On the third floor of Charing Cross police station, Joe Szyszkowski sat at his desk munching a bacon roll, making sure the brown sauce dripped on to the carpet, rather than on his jeans. He chewed slowly, while putting off writing up a report on the mugging of a Chinese tourist outside the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, a report that he should have completed the day before. There was no real hurry. The clean-up rate for that type of crime was so low that the Home Office kept the numbers to themselves; in the official Recorded Crime Statistics they were included under the catch-all of ‘robbery’. The Metropolitan Police definition of mugging or ‘street crime’ was a combination of theft or attempted theft (or robbery) from the person plus assault against the person. The unlucky tourist had been hit over the head with a rolled-up newspaper and relieved of the?100 in his wallet. Sadder and wiser, he should be back in Shanghai by now; meanwhile the money itself would have immediately been spent on booze or dope; and the case was closed as far as everyone apart from the statisticians were concerned. There was no way that the sergeant was going to waste his day looking through dozens of different CCTV images in a futile attempt to identify the perpetrator. The report was a purely bureaucratic requirement — which somehow made it harder work.
Sticking the last of the roll in his mouth, Joe wiped his hands and mouth on a napkin and dropped it in the cardboard box that he used as a bin. All the waste bins in the station had been removed as part of an initiative to encourage recycling. Inspector Carlyle had responded by bringing in a couple of empty boxes from a nearby off-licence the next day — the cleaners still emptied them and everyone remained happy. Glancing over at the empty desk next to his, Joe wondered what his boss was up to. Carlyle had made himself scarce over the last few days, which presumably meant he was off chasing after the young girl he had found in the park. If he ever needed something he would call. Until then, Joe was more than happy to wait.
Letting out a loud burp, he looked around guiltily to see if anyone had heard. Happily, no one else on the floor at that time of the morning showed any indication of noticing. Joe stood up and stretched. He would make a cup of tea and then get down to his report. Definitely.
As he stepped towards the kitchen, the phone on Carlyle’s desk started to ring. Joe looked at it warily. The phone kept ringing. Eventually, Joe picked it up. ‘Inspector Carlyle’s phone. .’
‘Carlyle?’
Joe didn’t recognise the voice, but the woman sounded agitated. ‘The inspector isn’t here at the moment. I am one of his colleagues. Can I be of any assistance?’
‘Who are you?’ the woman asked suspiciously.
‘Joe Szyszkowski.’
‘And you work with Carlyle?’
‘Yes,’ said Joe, wishing now that he’d never picked the bloody thing up. ‘I’m his sergeant.’
‘Can you get a message to him?’
‘Of course,’ Joe replied testily. He was regretting that he hadn’t bought a second bacon roll.
‘It’s urgent,’ the woman hissed. ‘He’ll want to speak to me.’
‘Okay.’ Joe grabbed a pencil and a Post-it note from the desk. ‘Fire away.’
‘Tell him to call Alexa Matthews immediately.’
‘Will he know what it’s about?’ Joe asked, in his best bureaucratic tone, but the line had already gone dead.
‘You can trust Joe.’
‘Why should I trust him? I sure as shit don’t trust you.’
Carlyle glanced at Joe and grinned. ‘Alexa is one of my favourite ex-colleagues.’
Joe Szyszkowski took a sip of his London Pride and said nothing.
Alexa Matthews didn’t smile. She’d emptied her umpteenth double gin and tonic and wanted another. And also a smoke. ‘Carlyle always was an annoying little shit,’ she observed grimly, to no one in particular.
The three police officers were sitting in the snug bar of the Fitzroy Tavern on Charlotte Street, north of Soho. The Fitzroy was famous for having been a haunt of intellectuals like Dylan Thomas and George Orwell in the early to mid twentieth century. Now it was a generic, brewery-owned public house with more than its fair share of tourists and all the atmosphere of a bus station.
In short, it was a perfect location for their present rendezvous.
Matthews thrust her empty glass at the sergeant. ‘Get me another drink, will ya?’
Reluctantly, Joe took the glass and stood up. He shot Carlyle a reproachful look and headed for the bar without enquiring if he, too, wanted a refill.
‘Make it a double,’ Matthews called to Joe’s retreating back.
