Then We Die (31 page)

Waxman snorted with laughter as she stared at the two police officers in front of her. ‘Don’t be preposterous.’

‘Hilary Waxman,’ Carlyle said tonelessly, ‘you are under arrest for the non-payment of fines totalling one million, two hundred and fifty-six thousand, three hundred and twelve pounds and forty-seven pence.’

‘That,’ Roche chipped in, ‘accounts for the unpaid parking tickets run up by diplomatic staff working here at the Embassy, additional penalties and accumulated interest. The figure is only up to date as of last month, so it may have edged up a little.’

Waxman smacked a fist down on her desk. ‘You have got to be kidding.’

‘We’ll take a cheque,’ Carlyle smirked.

‘Get out of my office this instant.’ Waxman pounded a buzzer on her desk.

‘Have it your way,’ Carlyle sighed. Getting to his feet, he pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and quickly moved round behind the desk.

‘Get your hands off me!’ Waxman shrieked, as Carlyle tried to pull her to her feet. Grunting with the effort, he signalled to Roche to give him a hand. Together, they finally managed to wrestle her far enough out of the chair for Carlyle to snap on the cuffs.

‘Where are you taking her?’ Daniel, the lackey, had appeared in the doorway. Unable to make sense of the scene in front of him, he looked like he was about to cry.

‘I don’t know yet,’ Carlyle lied. ‘She’ll be allowed her phone call in due course.’

‘You know what to do,’ Waxman hissed to her aide, as she was hustled away. ‘Get this sorted immediately!’

Standing at the bar of the Stern Arms, David Ronan started on his second bottle of Estrella Damm and idly watched one of the club’s strippers mechanically going through her routine for the benefit of a scanty, post-lunch crowd.

‘Hey, there.’

Ronan turned to meet the gaze of Suzie Perrin, aka ‘Starburst’, one of the Stern’s regular performers. Young-looking, with a pageboy haircut and cheeky grin, Ronan knew that Suzie could easily clear a couple of hundred quid in one lunchtime session. Most of it, however, immediately disappeared up her nose, just like the cash he gave her from the ‘confidential informer’ budget, in exchange for a regular bunk-up in one of the pub’s private rooms.

‘How’s it going?’ he asked.

‘It’s going,’ she sighed. ‘Wanna buy me a drink?’

Ronan peeked at the sheer black basque visible under her barely tied robe. ‘Yeah, okay.’

Almost instantly, the barman placed a bottle of Spanish beer in her hand. ‘Cheers,’ she smiled, taking a long drink.

Ronan watched the other stripper complete her act. ‘Who’s she?’

‘New girl,’ Suzie said, finishing her beer and smacking the empty bottle down on the table. ‘Don’t know her name. Why? D’ya fancy her?’

‘Nah,’ said Ronan, shaking his head. ‘Just wondering.’

‘She won’t last,’ Suzie said, without malice. ‘She just hasn’t got what it takes.’

And what would that be, Ronan wondered ironically; the ability to stay coked out of your head twenty-four hours a day while flashing your arsehole at the world? ‘Are you on next?’ he asked.

Suzie scanned the room. ‘For this lot? Nah, not worth it. I’d barely make a tenner.’ She gave him her trademark impish smile. ‘Tell you what, though, come upstairs and I’ll give you a special show.’

Ronan thought about that for perhaps a nanosecond, trying to conceal the fact that his crotch had already decided for him. ‘Oh, all right then,’ he grinned, ‘you’ve talked me into it.’

On the second floor, Ronan nodded to Steve, one of the club’s bouncers, as he walked past the
No physical contact allowed
sign and down a corridor which had three doors on each side.

‘Take the left on the end,’ Suzie directed him.

‘Okay,’ said Ronan, as he started stroking himself through his trousers.

It was a room he’d been in several times before and he knew the drill. Throwing his jacket over the back of a chair, he took a seat on a low sofa that had been pushed up against the rear wall. Without any ceremony, Suzie slipped off her robe and switched on a CD player that rested on the floor, beside the door.

‘You know the rules,’ she said giggling, as 50 Cent’s ‘In Da Club’ started thumping out of the tinny speakers. ‘No touching me, no touching yourself . . .’

Ronan grunted as he unzipped his fly.

‘And if I have to hit this panic button,’ Suzie continued, now speaking for some reason in a fake American drawl, ‘Steve will be in here immediately to stomp on your ass.’

‘Just get on with it,’ Ronan shouted.

Two and a half minutes later, having broken every house rule he could think of, Ronan sat content, his aussieBum Wonderjock trunks around his ankles as he finished his beer.

