A Man of Sorrows (29 page)

‘I suppose so,’ said Eddie. ‘It wasn’t like you forced him to do those things. He usually quite likes it.’

Carlyle tensed. They were getting down to the sharp end of the conversation. Moving onto the balls of his feet he began rocking backwards and forwards, ready for a dash down the stairs and across the road. He looked at Rose. ‘Once he’s got everything out of McGowan that he can, he’s just gonna walk out of there?’

‘Yeah,’ she said, peering out of the empty window at the brightly lit facade of the church. ‘That’s the plan.’

‘Great plan.’

She gave him a sharp look. ‘Thanks.’

‘What about you?’ McGowan asked. ‘Do
you
like it?’

‘Do I like what?’

‘Good boy!’ said Carlyle under his breath.

‘Do you like . . . those things?’

‘Why?’ Eddie asked coyly. ‘You want me to suck your cock, like Simon did?’

Holding their breath, Carlyle and Rose stared at the receiver.

McGowan said nothing.

‘It’s all about the money for me,’ said Eddie breezily. ‘Give me thirty quid and I’ll clean your pipes, no problem. Won’t even make you wear a johnny.’

There was the sound of what seemed like McGowan clearing his throat.

‘Cash in advance, of course.’

‘Of course.’ There was a further pause and then McGowan spoke again. ‘I only seem to have twenty-five.’

‘That’ll do,’ Eddie replied. ‘You can give me the rest next time.’

‘Thank you, my son.’

‘Shit!’ Carlyle hissed, already heading for the door. ‘Looks like he’s changed the plan.’ With Rose close behind, he rushed through the open doorway and down the stairs, carefully sidestepping various work tools and building materials that had been left strewn about the site. Outside, they ran across the empty road and approached the main entrance to the church. Carefully pulling open the door, Carlyle let Rose go in first then followed her inside. ‘Where’s the crypt?’

Rose shrugged her shoulders. ‘No idea.’

‘Fuck! Let’s hope Eddie takes his time.’

‘I get the impression he knows what he’s doing,’ Rose replied. ‘He won’t drag it out.’

‘Okay,’ Carlyle sighed. ‘Come on.’

THIRTY-EIGHT

Standing in the middle of the church, Carlyle looked up at the west window, the largest stained-glass window in London, depicting martyrs hung down the road at Tyburn gallows, under the gaze of a triumphant Christ. Even in the gloom, the window was truly impressive but he was focusing on his hearing, trying to distinguish any internal noises from the background traffic hum outside. Finally he heard what might have been a grunt off to his left. Slipping between the pews, he saw there was a half-open door behind one of the pillars that ran down the length of the building. As he approached, the groans became more distinct. Checking that Rose was following him, Carlyle pulled out his mobile and bounced through the doorway. ‘Father McGowan,’ he said cheerily, shooting the scene in front of him using the video mode on his handset. ‘We meet again!’

With his trousers around his ankles, the priest struggled to turn to face the inspector. The look of horror on his face was unmistakable. His member, however, showed no sign of wilting as Eddie continued diligently about his task while caressing the priest’s balls with his thumbs. As Rose had said, it looked like the boy knew what he was doing. It was impossible to tell whether the croaking sound that caught in McGowan’s throat signalled pleasure or pain. Either way, he was unable to step away from the boy’s ministrations before Eddie jerked his head back, allowing an arc of semen to hit a pile of Bibles stacked against a nearby wall.

‘Oh my God!’ said Rose, appearing at Carlyle’s shoulder. ‘That is so gross!’

‘Phew!’ said Eddie as he bounced to his feet. ‘That was a close one!’ He grinned at the two police officers. ‘You don’t want to get a faceful, if you can help it.’

‘No,’ said Carlyle, trying not to laugh. ‘I suppose not.’

Eddie patted McGowan on the shoulder. ‘Don’t forget, you owe me a fiver.’

‘Might take him a while to earn that,’ Carlyle said, all humour gone. ‘You can only make about twenty pence a day in prison.’

With trembling hands, McGowan pulled up his Y-fronts and then his trousers. Rose waited for the priest to sort himself out before reading him his rights and calling for a car to take them to nearby Holborn station.

