The Circus (23 page)

Not me, Carlyle thought, but it might be good for Alice. His daughter already did a weekly karate class at Jubilee Hall on the south side of the piazza; maybe this Krav Whatever would help her take her self-defence skills to the next level.

‘What d’ya reckon?’ Joe asked.

‘Nah,’ Carlyle said. ‘I’m too old, too slow.’ He waved an admonishing finger towards Hall. ‘Just make sure you keep it for outside, in future. You’re very lucky that Clegg didn’t make a complaint. The stupid bastard didn’t even ask for a lawyer.’

‘We got a result,’ Joe protested.

‘Yeah,’ Carlyle agreed. ‘But at the very least, the pervert could have tied you up in disciplinary hearings for months.’ He gave his sergeant a disappointed look. ‘You should have known better.’

Staring into his coffee, Joe said nothing.

Turning to the WPC, Carlyle gave Hall a hard stare. ‘Don’t do it again.’

‘Okay,’ she said meekly.

‘Good.’ Carlyle dropped into his chair and placed his hands behind his head. ‘Now, the new guy we think Hannah Gillespie has ended up with. What do we know about him?’

Joe put his coffee cup down on the desk next to the sheet of A4 paper containing his notes. ‘Alexander Montague Laws. Known as Monty. No record. Some kind of freelance IT guy. He’s not at the address that Clegg gave us. So far, he’s in the wind.’

‘Okay. See if you can extract any more useful information from Clegg’ – Carlyle looked up at Hall – ‘without smacking him around. Just tell him he’s stuck in that cell until we find Mr Laws.’

‘And then?’ Joe asked.

Having no idea, Carlyle shrugged. ‘Let’s worry about that later. Meantime I’ve got to chase something else up. Keep me posted.’

‘What happened to you?’ Detective Inspector Vanessa Valette asked as she handed Carlyle back his warrant card.

‘Walked into a door.’

‘Mm.’ Valette, a slightly built brunette, rolled her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Come into my office and we can talk there.’

Following her inside, Carlyle sat down and glanced around. The DI lived and worked in a glass cube, measuring about eight feet by twelve, in the corner of a large, open-plan industrial space. Rows of computer screens waited patiently for someone to start using them. Yet, apart from a group of five officers crowded round one desk about twenty feet away, the place was empty. In the background, he could make out the general hum of traffic on the Commercial Road, six floors below them.

‘A bit out of the way here, aren’t you?’

‘We wanted a bit of space well away from the Commissioner and his guys, for obvious reasons.’

‘Mm.’ It must be a really shit job working on Operation Redhead, Carlyle thought. A complete hospital pass. Sooner or later, someone will come along and nobble you. And in the meantime you’re stuck out here in the arse end of nowhere: glamorous East London, where the Luftwaffe was as near as things ever got to urban planning.

Barely five feet two, Valette disappeared behind a mound of files resting on her desk and sat down. Carlyle waited patiently while she cleared a channel through which they could re-establish eye-contact. ‘Sorry about that.’ Under the harsh lighting, she looked tired and frail.

‘No problem,’ Carlyle smiled.

‘So, what brings you here again?’

It took some considerable effort for Carlyle to suppress a
grimace. He had already explained his involvement in the Duncan Brown murder case to four different lackeys, in order to get this meeting with Valette. Now it seemed that he would have to start all over again.

‘Duncan Brown.’

‘Sorry.’ Valette gestured to the paperwork surrounding her. ‘He’s not one of mine.’

‘Huh?’

The DI leaned forward between two piles of documents, each at least a foot high. ‘This investigation is so large – and growing all the time – that we have had to divide it up among half a dozen of us.’ She scratched her head. ‘I think Brown belongs to Inspector Walters but, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure.’ She gestured to the largely empty room beyond the window. ‘Anyway, I fear he’s not around right now.’

Christ, Carlyle thought, if the Commissioner really is worried about the possibility of this investigation causing him any grief, a quick look round here should put his mind at rest. Clearly, Operation Redhead was going nowhere. ‘But this is a murder investigation I’m talking about,’ he said, finally letting his exasperation show.

‘Yes, well.’ Valette disappeared behind one pile and switched on her computer, which began slowly wheezing into action. ‘Interesting thought. Do you think there’s any connection with what we’re doing here?’

Carlyle bit his lip in frustration. ‘I believe I have to work on that assumption.’

‘You do? Why?’

