car.

  Strains of Arcade Fire’s ‘Black Mirror’ came from inside the police BMW. Sitting behind the wheel, the driver finished munching on an apple and tossed the core out of the window. Listening to his stomach rumble, Carlyle leaned against the bonnet and watched Roche finish her conversation with one of the technicians and begin to walk towards him. Off to his left, he saw an ambulance trundle over the uneven ground, heading for the little group clustered around the body. Pulling out his mobile, he called Helen. It went to voicemail immediately and he ended the call without leaving a message.

  ‘They’re taking her to the West Middlesex,’ Roche said, stopping a couple of feet in front of him.

  ‘Fair enough.’ Carlyle had no intention of going there himself. He hated hospitals and he doubly hated morgues; he was quite happy to wait for Stone to email him a report. He jerked a thumb over Roche’s left shoulder. ‘What did the tech guys have to say?’

  ‘Like Stone said, they presume someone drove in and dumped Paula’s body after she’d been killed. But there are lots of different vehicle tracks, so that probably won’t give us much.’

  Carlyle looked around unhappily. ‘No CCTV, of course?’

  ‘No,’ Roche told him. ‘Since the money ran out, there’s effectively been next to no site security. Anyone could have got in.’

  ‘Witnesses?’ Carlyle could hardly be bothered to ask the question.

  ‘Nothing, so far.’ Roche gave the impression that she could hardly be bothered to give the answer. ‘The local uniforms are going door to door, but there isn’t much residential round here; it’s mainly small workshops and a few offices.’

  Carlyle pushed himself off the car and signalled to the driver that they were ready to go. ‘Let’s get back to Charing Cross and start picking out some suspects.’

  TWELVE

  After three hours of going through the forensic reports and the CCTV footage of the St James’s Diamonds raid, Carlyle was losing the will to live. Picking his mobile off the desk, he looked at the screen morosely. For once, it wasn’t telling him that he had missed any calls. Why hadn’t Helen tried to return his call? Most likely she was having a tough day at work too. Chief Operating Officer of a medical charity called Avalon, she was responsible for a growing team of several people in thirty countries, which meant that there was a crisis somewhere. Sighing, he looked at the clock on the wall. It was almost 7 p.m. and he knew that he should be heading home.

  ‘Dugdale’s on the TV.’ Roche appeared from behind him with a remote in her hand, unmuting the monitor that hung from the ceiling above them.

  ‘Again?’ Carlyle frowned. He looked at the Commander, sitting next to his PR flunky, in front of a large Met logo, with the legend Working together for a safer London spelled out in foot-high letters, as he prepared to make a statement to the assembled journalists. Dugdale seemed tired, washed-out, like a man who was just going through the motions until someone unlocked his pension pot and put him out of his misery. Not for the first time, the inspector cursed Simpson for fucking off to Canada on some jolly when she should be in London watching his back. In other words, doing her job.

  ‘He did an impromptu press conference on New Bond Street after you left yesterday,’ Roche explained, gesturing at the screen with the remote.

  ‘Where is he now?’ Carlyle asked.

  Roche shrugged. ‘Dunno. Paddington Green, I suppose.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ Carlyle said. Dugdale had taken over Simpson’s office in Paddington Green police station for the duration of his secondment.

  ‘He’s giving them some of the CCTV footage,’ Roche added.

  Carlyle grunted. As far as he was concerned, press conferences were the first refuge of the brainless and the desperate. He listened to Dudgale confirm that Paula Coulter’s body had been found that morning and watched as a clip of the raid jerked across the screen in slow motion. Once it had finished, grainy stills of the two robbers flashed up on the screen.

  ‘Maybe they’ve left the country,’ Roche mused, muting the sound.

  ‘Fuck it,’ Carlyle yawned. ‘What a shit day. Let’s quit while we’re ahead. We can start again tomorrow.’ Standing up, he closed the file on his desk and dropped the mobile into his jacket pocket. The landline on his desk started ringing. He looked at it for a moment then reluctantly picked it up. ‘Carlyle,’ he said wearily.

