Buckingham Palace Blues (3 page)

‘Elizabeth,’ he said, more to himself than to the girl, ‘where the hell are you from?’

She rolled one half of the broken red crayon across the table, muttering something under her breath that he didn’t catch. She sounded Eastern European. Russian maybe? Polish? He didn’t know. The kid looked European, but she wasn’t speaking French, Italian, German or Spanish. Presumably she wasn’t from Scandinavia. He had never heard of children – or anyone else for that matter – being trafficked from there.

He was still mulling it over a few minutes later, when Thomas Weber arrived. The doctor was accompanied by a small, mousy-looking WPC Carlyle didn’t recognise. She smiled wanly but said nothing. Seeing the annoyance on the inspector’s face, Weber held up a hand before Carlyle could say anything. ‘I know what you asked for,’ he said firmly, ‘but I’m all you’ve got.’

Carlyle studied the tired-looking man in front of him and nodded sheepishly. Now was not the time for any more shouting.

‘Okay.’ Weber looked at the little girl and smiled. ‘Let’s go downstairs.’

The WPC took the girl by the hand and led her out of the room. Carlyle let Weber go next and brought up the rear.

On the first floor was the station’s ‘medical suite’: a couple of rooms that had been kitted out in a fair imitation of a GP’s surgery. Once they got there, Weber turned to Carlyle. ‘It’s probably better if you let us handle this from here. Why don’t you go and get a cup of coffee and come back in half an hour?’

‘Will do,’ Carlyle agreed, secretly quite relieved.

While the child was being examined, he nipped out of the station and headed for a nearby bookstore on New Row that he knew would still be open. The children’s department was in the basement. With help from a friendly assistant, he found a copy of
My First Atlas
and a couple more colouring books – one with pictures of ballerinas, the other of princesses. The books made him smile; they were the kind of thing he would have bought for Alice only a couple of years ago. Then he remembered the girl back in the station, and the smile died on his face.

‘Is there anything wrong?’ The assistant seemed genuinely concerned by the thunderous look on Carlyle’s face.

‘No, no,’ replied Carlyle almost absentmindedly. ‘Thanks for your help. That’s just what I was looking for.’

Back at the station, the doctor was already waiting for him outside the medical suite. As he approached along the corridor, Carlyle could see from the look on Weber’s face that things were at least as bad as he had feared. Squeamish at the best of times, the last thing Carlyle wanted was a discussion of the ugly details.

‘One for Social Services?’ he asked quickly, before Weber could say a word.

Weber nodded solemnly. ‘I’ll give them a call straight away.’

‘Good luck with that,’ Carlyle growled. ‘What am I supposed to do in the meantime?’ It was a stupid question, the result of tiredness and frustration.

‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ Weber said evenly, picking up the briefcase at his feet and heading for the stairs.

Gritting his teeth, Carlyle watched him go. Not for the first time, he cursed himself for getting into this type of situation. His stomach rumbled and he realised that he was starving. The station canteen would be shut by now and he would need to go out again if he wanted to get something to eat. He thought it through. If he took the girl with him, it would be a breach of protocol. On the other hand, maybe it would help her open up a bit. Carlyle doubted, however, that her English extended much beyond the terrifying handful of words she had already come out with. But maybe, just maybe, he could start to build up some trust with her over a burger and some chips.

Bracing himself, he stepped into the medical suite. The WPC jumped up from her seat, nodded in his general direction and quickly left the room. In the corner, he could see the girl asleep on the examination table. She lay with her back to him and was wearing a paper gown. In the silence of the room, he could hear her snoring quietly. Carefully placing the books on an empty desk on the other side of the room, he found a blanket in a cupboard and gently placed it over her. For a while he stood there, watching the slight rise and fall of her chest. A pretty girl, though. Almost all kids are pretty at that age, he mused. Eyes closed, and without the frown, she looked at peace for the first time since he’d met her.

Switching the light off, he sat down on the chair vacated by the WPC. His stomach rumbled again. He told it to shut up. It didn’t matter how hungry he was; all that he could do now was wait.

Waking with a start, Carlyle slowly came to terms with the darkness. After a while he could vaguely make out the time, by the clock on the wall. He groaned when he saw that it was 2.15 a.m. Rubbing the back of his neck, he got reluctantly to his feet and ran through a mental checklist of all the places where his body ached. It was a long one. The girl was still fast asleep, curled up in the foetal position, her breathing steady.

Stepping quietly out of the room, Carlyle checked his phone. To his dismay, he had four missed calls and a text message from his wife –
Where are you?
– timed at just after 11 p.m. Carlyle yawned. How had he slept through all that? Par for the course. He had a very mixed record with mobile phones. Sometimes he could go for days without managing to pick up any of his calls. It drove him – and everyone else – mad.

Now was not the time to call Helen back. He felt an ache in his bladder and realised he needed to piss. After a trip to the gents, he headed downstairs to the front desk. By now, George Patrick had gone off shift. He had been replaced by Gerry Armstrong, an Irishman Carlyle knew reasonably well. Beyond the security doors, the reception area was relatively empty for Saturday night–Sunday morning. There were a couple of drunks and one guy with blood oozing from a cut above his eyebrow, but it seemed that tonight the loser count was relatively low.

‘Gerry,’ he nodded in greeting. ‘Quiet tonight.’

The desk sergeant looked up from an early edition of the
Sunday Mirror
. ‘John,’ he replied, sounding far too cheery for this time of night. ‘What are you doing here?’

Carlyle explained the situation.

