Buckingham Palace Blues Read online

  ‘Only when they’re on the game,’ he deadpanned, confident – well, reasonably confident – that she was taking things in the right spirit.

  Helen looked at the card again. ‘Why did Olga hand it over to you?’

  ‘I dunno,’ Carlyle shrugged, careful not to mention precisely how it had been handed over. ‘Maybe she can tell us something about the missing kid. God knows, we need a break.’

  ‘There’s something else.’ Helen abruptly changed the subject.

  ‘Oh?’ Carlyle’s heart sank. He didn’t need ‘something else’ at the moment.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, cradling her mug of green tea while gazing out the window. ‘They’ve had more problems at Alice’s school.’

  ‘That’s not really a surprise.’

  All schools had their dramas, but Carlyle had to admit that his daughter’s school – City School for Girls in the Barbican – really did seem to push the boat out in that respect. He thought back to the time when the police had been phoned after two of the pupils had called in a bomb warning. Happily there was no actual bomb, but a subsequent police sweep of the classrooms had turned up no less than eight bags containing dope of one sort or another. The headmaster had implemented a very public crackdown. More than a dozen girls had been expelled, and all the parents had received a letter informing them that anyone found in possession of cannabis or any other drugs would face a similar fate. With cannabis being reclassified from a Class C to Class B drug, the headmaster added that ‘any student found to be in possession of cannabis will be arrested and taken to a police station where they can receive a reprimand, final warning, or charge depending on the seriousness of the offence’.

  Helen had forbidden Carlyle from writing back and pointing out to the headmaster that no police station in the city would welcome the receipt of his errant charges, and that he should maybe look to try and put his own house in order by himself. On reflection, he realised that Helen was right: this was not the kind of issue to pick a fight over. Anyway, if Alice ever got involved in drugs while at school, the headmaster would be the least of her worries.

  ‘What’s happened now?’ he asked wearily.

  ‘Another two girls have been expelled.’

  Carlyle shrugged. That was hardly hold-the-front-page news.

  ‘One of them,’ Helen continued, ‘was in Alice’s class.’

  ‘Shit.’ Carlyle frowned. ‘She’s what – not even a teenager.’

  ‘I know.’ Helen stepped away from the window and stood beside him, resting against the workbench. ‘I spoke to one of the other mothers today, and she says that they think that girls as young as eight could be involved.’

  ‘Bollocks.’

  ‘I don’t know, John.’

  Carlyle stuck an arm round his wife’s shoulder. ‘Come on . . .’

  ‘I know, it seems ridiculous. But everyone’s getting a bit paranoid about it.’

  Carlyle grinned. ‘Maybe some of the parents have been smoking too much skunk themselves.’

  She gave him a gentle punch in the ribs. ‘That’s not funny.’

  ‘Sorry.’ He stood up straight and folded his arms, as if to show that he was taking it seriously. ‘Have you spoken to Alice about it?’

  ‘We had a chat.’ Helen reached over and placed her mug in the sink. ‘She didn’t tell me much, but at least we had a bit of a conversation. She didn’t storm off in a huff – which makes a change these days.’

  ‘So what did she say?’

  ‘According to Alice, everyone in the class knows about it. The girl who’s been expelled isn’t one of her friends, and had been hanging out with some older kids. She says no one else in her class has tried anything.’

  ‘So far.’

  ‘Anyway, Alice says she’s really not that interested.’

  ‘I can easily believe that.’ Carlyle leaned over and kissed the top of his wife’s head. ‘She’s basically a sensible kid – gets it from her dad.’

  Helen didn’t smile. ‘I know, but . . .’

  ‘Shall I talk to her?’

  She gave his arm a grateful squeeze. ‘When it comes up, and only when she’s happy to have the conversation. Don’t just jump in there and force her to clam up.’

  Me? Carlyle thought. When did you become the expert in communicating with our little tweenager? He felt a familiar bubble of frustration in his stomach, and waited for it to pass. ‘Okay.’

  She was obviously alert to the dark look clouding his face. ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise.’

