Time of Death

by James Craig

  ‘It’s Rosanna Snowdon.’

  Snowdon was a presenter on the local BBC News in London. Their paths had crossed on a previous case and Carlyle owed her a favour, maybe more than one, after she had introduced him to the politician Edgar Carlton. Two years earlier, when he had still been the Leader of the Opposition, Carlton had been caught up in a nasty little case involving rape and murder. Snowdon, a family friend of the Carltons, had facilitated an introduction for Carlyle. Later, when the whole thing had come to a messy, inconclusive end, she had probably saved what remained of Edgar’s career by stopping him from trying to air the story in the media.

  Largely untouched by any hint of scandal, Carlton had gone on to become Prime Minister after a landslide election victory. Snowdon, meanwhile, was building her media career at a steady rate. As well as the local news, she now presented a weekly show called London Crime, which did reconstructions of unresolved cases around the capital and appealed to the public for help in solving them. A few months earlier, the show had featured one of Carlyle’s cases, a particularly vicious mugging of a young mother in Lincoln’s Inn Fields which had been linked to a series of other attacks in and around the Holborn area. Snowdon had asked Carlyle to come on the show, but he felt embarrassed about begging for people’s help on television, and had sent Joe instead. The piece generated seventy phone calls and no sensible leads. The amount of police time that had been wasted as a result was too big for Carlyle to even think about trying to calculate it.

  The case, of course, remained unsolved.

  Carlyle was extremely uncomfortable about owing Snowdon a favour. As far as he was concerned, she was a user – a hustler who saw every item, every victim, as another step towards a celebrity presenter gig on national television, a rich banker husband and regular exposure in Hello magazine. But, however he felt about it, owe her he certainly did.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked, trying to inject some interest into his voice.

  ‘I wondered if I could talk to you about something,’ she said, not bothering with any preamble. ‘Maybe we could have a coffee together?’

  ‘This is not about the Mills case, is it?’ Carlyle enquired cautiously. He hadn’t seen it in the press yet, but it was only a matter of time.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. What’s it about, then?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said rather brusquely, ‘it’s not about any of your cases. But I’d rather we talked face to face. Could you do nine o’clock tomorrow morning?’

  Carlyle sucked in a breath. He was curious to find out what was causing Rosanna such concern. Whatever it was, it would doubtless be more diverting than his rather banal domestic slaying. On the other hand, she didn’t pay his wages, and he did have to get Henry Mills processed. ‘That would be tricky,’ he said finally. ‘Now is not a great time.’

  ‘Please,’ she said firmly, ‘it’s really quite important. It will only take half an hour and it would be a really big favour.’ There was a genuine nervousness in her tone that he had never heard before. This was not the usual flirtatious Rosanna, the one that made him feel so uncomfortable. Stripped of its usual coating of ironic detachment, her voice sounded strained. Compared to the super-assured alpha female that he was used to, it was almost endearing.

  ‘Well . . .’ His interest was aroused. She might be playing him along, but he didn’t think so. If nothing else, this could wipe the slate clean between them. Carlyle reflected for a moment. ‘All right,’ he said finally. ‘Nine thirty.’

  ‘Fantastic!’ she said with obvious feeling. ‘How about we go to Patisserie Valerie on Marylebone High Street?’

  ‘Fine,’ he said, heartened slightly by the prospect that he might at least get a good pastry out of it.

  ‘Good, I’ll see you there. Have a pleasant evening, Inspector.’

  ‘You too.’ Carlyle clicked off the phone and glanced at Helen, who was still engrossed in her television show. Luke Osgood was now dancing around his jungle clearing, wearing nothing but a yellow posing pouch and a red cowboy hat. He had a bottle of wine in one hand and a cigar in the other. Whatever else Luke has had done recently, Carlyle thought, he hasn’t yet coughed up for any liposuction. Disgusted, he pushed himself off the sofa and fled the room.

