Never Apologise, Never Explain - James Craig [22]
Dropping his empty bottles in a bin, he crossed the road and stepped inside, experiencing the usual mix of pleasure and guilt at bunking off, even if only for a short while.
When he finally returned to Charing Cross police station, Carlyle dawdled at his desk, still in no hurry to get into the interview room. If Mills was going to stick to his Chilean story, it was likely to be a long and painful afternoon. Carlyle had endured more than his share of domestics over the years, and it was always a struggle spending hours going round the houses just to get formal confirmation of what you already knew. The endless ability of people to delude themselves never ceased to amaze him. Numbers, on the other hand, never lied. Carlyle was a firm believer in statistics, and the statistics told you that most victims were killed by people they knew. It was common sense, of course: usually, the only people you can annoy enough for them to want to kill you, are your nearest and dearest. Carlyle knew of several occasions when he himself might have been in serious trouble if Helen had been holding a skillet at the time – or vice versa. That was just a reality of everyday life . . . and death.
On his way to the basement he passed the front desk, eyeing the usual motley collection of supplicants waiting to be disappointed in one way or another. He nodded at Sergeant Dave Prentice, chewing on the end of a pencil while he contemplated some form that was lying in front of him.
‘Dave.’
The desk sergeant pulled the pencil out of his mouth and looked up. ‘John.’ He had the exhausted look of a man who had spent too long on the front line, trying to keep the public at bay. Carlyle, like everyone else in the station, knew that he was counting down the days to his long-awaited retirement to Theydon Bois, a suburb at the eastern end of the Central Line.
‘Anything interesting today?’
‘Not really.’ Prentice nodded towards a sickly-looking man in chinos and a white shirt, sitting on one of the benches. ‘That bloke,’ he whispered, smirking, ‘says some schoolgirls tried to beat him up in the National Gallery.’
Carlyle looked at the guy. There wasn’t a mark to be seen on him. ‘Where are the schoolgirls?’
‘They did a runner.’
‘Stands to reason.’
‘But the guy insists on making a complaint,’ Prentice sighed. ‘What a tosser. He can sit there for a while. Anyway, did you hear about Dog?’
‘No. What’s he done now?’ Carlyle asked. Walter Poonoosamy was a regular nuisance in the neighbourhood. His nickname came from his preferred way of chiselling tourists, asking them for cash to support his fictitious pet Labrador which went by the name Lucky.
‘He was found dead last night in a pew in the Actors’ Church,’ Prentice explained. ‘The rector came across him there when he was closing up. Gave him quite a scare, apparently. They reckon it was a heart attack. He was only forty-four, which is amazing considering he looked well north of sixty.’
‘I suppose so,’ Carlyle conceded. ‘But at least he beat the odds.’
Prentice looked at him quizzically. ‘How do you mean?’
‘I read somewhere that the life expectancy for homeless guys is forty-one. If he made it to forty-four, Dog beat that by almost ten per cent.’
Prentice shrugged. ‘Tough old world.’
‘Yes,’ said Carlyle, ‘it sure is.’
Upstairs, Joe was waiting for him.