London Calling - James Craig [90]
‘Good,’ was all Carlyle could think of saying.
‘Don’t worry,’ Murray said, ‘we will be in touch.’ With that he skipped away, leaving Carlyle to find his own way out.
TWENTY-SIX
While Carlyle was getting the brush-off in London, Joe Szyszkowski was sitting down to a cup of tea with Paul Hawley, assistant lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Cambridge. They were sitting in Starbucks on Vimeiro Road, in the centre of the city. The place was fairly empty and they had managed to find a pair of very comfortable armchairs by the window. Across the road stood the imposing front gates of Wellesley College. They were closed for the summer holidays and as a result the place appeared devoid of life.
Paul Hawley looked like a slightly more careworn but friendlier version of his forex-trading, drug-dealing brother Clement. His hair showed streaks of grey, with just the first signs of a receding hairline at the temples. He had a couple of days’ worth of stubble on his chin and looked as if he had not enjoyed any sleep for a month. Maybe it’s all the DIY, thought Joe. Or maybe it’s that Serbian girlfriend?
Paul took a sip of his Chai tea. ‘So, Sergeant, how do you come to know Clement?’
‘We deal with him professionally,’ said Joe, ‘from time to time.’
‘Oh?’
‘Don’t worry, this is not about him.’ Joe sniffed at his own Zen tea – ‘an enlightening blend of the finest green teas infused with mint and lemongrass, to calm the mind’ – and wondered whether a mocha might not have hit the spot better. Along with a cinnamon swirl for that perfect caffeine-sugar rush.
‘That’s a relief.’
‘He seems fine,’ Joe added, ‘but ultimately it’s a very tough business that he’s involved in, and there’s a lot to be said for getting out while you’re ahead.’
‘That’s a fair point,’ Hawley said evenly. ‘I’ll mention it to him. He’s coming up here this weekend.’
‘That sounds good.’
‘So,’ said Hawley, relaxing now that the preliminaries were over, and he felt reassured that his role in the policeman’s current investigation was just, well, academic, ‘how can I help you?’
Joe leant forward. ‘We want to know about the Merrion Club.’
‘What’s to know? It’s just a bunch of rich kids who don’t have any brains or any manners – like clones of Lord Snooty who keep turning up year after year.’ Hawley sighed theatrically. It was the sound of a man who had spent the best part of two decades writing a thesis on medieval drinking habits. ‘It was ever thus.’
‘Do you actually know any of them?’
‘Well, technically, there isn’t any Merrion Club at the moment. The current crop of über-alpha males have all left to join the army or make their squillions in the City. Those few that are left will take over when they come back from their summer in the Hamptons, or wherever, and they will then oversee a new intake.’
‘Have you ever taught any of them?’
‘As a research student, I ran a couple of introductory undergraduate courses for several years. There have been a few attending my classes, but only one or two. Medieval history isn’t the type of subject these boys generally go for.’ He thought about that for a second, then let out a harsh little laugh. ‘In fact, there isn’t any type of subject boys like that really go for.’
Joe made a sympathetic face, but it was himself he was now feeling sorry for. He wondered if Paul Hawley could ever manage to just stick to the point. This man’s lectures must be a real draw.
‘The number of graduates that we, as a country, churn out every year has doubled over the last decade, but it’s amazing how academia still very much remains the preserve of thick rich people.’ Hawley was working himself up into a state of indignant anger. ‘People like me are just an irritation while we pass through the system.’
Joe pointed out through the window at the college standing across the road. ‘Are they always based over there?’
‘Yes, the club is always housed in Wellesley. That way it is the most elitist club in the most elitist college. The senior members always come from there. They occasionally co-opt outsiders,