They were sitting in the back booth of Il Buffone, a tiny 1950s-style Italian cafe on the north side of Macklin Street, just across the road from the flat. Alice had been coming here since she was born; Carlyle quite a bit longer. Today, it was just gone 4 p.m. and they were the only customers left in there. The owner, Marcello, had just flipped the Closed sign. Humming ‘Cuore Matto’ — ‘Mad Heart’ — an Italian pop song from the 1960s, he went about his end-of-day routine, in no hurry to usher them out.
Alice played with the straw in her orange juice and looked up from the table. ‘You know, Dad, I’m not stupid.’ She gave him a withering look.
Just like her mother, Carlyle thought. A familiar and not altogether unpleasant feeling of helplessness washed over him.
‘Just because some of the girls in the class are behaving like idiots,’ Alice continued, ‘it doesn’t mean that I’ll behave like that too.’
Carlyle felt a stab of pain in his chest and forced himself to smile. ‘I know, sweetheart.’ This was his chance to raise the drugs issue, following Helen’s tip-off about the latest problems at City School for Girls. His daughter seemed happy enough to talk about it, but Carlyle was painfully aware that he didn’t really have much to say. After all, there was nothing that he could actually do to lessen the risks. He gripped his demitasse tightly. ‘It’s just that. .’ He glanced at the crumbling poster of the 1984 Juventus scudettowinning squad on the wall above Alice’s head. But even Trapattoni and Platini couldn’t offer any practical assistance on this one. ‘Well, your mother tells me a couple of girls were expelled.’
‘Yeah, but that was a while ago now.’ Alice finished her juice and pulled on her overcoat, signalling that she was ready to go home.
‘One of them was in your class?’ Carlyle observed, as casually as he could, conscious that he was slipping into policeman mode.
‘Yeah, Susan Watts. But I never really hung out with her. I don’t think she did anything, really.’
‘What does that mean?’
Alice frowned. ‘I don’t think she actually took anything. Susan didn’t do drugs herself. She always seemed manic enough without them.’
Carlyle raised an eyebrow. ‘So what did she do then?’
‘She just held some stuff for her boyfriend,’ Alice replied, equally casually. ‘That’s what they found on her: five or six roll-ups with skunk in them.’
‘Her boyfriend?’
‘He goes to Central Foundation. Well,’ Alice grinned, ‘you know, he used to. He was expelled as well. He was a bit ugly. But he was sixteen.’
Sixteen? Carlyle thought. Jesus Christ. ‘Oh,’ he mumbled, trying to keep any trace of panic from his voice. What was more worrisome: drugs or boyfriends? Discuss. He took a deep breath. ‘Do you-’
He was interrupted by Marcello, who appeared at the table with a couple of unsold pastries in a bag for Carlyle. He handed it to the inspector and smiled at Alice. ‘How’s school these days?’
‘Fine, Marcello, thank you,’ she said primly. ‘Although I still have to submit to the occasional interrogation from my father.’
Marcello chuckled. ‘You should listen to your father, young lady. He knows what he’s talking about.’
If only, Carlyle thought. If only. His mobile started ringing in his pocket. He pulled it out and hit the receive button. ‘Hello?’
‘John? This is Warren Shen. You were trying to get hold of me?’
He found Shen sitting in a dingy cafe off the Holloway Road, hunched over a mug of coffee. Facing him was a youngish woman, who looked pretty but tired and worried. Without saying anything, Carlyle pulled out a chair and sat down with them.
Shen nodded to the woman. ‘Rose, this is Inspector John Carlyle. He’s from the Charing Cross station. John, this is Rose Scripps. She’s from-’
Carlyle cut across him brusquely. ‘Have you heard anything from Ihor yet?’
Shen sat back in his chair and eyed Carlyle carefully. ‘No. Not yet.’
‘You know we found the girl.’
‘I know,’ Shen sighed. ‘It’s horrible.’
Carlyle glanced at the woman, who was watching them closely but said nothing. He turned back to Shen. ‘So what are we going to do about it?’
The uncomfortable look drifting across Shen’s face said It’s not really my problem. He took a sip of his coffee and Carlyle noted the legend on the mug, celebrating Arsenal’s Invincibles from 2003-4, the season when they didn’t lose a single game. That did nothing to improve his mood. The inspector, a Fulham fan, hated Arsenal. The favoured club of the effete metrosexual media elite who understood nothing about football or its heritage, they were almost as bad as Chelsea.
‘I will go and see Ihor again,’ Shen said finally. ‘And my boys have got the word out that we really want this one. We will keep at it.’ His mobile started vibrating its way across the table and he grabbed it quickly. ‘Hello? Yes. .’ Lifting up a finger to signify he would be back, Shen stood up and walked to the door.
