The Circus (6 page)

‘Relax.’ She felt a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s still early.’

‘But . . .’

The phone disappeared from her hand and was replaced by a glass almost full to the brim with red wine. ‘Have another drink. There’s plenty of time.’

‘Mm.’ Hannah wasn’t sure about that, but she felt too chilled-out to argue. Brian Faulkner, Ted Heath and the Troubles could wait.

‘Cheers.’ There was a gentle click of glasses.

Hannah grinned. ‘Cheers.’

Marc Harrington stood pummelling the Mosmans’ front door, banging the oversized brass knocker, in the shape of a lion’s head, until his fingers felt numb. He had been standing there for more than a minute now, but there was still no response from inside. Feeling like a prize idiot, he looked around, wondering what to do next.

‘For God’s sake,’ he mumbled, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow. If anything, the music had got louder over the last few minutes. Surely the neighbours on the other side could hear it too – if they were home, that is, rather than off sunning themselves at their villa in the South of France.

Bloody neighbours, he thought. Why does this have to be my problem?

It suddenly struck him that he should call the police. Maybe they would arrest Horatio Mosman. That would give the little shit something to think about while he waited for his parents to bail him out of jail. Reaching into his trouser pocket, Harrington realized that his iPhone was still sitting on the kitchen table. ‘Shit, fuck, bollocks . . .’

Suddenly the music stopped.

Problem solved, or just a temporary reprieve?

Taking a step away from the door, Harrington counted the following seconds in his head. After thirty seconds of blissful silence, he reconsidered his options.

Should he nip back home, refill his glass, and declare victory?

Or would the selfish little sod crank 30 Seconds to Whatever back up again before Harrington could get another glass of the Chevalier-Montrachet in his hand?

He had yet to make up his mind when the door suddenly flew open. However, rather than being confronted by a dishevelled teenage onanist, he found himself face-to-face with a tall figure dressed from head to foot in black, its face hidden by a balaclava. All that Harrington could make out was a pair of blue eyes looking out at him through the slits.

‘Horatio?’

Surely the boy hadn’t grown that much. From somewhere inside the house came a noise that could have been a groan, or equally could have been a scream. Glancing along the hallway, Harrington took another step backwards. It was only when he looked back at the figure in front of him that he saw the pistol in the guy’s hand.

Holy shit!
Harrington felt his heart try to leap straight out of his chest and his sphincter contracted.
Breathe
, he told himself.
Keep calm
. He had clearly stumbled upon a robbery.
This is none of your business
. Whatever had happened to young Horatio, there was nothing he could do about it.
Just walk away. Don’t try and be a hero
.

Holding up both hands, he started retreating down the drive. ‘It’s okay,’ he said, trying to keep his voice from cracking, his eyes meanwhile locked on the gun. As a devotee of
The Shield
and
The Wire
, Harrington liked to think that he knew his weapons. This one looked to him like a Glock or maybe a Sig Sauer.

Not that it really mattered when it was being aimed straight at your heart. A wave of angst and frustration washed over him as once more he asked himself:
Why does this have to be my problem?

‘It’s okay,’ he repeated, now nervously eyeing the Rolex Submariner on his left wrist. Maybe he should just hand it over. ‘I’m going. I didn’t see anything.’

‘Good.’ Standing on the doorstep, the robber lifted his aim to Harrington’s head and fired.

Carlyle watched Joe Szyszkowski pacing the far side of the room, mobile glued to his ear, his free hand gesturing frantically.

‘I know – I
know
. Look, there’s nothing I can do . . . but yes, of course . . .’ Glancing over at the inspector, Joe made a face and slipped out of the room and into the hallway. He would be speaking to Anita, the inspector thought smugly – receiving another verbal beating from his missus. He himself, on the other hand, had avoided getting an earful from his wife by simply turning off both of the phones nestling in his jacket. Helen wouldn’t be happy, but at least she knew the score. Anyway, she would doubtless be fast asleep by now. They could talk in the morning, maybe over breakfast together.

‘How much longer?’

Perched on the edge of the sofa, Carlyle gave Horatio Mosman a sympathetic smile. ‘Not long.’

