Sins of the Fathers (31 page)

‘Maybe,’ Carlyle shrugged.

‘He must be in on it,’ Umar said. ‘Why else would he have run?’

‘Because,’ Carlyle laughed, ‘he’s a dickhead.’

A middle-aged female nurse appeared by the bed and handed Savage a jumbo box of painkillers. ‘Take a couple of these when the pain gets too much,’ she told him. ‘No more than eight in one twenty-four hour period, though.’

‘Okay. Thanks.’ Waiting until the nurse had turned and walked away, Savage ripped open the box, popped a couple of the tablets from their silver foil, threw them down his throat and swallowed.

Glancing up, Carlyle saw the clock above the door. There were too many things to do and he had to get going. ‘How did you get on with the sugar daddies?’ He tried not to look too impatient while Savage washed the tablets down with a swig of water from the plastic bottle on the table by the bed.

‘Spoke to one,’ the sergeant said finally, taking another drink from the bottle. ‘Left messages for two. Not got to the fourth one yet.’ He ran Carlyle through the list. ‘I’ve updated my notes at the station.’

‘Okay.’ Carlyle realized that it would have been too much to hope for, that they might have sorted out the Ayumi Ninomiya case as well. ‘Well,’ he gave Savage an understanding smile, ‘I suppose it’s some time off for you.’ As in:
Get your arse out of that bed and get back to work.

Not obviously picking up on the inspector’s coded message, Savage nodded and beamed.

Carlyle tried another smile. It didn’t come naturally and he could feel his cheeks starting to ache. ‘I’ll chase the rest of these guys down.’
On my own.

‘Thanks,’ Savage replied cheerily. ‘I should be fine in a couple of weeks.’

‘Take all the time you need,’ Carlyle managed before his smile became too obviously a grimace. ‘See you later.’ Patting Savage gently on the arm, he nodded at Umar. ‘C’mon, pretty boy, let’s get going.’

*   *   *

Dismayed, WPC Alison Titchfield listened to the sound of her colleagues – PCs Smith, James and Henderson – romping up the stairs like a mini-herd of baby rhino. The suspect, if he was in the building, would have heard them coming a mile off and doubtless bunked out of a window. Titchfield wondered if she should step back out on to the street to try to intercept anyone trying to flee but no, she had been told to stand at the bottom of the stairs, so stand at the bottom of the stairs was what she would do. Scarcely three months into her first posting and the young WPC had already learned lesson No. 1 in the Metropolitan Police rulebook.
Do not, under any circumstances, act under your own initiative.

Especially if you are a woman.

It was something that was drilled into you day after day after bloody day. And when you weren’t being reminded of it by your male colleagues, you had plenty of opportunities, standing around in hallways, on doorsteps and on street corners, to reflect on it on your own. Titchfield watched a mouse appear from a gap in the skirting board and run away from her down the hall. From upstairs came the sound of more banging and shouting as the boys tried to find the right flat.
You should have let me go up there
, Litchfield thought sourly. Apparently the bloke they were looking for had put two sergeants in hospital. Smith, James and Henderson could easily go the same way. They were big but they were stupid. They should have left the job of tracking down Mr George McQuarrie – whoever he was – to her.

More shouting was followed by the sound of a door being smashed.

Bloody hell
, Titchfield thought,
what a total racket
.

The neighbours were probably already dialling 999 and asking for a SWAT team to be sent over immediately.

Better get their retaliation in first. Titchfield lifted the radio clipped to her body armour and hit the call key.

‘Sounds like we’ve found the target. All under control, over.’

‘
Roger. We
’
ve just had a call this second from a neighbouring property. Reports of a disturbance
,
over.
’

‘It’s just us,’ Titchfield snapped, angry at being right. ‘Nothing to worry about, over.’

‘
Understood
,
over.
’

Shaking her head, Titchfield let go of the radio just as an almighty scream came hurtling down the stairs, followed almost immediately by another.

It looked like they’d found their man.

For a moment, the young WPC was caught in two minds. Stay put – or go to the aid of her colleagues? A third blood-curdling scream made up her mind for her and she ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Less than five seconds later, she was on the first-floor landing looking at a short hallway containing three doors. Two of the three were firmly shut but the middle door – Flat 5 – was hanging on its hinges. As Titchfield stepped towards it, a massive figure bounded out, heading for the stairs. Without thinking, the WPC took a step sideways to get out of the man’s way. As she did so, however, she left her right foot sticking out, catching his trailing leg as he flew past.

