Then We Die

by James Craig

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Never mind.’

  ‘They need you over there,’ Price persisted.

  ‘Okay.’ Carlyle jumped out of bed, scratching his balls with his free hand. He looked at Helen, who was in the middle of applying some lipstick, and realized that she was considering his naked form with something that seemed closer to amusement than admiration. ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes.’

  The park was a short walk away from Carlyle’s flat in Covent Garden. After pulling on some jeans and a sweatshirt, he kissed his wife goodbye, grabbed his North Face Lightspeed jacket, and headed outside. Picking up a latte and an outsized raisin Danish from Marcello in Il Buffone, the tiny 1950s-style Italian café situated opposite his block of flats, he walked on down Macklin Street, eating his breakfast and wondering why he still couldn’t feel anything about Joe’s death. They had worked together for more than eight years. Standing in the middle of the roadway, he lifted his polystyrene coffee cup in a mock toast.

  ‘God bless you, Joe Szyszkowski,’ he roared, ‘you stupid bastard!’

  A woman walking past gave him a concerned look.

  Carlyle sucked down more coffee and walked on.

  The chill wind helped bring him back to the land of the living. It was the kind of unpleasant, all too bloody common London day that made you fantasize about emigrating to Australia. Pulling up the hood on his jacket, he dropped into Parker Street, and then on to Kingsway. Waiting to cross the road, he attacked the remains of his pastry with gusto, relying on the trusty mix of sugar and caffeine to get him properly going.

  London’s largest public square, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, wasn’t much of a park but it was the only green space near where he lived, and so Carlyle liked it well enough. Allegedly the inspiration for New York’s Central Park, it consisted merely of a couple of scruffy patches of grass, a decaying bandstand and some tennis courts. In the 1990s, a group of homeless people set up home there, leading the council to close it for the best part of a year. These days, the vagrants only appeared in ones and twos to sit on the park benches, congregating en masse only at dusk, when a mobile soup kitchen made its nightly appearance.

  Tossing his breakfast rubbish in a bin, Carlyle entered by the north-west corner of the park just after eight-thirty. A couple of joggers were moving slowly around the path that followed the perimeter fence while a handful of workers went scurrying, heads down, to their nearby offices. A few familiar faces from the halfway house on Parker Street already occupied various benches. Otherwise, the space was almost deserted.

  The small white tent set up by a tree at the far end, next to a small digger, showed him where he was going. A group of technicians were working behind a blue tape, while a uniform chatted to a gaunt-looking woman out walking her dog. Another day at the office beckoned. Carlyle’s bones ached with fatigue, and he felt a sudden keen desire for a second cup of coffee. Ignoring the craving, he thrust his hands into his pockets and marched on.

  Approaching the blue and white police tape, he was stopped by a woman in her thirties. She was almost as tall as him, a tired-looking redhead enveloped in an outsize puffa jacket.

  She gave him the once-over with her dull green eyes. ‘Inspector Carlyle?’

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted, without any enthusiasm.

  She held out a hand. He shook it limply.

  ‘Alison Roche. They’ve sent me over from the Leyton station to stand in for Joseph Siz . . .’

  ‘Joe – Joe Szyszkowski.’

  ‘Yes.’ Roche blushed, gazing down at the grey mud under her feet. ‘How’s he doing?’

  Carlyle looked at his own shoes sinking into the mush. ‘Didn’t make it. Heart attack.’

  ‘Oh – I’m sorry.’

  Carlyle nodded towards the tent. ‘What have we got here?’

  ‘Man shot in the head.’

  Carlyle let out a deep breath. ‘Have you spoken to the other people in the park yet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’ Carlyle snapped, getting ready to take an instant dislike to Ms Roche.

  ‘Because all we’ve got back there is a skeleton. The man – or woman – has been dead for maybe fifty years.’

  Fifty years? How could you leave a body in a park in the middle of London for fifty bloody years? Only if no one cared about the poor bugger who had died, for a start. Even then, wouldn’t some sodding dog have started digging up the bones?

  This wasn’t a case; this was just paperwork. Carlyle’s interest level went straight down to zero. Mentally, he was already back in bed. ‘Who’s the pathologist?’

  ‘Phillips.’

