James Craig: Never Apologise, Never Explain

Harry lived three floors below the Carlyles, in Winter Garden House. He had been a close friend of Carlyle’s late father-in-law for many years and had known Helen since she had been born. Now in his late seventies, Harry had served in Korea in 1952 as part of the City of London Regiment of the Royal Fusiliers, for which he had received both UK and UN Korea medals. Although he didn’t have a clue what Harry had been doing in Korea, Carlyle had admired both honours on several occasions. Harry had followed his twenty years in the military with another twenty as a postman, working out of the Mount Pleasant sorting office on Farringdon Road, near King’s Cross. He had been retired almost fifteen years now and a widower for more than a decade. He had no kids and, as far as Carlyle knew, no other family. Now all he wanted to do was die — ‘while I still have my health’ as he put it. His fantasy, articulated many times over a pint of Chiswick Bitter in the Sun, was to keel over while watching Arsenal win the Premier League, which was how he had come by the moniker ‘Heart Attack Harry’.

Carlyle fought a powerful urge to demolish another Danish. ‘What was that all about, Harry?’ he asked casually.

The old man slurped his tea and gazed into the middle distance. ‘The bloke should have stopped. He was going too fast.’

‘You should be grateful he wasn’t going any faster,’ Carlyle sighed. ‘Anyway, that guy was a Spurs supporter. You should have known he was going to miss.’

Harry chuckled.

‘It’s not funny, mate. Have you ever tried anything like that before?’

‘No.’

‘Well, don’t do it again, or I’ll bloody kill you.’

Harry looked at him soulfully. ‘It was an accident.’

‘Bollocks, Harry, you did it on purpose. You gave that bloke a hell of a scare, even if he was a prize twat. You just can’t behave like that.’ He gazed up at the blue sky. It was already pushing 70 degrees; not London weather at all. Clearly, the day was going to be an absolute scorcher. ‘And what’s with the raincoat?’

Harry shrugged. ‘You never know when it might rain.’

Carlyle glanced at his watch. He really should be on his way to the station. ‘For fuck’s sake, it’s supposed to be more than eighty degrees today; the hottest day of the year. And knock it off with this morbid shit. There’s nothing wrong with you. I’ll probably kick the bucket before you do. In fact, I’ll bet you twenty quid that you get to a hundred, no problem at all. Your telegram from the Queen is guaranteed.’ Did they still do the telegrams? Carlyle wondered. He hoped so. Harry was as much a Royalist as he himself was a Republican, and if the thought of a ‘Well done’ message from Buckingham Palace couldn’t cheer him up, nothing would.

Somehow, Harry managed to slip an even more downbeat expression on his battered mug. ‘It doesn’t just turn up, you know.’

‘What?’

‘The telegram from Her Majesty.’

‘Oh?’ Carlyle realised he shouldn’t have gone there.

‘Someone has got to ask her for it.’

The grumpy old sod was making the inspector feel like the world’s biggest optimist. Taking a deep breath, he made a determined effort to remain cheery. ‘At least they don’t charge you for the privilege,’ he said, wondering if they did.

‘And you’ve got to prove your age.’

‘Give Helen a copy of your bloody birth certificate then,’ Carlyle snapped, his patience gone. ‘She’ll send it off to the powers-that-be, when the time comes.’

‘She’ll be dead by then.’

‘Who?’ said Carlyle, unsure whether to be concerned. ‘Helen?’

‘No,’ said Harry, ‘the Queen. She’s older than me, you know.’

Carlyle felt irritated and relieved at the same time. ‘Whatever. Anyway, you’ll be fine.’

‘Come on, Inspector,’ said Harry, a slight tinge of anger appearing in his voice, ‘don’t try and kid me. I’ve had a decent innings and I don’t need to drag it out. “Quit while you’re ahead”, my old dad always used to say, and he was right. I don’t want to leave it too late and turn into a vegetable in some horrible care home. Or be left forgotten and starving on a trolley in a hospital corridor. I’ve no family and it should be my choice. Assisted suicide, they call it. It’s all the rage these days. They had a guy die on the telly the other night.’

Carlyle grunted. He knew about the programme that Harry was referring to. The thought of it made his squeamishness flare up like an ulcer and also depressed the hell out of him. When Helen had insisted on watching it, he’d gone off to bed with a book. Even now, he shivered at the ghoulishness of it all. ‘The bloke on the telly had some incurable disease. And he spent three grand to go to Switzerland to have it done in some Alpine clinic.’ He looked directly at Harry. ‘Then there’s another seven grand, at least, to come home again and get buried. Do you have ten grand?’

‘No.’

‘Well, you can’t bloody die, then,’ Carlyle grinned, ‘can you?’

‘There are other ways,’ Harry said evenly. ‘You don’t have to go to Switzerland. Didn’t some copper in Wales walk up a mountain with a bottle of Scotch and freeze to death?’

Carlyle remembered it well, as it had been the talk of the station for days. ‘Yeah, I should imagine Wales is a good place for that. They have plenty of mountains.’

Out of the glare, came merciful relief in the form of an angel. A pretty blonde girl in a very short skirt turned off Drury Lane and began sauntering down the other side of Macklin Street, talking into her mobile phone as she did so. Her toned legs were very long and tanned and she had a portfolio stuck under one arm. He guessed she was looking for the model agency a block away on Parker Street. Like Keats once said: a thing of beauty is a joy forever. It was the best cure for depression he knew.

Harry caught him staring and smirked. ‘Too young for me.’

Carlyle said nothing as the girl did a U-turn and disappeared back down Drury Lane.

‘Too young for you too.’

‘Harry…’

‘I read about it in the paper,’ said Harry, returning to his theme, all thoughts of playing chicken with the traffic abandoned.

‘Huh?’

‘The policeman who walked up a mountain to kill himself.’

‘Oh, yeah.’ If Keats was alive today, a thing of beauty would be a joy for about ten seconds, Carlyle thought sourly.

‘He had a complicated love-life, or something.’

‘It must have been bloody complicated.’ Carlyle reached inside his jacket for his wallet. ‘For him to want to top himself.’ He groaned when he realised how little cash he was carrying, barely enough to pay the bill. ‘Anyway, I really have to go.’

‘You didn’t know him, did you?’

‘No, funnily enough, he’s one of the one hundred and forty thousand police officers in this country that I don’t know personally.’ As if by magic, Marcello appeared to clear away their cups. Carlyle handed him a tenner, signalled that he didn’t need any change, and stood up.

‘According to the papers, he had serious women trouble.’ Harry struggled out of his chair.

‘Don’t we all?’ Carlyle grinned, delighted to have finally got the conversation on to something other than death.

‘Nah,’ Harry said absent-mindedly. ‘He wasn’t henpecked like you. His problem was that he was shagging too many of them — way too many of them. Couldn’t keep it in his trousers.’

Carlyle looked at the cheeky old codger. Henpecked? He thought about saying something, but let it go. Waving goodbye to Marcello, he stepped into the road. ‘I’ll see you soon. Pop in on Helen and Alice — they’d love to see you. In the meantime, don’t cause any more trouble. That’s an order.’