Sins of the Fathers (17 page)

Christ, Dad.
Shaking his head, Carlyle stepped off the pavement and put a hand on the old fella’s shoulder. ‘Of course not.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I know, I know.’

The old man looked like he was about to cry.

‘You had quite a night, but what happens in the Garden stays in the Garden.’ A mail van appeared, heading north. The inspector pulled his father back on to the safety of the pavement. ‘It won’t go any further. And we will never discuss it again.’

‘Thank you.’

‘No problem.’ Carlyle could feel himself welling up now. He couldn’t think of another time when the old fella had thanked him for anything. ‘So,’ he cleared his throat, ‘can you get back to the flat okay?’

Alexander nodded.

‘Good. Get some sleep. I’ll see you later.’

‘All right.’

Standing on the kerb, he watched his father make his way along King Street, and then he turned and headed for the station. When he reached the front steps, however, he kept on walking. Making his way across the Strand, he strode down Villiers Street, next to Charing Cross train station, until he came to an all-night café run by a Dutch family and located under the railway arches. Jasper Braafheid had owned the Cross Café for almost thirty years. Carlyle was by no means a regular but he stopped by often enough. As he arrived, a man was taking early editions of the morning papers from a van, dropping his bundles outside the newsagents next door.

‘Mate.’ Pulling a fiver from his pocket, Carlyle bought a copy of
The Times
, the
Mirror
and the
Sun
before heading inside. The place was surprisingly full for the time of night; there were six or seven people all sitting on their own, going about their business. Behind the counter, a young man greeted him with a friendly nod.

Carlyle smiled back. ‘Jasper not around?’

The kid shook his head. ‘He doesn’t do nights any more.’

‘Don’t blame him.’ Carlyle ordered two large lattes and a couple of fried-egg sandwiches to go.

‘Sure.’ The boy disappeared into a little room at the back to cook the eggs.

While he waited for the food, Carlyle checked out the newspapers. All of them had large pictures of Simon Collingwood on the front page, along with lurid descriptions of his ‘brutal revenge attacks’ on the men who had violated his daughter.
The Times
had a sidebar about his rugby career (275 games for his club; 2 England ‘B’ caps), his job as a City broker and his private life. Carlyle raised his eyebrows as he read that Collingwood was a ‘committed Christian’ who tithed 10 per cent of his income to the Church of England. At the bottom, there was a teaser for a feature on page 34:
The vengeful father: hero or killer?

‘Or both?’ Carlyle mumbled to himself. He flicked to page 2. Underneath a picture of a heartbreakingly pretty-looking Pippa Collingwood was a description of a bright, popular student at her school. Pippa played hockey, swam for the school team and was due to go on a working trip to Kenya to help build a primary school. All in all, she sounded like a great kid; a credit to her parents. He closed the paper before his eyes started welling up for the second time that night.

‘Here you go.’ The kid placed a paper bag on the counter. ‘Seven pounds twenty, please.’

‘Thanks.’ Sticking the papers under his arm, Carlyle counted out the money and dropped a few extra coins in the tips box. Picking up his order, he walked out.

Sitting on the bed, with his knees pulled up against his chin and his back against the wall, Simon Collingwood said nothing as the inspector entered the cell. It was the middle of the night but there was no evidence that he had been sleeping. He looked tired but determined.

‘Here.’

Collingwood hesitated for a moment then took the cup.

Squinting against the harsh lighting, Carlyle removed one of the rolls from the bag and placed it on the bed. ‘Egg.’

‘Thanks.’ Collingwood took a sip of his coffee. Then, dropping his legs onto the floor, he gestured at the newspapers under the inspector’s arm. ‘Did I make the front pages?’ he asked, his voice low, his embarrassment obvious.

‘You sure did.’ Carlyle handed them over. Folding his arms, he took up a position by the door. ‘The coverage is not bad, considering.’

‘Considering that I chopped up four men?’ Collingwood smiled.

Carlyle stared at his shoes. ‘There will be a lot of sympathy for your situation.’

‘That’s fine, but I don’t need sympathy, do I?’

‘We all need sympathy,’ said Carlyle lamely.

