Sins of the Fathers (24 page)

Pinkey, not a bad tenor even if he did say so himself, was a leading light of the singing group and had put the best part of four months’ effort into preparing for the event. With a programme that included Will Todd’s ‘Christ Is the Morning Star’, John Ireland’s ‘Greater Love Hath No Man’ and Walford Davies’s ‘God Be in My Head’, it was sure to be the highlight of the singing calendar and he was galled beyond belief that it might go ahead without him.

Equally galling was the fact that a fellow officer had strayed on to his patch without extending the basic courtesy of letting him know in advance. It was easy to take an instant dislike to the monosyllabic inspector from London who stood before him, explaining how the axe murderer came to be hanging from a tree. It did cross his mind that the London cop and his sidekick might have been down here on some vigilante mission but they looked like a right pair of wimps – even two-on-one they didn’t seem capable of it. Where did the Met find these people? It was no wonder that the capital was drowning in crime, vice and depravity. His wife wanted them to take the kids up there for a week in the summer to see the sights but Pinkey knew that he should put his foot down. A trip to Fuerteventura was a far better bet; easier on the wallet and safer too.

Arms folded, he began humming ‘Morning Glory, Starlit Sky’. What was the guy called again? Carlisle? What kind of a name was that? Looking the inspector up and down, Pinkey tutted silently. The guy was clearly a complete berk. ‘All right,’ he muttered, ‘tell me what happened again.’

How many times do you need it explaining?
Tired and hungry, Carlyle shot the provincial plod a sharp look. He was just about to articulate his feelings about his colleague’s mental acuity when he was saved by the phone starting to ring. Pulling it out of his pocket, he stared at the screen in disbelief. The top left-hand corner showed a signal strength of two bars. Where did that come from? Rooting himself to the spot in case the coverage disappeared again, he turned away from the plod and hit the receive button. ‘Carlyle.’

‘Where the hell are you?’ Angie Middleton hissed. ‘I had to get Fassbender a lawyer. I can’t keep him here any longer.’

‘Okay, okay.’

In the background, someone started shouting. There were a few seconds of general hubbub before Middleton came back on the line. ‘Sorry about that.’

‘Tough day?’

‘Total crap,’ she said, with conviction. ‘Not helped by your man in the cells.’ She lowered her voice again. ‘Anyway, Fassbender’s lawyer has told him to say nothing. He is refusing to make a complaint about the people who beat him up. The bloke just wants to get back home as quickly as possible.’

‘We can start our own investigation,’ Carlyle countered. ‘How long will it take him to get a new passport?’

‘I heard his lawyer say that the Embassy will be able to sort travel papers by tomorrow.’

Damn Germans – they lived up to expectations every time. ‘Fine. Tell them that we will want to speak to him tomorrow.’

‘I doubt they’ll go for that.’

‘Just tell them,’ said Carlyle, irritated. ‘Say that we are treating this as an extremely serious matter and that I expect them to be at the station at eight tomorrow morning.’

‘Okay.’ The desk sergeant sounded dubious that such a tactic would work but Carlyle was insistent. His mind was racing. A plan was forming. For the first time in days, he felt like he knew what he wanted to do.

‘And Ange . . . Ange – hello?
Hello?
’ He looked at the screen. The signal had gone again. ‘Bollocks.’ No matter. Now he had to find Grayson and get back to the city as quickly as possible.

Dropping the phone back in his pocket, he turned to face the local plod, saying, ‘Sorry mate, got to go.’

The rural copper looked like he wanted to kill him; he was about to say something but the inspector held up a hand.

‘An emergency.’ Carlyle broke into a jog. ‘Sorry about the mess here, but if you need anything else, give me a bell. Should be a doddle. You’ll be a real hero for sorting this out.’ Picking up speed, he moved away, not waiting for a reply.

Around thirty miles out of London, a coach carrying a group of Chinese tourists had gone into the back of a beer tanker. Only one of the three lanes was still open. As the traffic slowed to a crawl, Carlyle stomped on the floor in frustration.

Bobbing his head along to Snoop Dogg’s ‘Sweat’ on the radio, Grayson gave him a
What can you do?
kind of shrug.

