The restaurant Kami no Shizuku, translated ‘Drops of God’, aimed to provide diners with a thoughtful, almost spiritual environment that would ensure the emotional calm required to spend thousands of pounds on a single meal. The celebrated Italian designer Simone Mestaguerra had chosen the finest natural materials to provide the place with a sophisticated image of timeless luxury that kept just on the right side of decadence. Drawing on the aura of a medieval monastery, the main dining area was a serene space detached from the wearisome realities of the everyday world. Exactly the right marble, the perfect limestone, the best hardwoods, they had all been sourced from around the globe to create a template for perfection.
Owner Kanzaki Carew thought about Mestaguerra’s €250,000 consultancy fee and uttered a silent prayer for his salvation. This evening, however, the timeless luxury didn’t make the place look any less empty. Business was slow, whereas this time last year it could have easily taken diners up to four months to secure a table. Back then the joke had been that reservations were so sought after that they were traded on the futures market. Well, no one was joking now: this market, like so many others, had collapsed.
Like everyone else, Kanzaki had become a victim of the recession. The private dining-room bookings from American finance houses had completely dried up over the last few months. The lunchtime trade – made up largely of City wives, media creatives, spin doctors and entrepreneurs – had similarly evaporated. And the days when bankers would spend tens of thousands on wine during a meal – a common enough occurrence for Kanzaki to have then instituted a house rule that the food was always free when the wine bill climbed beyond twenty thousand pounds – were a very distant memory indeed.
With a nervous sadness, he glanced at a framed bill displayed behind the cash register and vowed to take it down. It was undoubtedly bad karma. The highest bill ever charged in Kami no Shizuku’s history now mocked the penury of the present. It had been run up by a dozen bankers at the height of the boom, celebrating the closing of a monster deal by indulging in a nine-hour beano. The bill had once excited him and he could still recite it from memory, like his very own Lord’s Prayer:
Four bottles of 1995 Dom Perignon at?6,750 each;
A magnum of Mouton Rothschild 1945 at?20,000;
Three bottles of 1982 Montrachet at?2,400 each;
A 1945 Petrus at?15,600, a 1946 Petrus at?11,400;
A 1947 Petrus at?13,300; and
A 1900 Chateau d’Yquem at?10,700.
The tip alone had come to thirteen thousand pounds – half of which had gone straight into Kanzaki’s own pocket. The bankers had all been regular customers, but six of them had since been sacked. Of those still in a job, two were now working in Hong Kong and another two in Dubai, while another was trying his luck in Mumbai. Only one of them was still managing to keep his head above water in the bombed-out London market, and he, Kanzaki reflected bitterly, hadn’t been seen in the restaurant for more than three months.
Kanzaki knew that this record bill would never now be beaten. Indeed, no one would get anywhere close. Tonight, for example, none of his diners would end up spending much more than three thousand, tops. That kind of return was just not enough to keep the place going, and he now bitterly regretted splashing out more than three hundred thousand pounds on refurbishing his kitchen earlier in the year. At the top of the market, he had employed forty cooks; now they were down to less than half that number and he had plans to let another five go. Two of his three sommeliers had also departed, along with half a dozen other front-of-house staff. It distressed him to let his people go – they were a great team, professional, knowledgeable and charming – but he had no choice. The carefully stocked wine cellar would soon be quietly shipped out to Switzerland and sold. Plans to roll out Kami no Shizuku as a global brand, backed by a Chinese or Indian investor, were now totally dead in the water. With every quiet night that passed, Kanzaki was increasingly resigned to closing the place. There was no point in hanging on. Another two months like this and the costs would start seriously eating into whatever money he’d made for himself in the better years.
Sitting in the restaurant’s VIP section, Joshua Hunt watched Kanzaki Carew pacing the floor, and felt a stab of sympathy for his restaurateur friend. Joshua looked at the empty tables all around them and did some quick calculations in his head. The place had to be losing at least fifty grand a week, so it couldn’t be long before it closed. Joshua gave it two months, tops. He didn’t like to see Kanzaki suffering but, of course, life went on. Ultimately, it wasn’t Joshua’s problem. There would still be plenty of other places to choose from.
He felt a stab of pride that he himself could make money regardless of the economic situation. Whether the market was going up or down made no difference to Joshua and his computer programmes. His company, McGowan Capital, had run three of the best-performing investment funds in London for each of the last four years. This year, thanks to a timely move out of equities, property and oil and into gold, government bonds and, above all, cash, there was a good chance that they would win the top three places by some considerable margin.
Glancing at his Omega Seamaster, Joshua failed to stifle a yawn. The dinner seemed to have gone on for hours, so it was a relief when his two guests had finally called it a night. Now that he had been liberated from the client and his wife, he was in no hurry to leave. The abalone with goose web had been a delight that he wanted to spend some time ruminating on.
