Sins of the Fathers (32 page)

Parking any thoughts about the vagaries of property development, the inspector slipped as quietly as he could into the back of Court No. 6. The Daniel Sands hearing had already started and the public benches were surprisingly full, swelled both by members of Her Majesty’s Fourth Estate as well as random onlookers, curious to see what a geriatric vigilante looked like. Catching sight of Simpson sitting inconspicuously at the far end of the back row, he made his way slowly along the line of observers, finally forcing a big man in a rather tatty-looking pinstripe suit to shuffle along the bench so that he could squeeze in next to the Commander.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ he mumbled as he forced Fatso to cede another inch.

‘You haven’t missed much,’ said Simpson, nodding in the direction of Paul Fassbender who was sitting half a dozen rows in front, next to his lawyer, Sidney Hardy. Nathalie Kelvin QC was strikingly absent, no doubt a reflection of both her camera shyness and pressing business elsewhere.

‘No sign of Coco then?’

Simpson kept her eyes front. ‘Sorry?’

‘Nothing.’ He followed Simpson’s gaze. There was a pause while the judge, a woman, scrutinized some papers. ‘Who’s that?’

‘Julie-Anne Castor.’ And when Carlyle looked blank, Simpson hissed, ‘Just another middle-class, middle-brow know-nothing.’

The inspector had to stifle a laugh. ‘You’re getting very cynical in your old age, Commander.’

‘I suppose,’ Simpson huffed, ‘that’s your idea of a compliment.’ She gestured back towards the bench. ‘She’s a staunch supporter of Edgar Carlton.’

‘Aha.’

Edgar Carlton was a politician – the Prime Minister, no less; now well ensconced in his second term. He had survived remarkably well for a man who brought together nothing more than a watery blend of traditional upper-class incompetence and twenty-first century digital ‘activism’. Carlyle’s job had brought him into contact with the great man on one memorable occasion, on the eve of Carlton’s first election as PM. The experience had left him bruised, unhappy and extremely lucky to still have a job.

‘Not exactly a character reference, is it?’ he whispered.

‘No.’

The irony of it was that Simpson had been something of a fellow traveller at the time. Back then, her husband had been a major donor to Carlton’s election campaign. That was before the fraud convictions, jail and terminal cancer. Somewhere along the line, the Commander seemed to have lost her enthusiasm for the great Carlton Project. Some people just didn’t have any staying power.

Grinning to himself, Carlyle watched the judge scrunch up her face as she went down the page, line by line. Not a very fast reader either, by the look of things. While the delay continued, his gaze returned to Paul Fassbender. He estimated that the doctor was only fifteen feet from Sands. The inspector could almost feel the waves of hostility radiating from the elderly German as he looked ready to pounce on his nemesis.

‘If he causes a disruption,’ Carlyle mumbled, ‘or tries to attack Sands, I’ll have him straight back to the cells at Charing Cross.’

‘Don’t push your luck, Inspector,’ Simpson admonished him. ‘We’ve wasted enough time on this already.’

There’s nothing like a bit of support from higher up the food chain
, thought Carlyle glumly. Finally, Judge Castor put down her reading and signalled to the defence that they should make themselves heard. The inspector looked on, distinctly unimpressed, as Sands’s lawyer got somewhat unsteadily to his feet and began reciting a list of reasons why his client should be allowed bail. The gist of the argument was that Sands had done his worst and posed no further threat to anyone. Under normal circumstances, the inspector would have scoffed at the lot of them; but these were not normal circumstances. Carlyle watched intently as the judge, head bowed, made copious notes. To her left, Fassbender squirmed on his seat, the expression on his face like that of a man being repeatedly pricked by a needle.

He’s going to do something stupid
, thought Carlyle, more in hope than expectation.

Leaning towards him, Simpson whispered: ‘How’s the Schaeffer case going?’ The inspector began filling her in, only to get an elbow in the ribs for his trouble.

‘Ssssh!’ the fat man implored. ‘I’m trying to listen.’

Carlyle glared angrily at the cheeky sod before bringing his boss up to speed.

‘So how are you going to play it?’ Simpson whispered after he had finished.

‘I think I’ll have another talk to the wife first. McQuarrie can stew for a while. If nothing else, we have him for Actual Bodily Harm against five police officers.’

Simpson shook her head. ‘That man is a prize idiot.’

‘We should always be grateful for prize idiots,’ Carlyle replied. ‘Think of what our clean-up rates would look like without them.’