‘Turn that racket off,’ Carlyle growled. ‘I need to make a call.’ Rooting around in the pocket of his jacket, the inspector pulled out his ‘private’ mobile and switched it on. The Nokia was one of the cheapest, most ubiquitous pay-as-you-go models on the market. Carlyle had bought it with cash and he topped it up with cash at random newsagents well away from his usual haunts. He didn’t flash it around and he gave the number out to very few people. Even then, he changed both the phone and the sim card every three or four months. This didn’t guarantee secrecy, not by any means, but it meant that he could be reasonably sure that no one could easily check his calls. The phone gave him some measure of privacy and for that the hassle and cost was worth it. Relieved to find that he had a full signal, he waited for the contacts to load, pulled up a number and hit call.

‘Sutherland.’

‘Brian, it’s John Carlyle from Charing Cross police station.’

‘Yeah.’ On deadline,
The Times
’ Crime Editor was not in the mood to chat.

‘I’ve got something for you – it would be an exclusive.’

Sutherland grunted non-committally. In the background, Carlyle could hear him still pounding away on his keyboard. Bracing himself, he explained the Fassbender story in less than thirty seconds.

‘I remember,’ said Sutherland, sounding vaguely interested. ‘It was quite a story at the time. I was on the
Observer
; they had money back then. Hold on.’ He stuck his hand over the receiver and for the next few seconds there was the sound of muffled voices. Then: ‘You still there?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And this is all kosher?’

‘Totally.’ Carlyle watched as they finally slipped past the scene of the accident. There was beer everywhere but from the relaxed demeanour of the assembled ambulance crews, the inspector deduced that no one was seriously hurt. Once past the mess, they immediately picked up speed.

Grayson moved the Range Rover back up through the gears as he swung past a woman in a green Skoda. ‘We should be okay now.’

Carlyle nodded and turned his attention back to the call. ‘I saw Fassbender this morning,’ he told Sutherland. ‘He’ll have to go to the German Embassy in the morning to get a new passport.’

Dangling the prospect of a day two story in front of the journalist.

‘And no one else has this?’

‘No one.’

‘Okay,’ Sutherland sighed. ‘We can probably give it five hundred words with a picture. I’ll call you back in a minute for some colour.’

‘Call me on this phone.’ Carlyle slowly dictated the number.

‘Fine.’ Sutherland clicked off and Carlyle looked over at Grayson.

‘You didn’t hear that.’

Moving smoothly into the outside lane, Grayson pushed their speed up past seventy miles an hour. ‘No problem.’

‘Good.’ Carlyle put the Nokia away and took out his ‘official’ handset, a BlackBerry. Against his better judgement, he called Simpson. Normally, he could rely on getting her voicemail but, for once, the commander pounced on his call.

‘Inspector,’ she said icily, ‘I hear that you’ve been enjoying a day out in the provinces.’ Carlyle began to explain but she cut him off. ‘I have heard what happened. Doesn’t the word “protocol” mean
anything
to you, John?’

‘I just—’

‘Or what about the words “common” and “sense”?’

‘Boss—’

‘You just wanted to run around, pissing people off as usual.’ Simpson certainly sounded mightily hacked off. Her mood couldn’t be down to him alone, could it? Then he remembered the drama of love rat Dino Mottram playing away and smiled to himself. The Commander clearly had a lot of crap to deal with at the moment. Maybe he should cut her some slack.

‘Sorry, boss,’ he said gently. ‘I know that you’ve got a lot on your mind right now.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Simpson shrieked.

‘Nothing, nothing,’ Carlyle said hastily. ‘At least the Collingwood case has been dealt with.’

‘And what about the man who was shot in the park, Julian Schaeffer?’ Simpson snapped.

Good question
, Carlyle thought. ‘We’ve got nothing much, so far. No sign of the shooter. We’re still looking at the wife.’

‘I hear that she’s using Abigail Slater.’

‘That’s right.’

‘More good news,’ Simpson grumbled. ‘Don’t let her take you to the cleaners again.’

Again?

‘Keep me posted.’ Simpson ended the call.

Carlyle gritted his teeth. ‘Bastard.’

‘Who, Simpson?’ They were still in the outside lane. Grayson slowed as he came up behind a black BMW.

‘Eh? No, no,’ Carlyle said quickly. ‘Someone else.’

Eyeing him in the mirror, Grayson grinned, clearly enjoying the inspector’s discomfort.

The BMW moved back into the middle lane. Carlyle gestured at the road ahead with his free hand, saying, ‘Just drive.’ Returning his attention to his phone, he began searching for an address. ‘I need to get back asap.’

