Never Apologise, Never Explain - James Craig [37]
There were three images showing a weary, unshaven and slightly overweight middle-aged bloke, wearing a jacket and a jumper. He looked pretty vacant and totally nondescript. ‘Why don’t you send me one of those?’ he said, handing back the handset.
‘Fine.’ She hit a couple more keys and a few moments later, he felt a familiar buzzing in his pocket.
‘Anything else?’ he asked.
‘Like what?’
‘Emails, phone calls, threats . . . anything like that?’
‘No. I’ve asked him myself to go away a couple of times. He kind of trudges off a little way down the road, and then stands hovering under a street light or something.’
Carlyle scratched his head, trying to think of what else she could tell him. ‘Has he ever asked you for anything?’
‘Like what?’
He made a face. ‘Like . . . I dunno, an autograph?’
‘He’s never asked for anything,’ she smiled weakly, ‘other than my hand in marriage, that is.’
Carlyle changed tack. ‘What else did the sergeant say?’
‘Nothing really. She said that the guy was probably harmless but that I should be vigilant and call 999 if he ever threatened me.’ For the first time this morning, she gave Carlyle some proper eye contact. ‘It wasn’t very reassuring, to be honest. I mean, it’s not like it hasn’t happened before.’
‘This has happened before?’ he asked, confused.
‘Not to me,’ Snowdon said. ‘But I’m not the first presenter to be targeted.’
‘Yes.’ Carlyle remembered the case, a decade or so earlier, of a newsreader who had been shot dead on the street. That had been in Fulham too, if he remembered correctly. Maybe all newsreaders lived down there. The place had certainly risen in the world since the days when young Master Carlyle had grown up there.
‘What a mess that was!’ Rosanna exclaimed.
‘The dark side of fame,’ Carlyle mused. ‘The thing is, Singleton’s advice is basically sensible.’ He knew that it wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but it was all he had.
‘Look,’ she said, trying to press him further, ‘I know you think that I am a bit of an autocutie airhead—’
‘A what?’
‘A pushy bimbo.’
‘No.’ He tried to put some conviction into his voice. ‘Of course not.’
‘All I want is to do my job and be left in peace, Inspector. That is reasonable enough, surely?’
‘Of course.’
‘It’s a quality-of-life issue. I know this guy is probably not such a big deal, but he is beginning to get to me.’
‘That’s understandable,’ Carlyle said. Reasonableness personified.
She traced the lip of her glass with her right index finger. ‘And you owe me, remember?’
Here we go, Carlyle thought. He had been waiting for this moment and nodded in acknowledgement.
‘Well,’ she told him, ‘if you can help me on this, it will make us even. More than even. You can come on London Crime any time you want, although not talking about this business, obviously. The new series starts next week and we could do with covering some decent cases for a change.’
‘I will do what I can,’ Carlyle smiled. ‘Don’t worry about the show – that’s not my kind of thing.’
‘God!’ She rolled her eyes to the ceiling, and he watched her breasts swell inside her blouse. ‘You must be the only cop in London who doesn’t want to get himself on telly.’
He grimaced slightly, forcing his gaze back to eye level. ‘The way I see it, having to go on your show – any show really – is an admission of failure.’
‘Not really.’ Rosanna half-lifted her mint tea to her lips and then returned it gently to the table. ‘All you are trying to do is use the medium to good advantage.’
‘But how often does it get results?’
That stopped her in her tracks. ‘Well . . .’
He wondered if she’d ever really thought about it before. It was just some cheap entertainment. So who cared if it actually caught any criminals? But he pushed these thoughts to one side; he wasn’t here to put her on the spot. ‘I’ve become slightly involved in the Jake Hagger case,’ he said, moving the discussion on. ‘It’s not one of mine, but I know the mother.’
‘Ah yes,’ she nodded, ‘the little boy who was snatched from the nursery by his father.’
‘Did