  Halfway down Wilfred Street, a two-minute walk from Buckingham Palace, Alexa Matthews propped herself up against the wall in the alley next to the Drunken Friar and lit the last cigarette from the packet of twenty Lambert & Butler Silver that she’d bought from the machine inside the pub barely three hours earlier. Inside, she could hear the bell being rung for last orders. Alexa groaned and took a greedy suck on her ciggie. A ‘quick drink’ after work with a few colleagues coming off shift had turned into a proper session. After five or six pints of Stella, and a couple of vodka chasers, Alexa had to admit that she was well and truly bladdered. The two pork pies she had scoffed half an hour earlier hadn’t been such a good idea, either.

  In her jacket pocket, she could feel her mobile buzzing. Alexa didn’t have to look at it to know who it was. Heather, her girlfriend – who had been expecting her home four hours earlier – was well pissed off. Reaching into her pocket, Alexa read the latest abusive text.

  Where are u u stupid cow?

  ‘Fuck off!’ Alexa slurred to herself. Given the turn of events, she wondered if it would be worth going home at all. Would it be better to grovel tonight? Or in the morning? If needs be, she could kip in one of the empty stables back at the Palace – it wouldn’t be the first time. Taking a long drag on her fag, she tried to think herself sober.

  ‘Hey, Alexa!’

  ‘Shit!’ Cursing under her breath, Matthews looked up to see three men, all wearing jeans and bomber jackets, coming out of the side door of the pub and walking towards her. The group was led by the avuncular figure of Tommy Dolan, a sergeant in SO14. Dolan had been drinking with them for an hour or so. The other two she didn’t recognise. She didn’t even remember them being in the pub earlier in the evening.

  ‘Not going to puke, are you?’ Dolan stopped five feet short of Matthews, ready to dodge any flying vomit.

  ‘What do you want, Dolan?’ Matthews slipped her phone into a pocket and eyed the sergeant carefully.

  ‘Just checking you were okay.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ Matthews took a deep breath and tried to fight off the nausea. Like everyone else in SO14, she knew that Dolan was trouble. The best way to deal with him was simply to keep out of his way. When he had appeared at the bar, she had vowed to make a sharp exit. Then someone had bought another round and she had stayed. Now that wasn’t looking like such a clever decision. Instinctively, she looked over her shoulder. Behind a pile of rubbish was a brick wall, at least twenty feet high. The only way out was to head back the way she had come.

  She took a final drag on her cigarette and tossed it in the direction of Dolan’s trainers. Out of uniform, he looked nothing much: a squat bloke, five foot ten, in reasonable shape given that he was already well past fifty, with a number-one cut that made his silver hair shine under the orange glare of the streetlight at the open end of the alley. Dolan, thirty-year veteran of serving Her Majesty and her dysfunctional family, was the man who actually ran things on the other side of Buckingham Gate. The Charlie Adamses of this world might come and go, but Dolan was omnipresent. While Adam might be nominally running the show, it was Dolan who was in charge of all the money-making scams that had been carefully built up over the years, like the private tours, illicit parties and souvenir sales.

  On the nights when he would sit out on the back lawn and get pissed on Pol Roger Cuvée Winston Churchill, the sergeant liked to joke that he was ‘the most important person in the whole bloody Palace’. The really fu
nny thing was that this was probably true. Dolan was very protective of his mini-empire. He didn’t like anyone who didn’t share his view of SO14 as a nice little earner, wouldn’t put up with anyone who rocked the boat. And he was deeply suspicious of anyone who ever asked for a transfer.

  ‘Where’s your girlfriend?’ Dolan sneered.

  Matthews ignored this, replying instead, ‘What can I do for you, Tommy?’

  Without saying a word, Dolan moved to his right, allowing one of the men behind him to step forward and slam a fist into Matthews’s stomach. Sinking to her knees, gasping for air, she felt the pool of lager rebelling in her stomach. A second later, she was retching violently, sending a stream of vomit bouncing off the sticky tarmac.

  ‘Fuck!’ Dolan laughed, dancing away from the oncoming mess.

  Her attacker then dodged to the side and gave her a firm kick in the ribs.

