James Craig - The Circus

Carlyle glanced around. Now lunchtime was approaching, a steady stream of people began coming into the canteen to check out the chestnut mushroom, chard and pearl-barley stew and the smoked haddock. Feeling more than peckish, he wondered if his host would do the right thing and feed him. ‘So. . what kind of stuff did Duncan write about?’

Millington exhaled. ‘A wide range of stuff really.’ She reeled off a number of topics that covered a depressingly banal list of celebrities, reality-TV shows and politicians.

Doesn’t seem such a wide range of things to me, Carlyle thought sourly, just the same old shit. As far as he could see, newspapers in general were now totally redundant, and Sunday newspapers were the most redundant of the lot. He would quite happily never buy another newspaper again. Helen, however, for reasons best known to herself, bought the Sunday Mirror , which seemed to be pitched at people with a mental age of eight. Every weekend he picked it up and then vowed never to read it again.

‘It didn’t much matter what it might be,’ Millington continued, ‘Duncan always said that as long as you got something you could stick an exclusive tag on, you were sorted.’

‘So he’d sell his granny for a story, eh?’

She stared at him blankly. ‘He didn’t have a granny. Both of them are long dead.’

Lawyers, so fucking literal! ‘What about his work colleagues?’

‘I didn’t meet very many of them.’ She made a show of considering it for a moment. ‘Maybe only one or two.’

‘I’ll need their names.’

‘Okay. But Duncan didn’t really spend much time hanging out with anyone from his work. I think he got on okay with the people there but it was a very competitive place. They didn’t do team spirit at the Sunday Witness .’

‘Mm.’ Something else for Joe to follow up. The boy was going to be busy. Maybe he could get WPC Hall to help him. Anita would like that.

Right on cue, his phone started ringing.

‘Joe.’

‘How’s it going?’

Carlyle looked at Millington. ‘I’m speaking to the girlfriend now.’

‘Ex-girlfriend,’ she mumbled.

‘Just quickly then,’ said Joe, as he stifled a yawn. ‘First, it looks like we’re gonna get nothing from the CCTV.’

‘Great.’

‘There’s no way we can get even a partial shot of the killer’s face.’

‘Was that luck? Or did he know what he was doing?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘I suppose not,’ Carlyle said. ‘What’s the second thing?’

‘Simpson wants to see you.’

‘Oh good.’ The inspector raised his eyes to the sky. ‘The day just keeps getting better and better.’

‘She would like you to get over to Paddington asap.’

‘Okay, okay.’ He gazed out of the window at the palace. It had started to rain. ‘I’m in Victoria anyway. I’ll finish up here, nip over and see her and then meet you back at the station in. . let’s say a couple of hours.’

‘Fine.’

Ending the call, Carlyle tossed his phone on to the table.

‘Problem?’ Millington asked.

‘Just the usual. Tell me more about last night.’

‘It was very low key,’ she said. ‘I’d booked the tickets weeks ago. Duncan clearly wanted to watch the football instead, but he at least managed to turn up, which wasn’t always the case. When his phone went off, he mumbled something about a story and disappeared.’

‘Do you know what the story was?’ Carlyle asked.

‘No.’ Millington shook her head. ‘To be honest, I thought he was making it up.’

‘Oh?’

‘It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d got one of his mates to ring up and pretend to be a work call.’

‘So you were annoyed?’

She looked offended at such a stupid question. ‘I should say so. I was even more pissed off when he texted me ten minutes later saying he would have to go and see some guy.’

‘Some guy?’

‘I assume. Don’t know.’ Grabbing the BlackBerry from the table, she clicked a few keys and showed Carlyle the message on the screen: Sorry. Important meeting. C u back at urs .

And to think people worry about the future of the English language, Carlyle thought. ‘So you were expecting him to come back to your place?’

Millington nodded. ‘When he didn’t turn up, I tried his place a few times then I called the police.’

‘It was only a couple of hours.’

‘I know, but the thing about Duncan was that he was always contactable. It never took him more than five minutes to return a call or send an email. He was the ultimate multi-tasker.’ She tutted. ‘Once, he even tried to text a message to his Editor when we were shagging.’

Too much information . Carlyle felt himself blush slightly. ‘So you were worried?’ was all he could think of to say.

‘Yes. I was pretty sure that something was up.’

‘Can you tell me anything else about the guy he went off to meet?’

Another pout. Another snooty expression. Carlyle was reminded just how much he didn’t like lawyers.

‘Or the story that he was working on?’

‘Like I said, no.’

What else should he ask? ‘Was Duncan depressed? Did he seem stressed?’

‘Inspector,’ Millington laughed, ‘everyone in this city is stressed, don’t you think?’

‘Okay,’ Carlyle conceded. ‘But being a tabloid journalist is particularly tough.’

‘True,’ she agreed. ‘Duncan was very insecure. You’re only as good as your next story and all that. He was on some rolling freelance contract. The whole thing was so wearisome — it was one of the reasons I was going to end the relationship.’

The smells coming from the kitchen were beginning to distract the inspector from the matter in hand. Sadly, however, it looked like his host wasn’t going to offer him lunch. Carlyle scooped up his scrap of paper and his empty biro. ‘Final question — did Duncan have any enemies?’

‘Professionally?’

‘Any kind at all.’

‘Not as far as I knew.’

‘None at all?’

‘Duncan was a likeable guy. And he had that great skill for a tabloid reporter — he could do someone over and they’d still ring him up the next day to thank him for the piece.’

‘On the other hand,’ Carlyle mused, ‘someone stabbed him multiple times in the chest.’

Gemma Millington stared out of the window for a few moments, clearly thinking something through. Finally, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a business card. ‘You might want to talk to this guy.’ She placed the card in front of Carlyle. Lene Bang, FMP LLP .

The inspector looked suitably confused.

‘That’s Duncan’s lawyer.’

‘Why did he need a lawyer?’

‘Rightly or wrongly,’ Millington explained, ‘Duncan was worried about getting caught up in the Witness phone-hacking scandal.’

Alarm bells started ringing in the back of the inspector’s head.

‘Some of his stories were under investigation,’ she went on.

The bells were getting louder. Why couldn’t he have a straightforward multiple stabbing, without any of this other crap?

‘He had already been questioned under caution.’

The bells, the bells . .

‘I’m sure you know all this anyway.’

Yeah, Carlyle thought sarcastically, of course I did, which is why I hadn’t mentioned it in the last half an hour.

‘Lene will be able to give you more details.’

‘Thanks.’ Carlyle picked the card off the table and dropped it into his pocket. Pushing back his chair, he got to his feet as his stomach started to rumble. ‘I need to get going. I’ll keep you informed of any developments.’

‘Fine.’ Already tapping away on her BlackBerry, Gemma Millington looked like she could not care less.