Sins of the Fathers (9 page)

‘You called me?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I was on my way in.’ Wearily, he scanned the unanswered numbers. Two were from Umar and one was from Rowan on the desk. The rest were his voicemail trying to call him.

‘Well, anyway,’ Rowan said hastily, ‘thanks for covering this.’

Covering what? Dazed, Carlyle accepted the slip of paper that Rowan thrust into his hand.

‘They’re waiting for you.’ A phone on the desk started ringing. ‘By all accounts, it’s really quite something.’ Rowan turned away and picked up the phone. ‘Hello?’

Carlyle looked at the address written on the sheet of paper. SE1? Then he recalled that Stamford Street was just a quick walk over Waterloo Bridge. He could be there in less than fifteen minutes.

‘Uh-huh, yeah.’ Rowan looked up, surprised to see Carlyle still standing in front of him. ‘That’s right.’ The sergeant’s tone suggested that this was a private conversation, one he didn’t want the inspector listening in on. He put his hand over the receiver and gestured at the paper in Carlyle’s hand. ‘Sounds like a good one.’

‘I’ve got enough of those already.’

Rowan gave him a
What do you want me to do?
shrug and returned to his phone call.

Knowing when he was beaten, Carlyle turned away and headed back out into the night.

Waterloo Bridge was one of his favourite spots in the whole of London. Crossing the river, Carlyle looked past St Paul’s towards the bright shining lights of the skyscrapers of Docklands. On the other side, looking west, was the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament, shimmering in the orange glow of the streetlighting. Dropping down off the bridge, he huried along the pedestrianized walkway beside the dirty brown river, heading east, past the National Theatre. Further along, lights were blazing on the ground floor of the South Bank Television Centre. A woman sitting at her desk, talking on the phone – one of the producers or researchers of a breakfast show that went on air at six every weekday morning – watched the inspector as he went past. Journalists at work near the scene of a crime; he wondered if any of them might have seen something. Probably not. Apart from anything else, they weren’t that type of journalist; their show was all about celebrities, diets and holidays, rather than crime or other ‘hard’ news. Carlyle had never watched the programme but knew from various newspaper stories that it had undergone a disastrous, hugely expensive revamp a few months earlier. The obvious lack of chemistry between the two main presenters and a slump in viewing figures meant that speculation was rife that studio bosses might pull the plug after less than a year.

Reaching Gabriel’s Wharf, he took a right, away from the water, passing through a small knot of pizza restaurants and trinket shops, before coming out on to Stamford Street, which ran parallel to the river between Waterloo and Blackfriars Bridges. Immediately he saw the police vans and cars about a hundred yards further down the road. A spotlight illuminated one of the houses, and various people who had come out to see what had happened were clustered around a couple of uniforms on guard in front of the police tape that ran across the south side of the street.

Number 172 stood in the middle of a row of half a dozen Georgian houses that had survived the war and remained in splendid isolation, facing towards the river. The rest of the street had been bombed out in the Blitz. Urban renewal and gentrification had taken more than fifty years to reach this tiny neighbourhood, and still had only done so in patchy fashion. The far end of the street was home to a block of expensive 1990s flats, all PVC windows and tiny balconies. In the middle of the row there was still a gap where maybe fifteen or twenty houses had been flattened by the Germans. The undeveloped ground was still being used as a temporary car park, as it had been for at least the last forty years. In one corner was a burnt-out estate car. As he walked past, Carlyle saw a dosser sitting in the driving seat, watching proceedings. His possessions were piled up in a shopping trolley that stood next to the car. Some kind of mongrel was asleep under the cart. The touching scene reminded the inspector of ‘Dog’, a well-known drunk who used to hang around Covent Garden, giving tourists a sob story about his lost pet as he hustled for change. The dog, of course, was fictitious. The drunk was, for a while, a regular on the benches at Charing Cross station. Carlyle grinned at the memory.

What was the guy’s name?

Walter Poonoosamy.

To his pleasant surprise, it came to him almost immediately. Then again, Walter Poonoosamy
was
a fairly memorable name.

As he approached the police tape, Carlyle was mildly surprised to see the familiar figure of Sergeant Ed Savage appear from behind a van.

