It was at this point that Holyrod’s political contacts came into play. His brother-in-law was one Edgar Carlton MP, leader of the opposition and, by common consent, prime minister in waiting. After some detailed discussions with his pollsters, Edgar persuaded his old pal to cash in his chips and take the fight to the real enemy – those disgusting, spineless liberals that had taken over Whitehall in recent years.
After a few phone calls, a bit of arm twisting and the promise of a few peerages, Holyrod was installed as Carlton’s choice for Mayor of London. After six months of campaigning under the party slogan, Change That Keeps Changing, he won a landslide victory over the incumbent, an immensely tired-looking woman with the air of someone who couldn’t get out of the job fast enough. The only time Holyrod ever saw her smile was on the night of the election itself, immediately after it was announced that she had lost.
According to received wisdom, the first hundred days are crucial for any newly elected official. That’s when the new broom can sweep clean, and you make your mark. After that it’s all downhill. For more than three months, Holyrod went in to work each day with a nagging feeling that he should be doing something significant. What, though, he had no real idea. Meanwhile, the less he did, the higher his poll ratings climbed; and the higher his ratings went, the more he was seen as providing the template for Edgar Carlton’s first national government, which was just around the corner. As the national election loomed, Holyrod’s job was to provide living, breathing proof that the party was fit to govern.
After the cameraman had taken the disc out of his camera, and was again breaking up his kit, Carlyle wandered over to join Rosanna Snowdon.
Snowdon watched him approach with a wry smile. ‘You don’t want us to do you as well, do you, Inspector?’
Carlyle held up his hands. ‘No, no,’ he said, stepping closer. ‘Not my kind of thing.’ As discreetly as possible, he breathed in her luxurious perfume. ‘I leave that to others.’
‘Very wise.’
‘I just wondered,’ Carlyle probed, as casually as possible, ‘about the connection between Mr Blake and the mayor…?’
‘It’s not a big deal,’ Snowdon said, stuffing her notebook into an oversized handbag and pulling out a very bling mobile. ‘They know each other from university. Just a minor detail, so not something you guys would necessarily have picked up on at this stage.’
‘And how do you yourself know that?’
She shrugged. ‘It’s just one of those things one knows.’
Carlyle considered asking her about the Mayor’s Office using Alethia, Blake’s PR firm, but decided to hold back. ‘Will that be part of your story?’
‘I doubt it. I wondered if it might make a nice angle, but maybe not. It’s a bit contrived and I probably won’t get anything like enough time to squeeze it in, anyway.’ She grabbed the handles of her bag and hoisted it over her shoulder, before holding out a hand. ‘Nice to meet you, Inspector,’ she said, pulling up a number on her mobile with her free hand, ‘but I’ve got to rush back to the edit suite. I hope that you’ll like the piece.’
Before Carlyle had the chance to reply, she was off, already talking into her phone and leaving only a fading whiff of scent in her wake.
FIFTEEN
Carlyle sat on a very nice two-seater cream sofa in the living room of Ian Blake’s small but perfectly presentable one-bedroom flat in Lennox Gardens in Chelsea. One of the most upmarket neighbourhoods in the city, it was only a mile, give or take, from where Carlyle himself had been born. The flat was smaller than Carlyle’s present home, but it was easily worth two or even three times as much. Even with the recent sharp fall in house prices, the place had to be worth around a million quid. Solid, understated, it was the type of property that would never go out of fashion.
The policemen and technicians who had spent the last three hours going over the place had packed up and headed back to the station. They had given no indication of finding anything of note, but they would be doing their job thoroughly and diligently, all the same. In line with the toxicology report on the corpse, they had found a small stash of cannabis which had been inexpertly hidden in a shoebox in the closet. There was nothing to suggest that Mr Blake was anything other than a standard middle-class dabbler.
Last night’s exertions were catching up with Carlyle and his attention wandered. He tried to focus on what he might want for dinner since, by the time he got home, Helen and Alice would have eaten and he would be fending for himself. He went through a mental list of what was stored in the fridge, and the likelihood of it still being there when he returned. Nothing grabbed his attention, so it looked like a trip to the supermarket beckoned.
In the corner of the room, a large plasma screen flickered silently, the sound muted while Carlyle waited for the local news to appear. The sofa was very comfortable. Sitting back, he yawned and closed his eyes.
‘Wake up! It’s on.’ Joe grabbed a large remote control from the coffee table and turned up the sound. He flopped down next to Carlyle and dropped the remote in the space between them.
Just over a minute later, it was all over. The highlight was a breathless piece to camera from Rosanna Snowdon, standing outside the Garden Hotel. Carlyle noticed she had undone an extra button on her blouse, providing an enhanced view of her seriously impressive decolletage. So this is why people watch local news, he thought. The piece also included a passport-style photograph of the victim, and a ten-second clip of a suitably dour- looking Simpson describing it as a ‘violent and senseless crime’.
‘She looks tired,’ Carlyle commented.
Joe grunted.
Snowdon signed off with: ‘The investigation continues.’ Carlyle did not have a speaking role, although he did appear on screen, nodding intently as he listened to Simpson’s wise words. Of Sergeant Joseph Szyszkowski, the man in the Marks amp; Spencer suit, there was neither sight nor sound. Nor was there any mention of the mayor.
Carlyle switched off the television and looked again round the room. ‘Like you said… spurmo.’
‘Huh?’
‘Not exactly a gay shag pad, is it?’ Lost in thought, they both studied the Helmut Newton ‘big nude’ which dominated the far wall: a black-and-white photo of a naked Amazonian blonde posing beside a motorcycle.
‘I wouldn’t mind one of those at home,’ Joe mused.
‘The woman? Or the photo?’
‘I’d settle for the photo.’
‘I’m sure Mrs Szyszkowski would be delighted to hear you say that.’
Joe shifted in his seat, but made no attempt to stand up. ‘A boy can dream. By definition, you don’t want your dreams to become reality, otherwise they wouldn’t still be dreams.’
‘Mmm… good try, soldier.’
‘Anyway, Anita knows that I understand my limitations… almost as well as she does.’
‘Just as well,’ Carlyle sniffed. He made a half-hearted attempt to get out of the sofa. ‘So where do you think we are now? Have we found anything useful?’
‘Not really. Not much of the personal touch here, is there? No photos, address books, stuff like that. His phone was in his hotel room. His BlackBerry is missing.’
‘Are we sure that he even had one?’
‘Yeah, his office confirmed that. You can’t be a proper PR man without one, apparently.’
‘So it was taken by the killer?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Can we track it?’ asked Carlyle, operating at the extreme limits of his technological knowledge. ‘It’s just like a mobile, right?’
‘Yeah, but it’s switched off. I’ve checked.’
Carlyle thought about that. ‘But if someone took it, presumably they want it for something. So, at some point they might be expected to switch it on?’