  Happy to stay in the background, the third man laughed too.

  Leaning as far forward as he dared, Dolan hissed, ‘You always were a skanky bitch, but why did you go and talk to that fucking wanker John Carlyle? That was really stupid.’

  Matthews tasted the puke in her mouth and gagged again. Trying to push herself up, she vomited for a second time. One of her ribs felt like it might be broken. Through the haze of pain she cursed Carlyle. You’ve dropped me in it again, she thought, you stupid, fucking twat. Looking up at Dolan, she groaned, ‘I dunno what you’re talking about.’

  Dolan reached down and grabbed her by the hair. ‘You’re a lying fucking slag.’

  ‘Fuck! Tommy, for fuck’s sake!’

  Dragging her through the mess, he pushed her face down until she was prostrate on the stinking ground. ‘What did you tell him?’

  Feeling the world spinning around her, Matthews tried to close her eyes. If she could ignore her tormentors . . . if she could go to sleep, maybe all this would stop.

  Dolan gave her another hard kick. ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she mumbled. ‘I told him nothing.’

  ‘Do you want us to go round your house and have a word with your missus?’

  ‘Leave Heather out of this . . .’

  A boot glanced off the side of her head and, finally, she felt the world slipping away. As they set about her in earnest, she began dreaming of the stars.

  NINE

  Sitting on the kitchen floor, Carlyle dialled the number on Olga’s card and listened to the call girl’s mobile ring for what seemed like an eternity. It was 10 a.m. and he wondered if she might still be in bed. Waiting for the voicemail to kick in, he was surprised when someone finally picked up.

  ‘Da?’

  ‘Olga?’

  ‘Yes, darling,’ her voice purred down the line, ‘this is Olga. What can Olga do for you?’

  Carlyle could hear voices in the background; maybe she could talk freely, maybe she couldn’t. It dawned on him that he couldn’t even be sure that he was talking to the right woman. Still, he ploughed on: ‘You gave me your card the other day . . .’

  ‘I give my card to a lot of people,’ she laughed. ‘You want business?’

  Someone chortled in the background.

  Was this a game? ‘Er . . . yes.’

  ‘Good,’ she said seductively. ‘What would you like?’

  If his wife could hear him now . . . Carlyle felt himself blush ever so slightly. Thank God Helen was at work. ‘Er, what do you suggest?’

  ‘I don’t do anal,’ she said quickly.

  More laughter.

  Carlyle felt himself getting flustered. ‘But I didn’t—’

  ‘And, always, we use a condom.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Don’t worry, darling, I will show you a good time. You must be horny, for wanting it at this time in the morning.’ The laughter grew louder. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Covent Garden.’

  ‘Which hotel?’

  ‘Er . . .’

  ‘Ah. Good.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘I know it well,’ she told him. ‘I meet you in the lobby of the Garden Hotel in forty-five minutes. Is £175 for an hour, plus my taxis, plus my tip.’

  ‘Tip?’ Carlyle asked, belatedly getting into the spirit of the conversation.

  ‘Da,’ she giggled. ‘My tip for making you . . . explode!’ The laughter reached a crescendo. Olga waited until the hubbub had subsided. ‘Consider it a performance-related bonus.’

  ‘What if I don’t explode?’ Carlyle joked. ‘Do I get a discount?’

  ‘Don’t be cheeky. I see you soon.’ The phone clicked and she was gone.

  Carlyle sat there for a moment, wondering what to wear.

  Putting on his best suit, a navy Paul Smith number that he’d snapped up for eighty quid several years earlier from the Oxfam shop on Drury Lane, he headed out of the flat. Ten minutes later, he was walking through the revolving doors of the Garden Hotel.

  The Garden was situated on St Martin’s Lane, just up from Trafalgar Square and round the corner from Charing Cross police station. A boutique hotel fashioned out of a 1960s office block, it was, according to its brochure, a manifestation of the emotional zeitgeist of the city. That automatically made it the kind of place that Carlyle himself could never afford to stay in. At the same time, he had spent quite a bit of time pacing the lobby over the years, for one reason or another, so he knew many of the staff by sight if not by name. Giving the doorman a swift nod, he scanned the lobby itself and the Light Bar beyond, in case Olga had arrived early. When it was clear that she wasn’t there, he headed towards the foppish-looking gent who was sitting at a tiny desk behind one of the lobby’s pillars, with a look on his face that suggested he was half reading the copy of Country Life propped up in front of him and half-staring into space.

