James Craig - Buckingham Palace Blues

‘What do you want, Dolan?’ Matthews slipped her phone into a pocket and eyed the sergeant carefully.

‘Just checking you were okay.’

‘Yeah, right.’ Matthews took a deep breath and tried to fight off the nausea. Like everyone else in SO14, she knew that Dolan was trouble. The best way to deal with him was simply to keep out of his way. When he had appeared at the bar, she had vowed to make a sharp exit. Then someone had bought another round and she had stayed. Now that wasn’t looking like such a clever decision. Instinctively, she looked over her shoulder. Behind a pile of rubbish was a brick wall, at least twenty feet high. The only way out was to head back the way she had come.

She took a final drag on her cigarette and tossed it in the direction of Dolan’s trainers. Out of uniform, he looked nothing much: a squat bloke, five foot ten, in reasonable shape given that he was already well past fifty, with a number-one cut that made his silver hair shine under the orange glare of the streetlight at the open end of the alley. Dolan, thirty-year veteran of serving Her Majesty and her dysfunctional family, was the man who actually ran things on the other side of Buckingham Gate. The Charlie Adamses of this world might come and go, but Dolan was omnipresent. While Adam might be nominally running the show, it was Dolan who was in charge of all the money-making scams that had been carefully built up over the years, like the private tours, illicit parties and souvenir sales.

On the nights when he would sit out on the back lawn and get pissed on Pol Roger Cuvee Winston Churchill, the sergeant liked to joke that he was ‘the most important person in the whole bloody Palace’. The really funny thing was that this was probably true. Dolan was very protective of his mini-empire. He didn’t like anyone who didn’t share his view of SO14 as a nice little earner, wouldn’t put up with anyone who rocked the boat. And he was deeply suspicious of anyone who ever asked for a transfer.

‘Where’s your girlfriend?’ Dolan sneered.

Matthews ignored this, replying instead, ‘What can I do for you, Tommy?’

Without saying a word, Dolan moved to his right, allowing one of the men behind him to step forward and slam a fist into Matthews’s stomach. Sinking to her knees, gasping for air, she felt the pool of lager rebelling in her stomach. A second later, she was retching violently, sending a stream of vomit bouncing off the sticky tarmac.

‘Fuck!’ Dolan laughed, dancing away from the oncoming mess.

Her attacker then dodged to the side and gave her a firm kick in the ribs.

Happy to stay in the background, the third man laughed too.

Leaning as far forward as he dared, Dolan hissed, ‘You always were a skanky bitch, but why did you go and talk to that fucking wanker John Carlyle? That was really stupid.’

Matthews tasted the puke in her mouth and gagged again. Trying to push herself up, she vomited for a second time. One of her ribs felt like it might be broken. Through the haze of pain she cursed Carlyle. You’ve dropped me in it again, she thought, you stupid, fucking twat. Looking up at Dolan, she groaned, ‘I dunno what you’re talking about.’

Dolan reached down and grabbed her by the hair. ‘You’re a lying fucking slag.’

‘Fuck! Tommy, for fuck’s sake!’

Dragging her through the mess, he pushed her face down until she was prostrate on the stinking ground. ‘What did you tell him?’

Feeling the world spinning around her, Matthews tried to close her eyes. If she could ignore her tormentors. . if she could go to sleep, maybe all this would stop.

Dolan gave her another hard kick. ‘What did you tell him?’

‘Nothing,’ she mumbled. ‘I told him nothing.’

‘Do you want us to go round your house and have a word with your missus?’

‘Leave Heather out of this. .’

A boot glanced off the side of her head and, finally, she felt the world slipping away. As they set about her in earnest, she began dreaming of the stars.

Sitting on the kitchen floor, Carlyle dialled the number on Olga’s card and listened to the call girl’s mobile ring for what seemed like an eternity. It was 10 a.m. and he wondered if she might still be in bed. Waiting for the voicemail to kick in, he was surprised when someone finally picked up.

‘Da?’

‘Olga?’

‘Yes, darling,’ her voice purred down the line, ‘this is Olga. What can Olga do for you?’

Carlyle could hear voices in the background; maybe she could talk freely, maybe she couldn’t. It dawned on him that he couldn’t even be sure that he was talking to the right woman. Still, he ploughed on: ‘You gave me your card the other day. .’

‘I give my card to a lot of people,’ she laughed. ‘You want business?’

Someone chortled in the background.

Was this a game? ‘Er. . yes.’

‘Good,’ she said seductively. ‘What would you like?’

If his wife could hear him now. . Carlyle felt himself blush ever so slightly. Thank God Helen was at work. ‘Er, what do you suggest?’

‘I don’t do anal,’ she said quickly.

More laughter.

Carlyle felt himself getting flustered. ‘But I didn’t-’

‘And, always, we use a condom.’

‘Okay.’

‘Don’t worry, darling, I will show you a good time. You must be horny, for wanting it at this time in the morning.’ The laughter grew louder. ‘Where are you?’

‘Covent Garden.’

‘Which hotel?’

‘Er. .’

‘Ah. Good.’

‘Huh?’

‘I know it well,’ she told him. ‘I meet you in the lobby of the Garden Hotel in forty-five minutes. Is?175 for an hour, plus my taxis, plus my tip.’

‘Tip?’ Carlyle asked, belatedly getting into the spirit of the conversation.

‘ Da ,’ she giggled. ‘My tip for making you. . explode !’ The laughter reached a crescendo. Olga waited until the hubbub had subsided. ‘Consider it a performance-related bonus.’

‘What if I don’t explode?’ Carlyle joked. ‘Do I get a discount?’

‘Don’t be cheeky. I see you soon.’ The phone clicked and she was gone.

Carlyle sat there for a moment, wondering what to wear.

Putting on his best suit, a navy Paul Smith number that he’d snapped up for eighty quid several years earlier from the Oxfam shop on Drury Lane, he headed out of the flat. Ten minutes later, he was walking through the revolving doors of the Garden Hotel.

The Garden was situated on St Martin’s Lane, just up from Trafalgar Square and round the corner from Charing Cross police station. A boutique hotel fashioned out of a 1960s office block, it was, according to its brochure, a manifestation of the emotional zeitgeist of the city . That automatically made it the kind of place that Carlyle himself could never afford to stay in. At the same time, he had spent quite a bit of time pacing the lobby over the years, for one reason or another, so he knew many of the staff by sight if not by name. Giving the doorman a swift nod, he scanned the lobby itself and the Light Bar beyond, in case Olga had arrived early. When it was clear that she wasn’t there, he headed towards the foppish-looking gent who was sitting at a tiny desk behind one of the lobby’s pillars, with a look on his face that suggested he was half reading the copy of Country Life propped up in front of him and half-staring into space.

Over the top of his magazine, Alex Miles watched Carlyle approaching. As chief concierge at the Garden, Miles had acted as the hotel’s senior fixer for their more important and demanding guests for over a decade. When it came to doing his job, policemen were a minor irritant. They had to be managed carefully.