Buckingham Palace Blues by James Craig Page A

Da ,’ she giggled. ‘My tip for making you . . . explode !’ The laughter reached a crescendo. Olga waited until the hubbub had subsided. ‘Consider it a performance-related bonus.’
    ‘What if I don’t explode?’ Carlyle joked. ‘Do I get a discount?’
    ‘Don’t be cheeky. I see you soon.’ The phone clicked and she was gone.
    Carlyle sat there for a moment, wondering what to wear.
    Putting on his best suit, a navy Paul Smith number that he’d snapped up for eighty quid several years earlier from the Oxfam shop on Drury Lane, he headed out of the flat. Ten minutes later, he was walking through the revolving doors of the Garden Hotel.
    The Garden was situated on St Martin’s Lane, just up from Trafalgar Square and round the corner from Charing Cross police station. A boutique hotel fashioned out of a 1960s office block, it was, according to its brochure, a manifestation of the emotional zeitgeist of the city . That automatically made it the kind of place that Carlyle himself could never afford to stay in. At the same time, he had spent quite a bit of time pacing the lobby over the years, for one reason or another, so he knew many of the staff by sight if not by name. Giving the doorman a swift nod, he scanned the lobby itself and the Light Bar beyond, in case Olga had arrived early. When it was clear that she wasn’t there, he headed towards the foppish-looking gent who was sitting at a tiny desk behind one of the lobby’s pillars, with a look on his face that suggested he was half reading the copy of Country Life propped up in front of him and half-staring into space.
    Over the top of his magazine, Alex Miles watched Carlyle approaching. As chief concierge at the Garden, Miles had acted as the hotel’s senior fixer for their more important and demanding guests for over a decade. When it came to doing his job, policemen were a minor irritant. They had to be managed carefully.
    Miles gave up on the article he’d been half-reading about the history of highwaymen and replaced the magazine on the desk. Almost managing to keep the look of disappointment off his face, he forced himself to his feet as Carlyle reached the desk. Straightening up the jacket of his grey pinstripe suit, he extended a hand. ‘Inspector . . .’
    ‘Mr Miles,’ Carlyle replied cheerily. ‘And how are you today?’
    Miles eyed him warily. ‘I’m fine. What can I do for you?’
    Happy to dispense with any further pleasantries, Carlyle got straight to the point. ‘I need to borrow a room for a couple of hours. A nice one.’
    Miles raised an eyebrow but didn’t smile. ‘Why?’
    ‘I’m meeting a prostitute,’ Carlyle said casually.
    Miles raised both eyebrows.
    Carlyle smiled faintly. ‘It’s a professional meeting.’
    ‘Of course,’ Miles said smoothly. ‘Can I get you a packet of condoms as well?’
    ‘That won’t be necessary,’ Carlyle told him. ‘But our meeting needs to look kosher. She’ll be here in ten minutes.’
    The concierge stared at him blankly.
    ‘Consider it a deposit at the favours bank,’ Carlyle murmured. ‘A small deposit that represents a tiny nibble at your massive overdraft there.’ A few years earlier, Carlyle had overlooked an unfortunate indiscretion occurring in one of the rooms upstairs involving the concierge himself, two transvestite hookers and a large quantity of unusually pure cocaine. The evidence was still safely locked away at the station, and could be brought out at any time. It was preferable, however, to leave it there and be able to call on Miles’s services now and again.
    ‘But—’
    Carlyle gave him a sharp look. ‘Do we need to examine the ledger?’
    Miles looked at his shoes. ‘No.’
    ‘Good.’
    ‘Okay.’ Miles sighed, before heading off across the lobby. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got.’
    Following at a discreet distance, Carlyle watched Alex Miles step behind the reception desk. After a brief conversation with the extremely pretty black girl on duty, he