London Calling (15 page)

‘Why does Simpson want a presser?’ Carlyle began massaging his temples firmly, in the hope that maybe the headache that he knew was on the way wouldn’t actually arrive.

‘Who knows?’ Joe raised his hands as if in supplication. ‘The media have already got the story, so she probably wants to ride the wave.’

Carlyle looked hard at Joe. ‘So, if the press has got everything already, what do we hope to achieve with a bloody press conference?’

Joe shrugged. ‘You know what she’s like.’

Carlyle nodded. ‘Oh, yes.’

‘For Carole there is no such thing as bad publicity.’

Carlyle looked at his watch. ‘What time is it scheduled for?’

‘Three-thirty,’ Joe replied. ‘They’ve already been told that you’ll be there. I’m just a little bonus.’

Carlyle ground his teeth in frustration. Toying with the media circus would only make their job harder. Press conferences were the first refuge of the brainless and the desperate. As of right now, however, they were a long way from being either. ‘What are we meant to be saying?’ he asked.

Joe drained the last of his coffee. ‘Just the basics. Telling them what they already know. Asking the perpetrator of this horrific crime to give himself up. Calling for witnesses. Yada, yada, yada. Reassuring the public.’

‘Do they
need
reassurance?’

‘Probably not.’

‘No sign yet of mass panic?’

‘No.’

‘OK, OK.’ Carlyle thought about this further. Ten years ago, maybe even five years ago, he would have thought
Fuck
it
and bunked off, leaving Simpson to deal with the journalists on her own. But the new, mature Carlyle was more sanguine, or maybe just warier. He knew that there was now a limit to what you could get away with before the myriad of disciplinary processes kicked in and your professional life was strangled before your eyes. Therefore, he would go to the press conference, while vowing to let Simpson do the talking. It was her show, her glory. Let her have it, if that’s what she wanted.

‘Let’s get back to the station,’ he said. ‘After the presser, we’ll head off to Blake’s place. I can read all the necessary stuff in the meantime.’

A long evening stretched ahead, therefore sustenance would be required. Carlyle peeked over the counter and smiled. ‘Marcello,’ he said, ‘bag me up that last pastry, please. I’ll take it with me.’

TWELVE

The ‘media centre’ at Charing Cross Police Station was a large, windowless basement that no one had ever found another use for. It was always cold and filled with the smell of stale food from the canteen next-door. The harsh strip lighting further helped ensure that no member of the media ever wanted to hang around too long. There were twenty chairs arranged theatre-style, facing a slightly raised platform that could sit up to six people. Behind the stage was displayed a large Met logo, with the legend
Working together for a safer London
spelt out in foot-high letters underneath. At the back of the room, there was space for television cameras, and in one corner a carefully branded mini-studio set where one-on-one interviews could be conducted after the press conference, like those interviews given by a football manager after a game.

Simpson’s press conference had drawn a reasonable crowd. They included a crime reporter from the
Evening Standard
, a reporter from one of the local freesheets, a guy from the PA newswire and a local radio reporter. Television was represented by ITV’s London Tonight and BBC London. As usual, they were all willing to hype it up in the hope of breathing some new life into a story that, after fifteen hours, was almost past its sell-by date. At the same time, with what they had so far, none of the journalists was getting over-excited. London might not be the murder capital of the world, but equally it was not the kind of place where a killing, per se, merited too much interest. When it came to getting the journalistic juices flowing, death was necessary but not sufficient. News editors needed a juicy angle involving sex, race, drugs, children or – the mother-lode these days – celebrity, to give the story legs.

