She made a face. ‘Really. It would not be good for my image for this business to come out.’
‘Why is that?’
She looked at him, as if not wanting to have to spell it out.
He waited.
‘It would make me look weak,’ she said finally, ‘like a silly girl. Serious journalists don’t get stalked by fans.’ She thought about this last statement. ‘Serious journalists don’t have fans, full stop.’
Carlyle nodded as sympathetically as he could manage. Were there any ‘serious’ journalists any more? he wondered privately. Chained to a desk, churning out the same stories as everyone else, while anyone who could be bothered to read their stories could do it first, and for free, on the Internet; surely you were either just a hack drone or a celebrity ‘face’ these days? Both of them knew which one was the better option.
She reached back into her bag and pulled out a mobile. ‘I have a couple of pictures of the guy that I took on my phone.’ She hit a few buttons and handed it over to Carlyle.
There were three images showing a weary, unshaven and slightly overweight middle-aged bloke, wearing a jacket and a jumper. He looked pretty vacant and totally nondescript. ‘Why don’t you send me one of those?’ he said, handing back the handset.
‘Fine.’ She hit a couple more keys and a few moments later, he felt a familiar buzzing in his pocket.
‘Anything else?’ he asked.
‘Like what?’
‘Emails, phone calls, threats… anything like that?’
‘No. I’ve asked him myself to go away a couple of times. He kind of trudges off a little way down the road, and then stands hovering under a street light or something.’
Carlyle scratched his head, trying to think of what else she could tell him. ‘Has he ever asked you for anything?’
‘Like what?’
He made a face. ‘Like… I dunno, an autograph?’
‘He’s never asked for anything,’ she smiled weakly, ‘other than my hand in marriage, that is.’
Carlyle changed tack. ‘What else did the sergeant say?’
‘Nothing really. She said that the guy was probably harmless but that I should be vigilant and call 999 if he ever threatened me.’ For the first time this morning, she gave Carlyle some proper eye contact. ‘It wasn’t very reassuring, to be honest. I mean, it’s not like it hasn’t happened before.’
‘This has happened before?’ he asked, confused.
‘Not to me,’ Snowdon said. ‘But I’m not the first presenter to be targeted.’
‘Yes.’ Carlyle remembered the case, a decade or so earlier, of a newsreader who had been shot dead on the street. That had been in Fulham too, if he remembered correctly. Maybe all newsreaders lived down there. The place had certainly risen in the world since the days when young Master Carlyle had grown up there.
‘What a mess that was!’ Rosanna exclaimed.
‘The dark side of fame,’ Carlyle mused. ‘The thing is, Singleton’s advice is basically sensible.’ He knew that it wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but it was all he had.
‘Look,’ she said, trying to press him further, ‘I know you think that I am a bit of an autocutie airhead-’
‘A what?’
‘A pushy bimbo.’
‘No.’ He tried to put some conviction into his voice. ‘Of course not.’
‘All I want is to do my job and be left in peace, Inspector. That is reasonable enough, surely?’
‘Of course.’
‘It’s a quality-of-life issue. I know this guy is probably not such a big deal, but he is beginning to get to me.’
‘That’s understandable,’ Carlyle said. Reasonableness personified.
She traced the lip of her glass with her right index finger. ‘And you owe me, remember?’
Here we go, Carlyle thought. He had been waiting for this moment and nodded in acknowledgement.
‘Well,’ she told him, ‘if you can help me on this, it will make us even. More than even. You can come on London Crime any time you want, although not talking about this business, obviously. The new series starts next week and we could do with covering some decent cases for a change.’
‘I will do what I can,’ Carlyle smiled. ‘Don’t worry about the show — that’s not my kind of thing.’
‘God!’ She rolled her eyes to the ceiling, and he watched her breasts swell inside her blouse. ‘You must be the only cop in London who doesn’t want to get himself on telly.’
He grimaced slightly, forcing his gaze back to eye level. ‘The way I see it, having to go on your show — any show really — is an admission of failure.’
‘Not really.’ Rosanna half-lifted her mint tea to her lips and then returned it gently to the table. ‘All you are trying to do is use the medium to good advantage.’
‘But how often does it get results?’
That stopped her in her tracks. ‘Well…’
He wondered if she’d ever really thought about it before. It was just some cheap entertainment. So who cared if it actually caught any criminals? But he pushed these thoughts to one side; he wasn’t here to put her on the spot. ‘I’ve become slightly involved in the Jake Hagger case,’ he said, moving the discussion on. ‘It’s not one of mine, but I know the mother.’
‘Ah yes,’ she nodded, ‘the little boy who was snatched from the nursery by his father.’
‘Did you cover it?’ Carlyle asked.
‘No, we’ve been off air. But we could do it on the new series, if you wanted.’
‘I think it’s too late for that.’
‘Why?’ She looked at him carefully, happy to be talking now about someone else’s problems. ‘Do you think he’s dead?’
Carlyle snorted. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I hope he’s dead.’
‘But…’ Slowly, a patina of understanding spread across her face ‘Oh God, that is so horrible!’
Carlyle shrugged.
‘Maybe you are being too negative,’ Rosanna sniffed. ‘After all, child protection is not really your thing. A lot of kids get found. They reckon around five hundred children are abducted in Britain each year. Almost all are taken by a disaffected parent who wants custody. Not nice, but a lot different from the kind of thing you’re thinking about.’
Carlyle looked down at his empty cup. ‘I’m no expert but, trust me, the last thing Michael Hagger wants is custody of his kid. He’s either tried to sell him or he’s used him in some other way in one of his business transactions.’
‘Urgh!’ She stuck a finger in her cold tea and stirred it aimlessly. ‘That makes my problem look a little pathetic, doesn’t it?’
Yes, it does, Carlyle thought. ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘But anything to do with kids is just the worst.’ He smiled. ‘When you become a mum, you’ll realise.’
A rueful look passed over Rosanna’s face. ‘Josh would have kittens if he heard you talking about me having kids.’
‘Well,’ Carlyle said, feeling himself slip uneasily into father mode, ‘if I was ever talking to Josh about it, I would tell him that, when the time comes, the only thing that he should be worrying about is doing what he is told, stepping up to the plate and performing.’
She blushed. ‘Inspector!’
‘It’s true,’ he grinned, pleased that he’d at least cheered her up a bit.
‘He wouldn’t be happy at all,’ she protested.
He scanned the street outside and sat back in his chair. ‘Alternatively, I could send round a couple of guys with baseball bats — threaten to break his legs.’
She laughed. ‘I presume you know plenty of people like that.’
‘I do,’ he said, trying not to sound too pleased about it.
For a moment they sat in comfortable silence. Then she asked: ‘Do you think there is any chance of finding Jake Hagger?’
