James Craig - Man of Sorrows

‘Of course.’ Clicking back into work mode, Carlyle remembered that he had still to update Dugdale. If it had been Simpson, he would have put it off until tomorrow; with the new Commander, however, he knew that such tardiness would be somewhat impolitic. He replaced the Dugdale note near the top of his mental ‘to do’ list’ as he locked onto Lagerbäck’s gaze and gave her some good eye-contact.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘the situation is like this. We responded to the alarm going off at St James’s Diamonds in approximately six minutes’ – this was important as he had checked the store’s security plan and the police were expected under the terms of the insurance arrangements to respond within eight minutes – ‘and found that the robbers had fled, apparently taking a member of staff as a hostage.’

‘That poor woman,’ Lagerbäck said, with no feeling whatsoever.

You might have Cameron Diaz’s looks , Carlyle thought, but you certainly don’t have her acting skills .

‘The search for them is extensive and continuing,’ Carlyle went on. ‘Meanwhile, our forensic analysts have been going over the crime scene in great detail and we have been speaking to the other members of staff.’

‘I hear that the store manager . . . lost control of himself.’ She tossed him a look that perfectly balanced amusement and disgust.

Doubting that Lagerbäck was the easiest of employers, Carlyle felt obliged to jump to the unfortunate Luckman’s defence. ‘Your staff were subjected to a terrible ordeal,’ he said. ‘We have every reason to believe that they genuinely feared for their lives. In that situation, such a reaction is perfectly understandable.’

‘Huh,’ she snorted, playing with the strap on her bag. ‘Whatever happened, I would not disgrace myself like that.’

Carlyle was bemused by her focus on such an irrelevant detail. ‘What would be helpful,’ he said, trying to move the conversation along, ‘is whether you have any thoughts about who might have carried out the robbery.’

‘No,’ she said sharply. ‘None at all.’ Seeing his interest in the speed of her response, she added, ‘As you can imagine, I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the last few hours. Obviously, any luxury goods store is a potential target, but,’ she shrugged, ‘as to why us specifically? And why now? I simply do not know.’

‘Okay.’ Carlyle stifled a yawn, happy at the thought of at least getting her out of the station in a fairly short order. ‘One of my colleagues will come and take a formal statement in the next day or so, and I will let you know of any developments.’

‘Good.’ Unzipping the breast pocket of her jacket, Lagerbäck pulled out a business card and handed it to Carlyle. ‘You can get me on any of these numbers.’ Pushing back her chair, she got to her feet. ‘I am a very easy woman to get hold of.’

Still in his seat, Carlyle looked down the list of two office numbers, three mobiles and two email addresses. ‘Thank you. The other thing that we need is a detailed list of everything that was taken.’

‘Of course,’ she nodded. ‘The insurance company will have it for you first thing in the morning.’

Here we go , bloody insurance companies. He made to stand and felt her hand on his shoulder, keeping him in his chair with some considerable strength. ‘There’s no need to get up, Inspector,’ she purred. ‘I can find my own way out.’

The young lad looked around to see if anyone was watching. Satisfied that he could proceed undetected, he pulled a half-bottle of Deer Park blended whisky from his jacket pocket, unscrewed the cap and took a cautious slug, grimacing as the cheap Scotch hit the back of his throat. Whisky wasn’t his drink, but the Deer Park had been the first thing to hand when he’d gone into the off-licence on the promenade. He had slipped it into his pocket and walked out while the Asian owner was arguing with a stroppy wino over the price of four cans of Special Brew. It was a piece of cake. He took another long drink. Now the bottle was half-empty and, as well as ill, he felt suitably woozy.

Unsteadily, he got to his feet and moved across to the rail of the Palace Pier. A gust of wind hit him in the face and he shivered in the cold. In the failing light, he looked along the pier to check if anyone was in sight. They weren’t, so he carefully climbed onto the railing. Swinging his legs over the side, he looked down into the darkness and the depth of the sea, and said a small prayer. Then he took a deep breath and jumped.

It took Carlyle the best part of two hours to write up his report. He kept things short and to the point, but still found himself rewriting it twice to make sure that his back was sufficiently covered. Once he was confident that it was as anodyne as possible, he attached the necessary forms to an email and sent it off into cyberspace. As he did so, he felt a familiar sense of unease in his gut. It came not from worries about the case itself but about the politics of the case.

It had taken Carlyle many years, and much goodwill on the Commander’s part, to establish a good working relationship with Simpson. Now she was gone and he was worried that Dugdale might try to use the robbery as an opportunity for payback. The robbers were still on the run, with no expectation that they would be caught, at least not in the next few hours. There was bound to be an issue about the speed and effectiveness of the police cordon, even if that wasn’t necessarily his responsibility. The main worry, however, was the woman. In a sense, it would be a lot easier if Paula Coulter was in on the robbery. Certainly, that would mean less chance of her being found dead by the side of a road somewhere. If that happened, the blame game would go into overdrive.

Sitting in the empty office, he castigated himself for being so self-indulgent. ‘Solve the case,’ he said out loud, getting slowly to his feet, ‘and no one can touch you.’

It was after midnight when he opened the front door to his flat. Taking off his shoes, he stepped into the darkened hallway and closed the door gently behind him. A quick check of the bedrooms told him that Alice and Helen were both asleep and he crept carefully back to the kitchen. Opening the fridge, he pulled out a two-litre bottle of Evian, unscrewed the cap and took a long drink.

‘Ahhh!’

Replacing the cap, he put the bottle back on the shelf inside the door and looked around for something to eat. Seeing nothing in the fridge that took his fancy, he checked out the rest of the kitchen. In the corner, next to the microwave, was a bunch of bananas. Crossing the tiny kitchen floor, he selected the largest banana and snapped it free. Unzipping it, he took a huge bite, gazing out of the kitchen window across the river to the London Eye, lit up in the darkness. When he’d finished, he dropped the skin in the bin beneath the sink. Yawning, he noticed a couple of letters on top of the microwave, one opened, one not. Carlyle made to pick them up then changed his mind. ‘Fuck it,’ he said quietly to himself. ‘It’s nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow.’

After taking a quick shower, he eased himself into bed, careful not to disturb his wife, who was snoring softly, the duvet pulled up under her chin. Lying still, he stared up at the ceiling, trying to make sense of the day. Only too well aware that he had overstepped the mark with the priest McGowan – even if he had told himself it had all been an act – he felt genuine regret for putting Roche in a position where she had to lie in order to cover for her boss. But the feeling was fleeting, quickly overridden by a sense of huge injustice on behalf of the missing boy, Simon Murphy. Carlyle had never met Murphy, and if he ever did, the inspector was fairly sure that he wouldn’t like the kid much. ‘ Give me a child until he is seven ,’ said the Jesuits, ‘ and I will give you the man. ’ On that basis, Simon Murphy, who had been abused and ignored for the first twelve years of his life, was pretty much a lost cause. Well , maybe he was – but that didn ’ t mean his abusers should be allowed a free pass.