Never Apologise, Never Explain - James Craig [32]
‘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