James Craig - Time of Death

‘Gideon! Come over here, please.’

Slowly getting to his feet, he headed towards Dominic Silver.

‘Has he given you what you wanted, boss?’ Gideon asked.

‘Yes,’ Silver nodded.

‘And?’ Gideon idly fingered the safety on the Sig.

‘And now,’ Dominic said in a conversational tone, ‘it is time to get rid of him.’

‘Okay.’ Gideon stepped past Silver and stood in front of the man chained to the floor. There was nothing cocky about him now as he looked at his executioner with a mixture of resignation and pleading. Gideon finally flicked off the safety and stepped closer.

Hagger’s eyes grew wide with fright. ‘You can’t!’

Gideon listened to Silver’s receding footsteps and frowned. ‘Why not?’

‘It’s . . . murder,’ Hagger croaked.

‘Yes,’ Gideon nodded. ‘Yes, it is.’ He stepped closer, inhaling Hagger’s stench, breathing in deeply, feeling that little bit more alive. ‘But lots of good people, top blokes, get murdered all the time. So why not a useless little scumbag like you?’

‘But-’

Before Hagger could say any more, Gideon raised the Sig and put two .357 rounds into his chest, instantly ending the debate.

It was a damp, grey morning and cold for the time of year. Desperate for a cup of hot, strong coffee, Carlyle stared morosely into the gloom. Looking out across the tops of the trees in the middle of the square, he imagined himself losing his balance and tipping over into the abyss. In reality, he made sure that he was a good two feet from the edge of the building before he cautiously leaned over and peered down at the body impaled on the railings below. From almost 100 feet up, Matias Gori looked like a speared fish that had gasped its last. Moreover, it looked as if he would be stuck there for a while yet. The technicians had yet to decide how best to remove him without leaving his guts all over the pavement.

Arriving at the Embassy, Carlyle had not stopped on the pavement to study Gori close-up. Rather, after a short chat with the stressed-looking DCI in charge, he had headed straight up to the roof. He didn’t like it much up here either, but he felt that his fear of heights was less of a problem than his long-standing squeamishness around dead bodies.

Standing behind him, Joe Szyszkowski was, if anything, even more cautious than his boss. ‘So,’ Joe asked, staying well clear of the parapet, ‘did he jump or was he pushed?’

‘He didn’t seem the suicidal kind to me,’ said Carlyle gruffly. ‘I met him – I dunno, a few days ago. He seemed like the kind of arrogant bastard who thought he was on a mission from God or something; thought he could live for ever.’

‘It could have been an accident,’ Joe suggested. ‘Maybe he was pissed. What was he doing up here, anyway?’

‘The DCI in charge downstairs said this is a no-smoking building, and apparently he liked to come up here for a crafty fag.’

‘Did Forensics find anything?’ Joe asked, looking vacantly at the asphalt.

‘Just a cigarette butt – presumably Gori’s.’ Carlyle scanned the roof aimlessly. ‘It’s basically impossible to tell if he was up here on his own or not. There’s no CCTV.’

‘No chance of any witnesses?’

Carlyle shook his head. ‘The Embassy was nearly empty at that time of night. The security guard was doing his rounds, but he doesn’t come up here. Says he saw no one. None of the neighbouring buildings directly overlook this part of the roof.’ He gestured at the Radisson Hotel, on the far side of the square, the only nearby building that was taller than the Embassy itself. ‘Even someone over there probably wouldn’t have seen anything, because it’s too far away.’

Making sure he still didn’t get too close to the edge, Carlyle gingerly leaned forward and took another quick glance down at the dead fish. ‘You’re not the first person to fall off a tall building recently, are you, matey?’ he said quietly to himself. Thinking back to Jerome Sullivan and Michael Hagger, he felt a sharp pang of guilt. Since Hagger had appeared in the piazza, Carlyle had done nothing to try and track down young Jake. As far as he knew, Cutler, the officer leading the search, hadn’t made any progress either. If there had been any hope, it had long since gone. The missing kid was doubtless beyond salvation now.

His stomach rumbled. Feeling a bit light-headed, Carlyle turned away from the edge of the building. ‘Let’s go.’

Joe nodded and they headed back inside.

‘So where does this leave us?’ Joe wondered, standing at the top of the stairs that led up to the roof.

‘I think it leaves us in quite a good place,’ Carlyle said. ‘Gori’s murder is not ours to worry about.’

‘It’ll probably get written up as an accident,’ Joe sniffed.

‘Quite,’ Carlyle agreed. ‘And if he was our killer, then it’s case closed.’

‘What about Groves?’

‘She’s not our problem either,’ Carlyle said, yawning. ‘I outlined my thinking to Chan and his sidekick at the hospital, and they pissed all over it, so let them work it out for themselves.’ He thought about Monica Hartson – her Glasgow exile could come to a speedy end. Pulling out his mobile, he rang her number. Tapping his foot impatiently on the asphalt, he listened to the call this time go to voicemail. ‘For fuck’s sake!’ he hissed. How was it that some people were just incapable of answering a bloody phone? Ending the call without leaving a message, he dropped the handset back into his jacket pocket. ‘Did you write up the Mills report?’

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.