The two policemen had been less than three blocks away from the Mosman residence in Wellington Road when Joe’s phone had started going crazy. Energized, the inspector had shot off the Snowdons’ sofa, mouthing his apologies as he headed for the door. Happy to be rescued from his painful conversation with Rosanna’s parents, he was also curious to find out whether the 999 call about a kid with an alleged bomb fastened round his neck was – as he suspected – a hoax.

Five minutes later, he knew for sure that it wasn’t.

From the pavement, they entered through a metal gate with a well-tended eight-foot hedge on either side. Signalling for the uniforms and the paramedics to wait out on the street, Carlyle lifted the latch and stepped on through. Immediately he spotted the body of a man sprawled in front of the main door of the house. He had clearly been shot in the head.

‘Joe . . .’ Carlyle began, distracted by the blood seeping towards a nearby flowerbed.

The sergeant appeared at his side. ‘Fuck.’

‘Good nutrition for the roses, I suppose.’

Joe frowned. Neither of them had green fingers. ‘What about inside?’

‘No bang – yet. I’ll go in and take a look.’

Joe eyed him doubtfully. ‘Okay.’

‘Go and call for some reinforcements and I’ll give you a shout in a minute.’

I could really do with a piss and some fresh air, in that order, Carlyle thought. He had been trying to ignore the sour smell in the room for over an hour now.

‘Want something to eat?’ he asked. ‘They delivered your pizza a while back.’

The youngster started to shake his head, then quickly thought better of it. ‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Fair enough.’ The inspector smiled at young Horatio. ‘You’re doing fine. I’m sure it won’t be too much longer.’

‘I want this bloody thing off!’ the teenager wailed.

‘We’ll be as quick as possible.’

Horatio slumped back on the sofa in slow motion. ‘You don’t think it’ll go off, do you?’

‘Nah.’ This time Carlyle’s grin was genuine. ‘It’s a fake. There was something similar happened recently in – New Zealand, I think. Somewhere like that. It was just a bullshit attempt at extortion. A guy was arrested fairly quickly. I think he confessed.’

‘Uh-huh.’ The boy sniffed, not really taking in what the policeman was saying.

‘Look on the bright side. Once you get out of here, you’ll be something of a celebrity. All the girls will want to know you.’

‘I’ll settle just for getting this off.’ Horatio gestured at the collar, where the little red light continued to blink menacingly.

‘Sure.’ Carlyle glanced at a couple of explosives officers from Specialist Operations who were talking quietly in a corner. ‘They just have to go through the set procedures for this kind of thing, simply to be on the safe side.’

‘But it’s been ages now,’ the boy whimpered.

And it hasn’t gone off yet
. Carlyle made a final effort at the big smile. ‘So far, so good.’

‘Mm.’

‘These guys,’ Carlyle explained, ‘they have detailed procedures to follow, even when they think – even when they really
know
– that the bomb’s a fake. They always take it one step at a time. Better to be on the safe side.’

‘Okay.’ Horatio wanted to be convinced, but he couldn’t quite get there.

As if on cue, the officers finished their conversation. One of them slipped out of the room while the other stepped over towards Carlyle and the boy.

‘Inspector?’

‘Yeah?’ Carlyle looked up at the squat, well-built guy with a regulation number-one haircut that showed a hint of grey at the temples. The dark rings under his flat brown eyes made him look – to the inspector’s mind – a bit like a vampire. The name stencilled on the breast pocket of his uniform said
Baldwin
.

‘Well?’ Carlyle prompted.

‘We’re good.’ Baldwin reached across and patted Horatio on the shoulder. ‘We’ll have it off you in a few minutes.’

‘Yeah!’ Horatio clenched a fist in triumph.

‘Thank God for that.’ Grimacing, Carlyle got to his feet and
indulged in a stretch. ‘I need a comfort break.’ The last thing he wanted was to do a Gerard Dépardieu and piss himself in public.

Grinning, Horatio pointed to the door. ‘There’s a guest bathroom just down the hall.’

‘Thanks,’ Carlyle replied. ‘I’ll only be a minute.’

Zipping himself up, the inspector squirted a blob of liquid soap on to his hands and turned on the wash-basin tap. After rinsing his hands, he splashed a little cold water on his face, before drying it off with a towel. It was well past midnight but the adrenalin rush had yet to wear off and he was still buzzing. ‘Good effort tonight,’ Carlyle told his reflection in the mirror. He could have been blown to bits out there, but he hadn’t bottled it. Helen would give him shit but that was nothing new. Bottom line, he was only doing his job. He flashed himself a cheesy smile. ‘When the going gets tough . . .’