Five minutes after the appointed starting time, Simpson, Szyszkowski and Carlyle entered the room by a door behind the platform. They were greeted with indifference by the small gathering in front of them – who continued chatting, talking on their mobiles, filling in their sudoku puzzles or, in one case, actually dozing. Simpson tentatively tapped on the microphone in front of her, but it appeared to be switched off. She raised her voice slightly to compensate. ‘Good afternoon, everybody …’

She was interrupted by another door opening at the back of the room. Heads turned, and stayed turned, in recognition of a star suddenly in their midst. In her Chanel suit, BBC reporter Rosanna Snowdon was far too well dressed for her surroundings. Her tan (maybe fake, but not obviously so), hard brown eyes and big blond hair gave her the look of an upmarket 1980s soap star. Carlyle pegged Snowdon at just north of thirty. After a well-publicised skiing accident that had kept her off the air and out of the gym for a month earlier in the year, it looked as if she was now quite a few pounds overweight. But she carried it in a healthy, knowing way that said:
I don’t have to be thin to be sexy.
She possessed what he thought of as a ‘neutral’ face, not friendly, not hostile, always ready to adapt to the situation. Not a chameleon, though, because she was always too focused on the matter in hand – self-promotion – to adapt
too
much to external circumstances. Nothing was for nothing, and everything was calculated.

It took a while for every man in the room to compose himself and return his attention to the matter in hand. Simpson let them settle. ‘Good afternoon, Rosanna,’ she said with an impressive faux familiarity. ‘Very nice to see you here today.’

Snowdon smiled, gave a little nod, and took a seat in the otherwise empty front row.

Simpson paused, quickly introduced her two colleagues, and then launched into the prepared statement. This managed to fill most of the remaining time allotted for the conference, while actually containing no new information whatsoever. The hacks scribbled away and nodded politely, apart from the
Standard
reporter who appeared to be either deaf or suffering from a serious attention-deficit disorder.

Once Simpson finished reading her statement, Snowdon immediately turned to Carlyle. ‘Is it true,’ she smiled sweetly, ‘that you were told about the body in a note, Inspector?’

Carlyle stiffened. ‘We are not adding to any detail we have already put out into the public domain,’ he heard himself say, robotically.

Snowdon came back at him gently. ‘But it has already been reported that there
was
a note … so any additional colour you can let us have on that would be most appreciated.’

Carlyle forced himself to smile. ‘I understand the need for colour in your story, Ms Snowdon,’ he replied evenly, ‘but I’ve got my job to do as well. We really have nothing to add at this stage.’ He could sense Simpson getting irritated, but felt that he had to stand his ground. This whole event was, nominally at least, supposed to be for the benefit of
his
investigation, after all.

The other journalists sat back, happy to see how far this gentle sparring would continue. Aware that they had ceded her the floor, Snowdon felt it was at least worth giving it one last go. ‘I’m sorry to have to repeat the question, Inspector …’

‘But you are going to anyway,’ Carlyle shot back.

At this point Simpson intervened, clearly having had enough of Carlyle spoiling her show. ‘I think we’ve already covered that,’ she declared, with a rictus grin. ‘Are there any more questions?’ she asked firmly, scanning the room. After the briefest of pauses, she moved on. ‘None? Good. Thank you all for coming. We will, of course, provide you with an update in due course. I will now happily make myself available for any radio and television interviews you might need.’ She scanned the audience, willing someone to take her up on her offer. ‘Shall we say BBC first?’

With no immediate takers coming forward, the superintendent almost sprinted to the back of the room to get herself in front of the cameras. Even so, the room had almost emptied by the time she got there. People were working on deadline and the ITV crew was busy breaking up its equipment. Their producer had already left, and it was now clear they didn’t want a one-on-one with Simpson.

Watching smugly from the platform, Carlyle caught a quizzical glance passing from the BBC cameraman towards Snowdon, asking her
Do we need this?
Snowdon gave him a quick nod and he made a face before resetting the camera for Simpson’s close-up. He was used to this: a ‘just in case’ interview, mainly conducted in order to keep the subject happy.

While the cameraman fussed about, Snowdon and Simpson exchanged business cards and chatted in a rather over-animated fashion. Carlyle wondered what they were talking about, but he knew that it wasn’t likely to be the Blake case. Snowdon was not a journalist in the ‘hard news’ sense. Indeed, she wasn’t really a journalist in any sense. In reality, she was just another hustler who saw every news item, every victim, as another step towards realising her destiny as a celebrity presenter on the main national network, with a smug banker husband and regular exposure in
Hello!
magazine. Similarly, Simpson wasn’t really a copper – he doubted if she had been out on the streets in the last ten or even twenty years. She was just a politician in uniform.