‘Let’s see if you can wriggle out of it this time, you piece of shit,’ Carlyle snarled. For once, he felt no desire to smack the old bastard about, even as part of an act. Maybe it was the scent of victory in his nostrils; surely now the job was done and McGowan would be put away for a reasonable stretch. It was something that should have happened long ago; maybe it
would
have happened long ago if the degenerate criminal hadn’t been wearing a dog collar.

The squad car arrived in less than five minutes. McGowan was bundled into the back. Rose got in beside him, letting Eddie ride up in front. As she went to close the door, she looked up at Carlyle, still standing on the pavement. ‘Do you wanna come too?’

‘Nah.’ Carlyle shook his head. ‘I’ve got stuff to do. Let’s talk in the morning.’

‘Okay.’ Rose nodded.

He gave her a thumbs-up. ‘Well done!’

‘Thanks.’

Smiling, he slammed the door shut and watched them pull out into the light traffic on Charterhouse Street. Then he started out on the short walk home.

Christian Holyrod watched Abigail Slater pull the Durex Pleasuremax out of its packet and licked his lips. ‘I didn’t think you lot used condoms.’ A sly smile spread across his face. ‘Whatever would the Catholic Legal Network say?’

‘Me?’ Slater tossed the wrapper onto the carpet and flicked an imaginary piece of fluff from her puce-coloured Stella McCartney bra. ‘I’m not a Catholic.’ Glancing down at his erect, glistening member, she smiled lasciviously. ‘I’ll use anything if it gives me pleasure.’

‘But—’

‘The CLN? It’s just a career thing.’

‘Ah.’ Holyrod knew all about the things one had to do to climb the greasy pole.

‘I only got into it through a boyfriend. He was really old-school. No penetrative sex before marriage, and all that.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’ Slater ran a cool hand along the length of his penis, causing Holyrod to gasp. ‘He liked me to give him hand relief dressed as a traffic warden.’ She giggled at the memory of it.

‘How very unimaginative of him.’

‘He had a thing about wardens . . . meters too.’

‘Meters?’

‘I know. We never did get to the bottom of it, but he liked to jerk off over them,’ Slater explained. ‘He regularly left his seed over the parking meters of Highgate.’

‘Urgh.’ Finding it hard to breathe and talk at the same time, Holyrod let out a small grunt of approval as he watched Slater unroll the Pleasuremax with her tongue. His admiration for this woman was reaching new heights. He hadn’t known sex as good as this since his university days. Idly, he wondered how much a divorce might cost. With his cock poised to explode, however, his brain simply couldn’t handle anything as prosaic as maths.

‘Lie down.’ Pushing him backwards onto the bed, she caressed his balls before taking him in her mouth, slipping the condom on to him as she did so.

‘God!’ he cried, ‘I’m going to—’

‘Not so fast!’ Lifting her head, Slater gave the tip of his penis an expert flick with the index finger of her left hand. Instantly there was a slight relaxation in his groin as he backed away from the point of no return.

‘Better than Viagra,’ she laughed, crawling up the bed on all fours and kissing him deeply on the mouth. Given where Abigail’s tongue had just been, Holyrod was less than keen but, pinned to the sheets, he was powerless to resist. Sitting up, she straddled his waist. Pulling her panties aside, she eased him inside her and started moving, slowly, up and down his cock. ‘Now,’ she said, waving an admonishing finger at him, ‘you take your time.’

I’ll try
, thought Holyrod, gritting his teeth. Closing his eyes, he tried to focus his mind on something – English footballers, British prime ministers, his wife – that would stop him from prematurely shooting his load. It was no good. ‘Argh.’

‘Steady,’ Abigail whispered, the amusement in her voice obvious, as she slowed the grinding of her hips almost to a stop.

‘I can’t . . .’

Holyrod’s complaint was drowned out by the opening bars of Coldplay’s ‘God Put a Smile on your Face’. Without dismounting, Abigail reached over and pulled an iPhone from the Hermès Birkin Black Palladium at the side of the bed. Taking the call, she stuck the phone to her ear. ‘Yes?’ Grinning, she gave a firm thrust that made his knees buckle. ‘What is it?’ Holyrod tried to thrust back but she simply shifted her weight so that he couldn’t establish any momentum. Listening to someone on the other end of the phone, she responded: ‘Yes. Say nothing – nothing at all. I do the talking, remember? I’ll be right there.’ Ending the call, she tossed the phone back into the bag.

