James Craig: Nobody's Hero

‘I bet.’

‘After all, it beats bike marking outside Tesco.’

‘Sure.’ Carlyle wasn’t sure what bike marking was, but it didn’t sound like much fun.

‘Want me to put you down on the rota? It’s guaranteed overtime – should be at least three or four hours.’

The promise of additional cash caused the inspector to hesitate. Once an inalienable right, a key component of an officer’s income, overtime was now an occasional perk and getting rarer all the time. When it came your way, you normally didn’t think twice. As always, he could do with the money. Alice’s school fees would be due soon and the family finances were feeling the squeeze.

At the same time, however, Carlyle knew that he needed extra shifts like a hole in the head. He had little enough time off as it was. And, perhaps more importantly, explaining to his wife that he was off to observe naked girls with painted rears would be difficult.

Very difficult indeed.

Actually, it would be impossible.

The sergeant looked at him expectantly.

‘It’s okay,’ said Carlyle, somewhat reluctantly, ‘I’ll pass.’

‘Suit yourself,’ the sergeant replied. ‘Anyway, back to more pressing matters . . .’

Knowing exactly what he meant, Carlyle’s heart sank. ‘Seymour Erikssen?’

‘Gone.’

‘You let him walk?’

‘Not that I had any choice in the matter. You ran out of time. He left about ten minutes ago.’

‘Shit.’

‘On the way out, he gave me a cheery wave and asked me to give you his best regards – said that he’d see you next time.’

‘The cheeky old bastard,’ Carlyle grumbled.

‘There’s no messing about with Seymour. He knows the drill.’

‘Well, he bloody would, wouldn’t he?’ Carlyle said, hoisting the briefcase he’d recovered from Waterloo Bridge onto the desk. ‘It could be his specialist subject on Mastermind .’

Studiously ignoring the briefcase on his desk, the sergeant went back to reading a story in his newspaper. The headline, as far as Carlyle could make out, reading it upside down, was about a woman who had been impregnated by a squid. Not for the first time, he contemplated the benefits of the internet destroying the newspaper industry completely.

‘Bloody hell,’ the sergeant mumbled to himself.

Bloody hell indeed , thought the inspector. The phone started vibrating in his pocket. With a sigh, he pulled it out, checked the name on the screen and said, ‘Hello, Bernie.’

‘What’s all this I hear about Britain’s most notorious criminal being allowed to walk right out of your nick?’ was the journalist’s cheery opening gambit.

‘He was London’s most hopeless criminal, last time I looked,’ said Carlyle wearily.

‘Whatever his bloody moniker was is irrelevant. I wrote about him yesterday. What’s going on?’

‘Nothing much.’ Even to his own ears, the inspector’s attempt at insouciance fell completely flat.

‘Don’t muck me about, I’m on deadline,’ Bernie huffed, bashing noisily away at a keyboard to make his point.

‘You’re always on deadline,’ Carlyle pointed out.

‘Exactly. So, why did you let him go?’

‘No comment.’

Bernie started typing even harder. It sounded like he wanted to break his computer, such was the fury of his news-gathering frenzy. ‘Don’t try and play that bloody game with me. After all, you’re the one who wanted a puff piece only yesterday.’ There was a menacing pause as he hit some more keys. ‘You don’t want to see your name in print, do you?’

‘No,’ Carlyle said testily, not happy at being threatened. ‘Of course not.’

‘Stop messing about then, and give me something.’

‘Okay, okay.’ Stepping away from the desk, Carlyle lowered his voice. ‘On background, not for quotation, we haven’t let him walk: investigations are continuing.’ He tried to explain the essence of what had happened without having to actually spell out the reality of the situation.

‘So,’ Bernie asked suspiciously, ‘Seymour’s still under lock and key in the station?’

Pushing through the front doors, Carlyle jogged down the steps and across the street. ‘I’m not at the station at the moment.’ A motorbike roared by, providing a convenient alibi.

‘You know less than me,’ Bernie scoffed.

It wouldn’t be the first time , Carlyle mused. ‘Why don’t you just quote a source familiar with the investigation saying that Seymour Erikssen is a priority case and will be dealt with accordingly.’

‘Meaningless crap,’ the hack snorted, typing the quote straight into his piece.

Should fit right in then , Carlyle thought.

‘Let me know when you find out more.’

‘Will do.’

‘And the next time you want me to run a story, make sure it has a happy ending.’

‘You don’t like happy endings,’ Carlyle grumped.

‘I don’t like stories where a cop tries to claim a much-overdue win,’ Bernie thundered, ‘and then, after I’ve put my name to the story, somehow contrives to snatch defeat from the jaws of bloody victory.’

‘But Bernie-’ Before the inspector had the chance to say any more, the call was terminated. He thought about calling the journalist back – but what was the point? Carlyle knew that he had nothing more to say about Seymour Erikssen. For a moment, he contemplated trading something on the axeman, but decided against it. His media-handling skills simply weren’t up to it. Putting the phone back into his pocket, he took a couple of deep breaths and headed back inside.

During the couple of minutes that the inspector had spent on the pavement outside, a large mug bearing the image of a crown and the legend KEEP CALM AND GO AWAY had materialized by the desk sergeant’s elbow. As he approached the desk, Carlyle saw that his slow-reading colleague had moved on two pages. Now he was engrossed in a story about tourists dying – allegedly – of blowfish poisoning in Bangkok.

‘Are all the stories in that paper about fish?’ Carlyle quipped.

All he got by way of reply was a blank look.

‘Never mind.’

The sergeant pointed to the briefcase which he had moved to the end of the desk, as far away from his person as possible. ‘What d’ya want me to do with that?’

‘A guy had a fatal heart attack on Waterloo Bridge,’ Carlyle explained. ‘The uniforms left his case sitting on the pavement.’

The sergeant’s gaze started drifting back to his paper.

‘Book it, stick it in the evidence locker and we’ll sort it out later.’

The sergeant made a noise that could have been a grunt or perhaps indigestion.

The inspector took that as a, ‘ Yes , of course , sir , three bloody bags full , sir ,’ and decided to move on. ‘Right now, I need to speak to Taimur Rage.’

‘The mad axeman,’ said the sergeant languidly, not looking up. Finally tiring of international fish news, he turned the paper over and began scanning the sports pages.

‘That’s the one,’ said Carlyle, beginning to get ever so slightly annoyed.

‘He’s in Interview Room Three – or maybe Five. Mason is keeping an eye on him.’

‘Good.’ WPC Sonia Mason was that rarest of creatures – a uniform that Carlyle could actually pick out of a line-up. Mason, barely a year out of officer training at Hendon, was one of the most sensible young officers that the inspector had come across in a long while. She had a good manner, to boot, and he was sure that she would go far in her police career, unlike the essentially inert lump in front of him. ‘Has the axeman had his call?’ Normally, Carlyle wasn’t keen on allowing suspects to get on the phone too quickly, to make their statutory phone call to their lawyer. In this case, however, with the guy completely bang to rights, he was rather more relaxed.