‘How would that help with my investigation?’
‘You have no leverage over him. I, on the other hand, can realistically hope to have some influence on his access to the Palace and on the privileges he enjoys there. Maybe, together, we can have a different type of conversation with him.’
‘What type of conversation?’
‘Well. . Gordon has a self-pitying approach to life, something which is surprisingly common among the royals. Maybe we could give him something more tangible to worry about than his usual concerns.’
Not very likely, Carlyle thought. On the other hand, it would be stupid to turn Simpson’s emissary away. He signalled to Marcello for the bill. Turning back to Mayflower, he tried his best to give a look that might just be considered an approximation of gratitude.
‘Okay,’ he said, ‘when did you have in mind?’
TWENTY-FOUR
Alexa Matthews sat up in bed and yawned, idly scratching her left breast through the thin cotton of her T- shirt as she watched Heather who was curled up beside her, dead to the world. It was 2.10 a.m., which meant that her disciplinary hearing was due to start in just under eight hours.
At the hearing, she would be represented by her Federation rep, but the guy was so totally useless that she was seriously thinking about doing it herself. The whole situation was a complete nightmare: her transfer out of SO14 had collapsed and Charlie Adam’s threat to have her thrown off the Force completely was not something that the union had been able to have lifted. By teatime, Alexa thought, she might no longer be a policewoman. No job was bad enough, but it also meant no pension. Last time she looked, there was just over?56 in her savings account. She would be totally screwed.
Sitting there in the dark, she wondered what she could do for a living if she left the police force. Nothing sprang to mind. A shiver of fear went through her. She desperately wanted a fag. Heather had always insisted on a strict no-smoking policy in the bedroom, but tonight, surely, she should be allowed. She gave Heather a gentle poke to see if she was really asleep. There was no response, so Alexa decided she would risk it. Reaching down alongside the bed, she heaved her bag on to her lap and began rummaging around for a packet of Lambert amp; Butler’s and her lighter. Underneath the cigarettes, she noticed her mobile was flashing. Someone had sent her a message. Sticking a cigarette in her mouth, she opened it.
She looked at the time of the weird message: 2.06. Some tosser had obviously texted the wrong mobile number. Grunting, she tossed the phone back into her bag and pulled out her lighter. There was the sound of footsteps on the street outside, then the door to their building opened. The couple downstairs had been out partying again, Alexa assumed, lucky buggers. Lighting her cigarette, she took a deep drag. ‘Ahh!’ As soon as the nicotine entered her bloodstream, the world suddenly seemed a less scary place.
She was carefully blowing the smoke away from the bed, when the door was kicked in. In the doorway stood two men with balaclavas covering their heads. One carried a small wooden rounders bat, like a half-sized baseball bat. The other was carrying two large plastic bottles filled with liquid, one in each hand.
Alexa stared at them dumbly. Was she dreaming?
Heather grunted and pulled a pillow over her head.
Alexa snapped out of her stupor. ‘Get up, you stupid bitch!’ she hissed, struggling out from under the duvet.
She had barely got her feet on the floor when the man with the bat stepped forward and smashed a fist into her face. ‘Back on the fucking bed!’
Holding her broken nose, Alexa moaned as the other man unscrewed the cap from one of the bottles. She could smell the petrol even as he began pouring it over the bedcovers.
‘Hey!’ Belatedly coming to life, Heather sat bolt upright. Dropping one of the bottles on the bed, her attacker grabbed her by the throat and started pouring petrol from the other over her head. She tried to cry out but the fuel flowed into her mouth and she began to gag.
‘No! Please!’ Alexa tried to push herself up again, but her legs had turned to jelly. Then she saw the spark of the lighter. Her bowels loosened, and then gave way completely, the stench mixing with the smell of the petrol. She looked at Heather trying desperately to clean the petrol from her eyes, and started to cry. ‘There’s no need,’ she sobbed. ‘I’ll go quietly. I’ll say nothing.’
The men emptied the last of the petrol from the bottles and stepped away from the bed. ‘You were told to keep your mouth shut,’ one of them replied flatly. ‘But you didn’t, did ya?’
‘I won’t tell,’ Alexa moaned.
‘We know you won’t,’ he sneered, tossing the lighter towards her. For a moment, there was silence, then a
Rose Scripps looked up at the arrivals board located in the middle of the tiny terminal of City Airport in East London. It indicated that SwissAir LX462 had arrived on time. Standing to her left, a cluster of taxi drivers were waiting by the gate, holding up name-boards for their passengers. As casually as she could manage, Rose strolled past them, glancing at each one in turn. None of the boards had the name Boyko scrawled on it. That, in itself, was of no particular significance but it did nothing to quell the gnawing worry in her stomach. This operation would end up costing thousands of pounds. Had their intelligence been wrong? It wouldn’t be the first time.
A disembodied voice reporting from airside gave her the answer.
Standing at a news kiosk, flicking through a driving magazine, Haddon made eye-contact but didn’t otherwise acknowledge her. He had been less than pleased at being dragged out on this foul night, moaning about having to go on ‘another wild-goose chase’. Rose had been sympathetic but had stood her ground. They’d had precise intelligence for once and now the thirteen-year-old runaway from an orphanage in the Crimea had turned up just as anticipated. They were on to something here, just as long as they didn’t lose the girl.
Rose wondered if she should have argued harder for more bodies for her team. There was no one else from CEOP. Simon Merrett hadn’t been replaced yet and the rest of the team were thinly spread. Rose wasn’t exactly thrilled to be here herself; paying Sasha, her au pair,?10 an hour that she didn’t have, to look after her daughter, while she was hanging around on the other side of London. Rose began fretting as she wondered whether Louise had gone to bed yet.
In addition to Haddon, she’d been given three Armed Response Officers: little more than teenagers with guns, who were hovering in the darkness outside. Should she have called Inspector Carlyle? Then again, what could he do that three strapping young men kitted out with Heckler amp; Koch G36s couldn’t? Would he have even agreed to come all the way out here, if she’d asked? She knew that she wasn’t the only one with family commitments.
Rose turned away from the arrivals gate and took a few steps towards the only restaurant in the terminal that was still open. ‘Remember,’ she said quietly into the microphone boom, ‘let her come all the way through. She’s bound to be picked up. We want
‘Yes, Mother,’ Haddon teased.
She turned back to the arrivals gate. Passengers had started appearing, and Rose felt her heartbeat accelerate till she was conscious of the pulse in her neck. She had a sudden need to pee and grimaced — that would just have to wait.
Rose spotted the girl immediately among the grey morass of business travellers. Her name was Yulia Boyko.