‘Problem?’ Holyrod croaked.

‘Isn’t it always?’ Pushing herself half off him, she grabbed the shaft of his cock with her left hand and finished him off with a couple of swift tugs.

‘Thanks.’ Overcome with gratitude, he tried to pull her towards him, but she slid away, off the bed.

‘At least you got what you wanted,’ Slater said drily, already halfway to the bathroom. ‘You’ll have to sort me out later.’

‘It will be my pleasure,’ Holyrod grinned, stripping off the used condom and dropping it on to the bedside table.

With a theatrical sigh, Alice tossed her copy of
Bleak House
onto the duvet. ‘I don’t want to bloody talk about it!’ Reaching across to the iPod dock on the bedside table, she steadily turned up the volume on The Clash’s ‘I Fought The Law’ until Joe Strummer’s vocals filled the room.

‘Well,’ said Carlyle, turning it down again, ‘I do.’ He retreated to the end of the bed and sat down. ‘Grandma wasn’t very happy – and neither is your mother, for that matter.’

Folding her arms, she gave him a hard stare. Wearing one of her mother’s old grey Gap T-shirts, with her hair pulled back, she looked frighteningly mature. ‘Tell me about it.’

‘We have to sort this out,’ said Carlyle gently.

‘It’s only a bit of dope,’ Alice complained. ‘No big deal.’

‘I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me who you got it from?’

She shook her head. ‘No.’

‘I will find out.’

She looked at him defiantly. ‘Give it your best shot, copper.’

Despite everything, he burst out laughing. He wanted to grab her and have a play fight, tickling her under the arms like they did when she was a kid. But as he had to keep reminding himself, she wasn’t a kid any more.

‘Anyway,’ she grinned, happy that the tension had been broken, ‘it’s not like there’s just one guy.’

Fucking great
, Carlyle thought.

‘And I’ve kept my side of the deal.’

Carlyle frowned. ‘What deal?’

‘I’m doing well at school.’

Feeling completely powerless, he gazed at the ceiling. ‘Well, look,’ he said finally, ‘all I can tell you is that you’re a bit young for this kind of thing. And . . .’ Alice began to protest, but he held up a hand. ‘And, whatever your grades, there is the issue of school. If Myers thinks you are smoking dope, they could kick you out.’

‘There are plenty of other schools.’

Carlyle gritted his teeth. After all the time and effort, not to mention money, that they’d thrown in over the years, first to get her in and then to keep her there, his daughter’s
laissez faire
attitude was totally soul-destroying. ‘Look,’ he told her, ‘if you get into a problem at City, I
will
track down every little dope-dealing scumbag and I
will
break their legs.’

‘Dad!’

‘If you get kicked out, your card will be well and truly marked. Other schools will have the same issues. If you get on a downward slope, it’s that much harder to get back on track.’

Alice frowned. ‘Back on
what
track?’

‘Back on the
not-fucking-things-up
track,’ he said, frustrated at his inability to put together an argument that sounded convincing, even to himself. ‘So that you don’t end up a dickhead loser.’

Alice smiled malevolently. ‘Are you going to use that line in your next talk at the school?’

Despite himself, Carlyle let out a small laugh. ‘Maybe. What do you think? Would it go down well?’

Alice sniggered. ‘I’m sure it could only add to the legend.’

‘What legend?’

‘My dad – the drug-using cop with borderline Tourette’s.’

‘Ha bloody ha.’

‘See what I mean?’ Reaching over, she gave him a peck on the cheek. ‘Time for me to go to sleep. I’ve got school in the morning, remember?’

‘Sure.’ Carlyle got to his feet, stifling a yawn as he did so.

‘Tell Mum not to worry, it’ll be okay. You’ve just got to remember you can’t tell me what to do all the time.’

‘But—’

This time, it was she who cut him off with a sharp wave of the hand. ‘After all, I’m only doing what you did, when you were at school.’

Christ
, thought Carlyle sadly,
me and my big fucking mouth
. John Carlyle, Idiot Parent of the Year. ‘I was a lot older then.’