‘I remember his father.’ Simpson removed a piece of lint from the sleeve of her jacket. ‘Arthur McQuarrie was a complete bastard but at least he had a decent amount of common sense.’

‘Yeah.’ Carlyle glanced up at the judge. The prosecution now took to the stand and began painting a picture of Daniel Sands as a cross between Jack the Ripper and Carlos the Jackal. Unmoved, Sands himself sat staring into space. ‘Kids today, eh?’

‘Yes, indeed. All the time, effort and money spent on young George’s education and he still turns out to be a useless little git.’

Carlyle adopted the pained visage of the worried parent. ‘What can you do?’

‘Makes me glad that I never had kids.’ Simpson turned to look at the inspector. ‘What about you?’

Eh? Where had that come from? ‘No regrets at all,’ Carlyle said quickly. ‘Having Alice was the best thing we ever did, by a million miles.’

‘Then you’re very lucky, John.’

‘I know,’ Carlyle smiled, genuinely happy at the thought. ‘Alice is doing well. She’ll be fine.’

‘Good.’ Simpson looked as if she wanted to say something else but hesitated. ‘By the way,’ she said finally, ‘I was sorry to hear about your mother. My condolences.’

‘Thank you.’ Carlyle bit his lip, shocked to realize that he had essentially forgotten about his ‘loss’.

Simpson put a gloved hand on his forearm. ‘I will come to the funeral, of course.’

‘Thank you,’ he mumbled. ‘I appreciate it.’

Thankfully, their conversation was interrupted by the sharp bang of the judge’s gavel.

‘Goodness me,’ said the fat man, to no one in particular, ‘that’s a turn-up for the books.’

Carlyle looked up to see Paul Fassbender remonstrating angrily with Sidney Hardy. The lawyer was trying, with no great success, to usher his client towards the exit.

‘By the look of it,’ the inspector grinned, ‘Mr Sands made bail.’

As he approached the door, Fassbender caught sight of the police officers and started cursing in German.

‘Paul,’ his lawyer remonstrated, ‘calm down.’

‘Don’t push me.’ Fassbender waved his index finger angrily past Hardy’s right cheek. ‘These people,’ he shouted, his voice trembling, ‘they are the ones to blame.’ A couple of journalists pushed past Carlyle, tape recorders aloft, trying to record the show. The inspector resisted the temptation to give one of them a sly kick as they edged by. ‘They flout the law. It is shameful. Truly shameful.’

‘Go on,’ Carlyle murmured to Simpson, keeping his eyes on the furious Fassbender, ‘let me nick him.’ A restraining hand was clamped on his shoulder.

‘Just leave it,’ Simpson said firmly as Fassbender was finally hustled out of the door with the hacks in tow. ‘Let’s not make a difficult situation any worse.’

‘All right,’ Carlyle conceded, knowing that he’d had his fun. Turning round, he looked back towards the benches at the front – but Daniel Sands had already left.

Walking back through the front doors of the police station, the vague sense of satisfaction that he’d felt at Sands’s small victory in front of Judge Castor had evaporated as Carlyle caught sight of his other lost cause – Ronald Connolly. In an instant, the inspector was struck by a mental image of the person he himself might become in twenty years’ time – small, unobtrusive, slowly disengaging from the world around him. Pushing the image from his brain, he stopped to let a woman with a buggy go past him on her way out. Connolly, with his back to the door, had not noticed the inspector’s arrival. More than a little overdressed for his surroundings in a grey suit, he was sitting, legs crossed, reading a copy of the
Daily Telegraph
, politely ignoring the dosser eyeing him from the bench opposite. It would be easy enough to slip back out without Connolly noticing; go round the side and in the back entrance.

For a moment, he hesitated. Then the drunk stood up, started yammering something incomprehensible and began slapping at the
Telegraph
, trying to get Connolly’s attention. The wino’s probably a
Guardian
reader, the inspector decided. Recovering the power in his legs, he stepped forward to rescue the old man.

Taking Connolly down to the canteen, Carlyle bought some teas and installed him at a quiet table before running through the latest developments. ‘So that’s basically where we are,’ he concluded, sipping at his green tea. ‘You and your wife have to start sucking up to Hilary Green and Westminster Social Services, big time, if you are to avoid the risk of Rebecca perhaps going into care.’

Sipping his English Breakfast blend, Ronald Connolly nodded thoughtfully. Placing his cup back on its saucer, he looked up and asked the question that had brought him down here. ‘So you think Iris was behind Julian’s death?’

