Gori’s eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Thanks to your conversations with the Ambassador, we know about the family’s long-standing links to our country.’
‘What do you think about all that?’ Carlyle probed.
‘About what?’ Gori resumed his leisurely pace back towards the front gate.
‘About what happened to her brother?’
‘Her brother!’ Gori snorted. ‘Isn’t that the whole point, Inspector? No one knows what happened to him.’
‘But there will be a trial?’ Carlyle replied almost casually.
‘Perhaps.’ Gori did a little quickstep dance on the tarmac, gesticulating with his hands in front of his face. ‘But, after all this time, how can anyone hope to get to the truth?’
‘So you think it’s a waste of time?’
Realising that he was giving too much away, Gori quickly got his body language back under control. ‘It’s nothing to do with me, Inspector. The legal process will take its course.’
‘But you must have a view?’
Gori sighed theatrically. ‘For what it’s worth, I think that one should always look forwards, rather than back.’
How very convenient, Carlyle thought. ‘Were you involved in what happened back then?’
‘In 1973?’ Gori frowned. ‘I was barely two years old.’
‘But your family?’ Carlyle persisted.
‘Not really.’
Not really? It was a yes or no question, Carlyle thought angrily.
‘No more so than anyone else,’ Gori added. ‘Anyway, as I said, we are the kind of people who look to the future, Inspector. We do not wallow in the vagaries of the barely remembered past.’
They reached the front gate. It was starting to rain again, and Carlyle faced a long walk down Cedar Road in search of a bus stop. Gori pulled something out of his pocket and aimed it at the gleaming grey Mercedes sports car parked on a double yellow line across the road. The car beeped noisily as the doors unlocked. ‘I would offer you a lift, Inspector,’ he said, glancing at the leaden skies, ‘but I’m going the opposite way.’
‘Don’t worry,’ replied Carlyle through gritted teeth as he felt a fat raindrop land directly on the crown of his head. He forced what he hoped was something approaching a nonchalant grin onto his face. ‘One last thing, though?’
‘Yes?’ said Gori, stepping quickly over towards his car.
‘Do you know a woman called Sandra Groves?’
In one fluid movement, Gori pulled open the car door and slid inside. He looked past Carlyle as if wishing for the heavens to open up completely. An increasingly rapid procession of raindrops bounced off the windshield and he licked his lips. ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘Should I?’
‘No,’ said Carlyle, getting ready to beat a hasty retreat to the gatehouse. ‘Thank you for your time. And give the Ambassador my regards.’
But Gori had already slammed the car door shut and put the car into gear. As Carlyle watched the Mercedes pull away, the rain became heavier. Within seconds, he was soaked to the skin. Giving up the search for shelter, he began slowly walking down the road.
TWENTY-NINE
Sitting in her office on the twelfth floor of the ugly 1960s office block that was invariably described as ‘Britain’s most intimidating police station’, Commander Carole Simpson held her head in her hands as she fought back the urge to burst into tears. Things were not going according to plan. Without doubt, this was turning into the worst day of her life.
In the basement below, one of her assistants was giving a small group of select journalists a guided tour of the station’s special cells for terrorist suspects, which had just been refurbished at a cost of half a million pounds. With brown paper lining the walls — to ensure that suspects would not come into contact with anything that they could later claim contaminated them — and facilities for watching films and listening to music, this project had been Simpson’s baby. She had managed it well, and today was supposed to see her reward for getting the work finished on time and (more or less) on budget, as well as her putting up with all the moaning from anti-Terror officers that these new arrangements were too luxurious for some of Britain’s most wanted criminals.
Never shy when it came to personal publicity, Simpson had been looking forward for several weeks to another all-too-fleeting moment in the media spotlight. The Commander had come to understand that she had to work hard for her ‘share of voice’ in the media, and no opportunity to promote the personal Simpson brand could be passed up. Building a profile was essential if she was to keep climbing up the Met hierarchy. All through her career, she had seen journalists as allies.
Not any more.
Now she was shark chum.
That morning, just before 6 a.m., she had been rudely awakened by a couple of burly, unshaven men hammering on the front door of her Highgate home. Always a light sleeper, Simpson jumped out of bed, cursing her husband, who was happily snoring away. Pulling back the curtains, she opened the window and stuck her head out.
‘Bugger off,’ she shouted, ‘or I’ll call the police.’
‘We are the police, madam,’ one of the men had smirked up at her; his tone all the more galling given that he had to know exactly who she was.
She hadn’t realised it at the time, but the officers had a camera crew and a couple of newspaper journalists in tow. The first copy was already being filed, the first pictures transmitted down the wires, as Simpson went downstairs and sheepishly opened the front door. She was in the process of being done up like a kipper.
Forty-five minutes later, she was again standing on the doorstep, nursing a mug of black coffee, as she watched her husband, now in handcuffs, being bundled into the back of a black Range Rover by one of the officers. The other was busy loading cardboard boxes full of documents into the car boot. Earlier she had watched in disbelief as Joshua was informed of his rights and told he was being arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud.
‘Get me the lawyer,’ was the only thing he had said to her, before they led him out of the house.
Now, more than six hours later, the enormity of the mess she was in was becoming painfully clear. The front page of the evening paper’s website had a picture of Carole and Joshua posing on their wedding day — where on earth had they got that from? — under a headline that screamed TOP COP ’ S HUSBAND ARRESTED FOR?650 M PONZI SCAM. Joshua was dubbed ‘ the British Bernie Madoff ’, after the disgraced American financier who had been given 150 years in prison for masterminding a?30 billion fraud that had wiped out thousands of investors.
Simpson finished reading the story and winced. The way the piece read, she herself had to be either a knowing accomplice or a complete fool for not noticing what was going on right under her nose. She placed her palms flat on the desk and tried some deep breathing. Next to her right hand lay a single sheet of A4 with a statement typed on it, running to just a couple of paragraphs. It hadn’t yet been picked up on by the denizens of the worldwide web, but the Met had at least managed to put out a press release stating that the commander herself was in no way suspected of any wrongdoing and that she would continue to perform her duties.
Simpson thought about that for a moment. How had they managed to come to such a definitive conclusion about her so quickly? Simpson didn’t want to think about it. Both she and Joshua must have been under long-term surveillance in the run-up to his arrest. The buggers would have gone through everything — bank statements, phone records, emails — with a fine-tooth comb.
With a trembling hand, she picked up the statement and read it again. As messages of support went, it was as much as she could hope for right now. In the longer term, she knew that her career was over. So far today there had been precisely zero messages of support from any of the higher-ups. The only call had come from Human Resources, offering her some ‘compassionate leave’. Simpson snorted at the thought. What kind of mug did they take her for? Once they got her out the door it would be hard, maybe even impossible, to get back in. The leave would drift into (very) early retirement or, worse, a posting to some hopeless Community Liaison job in some shitty part of the capital.