‘Shiiittt.’

Suddenly conscious of her elevated pulse, Alison Titchfield watched as George McQuarrie disappeared over the edge of the stairs. There was a satisfying series of bumps and screams and then silence.

Taking a moment to compose herself, the WPC calmly made her way back down to the ground floor. By the time she reached McQuarrie, he was moaning, in a heap in the hall. The mouse reappeared from its bolthole, took a look at what was going on and then made itself scarce. A bruise was already coming up on McQuarrie’s forehead and he was holding his knee.

‘My leg.’ He tried to force himself up but when Titchfield put her boot in the small of his back he went down again without much in the way of protest. Pulling a set of handcuffs from her belt, she dropped on one knee and secured his left wrist to the pipe of the hallway radiator. Job done, she got to her feet and brought the radio back to her lips.

‘Suspect apprehended, over.’

‘
Good work
,
over.
’

‘Thanks,’ Titchfield grinned. Then, glancing back up the stairs, she realized that it was ominously silent on the first floor. ‘Looks like we’ve got some injuries, though,’ she continued. ‘You’d better send an ambulance, maybe two, over.’

‘
On the way
,
over.
’

Flipping himself onto his back, McQuarrie tried to yank his hand free.

Titchfield shook her head. ‘Behave.’

He looked up at her through two slits for eyes. ‘You bitch!’ he hissed. ‘My kneecap is broken or something.’

‘Just be grateful I don’t break your other leg,’ Titchfield said sweetly. Turning away from the captured suspect, she headed back up the stairs. The ambulances would be a while yet; she’d better see how the boys were getting on.

Wishing she could have a cigarette, Hilary Green finished her latte and tossed the empty paper cup into a nearby bin. Annoyed that she didn’t miss, Carlyle eyed her suspiciously. He had known the Westminster Social Services Case Officer for four or five years now but their working relationship remained perfunctory, with neither side having much time for the other, nor for the institutions that they represented. As far as the inspector was concerned, the council’s social workers were just a bunch of lame civil servants whose only thought, if and when they clocked on in the morning, was how quickly they could clock off. For her part, Ms Green – a fifteen-year veteran of cleaning up other people’s mess – saw the police as all too ready to pass the buck, running away from difficult cases and leaving the dirty work to Social Services.

Collecting up her papers, Green swept them into an oversized red handbag. Glancing at her watch, she cursed under her breath. Carlyle, standing at the window with his arms folded, pretended not to hear. He didn’t have to pretend not to care.

‘I don’t have time for this.’ Zipping up her bag, Green stood up straight and placed her hands on her hips.

‘Sorry,’ Carlyle said, clearly not giving a toss. Out of the window, he watched a couple of detainees being placed in the back of a security company van. ‘Maybe you can dump it on Camden.’

‘I tried that already,’ the social worker sighed, ‘but the girl’s given home address was in Westminster, so it looks like I’m stuck with it.’

‘Unlucky. So what are you going to do?’

‘We’ll just have to see what happens.’

‘Huh?’ Carlyle looked back at Green, trying to give her his full attention. He had asked for this meeting, after all; insisting that she come to Charing Cross police station to discuss Rebecca Schaeffer in the only slot he had free in his day. Not for the first time, it struck him that Green was an incredibly unattractive woman. She must be in her early forties now, he thought, and looking every year of it. At least she’d given up on the bottle-blonde look that she’d had when they’d first met. If anything, that had made her look even older. Now her natural brown was streaked with grey, which went some way to softening the permanently sour expression on her face.

Perfect for a social worker, really.

Green shot him a look full of weariness and suspicion. ‘Until the mother is charged – as you know – we will not do anything.’

Now it was the inspector’s turn to sigh. ‘I’m just trying to plan ahead.’ Now that George McQuarrie was back in custody, he wanted to move in on Iris Belekhsan as well. There was a flight risk to consider, however. He didn’t want her to up sticks and head off to the arse end of nowhere – particularly with the kid in tow. If that happened, it could take years to get her back. Worse, if she chose her destination wisely, she might never be sent back.