  Ah! Some good news at last. He perked up imperceptibly.

  ‘Excellent,’ he said cheerlessly. ‘I’d better go and have a word with her.’

  Susan Phillips worked out of Holborn police station on Lamb’s Conduit Street, less than ten minutes’ walk from the park. She had been a staff pathologist with the Met for the best part of twenty years. Slim, blonde, with a healthy glow and a cheery smile, she brought a smidgen of much-needed glamour to The Job. More to the point, she was quick, no-nonsense and dependable – just what Carlyle liked in a colleague. They had worked together many times and he was always pleased to see her present at a crime scene.

  Carlyle strode away from Roche, stepped under the tape and walked over to the small white tent, which stood about eight foot tall and six foot wide, barely bigger than two large wardrobes placed back to back.

  He stuck his head inside and clocked Phillips on her knees, holding a skull up to the light.

  ‘ “Alas, poor John Doe,” ’ he quipped.

  She turned to face him and smiled. ‘ “Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment?” ’

  Touché, thought Carlyle. Having already exhausted his knowledge of the Bard, he stepped halfway inside the tent.

  Phillips’ smile faded. ‘I’m sorry about Joe.’

  Carlyle grunted.

  ‘He was a good guy.’

  Not wanting to talk about it, Carlyle gestured towards the skull. ‘I hear that we’re dealing with ancient history. Do I really need to bother with this one?’

  ‘That’s up to you, good Inspector,’ Phillips replied evenly, sticking the index finger of her right hand into a perfectly circular hole in the back of the skull. ‘But I would say fairly conclusively that death here was not by natural causes. This guy was obviously shot in the back of the head.’

  ‘How do you know it’s a bloke?’

  ‘Fifty-fifty chance.’ Then, seeing his expression: ‘No, not really. I do this for a living, so I know it’s male. The skull has three points in determining gender – the ridges located above the eyes, the bone situated just below the ear, and the occiput, the bone located at the lower back of the skull.’ For the benefit of her colleague, Simpson pointed out each in turn. ‘The occiput has been badly damaged, but the bone below the ear is a muscle attachment site, more prominent in men and indicating greater physical strength.’

  ‘I see,’ said Carlyle, enjoying this quick reminder of why he’d never had any interest in O-level Biology at school.

  Phillips nodded in the direction of the plaster over his eye. ‘How’s your head?’

  ‘It’s fine.’ Carlyle gestured towards the skull. ‘Better than his, anyway.’

  ‘He was found by some council workmen who were digging up this corner of the park to build a kiddies’ playground.’

  Carlyle didn’t remember seeing any workmen hanging around outside. ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘Roche took their statements while she was waiting for you, and then she let them go home. One of them seemed quite upset.’

  ‘Upset?’ Carlyle scoffed. ‘It’s only the bloody skeleton of some poor sod who’s been dead for fifty years. What is there to get upset about?’

  Phillips ignored his little outburst. ‘He may well have been buried here for more than fifty years,’ she observed.

  Carlyle wished more than ever tha
t he had stayed at home in bed. Why did Helen decide to answer his damn phone?

  ‘I need to get him back to the lab to do some proper tests,’ Phillips continued.

  ‘No need to go all trainspotter-ish on me,’ Carlyle grunted.

  ‘You are in such a good mood this morning,’ Phillips teased, bouncing the skull gently in her hand. ‘No wonder they call you the rudest cop in Westminster.’

  ‘Do they fuck,’ Carlyle retorted, not even stopping to consider who, in this instance, ‘they’ might be.

  ‘If you say so,’ Phillips teased. ‘Anyway, this guy could have been buried here for seventy or eighty years, maybe more.’

  ‘Excellent,’ Carlyle sighed. ‘Just what I need – a fucking historical murder mystery.’

  ‘It makes an interesting change,’ Phillips mused, ‘from teenagers knifing each other, or husbands trying to batter their wives.’

  ‘I don’t know about that.’

  ‘Come on, John,’ she chided. ‘Aren’t you even a little curious about how this guy got here? He must have an interesting story to tell.’

  Her forced good humour was making him feel grumpier by the second. ‘I’m a copper,’ he complained, ‘not a sodding archaeologist.’

