Sins of the Fathers (30 page)

Nothing like having your brief on your side
, Carlyle thought unhappily as he handed Sands the pen. ‘Sign at the bottom and initial each page please, sir.’

‘Yes.’ Sands took the pen and scanned the typed-up statement. Carlyle watched as he applied his spidery scribble at the bottom.

‘There, done.’ Replacing the cap, Sands laid the pen on top of the statement and sat back in his chair. After a moment’s reflection, he looked at the inspector. ‘I have always taken full responsibility for my actions,’ he said quietly.

Carlyle nodded, wondering if that made the old man a mug – or a hero.

‘It’s just a shame that other people don’t do the same.’

Yes
, thought Carlyle.
Yes, it is
. Getting to his feet, he reached over the desk and picked up the pen and the statement. ‘Okay,’ he sighed. ‘I just need to go upstairs and get this processed. Please wait here.’

Potts nodded. ‘We will, of course, be making an application for bail before sentencing. Mr Sands is not a flight risk. Nor does he pose a threat to anyone – in the wider sense.’

Carlyle raised an eyebrow. ‘And in the narrower sense?’

‘The court should take into account that my client’s only objective was to bring Mr Fassbender into the hands of the UK authorities, which he has done. Any disappointment that Mr Sands may feel as to the way in which the authorities have dealt with the matter thereafter should not obscure the fact that he has never sought to take the law into his own hands.’

‘I am not sure that Fassbender and his legal team would see it like that,’ Carlyle replied. Sands was staring into space, as if this conversation had nothing to do with him.

Potts batted away the comment with a wave of his hand. ‘However they respond, I hope that you will be able to support our request to the court.’

Carlyle turned and headed for the door. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Less than five minutes later, Carlyle stood in front of Paul Fassbender and his lawyer, Sidney Hardy. He was beginning to feel like a character in a Brian Rix farce, running frantically from room to room trying – and failing – to keep everybody sweet. At least he hadn’t lost his trousers – so far, at any rate.

No longer present was the Coco Chanel lookalike, Nathalie Kelvin QC. Having made her point, she presumably had more important matters to attend to.

‘This is simply not good enough.’ Fassbender looked angrily from Carlyle to Simpson and back again.

‘Sir,’ said Simpson through clenched teeth, ‘Mr Sands has signed a full confession.’

‘Hardly a
full
confession,’ suggested Hardy.

Fassbender smacked a fist on the table. ‘You also have to arrest the man who kidnapped me on the orders of that demented madman.’

Simpson shot a glance at Carlyle but the inspector was determined to keep his mouth firmly shut. Arms folded, he stared out of the grime-streaked window, trying to look inscrutable.

‘I want justice.’ Fassbender was working himself up into a fury.

With a bit of luck, the old bastard will have a stroke.
Carlyle still couldn’t resign himself to the fact that Fassbender would walk.

Again.

Hardy placed a calming hand on his client’s forearm but Fassbender shrugged it off angrily. ‘You people are just not trying.’

‘Mr Sands has made his statement,’ Simpson repeated. ‘He will appear in court later today or tomorrow. Our investigations regarding the other person or persons involved in this matter are continuing. In the meantime, sir, you are free to return home.’

Fassbender muttered something to his lawyer, who made a face.

‘So what precisely can you tell us about the investigation that will give my client and myself comfort that the man who assaulted Mr Fassbender and drove him across Europe in the boot of a car will be caught and punished?’

The room was hot and stuffy and the Commander was beginning to go red in the face. She looked like she wanted to smack both of them. Carlyle tried not to smirk. ‘Our enquiries are continuing,’ she said, reverting to her best bureaucratic monotone. ‘That is all that I want to say at this stage.’

A pained expression crossed Hardy’s face, as if he had just had a spike shoved up his backside. ‘I think—’

‘And
I
think,’ Simpson countered, coming closer to losing her cool, ‘that the Metropolitan Police Force has extended every courtesy to you and your client.’ Hardy tried again to speak, but she continued talking over him. ‘This is a police matter and you have to leave it to us.’

‘If I leave it to you,’ Fassbender sneered, ‘nothing will happen. Even the old fool himself will probably manage to escape jail.’

Then he won’t be the only one
, Carlyle reflected.