  ‘Inspector, Dugdale here.’

  Carlyle smacked his hand on the desk. Why did you pick up the phone, you fucking idiot? ‘Commander,’ he said, trying to keep the annoyance from his voice, ‘we’ve just seen you on the news.’

  ‘I wasn’t calling about that,’ Dugdale said gruffly.

  ‘Oh?’ Carlyle looked at Roche, who was hovering by his desk. Shaking his head, he pointed to the door, signalling that he would call her later.

  ‘No,’ Dugdale replied, the anger rising in his voice. ‘What the hell have you been doing?’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Carlyle watched Roche disappear into the lift, a sick feeling growing in this stomach.

  ‘This woman . . .’ down the line came the sound of papers being shuffled. ‘. . . Slater – she says that you assaulted a priest.’

  ‘I’ve seen the letter,’ Carlyle sighed. ‘Father McGowan is under investigation in connection with the disappearance of—’

  Dugdale cut him off. ‘Did you or your sergeant assault this man, or not?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Carlyle without hesitation.

  ‘Well, you had better speak to the Federation about representation. There will have to be a disciplinary enquiry. They are going to sue.’

  Carlyle gritted his teeth. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘If you did assault this man, Carlyle,’ Dugdale said, with more than a hint of malice in his voice, ‘I will have you straight out of the sodding door, without your deal.’

  What deal?

  ‘In the meantime, leave the bloody priest alone. This diamonds case has to be your priority, your only priority. It was bad enough even before that girl was killed. We need to demonstrate some immediate and substantive progress.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Keep me posted.’

  ‘Yes—’ Before Carlyle could finish, Dugdale ended the call and the line went dead. A righteous anger welled up inside him. ‘Fuck you too, you timeserving cunt,’ he hissed, slamming down the phone. A nearby cleaner gave him a curious look, but Carlyle ignored her as he skulked out of the building.

  THIRTEEN

  Arriving back at the flat, Carlyle heard the sound of the television playing in the living room. He vaguely remembered something about Alice being away on a sleepover, so he presumed it was Helen watching one of the crap ‘reality’ shows that she was partial to. Wanting to take the edge off his bad mood before engaging with his wife, he wandered into the kitchen and took a bottle of Heineken from the fridge. Pulling a bottle-opener from a drawer, he flicked off the cap and took a long swig. He wasn’t much of a drinker, but after a day like the one he’d just had, the cold beer slipped down very nicely indeed.

  Stepping over to the sink, he finished his beer as he watched an airliner heading towards Heathrow. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the letters from the previous evening still sitting on top of the microwave. Placing the empty beer bottle on the worktop, he reached over, picked up the top envelope and casually ripped it open. Inside was a single sheet of white A4 paper, with the Met logo at the top. Unfolding it, he scanned the contents.

  This is to inform you that you could be eligible for voluntary redundancy and/or early retirement . . .

  Scowling, he read the letter more carefully. Recalling the recent memo from the union, he felt his immediate angst subside. He already needed to speak to his Federation rep in the morning, so this was just something else for them to talk about.

  Taking another beer from the fridge, he opened it and padded into the living room. Sitting on the sofa with her feet
up on the coffee table, Helen was watching one of the news channels. Once again, he saw the CCTV clip from the robbery that had been released to the media, jerk across the screen in slow motion. Helen muted the TV and smiled at him wanly. You look absolutely shattered, he thought, suddenly guilty at the lack of attention he had been paying to home matters recently.

  ‘Busy day?’ she enquired.

  ‘I was just going to ask you the same thing,’ he grinned, placing his beer bottle on the table. Plopping down on the sofa, he kissed her on the cheek and dropped the letter in her lap. ‘Look at this.’

  Reluctantly, Helen picked up the sheet of paper and looked it over expressionlessly. Carlyle found her reaction rather disconcerting. Normally, his wife was more exercised by his so-called ‘career’ than Carlyle was himself. Her obvious lack of interest this evening suggested that something was wrong.

