James Craig - The Circus

‘Jenny. .’

Frowning, she turned to face Trevor Miller.

‘Or should I say Maude?’

‘What the fuck is someone doing, out riding a bike at this time of night?’ Marcus Evans made a vigorous hand gesture through the windscreen. ‘Oi, fuckface! Get out the way.’

Gripping the steering wheel tightly, Dennis Smith swerved round the cyclist and accelerated across the otherwise almost empty Blackfriars Bridge, heading north.

‘Fucking hell, Den, how fast can this thing go?’

‘I’ve had it up to over ninety,’ Smith grinned, ‘but don’t tell the boss.’ Foot to the floor, he started drumming on the steering wheel of the Vauxhall Combo. ‘Spurs were good tonight.’

‘For a fucking change.’

‘Against shit opposition though.’

‘You can only beat what’s put in front of you,’ Evans mused. Right on cue, a caller on 5Live was making the same point, before concluding, ‘We’re only two or three quality signings away from being a great team.’

‘We’re always two or three quality signings away from being a great team, you dick,’ Smith grunted towards the radio. Flicking on the indicator light, he lifted his foot off the accelerator. ‘How do I get on to Queen Victoria Street? Can I turn left up here?’ Looking for a sign, he didn’t see the man in the suit step out from behind the number 63 bus, which was heading south. Head down, he was talking into his mobile phone as he wandered into the middle of the road.

‘Fuck!’ Evans screamed. Before his mate even had time to touch the brakes, there was a huge thud and the windscreen shattered.

‘Fuuuucccckkkkk!!!’ The steering wheel spun out of his hands and Den watched in horror as the van roared across on to the wrong side of the road, heading directly for the water.

Standing on Blackfriars Bridge, the inspector gazed east, past St Paul’s and the City, towards Docklands. The sky was a deep blue, full of promise, and there was a pleasing nip in the air. Another day: busy people simply getting on with their lives. ‘What a great city.’ Breathing in deeply, he turned to his sergeant. ‘What a fucking great city!’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Joe Szyszkowski was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Carlyle found himself talking to a pimply youth whom he had never seen before. In an ill-fitting suit, with an appallingly bad bog-brush haircut, the kid stood maybe an inch or two taller than the inspector himself. Hopping from foot to foot, he had a pained expression as if he urgently needed the bathroom.

‘Who are you?’ Carlyle asked, suitably unimpressed.

‘Eric Peterson.’ Fumbling in the pocket of his raincoat, the youth pulled out a business card. ‘Transport for London and Special Adviser to the Mayor.’ He tentatively offered the card. Hands kept firmly in his pockets, the inspector ignored it.

‘What are you doing here?’ Carlyle gestured towards the south end of the bridge and the yellow police tape flapping in the wind. ‘You should be behind the cordon.’

The youth stood his ground. ‘We need to get this bridge open.’

Carlyle’s eyes narrowed.

‘There are roadworks on Waterloo Bridge,’ Peterson explained, ‘and London Bridge is closed for repairs. If we don’t get Blackfriars open there’s going to be total chaos.’

‘There’s always chaos,’ Carlyle grunted.

‘Improved transport routes are one of the Mayor’s key deliverables. We are already six percentage points down on where we were projected to be this month, in terms of improved traffic flows. That means we are on course for having to provide the Assembly with a written explanation. It is imperative-’

What the fuck is the little sod talking about? Stepping forward, the inspector cut Eric Peterson off with an angry wave of his hand. ‘This,’ he said slowly, ‘is a crime scene.’

Folding his arms, the young bureaucrat shook his head, annoying Carlyle even more.

‘The point is-’

‘The point is ,’ Carlyle stepped right up to the guy and jabbed a finger towards his face, ‘people have died here. My job is to find out what happened, and that will take however long it takes. So kindly fuck off behind the tape there, or I will have you arrested for obstruction and wasting police time.’

‘The Mayor will not be happy,’ Peterson huffed.

‘The Mayor will not be happy,’ Carlyle parroted. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Joe approaching. Even at this distance, it was clear that his sidekick had the deathly pallor of a man who had done a full night’s work.

‘Not in the slightest.’ Confronted by the policeman’s full-on hostility, Peterson’s bottom lip had started to quiver and it looked like he might burst into tears at any moment.

‘Well, tough shit. The Mayor’s re-election prospects are not my concern.’ For a second time, Carlyle pointed towards the tape. ‘Now fuck off .’

‘Who was that?’ Joe asked as he watched Eric Peterson slouch off towards the tape.

‘Just another fucking idiot sent by the powers-that-be to try my patience,’ Carlyle sighed. ‘What have you got for me?’

Gesturing in the direction whence he had come, the sergeant held up a clear plastic evidence bag containing a mobile phone. ‘We found this in the gutter back there. It’s been fairly bashed up but the SIM card should still be fine. We think it must belong to our guy.’

Our guy . Carlyle smiled. ‘That’s a fucking result.’

‘And a half.’

‘So, tell me what happened.’

‘What we think happened?’

‘Yeah, your best guess.’

‘Okay.’ Joe took a deep breath. ‘Based on what we’ve pieced together so far, from CCTV and a couple of eye-witnesses, the assumption is that our guy went into the Government Art Collection building over there,’ he pointed past the statue of Queen Victoria towards an office block on the north-east corner of the bridge, ‘and shot both Harris Highman and Zoe Mosman. Then he waltzes out and starts crossing the bridge, heading towards where we are now. After tossing his gun into the river, he makes a call on his mobile. Deciding to cross the road, he walks out from behind a bus and gets taken out by Fred’s Fabulous Fruit ’n’ Veg van, which is coming the other way at somewhere north of eighty miles an hour.’

Fred’s Fabulous Fruit ’n’ Veg? The name vaguely rang a bell but Carlyle couldn’t immediately place it, so he let it slide.

Joe pointed towards the ragged hole in the fencing almost exactly in the middle of the bridge. ‘The van careers across the road, taking the pedestrian with it, then crashes through the barrier — and splash !’

The pedestrian, meaning the shooter .

‘Out-fucking-standing,’ Carlyle grinned, gazing down at the pontoon from where police divers were trying to recover the bodies. ‘How long till we get an ID?’

‘Dunno,’ Joe shrugged. ‘If we can work it out from the phone, maybe a couple of hours. If not, we’ll have to wait for the river to give him up. They reckon there are two guys still inside the van but they haven’t found the pedestrian yet.’

‘All three are sleeping with the fishes?’

‘Not down there, they’re not,’ Joe laughed. ‘They probably died of poisoning rather than drowning.’

‘I thought the Thames was supposed to be cleaner these days?’

‘I dunno about that.’ Joe pointed at the murky grey-brown water. ‘I mean, look at it.’

‘Fair point.’ Carlyle returned his attention to the bridge itself. ‘Anyway, this is probably the most excitement they’ve had here since Calvi in the early eighties.’

‘Eh?’

‘Roberto Calvi, God’s banker.’

Joe still looked at him blankly.