The Circus (21 page)

Gilmore speared a couple of chips with his fork. ‘Once he went to work for Carlton, Trevor had to stand back from Wickford. He was no longer running the company, but he was still the owner or, to be more precise, the largest shareholder. And his broadening list of political contacts proved very handy when it came to landing the Zenger Media contract.’

‘And you know all this stuff how, exactly?’ Carlyle was playing for time while he tried to work out where the story was leading.

‘It’s my job to know things,’ Gilmore smiled.

‘But you haven’t written about any of this?’

‘Lawyers, my friend, lawyers,’ Bernie sighed before the last of the bacon disappeared into his mouth.

‘Said you couldn’t publish?’

Bernie nodded. ‘Always worried about getting their arses sued off, even though what I write always stands up in a court of law.’

The inspector raised an eyebrow.

‘Well,’ Bernie chuckled, ‘almost always. Anyway, even if we were to come a cropper in front of the beak, there’s always the libel insurance to fall back on. The bloody lawyers just don’t want to make a claim, even though that’s what it’s there for.’

‘Worried about their premiums.’

‘Precisely! The useless buggers are just put on this earth to drive the rest of us mad.’

‘Okay.’ Carlyle was finally beginning to understand what their conversation was all about. The journalist needed him to try and flush out Miller, so that he could publish his story. That was fine by the inspector. All he wanted was to nail the evil bastard any way he could. Whether that was in a court of law, or in the court of public opinion, didn’t really matter.

Dropping the cutlery onto his plate, Gilmore fished another paper napkin from the dispenser on the table and began clearing the detritus that had collected in his beard. When he was satisfied with the job achieved, he crumpled up the napkin in one meaty fist and dropped it on the table. ‘For years now, Wickford has been working with journalists like Duncan Brown, tapping people’s phones in order to get stories.’

Carlyle thought about Margaretha Zelle. ‘You have proof?’

Gilmore nodded.

‘So why don’t you go and talk to the good people at Operation Redhead? This is specifically their thing.’

Sitting back on the bench, Gilmore pawed at his T-shirt, scratching Bert on the nose – or maybe it was Ernie. ‘Because, Inspector, I’m not simply a concerned citizen, I’m a man who needs to make a living.’

Fair enough, Carlyle decided.

Shifting in his seat, Gilmore settled into lecture mode. ‘These days,’ he said, ‘there’s no real money to be made from conventional journalism. No money at all, in fact.’

Aware that he needed to get up to speed, Carlyle sat and listened, happy to let the other man talk.

‘Most information isn’t worth shit. There’s far too much of it about – in fact, we spend all our time trying to fight it off. No one wants more of it. There’s more information in one single edition of a daily newspaper – a broadsheet anyway – than an ordinary person would have been exposed to in their whole lives, two hundred years ago.’

All of it crap, too, Carlyle reflected.

‘And that’s just newspapers. Then there’s television, radio and the universe’s great intellectual garbage dump known as the internet.’ He looked the inspector up and down to make sure he was keeping up. ‘Know what I mean?’

‘Yes,’ Carlyle lied.

‘So,’ he continued, ‘your basic law of supply and demand tells you that information is now effectively worth nothing. That’s bad news for someone like me who sells information for a living.’

‘You could always become a plumber,’ Carlyle smirked. ‘Or even a copper.’

Gilmore ignored this feeble attempt at humour. ‘Of course, some types of information will always be worth something . . . in particular circumstances. But even the stuff that is worth something is only worth something if you
know
that it’s worth something.’

‘Mm.’

‘And even
then
, that same information may have a value that changes over time.’

‘Right.’

‘So,’ said Gilmore, finally getting to the point, ‘what I knew about Trevor Miller wasn’t really that useful – until I ran into you.’

Sir Chester Forsyth-Walker winced in pain. The operation on his bad back had been declared a success but it didn’t feel much like that to him. The painkillers provided by the hospital were simply not up to the job. Even after downing four of them in quick succession, it still felt as if someone was stabbing him repeatedly in the lower spine with a hot needle.

Noting his boss’s obvious discomfort, Simon Shelbourne adopted a solicitous demeanour. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have discharged yourself for another day or two.’