  For almost two hours, he lay in bed, racing through the final hundred or so pages of an excellent detective novel by an Italian writer, whose hero found himself fighting his way through the mire of ‘corruption, fraud, rackets and villainy’ with mixed success. Carlyle enjoyed it immensely. Finishing the last page, he closed the book and let it fall on the bedside table with a satisfying thud. Books like that should be required reading in schools, he thought. They should be thrust into the hands of the so-called literary experts who imagined that crime novels were just convoluted puzzles. Yawning, he stretched out under the duvet. For a short while, he enjoyed the luxury of letting his mind go blank, while staring at the ceiling. Then, giving up on any hope of his wife’s imminent arrival, he switched off the light and prepared to dream of villains and villainy.

  Draining the last dregs from his 750 ml bottle of Tiger beer, Jerome Sullivan nodded his head in time to the beat of T.I.’s ‘Dead and Gone’, grinning serenely, despite the music playing so loudly that the windows were shaking. No one within half a mile of his flat could possibly be getting any sleep, but the neighbours knew better than to complain. Jerome was not good with criticism. The last person to complain about his anti-social behaviour had ended up in the Royal Free Hospital with two broken legs.

  Running his operations out of the bunker-like Goodwin House, the thirty-one year old was the biggest skunk and ecstasy dealer in the N5, N7, NW5 and NW1 postcodes. The 1980s four-storey, brown-brick building was perfectly designed for his business operations. It was almost as if Camden Council had built it to order. It even looked like a fortress. The windows were small and at least twenty feet off the ground. More importantly, there was only one way in; even that was on foot – there was no vehicle access. Seeing its potential, Jerome had appropriated the top two floors and set about strengthening the building’s defences, so that if the police ever tried to raid it, it would take them at least two hours to get in. Short of bringing a Challenger tank down Marsden Street and pumping a couple of 120 mm rounds into the building, number 47 was impregnable.

  Tossing the empty beer bottle onto the sofa, Jerome felt a sudden wave of boredom sweep over him. Reaching for his new toy lying on the coffee-table, he staggered to his feet and kicked at a couple of the bodies slumped on the floor. ‘Get up!’ he shouted over the music. ‘Let’s go up on the roof.’

  Two minutes later, he was waving a Glock 17 above his head as he swayed to the music blasting through the asphalt below his bare feet. The 9 mm semi-automatic pistol had arrived earlier in the day, a present from a happy supplier; a reward for Jerome beating his sales targets for the first quarter of the year. The supplier – an Albanian people-trafficker who was diversifying into drugs – had thrown in a couple of clips of ammunition as well. Jerome hadn’t realised that he had any sales targets, quarterly or otherwise, but he was delighted by the gift. He had never owned a gun before, and he wasn’t sure what he was going to do with it.

  But he knew he would do something.

  By his standards, Jerome had been giving it some serious thought. The way he saw it, there was no point in having the gun, if you didn’t use it to shoot someone. But who? For the moment, however, just holding it was enough. Wearing just a Nickelback T-shirt and a pair of ruby Adidas running shorts, he shivered in the night air. In the semi-darkness above the orange street lights he could see the goosebumps on his arms, but the cold was overridden by the overwhelming sense of power flowing from the Glock as he gripped it tightly in his hand. Sticking his free hand down his trousers, he gave his balls a vigorous scratch and felt a tingling in his groin. The Glock was giving him a chubby all right, and he hadn’t even fired it yet. ‘Oh man!’ he groaned to himself. ‘This has gotta happen, just gotta . . .’ />
  Eric Christian, one of Jerome’s key associates, a friend since their second year at nearby Gospel Oak Primary School, stumbled through the doorway and on to the roof. He was followed by a couple of hangers-on who didn’t know the end of a party when they saw one. Eric looked at Jerome and grinned. ‘Careful you don’t walk right off the edge, man,’ he drawled, trying – and failing – to light a large blunt with a Harley-Davidson lighter.

  ‘No worries, dude,’ Jerome grinned. He brought the gun down to eye level, gripped it double-handed and pointed it at Eric.

  Eric’s eyes widened as the blunt fell from his lips. ‘Whoa, maaaan!’ he drawled, trying to keep the nervous laugh out of his voice. ‘Tell me that thing’s not loaded.’

  ‘Nah.’ Jerome’s eyes lost their focus. He pulled the gun to his chest and pointed the barrel skyward, like a man about to participate in an old-style duel. ‘I took the clip out before. It’s downstairs somewhere.’