Dropping a wad of tissues in a bin next to the CD player, Suzie turned to him and smiled. ‘Fancy another beer?’

Ronan gave himself a good scratch. ‘Yeah, why not?’

She slipped her robe back on, then opened the door. ‘Same again?’

‘Perfect.’

‘Okay, I’ll be back in a minute.’

‘Great.’ Yawning, Ronan dropped his empty beer bottle on the floor, closing his eyes as Fiddy faded into the background.

‘Hey, big boy, wake up.’

Ronan slowly brought the room into focus. Still in a state of undress, he had been placed in a chair. Pushing himself up in his seat, he looked at the woman in front of him. It took him a moment or two to realize that it wasn’t Suzie. He was fairly sure he hadn’t seen her before. She looked quite old, in her forties maybe, but not in bad shape. And she was caressing his scrotum. At least the gun in her hand was.

‘What the fuck?’ Completely startled, Ronan reared up, tipped over backwards on his chair and went sprawling across the floor.

‘Much as I like looking at your ass,’ said the woman, in an accent not unlike Suzie’s earlier, ‘I need you to put your underwear on. You’re coming with me.’

Arms crossed, Simpson paced the room with a look of constipated fury plastered all over her face. ‘Where did all those bloody journalists come from?’

Carlyle bit his tongue and tried not to look at Roche, who was perched on the edge of his desk desperately trying not to laugh.
At least I
’
ve managed to cheer her up a bit
, he thought.

‘Where is she?’ Simpson demanded.

‘Downstairs,’ Carlyle admitted.

‘Well, I hope you’re ready to grovel when you go back down. She is to be released immediately.’

‘But I’ve got a warrant,’ Carlyle protested.

Simpson stepped forward and jabbed him in the chest with her index finger. ‘John, do not try my patience one second longer. How in the name of Jesus Christ you ever managed to convince a judge to grant you such an arrest warrant is beyond me. What kind of idiot would let you try and arrest someone with diplomatic immunity?’

Carlyle decided now was not the time to share the story of Judge Brian Cosby and his unfortunate relationship with cocaine, something which the inspector was happy to overlook in return for the odd favour, however outrageous.

‘As you well know, only the Foreign Office can request a waiver of a person’s diplomatic immunity,’ Simpson stormed, ‘and even then it is up to the sending state – in this case Israel – to decide if they wish to comply.’

‘But they never do,’ Carlyle said huffily.

‘No.’

‘So fuck them.’

‘John . . .’

‘The judge signed the warrant,’ Carlyle shrugged.

‘Did he even bother to read it?’ Simpson screamed.

No
. ‘Of course.’

‘Then why did he fucking sign it, then?’

Because we didn
’
t explain to him precisely who she was
. Carlyle raised a calming hand. ‘We can put it down as a bureaucratic error. Under the circumstances, I’m sure that the Ambassador will be,’ he stifled a chuckle, ‘
diplomatic
and not make too much of a fuss.’

Taking a step backwards, the Commander fought to get her anger under control.

‘I’ll go down and release the prisoner,’ said Roche, slipping off the desk.

‘You stay where you are,’ Simpson ordered. ‘I can’t believe that you could have picked up so many of the inspector’s appalling habits already.’ Roche started to reply, but Simpson cut her off. ‘One more word from you and you’ll be back in East London before the end of the day – if not in jail yourself.’

Silenced, the sergeant stared at the floor.

‘Have they paid the fines?’ the inspector asked.

Simpson’s face turned puce, until he thought that she might explode. ‘Carlyle!’

Keep your bloody hair on
. Moving towards the stairs, he held up both his hands, trying not to grin like a naughty schoolboy. ‘Okay, don’t worry. I’m going.’

‘And make sure she gets taken out the back way,’ Simpson shouted after him. ‘There’s a car already waiting.’

Ignoring both Simpson and the protests of Waxman’s lawyer, Carlyle marched the Ambassador though the reception area, pausing at the front entrance to undo her handcuffs.

‘Your career is over,’ she hissed as he pulled open the door. ‘You’ve got a serious problem.’

‘That’s right, I’ve got a problem. My problem is that one of your psycho goons killed my sergeant.’

‘You’re talking crap.’

‘You can always give up Lieberman.’

‘He knows nothing about your guy.’

‘My guy had a name: Joe Szyszkowski. He had a wife and two kids. He was shot dead in the street.’ Grabbing Waxman by the arm, he shoved her out onto the steps to confront the waiting press.

