James Craig - The Circus

A phone started bleeping. Carlyle reached into his jacket and pulled out not one but two handsets, looking at the screen of each in turn. ‘Not mine,’ he grunted.

Joe already had his mobile against his ear. ‘Yeah, okay. Where?. . Yeah, I know it.’ Carlyle’s heart sank. ‘Don’t worry, I was up anyway. . Yeah, he’s here. . Yeah, okay. Shouldn’t take us long to get there — maybe twenty minutes.’ Ending the call, he put the phone back in his pocket and finished the last of his coffee.

‘That sounds like good news,’ Carlyle said wearily.

‘Missing teenager,’ Joe told him.

‘We’ve had more than enough teenage trouble for one night. Can’t someone else deal with it?’

‘Apparently not. ‘

‘Fuck’s sake.’

‘They’ve sent a WPC over to babysit the worried parents. Maude Hall.’ Joe grinned.

Carlyle looked blank. The name meant nothing to him.

‘She’s very cute.’

The inspector grunted. As an old married man, he had long since realized that it was better not to notice such things. Or, at least, not to comment on them. There were lots of pretty girls in the world and none of them had anything to do with him.

‘Anyway,’ Joe continued, ‘it’s probably something and nothing. The parents are in a bit of a state though, as you can imagine.’ Pushing his chair back, he got to his feet. ‘Don’t worry, I can handle it.’

‘You’re a good man, Joe.’ Carlyle looked past his colleague, towards the counter. Now that he actually wanted her attention, the waitress had disappeared. Pulling a crumpled tenner from his pocket, he dropped it on the table. ‘I’ve done my share of social-worker shit for one night. Now, I need to get to my bed.’

The mornings were getting colder and darker. Winter was on the way and London would spend the next six or seven months in its default state — fifty shades of grey, damp and chilly. Zipping up his overalls, Ryan Davison climbed the steps to the office of the Street Environment Service Depot. Inside, he nodded to the supervisor, a permanently exhausted-looking man called Danimir who had fled from the civil war in the Balkans in the 1990s. For his part, Ryan had fled from the bone-crushing tedium of provincial life in the West Midlands. Both of them had found what they needed in London, more or less.

Hopping from foot to foot, Ryan watched as the clerk checked and rechecked his list with an exaggerated caution that suggested a task considerably more complex than the daily Cockpit Yard refuse-collection rota. Every day they went through this same mini-pantomime before Ryan was allocated his truck for the day. Downstairs, his crew would be getting annoyed by the delay. The sooner they started, the sooner they finished. Working on a ‘task-to-finish’ basis was one of the perks of the job, along with a?4,000 annual ‘productivity bonus’ for undertaking the weekly recycling collection.

Ryan’s five-man unit — a driver and four loaders — was one of twenty crews working out of this Camden depot. Their route took them from Covent Garden in the west, to the edge of the City of London, emptying the oversized green bags full of old newspapers, glass and plastic bottles that households had left out for them. In the three months since he’d been promoted to driving the truck, Ryan had managed to get their daily run down to just under five hours. That meant that, with a bit of luck, he could be home in time to catch a CSI rerun on Sky before taking his afternoon kip. They were showing series six at the moment, which suited Ryan fine. He only watched up to series nine; after that, it wasn’t worth watching. In his opinion, the whole thing had taken a nosedive once William Petersen had left.

Ryan believed in time management, especially when it came to getting his truck out of the depot. A good start was essential; they had to get in and out of the West End while most people were still in their beds, otherwise they would get snarled up in the morning rush-hour.

‘Come on, Dan, we’re ready to go.’

‘Patience, patience.’ Danimir didn’t look up as he scratched the tip of his nose with the end of his blue biro.

Bloody bureaucrat! Ryan glanced at the row of keys lined up on the desk. Each was attached to a key-ring. Each key-ring had a number. ‘Give me number six.’

‘Six needs to go to the garage.’ Danimir tapped his left index finger on the top of the desk for a moment, weighing up all the options before coming to a decision. He picked up a key and tossed it to Ryan. ‘Take number four. It was fixed last week.’

‘Great.’ Ryan caught the key with a sigh. Once a truck went into the garage, it was pretty much guaranteed never to run properly again. He thought about making a grab for one of the other keys. ‘What about. .?’

‘What about you get outta here?’ Danimir waved him away with an angry frown. ‘Take four, like I tell you.’ He fixed the young Englishman with a hard stare. ‘Why are you never happy with what you get? Now, leave me to sort out the rest.’

None of the other crews have managed to turn up yet, thought Ryan, frustrated by his boss’s pedantry, so what does it matter which one I take? But the clock on the wall told him that it was almost 6 a.m. He had to get going right now or the whole day would be buggered.

Danimir gave him a searching look. ‘Okay?’

‘Okay,’ Ryan agreed, turning and reaching for the door handle.

‘And don’t miss out Doughty Street this time,’ Danimir called after him. ‘I don’t want that bloody woman at number twenty-nine ringing me up again. Pain in the arse says she’s going to write to the bloody Mayor.’ Danimir shook his head at the injustice of it all.

‘A lot of good that will do her,’ Ryan laughed.

‘Bloody woman! Just make sure you empty her bag properly, put it back where she left it, and don’t leave a mess.’

‘Sure thing, boss.’ Ryan grinned. He would make sure to tell the lads to leave number 29’s recycling untouched for another week.

Halfway down the outer stairs, Ryan pointed towards the hulking Dennis Elite 2 parked at the end of a row of trucks on the far side of the yard. ‘We’ve got number four,’ he shouted to one of his loaders, Steve McKitten, a Camden veteran with more than twenty years on the bins. Giving his driver a thumbs-up, McKitten jogged over to the truck indicated.

Ryan nodded to two of the other loaders — a Hungarian and a Welshman — and headed for the driver’s cab. Grabbing the door handle, he was just about to pull himself up when McKitten popped his head round the side of the vehicle. ‘Ryan!’ he yelled. ‘You’d better come and see this.’

I knew it! Ryan thought angrily. That Serbian twat’s given us a knackered truck. Jumping back down on to the tarmac, he jogged round to the rear.

‘Look.’ Steve pointed at the pair of legs sticking out from under a pile of soggy cardboard boxes in the loading hopper.

‘Holy shit.’ Ryan realized immediately that there would be no early start for them today. He wouldn’t be getting home in time to catch a CSI rerun, even if it was one of the proper ones with William Petersen in it. He scratched his head, wondering what to do. ‘Stay here,’ he eventually told McKitten. ‘Don’t touch anything. I’ll go and tell Dan.’

‘She’s never done anything like this before.’ Alison Gillespie stared at Joe Szyszkowski as if daring him to contradict her.

‘No.’ The sergeant glanced at WPC Hall, who was sitting next to Mrs Gillespie on the sofa. At this time of the morning, the sergeant decided, she didn’t look quite so cute. With nothing else to do, he stared at his notes.

Hannah Gillespie. Fourteen. Five foot two. Eight stone or thereabouts. One sister, safely tucked up in bed. Attends St Marylebone C of E, a good school. Good student. No obvious problems. No boyfriend (according to her parents). Went out to see a friend but never turned up. Not answering her mobile. A list of other friends who she hadn’t gone to see either .