Savage held up the tape to let him through. ‘The desk said you were coming,’ he complained, ‘half an hour ago.’ An inch or so taller than the inspector, he was in his early thirties, still in reasonable shape. With short blond hair and a firm jaw, he had a boyish air that had not been totally washed away by having three kids under six. Carlyle and Helen had met the Savage family at a police social a few months earlier. He remembered how Mrs Savage, who worked as a nurse, had looked completely shattered. By comparison, her husband looked like he was coping just fine.

Carlyle ignored the complaint. He had worked with Savage a couple of times in recent years and knew that he was basically okay. Moreover, if he might want him to replace Umar, there was no point in having a spat now. ‘What have we got?’

Turning away, Savage gestured for the inspector to follow. ‘You’re going to love this.’

Always the big build-up, Carlyle thought wearily. He chased after Savage, almost walking right into the back of the sergeant as he stopped next to a blanket draped over the railings in front of the house.

‘
Voilà!
’ Savage removed the blanket with a flourish.

‘Holy shit!’ Carlyle took a step backwards, almost falling off the pavement and into the gutter.

‘I told you you’d like it,’ Savage smirked.

Carlyle squinted through his glasses. ‘Is that real?’

Savage pointed at the blood on the paving stones by their feet. ‘It sure is.’

Ignoring his squeamishness, Carlyle moved back towards the head. It looked waxy, like something out of Madame Tussauds’ waxworks. The gore hanging from the neck looked real enough, though. So did the greasy black hair that no longer had any shoulders to fall on. The gormless expression on the victim’s face also had more than an air of realism about it.

Savage gestured back along the street. ‘The bloke sitting in the car found him about one thirty. He went and told one of the security guards at the TV station, who called it in.’

A forensics team arrived, led by a pathologist Carlyle hadn’t met before. After the necessary introductions had been made, Savage handed over the blanket, and the policemen retreated to allow the technicians to get on with their job.

‘Why would someone chop a bloke’s head off and stick it on public display like that?’ Carlyle thought he might as well ask the question.

Savage gave him an amused look. ‘Isn’t that what
you’re
here to tell us?’

‘All in good time, Sergeant,’ said Carlyle cheerily. He had only been at the crime scene for a couple of minutes, but already he was confident of a quick result. Clearly, passion and violence were at play here, not premeditation and cunning. It wouldn’t take long to catch whoever did this. ‘All in good time.’ He winced as he watched one of the technicians carefully open the guy’s mouth. ‘Do we have an ID?’

‘It’s a head,’ Savage protested.

‘So where’s the rest of him?’

‘We haven’t found that yet.’ Savage pulled a packet of Benson & Hedges from his jacket pocket and offered one to Carlyle.

The inspector shook his head. ‘No, thanks.’

Savage put a cigarette in his mouth and began fumbling for his lighter. ‘He was killed inside, for sure.’ He gestured towards the house. All the lights were on and Carlyle could see more technicians at the first-floor window. ‘Whoever did it decapitated him on the first floor and dragged the body down the stairs and out of the front door.’ Finding his lighter, Savage lit up and took a long drag.

‘So where is it now?’ Carlyle asked again, stepping away from the smoke.

Savage exhaled thoughtfully.

The inspector gestured at the head. ‘He certainly wasn’t trying to hide him.’ He looked up and down the street. Outside every property was a collection of black bin liners awaiting the arrival of the bin men.

Savage followed his gaze and cursed.

The inspector tried to look sympathetic. ‘You’d better start with those. The house-to-house can come afterwards.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Savage stalked off to find some uniforms to search through the rubbish.

‘Oh – and Sergeant?’

Gritting his teeth, Savage turned back to face Carlyle. ‘Yes?’

‘Is there anywhere I can get a decent cup of coffee around here?’

Carlyle brought a cup of filter coffee from a 7-Eleven on the corner of Duchy Street and returned across the rough ground of the car park, taking care not to step into any of the potholes in his path. As he approached the burnt-out car, he could see that it had once been a VW Golf, or something similar. The tramp was still in the driver’s seat, watching as half a dozen uniformed officers went slowly along the street.

‘They’ll be looking for body parts, I expect,’ he said matter-of-factly, as the inspector approached. ‘So far, all they’ve got is the head.’

Thirty yards down the road a WPC stuck her hand in the air and signalled for one of the technicians to come over.

‘Looks like they’ve found something.’ The tramp’s gaze fell on the cup in Carlyle’s hand.