He glanced at his watch. Daniel Sands was due in front of the beak in just over twenty-five minutes. The hearing would doubtless start late but he didn’t want to risk missing it. It was a brisk fifteen-minute walk to Horseferry Road Magistrates’ Court but it could easily take another ten minutes to get in. He cursed the closure of the courts at Bow Street, just a couple of minutes away. The site had lain empty for years now, with the plans to turn it into another luxury hotel stymied by the financial crash.

Looking disgruntled, Green pulled a phone from her pocket and began typing a text message. ‘You’re wasting your time. We’ll just have to see what happens.’

Carlyle grunted. Why did he bother with these people? Gritting his teeth, he gave it one last go. ‘If the mother was responsible, she will face some serious jail time. That is only right and proper. But the child is the person who is suffering most from all of this. I do not want her interests to get lost in the legal process. She should not go into care if there is an alternative.’

Green sent her message and looked up at him as if he was an idiot, which he probably was. ‘I’m surprised you dragged me over here for this,’ she said coolly. ‘There’s really nothing I can do.’ Resisting the urge to wrap his hands around her neck, Carlyle glared at the woman. But for Hilary Green, it was water off a duck’s back. Hauling her bag over her shoulder, she headed for the door. ‘If you take the mother into custody,’ she repeated, grabbing the handle, ‘Social Services will have to be fully involved . . . even before the matter goes to court.’ She shot him a superior look. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure we should have given the police the leeway that you’ve had to date in this case.’

Sod you, too
, thought Carlyle.

‘The bottom line,’ she said as she pulled the door open, ‘is that it is by no means certain that the Local Authority will let the daughter stay with the grandparents.’

‘But—’

Stepping out of the door, Green held up a hand to cut him off. ‘Indeed, given the circumstances . . .’

Carlyle felt the anger rising in his throat. ‘So she can stay with her mother, who may well have organized the murder of her father, but not with her grandparents? Iris is using Rebecca as a kind of human shield. She is banking on the fact that I won’t chase her and risk the kid going into care. Anna and Ronald Connolly are my way around that.’

Green looked at him with a mixture of sadness and loathing. She held up the thumb and forefinger on her right hand, like a teacher addressing a terminally dull pupil. ‘A, you don’t know whether Ms Belekhsan was in any way involved in the murder of Mr Schaeffer. B, Mrs Connolly is still so heavily sedated she can’t look after anyone.’

Carlyle scrunched up his face in anguished protest. ‘Oh, come on.’

‘And, C, the “grandfather” Ronald Connolly is not a blood relative. He has no rights and no one has even assessed his ability to look after the child.’

Carlyle made to protest further, but she ploughed on.

‘Do you even know how old he is? What kind of health he is in? Have you checked him against any of the databases? Is he safe? Is he capable?’

Rather him than Social bloody Services, the inspector thought dourly, letting his gaze fall to the floor.

‘You’re listening to your gut instinct. Well, good for you. You’ve met with the guy for what? Twenty minutes at the most? An hour? Is that really enough on which to base such an important decision?’ Suddenly, she was on a roll, enjoying the conversation. ‘Anyway, who are
you
to judge?’

Embarrassed at being taken to the cleaners by a social worker, Carlyle protested, ‘I don’t want to be the bloody judge!’

‘Sounds like it to me.’

‘It’s just that no one seems to be looking out for the kid in all of this.’

‘This is not your problem, Inspector. It goes without saying that everything will be done according to the regulations.’ Readjusting the shoulder strap of her bag, Hilary Green gave him the kind of patronizing look he’d had to endure for the whole of his working life. ‘It’s not our job to take sides.’ With a final smirk, she slid into the corridor, letting the door close slowly behind her.

The City of Westminster court, to give it its proper name, was a seventies monstrosity; a soul-destroying box of a building with all the charisma of George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. Situated a few minutes from the House of Commons – and close to New Scotland Yard – it doubtless gave the politicians and Met top brass some sense of satisfaction that justice was being meted out on their doorstep. Not for much longer, though. As he skipped through the front entrance, Carlyle wondered if this would be his last ever visit. Like Bow Street, Horseferry Road had been sold to developers. In future, the inspector would have to spend more of his valuable time schlepping up to the newly refurbished magistrates’ court on the Marylebone Road to have his days in court.