Grayson did as instructed, dropping Carlyle off on a West London street that was lined on both sides with modest terraced houses. When the inspector was a boy, this place had been a slum. Now, the only way he could afford to live on any of the surrounding streets was if he won the lottery. Stepping off the pavement, Carlyle bowed his head and approached a door with the lion’s head knocker. Knocking twice, he waited.

As it opened, he lifted his head to meet the gaze of an elderly man standing in the doorway.

A knowing look passed between them.

Finally, Carlyle spoke. ‘Do you remember me?’

‘Of course.’

‘Were you waiting for me to turn up?’

‘Yes. To be honest, I thought you might have been here rather sooner than this.’

Carlyle smiled. ‘I was out of town. I have literally just got back now. I assume that you know why I’m here. Maybe we could talk inside?’

Nodding, Daniel Sands stepped aside and invited the inspector into his home. ‘The lounge is off to the right.’

Arriving in the room, Carlyle stayed on his feet.

‘Please, take a seat.’

The inspector held up a hand. ‘I’m fine like this, thank you.’ After all that time spent in the car, he was happy to keep his legs working. Pacing the carpet, he took in the sparse furnishings and the small, chunky TV on a dresser in a corner, possibly the last CRT set left in the whole of the capital. Sands’s house might be worth a fortune, but, inside, the place looked like it hadn’t been touched for the last thirty years.

Next to the dresser was a small bookcase, overflowing with histories of the Second World War and the Cold War. On the top shelf was the room’s only photograph. It showed a young girl. She was looking into the camera, smiling. The inspector didn’t need to ask who she was.

If Sands caught him staring at the picture he didn’t mention it. He stood in the doorway, the genial host. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

Carlyle smiled wearily. ‘It’s been a long day. A green tea would be great.’

Sands’s brow furrowed in concern. ‘I only have peppermint, I’m afraid.’

‘That’ll be fine.’

‘Good.’ Sands shuffled into the kitchen. After another quick glance round the room, the inspector followed. Watching the old man fill the kettle and take a box of tea bags from an overhead cupboard, it struck him that Sands looked basically as he remembered him. Dressed in a baggy brown shirt and green corduroy trousers, the man didn’t seem to have aged much in the quarter century or so since they had last met. Maybe that was because he had seemed so haggard last time around.

The kettle came to the boil. Carlyle let Sands drop a tea bag into a mug with a picture of the House of Commons on the front and fill it almost to the brim with boiling water. ‘Thanks.’

Sands nodded and filled another mug for himself.

Resting against the lip of the sink, Carlyle stirred his tea. ‘So,’ he said, ‘how did you get Paul Fassbender back into the UK?’

Sands looked down at the blood-red slippers on his feet.

‘I’m just curious,’ Carlyle pressed gently. ‘Kidnapping a man and smuggling him into the country takes a lot of money and planning. Not to mention the balls to chain Fassbender to the railings right outside my police station.’

A small smile played across Sands’s lips.

‘You didn’t know?’ Carlyle took a mouthful of tea. ‘We found him right on our doorstep.’

‘Paul Fassbender.’ Sands stared into his mug. ‘It was all such a long time ago.’

‘Yes, it was.’

‘And yet it seems so fresh.’

‘The day is long,’ Carlyle mused, ‘but life is short.’

‘Sorry?’

‘It’s just a saying,’ the policeman said hastily. ‘I think that I can understand what you are getting at.’

‘What I mean is that justice must be allowed to take its course.’ Sands lifted his gaze slightly, without quite making eye-contact. ‘Don’t you think that’s right?’

‘I thought that it had.’ But the words felt like ashes in Carlyle’s mouth. He washed them away with some more peppermint tea.

‘How could anyone say that?’ Sands’s voice had started to tremble. ‘Mr Fassbender has spent decades hiding from the truth. He has never faced the charges that were placed in front of him.’

Stepping over to the sink, Carlyle rinsed and placed his mug on the draining board, next to an expensive-looking wooden block containing six yellow-handled kitchen knives. ‘After all this time, you know that he may not go to jail?’

‘I am aware of that possibility.’ A steely glint appeared in Sands’s eye. ‘I will deal with that, if it happens.’

‘What does that mean?’ When Sands didn’t answer, Carlyle added, ‘You know that you will probably end up facing charges yourself, after what has happened.’

The eyes went back to the floor. ‘I am serene.’