THIRTY-FOUR

It was well after six o’clock when he got back to Charing Cross Police Station. Joe Szyszkowski had not yet reappeared, so Carlyle sat at his desk and watched the BBC’s rolling news on a monitor suspended from the ceiling. The sound was off, but subtitles scrolled across the bottom of the screen, allowing him to follow what was being said. The stock market wasn’t waiting for the result of the election, before it collapsed. Some know-nothing news pixie was explaining how share prices were plunging, the capitalist system was doomed, and everyone would be living in caves by Christmas.

‘You don’t want to listen to that rubbish,’ said Joe, wandering across his line of vision. ‘It’ll only make you depressed.’

‘There’s never been a better time to be poor,’ Carlyle said mirthlessly, grabbing a remote from the desk behind his own and turning the news pixie to black, with a flourish.

‘That’s handy,’ Joe grinned.

Carlyle tossed the remote back on his desk just as he felt his mobile start vibrating in his pocket. For once he had managed to pick up a call! Recognising Ahl’s mobile number on the screen, he hurriedly pushed the receive button.

‘Hello?’

The line immediately went dead.

He rang back but got a ‘network busy’ signal.

Bastards!

He tried again, but got the same thing.

Bastards! Fucking shit technology!

He somehow resisted the temptation to throw the handset at the wall. At the third attempt, he got through, but it went straight to voicemail. Once again, he didn’t leave a message. Why was she ringing him? Maybe she had come to terms with the fact that the game was up.

In anticipation of their evening’s work, Joe had booked a Mitsubishi Shogun from the station garage. The previous user had still to bring it back in, however, and the car pool was empty apart from a couple of Smart electric cars that were currently being trialled by the Met. No self-respecting copper, including Carlyle and Joe, would be seen dead in one. Carlyle thought about catching the tube, but he couldn’t be arsed to slog his way through the rush hour. Anyway, they still needed a car to bring Ahl back to the station. It was time to wait.

Waiting had always been a key part of the job, and by now Carlyle was quite good at it. For the next hour and a half, he and Joe kicked the case around, looking at what they had, what they lacked and what they had missed. In the end, they called a halt, finding themselves back where they had started. As far as anyone could tell, Susy Ahl had killed three members of the Merrion Club in revenge for what they had done to Robert Ashton all those years ago.

Was the woman crazy? That was for a doctor to decide. It was not for Carlyle himself to judge. Crazy or not, he had to admit that taking down four members of the Merrion Club was a hell of a result, far better than a lone, middle-aged, female lawyer could have hoped for at the outset of her killing spree. The icing on the cake would be to destroy the political careers of the Carltons and also Holyrod. To do that, she needed to be caught. She wanted her fifteen minutes of fame.

And who, Carlyle thought, are we to deny her that?

The journey across London had taken the best part of an hour, so it was after 8 p.m. when they parked on Atlanta Street, at the south end of Fulham Cemetery. With the end now in sight, Carlyle felt shattered. He got out of the car and stamped the ground, trying to rid his body of the lethargy. The street was quiet and the air was still. The edge had come off the mugginess and the sky was getting darker by the minute. That meant it was going to rain very soon. Unprepared, as usual, he knew that a soaking beckoned.

Atlanta Street was just across the Fulham Palace Road from Susy Ahl’s house on Harboro Street. Access to Harboro Street itself was blocked by roadworks. A twenty-yard stretch of it was littered with the usual items of machinery scattered around a trench about a foot wide and three feet deep, which had been cut into the tarmac along the middle of the road. It was all cordoned off behind temporary metal fencing on which hung a notice informing them that the thoroughfare would remain closed until late July. Pedestrians could still squeeze past by using a three-foot gap left open on the pavement to his right.

Carlyle heard a growl of thunder. It was quickly followed by a large raindrop landing on his head. Cursing, he tried to shrink inside his jacket, while lengthening his stride. Almost immediately, the rain came spearing down, bouncing off the road and drenching him. He had planned on making his dramatic entrance rather differently, but nothing could be done about that now. Trusting that Joe was keeping pace behind him, he began jogging towards the house.

