James Craig - Acts of Violence

‘So who’s left?’

‘Just the one bloke. Sonia’s punter.’

Stands to reason, Carlyle thought tiredly. ‘Why hasn’t he been sprung yet?’

‘Refuses to give his name. Not sure he speaks English. He’s a Chinese bloke, I think.’

Wrinkling his nose at the smell, Carlyle stopped Proctor from closing the door behind him. Happy enough to oblige, the constable lumbered off back down the corridor to dream of bacon and await his tardy replacement.

Not venturing any further into the cell than was absolutely necessary, the inspector surveyed the figure lying on the bench in front of him. Even in his dishevelled and malodorous state, the man had a patrician air. Long-limbed and lean, he had a shock of expertly dyed black hair, and his firm jawline was encased in salt and pepper stubble. His dark suit, albeit crumpled and stained, was clearly of excellent quality, and his brogues, which had been placed neatly by the door, bore the logo of an ultra-expensive English brand.

From down the corridor came the sound of voices; it looked like Vaughan had finally turned up. Slowly, the mystery man swung his feet off the bench and slid into a sitting position. With his hands by his sides, he looked at Carlyle through expressionless eyes.

‘OK.’ Placing his hands in his pockets, the inspector remained in the centre of the doorway. ‘I assume you speak English, otherwise you wouldn’t have been in Sammy’s VIP room last night. My name is Carlyle, I am an inspector at this police station. From what I understand, you were the victim of an assault. You could have been out of here hours ago, if you had simply explained who you were and given a statement. I assume you’re keeping schtum because you’re embarrassed about the hookers.’ The man kept his expression blank, but Carlyle could see that he understood. ‘Well, I don’t care about that.’ He looked down the hallway. ‘Let’s get out of here. You can get cleaned up, make a phone call if you need to. We’ll grab some breakfast and I’ll help you get this sorted out.’

Sitting stock still, Ren Qi looked at the inspector suspiciously. Finally he spoke: ‘What does schtum mean?’

Edna Holmes, the head dinner lady at Charing Cross, was chalking up the Specials for the day on the blackboard when Carlyle walked into the empty canteen, a rather sheepish Ren Qi in tow. ‘We’re closed,’ she told them.

Turning on the Celtic charm, Carlyle put a friendly hand on her shoulder. ‘Not for me, surely.’

She shrugged off his hand. ‘Don’t try to schmooze me, Inspector Carlyle. And as for your friend there,’ she waved a piece of chalk in the direction of Ren, like a referee administering a red card, ‘tough night, was it? He looks like he was dragged through a hedge backwards.’ Sniffing the air, she added, ‘Amongst other things.’

‘I know, I know,’ Carlyle sighed, ‘he doesn’t quite meet the dress code, but we are in dire need of sustenance. And anyway, I thought this fine establishment was supposed to be a twenty-four-hour operation.’

‘Maybe in the minds of folk who don’t have to actually run a kitchen,’ Edna grumbled, her accent as pronounced as it had been on the day that the young Miss Edna Hardy had left Kilkenny, almost thirty-five years earlier. She tapped on the board with her chalk.

He scanned the menu. ‘It can’t be goulash again, surely?’

Edna, whose culinary heritage was strictly 1970s fare, had long since dispensed with any pretence of interest in customer feedback. ‘Whaddya mean? It’s good for you. It’s just stew. I gave it to my own kids all the time.’

‘How are the family?’ Carlyle asked. He knew that the longer he kept the conversation going, the more likely Edna was to relent and let them have something to eat.

Crossing herself, the dinner lady raised her eyes to the heavens and muttered a reference to the power of sin. Taking that as his cue, the inspector ordered a couple of coffees and directed Ren to go and sit at a table in the corner.

‘And Father Zukowski?’ he asked, keen to keep Edna talking as she moved automatically to the ancient coffee machine behind the counter. Aside from family, religion was the one totally reliable area of small talk he could fall back on. The woman would visit nearby Corpus Christi after work almost every day.

‘He’s struggling, Inspector, to be honest.’ She placed two mugs of black coffee on a tray, spilling both of them in the process.

‘Oh? How so?’ Peering over the counter, he tried to locate any filled rolls that had been hidden away back in the kitchen.

‘The congregation, Inspector, it’s all Filipinos these days. The Father and I, we’re the only white people left. It’s hard for the poor man. How can he relate to his flock?’

‘That’s the thing about our great city,’ Carlyle said cheerily, not wanting to get drawn into a discussion about the changing composition of the faithful, ‘there’s a home here for everyone.’

Edna mumbled something that suggested she had a slightly different take on multi-culturalism. Choosing to ignore it, he rooted around in the pocket of his jeans for some change. ‘You wouldn’t have any bacon rolls left, would you?’

‘You’re out of luck,’ she replied, with just the merest hint of malice. ‘Young Proctor took the last three.’

Three? The fat bastard. Reluctantly settling for a couple of apples, he paid for breakfast and headed over to the waiting Ren. His guest looked nonplussed at the fare on offer.

‘Sorry, I’m afraid that’s all I could get.’ Carlyle cast an accusing glance at Edna, but she had disappeared into the kitchen to start on the goulash.

Ren picked up an apple, looked at it and then decided to give it a polish with one of the paper napkins Edna had tossed onto the tray. When he was satisfied with his efforts, he took a large bite. Once the first apple had gone, he repeated the process with the second.

Help yourself, Carlyle thought sourly. Sipping his coffee, he scrutinized the man on the other side of the table. He had spent a good twenty minutes trying to clean himself up, but still looked a terrible mess. The smell wasn’t getting any better either. Finishing his apple, the man took a sip of his coffee and winced.

‘I know,’ Carlyle said, ‘the coffee here is terrible. Do you want any milk? Or sugar?’

‘No.’ Ren shook his head as he placed the mug back on the table. ‘Black is fine.’ As Carlyle had suspected, there was nothing wrong with his grasp of the language. The accent, the inspector guessed, was somewhere between Seattle and Shanghai.

Ren belatedly pressed his face into a smile. ‘Thank you. I must apologize for last night.’

‘I don’t think there’s anything to apologize for, sir.’ For a reason he didn’t quite understand, Carlyle had slipped into full-on deferential mode. He recalled a phrase his late mother liked to use: ‘ you get more with honey than vinegar ’. The irony was that his mum, God rest her soul, liked to sprinkle the vinegar at every opportunity. This morning, however, something deep in his consciousness told him that a bit of sweetness would yield some as yet unspecified reward. ‘It is a most unfortunate situation.’

Murmuring his assent, Ren returned to his coffee.

‘And we will need to do a little bit of paperwork before you leave.’

‘My people will sort that out.’

My people. The first thing Ren had done on leaving the cells was to reclaim his mobile phone. Carlyle had stood by his side as he barked orders in Mandarin (or maybe it was Cantonese) to some minion before stalking off to the cloakroom. The inspector glanced at the clock on the wall, above the door. Presumably the minion would be here imminently.