‘Smart.’ He edged up another step. ‘And how’s Umar getting on?’
She frowned. ‘Sorry?’
‘No more photographs, I hope.’
‘I wouldn’t know about that either,’ she replied frostily.
‘But-’
‘You’d really need to ask him.’ Taking hold of the handrail, Elmhirst continued on her way before he could quiz her any further.
‘What are you doing here?’ Sitting at Carlyle’s desk, Sonia Coverdale looked up from the game she was playing on his PC. There were dark bags under her eyes and she looked like she hadn’t slept. ‘And how did you get on to my computer?’
‘Your sergeant got me started,’ she explained, adding: ‘He’s quite cute, isn’t he?’
‘He’s married with a kid,’ Carlyle grumped.
‘Lots of men are . . . you, for example.’ She returned her attention to the screen.
‘What are you doing here?’ he repeated.
‘There was no room downstairs, so they brought me up here.’ She giggled. ‘It’s like me getting an upgrade on my points, I suppose.’
‘Eh?’
‘I must have a lot of points on my police loyalty card by now. I’m one of your best customers, surely.’
‘That’s one way of looking at it.’ Resting on the edge of a nearby desk, Carlyle folded his arms. ‘Sonia,’ he said wearily, ‘why were you arrested?’
‘There was a bit of a fight at the Racetrack last night. Someone called the police.’
‘And your involvement was?’
‘Innocent bystander,’ she said, carefully tapping on his keyboard.
‘You are turning into a right shit magnet, aren’t you?’
She giggled again. ‘More like a puke magnet.’ Pushing the chair back from the desk, she gave him a blow-by-blow account of the night’s events. ‘Poor old Morag was sent to A amp;E at UCH. The rest of them are downstairs.’
‘I suppose I’d better go and take a look, then.’ Heading for the stairs, he shouted over his shoulder, ‘Can I get you a coffee, or anything?’
‘I’m fine, thanks,’ she said cheerily. ‘Umar’s gone to get me something from the canteen.’
‘Good for him,’ Carlyle muttered, ‘the smarmy sod.’
A look of profound disappointment swept across the face of Constable Mike Proctor as the inspector appeared in front of him. ‘I was hoping you were Vaughan,’ he said dolefully.
Having no idea who Vaughan was, Carlyle simply nodded.
‘He should have relieved me by now,’ Proctor yawned. ‘I’ve been here all night.’
‘Think of the overtime,’ was the only consolation that the inspector could offer.
Proctor patted his already ample stomach. ‘I’m thinking of a bacon sandwich.’
‘I can imagine.’ Carlyle gestured over his shoulder towards the cells. ‘I hear that you had a busy night last night.’
Proctor raised his eyes to the heavens. ‘It was like Piccadilly Circus in here. Most of them have gone now though. Sammy Baldwin-Lee was screaming and moaning till his lawyer got him out.’ He looked up at the inspector. ‘You know who he is, don’t ya?’
‘Oh yes,’ Carlyle said, making a mental note to go and visit Sammy in his lair before too long – encouraged by a vague sense that he might be able to dig up something to his advantage. ‘Everyone knows Sammy.’
‘Great club, the Racetrack. Great grub too.’
Carlyle shot the portly constable a sharp look.
‘So I’ve heard,’ Proctor added swiftly.
‘So who’s left?’
‘Just the one bloke. Sonia’s punter.’
Stands to reason, Carlyle thought tiredly. ‘Why hasn’t he been sprung yet?’
‘Refuses to give his name. Not sure he speaks English. He’s a Chinese bloke, I think.’
Wrinkling his nose at the smell, Carlyle stopped Proctor from closing the door behind him. Happy enough to oblige, the constable lumbered off back down the corridor to dream of bacon and await his tardy replacement.
Not venturing any further into the cell than was absolutely necessary, the inspector surveyed the figure lying on the bench in front of him. Even in his dishevelled and malodorous state, the man had a patrician air. Long-limbed and lean, he had a shock of expertly dyed black hair, and his firm jawline was encased in salt and pepper stubble. His dark suit, albeit crumpled and stained, was clearly of excellent quality, and his brogues, which had been placed neatly by the door, bore the logo of an ultra-expensive English brand.
From down the corridor came the sound of voices; it looked like Vaughan had finally turned up. Slowly, the mystery man swung his feet off the bench and slid into a sitting position. With his hands by his sides, he looked at Carlyle through expressionless eyes.
‘OK.’ Placing his hands in his pockets, the inspector remained in the centre of the doorway. ‘I assume you speak English, otherwise you wouldn’t have been in Sammy’s VIP room last night. My name is Carlyle, I am an inspector at this police station. From what I understand, you were the victim of an assault. You could have been out of here hours ago, if you had simply explained who you were and given a statement. I assume you’re keeping schtum because you’re embarrassed about the hookers.’ The man kept his expression blank, but Carlyle could see that he understood. ‘Well, I don’t care about that.’ He looked down the hallway. ‘Let’s get out of here. You can get cleaned up, make a phone call if you need to. We’ll grab some breakfast and I’ll help you get this sorted out.’
Sitting stock still, Ren Qi looked at the inspector suspiciously. Finally he spoke: ‘What does schtum mean?’
TWENTY-TWO
Edna Holmes, the head dinner lady at Charing Cross, was chalking up the Specials for the day on the blackboard when Carlyle walked into the empty canteen, a rather sheepish Ren Qi in tow. ‘We’re closed,’ she told them.
Turning on the Celtic charm, Carlyle put a friendly hand on her shoulder. ‘Not for me, surely.’
She shrugged off his hand. ‘Don’t try to schmooze me, Inspector Carlyle. And as for your friend there,’ she waved a piece of chalk in the direction of Ren, like a referee administering a red card, ‘tough night, was it? He looks like he was dragged through a hedge backwards.’ Sniffing the air, she added, ‘Amongst other things.’
‘I know, I know,’ Carlyle sighed, ‘he doesn’t quite meet the dress code, but we are in dire need of sustenance. And anyway, I thought this fine establishment was supposed to be a twenty-four-hour operation.’
‘Maybe in the minds of folk who don’t have to actually run a kitchen,’ Edna grumbled, her accent as pronounced as it had been on the day that the young Miss Edna Hardy had left Kilkenny, almost thirty-five years earlier. She tapped on the board with her chalk.
He scanned the menu. ‘It can’t be goulash again, surely?’
Edna, whose culinary heritage was strictly 1970s fare, had long since dispensed with any pretence of interest in customer feedback. ‘Whaddya mean? It’s good for you. It’s just stew. I gave it to my own kids all the time.’
‘How are the family?’ Carlyle asked. He knew that the longer he kept the conversation going, the more likely Edna was to relent and let them have something to eat.
Crossing herself, the dinner lady raised her eyes to the heavens and muttered a reference to the power of sin. Taking that as his cue, the inspector ordered a couple of coffees and directed Ren to go and sit at a table in the corner.
‘And Father Zukowski?’ he asked, keen to keep Edna talking as she moved automatically to the ancient coffee machine behind the counter. Aside from family, religion was the one totally reliable area of small talk he could fall back on. The woman would visit nearby Corpus Christi after work almost every day.
‘He’s struggling, Inspector, to be honest.’ She placed two mugs of black coffee on a tray, spilling both of them in the process.
‘Oh? How so?’ Peering over the counter, he tried to locate any filled rolls that had been hidden away back in the kitchen.
‘The congregation, Inspector, it’s all Filipinos these days. The Father and I, we’re the only white people left. It’s hard for the poor man. How can he relate to his flock?’