James Craig: Time of Death

‘I thought you’d like that,’ Marcello grinned, already heading back inside. ‘See? It’s gonna be a great day.’

Carlyle took a sip of the macchiato, letting it scald his throat, finishing his coffee before taking a knife and carefully cutting the pastry into quarters. Picking up the largest piece, he closed his eyes and contemplated the imminent sugar rush.

‘ Hey! ’

The first slice of Danish was just about to reach his mouth when he heard the blast of a horn, followed by the screech of brakes. A woman started to scream. Looking up, he saw an old man in a cream raincoat on the ground in front of a white fruit-and-veg delivery van, by the zebra crossing in front of the Sun pub on Drury Lane, less than twenty yards away. Carlyle looked at the slice sadly and dropped it back on his plate. Ignoring the growling of his stomach, he got up from his table and strolled towards the scene of the accident while signalling to Marcello – who showed no interest at all in the mini-drama unfolding outside his door – that he would be needing another coffee.

Drury Lane was a relatively uncongested single-lane, one-way street, heading south to north. It could get you all the way from the Aldwych to High Holborn while avoiding the busier streets nearby. In order to get to the traffic lights at the north end that little bit quicker, drivers of all descriptions liked to put their foot to the floor and race up the thoroughfare as quickly as possible. The whole exercise was completely pointless since average traffic speeds in Central London remained a stately ten miles an hour, essentially the same as for the horse-drawn carriages more than a century earlier. Carlyle, who didn’t own a car, could never understand the common urge to hurtle 200 yards only to spend longer at the next stop. Maybe it was a genetic condition; more likely these drivers were just tossers. Either way, it was a miracle that there weren’t more accidents.

In this case, the front wheels of the van had stopped on the zebra crossing itself but it wasn’t clear if it had actually hit the old man. Leaning out of his window, the van driver was remonstrating with the woman bystander who had now stopped screaming.

‘It’s a zebra crossing!’ the woman shouted, seemingly oblivious to Carlyle’s arrival.

‘The silly old fucker just walked straight out,’ the driver snarled, looking like he wanted to reach out of the window and grab her by the throat. He revved the engine, but couldn’t move with the man still sprawling out in front of him. A taxi now pulled up behind the van, the cabbie giving an extended blast on his horn, just in case anyone had missed the fact that he was there.

‘If you hadn’t been going so fast,’ the woman replied, ‘this wouldn’t have happened.’

‘Mind your own fucking business, you stupid bitch,’ the man shot back, his attention now focusing on Carlyle, who was writing down his registration number.

‘Oi! Fuckface!’ The driver stuck his head further out of the window of the van. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Sweat was beading on his shaven head. He was wearing a replica of the new Spurs away strip for next season, a fetching mocha and brown number in a retro style. Carlyle thought about arresting him just for that. Instead, he showed the driver his ID and told him to switch off his engine. That prompted the taxi driver behind to let loose with another long blast on his horn. Carlyle ignored him. Already the traffic was backing up towards Great Queen Street and beyond, but that wasn’t his problem. They could wait. He turned back to the old man and helped him up.

‘Are you okay, Harry?’ Carlyle asked.

Harry Ripley dusted himself down and fiddled with a button on his coat. He smiled sadly, like a man who fully expected to find himself dumped in the middle of the road every now and again. ‘Hello, Inspector.’

‘Did he hit you?’

The old man gazed at the tarmac. ‘No. I’m all right.’

‘Was it his fault?’

‘I’d say fifty-fifty.’

Carlyle nodded back in the direction of the café. ‘I’m just having a coffee in Il Buffone, so why don’t you come and join me?’ The old man nodded and shuffled back on to the pavement, before heading slowly towards Carlyle’s table. The driver took this as his cue to restart his engine. Carlyle stepped back in front of the van, holding up his hand as if he was a traffic cop. ‘Not so fast, sunshine. Hold your horses.’

The queue of traffic was now well into double figures and the cacophony of complaints was growing. The woman who had remonstrated with the driver was hovering on the pavement outside the Sun, as if unsure whether to stay or go. Carlyle turned to her and smiled, which only seemed to make her more uncomfortable. ‘Don’t worry. It’s all right now, I can sort this.’

‘Don’t you want a statement or something?’ the woman asked.

No, I bloody don’t, thought Carlyle. The paperwork would be the kiss of death; his day would be over before it had even started. How come members of the public only wanted to be helpful when it wasn’t necessary? ‘No, it’s fine.’ He tried to sound grateful. ‘I’ll be able to handle it. Thanks for stopping.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Well . . .’ Carlyle looked down at his shoes, trying not to smile. Are you sure? How many times over the years had he been asked that question? He was a policeman. Of course he was sure. ‘I’m sure.’

‘Well, if you change your mind,’ the woman said, ‘I work at the launderette at the far end of Betterton Street.’ She gestured over her shoulder. ‘You can get me in there.’

‘I know it,’ Carlyle said, which was true. When the Carlyle family washing-machine had exploded earlier in the year, he had been a regular customer. ‘Thanks.’

Reluctantly, the woman turned and walked away, leaving Carlyle to return his attention to the van driver. He moved to the driver’s door. ‘Name?’

The man couldn’t have looked any more pained if someone was poised to stick a red-hot poker up his arse. ‘Smith.’

Carlyle raised an eyebrow.

‘No, really,’ the man said, pulling his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans, ‘it is Smith. Dennis Smith.’ He fished out his driver’s licence and flashed it through the window.

Ignoring the card, Carlyle leaned towards the window. ‘Okay, Dennis, you seem to have violated various traffic laws here, as well as behaving in a way that could easily have led to a breach of the peace.’ Talking bollocks, of course, but getting his attention. ‘And that’s before we talk about any actual injury to the victim’s person. Or about you calling me “fuckface”.’

‘But,’ Smith complained, ‘you just sent him off to get a coffee. He’s not hurt at all. Anyway, it was his fault.’

Carlyle let his gaze wander round the inside of the van. ‘Are you up here often?’

Smith shifted in his seat. ‘A bit.’

‘Well, I’m round here all the time and I don’t want to see any more boy-racer shit from . . .’ he stood up to look at the name on the side of the van ‘. . . Fred’s Fabulous Fruit ’n’ Veg .’

‘But-’

‘But nothing. If I see this van doing more than twenty miles an hour up Drury Lane, you’ll be nicked and I’ll make sure that your boss knows about it. Now fuck off and drive carefully. Try not to knock over any more pensioners today.’

Scowling and muttering under his breath, Smith rammed the van into first gear, revving the engine as he pulled away. Stepping back on to the pavement, Carlyle heard the jeers of the other drivers who had been caught up behind this spat. As he walked back towards the café, he caught a couple of basic hand gestures reflected in the window of the William Hill betting shop, but chose to ignore them. As he reached the table, Marcello appeared with Carlyle’s second macchiato and a mug of tea for Harry Ripley. Without saying a word, Carlyle sat down, drained the cup and methodically ate the quarter slices of his Danish, one after another.