Slowly, the buzzing in his head started to subside. I should get up, Carlyle thought. A quick check suggested that nothing was broken. He would end up with a few bruises, nothing more. Struggling to his feet, he stepped towards the lift just as the doors started to close.
‘Shit!’ He tried to catch it but was too late. Reluctantly he limped towards the stairs, hoping that, like Samuel, the exercise would do him good.
The welcoming sound of The Clash coming from Alice’s bedroom made Carlyle smile. His daughter had expropriated large chunks of his music collection, and he took considerable pleasure from the fact that she took an interest in the music he himself liked; not least because Joe Strummer, Mick Jones et al had, for the most part, stood the test of time very well indeed.
Sitting on the living-room sofa, nursing a small glass of Jameson’s whiskey, he mumbled along to ‘London Calling’ while he pondered the implications of his visit from Trevor Miller. Miller had never been the most sophisticated individual but, even by his standards, such a clumsy intervention in a murder investigation was surprisingly crass. By coming to Carlyle’s home, he had definitely crossed a line.
From the bedroom, ‘London Calling’ gave way to ‘Safe European Home’.
‘All the classics,’ he grinned. The whiskey was easing the pain of his beating nicely; so, finishing his drink, he reached for the bottle sitting on the coffee table. Refilling his glass, he sat back and closed his eyes, trying to organize all the information strewn around inside his brain.
He quickly realized that was impossible. Everything was a jumbled mess, overlapping and confused. Yawning, the thought suddenly occurred to him that Trevor Miller and Rosanna Snowdon were connected, kind of. When Miller had murdered one of Edgar Carlton’s advisers, drowning him in a swimming pool on election night, Carlyle had taken the story to Rosanna Snowdon. She had listened to him explain how the crime would never reach court, and then gently told him that no journalist would touch a story like that. Reluctantly accepting her advice, the inspector was thereafter in her debt — just as he now owed her father.
Ah, yes, Sir Michael — another member of the Snowdon clan who deserved better from J. Carlyle Esq. The inspector resolved that he would definitely speak to his colleagues in Fulham about the latest on the Rosanna Snowdon case.
Definitely.
In the morning.
The front door clicked open, then was slammed shut.
‘Turn that down!’ Helen shouted.
Carlyle opened his eyes as the introductory crescendo of ‘I Fought the Law’ quickly fell away to a low-level growl. His wife appeared in the doorway, her gaze falling first on the open whiskey bottle on the table, and then on the bruises that were beginning to appear on his face. ‘What the hell happened to you?’ she asked, her concern sounding rather more like an accusation than Carlyle would have liked.
‘Shit day,’ he said wearily. ‘Let me make you a cup of tea, then I’ll tell you all about it.’
‘There you go.’ Carlyle handed Helen a cup of decaf green tea, recovering his glass of whiskey before taking a seat next to her on the sofa.
‘Thanks.’ Helen balanced the cup on her knee. ‘So, have you been in some kind of fight?’
‘Not exactly.’ Carlyle explained what had happened.
‘He came here?’ was Helen’s first reaction, once he’d finished.
Carlyle nodded.
She placed the teacup on the table and folded her arms. ‘Bloody hell, John.’
I’m the one who got a beating, he thought grumpily. ‘It won’t happen again,’ he said, emptying his whiskey glass for the second time. ‘It was a stupid move on his part.’ Pouring himself another drink, he let her think things through.
‘Well,’ she said finally, ‘Miller’s clearly spooked. It’s now well known that there is an uncomfortably close relationship between the police, the government and the Zenger journalists — almost certainly inappropriate and possibly corrupt. But for the PM’s security guy to go blundering about like this means there must be something more to it than that — some kind of smoking gun he’s trying to hide.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Carlyle grunted. He didn’t believe in smoking guns, reckoning that life was never that simple.
‘What about Duncan Brown?’
‘What about him?’
‘Is there a connection linking him to Miller?’
‘Not as far as I know. Not directly, at any rate.’
‘Maybe the killer is the common link.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Maybe Miller is the killer?’
Carlyle thought back to the CCTV pictures. ‘Nah.’
‘But he could be connected to it somehow?’
‘Sure.’
‘It’s simple, then,’ Helen announced, reaching over and picking up her cup of tea. ‘All you have to do is find the killer.’
‘Brilliant!’ said Carlyle sarcastically. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’
The door to the hotel room clicked open. With a deep sigh, Zoe Mosman dropped the key card into her Marc Jacobs leather satchel, pushed it open and stepped inside.
‘Come in. Help yourself to a drink.’
Zoe dropped the bag on to the floor and tried to wish away the monster headache that was building at the base of her skull. Scanning the hotel room, she forced herself to confront the scene before her; a flashback to a former life.
The man lying on the bed, his erection clearly visible through his underwear, kept his gaze on the football match playing on the muted TV.
For the briefest moment, the sense of deja vu was overwhelming. It was like she was nineteen years old again.
Almost.
‘Get me another vodka, will you?’
Zoe reached into the minibar, pulling out a handful of 5cl bottles. Tossing a Grey Goose towards the bed, she slipped into the bathroom and dumped two miniatures of Hendrick’s gin into a glass standing by the washbasin. Throwing back her head, she downed them both in one. Her headache was getting worse. Turning on the tap, she splashed some cold water on her face and gazed into the mirror. A little girl lost.
‘What are you doing in there?’
‘I’m just coming.’ Burying her head in a towel, she fought back a sob. A small box of paracetamol sat by the basin; popping three, she washed them down with some water. ‘Pull yourself together, girl,’ she hissed. ‘Pull yourself together.’
‘Zoe?’
Feeling sick to her stomach, she stepped back into the bedroom. He was naked now, sitting on the end of the bed, cradling himself with one hand while holding a scalpel in the other.
‘Come.’
Obediently she stepped in front of him, her eyes flicking from his erection to the blade. Her obvious discomfort seemed to excite him even more; she could see the pre-cum glistening on the tip of his penis, and she worried that he was about to ejaculate all over her Iro Svevalia leather skirt.
‘Do you remember the first time?’
Zoe nodded. It was the greatest misfortune of her life; probably the last thing she would remember on her deathbed.
He waved the scalpel airily. ‘That was what? Twenty-three years ago?’
‘Something like that.’ Her throat was dry and it came out like a whisper. The blade definitely had her full attention now.
‘You were the best thousand dollars that I ever spent. Ever. You know that, don’t you?’
She opened her mouth but no words came out.
‘Real value for money.’ The accent that she used to find so sexy now made her skin crawl.
‘You’ve told me before,’ she mumbled, determined not to start crying.
‘And you are still as beautiful as ever.’ He patted his soft belly. ‘Me? My cock might still be hard but I’m going to seed. For a man, that’s inevitable. But women, they fight it. And you. .’
Blinking back a tear, she dropped to her knees.
‘No, no.’ He gestured for her to get back up. ‘Not yet.’
Slowly, Zoe did as she was told.
‘We’ve come a long way together.’