Never Apologise, Never Explain - James Craig [53]
‘Restraint is my middle name,’ Carlyle said genially.
‘Yes, well . . .’ Even Simpson had to repress a grin at his chutzpah. ‘Well done on that Mills thing, by the way.’
‘Thank you,’ Carlyle said.
‘Nice and neat,’ she said, resisting the temptation to add ‘for once’.
‘It looks that way,’ Carlyle agreed, ‘but there are still one or two loose ends.’
‘Like what?’ Simpson groaned. How could this irritating little man turn even the most straightforward domestic homicide of the year into a problem?
‘Mrs Mills, the victim, had made some enemies.’
‘Including her husband.’
‘Maybe.’
‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ Simpson huffed. ‘You know as well as I do, that in domestic cases like these, killing yourself is usually a fairly clear admission of guilt. Take the win, Inspector, and move on.’
‘I will.’ Standing up, he decided not to push his luck any further.
‘Good,’ said Simpson stiffly, gathering up the papers on her desk. ‘You know the way out.’
SEVENTEEN
A solitary young man sat at a table on the pavement outside Café La Marquise on the Edgware Road. Holding a small cube of sugar to the surface of his strong, syrupy Turkish coffee, he watched it turn brown before letting it drop it into the demitasse. Picking up his teaspoon, he began carefully stirring his coffee, eyeing the small band of anti-war protestors as he did so.
What a rabble, he thought. There were maybe seventy people taking part, at the very most, with almost as many police in attendance. All they were doing was holding up the traffic and preventing normal, law-abiding people from going about their business as they made their way slowly down the middle of the road, heading towards Hyde Park and a rally at Speakers’ Corner. All the usual banners that he’d become familiar with recently were there: Socialist Worker, Stop the War Coalition, Students for Justice, etc., etc., carried by sallow, ill-looking people you would cross the road to avoid; all in all, nothing more than a bunch of pathetic, disorganised, ego-crazed losers.
He took a sip of his coffee and let the sweetness soften his mood. Towards the back of the crowd, he saw the banner he had been waiting for, and the three women underneath it, two of them holding the poles and one handing out leaflets while trying to start the occasional chant that invariably petered out almost as quickly as it began:
‘What do we want?
‘Troops out!
‘When do we want it?
‘NOW!’
The conversations at the tables had stopped as the other patrons watched the protestors go by. Those British and their passions! To foreigners living in London, they were an endless source of amusement. Catching the eye of a gawping waiter, he ordered another coffee as the semi-organised shouting started up again.
Get a life, he thought. As far as he could see, the three women leading the chants were virtually the whole organisation, yet they were trying to cause him so much trouble. He felt the familiar fury rising up inside him. It was ridiculous that he should have to waste his time on them; ridiculous but necessary – for his own sake and that of his comrades.
He fingered the leaflet that another protestor had dropped on his table as he had passed by. More slogans, more platitudes, more hopeless posturing:
‘Justice for the victims of the Ishaqi massacre!’
Like the victims care any more, he thought.
‘STOP THE WAR!’
I was there; you weren’t.
‘END THE MERCENARY KILLINGS!’
The anger blossomed in his chest. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Leaning down, he grabbed an anti-war flyer from the pavement, carefully folding it in half and then folding it in