started to complain, but thought better of it.
He softened the blow. ‘Just so that there’s someone else keeping an eye out for him too.’
A pained expression crossed Amelia’s face. ‘Jake is loved, Inspector.’
‘Maybe he is,’ Carlyle shrugged. ‘But that’s not always enough. That girl’s too young.’
‘Sam does her best.’
‘The kid is four already. Unless the situation here changes, and quickly, he is fucked for life.’
‘What else can she do?’
‘She can go on benefits,’ Carlyle hissed, ‘like everyone else.’
‘What? And live on a hundred and twenty quid a week?’
‘There are worse things than being poor. She needs to smarten up.’
‘I know.’
‘For the kid’s sake.’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s your side of the deal.’
The woman nodded. ‘I understand.’
‘It’s a deal then.’ Carlyle smiled with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. ‘Expect me to hold you to it.’
On his way down, Carlyle passed a sheepish-looking man in his fifties who was trudging up the stairs while keeping his eyes firmly on the steps in front of him. Outside, in the sunshine, it felt
even hotter than before, as if the temperature had been raised another five or ten degrees. The air was turning heavy and it seemed as if the forecast thunderstorms were now on the way. He had a
nagging headache from too much caffeine, and his appetite for what was to come back at the station had dwindled to next to nothing. Needing to rehydrate, he went round the corner into Earlham
Street and bought a bottle of water and a mango smoothie from the Big Banana Juice Bar next to Cambridge Circus. He stepped off the pavement and between a couple of parked cars, downing the water
first and then the smoothie. The Fopp music store in Shaftesbury Avenue across the road was advertising The Clash by The Clash. He wasn’t sure about the lurid pink cover and he
wasn’t going to spend thirty quid on a book, but he fancied a peek. For Carlyle, The Clash were, still, the greatest rock band ever. He had seen them a few times before their untimely demise,
and he wanted to wallow in a little nostalgia for those days of his youth.
Dropping his empty bottles in a bin, he crossed the road and stepped inside, experiencing the usual mix of pleasure and guilt at bunking off, even if only for a short while.
W hen he finally returned to Charing Cross police station, Carlyle dawdled at his desk, still in no hurry to get into the interview room. If Mills was going to stick to his
Chilean story, it was likely to be a long and painful afternoon. Carlyle had endured more than his share of domestics over the years, and it was always a struggle spending hours going round the
houses just to get formal confirmation of what you already knew. The endless ability of people to delude themselves never ceased to amaze him. Numbers, on the other hand, never lied. Carlyle was a
firm believer in statistics, and the statistics told you that most victims were killed by people they knew. It was common sense, of course: usually, the only people you can annoy enough for them to
want to kill you, are your nearest and dearest. Carlyle knew of several occasions when he himself might have been in serious trouble if Helen had been holding a skillet at the time –
or vice versa. That was just a reality of everyday life . . . and death.
On his way to the basement he passed the front desk, eyeing the usual motley collection of supplicants waiting to be disappointed in one way or another. He nodded at Sergeant Dave Prentice,
chewing on the end of a pencil while he contemplated some form that was lying in front of him.
‘Dave.’
The desk sergeant pulled the pencil out of his mouth and looked up. ‘John.’ He had the exhausted look of a man who had spent too long on the front line, trying to keep the public at
bay. Carlyle, like everyone else in the station, knew that he was counting down the days to his long-awaited retirement to Theydon Bois, a
He softened the blow. ‘Just so that there’s someone else keeping an eye out for him too.’
A pained expression crossed Amelia’s face. ‘Jake is loved, Inspector.’
‘Maybe he is,’ Carlyle shrugged. ‘But that’s not always enough. That girl’s too young.’
‘Sam does her best.’
‘The kid is four already. Unless the situation here changes, and quickly, he is fucked for life.’
‘What else can she do?’
‘She can go on benefits,’ Carlyle hissed, ‘like everyone else.’
‘What? And live on a hundred and twenty quid a week?’
‘There are worse things than being poor. She needs to smarten up.’
‘I know.’
‘For the kid’s sake.’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s your side of the deal.’
The woman nodded. ‘I understand.’
‘It’s a deal then.’ Carlyle smiled with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. ‘Expect me to hold you to it.’
On his way down, Carlyle passed a sheepish-looking man in his fifties who was trudging up the stairs while keeping his eyes firmly on the steps in front of him. Outside, in the sunshine, it felt
even hotter than before, as if the temperature had been raised another five or ten degrees. The air was turning heavy and it seemed as if the forecast thunderstorms were now on the way. He had a
nagging headache from too much caffeine, and his appetite for what was to come back at the station had dwindled to next to nothing. Needing to rehydrate, he went round the corner into Earlham
Street and bought a bottle of water and a mango smoothie from the Big Banana Juice Bar next to Cambridge Circus. He stepped off the pavement and between a couple of parked cars, downing the water
first and then the smoothie. The Fopp music store in Shaftesbury Avenue across the road was advertising The Clash by The Clash. He wasn’t sure about the lurid pink cover and he
wasn’t going to spend thirty quid on a book, but he fancied a peek. For Carlyle, The Clash were, still, the greatest rock band ever. He had seen them a few times before their untimely demise,
and he wanted to wallow in a little nostalgia for those days of his youth.
Dropping his empty bottles in a bin, he crossed the road and stepped inside, experiencing the usual mix of pleasure and guilt at bunking off, even if only for a short while.
W hen he finally returned to Charing Cross police station, Carlyle dawdled at his desk, still in no hurry to get into the interview room. If Mills was going to stick to his
Chilean story, it was likely to be a long and painful afternoon. Carlyle had endured more than his share of domestics over the years, and it was always a struggle spending hours going round the
houses just to get formal confirmation of what you already knew. The endless ability of people to delude themselves never ceased to amaze him. Numbers, on the other hand, never lied. Carlyle was a
firm believer in statistics, and the statistics told you that most victims were killed by people they knew. It was common sense, of course: usually, the only people you can annoy enough for them to
want to kill you, are your nearest and dearest. Carlyle knew of several occasions when he himself might have been in serious trouble if Helen had been holding a skillet at the time –
or vice versa. That was just a reality of everyday life . . . and death.
On his way to the basement he passed the front desk, eyeing the usual motley collection of supplicants waiting to be disappointed in one way or another. He nodded at Sergeant Dave Prentice,
chewing on the end of a pencil while he contemplated some form that was lying in front of him.
‘Dave.’
The desk sergeant pulled the pencil out of his mouth and looked up. ‘John.’ He had the exhausted look of a man who had spent too long on the front line, trying to keep the public at
bay. Carlyle, like everyone else in the station, knew that he was counting down the days to his long-awaited retirement to Theydon Bois, a
Similar Books
