‘In the meantime,’ Simpson continued, ‘let’s avoid any leaks. And, of course, the quicker we can get this solved, the fewer problems there will be. Let me have a full verbal report every twenty-fours hours. Whatever you need to get the job done, take it.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, forcing himself to maintain eye contact.
‘John,’ Simpson smiled one of the fakest smiles he had ever seen in his life, ‘I am always here if you need me. You know that, don’t you?’
‘That is a great help,’ Carlyle lied.
‘Good. I’m glad,’ Simpson lied back. Picking up one of the papers on her desk, she began reading it.
This was his cue to leave, and he took it.
Feeling much happier than when he had arrived, Carlyle quickly left the station and sauntered down the Edgware Road. Heading south, in the direction of Marble Arch, he realised that he was in London’s North African neighbourhood and therefore spoilt for choice in terms of coffee and cake. He passed a succession of cafes with men in shalwar kameez smoking oversized hookah pipes at pavement tables. Taking a right turn, he passed the north end of Connaught Square, glancing up at the inevitable pair of heavily armed policemen guarding the fantastically expensive town house of a previous prime minister. It had been bought a couple of years just before he left office and as the lucrative lecture and non-executive director circuit hove into view. With his current successor struggling so badly, it looked as if Edgar Carlton would soon be the third PM in short order. All political careers end in failure, some more quickly than others, Carlyle reflected. He knew that, within twelve months of getting the job he so shamelessly coveted, Carlton’s ratings would be lower than a snake’s belly in a storm drain. People might want the old guy back, even though they had hated him when he was in the job. What a shit job: it was even worse than being a policeman.
Fifty yards down the road, Carlyle took a seat outside the Cafe du Liban and ordered some of their thick, strong, black coffee sprinkled with cardamom seeds, along with a heavy, sticky pastry. At this time of the evening, the place was basically empty, since he had been lucky enough to hit the gap between office workers leaving for home and the locals arriving for a post-dinner coffee and gossip. Enjoying the peace, Carlyle settled down to turn things over in his head and map out what to do next. However, with his mind flitting from one thing to another, he found it impossible to focus on the case.
Letting his gaze roam over the middle distance, he was distracted by the sight of a dwarf chatting with a Big Issue seller on a street corner across the road. The dwarf was waving his arms about, and the magazine vendor was scratching at his beard and nodding vigorously. I’m in one of the crazier David Lynch movies, Carlyle thought unhappily, rummaging in his pockets for his BlackBerry and his different mobiles. If he couldn’t process information in his head, he could at least do it on his various machines.
As it turned out, the only thing of note on any of them was a voicemail from Rosanna Snowdon on his ‘work’ mobile (as opposed to his ‘private’, untraceable, pay-as-you go phone). Snowdon hinted at some new development in ‘the story’ and asked him to call her. He wondered how she had got his number. The message was timed at 4.20 p.m., so he assumed that he’d missed her deadline for today. He would give her a call tomorrow, even if only to discover what she knew. Carlyle saw journalists primarily as people to get information from, rather than the other way round. On that basis, he liked them well enough. He understood the rules of the game, and so did Rosanna. When the time came, both of them would be happy enough to share.
Carlyle was about to switch off his phone and return it to his pocket when it started vibrating again. A text told him he had another message. Irritated, he pulled up the number for his answerphone and hit the call button.
‘This is a message for Inspector John Carlyle. My name is Harry Allen. I was looking to speak to you about Ian Blake…’
‘Fuck!’ Carlyle punched the recall button.
‘I’m sorry,’ said a prim electronic voice, ‘but the number you are calling is not available. We are unable to connect you…’
‘Fuck, fuck,’ he looked at the handset with a mixture of resignation, disbelief and genuine hatred. Punching another button, he waited for the message to return.
‘This is a message for Inspector John Carlyle. My name is Harry Allen. I was looking to speak to you about Ian Blake. I am out of the country at the moment, but I should be back in London next week. I will give you another call when I return.’
‘When you return?’ Carlyle hissed at the phone. ‘When you fucking return? This is a murder investigation, for God’s sake! What is wrong with you people?’ Flicking through his missed-call list, he also had a ‘no number’ from three minutes ago. How could I miss that? he thought. The bloody thing just didn’t ring. Resisting a strong urge to throw the handset under a passing taxi, he wondered if there was some way he could trace that call. At the very least, he could get Joe to track down Allen’s number, and they should be able to get hold of him eventually. The good news was that at least someone was offering to talk.
His coffee arrived along with a generous slice of baklava. His attention now focusing on the humble delights in front of him, Carlyle finally dropped the mobile into his pocket and began to let the vexations of the day slip from his mind.
EIGHTEEN
As instructed, the Range Rover Vogue SE pulled into parking space U3A28 Horseferry Road car park in Westminster, just a few blocks north of the Palace of Westminster. Killing the engine, Nicholas Hogarth switched off the Coldplay CD that had been burbling along in the background during his journey into town. The drive from Heathrow airport was easier than expected, and he was actually fifteen minutes early. He undid his seat belt and sat in silence, listening to his heartbeat ticking over in syncopation with the cooling engine.
After yet another sixteen-hour day, he felt exhausted but elated. The four espressos on the plane (and another in the airport) were doing their job. It was a relief that he was finally back in London, for advising on the restructuring of Moscow’s Dzhugashvili Bank had been hard going. Russia was still very much the Wild West of global capitalism, which was saying something these days, and everything there was chaotic. With the financial markets in freefall, floating the bank on three different stock markets simultaneously – a tricky manoeuvre at the best of times – was taking much longer than it was supposed to. This latest trip had been scheduled to last three days, but, eventually, he had been stuck out there for almost two weeks. His Russian clients were driving him mad, too, but at least he had been paid this time, which was another reason to party.
Nicholas liked to party. His wife wasn’t expecting him home for another twelve hours and, for the first time in a long time, he could enjoy a little freedom.
Outside the car, the top floor of the garage was silent, bathed in an industrial yellow glow from the sporadic strip lighting dotted about the concrete ceiling. Most of the parking spaces were empty, and he had seen no other people since he arrived. Gripping the steering wheel, he rocked slowly backwards and forwards in his seat, feeling a huge surge of adrenaline as he thought about what was coming next.
Within half an hour, he would get to fuck a total stranger with abandon. This was always the best part of these sessions: the anticipation of imminent, guaranteed, greedy sex. Exotic sex. Strange sex. Degrading sex. Expensive sex. Sex that was all about him.
That was what Serenissima was all about.
Serenissima was a Swiss-based agency that he had been introduced to by a business contact in Zurich, three years ago. It was a ‘complete-experience agency’, and he used them every couple of months. Usually at the end of a tough business trip like this one, or when his regular life just became too boring for words.
The agency was invisible. It billed one of his trading partners in Liechtenstein, so that the cost was lost amongst the thousands of transactions that went through the books at his financial services boutique in St James’s every year.
He paid Serenissima to take control, and its slogan was No limits, no boundaries, no preconceptions. He set the time; they set the where and the how. And the who.
It could be anyone, male or female, aged eighteen to seventy. That was part of the delicious pleasure of the