‘My apologies, sir,’ Simpson replied, ‘but I don’t see that you have any alternative other than to accept my assurances that we are acting professionally and in good faith, with your rights and interests very much in mind.’

‘Good faith?’ Fassbender mocked. ‘I very much doubt that. I will go to the court. I will speak to the judge. I will
demand
justice.’ He made it sound as if it was something completely within his power and control. Raising his eyes to the heavens, Hardy tried to control the grin that was creeping around the edges of his mouth.

Simpson bowed her head. A bead of sweat trickled down her temple. ‘Very well.’

‘And I will make sure you do your job,’ Fassbender continued, waving an admonishing finger at both the inspector and his boss. He was on a roll now and he wasn’t going to let the minions off the hook. ‘I will come here every day until you find this wretched vigilante and his associates.’

You do that
, Carlyle thought.
You bloody do that
.

‘Very well,’ Simpson grimaced. ‘We will let you know when the time of the court hearing is confirmed.’ Without waiting for a reply, she turned to the inspector and pushed him towards the door.

In the corridor, Carlyle held his tongue until they were out of earshot.

‘That went well,’ he said, letting out a long breath.

‘Yes,’ Simpson said snarkily. ‘Thank you, John.’

He looked at her askance. ‘How was that my fault?’

‘Don’t start.’ Simpson rubbed her temples in a futile attempt to massage away a brutal headache.

Not for the first time, they were bickering like an old married couple.

Carlyle smiled at the thought.

Simpson rubbed harder. ‘What’s so bloody funny?’

‘Nothing.’ Carlyle gestured back in the direction of the interview room. ‘At least I kept my mouth shut.’

‘I suppose I should be grateful for small mercies.’ Giving up on the temples, Simpson rolled her shoulders, letting out a small sigh in the process.

As he watched her, the inspector went through his mental To Do list.

‘
What
?’ Simpson glared at him angrily.

Looking away, Carlyle caught sight of a pretty WPC walking down the corridor towards them carrying a couple of outsized box-files in front of her. Another new arrival, from Balham apparently. Reynolds was her name, something like that. As she approached, he gave her the 100-watt Inspector Carlyle smile. Eyes focused on the middle distance, she blanked him as she walked past.

‘Ah,’ Simpson grinned, ‘the mysterious Carlyle charm. Bestowed only on the chosen few.’

Lengthening his stride, Carlyle pushed his way through a set of double doors. ‘I’ll see you in court for the Sands hearing,’ he said gruffly. ‘First I need to go up to UCH.’ She shot him a quizzical look and he quickly filled her in on Savage and Umar’s run in with George McQuarrie.

When he’d finished, Simpson looked more irritated than concerned. ‘Are they okay?’ she asked, her tone suggesting no more than a bureaucratic level of interest.

‘Yeah,’ Carlyle replied.

‘You could sound happier about it.’

‘It’s nothing serious. Umar’s got a black eye and a couple of cuts. Savage has got a couple of cracked ribs.’ He paused, for effect. ‘The main reason for going up there is to stop them hitting on the poor nurses.’

Simpson looked distinctly unamused.

‘Joke,’ he said lamely.

‘What about McQuarrie?’

‘We’re tracking him down.’

‘Make it quick,’ Simpson snapped. ‘And go easy on the overtime. As always, there are issues with costs.’

‘Of course,’ Carlyle nodded. ‘The girl George was with when we tried to pick him up has given us a couple of addresses and I’ll have another chat to Iris Belekhsan. She might be a bit more talkative when she finds out that she was only one of Mr McQuarrie’s various consorts.’

‘Good.’ Simpson seemed satisfied with that.

‘It may be,’ said Carlyle, trying to balance sucking up to the boss without actually promising anything, ‘that this is the important breakthrough on the Schaeffer shooting.’ Pushing their way through another set of double doors, they reached the front desk, which appeared deserted.

‘We’ll see,’ said Simpson, stopping at the desk. ‘McQuarrie didn’t pull the trigger, though, did he?’

‘No.’ Carlyle took another couple of steps before stopping, indicating his desire to be on his way. ‘He was on holiday with Belekhsan at the time.’ He hopped from foot to foot, as if he needed to pee. ‘But he would know how to make it happen.’

Just then, Angie Middleton appeared from a door behind the desk. Simpson glared at her but said nothing. She turned back to the inspector instead and said, lowering her voice, ‘What about motive?’