He never came to Kami no Shizuku simply for work alone, but for the whole experience. Tonight, having dealt with business, the exquisite meal demanded an extended period of reflection. Even more importantly, his two-grand bottle of 1982 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild still had some wine left in, it and he certainly wasn’t going to waste it. He stared into his glass and smiled, before raising a gentle toast to his wife. ‘Thanks for putting up with that.’
‘What?’ Carole Simpson had already forgotten about the couple they had spent the last two and a half hours dining with. Rather, she was wondering about the wisdom of having chosen the sticky toffee pudding for dessert. It had been delightful, as always, but she shouldn’t have let Kanzaki talk her into it. Once consumed, it became just a pile of additional calories that she didn’t need. Despite her surroundings, she still saw herself very much as a regular police officer, and was therefore embarrassed by the amount of time she spent sitting on her backside behind a desk. Her attempts to keep in shape were tortuous enough.
‘Thanks for coming tonight,’ he said, pouring the last of the wine into his glass.
‘My pleasure,’ said Simpson. ‘Well, not really, but you know what I mean.’
‘Yes, I do,’ her husband agreed.
‘Remind me. Who were they?’
‘Shane is a mid-level backer,’ said her husband casually. Mid-level meant someone who had put between fifty and a hundred million pounds into one of McGowan Capital’s funds. ‘He’s not nervous about the funds, which is just as well, considering he is locked in until next March, but he happened to be in town with his wife, and…’
Carole smiled. ‘And some reassurance and a free meal never do any harm when the stock market is in freefall.’
‘Exactly,’ Joshua agreed, suppressing a slight feeling of annoyance. He had explained all this to his wife at least three times in the preceding days, but by now he was used to her not paying much attention to his work. She seemed merely amused that he made so much money by pushing numbers across a computer screen. To a police officer it just didn’t seem real.
Her casual attitude didn’t really bother him, however, since he didn’t have much interest in her job either. They were more than secure financially, so there was no actual need for her to work. The way Joshua saw it, the police thing was less of a job now and more like a hobby. But neither of them had ever given thought to the idea that she might quit. The Job was a core part of her being, always had been, and he knew that she would never give it up voluntarily.
For a few minutes they sat in comfortable silence, while, not for the first time, Simpson eyed her husband with a mixture of bemusement and deep affection. How he had transformed himself from the rather unworldly Imperial College computer scientist that she had married into a razor-sharp financial investor, in ten short years, amazed her. She was just glad that the five-bedroom house in Highgate, the expensive restaurants, the needy clients and the political networking had not turned Joshua into a completely different person, robbing her of what she had seen in him in the first place. And it amused her that they could now mix in circles that were way beyond her previous expectations. Many of her social experiences were consequently way beyond the aspirations of even her most senior bosses in the Metropolitan Police. It was fun but it wasn’t what she had signed up for, and, if it all disappeared tomorrow, Simpson knew that she could happily go back to the way things had been before.
The meal had been pleasant enough, but now she felt deeply tired. Tomorrow would mean another extremely early start and, as always, the new day would bring more committee meetings and less policing. Responsibility without power was wearisome. The backlog of cases that she was ultimately in charge of was getting far too long for comfort. She wondered if John Carlyle had tracked down the Ahl woman yet. He should have given her an update this evening, but she knew how he hoarded his information carefully. All in all, he made her extremely nervous, and she even hated him for that. Why couldn’t the little rat-faced cynic just do what he was bloody well told, she wondered, not for the first time.
The problem with Mr John Carlyle, she had concluded long ago, was that he possessed too much of a sense of his own importance. Sudden heartburn sent a spasm of discomfort through her chest. She should have insisted that he bring the Ahl woman straight in to Charing Cross for questioning. Things would be far more straightforward once they had made an arrest. It was still Carlyle’s investigation, but Simpson knew that she had the bigger picture to consider. Maybe it was time for her to give him a sharp nudge. Getting this case off her desk would represent a big step forward.
Joshua was thinking about a cigar, but saw how tired his wife looked and decided against it. Instead, he caught Kanzaki’s eye and gestured for the bill. Turning back to his wife, he said: ‘The gossip is that the mayor is finally ready to take out the commissioner. After the election is out of the way, and Holyrod’s chums are settled in Downing Street, your man Osgood is a goner.’
Carole Simpson smiled. Like everyone else on the Force, she knew that the rumours had been gathering pace for some time. The present commissioner, Luke Osgood, had nailed his colours too closely to the mast of the old regime. Christian Holyrod, as trailblazer for the incoming Carlton regime, was busy flexing his muscles ahead of a change of government in Westminster. Changing Britain’s top cop was a good way of showing everyone just who was in charge now.
‘Luke was always his own worst enemy,’ she remarked airily.
‘Past tense?’ her husband asked.
‘Past tense,’ she agreed. ‘When he goes, no one will be surprised. He’s always been seen as too close to the current government. With them on the way out, he’s been a dead man walking for a while now.’
‘How loyal,’ he teased.
‘I am loyal,’ she smiled. ‘To his memory.’
‘Very funny.’ He gave one of those fake for-the-client laughs that she hated so much.