Immediately, the cameras started flashing and the journalists surged forward.

‘Ambassador!’

‘Over here!’

‘Do you have a comment on your arrest?’

‘Did you pay the fine?’ someone shouted, to the general amusement of his colleagues.

Feeling empty and deflated, Carlyle slipped back inside.

‘Holy shit!’ Roche laughed as he reappeared on the third floor. ‘Did you see what happened?’

‘What?’ Carlyle said dully.

‘Waxman just smacked a journalist in the face!’ She pointed to the TV monitor hanging from the ceiling. ‘They just ran it live on Sky. Some guy asked her if she was going to pay her parking tickets, the rest of them started laughing and she just hit him with a left hook. The bloke went down like a sack of potatoes.’

‘She’s a big woman,’ Carlyle mused. ‘I expect she packs a fair old punch.’

‘That’ll take the heat off us, though.’

Us?
‘Where’s Simpson?’

‘Dunno. She pranced off somewhere. She might have left. Anyway, the issue now is the Ambassador clocking the hack. We’re old news already. The world has moved on.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Carlyle said. ‘I’m sure there will still be hell to pay.’ He placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘But that’s my problem. It was my decision to give Waxman this grief, and I have to take full responsibility.’

‘But—’

‘It was down to me. You will be kept out of it.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Roche patted his hand and gently eased it from her shoulder, giving it a small squeeze before letting go.

‘There’s no point in us both taking the flak.’

‘Hey,’ she smiled, ‘we’re in this together. After all, I wouldn’t even be here if these fuckers didn’t think they could shoot up our streets like it was the Wild West.’

‘The Wild West of Beirut,’ Carlyle grinned. Could this woman rise any higher in his estimation in just one day?

‘Anyway, even if there is any comeback, we can both claim posttraumatic stress disorder.’

Carlyle gave her a funny look. ‘How do you reckon?’

‘Well, you’ve had to deal with more deaths in the last week than the average copper faces in a lifetime.’

‘I suppose.’

‘And I’ve had to deal with my boyfriend’s dick in some bimbo’s mouth in front of my very eyes.’

Too much information
, Carlyle thought. ‘I’m sure that Dr Wolf will be delighted to make your acquaintance,’ he said. The mobile on his desk vibrated with a message. It was from Ronan:
Urgent! Have found our man. Meet me at the stern arms shoreditch asap
. Carlyle thought about that for a second, then rang him back. He listened to Ronan’s phone finish ringing and go to voicemail. Without leaving a message, he hung up and looked at Roche. ‘Do you know a pub called the Stern Arms?’

‘David likes to go there now and again.’ She sighed theatrically. ‘Strippers downstairs, private dances on the first floor.’

‘And on the second floor?’

‘I don’t want to think about what might happen upstairs. Why do you ask?’

‘He’s asked me to meet him there.’
Helen will be delighted
, Carlyle thought. ‘How do I get there?’

‘Come out of Liverpool Street tube, walk up Shoreditch High Street for a couple of minutes and it’s on your left.’

‘Okay.’ Carlyle got to his feet. ‘Don’t suppose you want to come?’

Stalking away, she didn’t bother to reply.

Wearing raincoats over their stage outfits, a couple of strippers were standing on the pavement outside the Stern Arms, enjoying a fag and a chat. One of them gave the inspector a wan smile as he shuffled past them and headed inside. At the bar, he ordered a bottle of Budweiser and looked around. Dark and grimy, the place was almost empty save for a handful of men, each sitting at a table facing the space at the far end of the room, which had been cleared for the performers. A girl with badly bleached blonde hair wearing high heels and what looked like an Indian squaw outfit, was going round each customer in turn, collecting pound coins in a pint glass before starting her act. When she had done the various tables, she tottered over to the bar and thrust the glass under Carlyle’s nose.

‘It’s a pound,’ she explained flatly, ‘but you can give more if you want.’

Embarrassed, Carlyle dug into his trouser pocket and dropped a two-pound coin into the glass.

The girl brightened at this accidental show of generosity. ‘Thanks,’ she smiled, stepping in front of him. ‘If you fancy a special show upstairs afterwards, it’s twenty quid.’ Handing her pint pot to the barman for safekeeping, she then wandered off. Finishing his beer, Carlyle rang Ronan’s number again. Again the voicemail kicked in. Sighing, he watched the barman shove a CD in the stereo behind the bar and then hit Play. Kylie Minogue’s ‘Go Hard or Go Home’ started blaring from a couple of speakers as the squaw began slowly gyrating like a wounded buffalo.