‘Christ!’ Armstrong exclaimed. ‘No one told me. Mind you, I was a bit late in getting in tonight.’

Maybe you should read the duty log then, Carlyle thought. But he let it slide. It was too late and he was too tired to allow himself to get annoyed again. ‘That’s okay. But I need you to get one of the PCSOs – a woman – to sit with the kid for an hour or so. She’s asleep now, but just in case she wakes up. I’m going home to get a bite to eat and pick up some stuff. Then I’ll be right back.’

Police Community Support Officers, known as ‘plastic policemen’, were staff hired to help with the grunt work. Regular officers, like Carlyle, generally had a very low opinion of the plastics. Bored, with no power to arrest suspected criminals, they were responsible for most cases of gross misconduct among Metropolitan Police staff. Carlyle avoided them wherever possible. For now, however, they would have to do. Surely even a PCSO was capable of looking after a sleeping kid for an hour.

‘No problem,’ Armstrong said. ‘They’re all in the smoking room, watching videos, anyway.’

Safer than having them on the streets, Carlyle thought. ‘Thanks. And could you call Thomas Weber for me? See if he’s made any progress with Social Services.’

‘Will do.’ But Armstrong had already returned his attention to his newspaper – a story about some bisexual, drug-dealing minor member of the royal family – and Carlyle realised that he had been gently dismissed. Zipping up his jacket, he headed off into the night.

The girl finally awoke just after seven in the morning. If not exactly happy to see Carlyle, she didn’t immediately try to make a dash for the door. Taking the clothes he had brought for her – some of Alice’s cast-offs that Helen hadn’t found a home for – she dressed quickly. When she was finished, he looked her up and down, feeling a small stab of satisfaction at a job well done. Even in the middle of the night, he had managed to come up with a reasonable ensemble – jeans, sweatshirt, trainers – without waking up either wife or daughter, which was a major result.

He opened his mouth and pointed a finger at his tongue. ‘Food?’

The girl nodded.

‘Good.’ Carlyle smiled, happy to be making at least a little progress. He held out a hand, but the girl refused to take it. Ignoring the snub, he stepped over to the door. ‘Come on, let’s go and get some breakfast.’

Official police protocol or not, they had to eat. Carlyle knew that the only place open at this time of a Sunday morning would be the Box café on Henrietta Street, a minute from the station, just down from the piazza. As they arrived, the owner was just opening up. He nodded his welcome as they slipped inside and took a table by the window. The girl immediately grabbed the outsized laminated menu and scrutinised the pictures, before pointing to the Full English Breakfast. ‘Two English, please,’ Carlyle called over to the owner. ‘I’ll have a coffee and she’ll have orange juice.’

While they waited for their food to arrive, Carlyle showed the girl the books that he had bought for her the night before. Looking through the colouring books, the girl muttered unhappily under her breath and Carlyle realised that he hadn’t brought along any pens.

‘Sorry,’ he shrugged.

Seeming to ignore him, the girl carefully put the books to one side.

‘Here.’ Carlyle picked up the atlas and offered it to her. When she didn’t take it, he opened it, found the pages covering Eastern Europe and laid it down in front of her. ‘Is this where you are from?’

The girl scanned the countries without showing any sign of recognition. Carlyle tapped Russia on the page and pointed at the girl. ‘Russia,’ he said clearly. ‘Are you from there?’

She shook her head and turned to the next page. They were interrupted just then by the arrival of two large plates of food and both spent the next five minutes eating in hungry silence. Carlyle ate quickly and methodically, swallowing his last piece of toast and washing it down with coffee while the girl was still munching on her second sausage.

In the end, she was not able to eat all of her breakfast. Never one to let food go to waste, Carlyle quickly swapped plates. Eyes down, he began gobbling up the girl’s leftovers. As he finished off the last mouthful of beans, he looked up. The girl gave him a dirty look.

‘Sorry,’ Carlyle grinned, ‘but I was still hungry.’ To his left, he noticed that the owner was placing a tray of Danish pastries on the counter. They looked good. Carlyle gestured at the tray. ‘I’ll have one of those and another coffee. Thanks.’ He turned back to the girl. ‘Would you like anything else?’

She showed him another picture on the menu. ‘Ice cream.’

What an interesting English vocabulary you have, Carlyle thought. He turned to the owner: ‘Ice cream for breakfast it is.’

The owner nodded. ‘We have vanilla, strawberry, pistachio, chocolate . . .’

‘
’

‘
Chocolate?’ The man smiled. ‘Okay . . . chocolate.’

The girl slid out of her chair and the pair of them disappeared behind the counter. Carlyle heard boxes being shifted around and some giggling, before the girl returned triumphantly with three massive scoops of chocolate ice cream.

He watched her demolish the first scoop before standing up and stepping over to the counter, where the owner was lifting his pastry from the tray.

‘What language was that you were speaking?’ Carlyle asked quietly.

The man looked at him in surprise.

Carlyle pulled his ID from his pocket but didn’t open it. ‘You know that I am police?’

The man placed Carlyle’s Danish on the counter. ‘Yes.’

‘So where are you from?’

The man turned to the Gaggia coffee-machine. ‘I am from the Ukraine. More than twenty years now. And so is the girl.’ He gave the policeman a stern look. ‘You should know that.’

I do now, Carlyle thought. Thank you.

By the time Carlyle returned to the table, the girl had finished her ice cream. He handed her a napkin and gestured for her to wipe her mouth. As she did so, his phone started vibrating. There was no number ID, but he picked it up anyway. ‘Hello?’