‘Nonsense.’ Looking round the room he had been given, Sir Chester dismissed his spin doctor’s concerns with as imperious a wave of the hand as he could manage. The Laura Ashley décor did nothing to improve his mood. ‘It’s like a bloody twelve year old’s bedroom in here.’

Shelbourne nodded sympathetically. ‘It’s the best room they had available,’ he said. ‘I double-checked. Anyway, the wallpaper is the same in all of them.’

‘And how much do people pay to come here?’

‘About twelve hundred a night.’

‘Good God!’ At least he wasn’t having his bank account raped as well as having his senses assaulted. Another spasm of pain shot through the Commissioner’s back and his face crumpled in distress.

Shelbourne gestured towards an armchair in the corner of the room. ‘Why don’t you take a seat?’

No fear, thought Sir Chester. If I sit down, the pain will only get worse. ‘It’s nothing,’ he insisted. ‘At least, nothing that a large scotch won’t sort out.’

Lowering his gaze, Shelbourne shook his head sadly. ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible.’

‘What?’

‘The doctors were very clear. No alcohol allowed until you come off your medication.’

‘Bugger that!’ Sir Chester eyed the sideboard sitting by the wall. ‘Where is the booze in this place anyway?’

‘That’s the other thing,’ Shelbourne said. ‘This is a one hundred per cent dry facility. There is no alcohol at Laanti’s.’ He tried not to smirk. ‘Zero tolerance of booze is a cornerstone of their “guaranteed detox” policy.’

With increasing impatience, Sir Chester listened to his minion run through a series of rules and regulations that the younger man had seemingly learned off by heart.

Having reached the end of his recital, Shelbourne gave a shrug. ‘This code of conduct extends to the customers as well as to the staff.’

‘It sounds more like a bloody prison than a health farm,’ Sir Chester said grimly.

‘Anastasia Carlton can’t speak highly enough about it,’ Shelbourne remarked.

‘Yes, well,’ Sir Chester mumbled, ‘the Prime Minister’s wife has plenty of time on her hands for swanning around spas these days, from what I hear.’

‘Sonia is a big fan too.’

‘Sonia Claesens?’ The faintest of alarm bells began ringing in the back of the Commissioner’s fatigued brain.

‘Yes,’ said Shelbourne, ‘she comes here all the time. At least, she used to when I was working on the
Sunday Witness
. Her ex-husband built the kriotherapy centre here. It’s considered state of the art.’

Sir Chester frowned. ‘I thought the former Mr Sonia Claesens was a farmer or something?’

‘He’s in agribusiness,’ Shelbourne nodded, as if that was one and the same thing. ‘This is just a sideline. I think it was Sonia who got him interested in it in the first place. She might have ditched him for a toyboy, but she is still a big kriotherapy fan.’

The bells started ringing louder but Sir Chester dismissed them angrily as he fought to process the random bits of information his PR man was now throwing at him. Dammit, all he wanted was a bloody drink! Was that really too much to ask?

‘Kriotherapy,’ Shelbourne droned on, ‘comes from the Greek word
cryo
meaning “cold” and
therapy
meaning “cure”. It involves using extreme cold to reduce pain and inflammation.’

This idiot has swallowed the marketing brochure whole, the Commissioner reflected.

‘I’ve even booked you in for a session, since it should be good for your back.’

‘I’ll try anything,’ Sir Chester decided. A thought suddenly hit him: ‘Is it expensive?’

‘Don’t worry,’ Shelbourne smiled, ‘everything is being taken care of. Hannes was absolutely clear that this isn’t going to cost you a penny.’ He was referring to Hannes Laanti, the owner of the eponymous spa. ‘You will get an itemized bill at the end of your stay, but that is simply so that you can place it on the Official Register of Interests when you get back to work.’

Sir Chester harrumphed. This kind of so-called ‘transparency’ was all the rage these days. He could barely go to the bloody toilet without having to report it to someone or other. The whole thing went against all his old-school principles. Why he couldn’t let a friend do him a favour without having to tell the whole world about it was beyond him. He felt his mood darkening by the minute. He really did need that damn drink. ‘I’ve got to ring Tanya,’ he said gruffly, ‘and tell her to bring me a bottle of Royal Lochnagar.’ He patted his pockets, searching in vain for his mobile.

‘The use of mobile phones is not allowed here either,’ Shelbourne chirruped. He had a cheeky glint in his eye which irritated the Commissioner even further.

