James Craig - Never Apologise, Never Explain

Joe started down the stairs without looking up. ‘No.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Carlyle grinned. ‘I’ll sort it out after we’ve had breakfast.’

At the mention of food, Joe perked up considerably. ‘Great.’

‘And then I’ll go and see Simpson.’

In conclusion, it appears that Mr Mills killed his wife for reasons unknown, and subsequently took his own life in a fit of remorse.

On that basis, we believe that no further investigation is required and that the case can be closed.

Carole Simpson reread the last sentence carefully. Try as she might, she couldn’t find any double-meaning or hidden aside. She looked up at Carlyle, who was sitting in front of the desk with his hands clasped in his lap, an expression of Zen-like calm on his face. If there’s been a worse impersonation of a choirboy in this office in the last decade then I wasn’t around to see it, the Commander thought sourly.

Raising her eyebrows, she let the report drop on to the desk. ‘And that’s it?’

Sitting up straight in his chair, the inspector looked his boss directly in the eye. ‘Yes, Commander,’ he said stiffly.

‘No Chilean hit men?’

Carlyle smiled. ‘That was only ever one theory.’

‘What about Sandra Groves and the…’ she waved a hand impatiently in the air ‘… the Hartson woman?’

Carlyle felt his smile waver. You had to give it to Simpson, she was no mug. ‘I haven’t really kept up with the Groves case,’ he said vaguely. ‘As for Hartson, that has been listed as a suicide. Her GP confirmed that she had been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.’

I know the feeling, Simpson thought grimly.

‘It seems that she had been unwell for some time-’

The Commander cut him off in mid-sentence. ‘So she threw herself under a Tube train?’

Carlyle shrugged. When he finally managed to get through to Hartson’s mobile, it had been answered by a brusque WPC. After establishing who he was, she unceremoniously declared that the phone’s owner had ‘topped herself in front of a Tube train’. There didn’t seem any reason to argue the point.

‘Just minutes after she’d had a meeting with your good self?’

‘It looks like it all ended up getting too much for the poor woman.’

‘You can have that effect on people,’ Simpson mumbled to herself.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’ Despite her better judgement, Simpson persisted. ‘It’s all a bit of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?’

‘The driver said she jumped,’ Carlyle said evenly. ‘No one who was on the platform at the time contradicted him.’

‘Mmm.’

‘And the CCTV was inconclusive.’

Well aware of her underling’s ability to be exceedingly economical with the actualite, the Commander eyed Carlyle warily. ‘But, Inspector, with your theories, didn’t you think that Ms Hartson was in some kind of danger?’

‘I was only guessing,’ he said, showing some fake modesty in the face of the Commander’s obvious bluff. ‘But the poor woman had seen some truly terrible things. Some of her experiences in Iraq were horrific.’

‘Yes, all right.’ Simpson didn’t want to hear the gory details.

‘She was clearly in an unhappy place.’

‘Okay.’ The commander let out a long sigh. The inspector could stonewall all day if necessary and she had meetings to attend.

‘So we’re good?’ Placing his hands on the arms of the chair, Carlyle made to get to his feet.

Simpson looked pained. ‘I suppose so.’ She tapped the report with her right index finger and he could see that the nail had been bitten down almost to the quick. ‘But why did you feel the need to come here in person just to deliver this?’

‘Well…’ Carlyle cleared his throat, trying to get his tone of voice just right. ‘I wanted to apologise for the delay in getting it to you, and — and to make sure that you were happy with the final findings.’

Something approximating a smile inched across the commander’s face. ‘Thank you, John,’ she replied, ‘but an email would have been perfectly acceptable. I know how busy you are, so you didn’t have to take the time.’

‘I know,’ Carlyle replied, ‘but under the circumstances…’

She shot him a look.

‘… I felt,’ he continued, lifting his gaze to the ceiling, ‘that I should take the opportunity to come and say that, er, well.. ’ he swallowed ‘… I know that this must be a difficult time for you, but that the view of everyone at Charing Cross is that you are a good copper, a respected colleague, and that if we can be of any help, please let us know.’

Where the hell had that come from? After all these years, it looked like he had found a new way to put a foot in his mouth. Feeling himself blushing slightly, he concentrated on trying to shut up.

When he finally felt able to look Simpson in the face, she seemed as bemused at his little speech as he was himself. ‘Well, thank you, John.’ Her cheeks reddening, she cleared her throat. ‘Those are the first real words of support I’ve had since Joshua was arrested.’

He stared at a spot on the wall behind her head. ‘The boys at the station thought it was important for it to be said.’ Hopefully, ‘the boys’ wouldn’t find out about his spontaneous, self-appointed role as their spokesman.

‘And the sentiments are very much appreciated.’ She stood up and waited for him to follow suit. ‘And thank you for the report. It is good to know that the Mills case is closed.’

‘Yes.’

‘And how is the Royal Opera House investigation coming along?’

Carlyle’s brow furrowed. The backlog of uncompleted interviews with the Puccini-loving alleged robbery victims had not even been touched. ‘Slowly.’

‘Ah well,’ Simpson nodded as she moved round the desk. ‘These things invariably proceed at their own pace.’

‘Yes,’ Carlyle replied, rather disconcerted by his boss’s uncharacteristically laissez-faire attitude. Feeling a complete arse, he smiled awkwardly as he made swiftly for the door.

Leaving Simpson’s office, he walked a short way along the corridor to the nearest gents, in order to compose himself and try to work out what he’d just done. And why he’d done it. At best, he had always found the commander a deeply unappealing and flawed colleague. Now the selfish careerist had come a cropper, so where was the Schadenfreude? Being supportive was so far removed from his usual style that he wondered if he might not be coming down with something. Failing to find any instant answers, he splashed some water on his face and retraced his steps, before heading out into the bustle of the West London afternoon.

Christian Holyrod was momentarily distracted by the small passenger jet passing in front of the ground-to-ceiling windows of his office as it climbed away from City airport, on its way to some European destination. Once it had had disappeared from view, he returned his gaze to the three sheets of A4-sized paper laid out on the desk in front of him, and gave a low murmur of satisfaction. As if on cue, a butler appeared with a glass of Talisker on a silver salver. The man placed the drink on the table, gave a small nod, and disappeared without saying a word.

Once he had left, Holyrod picked up the sheet of paper to his left and scanned it while sniffing his Scotch. The summary of the police report into Agatha Mills’s death was short, to the point and, most importantly, came to exactly the conclusion the Mayor wanted to see. ‘Who would have thought it?’ Holyrod murmured to himself. ‘That idiot Carlyle gets something right for once.’ On second thoughts, it was doubtless down to his boss. About to ring Simpson and congratulate her on a job well done, he remembered her toxic husband and thought better of it. The whole fraud thing was a crying shame, it really was, but these things happened and when they did one had to keep one’s distance.