He was still grinning at the mirror when there was an almighty explosion somewhere nearby.

‘Fuck!’ Carlyle automatically threw his hands up to protect his face as the bathroom door flew open and the false ceiling fell in on him. Losing his footing, he felt his head bounce off something cool and smooth before he landed in a heap on the floor.

Then there was only darkness.

Where the hell am I?

Blinking in the gloom, Hannah Gillespie lay staring at the ceiling, listening as the pounding in her head alternated with the hum of traffic outside. After a while, she pushed aside the grimy duvet. Heaving herself up, she slowly swung her legs over one side of the bed. Head bowed, she tried to remember the events of the previous evening, but it was all a blank. She felt dizzy and there was a chalky taste in her mouth. Suddenly nauseous, she tried to throw up, but nothing came out.

What time was it? There was no clock, but from the daylight filtering into the room, Hannah guessed that she was already late
for school.
Shit!
She hadn’t written that bloody essay either. Bloody hell, girl, she thought ruefully, you’ve really overdone it here. You’ll have a job to talk your way out of this one.

A tentative sniff of her T-shirt suggested a shower was in order and she also needed to pee. Grabbing her jeans from the floor, she quickly pulled them on, before shoving her feet into her trainers. Rushing over to the door, she yanked the handle. It was locked.

‘Hey!’ Panic rising, she hammered on the door with her fist. ‘Hey! Stop jerking around. Let me out!’

Getting no response, Hannah slumped back on to the bed. Closing her eyes, she fought back a sob.

‘Mum . . .’ It came out like a whimper.

Outside, the traffic slipped past relentlessly.

‘MU . . . UM!!’

No one came.

‘That was a good time to take a leak,’ Joe Szyszkowski observed, biting into a bacon sandwich.

‘Tell me about it.’ The inspector drained his demitasse and signalled to the waitress for another double espresso.

The girl gestured to a menu with her pen. ‘Would you like anything to eat?’

‘Nah, thanks.’ The caffeine was mixing with the adrenalin and Carlyle felt too pumped to contemplate any food. He looked up at the clock on the wall: 4.57 a.m. Just over three hours since Horatio Mosman had been blown to kingdom come.

Amazingly, no one else had been killed in the explosion. One of the explosives officers and a paramedic had been taken to the Royal Free Hospital with serious injuries, but the expectation was that they would survive. The ground floor of the house meanwhile was – well, it was like a bombsite. The living room was completely wrecked and the rest of the ground floor had suffered extensive blast damage. The device had clearly been designed to do more than simply remove the unfortunate teenager’s head from his shoulders. Forensics would be collecting bits of his body for days, if not weeks.

And yet the explosives officer – Carlyle struggled to remember his name – Baldwin had claimed it was a fake.

Bad call.

Bad, bad, bad call.

Was the guy just trying to keep the kid calm? Carlyle
wondered. Surely not. How could he have got things so wrong? There were lots of questions but no answers. Anyway, that was something to worry about later. When Mr Baldwin came out of Intensive Care, it would be back to traffic duty for him, career over.

The waitress reappeared with his coffee and a smile. ‘Anything to eat with that?’ she asked again, placing the cup and saucer carefully on the table before removing the old one.

No, Carlyle thought, I haven’t changed my mind during the last minute. Irritated, he shook his head. ‘I’m okay.’

‘I’ll have another one of these, please,’ said Joe, with the polite reticence of the glutton. Stuffing the last of the sandwich in his gob, he handed the waitress the empty plate.

‘Sure. One bacon sandwich coming up.’ She turned on her heel, shouting out the order to the cook at the back as she retreated behind the counter.

Carlyle gave him a look of mock disgust. ‘That’s not going to help with the diet, is it?’

Joe gave him an
As if I care
grunt. Anita had placed him on an interactive, weight-loss programme almost a year ago. So far, the result was that Joseph Leon Gorka Szyszkowski had gained almost half a stone.

‘Think of your arteries.’

‘Gimme a break. I get enough of that stuff at home.’

‘Anita just wants to avoid you keeling over one day.’