Trying to keep a straight face, her lawyer said nothing.
‘Anyway,’ the inspector continued, moving swiftly along, ‘that’s not really why I’m here.’
Elma gave a grunt that suggested she couldn’t care less about his agenda.
‘The thing is,’ getting down to business, Carlyle fixed the preacher woman with his most serious stare, ‘I need to find Calvin as a matter of some considerable urgency.’
Some considerable urgency. When needs be, he could invoke his inner plod and talk the talk like the best of them.
Blank faces all round.
‘I need to find the guy,’ Carlyle repeated. ‘So where should I look?’
Elma frowned. ‘What’s he done now?’
‘I just need to speak to him. Quickly.’
‘Is he in trouble?’
Even more than you, love. But Carlyle was able to evade those kind of questions with ease. ‘He’s not at the kebab shop, so where else might he be?’
‘He is in trouble, then. Why am I not surprised?’ The woman’s eyes glistened malevolently as for a nano-second she contemplated problems other than her own.
‘Where might I find him?’ Carlyle persisted.
‘How the hell should I know?’ Elma threw up her hands. ‘I’ve hardly spoken to him over the past few years. The last thing I want to know about is what the grubby little so-and-so gets up to when he’s not selling outsized portions of food poisoning in a Styrofoam box.’
Looking for some assistance Carlyle glanced at the lawyer.
‘Sorry, Inspector,’ Federici said smoothly. ‘I’m afraid that I can’t help you on that one either.’
‘Very well, if you think of anything, let me know.’ Carlyle got to his feet. ‘In the meantime, good luck with your legal action. I’m sure that Bernie will be delighted to be on the receiving end of another lawsuit.’
Raising an eyebrow, Federici gave him a bemused look. ‘Bernie? I thought you didn’t know him?’
Me and my big mouth. ‘Only by reputation,’ Carlyle stammered. ‘I think he tried to sue one of my colleagues once. A rather messy business, if I remember correctly.’
Federici’s eyebrow stayed raised, making him look like a poor man’s Roger Moore.
Avoiding eye-contact, Carlyle headed for the door. ‘It came to me while we were talking.’
Elma looked at him with contempt. ‘Melville,’ she said threateningly, ‘will you please show the po-lice-man out?’
Escaping the tangle of his own lies, the inspector hurried from the building. Stepping out on to the pavement, he looked around in vain for his car.
‘Fuck.’
With a groan, he realized that his driver had scarpered. Hadn’t he told the guy to wait? He couldn’t remember.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’
Stranded in the middle of a seemingly endless suburban street somewhere in deepest, darkest South London, the inspector had no idea how to get back to civilization. Central London, WC2, seemed a long way away. Thanks to the vagaries of the public transport system, it probably was.
Overwhelmed by weariness, he felt rooted to the spot. According to Lao-Tzu, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Then again, the Chinese philosopher had never found himself stranded in a dump like this
Slowly, Carlyle scanned to his left, and then to his right. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but row upon row of tiny terraced houses. At this time of day, the streets were deserted; there was not a soul to be seen. Even the ubiquitous background hum of the city seemed to have melted away. For a moment, he felt like the only human survivor in a post-apocalypse zombie movie.
Almost.
He turned to the boy who was hovering on the step behind him. ‘How do I get back into Town?’
With a helpful smile, Melville Farasin pointed down the road with the envelope that remained glued to his hand. ‘Go to the end then take a right. Cross the road and there’s a bus stop on the far side. Four or five diff’rent buses stop there. Most of ’em go to Crystal Palace. You can get trains to Victoria from there.’
Great, Carlyle thought. Even after he made it to Victoria, it would be a half-hour schlep back to the police station. Life in the fast lane. What a totally wasted day. He looked up and down the street again and then back at the boy. ‘You don’t know where Calvin Safi might be, do you?’
Melville shook his head. ‘Nah.’
‘Fair enough.’
Moving down onto the pavement, the boy glanced over his shoulder. ‘I spoke to Bernie, though,’ he said quietly. ‘He says that you’re a good guy.’
‘Did you now?’ Carlyle laughed. ‘Well, I would keep that to yourself if I were you. I don’t think your boss would be too chuffed if she found out.’
‘She’d go mental.’ Melville waved the envelope at Carlyle. ‘Elma’s a bit of a nutter.’
‘You can say that again.’
‘That’s why I’m handing in my resignation.’
‘Don’t blame you, son.’ Digging a business card out of his jacket pocket, Carlyle offered it to the boy. ‘In the meantime, if you hear anything . . .’
‘Let you know, yeah, yeah.’ Melville took the card, staring at the numbers as if trying to memorize them by heart. ‘That’s just what Bernie told me.’
‘Yeah, well . . .’ He was used to being beaten to the punch by the journalist but it was still more than a little tedious.
Satisfied that he had properly processed the information, the boy slipped the card into his trouser pocket and looked up. ‘I’m gonna get a job at Tesco. Start in a store then see if I can get on some kind of management trainee programme.’
‘That seems like a much better bet than-’ Carlyle pointed towards the dilapidated prefabricated building that looked more like a warehouse than a church – ‘this place.’
‘Yeah,’ said Melville with feeling. ‘I’ve come to the conclusion that the Christian Salvation Centre is a bit of a con, really.’
‘You don’t say.’
‘My mum likes it an’ all, but why so many people hand over their cash to Elma is beyond me.’
‘In my experience,’ the inspector sighed, ‘people do strange things.’ He started walking slowly down the road. ‘Anyway, good luck.’ Upping the pace, he scanned the horizon, keeping a careful watch for any loitering zombies.
Thanks to a defective train which had broken down near Clapham Junction, reducing train speeds to a crawl, it took the inspector more than two hours to make it back to the safety and security of Charing Cross. He was in a foul mood by the time he hurried up the steps and entered the police station, a mood that wasn’t improved by the uncommonly jovial atmosphere that he found waiting for him inside.
‘What the fuck?’
Standing on the front desk, swigging from a can of Sprite, was a man barely four feet high, dressed in white Nikes and washed-out jeans. His green T-shirt had a picture of a crown, under which was the legend KEEP CALM AND SMOKE SOME BLOW in white lettering. Hopping from foot to foot, the midget was dancing to a silent beat that only he could hear, clearly enjoying his newly found role as impromptu entertainment for the grubby and dispirited members of the public waiting in the reception area.
‘What’s going on, Jazz?’ Carlyle asked, stepping in front of the desk.
Maradona Wilson – aka Jazz, on account of his smooth moves – stopped dancing and took another mouthful of lemonade. ‘The usual, Inspector,’ he said, looking down on Carlyle from behind the can. ‘The usual.’
Sat at her computer terminal, the desk sergeant, a sour woman from Bow called Celina Roper, muttered: ‘Ebert nicked him outside Ladbrokes.’
Who was Ebert? Some uniform playing at being undercover, the inspector supposed. He looked at the pint-sized pusher and tutted. ‘How many bloody times is that now?’
‘The man wanted some white,’ Wilson observed. ‘What can I say?’