Never Apologise, Never Explain - James Craig [52]
The way he saw it, she was either extremely selfish or she had the self-awareness of a goldfish. Either way, Carlyle eyed her with a mixture of extreme distrust and antipathy. However, with much effort, he found that he could tolerate her well enough, as long as their paths did not cross too often. When they did, he felt as if his brain was overheating, and he was always too close to speaking his mind.
Simpson looked down at the notes she had scribbled on her pad.
‘About this bus . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘There’s been a complaint.’ Simpson kept her voice firmly neutral.
‘Oh?’ He placed what he hoped was a butter-wouldn’t-melt look on his face and concentrated on trying to keep it there.
‘A woman called Sandra Groves says that you assaulted her,’ Simpson continued. ‘She says that there is video evidence.’
Sandra Groves? It suddenly dawned on Carlyle that she must be the religious loony from the bus; he had never checked the woman’s name. He grinned sheepishly and adopted the tone of a casual observer with no axe to grind.
‘Well, what happened was . . .’
For the next few minutes, he talked the commander through the events of the previous week, throwing in as much detail as he could recall, relevant or not, without addressing Ms Groves’s accusation either directly or indirectly. He did this safe in the knowledge that Joe Szyszkowski’s report backed him up 100 per cent. Moreover, Groves and her boyfriend not only had been charged, but already had records for previous public-order offences, as well as a couple of outstanding parking tickets. The only thing that could have caused him any problem, the video, had since been erased from the camera’s memory stick. Just to be on the safe side, the camera itself had accidentally been run over – several times – by the back wheel of a police Range Rover in the garage of Charing Cross police station before being deposited in a rubbish bin on the Strand. Carlyle was confident that its remains were well on their way to some illegal landfill-dump in India by now. The complaint might lead to a formal investigation, but he knew that he was in the clear.
‘And then . . .’
His monologue was interrupted by the sound of a mobile phone. Irritated, Simpson plucked at various pieces of paper before finding it buzzing on the desk. Checking the caller’s identity, without preamble she said, ‘Hold on one minute.’ Standing up, she raised a forefinger to Carlyle, indicating that she would not be long, before quickly stepping out of the room.
As the door closed behind her, Carlyle’s gaze fell on Simpson’s desk. Leaning forward, he couldn’t resist a quick peek. Over the years, he had become quite adept at reading things upside down from a short distance. Next to what were clearly the reports of the Groves case, which he could easily read when he got back to Charing Cross if he felt the need, was a fancy-looking invitation card. The black script was a bit small, but he could make it out without having to leave his seat:
Christian Holyrod, Mayor of London, and Claudio Orb, Ambassador of Chile to the Court of St James’s, invite you to a reception at City Hall organised by the Anglo-Chilean Defence Technologies Association. The event will celebrate our two great countries’ long history of co-operation and support, as well as England’s long-standing association with Chilean naval hero Agustín Arturo Prat Chacón.
More Chileans. What were the odds of some connection? He was wondering who Agustín Arturo Prat Chacón was, when he heard the commander re-enter the room.
Simpson smiled thinly as she sat down behind her desk. ‘So, where were we?’ she asked, folding her arms and sitting back.
‘Sandra Groves,’ said Carlyle amiably. ‘After I had been assaulted, we restrained her and her boyfriend . . .’
A minute or so into his continuing monologue, Simpson held up her