Buckingham Palace Blues

low-energy bulb hanging from the ceiling above her head bathed the room in a grubby light that hid the dirt and the flaking paint on the walls, but only added to the sense of gloom. Outside, from the suburban North London street, came the constant hum of traffic. Inside, there was nothing in the room apart from the girl and the bed. It looked like a prison cell. It was a prison cell.

‘So. . what shall we do with her?’

The older man looked surprised at the question. ‘It’s business as usual. We have bills to pay.’

‘Isn’t that a bit risky?’

‘What do you want to do? Shut the whole thing down?’

The younger man looked at the business card in his hand. ‘No, but-’

‘You worry too much. The police will lose interest very quickly. They had already handed the kid over to Social Services before you got her back.’

‘That’s how I got her back.’

‘So everything now is sorted.’

‘It’s just so damned annoying to have this type of problem.’

‘It’s nothing. Think about it from their point of view. They have lost the girl, and they have no leads. The last thing they want is anyone asking questions about how they managed to lose a nine-year-old girl who was supposedly in their care. Within a week they will have forgotten that she even existed.’

The girl was quiet, resigned now. It was almost as if she was in a trance. The older man marched over to the bed and pulled her upright by the hair. ‘No more running away,’ he hissed.

The girl started screaming.

‘Calm down!’ The younger man gently freed her and she slumped back on to the bed. ‘She can’t understand you anyway.’

The older man made a fist. ‘Oh, yes, she can, the little bitch! It’s time that she earned us some money.’

The younger man stepped back out of the room. ‘She will. In the meantime, if it’s bothering you that much, see what you can find out about the policeman who found her. If it comes to it, we can have him dealt with.’

Alzbetha rubbed her tingling head as she watched the two men leave the room. The door clicked shut behind them and she heard the key turn in the lock. Pulling her knees up to her chest, she began slowly rocking backwards and forwards on the bed. Looking round the bare cell, she wished that they had at least let her bring her colouring book. She hoped that the nice man who had bought it for her would come and get her, but she knew that he wouldn’t.

Sitting in Simpson’s office in Paddington Green police station, Carlyle noticed that she had removed the picture of her husband from her desk. As far as he could tell, the photo had been the only personal touch she had ever allowed herself in all the years spent in this cramped, over-heated office. Now it was gone, presumably never to return. Wondering why she hadn’t filed for divorce, he quickly concluded that it was none of his business. He wasn’t really that interested anyway.

Simpson sneezed, bringing him back to the present.

‘Bless you.’

‘Thank you.’ She looked up, as if awaiting some barbed comment.

Carlyle said nothing. Returning her gaze to the desk, she made a scribble on a memo. Arms folded, he waited for her to read the various reports and tried not to look bored.

After a couple more minutes, she pulled a file from the bottom of the heap and flipped it open. Quickly, she scanned the text in the hope that it had somehow changed since she had read it last. It hadn’t. With a sigh, she closed the file and pushed it across the desk towards Carlyle. ‘We don’t have a lot, do we?’

‘No.’

‘What other work have you got on at the moment?’ It was an admission of defeat.

Trying not to smile, Carlyle ran through a dispiriting list of misdemeanours and anti-social behaviour that he was supposed to be sorting out.

‘Fine,’ Simpson said. ‘Go and talk to Superintendent Warren Shen in Vice. I’ve sent him a copy of your report. He’ll decide if there’s anything they can do. In the meantime, feel free to shake things up a bit. See what you can find.’

‘Okay.’ Carlyle grinned.

‘You are right,’ Simpson sniffed, ‘this is horrible. We should give it some of our time.’

‘Thank you.’

‘But if you find you’re not getting anywhere,’ Simpson said flatly, ‘don’t drag it out.’

SIX

Carlyle walked out of the train station, heading in the direction of Windsor Castle. According to a tourist brochure he had read on the train, Windsor Castle was the Official Residence of Her Majesty the Queen and the oldest and largest still-occupied castle in the world. At the moment, however, the old girl wasn’t at home. Rather, she was on a state visit to Costa Rica, doing whatever it was that you did on state visits. During his time in Royal Protection, Carlyle had never travelled anywhere more exotic than Cardiff. That was more than far enough away from home, where he was concerned. Anyway, wasn’t Wales considered a kind of foreign country these days?

It had turned cold. When the wind blew, Carlyle realised it was time to be breaking out his winter wardrobe. Walking through the town centre, he buttoned up his raincoat and lengthened his stride. After five minutes, he turned down Peascod Street and headed for the Royal Joker public house.

The Royal Joker occupied the ground and lower-ground floors of a nondescript 1970s office block. Given that it was barely eleven o’clock in the morning, Carlyle was not surprised to find the place completely empty when he stepped inside the pub. On the wall at the back was a sign pointing to a games room and the beer garden. Nodding at the girl cleaning the tables, Carlyle went through the main bar and down some stairs into a large room that, if anything, seemed even colder than the street outside. At the far end, a pair of French windows led out on to a patio on which stood a few forlorn plastic tables. Inside, a couple of tatty leather sofas sat next to a wall. Above one was a large poster of Mount Iron in Wanaka, advertising holidays in New Zealand. In the middle of the room was a coin-operated, red-topped pool table. A handwritten sign on the side said ?2 a game. Two half-empty pints of lager stood on the rim of the table, next to a small cube of blue chalk.

Ignoring his arrival, two women were engrossed in a game that had clearly just started. The one leaning over the table was bulky, with a low centre of gravity. Her short dark curly hair and pained expression gave her more than a passing resemblance to Diego Maradona in his post-playing days. One foot off the ground, she bent forward, searching for the right angle for her next shot. Watching her intently was her companion, a tall, thin woman in black jeans and a black T-shirt. With too much make-up and violently black hair, she looked to Carlyle like a Goth pensioner. He was pretty sure she was the girlfriend. He remembered meeting her once or twice during his time in Royal Protection but couldn’t remember her name. Studiously ignoring him, she picked up her pint and took a dainty sip.

With a grunt, the woman at the table over-hit her shot and watched the cue ball slam into the middle pocket and disappear. ‘Shit!’

‘Unlucky,’ Carlyle said, stepping towards the table.

Alexa Matthews slid away from the table and turned to face him. ‘Fuck off.’

Making an effort to almost smile, he looked her up and down. They were about the same height, but she was twice his width. Wearing a pair of biker boots, torn jeans and an Iron Maiden T-shirt, she looked every inch the off- duty copper that she was. Matthews had been dressing the same way for at least twenty years. In his opinion, the nose ring and the three piercings in each eyebrow didn’t really suit a woman in her late forties. Presumably she took them out when she went on duty.

‘What are you doing here?’ she scowled, grasping her pool cue tightly.

‘I wanted a word,’ Carlyle said evenly, glancing cautiously at the cue. ‘I left you a message.’

‘And I didn’t reply,’ Matthews said. ‘Didn’t that tell you something?’

The other woman had retrieved the cue ball and proceeded to pot a couple of colours in quick