‘Seriously,’ she pouted, ‘in many ways, Luke was a great policeman. London is now a very safe city, and he should get some of the credit for that. But you know what they say…’
He played along. ‘What do they say?’
She grinned. ‘They say that all political careers end in failure.’
Joshua sipped his wine. ‘When he goes… it will shake things up?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘That’s got to be good for you?’
‘You’d hope so, but we’ll have to wait and see.’ She didn’t want to get carried away, but Simpson knew that she was still on the way up and the possibilities were exciting. And it would be a lie to suggest that she hadn’t given the matter some considerable thought over recent months. At the very least, she should be able to skip chief superintendent and go straight to commander. From there, an assault on assistant or even deputy commissioner beckoned. She could see it all falling into place, especially if they sorted out this other business quickly and discreetly.
‘By the way, how is the Carlton thing going?’ It was as if he was reading her mind.
Simpson took a dainty sip of her peppermint tea and replaced the cup carefully on the saucer. ‘It looks like we are finally making progress. My inspector has tracked down a woman called Susy Ahl, who is the nearest thing we’ve got to a suspect.’
‘Interesting.’
Kanzaki silently appeared at his shoulder and placed the bill on the table. Joshua Hunt gave it a cursory glance and fished out his American Express Centurion Black card.
‘Apparently, Ahl was the girlfriend of a boy called Robert Ashton. Ashton killed himself at Cambridge in 1985,’ Simpson said quietly, once Kanzaki had retreated a respectful distance. ‘It was Ashton’s photo that was left at the Hogarth crime scene.’
‘So it’s a revenge thing? You think she did it?’ her husband asked, as the restaurant owner returned with the hand-held card reader.
Simpson waited while her husband typed in his PIN and collected the receipt. When they were alone again, she replied. ‘She’s the only lead that Carlyle seems to have at the moment.’
‘If it really was her,’ Joshua asked, ‘why would she leave such an obvious clue?’
‘Who knows?’ Simpson sighed. ‘People like that are, by definition, not very good at thinking straight.’
‘Or maybe she wants the publicity,’ Joshua mused.
‘Perhaps,’ Simpson agreed. That was what really worried her.
‘A killer who wants to get caught…’
Simpson shot her husband a look that said: Don’t make me join the dots for you…
‘Shouldn’t you arrest her?’ Joshua asked.
‘That’s a very good question, but for the moment it’s Carlyle’s decision. He wants to size her up first. As he sees it, she’s not an immediate threat. There’s no chance she can get anywhere near the remaining members of the Merrion Club.’
‘Isn’t that taking a bit of a chance?’
‘It’s Carlyle’s call.’
‘I see.’ Joshua Hunt slowly swallowed the final drip of wine. It tasted truly wonderful, but the knowledge that he himself could still drop two grand on a bottle of plonk in times like these tasted even better. After a while, he said: ‘You know that I’m seeing Edgar tomorrow morning.’
Simpson sipped more tea. She had completely forgotten about her husband’s big breakfast meeting. Another ten thousand pounds for providing a cup of terrible coffee and a muffin, she supposed. She didn’t understand why her husband was so keen to cozy up to Edgar Carlton, but it was Joshua’s money and therefore that was his prerogative. On top of the million-pound cheque he had written at the beginning of the year, he had signed up to something called ‘The Leaders’ Group’, which gave the party fundraisers carte blanche to bleed him dry at every opportunity. Simpson herself merely saw it as an expensive hobby, but it still puzzled her. It wasn’t as if Joshua needed these people to help McGowan Capital make money. Maybe he had dreams of becoming an MP? Or maybe it was just something in his home-counties DNA. Whatever, if that was as far as his mid-life crisis went, she knew that she should be grateful.
‘It’s an Election Day working breakfast,’ Joshua smiled, ‘for myself and a couple of dozen other top donors. But I’m sure that I’ll get the chance to speak to him.’
‘Won’t he be too busy tomorrow?’
‘No, they’re very relaxed. Despite the polls, they know it’s in the bag. Edgar is spending the whole day in London, as he doesn’t want to be seen to be rushing around like an idiot, chasing every last vote.’
The whole business filled her with a sense of endless boredom: a bunch of boys rushing around drunk on self-importance. ‘Isn’t that what politicians are supposed to do?’ she asked sweetly.
‘That’s the whole point,’ he said huffily. ‘This lot are breaking the mould. Anyway, if I don’t get to speak to Edgar, Xavier is seated on my table. I will definitely get to talk to him, at the very least. Shall I mention the woman?’
You just want to demonstrate to them that you’re in the know, Simpson thought. Show off a bit. But she indulged him. ‘All right, if the opportunity arises, mention her to them, but please remember to be discreet. This is an ongoing investigation, and one that I am ultimately responsible for.’
‘I know.’
Simpson’s heart sank. She always knew when her husband wasn’t listening. ‘For goodness sake,’ she repeated, ‘be discreet. Be extremely discreet.’
‘Of course.’ Her husband flashed her the kind of smile that he usually reserved for his largest clients. ‘I always am.’