‘What have you got?’ he asked brusquely, by way of introduction.
‘Jade Jones,’ Flux told him, ‘nineteen years old. She went missing from Maidenhead last night after a row with her boyfriend. This morning, she makes a 999 call saying she’s being held captive by some guys who picked her up outside Paddington station.’ He pointed towards a dry cleaner’s three doors down from the Persian Palace. ‘They traced the call to a mast on the top of that building. When I heard it come over the radio I came right down here.’
‘And?’
Flux shrugged. ‘And nothing. Safi was still in bed. No sign of the girl. No one else on the premises.’
‘Hm.’ Carlyle thought about the white guy and the inaudible conversation in the back yard. ‘Have you tried ringing her mobile?’
‘Of course,’ Flux snapped. ‘It’s switched off. We’ve lost track of her. Safi, naturally, claims he knows nothing about her.’
‘Can I go and talk to him?’
Flux’s expression said Be my guest. ‘I’ve got to get back to the station. Let me know if you manage to get any more out of him.’
‘Sure.’ Carlyle watched the DI weave between the almost stationary traffic and disappear across the Green. On the side of a bus, an advert for the nearby shopping centre caught his eye; the latest American teenybopper was due to make an appearance at the weekend, sing a few songs, sign a few autographs. Do they still call them teenyboppers? he wondered as he headed inside the kebab shop.
Ignoring the fetid atmosphere, he turned the lock and flipped the Closed sign before walking through to the back. Calvin Safi was in the yard smoking a cigarette. He was wearing a pair of light grey sweatpants, along with a ratty-looking navy V-neck jumper over a white T-shirt. Unshaven and bleary-eyed, he looked like he’d had a heavy night.
‘Good party?’ Carlyle asked.
Safi eyed the inspector sullenly. ‘What do you want?’
Stepping forward, Carlyle replied with a fist to the gut.
‘Pfff . . .’ Surprised as much as winded, Safi made a noise like a deflating balloon. Doubling over, the cigarette fell from his lips on to a cracked paving stone. Grabbing the back of his jumper, Carlyle smacked his face into the wall. ‘Argh.’ There was a thud, and the shop owner slid to the ground, blood pouring from his nose. Scrambling into a sitting position, he watched warily, ready to defend himself from further blows. ‘What are you doing?’ he managed, wiping his nose on his sleeve.
Stomping on the smouldering cigarette butt, Carlyle moved forward, readying himself to give Safi a good kick.
‘Hey!’ Safi shrieked, adopting the foetal position. ‘This is assault. It’s GBH, man. Wait till my lawyer hears about this.’
‘Federici? He’s your wife’s lawyer. Somehow I don’t think she’s going to lend him out for you on this.’ The inspector hovered over the prostrate man, making it clear that a good shoeing was still very much at the top of his agenda.
‘I’ll get my own bloody lawyer,’ Safi mumbled from behind his hands.
‘Like fuck.’ Carlyle gave the man a prod with the toe of his boot to keep him focused on the matter in hand. ‘And anyway, it’ll be too late by then.’
Safi let out a satisfying whimper.
It’s fun being a bastard, Carlyle thought as he felt the frustration of a morning spent running around in circles draining away.
‘Where’s the girl?’
‘What girl?’
Once again, the inspector grabbed the guy’s jumper, this time dragging him up. ‘Jade Jones, the girl you picked up from Paddington last night.’
‘I don’t know what-’
‘Fuck you,’ Carlyle hissed. Releasing his hold, he let the man fall back to the concrete and administered two swift kicks to his ribs. Not hard enough to break anything, but hard enough to hurt. Tears appeared in Safi’s eyes. ‘I’ve seen the CCTV pictures. I know you were there.’ It was a decent enough lie; most Londoners assumed that security cameras covered their every waking move. And, most of the time, they were right.
Safi hesitated before trying one last time. ‘I wasn’t-’
‘Don’t fuck with me.’ Almost revelling in his loss of control, Carlyle stepped forward until he was almost standing on the prostrate man. ‘Tell me the truth, or I am going to do you some serious damage. Good luck being able to speak after I’ve done with you – even if you can find a bloody lawyer.’ He gave another quick kick for emphasis, a little harder this time. ‘Now, where is the girl?’
‘He took her back to Paddington,’ Safi cried, ‘The little slag’s gone home.’
‘Who took her back to Paddington? When?’
‘Steve . . . Steve Metcalf.’
‘The white guy with the tattoo?’
‘He was the one who fucked her, not me. I didn’t touch her.’
‘We’ll see about that. When did they go?’
‘An hour ago.’
About the time I was snooping around out the back, Carlyle thought. I must have just missed them. Or maybe I passed them on the pavement without realizing. Annoyed with himself, he gave Safi another kick, although with less venom this time. ‘Do you have a mobile?’
Reaching into the pocket of his pants, Safi pulled out a battered Nokia and offered it to the inspector. Grabbing the handset, Carlyle pulled off the battery and took out the SIM card. Dropping the SIM in his pocket, he tossed the rest of the phone over the wall into the alley. Safi started to protest but quickly thought better of it.
‘Stay here,’ Carlyle commanded. ‘If you move one inch before I get back, I will give you a proper kicking.’ Not waiting for a reply, he went back inside.
Standing in the kitchen, he wondered exactly what he might be looking for. Above the hum of traffic came the sound of someone thumping on the locked door at the front of the café. Peeking towards the street, he caught a glimpse of the kid who worked behind the counter. ‘Looks like you might be getting the day off,’ Carlyle murmured, as he headed for the stairs.
He started at the top of the building, working his way down through a series of dirty, messy rooms that had been converted into bedsits. When he found a door that was locked, he unceremoniously booted it open. It was the first time he’d done this kind of donkey work for a long while.
Bloody Umar, Carlyle thought grimly. Where is he when you need him? He checked the last room; like the others, it was empty, apart from an unmade bed and a nasty smell.
Downstairs, the kid had given up banging on the door and had gone away to enjoy his unexpected day off. A steady stream of pedestrians passed by the window, none of them apparently put out that the kebab shop wasn’t open for business. Hardly surprising, Carlyle reflected. There must be at least half a dozen fast-food places within a minute’s walk from here. Feeling peckish, he walked into the kitchen. A loaf of white sliced bread sat next to a filthy grill. Out of the corner of his eye, the inspector caught some movement. A cockroach – or something bigger? It crossed his mind that maybe he should put a call in to the local health inspectors. First, however, he needed to put something in a sandwich. Filling the far corner of the room was an upright, stainless-steel double door refrigerator.
Gotta be something in there.
Stepping across the room, Carlyle yanked at the right-hand door.
‘Holy fuck!’ Jumping sideways, he just managed to avoid being hit by the body that tumbled out, hitting the floor with a gentle thwack.
FORTY-FIVE
Surveying the scene, the inspector let out a nervous chortle. ‘As far as I can recall, that’s the first time a dead man has ever tried to headbutt me.’ At least his reflexes were still good enough that he was able to escape the corpse’s attention. Hands on hips, he took a couple of deep breaths, watching a small cockroach scuttle under the sink as he waited for his heart-rate to return to something approaching normal. He should definitely contact the health inspectors.