‘Bummer,’ said Carlyle, getting to his feet.
‘To be honest, I stopped caring long ago. Like I said, when she finally left, it was more of a relief than anything else. I’m sure it didn’t do Taimur any good. But I didn’t expect he’d do anything like this, though.’
The inspector extended a hand and they shook. ‘You should go and see him.’
Safi sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector, but I think I’ll leave that to his mother. She’s probably trying to arrange Bible classes as we speak.’
‘Up to you,’ Carlyle said. ‘If I need anything else . . .’
Safi spread his arms wide. ‘I’m always here. Open or closed.’
‘Thank you. We’ll be in touch.’ Carlyle reached for the door.
Safi scowled at Mushudur, who was sprawled across the counter, picking his nose. ‘You wanna kebab to go?’
‘I’m good.’ Pulling open the door, the inspector made a break for the relatively fresh air of the street. ‘Thanks.’
TWENTY-ONE
Grimacing, Carlyle dropped the two plastic bags full of groceries onto the kitchen floor and set about massaging the circulation back into his fingers. Plastic bag technology; one thing that hadn’t apparently evolved all that much over the years. When he had finally recovered feeling in both hands, he stepped over to the fridge and pulled out a well-deserved bottle of Tiger beer. Taking a bottle opener from the drawer next to the sink, he flipped off the cap and drank deeply. ‘Aah.’
‘So you’re back then?’
Smiling, Carlyle offered his wife the bottle.
Keeping her expression neutral, Helen shook her head. ‘No, thanks.’
‘Tough day?’
‘Just the usual,’ she sighed. ‘Arguing over how to spend the money we don’t have. Deciding who lives, who dies. That sort of thing.’
Not for the first time, Carlyle wondered if it was perhaps time for Helen to think about a change of job. Twenty years of working for a medical charity where – literally – you had to take life and death decisions almost every day was enough to take its toll on anyone. Placing the beer bottle by the sink, he stepped over to give her a kiss. As he did so, she bent down to pick up the shopping, leaving him to brush past the top of her head.
‘What did you get?’ she asked.
He watched nervously as she hoisted the bags onto the worktop next to the cooker and began decanting his purchases. This domestic ritual was like having your homework marked – except that you always knew in advance that you had failed. ‘Er,’ he stammered, ‘I got most of what you wanted.’ I hope.
Helen pulled out a jumbo box of Jaffa Cakes and waved them at him accusingly. ‘What about these?’
‘You can’t beat a nice Jaffa Cake,’ Carlyle observed, well aware that they had not been on her list.
‘Hm.’ Next out of the bag came the jumbo tin of fruit cocktail, one of his favourites, followed by a large can of baked beans. ‘And these?’ He shrugged helplessly as she began rummaging through the bags with increasing exasperation. ‘Bloody hell, John, where’s the spinach I asked you to get? And the onions?’
Christ. He knew he’d forgotten something. ‘They didn’t have any,’ he lied.
She looked at him suspiciously. ‘Why is it that a man of your age can’t even go to the supermarket and get some simple-’ Grabbing his choice of toilet roll, she looked like she was going to cry. ‘And what is this?’
The apparent simplicity of the question made him nervous. ‘It’s . . . er, loo paper.’
‘Yes, but it’s the wrong colour.’
The wrong colour? Walking down the aisle of the supermarket, the inspector had just picked up the first thing that had come to hand. ‘It is?’
‘Of course it is,’ she wailed. ‘It’s blue.’
For the first time in his life, the inspector pondered the issue of the right colour for toilet paper. ‘What would be the right colour, then?’
Resisting the urge to throw it at him, she dumped the pack back down on the counter. ‘I wanted white.’
‘Ah.’ Attempting to defuse the situation, he tried to pull her towards him for a cuddle. But Helen was having none of it and she pushed him brusquely away. ‘For God’s sake, you are so useless! Why is it I have to do everything around here?’
Jesus, he thought, here we go again. It was a familiar refrain and he was wearied by it. Overall, he reckoned that he did his share of the family chores – but what he saw as a daily point-scoring exercise was increasingly driving him mad. We’re both getting older, he thought, and more crotchety. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whined, ‘but they just didn’t have any.’
‘Hm.’ Helen started putting the food away. ‘Did you get some butter?’
‘Yes.’ Thank God for that.
‘Salted?’
‘Er.’ He held his breath as Helen pulled a small block wrapped in golden foil from one of the bags and carefully inspected the labelling.
‘Salted.’ Shooting him a rueful smile, she pulled open the fridge and placed it on one of the shelves on the inside of the door. ‘Very good.’
Phew. Carlyle reached for his bottle.
‘By the way, I spoke to Christina today. She’d love us to do some babysitting.’
I’m sure she would, thought Carlyle unhappily, sucking down the last of the beer before dropping the empty bottle in the waste bin under the sink.
‘So I said we’d take Ella tomorrow night.’
Shit.
‘Christina wants Umar to take her to a Chinese restaurant in Soho that they liked to go to before Ella was born.’
‘Okay.’ He tried not to grimace.
‘What’s happening tomorrow night?’ Alice appeared in the doorway. She was wearing jeans and a Stiff Little Fingers ‘Nobody’s Hero’ T-shirt. Carlyle smiled. His daughter’s interest in punk rock had lasted far longer than he would ever have expected. Having expropriated Carlyle’s collection of Clash, Jam and Elvis Costello CDs, she had moved on to the likes of SLF and the Buzzcocks, happily mixing Ian Dury and Graham Parker with whatever pop fluff was currently flavour of the moment among teenage girls. God knows what her friends at school made of it, but her father was chuffed to bits.
Alice caught him staring at the T-shirt. ‘Cool, eh?’
‘Great.’
She started into a tuneless rendition of ‘Alternative Ulster’, bobbing and weaving like a miniature facsimile punk. Carlyle wondered if she had the first clue what the song was actually about.
‘Where did you get it?’
She stopped pogo-ing. ‘I found it in the vintage shop on Drury Lane last week.’
‘Result.’ He didn’t dare ask how much it had cost.
‘They’ve got a concert coming up soon, in Kilburn. I thought maybe we could go?’
Carlyle glanced at Helen. It was a long time since he had been to a rock concert.
‘Don’t look at me,’ his wife smirked. ‘All this stuff was after my time.’
‘As if . . .’ Carlyle snorted.
‘The tickets are only twenty-five quid,’ Alice persisted. ‘And Spear of Destiny are the support act.’
Spear of Destiny? Bloody hell, he thought, are they still going as well? Don’t any of these bands ever die? ‘Well, maybe. We’ll see.’
Alice seemed happy enough with that response. ‘Okay,’ she said cheerily. ‘And in the meantime, what’s happening tomorrow night?’
‘We’re babysitting Ella for Christina and Umar,’ Helen explained, carefully putting the last of the groceries in a cupboard and stuffing the empty plastic bags under the sink. ‘So they can have a night out.’