James Craig - Never Apologise, Never Explain

Tearing the report into small pieces, he assembled the bits into a small pile on his desk, contemplating them with satisfaction as he took a first sip of his Scotch. Returning the tumbler to the desk, he scooped up his handiwork, carefully placing the rubbish in a locked bin marked CONFIDENTIAL SHREDDING ONLY.

After a little more whisky, the Mayor felt his cheeks begin to flush and a gentle warmth filled his belly. With a satisfied sigh, he lifted a second sheet of paper from his desk. This was an email from the Company Secretary at Pierrepoint Aerospace, confirming that the final signed contract from the Chilean defence contractor LAHC Consulting had been received. As a result, Pierrepoint had effectively subcontracted large parts of its contract to manage British military bases in Afghanistan to the South Americans, at a fraction of the rate that it was charging the Ministry of Defence. The effect on the company’s earnings would be considerable. So too would be the effect on his year-end bonus. As he contemplated his windfall, it dawned on Holyrod that this must have been one of the last things poor Matias Gori had attended to before his unfortunate death. The Mayor lifted his glass to absent friends. ‘Jolly good show,’ he grinned. ‘Well done indeed.’

‘Would you like a drink, Inspector?’

‘Why not?’ Carlyle settled into his soft leather armchair and smiled. ‘I’ll have a whisky, thank you.’ Watching Claudio Orb shuffle off to get their drinks, the inspector gazed out across Heathrow’s new Terminal 5. This was the first time he had ever set foot in an Executive Lounge. On the few times he’d ever travelled through the airport on holiday, Carlyle had been stuck with the unwashed masses milling round the fast-food restaurants and duty-free shops on the main concourse. It didn’t make for a happy experience. This, on the other hand, was really quiet and pleasant. Peace and quiet were what you paid for; that and the free booze. Carlyle turned away from the window and contemplated the scattering of rich-looking types casually getting blasted while, at the same time, taking a last few hits on their crackberrys before take-off. ‘How the other half live,’ he said quietly to himself. The other half a per cent, more like.

‘There you are.’ Orb handed him a tumbler half-full of indeterminate Scotch and kept a tall glass half-filled with a red liquid for himself. ‘Just a cranberry juice for me,’ he grinned, sinking slowly into the chair opposite. ‘It’s a long flight. Cheers!’

Carlyle raised his glass slightly. ‘Cheers.’ He took a sip. Smooth. And, again, better than he was used to.

Orb placed his glass on the low table between them. ‘So, I take it that you have come to see me quietly off the premises?’

‘No, not really,’ Carlyle replied. ‘I just wanted to see you before you left to say thank you for all your help with my investigation.’

‘Come now, Inspector,’ Orb grinned, ‘I do not get the impression that you are the type of man to come all the way to the airport just to fulfil a minor social pleasantry.’

Carlyle took another mouthful of Scotch, letting it sit under his tongue before it slipped down his throat. ‘Well, maybe I’m not just here to say thank you. I hoped you might be able to clear up a few things for me — some loose ends.’

Orb raised an eyebrow. ‘There are loose ends?’

‘Not officially. My case — the murder of Agatha Mills — is closed.’

‘Good.’

‘The final verdict was that her husband did it.’

‘I see.’

‘But…’

The Ambassador smiled. ‘But you do not think this was a simple case of a man killing his wife?’

Carlyle shrugged. ‘Things are often more complicated than they might seem.’

‘Inspector, I am — I was a diplomat — I know that things are always more complicated than they seem. Or, if not, then we make them so.’ Orb chuckled. ‘What do you think happened here?’

‘I think that Matias Gori killed Agatha Mills,’ Carlyle said softly, ‘along with another woman, Sandra Groves and probably a third, Monica Hartson.’

Orb looked at the inspector, giving nothing away. ‘Why?’

‘Because they wanted to have him arrested and tried for war crimes. They think he murdered a whole family in Iraq.’

A soothing female voice with a perfect Home Counties accent came over the tannoy: ‘ Passengers are now invited to begin boarding BA flight 93 to Toronto and Santiago.’

Placing his juice on the table, Orb shifted in his seat.

‘I assume that you knew about all this,’ Carlyle continued, ‘because those women wrote to you, asking for action to be taken against Gori.’

‘You should never assume, Inspector, said Orb, holding his gaze. ‘Assumptions can be misleading — dangerous even.’

‘Only if they’re wrong.’ Carlyle shrugged. ‘My job is all about making assumptions. The facts either fit them or they don’t. If they don’t, I make some new ones.’

‘It’s an approach, I suppose.’

‘Did you know about the accusations against Gori?’

‘Lots of people write to the Embassy, Inspector. The Ambassador gets to read hardly any of this correspondence. If any of those ladies ever wrote to me, I am sure that I did not see it. For that I apologise.’

‘Sir.’ Carlyle pushed himself to the edge of his seat and leaned forward. ‘I am not here in any official capacity. I am certainly not looking to cause you any trouble. Nothing that we say will go any further.’

Orb stared into his drink.

‘I just want to know what happened.’

‘Why?’ Orb asked. ‘We both know that this… mess has been dealt with. It’s over now.’

Good question. The inspector sipped his whisky. ‘Agatha Mills spent forty years fighting on behalf of her brother. She, and the others, fought for what they believed in.’

The Ambassador smiled. ‘And you think they deserve answers?’

‘I suppose so,’ Carlyle mumbled into his glass.

‘Then I fear that you will be disappointed,’ Orb sighed. ‘You see, I made some enquiries of my own. It seems that there are a number of cases relating to the 1973 coup that are in the process of being dropped. The Pettigrew case is one of them. There will therefore be no trial.’

Finishing his drink, Carlyle thought about the empty space in the family mausoleum in North London that would never be filled. ‘That is a shame.’

‘That is life, Inspector.’

‘Yes, I suppose it is. But the Pettigrew trial was not what was concerning Gori.’

‘That was the other thing I checked,’ Orb said. ‘Matias has never been cited in any of the various investigations, either concluded or ongoing, into the Ishaqi massacre in Iraq.’ Carlyle made to say something, but the Ambassador held up a hand. ‘He didn’t even get a mention. Whatever these ladies, or indeed Matias himself, might have thought, no one else was paying any attention.’

‘Maybe they should have done.’

Orb raised an eyebrow. ‘For a policeman, that sounds a little limp, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

Carlyle sucked down a little more of the Scotch. ‘Not at all.’

‘ This is a second call for BA flight 93 to Toronto and Santiago. ’

The Ambassador pulled a boarding card from his jacket pocket and started playing with it. ‘We both know,’ he said quietly, ‘that there was something wrong with Matias. The wiring in his brain wasn’t quite right. He was the kind of man who would have been very much at home in the Chile of 1973.’ He looked at Carlyle. ‘In the London of today, he did not fit in so well.’

‘So he did kill those women?’

Orb stood up. ‘Really,’ he said, ‘I don’t know. I assume so, but I don’t know.’

The inspector placed his empty glass on a nearby table and got to his feet. ‘What about his death?’ he asked.