Only when he was about fifty yards away from his destination did he look up. The rain had driven everyone from the street except for a couple of kids and an old bloke sheltering under a tree with its roots in the pavement. One of the kids was using his mobile phone to record video of an ambulance as it slowly pulled up at the kerb, the siren off but its blue lights illuminating the gloom. Switching the lightbar off, the paramedics pulled on their anoraks. They showed no desire to get out of the cab in a hurry, which told Carlyle that they were not here to deal with a living patient. Eventually, they stepped down into the street and jogged back to the vehicle’s rear. Opening the doors with a flourish, they pulled out a trolley and carried it past the thoroughly pissed-off-looking constable still standing at the front gate.

Feeling a bit like a man who had just turned up late for his own funeral, Carlyle headed across to the opposite side of the street, with Joe following immediately behind. He was no longer worried about the rain, focusing rather on the sinking feeling in his stomach. It was clear that he had overplayed his hand, and now wasn’t the time to go rushing inside.

After a couple of minutes, the ambulance crew reappeared. They stowed the draped body in the back of the ambulance and slammed the doors shut, before climbing aboard and moving off. Ten yards down the road, the driver realised that his exit was blocked by the roadworks ahead. He performed a tortuous three-point turn and headed back the way he had come.

The gawkers took this as their cue to leave. Watching them depart, Carlyle tried to snap himself out of his funk. Then, just as he was about to step across the road, Trevor Miller emerged from the house. He stood on the pavement for a second, pulling up the collar of his raincoat. Looking up, he caught Carlyle’s eye. Acknowledging him with the slightest of nods, Miller stuck his hands into his pockets and hurried off in the direction of the river.

The rain began easing as Carlyle showed his ID to the copper posted on the gate. He was just sticking it back in his pocket when Simpson herself walked out of the front door, carrying an umbrella.

‘Ah, there you are, Inspector.’ She stopped to put up the umbrella before stepping towards him. Nodding a greeting to Joe, who was hovering a yard away, she placed a gentle hand on Carlyle’s elbow and guided him a few yards back along the street, to where a driver was waiting for her in a BMW. She stopped by the passenger door and looked Carlyle up and down.

‘Why are you looking so glum, John?’

Partly sheltered under the umbrella, he was even more conscious of the rain slipping under his collar and trickling down his spine. ‘What happened?’

Simpson pursed her lips, ignoring the question. ‘You’ve got a result … one way or another. It’s job done, and case closed.’

‘What are you doing here?’ Carlyle asked, struggling to keep any trace of emotion from his voice. The sick feeling in his stomach had dissipated. It was now being replaced by the kind of gentle numbness that came at times when things were going spectacularly tits-up.

A small, brittle smile appeared on Simpson’s lips. ‘Mr Miller called me personally, after he found the body. Apparently, Ms Ahl had called up Edgar Carlton to demand a meeting.’

‘What kind of meeting?’

Simpson shrugged. ‘It looks like we shall never know that. Carlton decided to send Miller. He arrived here about 6.30 and found the door was open.’

‘Miller? Carlton’s head of security? On Election Day?’

Simpson paused there, eyes shining, saying nothing further. The rain had now stopped and the air suddenly felt fresher than it had for weeks.

‘Was there anything suspicious about the death?’ Carlyle asked, trying and failing to keep a hint of desperation from his voice.

Simpson executed a small hop on the spot, like a small child desperate to go to the toilet. ‘Not as far as I could see.’ She lowered the umbrella, giving it vigorous shake before closing it. ‘When Miller went in, he found her hanging from the banister, so he rang 999, and then he rang me.’

‘Suicide?’

She let her gaze fall to the pavement. ‘Yes, I’d say so.’

Carlyle clamped his jaw tight and fixed his gaze on a point in the middle distance, before nodding at her carefully rehearsed answer.

‘Why wasn’t I called?’

‘I tried your mobile,’ Simpson said gently, ‘but I couldn’t get through. The network was busy. I rang the station, and they said you were on your way.’

He tried to work it through in his head, to see if that timing made sense. It was difficult to say.

Simpson radiated calm. She glanced towards Joe, still standing on the pavement outside Susy Ahl’s house. ‘You must pass on my congratulations to your sergeant, as well, John. It’s excellent work that we’ve managed to clear this thing up without too much … fuss. Good for our performance stats as well. You know that it all comes under SCD in the end, but I will make sure that you both get the proper recognition you deserve.’

Carlyle shivered. As far as he was concerned, the Specialist Crime Directorate could take whatever credit they wanted. He sneezed.