In short, they were both women in a hurry. Each recognised a kindred spirit in the other. This whole performance was more about networking than it was about the reporting the news or even solving a crime.

Stepping down off the platform, Carlyle moved closer to listen to the interview. For a couple of minutes, Snowdon lobbed a series of easy questions that allowed Simpson to reprise her comments from the press conference.

‘That’s great,’ said Snowdon, after Simpson had delivered the same soundbite for the third time in a row.

The superintendent beamed like a sixteen-year-old who’d just been told that she’d received twelve A grades at GCSE.

‘Just one final question.’

Simpson smiled even harder, nodding expectantly.

‘Have you spoken to the mayor about this?’

Simpson’s smile faded as a look of confusion spread across her face. ‘I’m sorry …’ Instinctively, she reached for the microphone, but stopped herself before she pulled it off her lapel.

‘That’s OK,’ said Snowdon, goading gently. ‘Let me ask that one again … The mayor was a close friend of the victim, so how did he take the news?’

Simpson looked blank. ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated. ‘I don’t know anything about that.’

‘Fine,’ Snowdon glanced at the cameraman. ‘We’ll leave it there.’ She smiled at Simpson. ‘Thank you, that was great. Don’t worry about that last answer. I’ll take one from the top.’

A rather crestfallen Simpson nodded and shuffled off, carefully avoiding eye contact with Carlyle as she headed out of the room.

The Mayor of London,
Carlyle thought
. That’s the second time he’s come up, so far, in this investigation.
That meant he had got
to be part of the investigation
. That means, John old son, you are going to have to tread carefully here. Very carefully indeed.

THIRTEEN

Cambridge University, March 1985

Robert Ashton closed his copy of
The Rise of Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860–1914
and stood up from the desk. He felt a fierce thirst, but ignored the tall, narrow glass of water that stood on the corner of the table, next to a pile of textbooks and papers. A dull pain was building slowly behind his eyes. It mingled with the numbness that he still felt after all these months.

A pale shaft of sunlight struggled through the curtains, illuminating a small patch of the worn rug on the floor. Outside was a beautiful spring day: England as it was supposed to be, bright, fresh, almost warm in the sun. Laughter rose from the courtyard outside.

Room 12 was situated on the third floor of Darwin Hall, one of the halls of residence for undergraduate students at Cambridge University. It was basically a large, dark space that Ashton shared with another student, a French waster called Nicolas who had already left for Easter even though there were still ten days until the end of term. That suited Robert just fine, as he liked having the place to himself. Reaching across the table, he picked up the glass of water and stepped cautiously into the middle of the room, careful to avoid stepping on any of the books strewn across the floor. Having picked his spot, he gazed up at the oversized mirror that had been placed above the fireplace. His head cocked to one side, like a concerned fawn, he contemplated a face that he no longer recognised. Then, slowly, deliberately, he threw the glass into his reflection, smashing it to pieces. His heart racing, he stood there for a second, concentrating hard, making sure that the image was gone. After a moment, he realised that his cheek was stinging. Carefully, he extracted a small shard of glass from just below his left eye and dropped it in the fireplace, before wiping away the smallest drop of blood.

From down the hall, he could hear the strains of Mahler’s
Symphony No. 2
coming from the room of a seriously disturbed German theology student, who had been playing the same music almost non-stop since September. Turning back to the desk, Ashton extracted three envelopes from under his pile of books and placed them in a row, aligning their edges carefully with those of the table. The brown A4 manila envelope addressed to Professor Box contained his essay on the causes of World War One. It was a day late – the first time he had ever missed a deadline – but, still, he knew it was a good effort, probably deserving of an A, or an A – at the very least. A stickler for deadlines, Box would doubtless even refuse to look at it, but Ashton had finished it, so he might as well send it.