James Craig - Acts of Violence

‘Qualities,’ Simpson continued, ignoring his discomfort, ‘that young, up-and-coming officers like Elmhirst should be exposed to, if only for a short while, under controlled circumstances.’

‘Ha.’

‘Qualities,’ Simpson persisted, ‘that mean that when we are confronted with very tricky situations like Voisin Towers you are my go-to guy.’

Go-to guy. How very American. Blushing harder now, he kept his jaw clamped tightly shut.

‘Anyway, I knew that Amelia would back you up. That girl really is something special. She will go far.’

‘She can certainly shoot,’ Carlyle reluctantly conceded.

‘You should be grateful that Elmhirst had your back. Not everyone can be so confident about their colleagues.’

‘I suppose not.’ He gestured down the road, in the direction of the police station. ‘Where is she, by the way? I haven’t seen her around since the incident with Popp.’

Simpson eyed him over her cup of tea. ‘As of this morning, Sergeant Elmhirst is seconded to SO15.’

‘Oh? For how long?’

‘That remains to be seen. For six months, at least – probably nine. It will be an important part of her career development.’

‘So where does that leave me?’ Carlyle whined.

‘Well,’ Simpson took a sip of her tea, ‘given that Umar Sligo is headed out the door, you’re going to be on your own for a while.’

‘Great.’ The inspector watched as a familiar face came down the road. With a couple of oversized tourists sitting in the back of his rickshaw, the pimply driver with the prayer mat was sweating heavily as he pedalled towards Trafalgar Square. You poor sod, Carlyle thought. There’s got to be an easier way to make a living.

‘But not for too long.’

‘No?’ Carlyle turned back to look at his boss.

‘In return the Chief Inspector over there has agreed to let us have Alison Roche back.’

‘Oh yes?’ Carlyle tried not to seem too chuffed at this extremely positive development.

Simpson’s eyes narrowed. ‘I thought you’d like that.’

‘It’s fine by me,’ was the most expansive response he could muster.

‘As it goes, the powers that be in Counter Terrorism seem quite happy to see the back of her,’ Simpson revealed. ‘From what I can gather, Sergeant Roche can be a bit of a troublemaker.’ She arched an eyebrow. ‘Asking difficult questions. Tilting at windmills. That sort of thing.’

‘Better to keep us troublemakers together, I suppose,’ Carlyle quipped. ‘Easier for the top brass to manage.’

‘That’s exactly what I thought,’ the Commander grinned. Reaching under the table, she took a hold of the handle of the outsized hat box at her feet and stood up.

Carlyle remembered that Trooping the Colour was less than a week away. ‘Ready for the big day?’

‘I’ll be glad when it’s all over,’ Simpson admitted.

The inspector thought about mentioning Bernie Gilmore and his interest in her £800 hat but thought better of it. The poor woman was under enough stress already. ‘Good luck. Break a leg.’

‘I’ll try not to,’ Simpson laughed. ‘You just see if you can behave yourself for the rest of the week.’

‘No problem, boss,’ he promised, beaming. ‘No problem at all.’

As he entered the station, Carlyle immediately clocked the headline on a newspaper lying on the front desk: PUNTER CALLS 999 OVER UGLY HOOKER .

‘Looks like Bernie caught up with Brian Yates, then.’

Underneath the headline was a picture of the hapless Yates trying to hide from a snapper dogging him by holding up a hand to the lens. It made for a good picture – Yates looked as guilty as sin.

The inspector felt a momentary pang of shame at having so casually thrown Yates to the wolves, even if it was to save Simpson from getting a public kicking over her expensive hat. Scanning the story, he saw that Sonia Coverdale had not been mentioned.

His sense of embarrassment evaporated as the desk sergeant appeared in front of him. ‘There’s a friend of yours downstairs. We’ve Seymour Erikssen in again.’

London’s crappest burglar . Carlyle shook his head. ‘I don’t know why they bother letting him out. What happened this time?’ As if he needed to ask.

‘Mr Erikssen was caught carrying a bag of gear out of a house on Rugby Street at one-fifteen this morning. iPads, laptops – the usual.’

‘Rugby Street.’ Carlyle frowned. ‘Where’s that?’

‘Up near Great Ormond Street,’ the sergeant explained. ‘The constable who came across him had to give chase all the way to the Piazza before he caught him.’

‘Blimey.’

‘The daft sod almost got run over by a night bus in the process. For such a scrawny old git, it seems that Seymour’s still got quite a turn of speed.’

‘Yeah. The silly bugger keeps on getting caught though, doesn’t he?’ the inspector said.

‘He must be entitled to his pension by now.’ The sergeant started to laugh.

‘If only he would call it a day and retire.’

‘Do me a favour.’ The sergeant took a sheet of paper from a printer behind the desk and handed it to Carlyle, ‘Take this downstairs, will you? Seymour just needs to sign it and then we’ll pack him off back home to the Scrubs.’

The inspector looked at the confession, which was little more than a list of addresses. ‘He’s copping to all this lot?’

The sergeant shrugged.

Carlyle waved the sheet of paper in dismay. ‘This must be just about every unsolved burglary this side of King’s Cross.’

‘Only about three-quarters of them,’ the sergeant said defensively.

‘Bloody Seymour.’ Carlyle shook his head. ‘Once we get him in here, he’ll sign anything.’

‘It helps with the clean-up rate,’ the sergeant countered. ‘Ticks a few boxes. Gets a few break-ins off the books and allows us to deal with other things. Plus, it allows Seymour to maintain his reputation as a hard-working criminal.’

‘Some reputation.’ Carlyle ran his eye down the list for a second time, looking for one address in particular. And there it was, third from the bottom: 46 Doughty Street . ‘Good old Seymour, taking one for the team.’ He placed the old lag’s confession back on the desk, ignoring the disgruntled look on the sergeant’s face. ‘Sorry,’ he smiled, ‘but you’ll have to take this down there yourself. I’m late for a meeting.’

* * *

Kendrick, the giant American Samoan bodyguard, lifted his head out of his bag of Monster Munch long enough to nod at the inspector as he breezed into Sammy Baldwin-Lee’s office. Inside, the Racetrack’s owner was in familiar pose, feet up on his desk, leafing through a copy of that morning’s Financial Times . ‘Listen to this,’ he said as the inspector dusted off a chair and sat down. ‘Apparently scientists have created an artificial brain.’

Carlyle gestured towards the man sitting on the ratty sofa in the corner playing on his iPhone. ‘Maybe they can give him one, then.’

Chase Race, engrossed in a game of Fruit Ninja, didn’t look up or acknowledge his presence in any way.

Chuckling, Sammy quoted from the newspaper article. ‘According to this, “human stem-cells have been turned into pea-sized mini-brains with a neural structure similar to the brain of a developing embryo” .’

‘You can’t believe what you read in the papers, Sammy.’

‘But it’s the FT ,’ the nightclub-owner protested. ‘They at least try to get it right.’

Being more of a Daily Mirror man, Carlyle had no real view on the pink paper, one way or the other.

‘Anyway, it’s a more interesting story than this one.’ Holding up the paper, Sammy pointed at the headline on the next page: REN QI SHOW TRIAL DESCENDS INTO FARCE .