‘Too much of a coincidence, don’t you think?’

‘I’ve no idea.’ Somewhere behind all the paper, she began tapping on a keyboard. I should get going, Carlyle thought. This is a complete waste of time.

A few more taps.

He pushed himself out of his chair. ‘Sorry for wasting your time.’

‘Hold on.’ Valette reappeared with a pair of rimless spectacles now balanced on her nose. They made her look at least ten years older. She held up a finger. ‘One minute.’

Reluctantly, Carlyle sat back down. Retrieving a mobile from her jacket pocket, Valette made a call. Almost immediately, someone picked up at the other end.

‘Duncan Brown,’ said Valette by way of introduction, sounding very businesslike. ‘Yeah.’ She glanced at Carlyle. ‘Right, one minute.’ Ending the call, she got up and headed for the door. ‘Wait here.’ It was an instruction, rather than a request.

Despite himself, Carlyle nodded meekly.

‘I’ll be back in a couple of minutes,’ she added.

Just shy of twenty-five minutes later, Valette reappeared in the doorway. ‘You check out,’ she announced.

That’s good, Carlyle thought, not knowing what she meant.

Holding the door open, she signalled for him to stand up. ‘Come on.’

The inspector jumped to his feet. ‘Where are we going?’

‘To see Meyer.’

Standing at a window, staring down at the slow-moving traffic, Russell Meyer looked round as Carlyle shuffled into the room. The chief inspector was a small man, maybe five foot four, with a light frame and greying bouffant hair. Carlyle was somewhat surprised to see him wearing a single-breasted suit in a Prince of Wales check, rather than a uniform. Then again, hardly anyone seemed to wear a uniform these days. That’s what happened when you went from being a Police Force to becoming a Police
Service
.

A look passed between Valette and Meyer. The latter eyed Carlyle suspiciously, then waved towards the three chairs lined up in front of an oversized desk. ‘Please.’

Carlyle took the middle seat and Valette took the one on his left.

‘Vanessa here tells me that you are on the Brown investigation.’ Meyer stepped away from the window and sat down behind the desk. The desk itself was bare – not even a phone to be seen. Unlike Valette’s office downstairs, there were no papers at all, no computer even; nothing to suggest that anyone actually worked here. By comparison, it made Simpson’s office back in Paddington look positively homely.

‘That’s right,’ Carlyle replied.

Meyer clasped his hands together as if in prayer; as if the Good Lord Himself was going to provide the right words for him to utter.

Ever the atheist, Carlyle waited patiently.

‘I want you to lay off.’

Carlyle frowned. This was not what he had been expecting to hear.

Meyer glanced at Valette, who was staring determinedly out of the window. Slowly, he returned his gaze to Carlyle. ‘Well, perhaps not lay off exactly, but don’t push too hard.’

Holding Meyer’s gaze, Carlyle forced himself to say nothing for ten seconds. The Detective Inspector didn’t blink.

‘This,’ Carlyle said finally, ‘is a murder inquiry.’

Meyer shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘I know that, Inspector, but your investigation into Duncan Brown cuts across Operation Redhead, and that, as you will appreciate, must be given priority.’

Knowing better than to protest, Carlyle sat back and folded his arms. ‘Explain that to me.’

‘Operation Redhead is not just about investigating a bunch of celebrities who’ve had their phones hacked. It’s much wider than that. It affects real people as well.’

‘And I am dealing with a murder inquiry,’ Carlyle repeated. ‘That profoundly affects a number of real people, too.’

‘This involves something’, said Meyer, ‘that goes beyond any single police case. It goes to the very heart of the way we do business in this country. It involves the way in which the press
operates, yes, but also the media’s relationship with the government and even the Police Service. It involves our standards of behaviour.’

Spare me the speech, Carlyle thought.

Seeing the less than impressed look on the inspector’s face, Meyer decided to change tack. ‘You know what the really shocking thing is?’

‘Shock me.’

Valette suddenly coughed; it sounded like she was trying to stifle a giggle.

‘I’m fairly certain that the practice is still going on.’

‘Phone hacking?’

Meyer nodded.

Bollocks, Carlyle thought. ‘That would be fairly stupid, given what’s happened.’