Collingwood looked at each paper in turn. Placing them next to the roll, he said to Carlyle,‘Can I keep these?’

’Yes.’

‘Thank you.’

‘They’ll take them off you in the morning, though.’

‘Okay.’ Collingwood looked at him expectantly and Carlyle suddenly wondered why he had come.

Thinking about Pippa Collingwood being put in the ambulance on Rosebery Avenue, he shifted from foot to foot. ‘Has your lawyer told you where you’re going?’

Collingwood shook his head.

‘Maybe she doesn’t know yet,’ Carlyle said. ‘The likelihood is that there will be a court hearing later this morning, probably at Horseferry Road. After that, I would expect that you will be taken to Wormwood Scrubs.’

‘For how long?’ Collingwood unwrapped his roll and took a bite.

‘I don’t know.’

Collingwood chewed slowly and methodically before swallowing. ‘So what do you need?’

‘Huh?’

‘Why are you here?’

‘I just thought I’d bring you something to eat.’

Collingwood took another bite of the sandwich. Egg yolk dripped down his chin and he wiped it away with his hand.

Carlyle turned and banged on the door. ‘I have to get going.’

Collingwood placed the remains of his food back on the bed. ‘Do you have kids, Inspector?’

Footsteps came slowly down the corridor and the key turned in the door.

‘A daughter.’

Collingwood nodded. ‘So, faced with my situation, what would you do?’

‘Good question.’ Carlyle smiled sadly as the door swung open. ‘I hope that I never have to find out.’

Upstairs, the inspector sat in front of his computer, gobbling his egg roll and washing it down with cold coffee. Going through his emails, he clicked on a survey from the Police Federation: 86 per cent of police officers in England and Wales believed that cuts to police budgets and a reduction in officer numbers would have a detrimental effect on crime levels and result in the public getting a poorer service.

‘You don’t say.’ What the hell were the other 14 per cent thinking? Not so long ago, Carlyle had considered packing it all in himself. The redundancy or ‘early retirement’ offer on the table had been attractive but not quite attractive enough. Now, resigned to the fact that (a) he couldn’t afford to take early retirement and (b) he couldn’t do anything else, he saw himself staying at Charing Cross for as long as the Met would let him. On that basis, he didn’t see much point in moaning about things.

He read down the press release, finding a quote from a Federation spokesman: ‘
The Federation is not opposed to change but this is a criminal
’
s charter. Let
’
s improve policing
,
not destroy it. We need a police service that is appropriate for the future and able to deliver what is expected of it.
’

Everyone’s a politician these days, Carlyle thought sourly, hitting the delete button. The email was immediately replaced by another, from Umar, simply headlined
Porsche owner
.

The DVLA came through with the registration. The car is owned by a guy called Daniel Cedric Hutton.

There was a link to a Wikipedia page; Carlyle clicked on it and read through a version of Hutton’s biography.

Daniel Cedric Murray Hutton
,
generally known as Danny Hutton (born 2 July 1948) is a businessman and philanthropist who founded DCMH Systems in 1973. In 1984
,
he married Maria Sunningdale
,
a society heiress and art collector.

Hutton has twice run for Parliament as a Liberal Candidate
,
both times losing his deposit.

Having sold his business to Zulu Anderson CMZE Global Inc. in 2007
,
these days Hutton is perhaps most famous for being the father of Electra Hutton-Sunningdale
,
the performance artist and social campaigner who founded the London branch of SlutWalkers.

Carlyle rubbed his temples. What the hell was SlutWalkers?

Forget it
, he told himself,
that’s not to the point
. He scanned down the rest of Hutton’s biography. Unsurprisingly, there was no mention of a penchant for young Japanese girlfriends. Flipping back to the email, he scribbled down Hutton’s London address on a sheet of paper lying on his desk. Under the address, he jotted down his To Dos for the day. It was a long list but he knew that he would find time to pay the sugar daddy a visit.

‘You and Grandpa were out late last night.’ Alice grinned cheekily as she shoved an almond croissant into her mouth and took a large bite. In her uniform – red skirt and white blouse – she looked about ten years younger than she did lounging about in a T-shirt and jeans at home perfecting her teenage sneer.

