James Craig - Acts of Violence

Carlyle had discovered all of this one night, a week or so earlier, sitting in Agnes’s tiny living room, nodding politely as the old woman gave him a potted history of Covent Garden over the last sixty years. He had been responding to her 999 call, regarding the explosion that had blown up her kitchen just before 1 a.m.

‘It’s the bloody council,’ Agnes had hissed, as they watched a procession of firemen stomp up and down the hall. ‘They want me out.’

Carlyle clucked sympathetically.

‘They say I’ve got too many bedrooms. The damn cheek. I’ve been here since this place was built in the sixties.’ Rocking gently in her chair, she pulled a shabby blue housecoat tightly around her shoulders. ‘Why decide now that I shouldn’t have a second bedroom?’

‘I think it’s something to do with the government,’ Carlyle mumbled. He vaguely recalled reading something about attempts to get tenants to give up properties that were deemed too big for them – the latest stab at crass social engineering by the over-privileged idiots who tried to run the country as if it were an edition of The Sims . ‘I don’t think they’d blow up your kitchen though.’

‘Why not?’ Agnes shot back. ‘Those buggers have got no shame. They want to put me in a home in Theydon Bois.’

Theydon Bois. A fate worse than death.

‘They say they’ll give me a thousand pounds to go and not come back. But this is my home.’

‘Yes.’ Carlyle stifled a yawn. Unable to think of anything else to say, he was rescued by the Fire Brigade Commander sticking his head round the door to give them the all clear. Promising to check in on the old woman in a few days, he had made his excuses and left.

A VW hatchback rolled past, windows down, rap music blaring from its speakers. The inspector felt a sudden urge to arrest the driver on the spot. As the car lurched round the corner, taking its aural pollution with it, he reluctantly let the idea slide.

‘She says that you promised to pop in and see her,’ Umar reminded him.

‘Yes, yes.’ Carlyle wondered if he could get Helen to do it, or maybe Alice.

‘Turns out that the “bomb”,’ the sergeant chuckled, ‘was a large jar of home-made rhubarb chutney that she’d been keeping in the fridge. Apparently there was a build-up of fermented gases – and boom .’

‘Ah well,’ Carlyle reflected solemnly, ‘just shows, you can never be too careful when it comes to fermented gases.’

‘It took the Fire Brigade a few days to work out what had happened.’

‘I’ll bet. On the bright side though, think of it as another case successfully closed. I just hope Agnes isn’t going to get any more of the stuff.’

‘It comes from her cousin in Kent.’

She never mentioned a cousin, Carlyle thought. Not that it mattered.

‘I told Agnes to have a word with her to be careful.’

‘Better send an alert to the Kent Constabulary,’ Carlyle quipped. ‘The stuff should carry a health warning.’

‘Yeah.’ Pulling a packet of Benson amp; Hedges from the back pocket of his shorts, Umar contemplated another cigarette.

The inspector glanced at his watch. ‘Look, if you’re not busy, you might want to join me for lunch.’

‘Oh?’ Umar’s eyes narrowed. It wasn’t like the inspector to make that kind of an offer without a reason. ‘What’s the catch?’

‘No catch,’ Carlyle said. ‘You can meet your predecessor.’

‘OK, sure.’ Umar still wasn’t convinced.

‘A woman called Alison Roche,’ Carlyle told him. ‘Good cop. She works for SO15 now.’

‘A Counter-Terrorism babe,’ Umar grinned. ‘Sounds good.’

Carlyle grimaced. ‘Just don’t call her a “babe”. Roche doesn’t stand for that kind of thing.’

The sergeant’s grin grew wider. ‘A feisty Counter-Terrorism babe.’

‘Fuck’s sake, Umar.’ This was turning into a bad idea.

‘OK, OK.’ Umar juggled his cigarette packet. ‘I’ll be on my best behaviour.’

‘You’d better be. We’ll just go round the corner. In about an hour.’ Heading up the steps, he wondered if Roche might have any advice on how he could get Umar back on the straight and narrow.

‘Oh,’ Umar shouted after him, ‘by the way. There’s a couple of guys inside waiting to see you. They’re in Interview Room Six.’

The inspector eventually found the men in Interview Room Four. Walking through the door, he was dismayed to discover two suits sitting behind the room’s only table, heads bowed, each tapping frantically on the screen of an iPhone as if their lives depended on it.

Communing with the great God, Apple.

Carlyle took an instant, irreversible dislike to both of them.

After a couple of seconds, each one looked up in turn. The inspector found himself confronted by two very unhappy faces. Clearly, these were men not used to being kept waiting. ‘Gentlemen.’

The younger man placed his iPhone on the table. ‘Inspector . . . Car . . .’

‘Carlyle. Pronounced like the town . . . well, technically, it’s a city, but spelled differently.’

All he got for his trouble was two uncomprehending looks.

‘We were told that you were expecting us,’ the older man said gruffly. His English was precise, with no trace of an accent. A deep tan offset the silver in his hair and he had the well-groomed look of a banker or some other form of highly paid low-life.

The George Clooney Eurotrash look, Carlyle mused. Pulling out a chair, he sat down at the nearside of the table. Out of habit, he glanced up at the CCTV camera hanging from the ceiling, in the far corner of the room.

The older man followed his gaze. ‘You’re not recording us, are you, Inspector?’

‘No, no,’ he said quickly. ‘Not at all.’

‘Good. Maybe we can begin, then. You have kept us waiting more than long enough this morning.’

‘Yes.’ The younger man had a pair of business cards lined up next to his phone. He slid them across the table towards Carlyle. ‘This one is me,’ he said, tapping the card to Carlyle’s right. ‘Sebastian Gregori.’ Again, his English was flawless, although his accent was evident.

Carlyle carefully studied each card in turn. After several moments, he looked up. ‘What is Max Drescher Associates?’

‘It is my company,’ Gregori said smugly.

‘What kind of company?’ Carlyle asked a little too sharply. These men were annoying him intensely; and it was almost time for lunch.

‘We are private security consultants,’ Gregori explained, ‘providing a wide range of range of services for-’

Carlyle cut him off. ‘You’re a private detective?’ In his experience these were creatures only suited to the pages of cheap thrillers.

‘We provide a range of services,’ Gregori repeated. He gestured towards the man sitting next to him. ‘We are representing Herr Kortmann and the family trust in this matter.’

Playing dumb, Carlyle looked at each man in turn. ‘And which matter is that?’

‘The murder of my uncle,’ Werner Kortmann said tersely. ‘Uli Eichinger.’

Eichinger. The inspector nodded as he recalled his conversation with Commander Simpson about the slain businessman.

‘And the long-overdue arrest of the murderer Sylvia Tosches.’ Kortmann gave his retainer a less than playful smack on the arm. Puffed up with anger, the older man looked to have aged a further ten years in the two minutes or so since Carlyle had walked through the door. ‘I thought that this . . . detective had been fully briefed on the matter and had been deployed as our local liaison.’

‘My Commanding Officer spoke to me about it yesterday,’ Carlyle stated, not wishing the tone of the conversation to degenerate further on the grounds that it could only delay his exit from the room. ‘However, I was under the impression that this was an official police matter.’