same time.
Doubtless, Miles broke various laws of one sort or another, mostly relating to drugs and prostitution, on a daily basis. But he did so in a way, and in an environment, that meant his misdemeanours were of little or no concern to Carlyle. Both men understood that socially acceptable levels of behaviour were in a constant state of flux, and invariably strayed beyond the letter of the law.
Like Miles, Carlyle believed in self-interest, enlightened self-interest. This was as good a basis for their relationship as any, requiring no real thought and the minimum of action.
Like any good policeman, Carlyle very rarely concerned himself with the self-obsession and self-indulgences of the rich. He knew that, when it came to money, the law was only partially blind. Most of the time, the best way to deal with the well-off, with their acute sense of entitlement, was merely to ignore them. He always thought that he inherited such pragmatism from his father, who had never tired of advising his son: ‘Don’t get into pissing contests you can’t win.’ For Carlyle, after more than forty years on the planet and more than twenty years on the job, this rule only broke down with the extreme cases… like murder, for instance.
Like any good fixer, Miles knew where to get anything and everything. That was a basic requirement of the job, since the hotel’s ‘itinerant tribe’ could be very demanding. It was his ability to acquire specific, reliable, up-to- date information for his clients that became of occasional interest to Carlyle. Once Miles realised that the inspector was a pragmatist, and otherwise not in the least bothered about the needs of his ‘tribe’, he felt comfortable in doing business with him. As a result, the two men had casually established a modest relationship, just one of the hundreds that populated each man’s professional life.
There were now four of them standing around the concierge’s table. It was a mahogany Regency writing desk, largely hidden behind an oversized sofa in the left-hand corner of the lobby, and which did not fit in with the rest of the decor in any way, shape or form. Carlyle and Miles had now been joined by the obtuse porter, Brolin, and by PC Tim Burgess, a rather pretty but callow-looking youth who was currently half hiding behind a pillar.
Burgess had arrived with Carlyle from the station, but rather stood out here in his uniform, and also seemed rather overawed by his surroundings. Within two minutes of arriving in the lobby, the young constable had received an interested, wolfish glance from a clearly inebriated middle-aged woman wandering across the foyer from the bar towards the lifts. Carlyle was amused to see Burgess blush dramatically and he half expected the woman to come over, throw PC Burgess over one shoulder and carry him upstairs. Without a doubt, frozen with fright, Burgess would have been powerless to resist. Thank God I’ve got the help, Carlyle thought. Let’s hope the killer, if there is a killer, has already left the building. He tossed the brochure back on the desk and turned to focus on Miles.
‘Has Brolin told you about the note?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Miles nodded. ‘How bizarre. Do you think it’s a joke?’
‘Probably,’ Carlyle smiled slightly, ‘knowing your clientele.’
Miles frowned. ‘That’s a bit harsh, Inspector. I’ve never experienced anything like this before.’
‘I suppose it makes a change from them trashing hotel rooms, shitting out of windows and beating up hookers,’ Carlyle mused, referring back to a previous incident, where one member of the entourage of a visiting American actor had ended up making the short trip from the care of Mr Miles into the care of Mr Carlyle, and back again… before either the judiciary or, more importantly the media, had become involved.
‘There’s not a lot of that kind of stuff either, these days.’ Miles sounded almost disappointed. ‘It’s one of the consequences of the credit crunch.’
‘I’ve read about that.’ Carlyle smiled the sickly smile of a public servant who knew that the shortcomings of the international credit markets remained someone else’s problem. At least until some bastard politician started hacking away at his pension. If this crash took some rich tossers down with it, that had to be a good thing. But the sense of schadenfreude was fleeting, knowing that people like that always seemed to get by. ‘It must be tough for your customers…’
Miles raised his eyes to the heavens. ‘It’s squeezing us quite hard.’
‘Anyway,’ Carlyle continued, ‘let’s keep it to ourselves ’til I’ve had a proper look. Who gave you the note?’
Miles jerked one shoulder in the direction of the desk. ‘It was left on the blotter. Twenty quid on top of it. I was in the bar at the time, so I didn’t see who put it there.’
‘Cameras?’ Carlyle asked. He couldn’t immediately see any, but there had to be some. ‘Will they have recorded anything?’
‘Maybe.’
Carlyle told Burgess to make a note about checking the closed-circuit television later, if it became necessary, and turned back to the concierge. ‘How long ago was this?’
Miles made a face. ‘Maybe a couple of hours.’
‘And you didn’t bother to read it.’
‘Never thought about it.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘A surprising lack of curiosity,’ Carlyle mused.
‘You get something like that,’ Miles reasoned, ‘how likely is it to be something that I am really going to want to know about?’
Carlyle acknowledged his point and changed tack. ‘So it took you an hour to get it round to us?’
‘We were busy. A party of Chinese tourists arrived late, after their plane was delayed six hours. Their luggage was sent to Reykjavik, and the Heathrow Express was up the spout. You know the sort of thing.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Carlyle, who cared not a jot about the totally shit nature of Britain’s transport infrastructure. Rising from the recesses of his memory, Gang of Four’s ‘At Home He’s A Tourist’ started playing in his head. Leave home to see the sights and you’re asking for trouble. The sensible thing was just to stay at home, surely there was more than enough for them to see in the People’s Republic – was it still a People’s Republic? – anyway. He looked expectantly at Miles. ‘Have you still got the twenty?’
Miles shook his head. ‘I nipped up the road to Epoca for a quick macchiato and bought a packet of Marlboro at the same time.’
Par for the course, thought Carlyle. It would have been far too straightforward for him to have just kept the bloody thing. At least it should still be in the cafe’s cash register, as no one would be asking for a twenty in change at this time of night. He quickly despatched Burgess to try to recover the note from Epoca. It was only twenty yards down the road, so hopefully the young PC would not get lost, mugged, raped, or otherwise distracted on the way.
Carlyle watched Burgess leave the premises and then looked around the lobby one more time. It was fairly quiet now. The noise from the Light Bar had subsided to a gentle murmur, and even the party animals seemed to have called it a day. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘let’s go see the manager.’
Miles danced around from behind the desk and led Carlyle past the sofa and the pillar, and various other eclectic furnishings, as he headed further into the lobby. ‘The night manager is Anna Shue,’ he said, nodding in the direction of a tired-looking brunette in the hotel’s uniform, who was just coming out of the lifts. She had her hair pulled back in a ponytail, making her look quite austere, and her lack of make-up – a big plus in Carlyle’s book – added to this overall effect.
Carlyle stepped forward. ‘Fine. Stay down here. Make sure that Brolin stays, too… and keeps his mouth shut.’ He put on a frown. ‘If this is a load of bollocks, we’ll forget all about it and you’ll just owe me another favour.’
Miles took a theatrical step backwards and put on his best bemused expression. ‘ Another favour?’
‘Yes, indeed,’ Carlyle nodded.
‘And if it’s not bollocks?’ Miles asked.
‘It’ll be a lot more than one favour.’
Miles sighed. ‘Understood.’
‘Good man! That’s the spirit.’ Carlyle gently punched him on the shoulder. ‘Go and have a cigarette. If I’m not back in five minutes, it means we’ll have to start conducting some formal interviews.’
Looking tired and hassled, Anna Shue did not seem surprised by Carlyle’s sudden appearance in front of her. Doubtless, Alex Miles had already tipped her off about what was going on. Not that it mattered anyway, but it annoyed him. Why did people find it so hard to keep their mouths shut? This was just another way in which Alex