‘Simon,’ he said wearily, ‘just give me your bloody phone, so that I can call my good lady wife.’

‘The reception’s crap as well,’ Shelbourne pointed out. Nevertheless he fished an iPhone out of the back pocket of his jeans and handed it over, before politely retreating to the far corner of the room to allow his boss some privacy. After struggling with the number, Sir Chester listened to the phone ring for what seemed like an eternity before Tanya’s cheery voicemail kicked in. Stifling a curse, he mumbled a brief message, hung up and forcefully bowled the handset back to his lackey.

‘Is she on her way?’ Shelbourne asked brightly, plucking the phone out of the air just before it smashed against the wall.

‘She’s taking her own sweet time about it,’ Sir Chester grumped. He imagined that she was probably tied up with her Pilates class, or the Bikram yoga, or whatever the latest fad was for this week. He sighed deeply. No sense of priorities, that woman; no sense of priorities at all.

Stepping over to the window, Shelbourne looked out across the carefully manicured front lawn which extended in front of the original manor house around which the spa had been developed. A small group of fat, middle-aged women were waddling across the grass under the watchful gaze of a couple of young instructors dressed in army fatigues. Obviously, the luxury bootcamp brigade were heading off on their country hike.

‘Look at that lot,’ he giggled. ‘Let’s just hope none of them suffers a heart attack.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

Still focused on the matter of refreshment, Sir Chester eyed his aide thoughtfully. ‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘you could go and find me an off-licence?’

‘What?’ Shelbourne turned away from the window and frowned at his boss. ‘Er . . . well, not really,’ he stammered. ‘For a start, we’re in the middle of nowhere. And anyway, I need to get going.’

Resisting the urge to throttle the useless little shit, Sir Chester’s eyes narrowed. ‘So, remind me, why exactly
are
you here?’

Shelbourne stole another glance out of the window. A couple of the fattest women in the group were struggling to reach the far side of the lawn without collapsing; it looked like the bootcamp had been a bit too ambitious. Maybe the cost of their stay would have been better spent on liposuction or on having a gastric band fitted. ‘I just wanted to make sure that you were settled in okay,’ he lied.

The reality was that he had been called into a strategy session by Hannes Laanti himself, for whom he moonlighted as a freelance adviser. After three hours’ talking crap in a tiny room, Shelbourne was more than ready for a stiff drink himself. Turning back to face his boss, he smiled. ‘And also to talk to you about my meeting with Sonia Claesens and Trevor Miller.’

Mention of Miller’s name made Sir Chester wince yet again. By some margin, Miller had turned out to be the most annoying individual the Commissioner had come across since arriving in London. As head of the MPS, Sir Chester had assumed, somewhat naively as it turned out, that his job had included responsibility for the security of the Prime Minister. Instead, he was horrified to discover that the job had been entrusted to a grubby private contractor. A man who had barely risen above the rank of constable when he was serving in the Force now had the ear of the most powerful man in the country. The whole situation was a total disgrace.

‘What did that oaf have to say for himself?’

‘He was particularly brusque.’ Shelbourne shook his head at the memory. ‘Even Sonia was given short shrift.’ He allowed himself the briefest of peeks out of the window. Two of the hikers were now lying on their backs on the lawn, surrounded by staff dressed in white coats. It looked like they were receiving extra oxygen. ‘I thought she was looking terrible, by the way; a bit like Cruella De Vil on crack.’ He sniggered at his own joke.

Not picking up the reference, Sir Chester gingerly lowered
himself on to the bed. As his buttocks made contact with the duvet, a now familiar pain shot up his spine and he immediately jumped back to his feet. ‘What precisely is Miller suggesting in terms of a course of action?’

‘He basically told her that she’s on her own,’ Shelbourne replied, trying to ignore Sir Chester’s signs of discomfort.

‘And us?’

‘The clear implication of what he said is that the PM considers that we’ – meaning
you
– ‘are also expendable.’

‘We’re all expendable.’ His gaze focusing on the patterned carpet, Sir Chester began pacing from the bed to the armchair and back again. ‘The question is whether there is anything we can do to try and retrieve the situation?’

Damned if I know, Shelbourne thought. Outside, an ambulance had appeared. One of the hikers was being lifted on to a stretcher.