James Craig - Acts of Violence

‘Don’t worry about it. Lunch is on me.’

‘OK, thanks.’

‘Who were the people in the flat?’

‘We don’t know.’ Picking up her newspaper, Roche got to her feet. ‘But we think that they might have been Asian.’

‘Indian?’

‘No.’ Roche edged round the table, towards the door. ‘Chinese. Japanese. Something like that. Thanks for lunch. I’ll give you a shout if I hear anything else.’

‘Thanks.’ Carlyle wiped the corner of his mouth with a napkin. ‘But what’ll I tell Naomi Taylor in the meantime?’

Roche reached for the door. ‘I’m sure you’ll think of something,’ she grinned. ‘After all, if I remember rightly, you’re good with grieving widows.’

Umar eyed Carlyle expectantly as he approached the sergeant’s desk. ‘Where’s my sandwich?’

Shit. The inspector stopped in his tracks. ‘Sorry, I forgot.’

‘But-’

Carlyle dismissed the protests with a wave of his hand. ‘What have you found out about our terrorist?’

‘Terrorist suspect ,’ Umar said grumpily.

‘Yeah, yeah. Thank you for that vital clarification, Clive Stafford Smith.’ Carlyle picked a sheaf of papers from Umar’s desk, a selection of pages gleaned from various websites, and began leafing through them. ‘So what have we got?’

Pushing his chair backwards, Umar lifted his trainers on to the desk. ‘Sylvia Tosches looks like she was a fairly minor figure in Baader Meinhof, aka the Red Army Faction, or RAF. Also known as Hitler’s Children or the 68ers, after the social protests of 1968.’ He looked at his boss and grinned. ‘Were you part of all that?’

‘I’m not that old,’ Carlyle said gruffly.

‘Anyway, Tosches. Not as well known as Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof or, indeed, people like Gudrun Ensslin or Jan-Carle Raspe – all of whom are dead, by the way – but sufficiently well known to have her face on Wanted posters in police stations all over Europe in the seventies.’

Carlyle rattled the papers in the air. ‘I can read all this stuff for myself. Anything to suggest that she might be in London?’

Umar shook his head. ‘She’s not on our system. I haven’t even found anything written about her in the last ten years.’

‘And Barbara Hutton?’

‘Nothing, so far.’

‘OK, why don’t you go and get something to eat? I’ll take a look at what you’ve printed off.’

‘Fair enough.’ Grabbing his coat, Umar scuttled towards the exit.

Flopping into his chair, Carlyle settled in for some quiet reading.

Not bad. Not bad at all. Pushing back his shoulders, Ren Qi flicked an imaginary piece of dust from the shoulder of his Hermès suit and contemplated himself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror. The man staring back at him – tall, elegant, relaxed – was clearly a member of the international elite; someone who belonged in the pages of GQ or Esquire , whose natural habitat was the streets of Manhattan, or Barcelona . . . or Knightsbridge.

Ren glanced at his Parsifal Gold Chronograph. He was due in Savile Row in under an hour for a fitting with his tailor, followed by a drink at the Atlantic Bar and dinner with a couple of close business partners at the Delauney. After that, it would be time for some fun.

A polite cough woke him from his reverie. Turning away from the mirror, Ren blinked at Guo Miao.

‘What do you want to do?’ the MSS man asked, pointing at the TV in front of them. On the screen, Wang Lei continued to shuffle in and out of shot, while Ren Jiong played with his computer game.

Does the boy ever do anything else? his father wondered. All that money spent on his education and all he can do is fornicate, drink and play games. He let out a brittle laugh. Maybe we have turned him into an English ‘gentleman’, after all.

‘Sir?’

Ren Qi looked at Guo carefully. The Major was one of his most trusted retainers in the Ministry but Ren knew that his loyalty was being stretched to the limit. Overseas adventures like this took a lot of explaining away back in Beijing. ‘The flight is ready?’

‘Yes. We can leave when you wish.’

Ren nodded. ‘Good.’ He turned to go.

‘But-’

‘Yes?’ Ren paused.

‘What about the Englishman? Wouldn’t it be better to leave him here?’

‘Definitely not,’ Ren snapped. ‘He comes too.’ Clearly not happy, the Major nevertheless declined to argue the point any further. ‘Think of it as a special delivery.’ Ren let his frown melt away. He placed a hand on Guo’s shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze. ‘I am very grateful for all of your assistance in this matter.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good.’ This time he did head for the door. ‘Now, I need to see a man about a suit . . . or two.’

Two doors down from the Charles Dickens Museum, number 46 Doughty Street looked like it had been spruced up recently. The front door of the four-storey Georgian terraced house had been given a coat or two of bright red paint and the wooden-framed windows had been newly installed. Compared to the crumbling pile next door, the place looked very sprightly indeed.

Pressing the doorbell, Carlyle gazed down the street, counting three houses with scaffolding outside. Clearly, the tree-lined street was going through one of its periodic bouts of gentrification.

Having reflected on the state of the local property market, he was just about to reattach his finger to the bell when the door opened and a head appeared. ‘Yes?’

Ignoring the cross tone in the woman’s voice, Carlyle said politely, ‘Mrs Hutton?’

‘I’m her daughter.’ Suspicion personified, the woman kept the door between them. ‘Who are you?’

‘I was wondering if I could have a word with your mother.’

‘About what?’ The woman’s eyes narrowed; she rocked backwards as if getting ready to slam the door in his face.

‘It’s all right, Caroline.’ The door opened wider and an older woman appeared. Somewhere in her sixties, she had a neat bob of grey hair and a friendly face. Tall and slim, with high cheekbones and warm eyes, she must have been quite a looker thirty years ago. Hell, she was quite a looker now, Carlyle thought. Whether or not she was the woman in the picture that Gregori, the German private eye, had shown him, however, was another matter entirely. It was impossible to tell. ‘I can handle this.’

Caroline gave an irritated sigh before disappearing back inside.

The woman gave Carlyle an apologetic smile. ‘I am Barbara Hutton. Can I help you?’

The inspector couldn’t help but notice that her accent was pure Home Counties. Flashing his warrant card, he invited himself inside.

Hutton led him to a large reception room on the ground floor at the back of the house. She gestured for him to take a seat on a sofa that had been covered with a pale yellow throw.

‘I hope I’m not in any kind of trouble,’ she said lightly, remaining on her feet, even when he sat down.

So do I . Having decided to pre-empt Sebastian Gregori and Werner Kortmann by coming to see Barbara Hutton for himself, the inspector had given careful consideration as to how he would explain his presence on her doorstep. At the time it had seemed plausible; now, as the woman folded her arms and fixed him with an amused stare, it seemed woe-fully inadequate. Playing for time, he made a show of glancing around the room: the policeman analysing his surroundings.

The room was dominated by a large black and white image, which hung on the wall to his right. At first glance it looked as if it was a photograph, but on closer inspection he decided it was a painting. It showed the profile of a woman lying on her back, eyes closed, her dark hair merging with the black background. Mesmerized, Carlyle fumbled for his glasses. Slipping them on, he pointed at the picture. ‘There’s a line around her neck.’