‘Um, yes, well.’ Not meeting his daughter’s gaze, Carlyle stared out of the window of the Cowcross Milk Bar at the traffic that was backed up along Charterhouse Street on the north side of Smithfield. Citing unnamed ‘logistical issues’, Abigail Slater had bumped his interview with Iris Belekhsan back to 11 a.m. Displaying the immense chutzpah with which the inspector was only too familiar, the lawyer had also insisted that the meeting take place at her offices, rather than the police station. Normally Carlyle would have protested furiously. Today, however, he welcomed the extra time. Not only would it give him the chance to talk to his daughter about the death of her grandmother but, if he was quick, he would also be able to squeeze in his first session at the gym in more than a fortnight.

Across the road, nothing stirred. West Poultry Avenue was deserted. Opening for business from three in the morning, the market was already winding down by seven. Now, just before eight thirty, the working day was over and it was largely empty. London Central Markets, originally known as Smithfield, had been a livestock market for over 800 years, located at the city boundaries on the edge of St Bartholomew’s Priory. It was also used as a venue for executing criminals – Wat Tyler, the leader of the Peasants’ Revolt, died here, as did Scottish troublemaker William Wallace – as well as a location for fairs, jousting competitions and tournaments. The site was redeveloped in the 1860s, using the designs of Sir Horace Jones, the architect famous for Tower Bridge. Now, in the midst of gentrification, the 10-acre site was ringed by a seemingly random mixture of fashionable bars and restaurants, along with a few cafés that belonged to a completely different era. It was in one of the latter – a greasy spoon that had somehow survived from the 1950s – that the two of them were having breakfast on the way to Alice’s school.

‘Were you drunk?’ she asked matter-of-factly.

Carlyle hid behind his cup. ‘Not really.’
Not me, anyway.

‘Grandpa made a right racket when he came in,’ Alice giggled, wiping a piece of almond from the corner of her mouth. ‘Banging and crashing around all over the place. Mum was really pissed off.’

Great. That was a conversation to look forward to when he got home. He finished his latte and got to his feet. ‘C’mon. Let’s get going.’

They reached Goswell Road in companionable silence, turning right and ducking into the Barbican complex on the corner of Beech Street. The eponymous arts centre and housing estate was located in an area bombed out during the Second World War. The City of London Corporation, the guys who ran the capital’s financial district, opened the arts centre in 1982 as the City’s gift to the nation. However, this was not a great period for architecture and what they came up with was a concrete ziggurat, a terraced pyramid with a multi-level layout so complex that it required different coloured lines painted on the ground to help theatre-goers and tourists avoid getting lost on its walkways. If ever a building had a personality bypass, this was it. To no one’s surprise, it was later voted London’s ugliest building.

For his part, Carlyle actually quite liked it. Back in the day – literally half a lifetime ago in Alice’s case – he had always looked forward to being able to do the school run. The thirty minutes spent with his daughter as they meandered towards the Barbican arts complex, home to the City School for Girls, were among the happiest times of his life. On the way to school, they would pick up breakfast and he would listen to what was on Alice’s mind. At the time, Carlyle could not think of anything he would rather do in the entire world than walk through the streets while listening to the random thoughts of his daughter.

The school fees had, for many years, soaked up a distressing proportion of their household income. In principle, Carlyle wasn’t in favour of private schools. But Alice had loved it and his objections had waned long before she had managed to snag a scholarship, easing the pressure on his pocket. Standing on one of the elevated walkways, he leaned over the balcony and looked down at the school below. It was about a hundred yards away, on the far side of a large ornamental pond with a fountain at its centre.

Standing on her toes, Alice reached over and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Thanks for breakfast, Dad. It was nice.’

‘Yeah,’ Carlyle smiled. The days since Alice had needed her parents to walk her to school had long passed, and Carlyle had been pleasantly surprised that she had let him tag along this morning. Clearly, however, this was as close as he was to be allowed to the school gates. His watch now said eight thirty-five. Alice wouldn’t be late, but she wouldn’t be particularly early either. ‘You’d better get down there.’

In no apparent hurry, Alice shifted one of the straps on her backpack. ‘Didn’t you want to talk about Grandma?’