‘Bless you,’ said Simpson, reaching down to open the car door. ‘I know that you’ll have some more questions, but don’t hang around here any longer than is necessary. The officer in charge of the scene is a Sergeant Longmead, and she seems very efficient.’ Simpson gestured towards the house. ‘She’s inside right now. Go and speak to her, and let me have your final report first thing in the morning.’

‘Final’ meaning final. Meaning: Kindly fuck off back to the day job, the muggers and the drunks, and try to stay off my radar for a while. A long while.

‘Any loose ends?’ he asked, giving it one last push, more in hope than expectation.

‘Not really.’ Simpson had already lowered herself into the car and seemed keen to close the door. ‘Not really. There was an empty vodka bottle on the floor. The provisional time of death is around five p.m.’

Carlyle thought about his missed call. His brain was now slowly getting into gear. ‘What about a suicide note?’

‘No note,’ said Simpson, with just the slightest hint of levity in her tone, as if she might have just taken a stiff drink herself. ‘But that’s not unusual. After all, she knew that we were closing in.’

‘I should have arrested her yesterday.’ He said it to himself more than to Simpson, but he saw the first sign of irritation flash across her face.

She looked up at him sharply. ‘People hang themselves in jail, too, as you well know. Who’s to say that she wouldn’t have done exactly the same thing inside? Look at it this way, you’ve saved the taxpayer the cost of a trial. That could mean hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pounds. Not to mention the thirty thousand or more a year necessary to keep Ms Ahl in prison for the rest of her life.’ Simpson did the mental arithmetic in her head. ‘Let’s say a couple of million pounds – one and a half minimum. That more than pays your way.’ She grabbed the inside door handle firmly. ‘Not a bad night’s work, I’d say. Once again, well done. I’ll call you once I’ve read your report.’ With that, she finally pulled the door shut and allowed herself to be driven off into the night.

Carlyle didn’t bother talking to Longmead or even taking a final look round Ahl’s house. Instead, he led Joe to the Eight Bells pub round the corner, on Woodlawn Road. As befitted his designated driver status, Joe was carefully sipping a half pint of London Pride bitter. Damp and dismayed, Carlyle had ordered a double measure of Jameson whiskey. After knocking that back in one, he was now nursing a second.

Did I get that woman killed? he wondered grimly. Is this one on me?

‘What do you think?’ asked Joe, trying to break his boss free of his dark mood.

Carlyle sneezed again. ‘I think I’m going down with the flu.’

Joe was not in the mood for handing out any faux sympathy. ‘You know what I mean.’

‘It doesn’t matter what I think,’ Carlyle said gloomily. ‘Not in the slightest.’

‘So what do we do now?’

‘What do you think?’ He sucked down the remaining whiskey. ‘You drive me back, and then I write my report.’

‘OK.’

Carlyle looked down at his glass. ‘Tell you what, I’ve got a better idea. You go and write the report, and I’ll sign it in the morning. I feel like one for the road.’

Joe shrugged, not caring one way or the other. It was the hanging around picking over the bones of failure that he hated. Now, it was time to move on, find some other bastards to get worked up about. ‘Sure.’ He pulled the car keys from his pocket and weighed them in his hand. ‘See you in the morning, boss.’

‘Thanks, Joe.’

Carlyle ordered another double at the bar and took it back to his seat. For the next few minutes he wanted nothing more than to enjoy his drink, stare vacantly into space, and hope that all the frustrations of recent weeks would fade as he began to get increasingly pissed.

Behind the bar was a television with the sound turned right down. Carlyle looked up to see Edgar Carlton, on the steps of party HQ, making an ‘impromptu’ speech to his cheering campaign workers. Edgar was surrounded by faces that had become all too familiar in recent days, all of them busy nodding and clapping as if their very lives depended on it, waiting for the polls to close so that the celebrations could begin in earnest.

‘Almost there now, aren’t you, you tossers,’ Carlyle slurred to himself. ‘Got what you wanted, your bloody birthright.’

He took another mouthful of whiskey and decided that tonight would be an excellent night to get totally shitfaced.

‘Tossers!’

The barman stopped pouring a pint and gave him a dirty look.

‘But they are,’ Carlyle grumbled under his breath.

Maybe he should just go to bed.

On the screen, the picture zoomed in on one bright, shining face hovering behind Edgar’s left shoulder. With the shot glass poised at his lips, Carlyle froze.

‘Holy fucking shit!’

This time, the barman looked ready to come over and sort him out.

Ignoring him, Carlyle jumped to his feet and bolted for the door.