  ‘But still—’

  ‘I bet you love that show on the telly . . .’ He struggled to think of the name but couldn’t dredge it up from the back of his mind. Helen watched it sometimes; she would watch any old crap.

  ‘Time Team? I watch it now and again,’ Phillips admitted.

  ‘Gripping stuff,’ Carlyle said sarkily. ‘Anyway, I need to speak to those workers from the council.’

  Getting to her feet, Phillips placed her hand on his forearm and said gently, ‘You should relax a bit. It’s not a big deal. What are they going to tell you that they didn’t already tell Roche? They came in, started digging up the grass – and found some bones.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ Carlyle held up a hand, finally conceding defeat. ‘Okay, Tony bloody Robinson, let me have the report when you’re done.’

  ‘Of course,’ Phillips smiled. ‘It may take a little while, though.’

  ‘No rush,’ said Carlyle, exiting the tent. ‘No rush at all.’

  EIGHT

  ‘Hey, Marcello! Where have Trapattoni and Platini gone?’

  Carlyle returned to Il Buffone just as the breakfast rush hour was coming to a close, allowing him and Alison Roche to grab the tatty booth at the back, next to the counter. Looking up, he realized that the crumbling poster of the 1984 Juventus scudetto winning squad had disappeared, leaving a lighter patch on the back wall. Torn and faded, curling at the edges and only held together with Sellotape, it had enjoyed pride of place in the café for as long as he could remember. Over the years, Marcello had tried to replace Juve on several occasions, most recently with the Italian World Cup winning team of 2006. Always, however, the protests of Carlyle and of a few other regulars who knew their football forced him to return the team of Trapattoni and Platini to their rightful place. A few moments spent contemplating their achievements were, to Carlyle’s way of thinking, always time well spent. Apart from anything else, that team would have beaten Marcello Lippi’s Azzurri hands down.

  ‘I threw it out.’ Marcello appeared from behind the counter, wiping his hands on a tea towel. ‘It finally disintegrated.’

  ‘Jesus!’ Carlyle felt a stab of genuine upset. ‘Everything’s fucking collapsing about my ears,’ he grumbled to himself. Taking a large bite out of his raisin Danish – his second of the morning, so far – he waited for the sugar rush to mingle with the double espresso already spreading through his bloodstream. When it had done so, his sense of well-being improved enough for him to ask: ‘What are you going to replace it with?’

  Marcello studied the empty space on the wall for a moment, then said, ‘Dunno. I’m open to suggestions.’ A thought crossed his mind and his face broke into a broad grin. ‘Not Fulham, though.’

  Suitably unfashionable, Fulham had always been Carlyle’s team. The thing he liked about them most as he got older was that they never got you too excited. ‘No, of course not.’ He nodded in agreement. ‘Got to be Italian.’

  ‘Sí, italiano – certo!’ Marcello cranked the Gaggia into action and before long dropped a fresh demitasse in front of his appreciative customer. ‘Inter are the team at the moment,’ he suggested doubtfully.

  Carlyle held up his hands in mock horror. ‘Noooo . . .’

  Stifling a yawn, Alison Roche looked up from her mug of tea. ‘Milan’s 94 Champions League winning team,’ she said quietly. ‘Albertini, Donadoni, Maldini, Desailly . . .’

  Marcello nodded enthusiastically. ‘Good choice! Fabio Capello’s team. Beat Barcelona four-nil to win the European Cup!’

  ‘Yes,’ Carlyle assented. ‘I think we have a winner.’

  ‘I’ll find you a poster, Marcello,’ Roche promised.

  ‘Thank you. That would be perfect.’ Marcello gave Carlyle a playful punch on the shoulder. ‘You’re a very lucky man, Inspector. The signora, she is pretty, she’s smart and she knows her football.’

  ‘Just don’t tell the wife, Marcello,’ Carlyle mumbled, before taking another massive bite out of his pastry.

  ‘So, Sergeant Roche, what’s your story?’ Marcello had retreated into his store room to check on the stock. Carlyle drained the last of his coffee from the cup and made a show of giving the sergeant a careful once-over. He didn’t know how long she was going to be around, but he might as well exhibit a degree of interest.

  Roche considered her answer carefully. ‘Well,’ she said finally, ‘I’ve been at Leyton for two years, and been a sergeant for almost five now . . .’ She came to a halt.