  The music beneath them reached a crescendo. Starting to dance again, Jerome pointed the Glock past Eric at the other two guys who had joined them. He remembered them now. They were pondlife: sometimes they did little jobs for him, sometimes they were customers. Both of them looked like they were going to shit themselves; one even stuck his hands up, like they did in the movies. Jerome thought this was hilarious and burst out laughing, thinking that if the gun were loaded, he might just pull the trigger. He turned back to Eric. ‘We’ll have to try it out soon, though.’

  ‘Sure thing,’ said Eric, laughing too. Pulling a mobile out of his back pocket, he began filming his friend. Panning across the roof, he zoomed in on Jerome before focusing on the Glock. ‘Go for it, man. Let’s make a movie!’

  Jerome shrieked with delight. ‘This one’s for YouTube,’ he shouted at the tiny camera. ‘Comin’ to get ya, baby!’

  ‘You the man, Jerome,’ shouted one of the losers.

  ‘I’m a killer, man!’ Jerome stepped closer to the camera and put the gun to his head, grinning like a maniac. ‘This is how you muthafuckin’ kill someone!’ he screamed, eyes blazing. ‘Just sqeeeeeze.’ His index finger jerked back the trigger. There was a muffled crack and his eyes rolled back into his head. For a second, time stood still. Then, still holding the gun, he did a little sideways dance before stepping off the side of the building and disappearing from view.

  Eric stood there, the background hum of the late-night traffic in his ears, trying to work out how his mate had done such a cool trick.

  ‘Wow!’ said a voice behind him. ‘Did you get all that?’

  ELEVEN

  The number 25 bus travelled west along Oxford Street, bouncing past the clothes stores, mobile-phone booths, cafés and sex shops at an average speed of about three miles an hour. It would probably have been quicker just to walk all the way, but he couldn’t be bothered. The top deck provided a dirty and depressing vista, an unappealing mix of third-world squalor and first-world weather. It was one of the few parts of his home city that made Carlyle feel ashamed, so he always did his best to ignore it.

  This morning, on his way to his breakfast meeting with Rosanna Snowdon, he sat at the very front of the bus, with his head stuck firmly in The Times. On page three, he contemplated a story about a man in Wales who had spent thirty years in prison after having been wrongly convicted of the murder of a young woman. New DNA tests had shown that he could not have been the killer. The Criminal Cases Review Commission was rushing to have the guy freed.

  Reading the article, Carlyle began to feel a physical pain in his chest. The whole thing was so depressingly familiar. The ‘murderer’ was described as being mentally ill. That was no big surprise – doubtless he had been an easy way of getting a serious case off someone’s desk and a grieving family off someone’s back. At the trial, the jury had returned a unanimous guilty verdict in double-quick time. The trial judge had thrown in his tuppenceworth as well, proclaiming: ‘I have no doubt whatsoever that you were guilty of this appalling, horrible crime.’

  No doubt whatsoever. They just couldn’t wait to throw away the key. How very satisfying. An appeal was refused. Only years later, when a new solicitor pushed for another look, did the Forensic Science Service test the bodily fluids collected from the crime scene.

  In short, the case had been a total fucking mess, a serving policeman’s worst nightmare. It also raised serious concerns about the integrity of dozens of other murder convictions which would now have to be similarly reviewed. The man’s solicitor spelled it out for hopeful lags up and down the country: ‘Anyone who believes that they’ve been wrongly convicted, and thinks DNA tests would help, should contact a lawyer immediately.’

  Carlyle wondered morosely how many of his own past cases could be undone by modern technology. It didn’t bear thinking about. There but for the grace of God . . .

  Slowly, slowly, slowly, the bus struggled another fifty yards up the road to stop at a red light. Carlyle closed the paper and stumbled out of his seat towards the stairs. The five-minute wait while the bus crawled to the next stop and the driver condescended to open the doors, did nothing to improve his mood. Not for the first time, he pined for one of the old Routemaster-style buses, where you could just jump on and off the open back platform whenever you liked. Finally back on the pavement, he got off Oxford Street as quickly as possible and headed north.

