James Craig - Acts of Violence

‘ Guardian -reading, sandal-wearing, lentil-sucking lefties,’ Carlyle scoffed.

‘Sorry?’ The receptionist pushed her way back through the doors looking even more irritated than she had when she’d left her station.

‘Nothing,’ Carlyle mumbled, blushing slightly as he moved away from the desk.

‘Mr Hutton is not here,’ she said firmly. Sliding back into her seat, she began tapping at the keyboard of her computer, in order to underscore the inspector’s dismissal.

‘Not here?’ Carlyle acted bemused. Rudeness rarely bothered him and he had made a conscious decision that he wasn’t going to let this woman wind him up.

‘He’s not in today,’ the woman said huffily, keeping her eyes on her computer screen.

‘On holiday?’ Carlyle persisted. ‘Off sick? With a client?’

‘Out.’ Was all he got by way of reply.

Deciding not to push the matter any further, Carlyle admitted defeat. ‘OK. Thank you for all your help.’ Ignoring her petulant toss of the head, he headed for the exit.

Walking down the street, he checked his phone and was dismayed to find he had four missed calls and a text from Helen that simply said: where are you? ‘I’m at work,’ Carlyle muttered crossly, almost dropping the phone as he walked into a young woman pushing a pram. ‘Where do you expect me to be?’ Glaring at the woman, he jumped into the gutter and continued on his way.

‘Here. You can hold the baby while I make some coffee.’ Before he could protest, Caroline Hutton placed the sleeping infant on Umar’s lap and headed for the kitchen. Shifting uncomfortably on the sofa, the sergeant grimaced.

‘What’s his name?’ he called after her.

‘Sssh,’ she admonished him, before adding in a theatrical whisper: ‘ Her name is Mary.’

‘Ah.’

‘She was named after my grandmother, on my father’s side.’

‘I see.’ Although he was now a father himself, Umar felt anxious about the responsibility of holding someone else’s child. Mary, on the other hand, seemed perfectly content. Wrapped in a blanket, in a red babygro, she snored peacefully as he took stock of his surroundings.

Tracking them down hadn’t been difficult; a quick check of the Electoral Register had brought him to a crumbling block of flats off Gower Street, south of Euston Road. The one-bedroom flat was a third-floor walk-up, clean but in need of a lick of paint. Some random pieces of cheap furniture were clustered around a small TV. The usual baby paraphernalia was scattered everywhere. The decoration consisted of a few family photographs taped to the far wall next to a framed poster for a movie called The Marriage of Maria Braun . The image – a woman in a black basque doing up her stockings – seemed completely out of place in this room. Umar had never heard of the film, but the image certainly commanded his attention; maybe he would check it out.

The politest word you could use to describe the place was modest. Compared to her parents’ digs, less than a mile away, this looked rather like genteel poverty. Most importantly, however, as far as Umar was concerned, there was no evidence of a bloke in residence.

Mary sighed and wriggled in his lap. He scanned the room again to reaffirm his assessment. No discarded trainers, no men’s mags, no football DVDs under the telly. All the evidence pointed to Caroline Hutton being a single mum.

His observations were interrupted by a familiar noise from inside the romper suit.

‘Urgh.’ Getting to his feet, he took three careful steps towards the door. ‘I think she’s just-’

‘The Pampers are on the sideboard,’ Caroline shouted back, ‘behind you.’

He was just tying up the nappy sack when Caroline walked in with two steaming mugs of black coffee. Lying on the changing mat, Mary was still happily asleep. Swapping one of the mugs for the sack, her mum inspected his work. ‘Good job,’ she grinned. ‘Far better than her father ever managed, anyway.’

Umar took a sip of his coffee. ‘Her dad isn’t around then?’ Trying to sound casual about it.

Handing him the second mug, she gently lifted Mary from the mat and placed her in a cot in the corner of the room. ‘He was released back into the wild before Mary was born.’

‘Bummer.’

‘These things happen.’ Caroline picked up her coffee and took a seat on the ratty green sofa. ‘It’s not the end of the world.’

‘No, but still . . .’ Plonking himself down on the room’s only other seat, an uncomfortable black swivel chair, Umar checked out the curve of her breasts under her crumpled white blouse before lifting his gaze to give her some empathetic eye contact.

Glancing at the wedding band on his right hand, she said, ‘So, how can I help you, Sergeant? Do you work with that creep I met in Doughty Street yesterday?’

‘Yes,’ Umar laughed, not bothering to correct her impression of the inspector, ‘that’s right.’

‘And it seems like the demon burglar has struck.’

‘There was a break-in, yes.’ He took another mouthful of coffee and placed his mug on the carpet. ‘It doesn’t look as if anything was taken, and the mess is fairly minimal, but we’ve been trying to contact your parents to inform them.’ He pulled a small business card from his pocket with the details of a locksmith on Gray’s Inn Road. ‘Give these guys a call, they can make it secure.’

‘Such service,’ she said archly. ‘I’m sure that they will be very grateful.’

Umar gave a small bow. ‘In the Metropolitan Police we are always working hard to enhance our customer-service culture.’

‘That’s good to know.’

‘Next time though, I would get your parents to keep their gate locked,’ he added, gilding the lily somewhat. ‘Someone walks down the road, sees easy access to the basement . . .’ With a shrug, he let the story play out in her head.

‘Yes, of course.’ Pulling her legs up underneath her, she sat back, waiting patiently for him to get to the point.

‘So – we’ve been trying to get hold of your parents,’ he repeated, ‘and we wondered if you might know where they are at the moment?’

‘No idea, sorry.’ She gestured airily in the direction of the window. ‘My folks like to take off every now and again. Lets them imagine that they’re still free spirits.’

‘Free spirits?’

‘My dad always wished he’d been ten years older. He was a bit of a radical when he was younger, in the 1970s and early ’80s. But he would really have liked to be around in the 1960s.’

‘An old hippie.’

‘No, no.’ She shot him a disapproving look. ‘Absolutely not. He would have loved to be a student back then. Paris 1968, Grosvenor Square – that kind of thing. Before the forces of the state got their act together properly, as he likes to put it. Now, with the legal practice and the big house in Bloomsbury, he frets endlessly about selling out.’

‘And your mum?’

‘Technically, Barbara’s not my mum,’ she corrected him. ‘She’s my step-mum. She and my dad hooked up when I was little. She was a client of his, a bit older than Dad. She really was around in the sixties. And quite the firebrand, by all accounts.’

‘Oh?’

Sensing his interest, she backtracked. ‘They’re just a pair of old lefties really. They like to run off now and again, get pissed, shag like superannuated rabbits and pretend they’re both twenty-one again.’

‘Yes.’ Dazzled by her smile and talk of youthful couplings, Umar momentarily quite forgot why he was sitting there. He was only brought back to reality by the baby starting to cry in the corner.

Jumping to her feet, Caroline Hutton began unbuttoning her blouse. ‘Time for a feed.’