London Calling - James Craig [50]
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,