‘I thought you might like some coffee.’ Stepping forward, Carlyle stuck his hand through the space where the windscreen used to be and carefully placed the cup on the dashboard. He dug out a couple of sachets of sugar and a mini-carton of milk and placed them next to the cup. ‘It’s hot.’

The tramp looked at the coffee with some distaste. ‘I’d rather have some Strongbow.’ He gestured back in the direction from which Carlyle had come, towards the all-night 7-Eleven. ‘They’ve got a good offer on at the moment – six cans for ten quid.’

‘Bargain,’ said Carlyle, nonplussed. Sticking out a hand, he introduced himself.

‘Oliver.’ The tramp ignored the inspector’s hand. ‘Oliver Mackenzie.’ Sitting in the wreck of the motor it was hard to get a good view, but on first glance, the guy looked fresh-faced and clear-eyed for someone living on the streets. ‘My friends call me Olly.’

Carlyle nodded. ‘Well, Mr Mackenzie, what happened here?’

The tramp leaned forward against the steering wheel and let rip with an enormous fart.

Carlyle took an involuntary step backwards.

‘I needed that.’ Oliver settled back on the springs that were all that remained of the driver’s seat. ‘Too many beans at the soup kitchen. I counted three different kinds tonight.’

Why do I bother?
the inspector wondered. ‘Uh-huh.’

‘Beans, beans, beans; nothing but bloody beans. I told them, “More meat, fewer beans, or you won’t be seeing me again”.’

Technicians were now inspecting a trio of black bin bags which had been lined up under a streetlight.

Carlyle folded his arms. ‘Tell me what you saw.’

Oliver tried to give him an ingratiating smile. ‘Did I mention the Strongbow?’

‘What did you
see
?’ Carlyle snapped.

From under the shopping cart, the dog growled.

‘Now you’ve woken Peanut.’ Oliver looked hurt.

Peanut? ‘Mr Mackenzie . . .’

Realizing that it was all he was going to get from the policeman, the tramp reached up and grabbed the coffee. Sticking the cup between his legs, he lifted off the lid, before adding the sugar and the milk. After stirring it with his finger, he took a sip. ‘Ahh.’

Carlyle waited patiently.

After a couple more mouthfuls, Oliver put the lid back on the cup. He looked up at Carlyle. ‘I saw the head.’

‘Yes?’

‘And that was it.’

When Carlyle returned to the crime scene, the head had been removed – along with several of the bin liners – for further investigation. Having gone through the rubbish, the uniforms were starting their door-to-door enquiries. More box ticking. The likelihood of coming up with anything useful was slim; witnesses were as rare as they were unreliable.

He found Savage sitting in the passenger seat of a Police Range Rover having another cigarette. He watched warily as Carlyle approached, and asked: ‘Get anything from the wino?’

The inspector placed a hand on the car roof and leaned towards the open window. ‘Nope.’

‘Never mind.’ Savage grinned maliciously. ‘At least you didn’t fall in a pothole.’

Carlyle looked around. ‘This won’t be difficult, will it? A nutter putting a head on a spike.’

Savage took a long drag on his cigarette and flicked it out of the window, past Carlyle’s right arm.

‘Naohiro Ninomiya came to the station last night,’ the inspector told him.

Savage pretended that he couldn’t place the name.

‘The Japanese guy,’ Carlyle pretended to remind him. ‘His daughter went missing. You and Watkins chased it up.’

‘What did he want?’

‘He was with a guy from the Japanese Embassy. They were after an update on the investigation.’

‘Why didn’t he bloody call me then?’ Savage said, the petulance clear in his voice.

‘They said no one had returned their calls.’

‘Well, Watkins is off now.’

That doesn’t stop you picking up the bloody phone, though, does it?
Carlyle tried to keep the annoyance from showing in his face.

‘Anyway, we chased everything up, by the book. It’s a dead end.’

‘Are you going to tell the father that?’

Savage grinned. ‘That’s above my pay grade.’

The inspector glanced up at the burnt-out car. Oliver Mackenzie had gone, along with his trolley and his dog. It would be getting light soon. Maybe he was a vampire. Maybe the dog was a vampire dog. Carlyle chuckled to himself. He looked back at Savage and his smile vanished. ‘I thought you might say that.’