James Craig - Time of Death

‘Of course.’

Holyrod emptied his glass. ‘Things are still at a delicate stage. We need to stay under the radar.’

‘You have my word.’

Squat and brooding on the south bank of the Thames, St Thomas’s Hospital offered fine views of the Palace of Westminster. From the third floor, Carlyle looked out over the river towards the Parliament building. Darkness had fallen and lights shone brightly from almost every window. Doubtless the place was full of Members of Parliament fiddling their expenses, shagging their interns and preparing for their extended summer holidays, he thought. No wonder the country was run so poorly – the only apparent qualifications needed for the job of MP were ego and avarice.

For her part, Sandra Groves would not be contemplating this view for a while. Lying in a bed by the window in a room she shared with two other patients, she was drugged up to the eyeballs and fast asleep. Moved out of intensive care a few hours earlier, she was still in a very weak state. In addition to a smashed leg and a broken hip, she had suffered a couple of cracked ribs and a fractured wrist. Although she was out of immediate danger, the doctors were still worried about the concussion she had suffered, as well as the internal bleeding.

Standing in the corridor outside, Carlyle gazed at the sleeping woman. She certainly looked a mess, with tubes coming out of her nose and her left arm, as well as bandages on her head.

Sitting by her bedside, in front of an array of machines, Carlyle recognised Stuart Joyce, the boyfriend who had been involved in the confrontation on the number 55 bus. Holding the girl’s hand, Joyce had his back to Carlyle as the inspector now entered the room. A couple of the other patients, hoping that he had perhaps come to visit them, tried to catch the inspector’s eye as he stepped inside, but he studiously ignored them.

When he reached the end of the bed, the boy finally looked up. Carlyle was surprised to see him flinch.

‘You!’ Joyce hissed, eyeing the panic button by the bed. He half-rose out of his seat. ‘What are you doing here?’

Carlyle, aware of the Ward Sister hovering nearby, ready to throw him out at the first sign of any trouble, held up a hand. ‘A couple of quick things before we go any further,’ he said, quietly but firmly, staring the boy down. ‘First – I didn’t run your girlfriend over.’

The boy looked at him suspiciously but returned to his seat.

‘On the one hand,’ Carlyle explained, ‘I don’t drive. On the other hand, I have a perfectly good alibi, which the officers investigating the case have checked out.’ He knew this was true because of the ear-bashing he’d received from his wife, complaining about the disruption his ‘colleagues’ had caused to her working day. Helen had been very disgruntled indeed at having to help the police with their enquiries. Carlyle had been left in no doubt that he would need to provide a full explanation of exactly what the hell was going on, once he got home.

‘So,’ he continued, as soothingly as he could manage, ‘you have nothing to worry about from me.’

Still the boy said nothing. Behind him, a machine bleeped. Carlyle gave the machine a professional stare. As he was the wrong kind of professional, he didn’t know if the bleeping was anything important or not. If it was, a crack team of medical professionals would presumably come roaring in and take some action. The machine bleeped for a final time and then fell silent. The woman in the bed hadn’t stopped breathing, so Carlyle assumed that things 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.