Closer inspection of the phone indicated that he had missed another three calls. When did that happen? How come he had never heard the bloody thing ring? There was one voicemail as well, but he wasn’t going to check it just yet. It would doubtless be Simpson, and he didn’t want to speak to Simpson until after he’d seen Carlton. At the earliest. Instead, he called home and gave Helen an update on the situation.
‘Looks like you’re still quite a bit behind the game,’ she said, gently pulling his leg.
‘I know,’ said Carlyle, laughing, ‘but at least now I can start to shake things up a bit.’
‘You could be in for a busy few days?’
‘We’ll see,’ he said, watching a duck waddle towards him. It stopped about two feet away and looked at him expectantly. When he didn’t come up with some bread, it turned around and crapped on the path, before heading back the way it had come.
‘Be careful,’ she added.
‘Of course.’
‘I’m serious, John,’ she said reproachfully, ‘these are not normal people you’re dealing with here.’
‘They never are.’
‘I know,’ she said, ‘but this is the other end of the spectrum. Normally you’re wading through the bottom end of the gene pool. This is different.’
‘You mean I’m playing out of my league?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thanks a lot,’ he said, with mock indignation.
‘Don’t be silly. It’s not about you. With people like that, it never is. It’s all about them. Don’t get in their faces.’
‘Me? Never!’
Helen sighed loudly. ‘You never learn, do you? Just be careful. And good luck. I’ve got to get Alice to school now. Let’s talk later.’
‘Give her a kiss from me. Tell her I’ll try and take her sometime soon.’
After hanging up on his wife, Carlyle scoured the back pages of the newspaper for any decent football news. Finding nothing of interest, he folded the paper and tossed it on to the bench beside him, before checking his emails. There was nothing of interest on his BlackBerry either, so he moved on to his private mobile. There were yet more unanswered calls and another message, timed at 8.30 the previous evening. This time he checked his voicemail.
Dominic Silver’s message was short and to the point: ‘Why didn’t you tell me about the Merrion Club? Call me back.’
‘Why do you think?’ Carlyle said to himself. He switched the phone off and stuck it back into an inside pocket of his jacket. That was another conversation to be delayed until later in the day. Yawning, he got up from the bench and stretched. It was almost twenty past eight now and the rush hour was in full swing. The park was getting busier, with a steady stream of people using it as a pleasant short cut on their way to work. Carlyle picked up his newspaper and dropped it in a nearby bin.
Then he headed off to see Mr Carlton.
Everyone likes a winner, and the Royal Academy of Engineering was full to bursting. Simpson would kill for a crowd like this, Carlyle thought. More than a hundred journalists and a dozen camera crews had turned up to listen as Edgar Carlton, flanked by two severe but eager-looking women, whom Carlyle didn’t recognise, revealed the secret of how precisely he was going to fix Britain’s ‘broken society’.
Waiting for it to finish, Carlyle quietly sat at the back, playing the BrickBreaker game on his BlackBerry. After about twenty minutes, they went to Q amp;A. After another ten, a PR flunky called a halt to the proceedings. Immediately, the journalists and cameramen swarmed to the front of the room to grab the man of the moment and ask him the same questions all over again.
Carlyle moved in the direction of the crowd. He was happily hovering behind a rather foxy-looking German reporter when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
‘Good morning, Inspector,’ said Rosanna Snowdon, ‘how nice to see you again.’
‘Er… yes. You too.’
‘You didn’t return my call,’ Rosanna said sweetly.
He casually feigned ignorance. ‘Sorry?’
‘I left three or four messages on your mobile.’
Three or four? He vaguely remembered one.
She gave him just the slightest pout. ‘You never called me back.’
Had that been deliberate or not? He couldn’t remember. ‘Sorry.’
‘Never mind,’ she said, in a cheerily forgiving manner. ‘I can’t even remember what my message was about.’
He assumed that was a lie. Rosanna Snowdon didn’t strike him as the kind of woman who forgot anything. ‘Ian Blake, perhaps?’
‘Who?’
Don’t over-egg it, he thought. ‘The guy who was killed at the Garden Hotel,’ Carlyle reminded her. ‘You came to our press conference.’ He gestured at the continuing throng. ‘Not quite as big a deal as this.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Snowdon nodded, ‘Carole Simpson. The superintendent is a very impressive woman. It must be great for you to be working with her.’
Carlyle said nothing.
‘Anyway,’ said Snowdon, moving on, ‘what brings you here?’
Carlyle realised that there was no point in trying to bullshit his way out of it. ‘I’m looking for a quick word with Mr Carlton.’
She smiled at him, in a very disconcerting way. ‘Ah, yes, that would be in relation to the Merrion Club, I suppose.’
Seeing the discomfited look on Carlyle’s face, she reined in the smile and returned her beautifully manicured hand to his shoulder to give him a reassuring pat. ‘Don’t worry, Inspector. Who am I going to tell? Your superintendent has everyone in line on this one. And if the papers don’t run it, the BBC isn’t going to touch it with a bargepole. We would never have the stomach for a legal dispute like that. Anyway, it is not the kind of publicity that Edgar needs right now. So, tell me, how is your investigation going?’
‘It’s going,’ Carlyle replied tersely, unable to manage a smile of his own. He glanced quickly around the room. The scrum of journalists was slowly thinning out, so Carlton himself would be off soon. Carlyle would have to try to grab his chance while he could.
‘I’m surprised you haven’t managed a chat with Edgar before now,’ she prodded.
Carlyle said nothing.
‘Come on,’ she said, taking his arm, ‘I’ll introduce you.’
In front of them, the PR flunky was trying to close it all down. ‘That’s it for this morning. Thank you all for coming. If you have any further questions, please call our press office.’ The remaining journalists ignored him and kept on hurling questions at his boss.
Rosanna pushed her way through a couple of cameramen until she was almost facing Carlton. ‘Edgar!’ she cried, stepping deftly in front of the German reporter and planting a kiss firmly on Carlton’s cheek.
‘Rosanna! How nice to see you,’ Edgar replied warmly, before kissing her on both cheeks. Carlyle was amused to see him firmly squeeze her backside at the same time.
‘You were on good form this morning,’ she remarked.
‘Thank you.’ Edgar glanced at Carlyle, who was hovering at Snowdon’s shoulder like a lost schoolboy, and casually removed his hand from her left buttock. ‘Do you need an interview?’
‘No,’ Rosanna replied, ‘I think we’ll take a clip of the bit where you talked about your “iron will to repair the shattered hopes and dreams of a generation”.’
‘Very good.’
Grabbing Carlyle by the arm, she dragged him forward. ‘I wanted to introduce you to a friend of mine.’ She took a half-step to one side. ‘Edgar, meet Inspector John Carlyle.’
The German reporter didn’t notice the cloud pass over Carlton’s face as he turned towards the policeman. It
