London Calling - James Craig [18]
Carlyle passed an imposing mansion standing at number 43 King Street, in the north-west corner of the piazza, which was now home to a flagship shoe store. Back in the nineteenth century it has been one of London’s first boxing venues. Then, as now, the prizefight game was so bent that many of the bouts descended into farce. One of the most famous King Street matches ended in chaos after both fighters took a dive even before a single punch had been thrown. Not surprisingly, the disgruntled punters sought to take out their frustrations on the two boxers, one of whom found the presence of mind to feign blindness in order to escape a beating from the mob. Legend had it that this ‘blind’ boxer was declared the winner, and awarded the purse as well.
Glancing up at a poster advertising a new computer game, Carlyle stumbled on a loose cobblestone. He steadied himself in front of the life-size image of a cartoon commando letting fly with a machine-gun in each hand. The game’s strapline promised ‘a new kind of war’. That’s just what the world needs, Carlyle thought sourly, as he resumed walking. Almost immediately, he was passing in front of St Paul’s Church. Known as the actor’s church, it was currently flanked on one side by an Oakley sunglasses store, and on the other by a Nat West bank. Inigo Jones, the architect, would doubtless be proud, Carlyle thought, to see his celebrated creation now keeping such august company. God would probably be quite chuffed, too.
In front of the church’s outsized portico, an acne-scarred youth wearing last season’s Arsenal away shirt sat on the kerb, with his head buried in his hands. Oblivious to his suffering, a couple of insomniac pigeons pecked at the large pool of golden vomit shimmering under the orange street lights nearby. Behind him, a very young-looking girl in an insubstantial silver dress stood motionless, expressionless, apparently disinclined to comfort him or to leave him, as their night on the town struggled to die.
The pair paid Carlyle no heed as he walked on. For his part, Carlyle gave the girl a hard stare, saying a silent prayer that his own daughter wouldn’t be found in a similar situation in seven or eight years’ time.
Reaching the corner of Agar Street, Carlyle looked up and took in the hulking mass of Europe’s largest police station. Covering a whole block of some of the most expensive real estate in the world, it stood a couple of blocks north of the eponymous train station. It was a squat, featureless building, rising to six economical storeys, bristling with CCTV cameras on every corner, peppered with windows too small for its bulk; windows for seeing out of rather than for looking in through. The half a dozen old-fashioned blue police lamps placed in random locations around the building looked just as fake as they actually were. The same blue lamp used to be found outside every police station, reminding the public that the police were always ready to serve. Now they were just design accessories.
The station building was painted in an off-white colour that always looked grubby. The finishing touch was a small portico, as if copied from the nearby church in the piazza, framing the front entrance and making it look more like a provincial town hall than a major cop shop.
Charing Cross was one of a hundred and forty Metropolitan Police stations located across London, and Carlyle had been stationed at this one for almost ten years now, making it his longest posting by a considerable margin. In the previous decade and a half, he had made various random stop-offs around the capital in the fairly random circuit of stations that had constituted his ‘career’ – including Shepherds Bush, Southwark, Brixton, Paddington Green and Bethnal Green. He had moved slowly through the ranks, from constable to sergeant to inspector, having a go at most things: vice, drugs, fraud, homicide and even a short and inglorious