London Calling - James Craig [31]
The caffeine left him recharged, if not refreshed. It also inspired a thought. Sitting on the bed, he rifled through his pockets, looking for his new toy, a BlackBerry 8820. The handheld computer, only slightly larger than a cigarette packet, was one of the first two hundred to be assigned to Metropolitan Police officers – at inspector level and above – on a trial basis. Carlyle wasn’t what you would call an early adopter of new technology, but then neither was the Met. It had taken him the best part of nine months to successfully apply for the thing, get his hands on the thing, and then cajole the IT guys to persuade it to talk to his desktop computer and the network at large. Even now, the little machine seemed to work only erratically, but he could see its possibilities, not least in terms of spending more time out of the office, and so had vowed to stick with it.
After typing in his password, he went to the browser and Googled ‘Alethia’. Finding the company’s website, he then went to the homepage, which told him that it provided ‘strategic consulting services’ and had offices in New York and Dubai as well as London. Struggling with the small-size script, he brought up a list of directors and clicked on Blake’s biography.
Ian Blake, 47, revolutionised the consulting paradigm when he founded Alethia Consulting in 1993. His experience (over twenty years in the industry) has been focused within reputation management and evolving business strategies specifically for dynamic companies and individuals. This experience includes a wide variety of capital markets and transaction-based activities including leading multiple corporate financings, M&A transactions, personnel management and global-issues management activities. Ian works extensively with the most senior executive management – from small to large corporations, as well as not-for-profit organisations – across all sectors and markets, focusing on integrated strategic communications. He holds an MBA in international business from London Business School and a Master of Entrepreneurial Leadership degree from INSEAD in Paris.
Very informative, Carlyle thought. Maybe that’s why he was killed – someone took extreme offence at his ability to mangle the English language. After another few seconds of staring myopically at the screen, he hit the ‘clients’ link and watched as a list of names came up which included a football club, two universities, two banks and a handful of large retailers. There were also various names that Carlyle didn’t recognise, but all of these were quickly forgotten as he reached the three names listed at the very bottom: the Office of the Mayor of London, the Metropolitan Police, and the Police Federation. Fuck! Carlyle thought. That’s just what I need, a corpse with connections.
The tiny screen – or maybe it was the caffeine – was now giving him a headache. He hit the ‘close’ button and dropped the BlackBerry back in his pocket. Resisting the temptation to take his shoes off again, which would almost certainly have proved fatal to his attempts to stay awake, Carlyle lay back on the bed and shut his eyes. Almost immediately, he felt a buzzing by his chest. He sat up and pulled his mobile out of the breast pocket of his jacket. The screen revealed ‘Helen’, which meant that it was his wife. Which meant that it would have to be answered.
Carlyle pressed the green ‘receive’ button and tried to sound awake. ‘Hi.’
‘You didn’t come home last night?’ His wife sounded just as tired as he felt, perhaps even more so. Somehow, this energised him a little.
‘I know,’ he sighed. ‘I got waylaid.’
‘Anything interesting? Or just the usual?’ After all this time, Helen was used to the random nature of his working life, and the fact that it resulted in him going AWOL on a regular basis, so there was no edge to this conversation.
‘A dead man in a hotel room.’
A yawn. ‘Suspicious?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Carlyle deadpanned. ‘Lots of blood and a murder weapon.’
He could feel her waking up, and