  Ten minutes later, he was walking up Marylebone High Street. Still burdened by thoughts of what it must be like to be wrongly banged up for thirty years, he didn’t pause to think about the purpose of his rendezvous with the alluring BBC journalist. Arriving at Patisserie Valerie, he found the place surprisingly empty for a weekday breakfast time. Deciding that he deserved a treat, Carlyle took a moment to inspect the cakes and pastries on offer, so that they could help lift his mood. Having paid for a large pain au raisin and a double macchiato, he repaired to a table by the window and set about cutting his pastry into quarters while contemplating a couple of minutes of undiluted pleasure before the hackette arrived. He had already earmarked a feature on the return of 1980s ska band The Specials for reading while munching. The lyric ‘You’ve done too much, much too young’ was bouncing happily around his brain. He smiled to himself, cheered by how much of the song he could still remember. Before he could reopen his newspaper, however, Rosanna Snowdon appeared from nowhere, gliding across his line of vision and pulling out the chair opposite.

  Placing a glass of steaming peppermint tea carefully on the table in front of her, she sat down. ‘Good morning, Inspector,’ she began, shifting a large pair of sunglasses to the top of her head. ‘Thank you for coming.’

  Carlyle made a humble gesture. ‘No problem.’ Instinctively, he looked her up and down. As always, Rosanna was well turned out, looking sternly sexy in a rather sombre but expensive grey trouser suit and a pearl-coloured blouse which had just enough buttons undone to arouse one’s interest. Looking tired and a little jumpy, she seemed to have lost quite a bit of weight since he’d seen her last, which was all to the good. On the other hand, even the inspector could see that her roots needed retouching, which was not so good. Overall, Carlyle thought, you’re not looking great, but it’s nothing that a couple of weeks in the Caribbean or The Priory, England’s health farm to the stars, wouldn’t put right.

  She looked at his plate. ‘Don’t let me stop you.’

  Carlyle smiled. ‘If you insist.’ He took a large bite out of one quarter of his Danish and washed it down with some coffee. For the next few minutes, they sat in amiable silence while he scoffed the rest of his pastry and she sipped demurely at her tea.

  She waited until he had popped the last morsel into his mouth and was wiping his lips with a napkin before speaking again. ‘I have a slight problem.’

  Still chewing, he opened his eyes wide and waited.

  ‘There’s a man . . .’

  More silent chewing.

  Rosanna let out a large sigh and cut to the chase. ‘I’m being stalked.’ She took another sip of her tea and sat back
in the chair, clasping her hands together as if preparing to launch into prayer.

  ‘Isn’t that normal?’ He tried to present what he hoped was a cheeky grin.

  She looked at him uncomprehendingly.

  He kept digging. ‘Aren’t celebrities like you supposed to attract stalkers – the price of fame and all that?’

  She gave him a hurt look that suggested his juvenile attempt at humour had overstepped the mark.

  ‘Sorry.’ He held up a hand, indicating a willingness to take her problem seriously. ‘What’s been going on? Give me the background.’

  ‘He’s a guy called Simon. I don’t know his surname. I guess he’s in his late thirties or early forties. He started hanging around outside my apartment building about two months ago. He’s standing there when I leave the flat. Sometimes he even follows me to work.’

  Carlyle reflexively glanced out of the window.

  ‘Not today,’ she continued. ‘Not every day. Maybe once or twice a week. And there have been a couple of times when I’ve seen him hanging around in the evening, too.’

  ‘Has he physically or verbally threatened you?’ Carlyle asked in his best official tone.

  Her brow furrowed. ‘No, he’s not threatening. It’s more just . . . creepy. He always keeps his distance like he’s too embarrassed to talk to me.’

  Mentally ill, thought Carlyle. Another one. What must it be like, he wondered, to be a bit simple? Do you understand what kind of disadvantage you’ve been handed?

  She noticed him drifting off into thought and started drumming her expensive-looking nails on the table. ‘He sends me letters too.’

  Letters? How old-school. ‘What kind of letters?’

  She almost blushed. ‘Marriage proposals,’ she said, staring into her lap. ‘Six of them, so far.’

  ‘Saying what?’ he asked, his interest not really piqued by the thought of a harmless nutter with a crush.

  ‘Saying just that: that he thinks we should get married and that he wants to look after me.’