  Surprised at how quickly she had run out of steam, Carlyle bowled her another one. ‘Did you always want to be a copper?’

  ‘Not really,’ she shrugged. ‘I kind of drifted into it, I suppose.’

  God Almighty, Carlyle thought, you’re not giving much away, are you? On the other hand, however, he could empathize with people who kept their cards close to their chest. In his experience, there were far too few of them around.

  ‘I almost packed it in before I became a sergeant,’ Roche continued suddenly, sensing his dissatisfaction at her monochrome answers, so finally offering up a bit of colour.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said and laughed. ‘When I was a WPC, I did a stint as a dog-handler. I was paired with a German Shepherd called Robbie. Bloody psycho, that dog! We were chasing this armed robber one day, but instead of jumping on the robber, Robbie bit me on the arm as the bloke ran off with the eight grand he’d just stolen from a pub landlord.’

  ‘Christ!’ Carlyle chuckled despite himself.

  ‘That was the whole point. Everyone else thought it was hilarious. I was at Ealing station at the time and everyone took the piss out of me for ages.’

  ‘You can see the funny side . . .’

  ‘I can now. At the time I was bloody furious. It was really painful too, and I had to have rabies shots.’

  ‘What happened to Robbie?’ Carlyle asked, trying to suppress his laughter.

  ‘He was decommissioned after that. The last I heard, he was working for a security company, protecting building sites.’

  ‘Ah, well, at least you lived to tell the tale.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. I refused to work with any more dogs after that, but I got over it fairly quickly once I got back on the beat.’

  ‘Thanks for helping me out today,’ said Carlyle, changing the subject. Having ticked the touchy-feely box, he now had to get on.

  ‘No problem.’ She smiled sadly. ‘I’m just sorry about the circumstances.’

  ‘Quite.’ Carlyle looked towards the store room. He wondered if he should tell Marcello the bad news about Joe, before deciding it could wait.

  ‘Round here is a bit more glamorous than Leyton.’

  ‘Most places are more glamorous than East London,’ Carlyle joked.

  ‘I suppo
se so,’ she agreed.

  ‘Look,’ he said, clasping his hands together and resting them on the table, ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen next. Obviously, we will be needing to get a full-time replacement for Joe . . .’

  Roche gave him a look that suggested he was being a bit, well, emotionless about the whole thing.

  He ignored that, ploughing on.

  ‘But that will doubtless take time. I don’t know whether you are going to be here for a day, a week or whatever, but like I said, I’m very grateful that you are here, so if you want to stick around, let me know.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she replied, still giving him a rather curious look. ‘I will check in with Leyton this afternoon and see what they say. In the meantime, what should we do about that guy in the park?’

  ‘The guy in the park?’ Carlyle had forgotten about him already. ‘Well, let’s see what Phillips can tell us. The more she can narrow it down, the easier it will be for us i.e. you to chase down any relevant files from the time it occurred.’

  Roche emitted a mock groan. ‘Great! Maybe East London isn’t so bad after all.’

  ‘Now, now,’ Carlyle grinned, ‘we could be looking at some genuinely interesting detective work here.’

  ‘Yeah, if you’re a historian!’

  ‘I’m sure we can wrap it up quickly,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘Phillips has already said he’s an adult male. She should be able to make a reasonable guess at his age, and hopefully give us a better steer as to when he died. Then you need just take a quick look at any unsolved murders from around then, or people reported missing. If anything interesting comes up, let me know. Otherwise, we can just drop it into the bottomless pit of cases that will remain open forever.’

  Carlyle fished a fiver out of his wallet and dropped it on the counter. ‘Arrivederci, Marcello! See you later.’

  An indistinct reply issued from the store room.

  He looked again at Roche, who seemed in no hurry to leave. ‘I’ll meet you back at the station. I need to go and see some people first.’

  NINE

  ‘Inspector Carlyle? I’m Adam Hall.’

  Carlyle looked up at the fresh-faced young man and scowled. He’d now been sitting in a windowless interview room for almost forty-five minutes, without even the offer of a cup of crap police coffee. West End Central’s hospitality left a lot to be desired. ‘Where’s French?’