Saved by the bell, Carlyle thought as he watched the superintendent standing out on the pavement, with his back to them, as he spoke on the phone. Suddenly he felt hungry. He looked at the woman, who was now checking messages on her BlackBerry. ‘Would you like anything to eat?’
Without looking
* * *
Carlyle was sipping a double espresso and waiting for his fried-egg sandwich when Shen finally reappeared. ‘Sorry,’ he said, holding out a hand. ‘I’ve got to go.’
Carlyle shook it limply.
‘I’ll let you know when I get to speak to Ihor,’ Shen continued. He looked over at the woman. ‘Rose, keep me posted on your. . problem.’
‘I will,’ she nodded.
‘I hope your guy turns up.’
‘Me too.’
‘Okay,’ said Shen, shuffling towards the door. ‘See you later.’
As soon as Carlyle’s sandwich appeared, he added some ketchup and took a large bite. The woman finally finished with her BlackBerry and dropped it into her bag. Fishing out a business card, she pushed it across the table towards Carlyle.
Taking a second bite out of the sandwich, Carlyle eyed the card: Rose Scripps, Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. ‘What do you do there?’ he asked.
‘I’m a child protection social worker, on secondment to CEOP Victim ID Team from the NSPCC.’
‘Mm.’ Another bloody social worker, Carlyle reflected. That’s just great. He was aware of CEOP, although he had never previously worked with anyone from there. An uncomfortable thought flitted through his brain: maybe he should have thought about contacting them earlier in his investigation. He looked Rose Scripps up and down. Could this child protection social worker be any use to him? ‘And how do you know Shen?’
She studied him equally carefully. ‘I don’t, really. I was just hoping that he might be able to help me with a case I’m working on.’
‘Good luck with that.’
Rose sat up in her chair and put her hands on the table. ‘Why do you say that?’
Carlyle popped the last of the sandwich into his mouth and wiped his hands on a napkin; then he drained the last of his espresso. ‘Well. .’
They spent the next twenty minutes drinking coffee and comparing notes. Carlyle was embarrassed to admit that Alzbetha had gone missing while she was supposed to have been in the care of Westminster Council but Rose showed no surprise. ‘Last year, more than three hundred children arriving in the UK went missing from the care of local authorities,’ she said.
‘How many of them were being trafficked?’ Carlyle wondered.
‘Many are, for sure. I worked on Operation Pentameter a while back, and there’s a market for children, just as there’s a market for adults.’
‘Pentameter?’ Carlyle shook his head. ‘Don’t really know much about it.’
‘We were targeting sex trafficking and forced labour. There were hundreds of raids, and hundreds of arrests. More than two hundred victims were recovered, including a dozen or so girls aged under eighteen.’
‘You found twelve out of two hundred?’ Carlyle made a face. ‘That doesn’t sound so good.’
‘None of our statistics ever do.’ She stared out the window, and for a moment he thought she might start to cry. When she turned back to him, however, there was a steely glint in her eye. ‘Those children come from all over the place. Many of them are from West Africa, China and Vietnam, but also from places like the Ukraine in the old Soviet Bloc. Some come off their own bat, asking for asylum. Most are sent by traffickers. If they are picked up at the airport by the authorities, the traffickers know the likely places the children will be taken. Or they tell the children to run away once they get there. Local authorities just don’t take the issue seriously enough.’
Carlyle grunted his agreement on that point.
‘So, of course, when a child goes missing,’ Rose continued, ‘we have no records at all. No photographs, no real names and no documents. Vietnamese boys end up working in illegal cannabis factories. West African girls are forced into brothels or domestic service. The Chinese children work in restaurants or selling DVDs door to door.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Even the children staying in local authority homes can be abused. I was told of one case of four girls in care who were taken to work as prostitutes each day by their trafficker.’
‘I suppose that makes good business sense,’ Carlyle groaned, ‘insofar as it cuts down on their costs.’
Rose frowned. ‘Are you always this cynical, Inspector?’
‘I try to be.’ Carlyle smiled thinly. ‘I like to think of it as a God-given talent.’
They sat in silence for a while longer. Finally, Rose stood up and announced that she had to go and collect her daughter.
‘We should continue this later,’ she said.
Carlyle nodded. ‘Yes.’ It seemed clear that there could be a connection between their respective cases. Signalling to the waitress for the bill, he watched Rose Scripps head off briskly down the road. Interesting woman, he thought. Maybe, just maybe, she can help me crack this.