London Calling - James Craig [53]
FIFTEEN
Carlyle sat on a very nice two-seater cream sofa in the living room of Ian Blake’s small but perfectly presentable one-bedroom flat in Lennox Gardens in Chelsea. One of the most upmarket neighbourhoods in the city, it was only a mile, give or take, from where Carlyle himself had been born. The flat was smaller than Carlyle’s present home, but it was easily worth two or even three times as much. Even with the recent sharp fall in house prices, the place had to be worth around a million quid. Solid, understated, it was the type of property that would never go out of fashion.
The policemen and technicians who had spent the last three hours going over the place had packed up and headed back to the station. They had given no indication of finding anything of note, but they would be doing their job thoroughly and diligently, all the same. In line with the toxicology report on the corpse, they had found a small stash of cannabis which had been inexpertly hidden in a shoebox in the closet. There was nothing to suggest that Mr Blake was anything other than a standard middle-class dabbler.
Last night’s exertions were catching up with Carlyle and his attention wandered. He tried to focus on what he might want for dinner since, by the time he got home, Helen and Alice would have eaten and he would be fending for himself. He went through a mental list of what was stored in the fridge, and the likelihood of it still being there when he returned. Nothing grabbed his attention, so it looked like a trip to the supermarket beckoned.
In the corner of the room, a large plasma screen flickered silently, the sound muted while Carlyle waited for the local news to appear. The sofa was very comfortable. Sitting back, he yawned and closed his eyes.
‘Wake up! It’s on.’ Joe grabbed a large remote control from the coffee table and turned up the sound. He flopped down next to Carlyle and dropped the remote in the space between them.
Just over a minute later, it was all over. The highlight was a breathless piece to camera from Rosanna Snowdon, standing outside the Garden Hotel. Carlyle noticed she had undone an extra button on her blouse, providing an enhanced view of her seriously impressive décolletage. So this is why people watch local news, he thought. The piece also included a passport-style photograph of the victim, and a ten-second clip of a suitably dour-looking Simpson describing it as a ‘violent and senseless crime’.
‘She looks tired,’ Carlyle commented.
Joe grunted.
Snowdon signed off with: ‘The investigation continues.’ Carlyle did not have a speaking role, although he did appear on screen, nodding intently as he listened to Simpson’s wise words. Of Sergeant Joseph Szyszkowski, the man in the Marks & Spencer suit, there was neither sight nor sound. Nor was there any mention of the mayor.
Carlyle switched off the television and looked again round the room. ‘Like you said … spurmo.’
‘Huh?’
‘Not exactly a gay shag pad, is it?’ Lost in thought, they both studied the Helmut Newton ‘big nude’ which dominated the far wall: a black-and-white photo of a naked Amazonian blonde posing beside a motorcycle.
‘I wouldn’t mind one of those at home,’ Joe mused.
‘The woman? Or the photo?’
‘I’d settle for the photo.’
‘I’m sure Mrs Szyszkowski would be delighted to hear you say that.’
Joe shifted in his seat, but made no attempt to stand up. ‘A boy can dream. By definition, you don’t want your dreams to become reality, otherwise they wouldn’t still be dreams.’
‘Mmm … good try, soldier.’
‘Anyway, Anita knows that I understand my limitations … almost as well as she does.’
‘Just as well,’ Carlyle sniffed. He made a half-hearted attempt to get out of the sofa. ‘So where do you think we are now? Have we found anything useful?’
‘Not really. Not much of the personal touch here, is there? No photos, address books, stuff like that. His phone was in his hotel room. His BlackBerry is missing.’
‘Are we sure that he even had one?