James Craig - Shoot to Kill

‘It was a present from a grateful client, Christina O’Brien.’

The Mayor gave her a blank look.

‘One of Clive Martin’s girls,’ Slater explained. ‘Works at Everton’s. She was the one who assaulted the policeman during the raid there. Clive agreed to drop his claim, by the way.’

‘Which he would have lost anyway,’ Holyrod pointed out, refilling his glass almost to the brim.

‘ If I agreed to sleep with him.’

‘What?’ Holyrod squawked, spilling some of his drink onto the carpet.

‘The dirty old goat wanted a shag,’ Abigail snorted. ‘Of course, I told him to get stuffed. We agreed on a compromise. I promised to get the charges dropped against Christina so that she could get back to work. Apparently she is Everton’s biggest earner by some margin.’

Christina O’Brien . . . Holyrod remembered the footage from the police raid that hadn’t made it onto his website and his reluctant penis began to stiffen just a little. Make a note of the name , he told himself. Everton’s might be worth a visit once he had stood down as Mayor. ‘How did you manage that?’

Leaning across the bed, Slater kissed him on the forehead. ‘That’s on a need to know basis, and you, Mr Mayor, do not need to know.’

Holyrod pushed himself up on his elbows, wondering whether he might order them a little something from room service. He wasn’t sure he could summon up the energy to go to a restaurant and, anyway, the menu at Dukes was really quite good. The grilled sardines on sourdough toast was one of his favourites. He was about to reach for the phone, when he saw that Abigail was fumbling with the albino carrot again. The thing seemed to have some kind of belt attached to one end. Concentrating, she pulled it around her waist and adjusted the straps.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked nervously.

Ignoring him, she removed a small tub of Vaseline from her bag. Twisting off the lid, she began smearing it along the length of her new appendage.

‘Abigail!’

‘Roll over,’ she commanded gruffly. ‘Let’s try something new . . .’

‘Where’s your mother?’

Alice gave her father a peck on the cheek. ‘She’s got a planning meeting tonight for the Liberia trip.’

‘Okay.’ Carlyle had forgotten all about Liberia. ‘What do you think about it?’

‘I think it’s a great idea,’ Alice said cheerily. As she stepped back, he realized she was still wearing his Clash T-shirt. Hopefully, it had been washed in the interim. ‘Mum says you might come too.’

‘We’ll see how work is shaping up,’ Carlyle said warily. ‘Have you eaten?’

‘Yeah. I was just about to start my homework.’

‘What is it?’

‘Maths and French.’ Two of her better subjects.

Carlyle nodded. ‘Good.’

‘It shouldn’t take long.’

‘Okay, I’ll sort myself out with something to eat.’

Carlyle was just pouring some olive oil onto a plate of penne, when Alice reappeared in the kitchen doorway.

‘I forgot,’ she said, putting a small packet onto the kitchen top next to the plate. ‘Someone asked me to give you this.’

Carlyle looked at the envelope and frowned. ‘What?’

‘When I was coming out of school this afternoon,’ Alice explained, ‘a guy handed it to me and asked me to give it to you.’

Carlyle’s mind went off in a dozen different directions, none of them good. ‘Is that all he said?’

‘Yeah. He asked me if I was Alice Carlyle and then he gave me your package.’

‘He didn’t say anything else?’ Carlyle asked, careful to keep any edge from his voice.

‘Dad,’ she complained, ‘if he’d said anything else, I’d have told you.’

‘Okay, okay.’ Leaving the packet where it was, Carlyle opened a drawer and pulled out a fork. Picking up his plate, he headed for the living room. ‘What did this guy look like?’

‘Aren’t you going to open it?’

‘Later,’ Carlyle said, spearing a couple of tubes of pasta and popping them into his mouth. ‘What was he like?’

Alice blushed slightly. ‘He was a young guy, quite cute.’

Carlyle nodded. ‘What did he look like?’

‘I dunno, just cute.’

Stepping into the living room, Carlyle grabbed the remote and switched on the TV.

Alice stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame. ‘Do you know him?’

‘Sounds like one of my snitches,’ Carlyle lied.

‘Ooh,’ Alice squealed. ‘An undercover operation!’

‘Something like that.’ Flicking through the channels, he opted for Sky Sports News. Sitting down on the sofa, he said to his daughter, ‘Thanks for bringing it to me. Now go and finish your homework.’

Umar Sligo stood in the away dressing room wondering why Paul Groom needed to have a shower. The goalie had just sat on the bench for the last 120 minutes plus penalties, watching glumly as his team had gone down to a predictable but embarrassing defeat in front of a four-fifths empty Riverside Stadium. Despite that, the only person who seemed in any way pissed off was Umar himself. The players and coaches were going mechanically about their business. Everyone just wanted to get back on the motorway and head for home. Umar could relate to that. Glancing at his watch, he realized that it would probably be about 4 a.m. before they made it back to London.

The team manager, a former England international rumoured to have a serious coke habit and an underage mistress, glared at the sergeant. When Umar had taken him aside and explained why he was there, the manager’s only response had been: ‘You plod, you pick your moments, don’t you?’ After a few minutes pacing the room like a demented hamster, he had skulked off to do his post-match press conference and answered the inevitable questions about his future or, more accurately, lack of one.

‘Twat!’ one of the players hissed after the boss as the door shut behind him.

‘Yeah,’ another laughed, ‘surely they’ve got to sack the bastard now.’

Keeping his gaze on the floor, Umar tried not to be too obvious in his eavesdropping.

Finally, Groom appeared from the showers. Umar recognized him from his picture on the club website. Naked, he was drying off his hair with a towel, which only served to draw the sergeant’s attention to the goalkeeper’s most celebrated asset. And, sweet Jesus, it was most certainly worthy of celebration. He cleared his throat but kept his voice low. ‘Paul Groom?’

The keeper eyed Umar with dull resentment. ‘Yeah?’ He began drying his genitals with the towel.

‘I’m . . .’

‘I know who you are,’ Groom said sullenly. He nodded at the door. ‘Give me five minutes to get dressed and I’ll meet you outside.’

The civilians who worked the scanning machine in the post room at Charing Cross police station had long since gone home. Scratching his head, Carlyle tried to convince himself that it couldn’t be that difficult to use. Basically, it looked like a smaller version of the X-ray machines at airports. On the side of the tunnel was the legend: ‘ Threat Protection Systems: Next Generation X-Ray Screening Solutions ’.

Sounds good , Carlyle thought. Now all I’ve got to do is work out how to switch the bloody thing on .

‘Inspector?’

Looking up, Carlyle saw a mixture of amusement and concern on Angie Middleton’s face.

‘Hi.’

‘What are you doing?’ the sergeant asked. ‘I thought you’d gone home.’

‘I came back. You’re on late tonight.’

‘My replacement called in sick. I had to pull a double shift.’ Middleton carefully took a bar of milk chocolate from her shirt pocket and placed it on the top of the machine. ‘I was just on my way back from the canteen.’