were okay. He returned his attention to the boyfriend. However, with his train of thought interrupted, he struggled to recall the second thing he wanted to say. For a moment, his mind went blank, then he pulled it back. ‘Point number two,’ he said, eyeing Joyce carefully, ‘I’m here to help, if I can. I’m certainly not here to cause you any more trouble.’
‘Like on the bus?’ the boy whined.
Carlyle felt a twinge of embarrassment. ‘What happened on the bus has been and gone. This,’ he nodded at Sandra Groves, ‘is much more serious.’
The boy shrugged. ‘I told the other policemen all that I know.’
‘Which is basically nothing.’ Carlyle had read the preliminary report. Groves had been knocked down on Moreland Street, near City University, by a stolen Peugeot which had later been abandoned up past King’s Cross station. A taxi had almost collided with the Peugeot, but the cabbie had not witnessed Groves being run down, nor had he been able to provide any kind of meaningful description of the Peugeot’s driver. There were no other witnesses. The only available CCTV showed the car accelerating towards Groves, suggesting that it wasn’t an accident but, again, it didn’t get a clear view of the driver. The Peugeot had been taken to a nearby police depot and given the once-over by a team of technicians. They recovered traces of the injured woman’s blood on the grille. Inside the car were various sets of fingerprints — none of which had shown a match on the national database.
This boy, apparently home alone at the time of the incident, had no alibi, but Carlyle couldn’t see him doing it — he seemed too much of a wimp. Anyway, domestics rarely involved stolen cars; it was so much easier just to smack the offending partner over the head with a frying pan.
‘What I’m wondering,’ Carlyle continued, ‘is why someone would want to do this to her.’
‘Why would you care?’
‘I didn’t say I cared.’ Carlyle smiled nastily, just to keep the boy on his toes. If the little do-gooder wanted to believe in the fascist bullyboy stereotype, that was fine by Carlyle. ‘It’s just that
… well, it’s just that it’s come on to my radar.’ Thinking about it on his way over to the hospital, that was the best explanation he had been able to come up with.
‘What about the other policemen?’ Joyce asked.
‘This is still their case,’ Carlyle replied. ‘But I have another case currently under investigation and I’m wondering if there might be a connection.’
‘So what do you want from me?’ Joyce asked, clearly not convinced that he should be having this conversation.
‘Tell me about what you guys were involved in.’
‘We weren’t involved in anything,’ Joyce said defensively.
‘You’re political,’ Carlyle said evenly. ‘You were campaigning for — what?’ His mind went blank. ‘That advertising business on the side of the bus.’
‘Religious beliefs.’
What about the beliefs of atheists? Carlyle thought, but he bit his tongue. ‘That’s right, I remember. It’s kind of political, I suppose.’
‘That’s not a crime.’
‘I didn’t say that it was.’ Carlyle fought to keep his irritation in check. ‘Tell me about the things that are important to you guys. Tell about the campaigns you’ve supported.’
The boy looked at the woman in the bed. Then, realising he didn’t have much else to do, he launched into a monologue he had clearly delivered many times before: ‘We draw our inspiration from the Bible and from the social teachings of the Church…’
Which church? Carlyle wondered. That’s the thing about churches; they all think they’re ‘the’ church. His irritation level rose another notch, but again he said nothing.
‘We want to help people who are poor, marginalised or oppressed,’ the boy continued, ‘and to fight injustice and poverty. There needs to be a global community that respects the rights and dignity of everyone. Discrimination must be ended.’
Good luck, sunshine, Carlyle thought. He wondered what all this had to do with filming the antics of Clive the nutty bus driver and making the traffic congestion on St Giles High Street even worse than normal.
‘The bounty of creation should be shared by all. To do that we need social justice, underpinned by the Christian faith and the values of the Gospel.’
Carlyle failed to stifle a yawn.
‘Am I boring you?’ the boy asked sharply.
Of course you bloody are, Carlyle thought. ‘No, no,’ he mumbled, yawning again. ‘Sorry, it’s just that it has been a very long day.’
The boy looked at him doubtfully.
The next yawn the inspector managed to stifle — third time lucky. ‘The Church — the campaign against unfairness — do you do any work in Latin America?’
‘Of course. We campaign wherever there is injustice and poverty.’
‘Anything specifically in Chile?’
The boy eyed him. ‘Why?’
Just answer the fucking question. ‘Humour me.’
‘Maybe,’ Joyce said. ‘I’d have to check.’
‘That organisation Sandra mentioned — the Daughters of Something or other — is that what you use to achieve all this?’
‘Daughters of Dismas is one of the organisations that gets involved in the campaign, yes,’ Joyce replied. ‘But, obviously, it’s for women only, so I can’t really get involved that much.’
‘How many members does it have?’
‘Quite a few.’
I bet, Carlyle thought. ‘What does that mean? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?’
‘I wouldn’t know exactly.’
Probably less than ten, Carlyle thought dismissively. He ploughed on. ‘What type of people are members?’
‘There are all sorts, from young activists like Sandra, through to old-timers — women who remember Greenham Common, things like that.’
Old-timers, thought Carlyle. Helen would love that. His wife had been to Greenham, the Women’s Peace camp in Berkshire, several times in the early 1980s, protesting against American cruise missiles being based there. Carlyle hadn’t thought about that for a long time. It was from before they had got together; before he’d even joined the police force — which was just as well or they might have met under very different circumstances. CND — the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament — had been a big deal back then, in the days when the Russians were the number one enemy and no one had heard of Muslim fundamentalism. Now, it was all you heard. Carlyle wondered if CND was still going.
For all their time, effort and commitment, had those protestors ever achieved anything of note? Not as far as he could recall. The situation now was as bad as ever. The country was skint and yet the politicians were still spending billions on fantastically expensive weapons systems. Were they still pointed at the Russians? Who knew?
He wondered if he dared ask Helen about it. Looking back, she was as ambivalent as most middle-aged people were about their youthful idealism. Holding hands and singing songs — it all seemed so naive now; just one of those things you did when you didn’t really understand the way the world worked. Still, the idea of people fighting the same battles almost thirty years on filled him with sadness. He looked at the boy directly. ‘Have you ever heard of a woman called Agatha Mills?’
Joyce shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, no.’
Carlyle considered him, unsure if he was telling the truth. Sandra Groves let out a low moan, then shifted in the bed and started snoring lightly. Joyce looked at her, until he was happy that she was still sleeping soundly. ‘I usually only tagged along with Sandra when she was on her own,’ he told Carlyle, ‘like that day on the bus. When she was with her “sisters”, she didn’t like me being there. The Daughters of Dismas is supposed to be a women- only organisation.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Carlyle mumbled to himself. ‘The sisterhood in action.’