  ‘It’s a pain in the arse,’ he said, ‘but the Union have already got it sorted. I’ll speak to them tomorrow but basically I think we just have to sit it out and do nothing. They’ll have plenty of people biting their hands off to go.’

  ‘Did you see the other letter?’ she asked, her gaze firmly trained on the television.

  ‘The other letter?’

  ‘It’s in the kitchen.’

  Grumbling to himself, Carlyle jumped to his feet and trotted back to the kitchen. The small envelope remaining on top of the microwave had already been opened. It was a bland, pale green colour. Helen’s name and address had been carefully handwritten on the front. Noticing that the stamp had been stuck on the wrong way round, leaving the Queen’s head upside down, Carlyle grinned as he pulled out the two sheets of blue notepaper inside and quickly scanned their contents.

  Oh fuck.

  He felt a terrible pressure on his skull and had to fight the strong urge to puke his beer into the sink. Placing the letter on the worktop, he stared blankly at the neat penmanship for a few seconds and then forced himself to reread the whole thing slowly and painstakingly, line by line. Reaching the bottom of the page for a second time, he realized that he had been holding his breath. Like a diver breaking the water’s surface, he exhaled deeply. His mouth was dry and he could feel his heart going crazy inside his chest. Calm down, he told himself; do not rant and rave. You have to walk next door and say exactly the right thing, do exactly the right thing.

  Picking up the letter, he headed out of the room feeling more scared than he had ever done in his entire life.

  Sitting back down on the sofa, he put an arm round Helen, kissing her hard as he pulled her towards him.

  ‘Oh, John!’ she sobbed, burying her head in his chest.

  ‘It’s fine,’ he said, squeezing her tenderly. ‘It will be fine. We will handle this.’ Gently stroking the back of her neck, he held up the letter with his free hand. Already, he felt as if he knew it off by heart:

  Like me, you may be a carrier of a faulty breast cancer susceptibility gene, known as BRCA2. This means an increased risk of developing breast and / or ovarian cancer at an early age (i.e. before menopause). Blood tests are available to detect BRCA2 mutations. Not all people wish to get tested, but it is something to think about. Your GP can also tell you about counselling.

  After a few minutes sitting in silence, he asked about the woman who had sent the letter: ‘Who is Amanda Soames?’

  Wiping her nose on his shirt, Helen sat up. ‘She’s my dad’s younger sister. His mother and two of his sisters have all had breast cancer. One of the sisters died when she was thirty-eight.’

  Jesus fucking Christ on a bike. It dawned on Carlyle that he knew next to nothing about Helen’s family. Aside from her parents, he couldn’t recall having ever met any of them. Her dad was long dead. He had keeled over with a massive heart attack in his early fifties, after her mum had dumped him and decamped to Brighton.

  ‘I called her yesterday,’ Helen continued. ‘She was very nice. She has been part of a research project for the last two years, apparently. They suggested that she write to me. A letter is thought to be the best way to give someone the news. Mum gave her the address.’

  ‘So what happens now?’ Carlyle asked, trying to move the conversation on without sounding too brusque. How do we make this shit go away?

  Helen took a deep breath. ‘Well, I saw the GP this morning. Next week I go up to Great Ormond Street for the test. Then we have to wait for the results.’

  ‘Great Ormond Street? I thought that was a kiddie hospital?’

  Helen shrugged. ‘That’s where they’ve told me to go. Apparently, there’s a guy there who is working just on this gene.’

  ‘Fair enough. And if—’

  Reaching up, she kissed him gently on the lips to shut him up. ‘No ifs,’ she said. ‘Let’s wait and see what the results say. It might be good news.’

  Yeah, and it might not. ‘What are the odds?’

  ‘There’s a twenty-five per cent chance that I’ve got it,’ she said, giving him another kiss. ‘They don’t know if Dad had it. It would be fifty per cent if he did, zero if he didn’t.’

  Carlyle tried to do the maths, without success. ‘So there’s a more than fighting chance all this will prove to be a false alarm.’

  She looked at him darkly. ‘Speculating will only drive us round the bend. Let’s just wait and see, shall we?’