Carlyle shrugged. ‘What, you mean other than the fact that they were going through a bitter, protracted divorce and they hated each other more than anything else on earth?’ He didn’t want to admit that his team had been too distracted by other matters to spend time going through the boring stuff, like checking for life insurance policies.

The Commander looked at him enquiringly.

‘It’ll be the usual,’ Carlyle burbled on. ‘Sex or money. Or sex
and
money. We just need to fill in the blanks.’ He cast a quick glance at Middleton. Eyes glued on her computer screen, the desk sergeant bashed a couple of keys on her keyboard, trying – and failing – to make her eavesdropping less obvious.

‘Well,’ said Simpson firmly, ‘I suggest that you get on with it.’

‘Yes.’

‘And what about the child?’

‘For the moment, Rebecca remains in the care of her mother. I want to speak to both Social Services and the grandparents about what we should do if—’

‘It’s going to be a hell of a mess,’ the Commander interrupted, cutting him off, ‘if the mother gets arrested for killing the father.’

‘I know. You couldn’t make it up.’

‘I suppose we’ll just have to cross that bridge when we get to it.’

Carlyle caught Middleton’s eye and grinned. ‘Yes, I dare say we probably will.’

Sergeant Savage had been kept in for observation. Instead of being sent home with some top-drawer painkillers and a login for NHS Direct, he was tying up a bed in University College Hospital, at a cost of several thousand pounds a day.

No wonder the National Health Service was doomed.

Dutifully following the signs to the Stanley Bowles Ward, the inspector found himself in a room full of zombified geriatrics. The guy in the nearest bed to the door, headphones clamped to his skull, was watching TV, singing along to an advert. The other patients were prone in their beds, staring into space.

Looks like the drugs trolley has just been round
, Carlyle observed.

‘Excuse me, sir?’

The inspector turned to see a male nurse, a thirty-something white skinhead, eyeing him suspiciously. When Carlyle explained what he was looking for, the skinhead told him, ‘This is the Armfield Ward.’

‘Okay,’ said Carlyle through gritted teeth. ‘How do I find Stanley Bowles?’

‘It’s at the other end of the Osgood Wing,’ the nurse said unhelpfully, gesturing back the way that Carlyle had come. ‘Follow the signs.’

Trying to ignore the smell of disinfectant, the inspector reversed down the corridor. After several minutes of hopeful wandering, he turned a corner to find Umar playing on his BlackBerry.

‘Where have you been?’ The sergeant finished sending an email and gestured at the line of beds on the other side of the doors. ‘Robbie’s in there. We’ve been waiting for you for ages.’

‘It would have helped if I hadn’t spent the last hour,’ Carlyle moaned, shamelessly exaggerating, ‘traipsing round this bloody hospital trying to find you.’ Looking through the window, he could see Savage sitting in the third bed from the door. He was wearing one of those green paper gowns that they give to patients without any pyjamas. Reading a copy of the
Standard
, he looked perfectly content. ‘How is he?’

‘He’ll live,’ said Umar, still fiddling with his BlackBerry. ‘Sorry we made such a hash of things.’

The apology surprised the inspector. He had assumed that he was going to get blamed for sending the two of them up against McQuarrie without more back-up. He quickly regained his composure before his sergeant could look up. ‘These things happen,’ he said graciously. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ He looked Umar up and down. The guy looked like he’d been in a fight – which he had – but the damage to his pretty-boy good looks was strictly short-term. In a week or two, there should be nothing to see; he might have to postpone the wedding photographs though, Carlyle thought with a smirk, saying aloud, ‘How about you?’

‘I’m fine,’ Umar said, putting the BlackBerry away. ‘Savage got the worst of it.’ On cue, Savage looked up to see the inspector standing by the door. Pushing his way into the ward, Carlyle stepped over to the bed with Umar in tow.

‘Good to see you survived then,’ he said, by way of greeting.

Folding the
Standard
in two, Savage winced at the memory. ‘He was a big bloke.’

All thoughts of his own culpability completely forgotten, Carlyle shot Umar a sharp look. ‘I told you that before you went out.’

‘Yes,’ Umar protested, ‘but—’

‘Do you know how much it’s going to cost, to track the bastard down?’ Carlyle whined.

Savage tossed the paper on the bed. ‘At least we know who did it now.’