He pretended not to hear.
She turned to Carlyle. ‘What did you bring him here for?’
Carlyle finished his Jameson, and felt the whiskey’s warmth spread through his stomach. Hopefully Joe would do the decent thing and bring him another. ‘I need the help,’ he said. ‘I can’t do it all on my own.’
‘I’m not sure I want him to know about this business.’
‘Alexa,’ Carlyle said firmly, ‘Joe works with me. I’ve known him a long time. I came to you because I wanted to sort out the mess in SO14.’ He stretched and yawned. ‘I will do that — with Joe’s help. And, of course, with your help as well.’
Matthews gave him a look. They both knew that to be a very ambitious statement.
‘So, what do you want to tell me?’
Joe reappeared from behind a gaggle of students and carefully placed the fresh drinks on the table. Carlyle grabbed the Jameson gratefully. ‘Thanks.’
‘No problem.’ Joe sat down on a stool and waited expectantly.
‘Okay, okay.’ Matthews took a swig of her gin. ‘Things have recently gone to shit in a big way.’
When Matthews had finished explaining about her run-in with Tommy Dolan and her subsequent carpeting by Charlie Adam, she drained the rest of her gin.
Carlyle glanced at Joe, but neither man said anything.
‘So. .’ Matthews said, staring into her glass, ‘what are you going to do about it?’
What am I going to do about it? Carlyle asked himself.
‘I’m worried that they’ll kill me next time,’ Matthews continued, ‘or else hurt Heather.’
For the first time she seemed the worse for drink and Carlyle wondered how much she’d had before arriving at the Fitzroy. ‘Nothing like that’s going to happen,’ he said soothingly. ‘Adam might be a bit of a knob, but he’s not going to do anything that stupid.’
‘He’s just a little shit,’ Matthews mumbled. ‘Anyway, it’s not him I’m worried about.’
‘Dolan,’ said Joe quietly.
‘Exactly,’ said Matthews, waving her empty glass at him. ‘Tommy fucking Dolan. Cunt-in-Chief.’
‘I think you’ve had enough,’ said Carlyle, taking the glass out of her hand and placing it carefully on the table. ‘I remember Dolan from my time in the Unit. He’s just a spiv who wants a quiet life. I’m surprised he had you beaten up, but he won’t go any further than that.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that.’ Matthews sat back, closed her eyes and sighed deeply. ‘There’s too much money involved. People have died already.’
Carlyle gave her a quizzical look. ‘What?’
‘You know how it is in SO14. Everyone works for Dolan. Joe Dalton worked for him.’
Joe made a so what? face. ‘The guy in the taxi? That was a clear suicide, no doubt at all.’
Matthews opened her eyes and started rubbing at her temples. ‘Christ!’ She turned to Carlyle. ‘Does this one ever catch any crooks? Why did Joe Dalton feel the need to rip his own head off? That is the bloody question.’
‘Which we have already asked ourselves,’ Carlyle said evenly. He didn’t like being talked down to by Alexa Matthews, but he needed her help now, so he would let it slide.
‘But not yet answered,’ Matthews shot back at him.
‘No,’ Carlyle admitted.
‘Dolan runs an investment company called United 14,’ Matthews said wearily. ‘It takes money from their various different enterprises, in order to provide a pension ‘‘top-up’’ for the boys.’
‘There’s nothing new in that,’ Carlyle remarked.
‘No, but the economy is currently in the shit. It has been harder and harder for them to make a decent return.’
‘Markets go down, they go up,’ Carlyle said airily.
‘Dolan can’t sit around and wait. His glory days at SO14 may be coming to an end.’
‘Why?’ Joe asked.
‘There is talk of bringing in another 150 armed protection officers to cut back on overtime. That means more than thirty grand a year to the likes of Dolan.’
Carlyle let out a low whistle. ‘Bummer.’
‘Dolan is steaming. He blames Princess Cheyenne.’
Joe and Carlyle exchanged quizzical looks. ‘Who?’ they asked in unison.
‘The daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Colchester,’ Matthews sneered. ‘She’s something like tenth or eleventh in line to the throne. She’s at some crappy northern university studying the history of modern art, or some useless pile of wank like that. The annual protection bill for her alone is about four hundred grand.’
