Buckingham Palace Blues

‘Shen’s mate?’

‘The very same.’ Pushing back his chair, he jumped up. ‘Let’s go.’

Ignoring an offer of coffee, Warren Shen stood facing Ihor Chepoyak in the back room of Janik’s cafe and wondered about the wisdom of coming up to Kentish Town on his own. There were two messages from that funny, distracted policeman from Charing Cross on his mobile, neither of which he’d responded to. Carlyle had stirred up this hornet’s nest, so maybe he should have brought him along. Whatever, it was too late now. ‘Where’s the gun?’

Ihor stubbed out his cigarette and exhaled a long line of smoke in the direction of a poster, advertising a Christina Aguilera concert in Kiev, which had been stuck on the wall since his last visit. ‘What gun?’

‘The gun you used to kill that policeman,’ Shen said, as casually as he could manage.

‘What policeman?’

‘Merrett. Simon Merrett. The guy we found chained to the floor in that empty office block in North London.’

Ihor made a face as he slurped his espresso. ‘That was quick.’

Shen stiffened at this confession of sorts. ‘You left a bullet in his brain.’

‘Two.’

‘One entered the back of his head,’ Shen said mechanically, ‘and exited through the front. One of them did not exit.’

Ihor shrugged. ‘Does it make a difference?’

‘Not really. The point is that you’ve overstepped the mark. This will have to be dealt with. You can’t kill policemen in this country.’

Ihor emptied his demitasse. ‘He wasn’t a policeman; he was just some kind of social worker.’

‘He was CEOP,’ Shen said wearily, clearly bored by the semantics, ‘part of the team. Anyway, why was he investigating you? Was it because of this girl?’

‘Me?’ Ihor laughed. ‘He wasn’t investigating me. He was investigating you. They think you are corrupt.’

Shen thought about that for a moment, then decided it was irrelevant to the matter in hand. ‘Have you got the gun?’

Ihor pulled the Fort-12 CURZ pistol out of his pocket and aimed it at Shen. ‘Of course I have.’

‘There — that one! Down at the far end.’

Joe Szyszkowski steered the unmarked Ford Focus between the potholes on Arkan Street, until Carlyle pointed to a space opposite the shabby cafe. ‘Park it there.’

‘Shit!’ said Rose Scripps, sitting in the back. ‘I’ve lost my signal. My au pair’s going to kill me.’

Joe glanced at Carlyle, who shrugged. Rose had insisted in coming along for the ride and he couldn’t be bothered to argue with her. Getting out of the car, he crossed the road. The cafe looked empty of customers, just like the last time he was here. It was late in the day. He wondered if there was any babka left.

Reaching out to open the front door, he heard the shot. For a moment he paused, his hand on the door handle, signalling to Joe that he should call for back-up. Then he stepped cautiously inside. There was no one behind the counter and, Carlyle noted sadly, no cake either. Matter in hand, he told himself, matter in hand.

‘Police!’ he shouted. The silence grew louder. Gliding across the linoleum floor to the back room, he thought he heard something — a groan. Joe had arrived at his shoulder. Wisely, Rose had stayed on the street outside.

‘Reinforcements?’ Carlyle whispered, waiting for the welcome sound of sirens approaching.

Joe nodded.

This time the noise from behind the door was louder. It definitely sounded like someone in pain.

Still no sirens.

‘Fuck it!’ Carlyle turned the handle and burst inside, Joe following behind. The pair of them walked straight through the pool of blood spreading on the floor.

‘Fuck!’

Shen sat slumped, dazed, in a chair. He had been shot in the stomach. With some effort, he raised his chin and looked at Carlyle. ‘Get me an ambulance,’ he rasped.

‘It’s on its way,’ Carlyle said, leaving Joe to check Shen’s pulse and make him more comfortable.

‘I’ll be okay,’ Shen continued. ‘He didn’t want to kill me, just slow me down.’

‘Ihor?’ Carlyle asked.

‘Yeah.’ Shen tried to nod. ‘It was the same weapon he used to shoot Merrett. He legged it out the back.’

Conscious that he was trailing blood all over the place, Carlyle quickly slipped off his shoes and checked the alley behind the cafe. By now, of course, Ihor was long gone. The inspector went back inside and — still in his stockinged feet — looked through the two rooms upstairs, without finding anything of interest.

By the time he came back down to recover his footwear, Shen was being wheeled out to a waiting ambulance, while Joe and Rose were talking to a couple of the dozen or so uniformed officers who had arrived on the scene in response to reports of an officer down.

Once they had been abused for trashing the crime scene, given their statements and extricated their car from behind the police cordon, Carlyle insisted that the sergeant drive Rose home. ‘Drop me at the nearest tube,’ he told Joe. ‘We’ll call it a day.’

‘What are our next steps?’ Rose asked.

‘I don’t know that we have any,’ Carlyle said wearily. ‘Simpson will be mad when she hears about these latest developments, so it’s doubtless back to the day job for me. Ihor is probably on his way out of the country by now. The Border Agency may or may not be able to stop him disappearing. He could be on the Eurostar already. If he gets to Paris or Brussels, forget it.’

‘We have the link to Falkirk,’ Joe reminded him.

‘We do, but that’s not enough.’ They turned a corner and Kentish Town underground station appeared before them. ‘Let me out here.’

With Joe idling in traffic, Carlyle jumped out of the car. Not realising that his shoes were still leaving faint prints of Shen’s blood on the pavement, he picked up a copy of the Evening Standard. Reluctant to join the crowds heading into the tube station, he walked into a pub and ordered a double Jameson. Sitting with his drink and his paper, watching normal people going about their business, he savoured a feeling of relief at rejoining the real world, if only for a little while.

TWENTY-THREE

Carlyle sat on the front pew close to the central aisle in the chapel at the West London Crematorium, in Kensal Green Cemetery. The chapel could accommodate up to 100 people, but he was alone and no one else would be turning up. It was just him and the apologetic piped music. In front of him, Alzbetha’s oak casket sat on the catafalque beneath a high, navy canopy, with floor-toceiling curtains descending on either side. Feeling tense, he glanced at his watch and read through the General Cemetery Company’s leaflet on ‘committal procedures’ for the third time.

Shivering in the cold, he wondered why they couldn’t just press the start button and get on with it, considering that there was to be no service. They were still trying to track down any family that the girl might have back in the Ukraine. It might be a lost cause, but Carlyle had decided to collect her ashes, just in case. If he hadn’t been able to look after her in life, he thought, at least he could do it in death.

He had insisted that the Local Authority should not be allowed to bury the child in a ‘pauper’s grave’ — which was just a pit containing up to thirty bodies. Most people assumed that mass graves had gone out with Charles Dickens, but sadly it was not so. Only a week or so earlier, a fox had taken a baby from another pauper’s grave in Battersea New Cemetery. The grave had not been properly sealed. That was London: all human life was here — all human death as well.

The arrangements had been handled by B. German amp; Son of Lamb’s Conduit Street and the cost covered