‘These things tend to develop a momentum of their own,’ Valette interjected. ‘It can be hard to get out of the habit. When the furore about phone hacking first kicked off, Zenger Corporation looked at closing down the
Sunday Witness
, which was where most, if not all, of the stories were appearing. After a bit of hand-wringing, they decided against it. Ironically, their sales have gone
up
. Readers assume that they’re still busy hacking phones, so they must have the best stories.’

‘Makes sense, I suppose.’ Carlyle tried to think back to the last time he’d properly read a Sunday newspaper himself. Not in the last couple of years, at least. Life, he had decided, was too short.

‘So, we’re fairly sure that they’re still doing it,’ Valette continued. ‘They still need to find exclusive stories.’

‘And,’ Meyer jumped in, ‘they’re still using Wickford Associates.’

Is that so?
Carlyle, however, kept his thoughts to himself.

‘Duncan Brown was involved in the tapping of more than a dozen people’s phones before he was killed,’ Valette added. ‘Indeed, that’s
why
he was killed.’

Carlyle looked at her, then turned to Meyer. He spoke slowly, keeping his tone even. ‘You know who killed Duncan Brown?’

‘We have a good idea.’ Valette couldn’t resist a smirk.

‘And?’

‘And nothing,’ Meyer said sharply. ‘Are we doing business here, or not?’

‘We’re doing business.’ Carlyle would work out precisely how to shaft this self-important little prick later. For now, he just needed the information.

‘Very well.’ Meyer seemed a little uncertain, but he ploughed on. ‘Bear in mind though, that we don’t currently have anything that would definitely stand up in a court of law. And anyway, it is not technically part of my operation.’

‘Technically,’ Carlyle repeated.

‘Not unless you go the whole hog,’ Meyer smiled, ‘and decide to join us.’

Carlyle stared at Meyer and then at Valette. The Chief Inspector’s smirk had grown, and he was beginning to find DI Valette more than a little annoying. He sat up straighter in his chair. ‘Why would I want to join Operation Redhead?’

They looked at him with a mixture of pity and dismay. ‘This is an extremely high-profile investigation,’ Valette explained. ‘It’s all over the newspapers.’

‘Which is quite ironic, when you think about it,’ Meyer quipped.

Carlyle wondered just how often the man had used that line over the last few months.

The Chief Inspector waved his hands in front of his face. ‘This thing is getting bigger all the time. More people are coming forward; there are more cases to investigate. Our budget has been increased but the single biggest threat to this investigation is not political interference, but simply the risk of us disappearing under a mountain of material. Every day I worry that it could all simply collapse under its own weight.’

Not my problem, Carlyle thought happily.

‘We need more people,’ Meyer went on, ‘meaning good people. People who can take this investigation forward, wherever it goes, without fear or favour.’

‘Outsiders,’ Valette added.

Meyer assumed his most sincere expression. ‘People like you.’

Holding the Chief Inspector’s gaze, Carlyle sat in silence, not liking at all the way they had teamed up on him. Nor did he like the idea that they assumed they could flatter him into shovelling their shit for them. He recalled that the Americans had an appropriate phrase for it:
blowing smoke up your ass
. John Carlyle didn’t like in the least the idea of anyone blowing smoke up his ass.

‘No,’ he said finally.

Meyer looked pained. ‘Why not?’

Carlyle shrugged. ‘Because I’ve got plenty of my own stuff to deal with, not least Duncan Brown.’ Meyer started to say something, but the inspector held up a hand. ‘And also because, ultimately, I’m not really that bothered about phone hacking. Even if it’s not just a bunch of witless celebrities who are being affected. ‘

Meyer drummed his fingers angrily on the table. ‘So you’re the kind of copper who likes to pick and choose what kind of alleged criminal he investigates?’

‘We all pick and choose,’ Carlyle said, ‘all the time. Some politician chose to set up Operation Redhead. You chose to take it on, for whatever reasons. In the process, you will have turned down something else.’

‘I’m not a dilettante,’ Meyer protested.

‘Neither am I. I’m just a run-of-the-mill police inspector who is trying to deal with a number of cases where the victims have suffered fates much worse than having their phones hacked.’ Realizing he was sounding a bit pompous, Carlyle tried to lighten the tone. ‘Anyway, everyone knows what the British press is like, so why would anyone expect they
wouldn’t
be tapping people’s phones?’

‘This is a very serious issue,’ said Meyer, trying to sell the job one last time. ‘The relationship between Zenger and the MPS needs to be cleaned up. The connections with the political elite are also complex and troubling. Our job is to sort it all out.’