‘No, but there has to be a reason.’
‘Not necessarily.’ Anderson crossed her arms. ‘Maybe – and let me slip into common parlance here – it’s as simple as the wires in his brain got crossed that day and he went a bit off-piste.’
Crossed wires? The inspector suspected that he was being patronized but he didn’t know what to do about it. Maybe he would go back and talk to the miracle-working mother anyway. The idea that he was running around chasing his tail because some lame-brained kid happened to get his wires crossed was just too depressing to accept.
‘Anyway,’ Anderson continued, jumping to her feet, ‘common parlance or not, that’s all off the record. And I have to be going.’ She lifted her gaze to the door. ‘So, I’m afraid that your time is up.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Carlyle immediately got up, happy at least that he wasn’t having to pay for the session. ‘Thank you very much for your time. What you had to say was very interesting.’ If totally useless. Crossed wires, indeed.
FIFTY-THREE
Turning off Drury Lane and into Macklin Street, the inspector instantly noted the large guy with the crew cut, wearing jeans and a green Adidas tracksuit top. Standing by the front door of Winter Garden House, the block of flats where the Carlyle family lived, he was playing on his smartphone, with a cigarette dangling from his lips.
The man waited until Carlyle was almost about to pass him.
‘You the policeman?’ he asked, his voice a low grumble of estuary English.
Carlyle keyed in the entry code and pulled open the door. Looking up, he gave the slightest of nods. The guy must have been at least six two, maybe taller. He didn’t look particularly fit, but then again, he didn’t have to. All in all, he was not the kind of bloke you wanted standing outside your front door.
The inspector paused in the doorway. ‘Who are you?’
The guy dropped the phone in the back pocket of his jeans, took a deep drag on his smoke and gazed down the street. ‘Mr Ashton would like to have a word with you.’
At the mention of the old gangster’s name, Carlyle stiffened slightly. ‘So why can’t he just phone me, like anyone else?’ He stepped aside, holding open the door to let an elderly woman whom he didn’t recognize slip between them and enter the building. ‘This is the twenty-first century, after all.’
‘Dunno.’ Taking a final puff on his cigarette, the man flicked the stub towards the gutter. ‘Maybe he hasn’t got your number. Anyway, he’s not a big fan of mobile phones.’
‘Great.’ There are more mobile phones than people in this world but Ken bloody Ashton isn’t a fan.
‘He’s just down the road. It won’t take long.’
Carlyle looked across the road, towards Il Buffone. The old café was shuttered and closed up, like it had been for months, a board above the door still proclaiming the promise of a low rent for a new tenant. In the current economic climate, there was next to no chance of anyone taking it on. If someone was foolish enough to do so, he reckoned they would last six months, at the outside. It was a shame, but then lots of things were a shame.
Pining for a raisin Danish and a double espresso, the inspector wondered what Marcello, the old owner, was up to. Hopefully, he was sat at home in North London, enjoying a well-deserved and prosperous retirement with his wife.
‘I was going to have my tea,’ he mumbled, talking more to himself than anyone else. ‘I need something to eat.’
‘Won’t take long,’ the man repeated, ambling off in the direction of Drury Lane. ‘C’mon. Mr Ashton doesn’t like being kept waiting.’
‘And I don’t like missing my tea,’ Carlyle muttered under his breath as he reluctantly let go of the door and followed after him.
They found Ken Ashton sitting in the upstairs snug of the Royal Circus pub on Endell Street, his cane resting on the table in front of him, next to a half-empty pint of London Pride. Ashton looked very dapper in a grey suit with a thick pinstripe that, up close, smelled slightly of mildew, with a white shirt and a ruby red tie. Flicking through a copy of the Evening Standard, he didn’t look up as they approached.
The messenger boy in the green tracksuit top took a seat near the stairs as Carlyle stood in front of the old man’s table.
‘Bloody hell,’ Ashton snorted, ‘listen to this – French police left a four-year-old girl stuck in a bullet-riddled car with her dead family for eight hours because they didn’t realize she had survived a suspected carjacking gone wrong.’ He looked over the top of his newspaper. ‘Those Frogs,’ he cackled, ‘they’re almost as useless as you.’
Carlyle gave a pained smile and took a seat.
Closing his newspaper, Ashton folded it carefully and placed it on the table. ‘How are you, Inspector? Long time no see.’
‘I’m fine, Ken, how are you?’
‘Mustn’t grumble.’
‘Good.’
The old fellow smiled malevolently. ‘I see that Seymour Erikssen has been running rings round you again.’
Why is it that everyone likes talking about Seymour? Carlyle wondered.
‘Must be very embarrassing for you.’
Carlyle took a deep breath. ‘Hardly.’
‘Anyway,’ Ashton continued, ‘this is not primarily a social chat. I hear that you’ve been wanting to see me.’
‘I was wanting to have my tea,’ said Carlyle, glancing at the thug who’d brought him to the pub.
‘But you came anyway.’
‘I’m interested in Brian Winters.’
‘Oh?’
‘I was on Waterloo Bridge when he keeled over.’
Ashton made a face. ‘Good for you.’
‘He was your lawyer.’
‘I have lots of lawyers,’ said the gangster, not sounding that happy about it. ‘You collect quite a few of them when you are in my line of work.’
I’m sure you do, Carlyle thought.
‘And, for his part, Mr Winters had lots of clients,’ Ashton went on.
‘Did you do a lot of work with him?’
‘A bit. Brian worked for me for, oh, I suppose more than fifteen years. When he died, he was handling the sale of my property in Harley Street, as I believe you know. All very straightforward stuff – at least, it should have been.’ He shot the inspector a quizzical look. ‘Anyway, he had a heart attack.’
‘That he did.’
‘So why are you so interested, copper? Given that you should be out dealing with anti-social little scumbags like Seymour.’
‘I hear that Winters had a falling-out with Chris Brennan,’ Carlyle said evenly. ‘I was just wondering . . .’
‘Ha!’ Ashton chortled, cutting him off. ‘Now we’re getting to it. You’re still trying to get even with Brennan, are you?’
Christ, how do you know about that? The inspector tried to look both surprised and offended at the same time.
‘Talk about grasping at straws.’
‘I’m just being thorough,’ Carlyle said primly.
Waving a dismissive hand at the policeman, the old man leaned across the table, careful not to knock over his drink in the process. ‘Come on, son,’ he grunted, ‘don’t kid a kidder. Everyone knows that you’re not the kind of bloke to let something like that slide.’
Sitting back in his chair, Carlyle folded his arms. ‘That’s bollocks.’
Ashton took a sip of beer. ‘Suit yourself. To be honest, I’m really very surprised that you allowed someone like Brennan to get the better of you in the first place.’
‘Bollocks,’ Carlyle repeated.
Ashton placed his glass back on the table. ‘If it’s bollocks, I suppose that means you’re not interested in my proposal then?’
Carlyle eyed the old man suspiciously. Fuck it, he thought. I’m here. I might as well take the bait. ‘What proposal?’