Carlyle gave a half-hearted grin. ‘You should see the other guy.’
‘Mm.’ Gilmore gave him a look suggesting that he didn’t think the inspector could give anyone a run for their money in the fisticuffs department, before turning his full attention to the menu. ‘It’s been a long day already,’ he mused. ‘I think I’ll go for the all-day breakfast.’
‘A heart attack on a plate,’ Carlyle observed, sotto voce so as not to offend Marcello.
‘All the best things in life come at a price.’
Wiping his hands on the tea-towel draped over his left shoulder, Marcello appeared from behind the counter to take Bernie’s order. ‘Another coffee?’ he asked the inspector.
Carlyle shook his head. Any more caffeine and his head might explode. ‘I’m fine, thanks, Marcello.’
‘Okay.’ Marcello disappeared into the back and almost immediately the sound of bacon sizzling in a pan could be heard.
Gilmore returned the menu to its holder. ‘So I’m guessing that you had a visit from Trevor Miller.’
How the hell did you know that? Carlyle wondered. Trying to hide his surprise behind his demitasse, he drained the last of the coffee from the cup.
Marcello reappeared from the kitchen with some slices of buttered white bread and a mug of milky tea.
‘Maybe I will have another, Marcello,’ Carlyle decided.
‘Sure.’ The cafe-owner scooped up the cup and saucer and disappeared again. At that moment, the door opened and a young woman came in. She took a long look at Carlyle before turning on her heel and walking out. Maybe I look worse than I thought, Carlyle guessed. He felt a small pang of guilt. It was hard enough for Marcello to make ends meet as it was, without the policeman scaring away potential customers.
Gilmore folded up one slice of bread and pushed it into his mouth, chewing it twice before swallowing. ‘What do you know about Wickford Associates?’ he asked, before washing the food down with a mouthful of tea.
‘Never heard of them,’ Carlyle said.
Marcello reappeared with Bernie’s breakfast and Carlyle’s coffee, placing each carefully on the table before retreating to a discreet distance behind the counter.
‘Wickford Associates’, Gilmore informed him, ‘was set up by Trevor Miller after he left the police force. It employs ex-police officers and also some Army types. They provide a range of services to private-sector clients. It’s quite a lucrative business.’
Sitting up straighter on the banquette, Carlyle blew on his coffee before taking a sip. The smell of the sausage and bacon was making him feel a bit sick. ‘So how did he end up working for Edgar Carlton?’
‘For such a dullard, old Trevor really has been quite successful.’ Gilmore unwrapped a serviette and pulled out a knife and fork. ‘And lucky, of course.’
‘Of course.’
‘Trevor was great mates with a man called Will Clay.’ Gilmore held the cutlery over his plate while looking for some flicker of recognition on the inspector’s face. Seeing none, he went on, ‘Clay was one of Edgar’s cronies, as Party Chairman and a major fundraiser. He was found dead in a toilet at the Glastonbury Festival a couple of years ago.’
‘Unusual.’
‘According to the coroner, he died of natural causes — heart disease, apparently. There was no sign of foul play, which is a shame.’
Carlyle frowned, not comprehending.
‘That would have made it a much bigger story,’ the journalist explained.
‘Ah.’
‘The poor bugger was only in his mid-fifties.’ Gilmore shook his head as he cut into a pork sausage. ‘Anyway, Clay had hired Miller’s company to work for the Party on various things — conferences, fundraisers and so on. Remember the row about private dinners being held in Downing Street?’
‘Vaguely.’
‘Make a donation of two hundred and fifty grand to the Party and the PM’s wife will cook your tea.’ Popping the sausage into his mouth, he chewed happily.
‘Money well spent.’
‘No doubt. Anyway, Clay organized some of these, and he got Miller to handle the security. That’s how good old Trevor got to know Edgar Carlton so well.’
‘I don’t really know much about this,’ Carlyle admitted as he watched Gilmore work relentlessly through the food on his plate. ‘I know Trevor isn’t the sharpest tool in the box, but why is he trying to interfere so crudely in a murder investigation?’
Gilmore waved his fork airily in front of his face. ‘Because,’ he said, having finally managed to swallow, ‘he’s playing both sides of this particular game.’
‘What particular game do you mean?’ Carlyle asked, feeling even more stupid than usual.
Gilmore speared a couple of chips with his fork. ‘Once he went to work for Carlton, Trevor had to stand back from Wickford. He was no longer running the company, but he was still the owner or, to be more precise, the largest shareholder. And his broadening list of political contacts proved very handy when it came to landing the Zenger Media contract.’
‘And you know all this stuff how, exactly?’ Carlyle was playing for time while he tried to work out where the story was leading.
‘It’s my job to know things,’ Gilmore smiled.
‘But you haven’t written about any of this?’
‘Lawyers, my friend, lawyers,’ Bernie sighed before the last of the bacon disappeared into his mouth.
‘Said you couldn’t publish?’
Bernie nodded. ‘Always worried about getting their arses sued off, even though what I write always stands up in a court of law.’
The inspector raised an eyebrow.
‘Well,’ Bernie chuckled, ‘almost always. Anyway, even if we were to come a cropper in front of the beak, there’s always the libel insurance to fall back on. The bloody lawyers just don’t want to make a claim, even though that’s what it’s there for.’
‘Worried about their premiums.’
‘Precisely! The useless buggers are just put on this earth to drive the rest of us mad.’
‘Okay.’ Carlyle was finally beginning to understand what their conversation was all about. The journalist needed him to try and flush out Miller, so that he could publish his story. That was fine by the inspector. All he wanted was to nail the evil bastard any way he could. Whether that was in a court of law, or in the court of public opinion, didn’t really matter.
Dropping the cutlery onto his plate, Gilmore fished another paper napkin from the dispenser on the table and began clearing the detritus that had collected in his beard. When he was satisfied with the job achieved, he crumpled up the napkin in one meaty fist and dropped it on the table. ‘For years now, Wickford has been working with journalists like Duncan Brown, tapping people’s phones in order to get stories.’
Carlyle thought about Margaretha Zelle. ‘You have proof?’
Gilmore nodded.
‘So why don’t you go and talk to the good people at Operation Redhead? This is specifically their thing.’
Sitting back on the bench, Gilmore pawed at his T-shirt, scratching Bert on the nose — or maybe it was Ernie. ‘Because, Inspector, I’m not simply a concerned citizen, I’m a man who needs to make a living.’
Fair enough, Carlyle decided.
Shifting in his seat, Gilmore settled into lecture mode. ‘These days,’ he said, ‘there’s no real money to be made from conventional journalism. No money at all, in fact.’
Aware that he needed to get up to speed, Carlyle sat and listened, happy to let the other man talk.
‘Most information isn’t worth shit. There’s far too much of it about — in fact, we spend all our time trying to fight it off. No one wants more of it. There’s more information in one single edition of a daily newspaper — a broadsheet anyway — than an ordinary person would have been exposed to in their whole lives, two hundred years ago.’
All of it crap, too, Carlyle reflected.
‘And that’s just newspapers. Then there’s television, radio and the universe’s great intellectual garbage dump known as the internet.’ He looked the inspector up and down to make sure he was keeping up. ‘Know what I mean?’