‘A bargain,’ Carlyle said sarcastically.
‘That’s nothing,’ Matthews went on. ‘The little genius now wants to go and study in America. That means two officers providing twenty-four-hour cover and a bill that could easily top a million. The papers are on to it and the top brass are running scared. They hope that if they can just get the overtime bill down, no one will notice that the overall bill keeps going up. The Commissioner has said the government already needs to find another twenty million a year to cover all the costs.’
‘Royalty doesn’t do belt-tightening,’ Carlyle commented. ‘Cuts, like taxes, are for the little people — people like us. Buckingham Palace has always refused to allow any cuts. They argue that the police and the state have a duty to protect both the Queen and the line of succession.’
Joe yawned, as he often did when his boss got on his soapbox. ‘Coming back to Dolan,’ he interjected.
‘Dolan has had to diversify.’
‘Into what?’ Joe asked.
‘Into things that some people can’t live with,’ Matthews said cryptically.
‘Be more specific,’ Carlyle demanded.
Matthews tried to stand up, wobbled, and fell back into her seat. ‘That’s all I’m going to say until I get myself out of there.’
Carlyle changed tack. ‘Is Adam himself in on it?’
‘He turns a blind eye. Can you get me out of there?’
‘I’ll speak to my boss,’ Carlyle said. ‘Why are you telling me all this now?’
‘Because, annoying little shit though you are, you’re my best bet for getting out of this whole mess and keeping my job.’ This time Matthews made it successfully to her feet.
Carlyle tried one last time. ‘What do they do?’
‘Get me out and I’ll give you more. Otherwise, that’s your lot for now.’
‘Dalton was in on it?’ Joe persisted.
‘Dalton couldn’t take it any more. He couldn’t hack it. He was a bit lame that way.’ She brushed past Carlyle, and paused while trying to work out a path through the throng towards the door. ‘Have you seen Allcock yet?’
‘Who?’
‘Dalton’s girlfriend.’
Carlyle was embarrassed to admit that he hadn’t got round to that yet. ‘Not yet.’
Matthews gave him a crooked grin as she pushed her way past another group of drinkers. ‘Better get on with it then, hadn’t you?’
‘Here you go.’
Helen tossed the brochure on to his lap and flopped down on the sofa.
‘I thought it might bring back lots of happy memories,’ she said with a smirk, picking up the remote control and switching on the television.
Carlyle looked down at the Buckingham Palace: Official Souvenir Guide, and made a face. ‘Thanks a lot. When did you get that?’
‘When we went on the tour there last year,’ Helen said, flicking rapidly through a succession of channels in search of her nightly fix of audiovisual dross. ‘Alice wanted it for a school project she had to do.’
Carlyle turned the thin volume over in his hands, looking for the price. ‘How much did it cost?’
Helen shrugged. ‘Dunno. . eight quid, something like that.’
‘So,’ Carlyle felt a wave of parsimony wash over him, ‘all in all, with the tickets and everything, the whole visit cost you what — fifty quid?’
‘Easily.’ Helen had just found an episode of Argentina’s Next Top Model on some obscure satellite channel. Their time for talking was over.
‘Talk about the rich getting even richer.’
Opening the brochure, Carlyle perused the text: Buckingham Palace is furnished and decorated with priceless works of art from the Royal Collection.
He glanced over at his wife, who was engrossed in watching some girl in a bikini and biker boots being abused by an overly butch photographer in the middle of some desert. ‘Do they really need our money too?’
‘What?’ Helen didn’t look up.
Sighing, he read on. Buckingham Palace has 775 rooms, with 19 State Rooms, 52 Royal and guest bedrooms, 188 staff bedrooms and 78 bathrooms. More than 50,000 people visit each year as guests to banquets, receptions and Garden Parties.
The inspector felt annoyed by the boundless silliness of it all. ‘Have you got a decent hat? If I sort this mess out, maybe we’ll get invited to a Garden Party.’
The girl on the TV was now in tears. She was being asked to pose naked — apart from the boots — in the desert with some kind of snake. It was a big beast, too, maybe a python. Tossing the Official Souvenir Guide on the floor, Carlyle cuddled up to his wife to enjoy the rest of the show.