London Calling - James Craig [113]
Exhaling deeply, Carlyle thought about it. ‘I don’t know,’ he said eventually. ‘Nothing really springs to mind. I suppose I’ve been quite lucky.’
‘You can’t really judge me, then, can you?’
‘No, that’s true. It’s not my job to judge, though, is it?’
‘Maybe, maybe not.’
‘It’s not,’ he said firmly. ‘All I would say is that, even when terrible things happen, the world doesn’t stop turning. That may sound callous, but it’s the truth. If you’ve still got a life, get on with it. Don’t crucify yourself. Don’t become a victim. No one else really gives a toss.’
‘Good night, Inspector,’ was the only reply he got.
He heard the front door click as, this time, she closed it properly.
As he walked back down Stevenage Road, the procession of planes above his head continued unabated. Lost in thought, Carlyle paid them no heed.
THIRTY-TWO
The restaurant Kami no Shizuku, translated ‘Drops of God’, aimed to provide diners with a thoughtful, almost spiritual environment that would ensure the emotional calm required to spend thousands of pounds on a single meal. The celebrated Italian designer Simone Mestaguerra had chosen the finest natural materials to provide the place with a sophisticated image of timeless luxury that kept just on the right side of decadence. Drawing on the aura of a medieval monastery, the main dining area was a serene space detached from the wearisome realities of the everyday world. Exactly the right marble, the perfect limestone, the best hardwoods, they had all been sourced from around the globe to create a template for perfection.
Owner Kanzaki Carew thought about Mestaguerra’s €250,000 consultancy fee and uttered a silent prayer for his salvation. This evening, however, the timeless luxury didn’t make the place look any less empty. Business was slow, whereas this time last year it could have easily taken diners up to four months to secure a table. Back then the joke had been that reservations were so sought after that they were traded on the futures market. Well, no one was joking now: this market, like so many others, had collapsed.
Like everyone else, Kanzaki had become a victim of the recession. The private dining-room bookings from American finance houses had completely dried up over the last few months. The lunchtime trade – made up largely of City wives, media creatives, spin doctors and entrepreneurs – had similarly evaporated. And the days when bankers would spend tens of thousands on wine during a meal – a common enough occurrence for Kanzaki to have then instituted a house rule that the food was always free when the wine bill climbed beyond twenty thousand pounds – were a very distant memory indeed.
With a nervous sadness, he glanced at a framed bill displayed behind the cash register and vowed to take it down. It was undoubtedly bad karma. The highest bill ever charged in Kami no Shizuku’s history now mocked the penury of the present. It had been run up by a dozen bankers at the height of the boom, celebrating the closing of a monster deal by indulging in a nine-hour beano. The bill had once excited him and he could still recite it from memory, like his very own Lord’s Prayer:
Four bottles of 1995 Dom Pérignon at £6,750 each;
A magnum of Mouton Rothschild 1945 at £20,000;
Three bottles of 1982 Montrachet at £2,400 each;
A 1945 Pétrus at £15,600, a 1946 Pétrus at £11,400;
A 1947 Pétrus at £13,300; and
A 1900 Château d’Yquem at £10,700.
The tip alone had come to thirteen thousand pounds – half of which had gone straight into Kanzaki’s own pocket. The bankers had all been regular customers, but six of them had since been sacked. Of those still in a job, two were now working in Hong Kong and another two in Dubai, while another was trying his luck in Mumbai. Only one of them was still managing to keep his head above water in the bombed-out London market, and he, Kanzaki reflected bitterly, hadn’t been seen in the restaurant