Carlyle shook his head, saying, ‘Sorry, but I cannot go into any of the details of the investigation, sir,’ replaying the kind of bland stock phrase he’d used a million times in his career.

Connolly stared into his tea, waiting for the ‘but’.

‘But,’ Carlyle said carefully, happy to oblige, ‘it would be wrong of me to tell you that anything has been ruled out at this stage. We are still pursuing all possible avenues of enquiry.’

‘I understand.’ A thin smile crept around the edges of Connolly’s mouth. He lifted the cup halfway to his mouth and then put it down again. ‘Anna’s taken it very badly.’

Carlyle nodded.

‘You can imagine – Julian was her son.’

‘Yes.’

‘She is on quite strong medication. Even so, the things she says about Iris; they never really got on. I don’t suppose that is much of a surprise. You know what they say – no mother ever thinks that her daughter-in-law is going to be good enough for her boy.’

‘No,’ Carlyle agreed, ‘I suppose not.’

This time when Connolly lifted his cup he did take another mouthful of tea. ‘She is absolutely convinced that Iris is to blame for all this.’

The inspector gave a helpless shrug.

‘Which is why,’ reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket, Connolly pulled out an envelope stuffed with papers, ‘she asked me to bring you this.’ He placed the envelope on the table in front of Carlyle.

‘What is it?’

‘A will. And some insurance policies.’

Carlyle stared at the envelope.
Bloody hell, Umar
, he thought,
you should have picked these up days ago
.

‘I haven’t looked at them in any detail,’ Connolly continued, ‘but as far as I can see, everything goes into a trust for Rebecca. Anna is beside herself at the thought that Iris will end up controlling the trust.’

It all comes down to money in the end
. ‘How much?’

‘On the policies?’ Connolly let out a long breath. ‘Maybe half a million or so.’

Carlyle wondered what the small print said about getting gunned down in a playground. Knowing insurance companies, there would be something.

‘Anna thinks Julian’s total estate will be worth more than five million, once you sort out the property and the business.’

Five million? That was more than enough of a motive for murder. Carlyle allowed himself a low whistle.

‘Death duties will take a chunk, though,’ Connolly pointed out.

That still leaves quite enough to lead someone to kill, the inspector reflected. He idly wondered how much he himself was worth dead – a lot less than that.

‘How did Mrs Connolly come to have these documents?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Connolly lowered his gaze. ‘I think she had them for safekeeping.’

Mm. Iris Belekhsan would be looking for these. Or maybe she had her own copies. Either way, it was something they would have to quiz her on.

‘Anyway,’ Connolly went on, as if the idea had just floated into his head that second, ‘it’s a motive, isn’t it?’

Carlyle scooped up the envelope and pushed back his chair. ‘Thank you for this. We will take a look.’ He got to his feet and waited for Connolly to do the same. ‘Now, what I need you to do is liaise with Social Services.’ Rummaging around in the pocket of his jeans, he fished out a card belonging to Hilary Green and handed it over. ‘Whatever happens with this investigation, the one thing I want to ensure is that Rebecca is not left high and dry.’

Connolly looked like he was going to say something then thought better of it. Navigating his way between a couple of chairs, he let the inspector shepherd him out.

When Carlyle got home, Helen was sitting on the sofa, reading the evening paper. On the TV, as was her wont, she had the BBC’s rolling news channel with the sound muted. Planting himself next to her, Carlyle glanced at the screen. A pretty blonde reporter was standing on the steps of a New York courtroom. She was explaining the latest twist in the case of a French politician who had been arrested for the alleged rape of a hotel chambermaid. The story had been running for weeks; it was like something out of a Tom Wolfe novel.

‘God bless the French,’ Carlyle chuckled, snuggling up to his wife. ‘They can never keep it in their trousers.’

Helen grunted in a manner that suggested the peccadillos of some randy foreigner were not worthy of her attention, at least not when she was busy reading an analysis of the latest humanitarian crisis taking place in the Gaza Strip. Avalon, the medical aid charity for which Helen worked, operated in Gaza – when it was deemed safe enough to do so. Of course, ‘safe’ was a relative term. Avalon currently had a group of twenty volunteers working in the territory. In the last year, one had been killed and three badly injured. Inevitably it was a serious business that took a considerable physical and emotional toll on all of the staff involved. He let her read on in peace. A couple of minutes later, a huge sigh signalled that she was finished. Helen folded the paper in half and tossed it onto the coffee table. ‘So, how was your day?’ she asked.