London Calling - James Craig [73]
‘Mmm.’ Carlton scoured the farthest regions of his memory. ‘I think I remember the pictures. It looked to me fairly much like a normal night out for His Highness.’
‘There was an investigation but nothing could be proved. The young royal in question wanted Carlyle kicked off the Force, but it was considered that might cause too much of a scene, particularly if the Police Federation got involved.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Carlton nodded, ‘the most obnoxious trade union in the world.’ He would make very sure that his own government did nothing to annoy them. Best to let sleeping police dogs lie, and all that.
‘In the end, Carlyle was simply yanked off royal duties and put back on the taxi rank, to wait for whatever else came along.’
‘So, he’s a bit of a republican?’ Carlton shook his head in disbelief. ‘How can a man like that become a policeman in the first place?’
‘It’s not entirely clear,’ said Murray. ‘Generally, he’s thought to be a bit too liberal for the police, or maybe just a bit too … cerebral.’
‘So you mean he thinks too much,’ Carlton frowned. ‘Great, that’s all we need. How in the name of sweet Jesus did we end up getting someone like him?’
Murray shrugged. ‘You’re always going to get one or two like that in an organisation as big as the police.’
Pouting unhappily, Edgar checked his watch. It really was time he should be getting along to the House of Commons. ‘Anything else we know about this Inspector Carlyle, other than the fact that he is completely unreliable? What’s his family situation?’ He gave Murray a stern look. ‘You’re probably now going to tell me he lives in a hippie commune with a gay lover called Gerald, who runs a basket-weaving collective.’
Murray made a face. ‘No, he has a wife and daughter.’
‘First marriage?’
‘Yes. The wife works for a liberal charity called Avalon. It sends doctors to the Third World, begs for money, moans about “imperialism”, that kind of thing.’
‘And the kid?’
‘She goes to City School for Girls in the Barbican.’
‘Good school,’ said Carlton, impressed. He himself had four children, two boys and two girls, and all were attending top-notch London schools. Public schools like City. ‘Public’ as in ‘private’. It seemed a very English way of using the language, hiding the reality behind the words.
‘Expensive,’ Murray commented.
‘I’m sure,’ Carlton shivered. The fees for his brood had been killing him even before the damn credit crunch had started kicking in. God knows what Mr Plod made of it, despite having only the one kid to worry about. ‘We thought about sending our girls to City a few years ago,’ he mused, ‘and the cost was pretty impressive even then. Presumably she is on a scholarship?’
Murray shook his head. ‘No, they’re paying full whack, for the moment at least. Apparently that school doesn’t hand out any scholarships before the age of eleven. I’m sure they’ll be trying to get one when the child is older, but they’ll have to cough up for a while yet.’
‘That must eat into the family budget, so it explains why he is not too interested in retirement. A police pension is not going to be anywhere near enough for our inspector, not if young …’
‘Alice.’
‘Not if young Alice doesn’t then deliver on the scholarship front. Imagine having to take her out of City School for Girls and drop her back into some local state school. What a nightmare! I’m sure Mrs Carlyle would never forgive him.’ He paused, reflecting, not for the first time, on the reality that domestic hegemony was far harder to achieve than high political office. ‘But good for them, anyway, for not taking the easy option. For being ambitious for their daughter. For being fans of private education. Maybe we can count on their votes, after all.’
TWENTY-ONE
Clement Hawley might be considered a Renaissance man for the early twenty-first century. He was a trader in the highly pressurised world of the London money markets, as well as running a lucrative sideline in