‘What happened to him?’ Carlyle asked, wary now that they had moved on to business.
‘He shot himself in the head,’ said Dominic, amused.
‘What?’ Carlyle scrutinised the handset. ‘He filmed himself committing suicide? I didn’t think that people in your line of work tended to suffer from depression.’
‘Not exactly,’ Dominic grinned. ‘He was showing off to a mate and didn’t realise there was a round still in the breech.’
Carlyle watched Jerome put the gun to his head. ‘Darwinism in action.’
‘That isn’t what killed him, though,’ said Dominic cheerily. ‘The bullet kind of bounced off his skull and missed his brain.’
‘Which, presumably,’ Carlyle mused, ‘was tiny.’
‘Yeah.’ Dominic laughed. ‘What actually killed him was the hundred-foot fall off the top of his building.’
‘What an outstanding effort,’ Carlyle said, then: ‘How did you come by the video?’
‘Lots of people have it now,’ said Dominic. ‘Jerome’s acquaintances were unusually co-operative with the police. No one wanted to be accused of killing him.’
‘That’s understandable.’ When the video clip ended, Carlyle idly hit the play button and watched the final moments of Jerome Sullivan unfold again from the beginning. If you didn’t know what had happened, you wouldn’t have been able to say if the video was real or fake.
‘They’ll be wanting something to drink,’ Dominic said suddenly, nodding at the kids, who were running back towards them.
‘Yes,’ Carlyle agreed. But that thought was quickly pushed aside as something else popped into his mind. He halted the Sullivan video once again and went back to the start. Letting it run for about five or six seconds, he paused at the point where one of the other men on the roof stuck his hands in the air in mock surrender. Squinting, he brought the phone closer to his face, until it was only about four inches from his nose. The quality of the image was poor, but, if you knew who you were looking at, you could make out the man’s face.
‘Dominic,’ he asked, ‘what’s Michael Hagger doing in this video?’
TWENTY
Suffer the little children, thought Carlyle, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
A-fucking-men to that.
Helen was been incandescent at having another Sunday interrupted. She had booked a yoga workshop for that afternoon and Carlyle had been supposed to take Alice to the zoo. But he had insisted, trying to explain to her that he was obliged to deal with this one. He had promised Amelia Jacobs that he would speak to Michael Hagger, to stop things getting out of control. But he hadn’t. And they had.
Jake had been picked up from nursery by his father almost a fortnight ago. Neither of them had been seen since. Except for Michael Hagger’s appearance in the video clip, which Carlyle now had stored on his phone. That afternoon he had spent some time in Kentish Town, trying to track Hagger down. Zero success. Now he had to go and face the music.
Sam Laidlaw lived less than five minutes’ walk away from Carlyle’s flat. Walking through Covent Garden, Carlyle counted nine A4-sized MISSING posters in shop windows or tied to lamp posts. The flyer had a blurred digital image of a frowning Jake Hagger, above a text that offered a?2,000 reward for information about the boy’s whereabouts. Carlyle had no idea who had put up the money, but he was fairly sure that it would never be claimed. Already, the posters had a grubby and forlorn look about them. Jake was a fairly nondescript kid, whose most memorable characteristic was that his mother was a hooker and his father an all-round, general purpose scumbag. He was most definitely not the kind of pretty, middle-class kid with articulate, professional parents who could drum up a large supply of media interest and public sympathy. His time in the media spotlight had been brief and perfunctory. Within a few hours, he was usurped in the news agenda by a mentally ill man who had climbed into the lion enclosure at London Zoo.
To the extent that it was doing anything at all, the police investigation was busy chasing dead ends. In any child disappearance case, 99 per cent of members of the public who came up with ‘information’ were simply time- wasters — psychics, visionaries, dreamers, nutters or ‘well-wishers’ who simply wanted to wallow in other people’s misery. Even these wretches had shown only a minimal interest in the disappearance of Jake Hagger. As far as the inspector was aware, there had been no decent leads at all. Sidestepping the tourists, and keeping out of the sun, Carlyle knew that those posters wouldn’t last another week.
Two minutes after arriving at Phoenix House, he found himself back on the same orange leather sofa that he had sat on during his last visit. This time it was dirtier, with even more stains and a new collection of cigarette burns on one arm. Sam Laidlaw sat in an armchair opposite him, staring doggedly at the carpet. Carlyle looked for improved signs of life but Laidlaw still looked like a zombie. Aside from the odd sniffle, she made no sound.
Amelia Jacobs was considerably more presentable. Dressed in black jeans and a grey, long-sleeved T-shirt, she paced the floor between them. Carlyle said nothing while Amelia gave him a hard stare, looking him up and down as if he was some John who couldn’t get it up. Finally she asked: ‘Did you ever talk to Michael?’
‘I did try.’ Carlyle leaned forward and gave her some proper eye contact. ‘I couldn’t find him.’ Not that I tried very hard, he thought. ‘Did you know a guy called Jerome Sullivan?’
Laidlaw made no sign of even hearing his question.
Jacobs frowned. ‘No. Why? Has he got something to do with this?’
‘I don’t know,’ Carlyle replied, ‘but I know Michael has been hanging out with him recently.’
‘He must be a right scumbag then,’ Amelia snapped. ‘Have you spoken to him yet?’
‘He’s dead,’ Carlyle said casually.
‘Great! So what are you going to do about it now?’ Amelia’s question was a reasonable one. If nothing else, he admired her determination. She seemed to be the only person who really cared about the kid. Even if Jake came back, he would go straight into the care of Camden Children’s Social Services. His mother had blown her last chance. It would be a miracle — or, rather, a scandal — if she ever got her kid back. Amelia knew all this already, but she would still not give up.
Carlyle shrugged. ‘It’s not my case.’
‘The other guy,’ Amelia snorted, ‘doesn’t give a toss.’
‘Cutler?’
‘Yeah. A copper in search of a freebie, if I ever saw one.’
‘I spoke to him about the case the other evening.’
She looked doubtful. ‘And?’
‘And they are on top of everything,’ said Carlyle, parrying the query as best he could.
‘Right.’ Amelia looked as if she wanted to give him a slap. He couldn’t blame her.
‘I’m sure that they,’ Carlyle corrected himself, ‘that we will find him.’ The reality was that he wasn’t sure at all.
Amelia Jacobs balled her fists, her face locked into a brittle stare. ‘Someone has got to show some interest in this little boy.’
Giving up on the eye contact, Carlyle stared at his shoes.
‘Otherwise, it’s like the poor little sod never even existed.’
‘Yes.’
‘That bastard can’t have just vanished.’
‘No.’
‘It’s been weeks now…’ Her voice trailed off.
Carlyle stared harder at the floor. ‘I know.’ He did know. He could shut his eyes and paint a very clear picture in his head. But that didn’t mean he could do anything about it.
Waking the next morning, Carlyle watched Helen pad out of the bedroom to make a cup of green tea. Declining her offer of coffee, he got up, stretched and headed into the bathroom. After getting dressed, he decided on one last effort at conciliation. The TV was still playing, but Alice’s fifteen minutes were up and it was time for
