London Calling - James Craig [48]
‘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