  ‘Okay,’ he smiled, wiping away the tear from his eye.

  Switching off the TV, Helen pushed herself up from the sofa and took his hand. ‘C’mon,’ she said, ‘let’s go to bed.’

  FOURTEEN

  Struggling to stifle a yawn, Christian Holyrod shifted in his chair and glared at his Special Adviser. Katya Morrison, a pert, twenty-something blonde Philosophy graduate from St Andrews University, gave him a quizzical look that the Mayor found intensely irritating. A powerful urge to sack her washed over him, but he knew that it would serve no purpose to do so. These political hacks were all the same – over-educated, over-privileged and over-confident. Sack Katya and another robot bimbo would just take her place. And she might not even be as well stacked.

  Holyrod sighed. Really, it was all his own fault. He should never have stood for re-election; becoming Mayor of London was only ever supposed to have been a stepping stone to the Prime Minister gig. Now, after more than six years in the job, he had become hopelessly typecast. People knew him as the grinning idiot who promoted cycleways or allotments, his previous life as the warrior hero Major Holyrod, long since forgotten. Now he was just another politician – worse, a local politician – his chance of the top job receding even faster than his party’s popularity in the polls.

  Holyrod took a mouthful of coffee and tried to concentrate on the pale, puffy, bald guy in the dog collar sitting behind the desk in front of him. He looked twenty-five going on forty-five. You need some sun and some exercise, he thought, not to mention a good shag. To his bemusement, the priest had shown no interest whatsoever in Katya’s tits, which had somehow been shoehorned into a completely inappropriate, see-through white cheesecloth blouse without the aid of a bra.

  ‘There are around four and a half million Catholics in England and Wales,’ Monsignor Joseph Wagner said, failing to hide his irritation at the Mayor’s obvious lack of interest, ‘and I know that each and every one of them is looking forward to the visit of the Holy Father next month.’

  ‘As I am myself,’ Holyrod smiled vacuously, ‘which is why we are providing so much financial and logistical support for the Pope’s visit.’

  The Monsignor bowed graciously. ‘For which we are truly very grateful.’

  So you bloody should be, Holyrod thought meanly. Millions that I don’t have and extra overtime for God knows how many thousand police officers, not to mention the redeployment of the Diplomatic Protection Group, so that your guy can play two shows at Wembley. I’d better get to Heaven after all this. ‘It is just a shame that the Archbishop couldn’t be with us today.’

  Wagner raised his gaze to the heavens. ‘I know that he would have very muc
h liked to have been here; however, he is currently leading the annual pilgrimage to Lourdes.’

  Katya started to titter and Holyrod glared at her even harder.

  ‘As the Papal Visit Co-ordinator,’ Wagner continued, ignoring the impolite young aide, ‘I have just hosted a party of officials over from the Vatican for a final planning meeting. We have finalized the text for the handbook, the Missal, which will enable those who are participating in the gatherings with the Holy Father to follow the Visit, and also the merchandising and souvenirs that will be available in our online shop.’

  ‘Very important,’ Holyrod nodded.

  ‘Of course, our work with you and with the security services is vital. We cannot allow any unauthorized access to any of the Masses or the Prayer Vigil.’

  ‘No, no. Of course not.’

  ‘People will be able to see that there are opportunities to greet the Pope as he is travelling around. Some of his movements will be in the Popemobile, precisely so that people can gather and greet him as he passes by, but everything has to be properly controlled.’

  ‘As it will be.’

  ‘Good.’ Wagner hesitated. ‘Of course, if it had been the case that the attitude of the British government had always been communicated clearly, we might have found ourselves in a somewhat better position today.’

  Holyrod bridled at the reference, however oblique, to a facetious Foreign Office memo, written by some junior bureaucrat, which suggested, amongst other things, that a trip to an abortion clinic should be included on the Pope’s itinerary. The leaking of the memo had been a gift to the Papal spin doctors in the Catholic Communications Network and had allowed the Church to chisel a formal apology from the Government, along with more taxpayers’ money to pay for the trip.