  Over the top of his magazine, Alex Miles watched Carlyle approaching. As chief concierge at the Garden, Miles had acted as the hotel’s senior fixer for their more important and demanding guests for over a decade. When it came to doing his job, policemen were a minor irritant. They had to be managed carefully.

  Miles gave up on the article he’d been half-reading about the history of highwaymen and replaced the magazine on the desk. Almost managing to keep the look of disappointment off his face, he forced himself to his feet as Carlyle reached the desk. Straightening up the jacket of his grey pinstripe suit, he extended a hand. ‘Inspector . . .’

  ‘Mr Miles,’ Carlyle replied cheerily. ‘And how are you today?’

  Miles eyed him warily. ‘I’m fine. What can I do for you?’

  Happy to dispense with any further pleasantries, Carlyle got straight to the point. ‘I need to borrow a room for a couple of hours. A nice one.’

  Miles raised an eyebrow but didn’t smile. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m meeting a prostitute,’ Carlyle said casually.

  Miles raised both eyebrows.

  Carlyle smiled faintly. ‘It’s a professional meeting.’

  ‘Of course,’ Miles said smoothly. ‘Can I get you a packet of condoms as well?’

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ Carlyle told him. ‘But our meeting needs to look kosher. She’ll be here in ten minutes.’

  The concierge stared at him blankly.

  ‘Consider it a deposit at the favours bank,’ Carlyle murmured. ‘A small deposit that represents a tiny nibble at your massive overdraft there.’ A few years earlier, Carlyle had overlooked an unfortunate indiscretion occurring in one of the rooms upstairs involving the concierge himself, two transvestite hookers and a large quantity of unusually pure cocaine. The evidence was still safely locked away at the station, and could be brought out at any time. It was preferable, however, to leave it there and be able to call on Miles’s services now and again.

  ‘But—’

  Carlyle gave him a sharp look. ‘Do we need to examine the ledger?’

  Miles looked at his shoes. ‘No.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Okay.’ Miles sighed, before heading off across the lobby.
‘Let’s see what we’ve got.’

  Following at a discreet distance, Carlyle watched Alex Miles step behind the reception desk. After a brief conversation with the extremely pretty black girl on duty, he pulled a key card out of a drawer and activated it.

  While Miles tapped away at a computer, the girl gave Carlyle a suspicious look. Pretending not to notice, he waited for Miles to beckon him over.

  Miles nodded at the card. ‘There you go. That’ll get you into the penthouse suite. Top floor.’ He cleared his throat. ‘For people with money, it normally costs two grand a night.’

  Fuck me, Carlyle thought. Two grand for a night in a hotel? ‘I won’t be there for a whole night,’ he said, somewhat wistfully.

  ‘Don’t make a mess on the sheets,’ was Miles’s only response.

  Carlyle popped the card into the breast-pocket of his jacket. ‘I’ll meet her in the lobby. When the lady comes in, give her a discreet once-over. We’ll have a little chat when I’m done upstairs. I’d be interested to learn if you already know her. If not, maybe you can find out something about her.’

  ‘Don’t want much, do you? What’s her name?’

  ‘Olga.’

  ‘Yeah, right. What’s her real name?’

  ‘Dunno,’ said Carlyle, flopping down on a sofa. ‘But I’m sure that I can find out.’

  ‘The world’s greatest policeman,’ Miles grumbled, slouching off towards his desk.

  ‘I know,’ Carlyle smiled, closing his eyes and letting his mind wander, listening to the expensive tap-tap-tap of Miles’s leather shoes on the limestone floor as he walked away.

  ‘Hey! Wake up!’

  Carlyle felt a sharp pain in his shin and sat up quickly. He rubbed his eyes and saw Olga standing over him, a cheeky grin on her face.