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 seriously wished he was lying there in the bed beside her. ‘Seriously?’
‘Of course.’ He frowned. ‘Why else would I be here?’
‘Poor sod,’ said Helen, now totally alert. ‘Well, I suppose it’ll be an engaging case.’
‘Maybe.’ Carlyle smiled. ‘Engaging’ was not police language. He already knew where this conversation would be leading. His brain began to contract, and he felt the need to get off the phone.
‘At least it’s got to be better than the crap you’ve been dealing with lately.’
‘I’m sure that will make Mr Blake feel better.’
‘Who?’
‘The victim.’
For some reason, the word ‘victim’ made her stiffen. ‘It’s not your fault he’s dead.’
‘No, I know that,’ Carlyle said softly. He wanted to avoid irritating his wife. There would be plenty of time for that later and, for now, he didn’t want to have to deal with domestic tetchiness on top of everything else. ‘It’s just that my heightened job satisfaction is not going to provide much of a silver lining for him, is it?’
She thought about that for a second, letting the tension ebb from her voice. ‘He’s not likely to care much, one way or the other, but at least it should be interesting for you. Something a bit more high-profile?’
‘We’ll see.’ The conversation was a familiar one. It irritated him that she invariably demanded more from his job than he did.
‘You know what I mean,’ she said, with just a hint of crossness reappearing.
‘I do,’ he agreed quickly, ‘of course.’ And he did. A job is always just a job, whether you were a drug dealer or a postman, a fluffer or a priest. Being a policeman, the worse it got, the better it got.
Helen’s voice softened again. ‘Are you OK?’
He accepted the olive branch. ‘Sure, I’m fine.’
That was clearly as much time as Helen was prepared to spend in getting Carlyle into the right mood. ‘Anyway,’ she said, moving the conversation along, ‘what about this morning?’
This morning? Carlyle felt a slight wave of concern wash over him. What had he forgotten now? He tried to remain calm. ‘What about it?’
Helen paused. ‘Will you still be able to take Alice to the Barbican? You know I’ve got an important meeting at work this morning.’
Carlyle groaned, slumping back on to the bed as domestic life caught up with him. Today was supposed to be a day off. This morning he was supposed to be doing the school run. He had signed up to it several weeks ago. All the usual caveats had applied, but Helen always chose to ignore them. His Parent of the Week Award was in the post.
Helen herself normally took Alice to school before turning round and heading back across town to Paddington and the international medical charity, called Avalon, where she worked as a senior administrative manager. Carlyle knew that she spent between two and three hours a day shuffling backwards and forwards across town. It was a bugger, but that was the deal. He therefore had to do his bit.
This morning, Carlyle vaguely remembered, Helen had a very unpleasant disciplinary hearing to deal with: something involving a male doctor who, allegedly, had sexually abused a colleague. This type of problem was common in organisations like this. Apparently they attracted more than their fair share of people who hid under the cloak of liberal empathy to abuse either their co-workers or the locals, the very people they were supposed to be there to help. It had shocked Carlyle when his wife had first told him about it. On reflection, however, it made a lot of sense. Where else would you find a better balance of opportunity and risk?
How on earth you could hope to shed any light on what had or had not happened between two people halfway up a mountain in Afghanistan, much less do anything about it, was beyond him. It was hard enough trying to deal with such cases in London: the complaint rate was pitiful and the actual conviction rate was much, much worse. It was impossible, therefore, to see how his wife could ever hope to get to the bottom of this particular mini-drama. The whole thing seemed like an exercise in liberal masochism, but he knew well enough to keep thoughts like that to himself.
He didn’t envy Helen the job of trying to sort it all out, but where did that now leave him? Carlyle always looked forward to his thirty minutes with Alice as they meandered towards the Barbican arts complex, home to the City School for Girls, that celebrated private school that soaked up a distressing proportion of their household income. On an intellectual level, Carlyle wasn’t in favour of private education, but the idea of an all-girls school quite appealed, since anything that helped keep the boys at bay for as long as possible had to be a good thing.
Not that the decision had been much to do with him. It was too important for that. Even before Alice was born, Helen had insisted that they would go private if they (i.e. she) decided that it was the best thing to do. As they (she) had. So Carlyle waved goodbye to around fifteen thousand pounds a year (after sodding bloody tax) that they didn’t really have, and Alice attended City.
At least she loved it, and for that Carlyle would have happily paid much more than fifteen thousand pounds. His principles, after all, had to coexist with the realities of being a parent. All he could do now was to hope and pray that she would be able to apply for – and win – the biggest possible scholarship when the opportunity arose. At City you had to reach the age of eleven before you could apply, and so he was counting down the days till then, much to Helen’s scorn.
On the way to school, they would pick up breakfast, then he would listen to Alice’s musings on a random selection of topics, ranging from pets (and why she wasn’t allowed any) to the Second World War (why did Japan support the Germans?) to vampires (why don’t they die?) to mouthwash (Alice had informed him one day that she liked to try the different colours because she was an ‘adventurous girl’). Carlyle could not think of anything in the entire world he would rather do than walk through the streets while listening to the random thoughts of his daughter. He lived in dread of the inevitable day – at most, he guessed, three or four years hence – when she would refuse to let either of her parents take her to school, and demand to be allowed to go on her own or with her friends. God only knew what her sense of adventure might involve her in then.
So, meanwhile, his family duties were clear. On the other hand, his brain was struggling to process the current situation and come up with an answer. Preferably the right answer.
Helen knew what this pause meant. ‘John?’
The threat of retaliation hung in the air, so he took a deep breath. ‘Sure. Give me half an hour or so. I’ll be there in plenty of time. I’ll even bring you a coffee.’
‘Good. Thanks.’ His wife sounded wary rather than grateful. ‘A latte would be great… and a pain au chocolat.’
‘No problem. See you soon.’ Carlyle switched the phone off and tossed it on the bed. With monumental force of will, he pushed himself off it and headed into the bathroom. Could he maybe take a shower? He hated the feeling of intense grubbiness that he was left with after a night spent on the job. In the end, he decided that would be
