That figures, Carlyle thought. Feeling a hand on his shoulder, he turned around.
‘Hello, boss.’ Joe Szyszkowski returned the hand to his jacket pocket and rocked gently on his heels.
‘What’s going on?’ Carlyle repeated.
‘It’s Dennis Felix.’
‘Who?’
‘The bongo player in the piazza.’ Joe pulled him away from the WPC, so they were now standing in the middle of the empty road. ‘Apparently,’ he said in a stage whisper, ‘he’d contracted anthrax.’
Carlyle scratched his head. ‘Jesus!’
‘Quite. They reckon that he must have caught it from the animal skins he used on his bongo drums.’
‘Unlucky,’ said Carlyle, trying to dredge up some information from the recesses of his brain about what anthrax was and how exactly you caught it. As far as he could recall, you inhaled spores, but what that might have to do with animal skins, he had no idea. Bloody hell! He suddenly wondered – could he have caught it too? As far as he could recall, he hadn’t actually touched the drums, but had got reasonably close to take a look. As casually as he could manage, he rubbed his throat and gave a little cough. Maybe he was feeling a bit under the weather today?
‘They’ve sent in a couple of guys wearing biohazard suits,’ Joe continued, oblivious to his boss’s personal medical concerns, ‘to collect the bongos from the evidence locker. The station was evacuated about half an hour ago.’
‘Jesus.’ Carlyle rubbed his throat more vigorously this time.
‘It’s caused quite a stir.’
‘I can imagine,’ Carlyle replied, worried about the little tickle he could now detect in his throat whenever he swallowed.
‘And Dave Prentice has been sent off to the hospital for a check-up.’
Prentice? What about me? Telling himself not to be such a big girl’s blouse, Carlyle considered how he had been the one who had told Prentice to bring the damn bongos back to the station. He couldn’t have known that they were a bloody health hazard, but if Prentice got sick or, God forbid, died, Carlyle could easily see how it could end up being his fault. He felt his pulse quicken slightly. ‘It can’t be that serious, can it?’
‘Nah,’ Joe replied, looking slightly less than completely convinced. ‘You know what these things are like – panic, scare people shitless, then walk away. It’s the usual drill.’
Let’s hope so, Carlyle thought.
‘Anyway,’ said Joe, ‘I think I’m going to call it a day. The missus is cooking a curry tonight. See you tomorrow.’
‘Okay, see you tomorrow.’ Carlyle watched Joe set off down the road and wondered what he himself should do next. He had reached no particular conclusion, when Joe stopped, turned and walked halfway back towards him.
‘I almost forgot,’ the sergeant shouted. ‘You had a call from a Fiona Singleton.’
Carlyle made a face indicating that the name hadn’t registered.
‘She’s a sergeant at Fulham,’ Joe explained.
Singleton, Carlyle now remembered, was the officer who had listened to Rosanna Snowdon’s complaint about her stalker, a loser called . . . Carlyle tried to recall the guy’s name from their meeting at Patisserie Valerie, but it was another detail that escaped him. Maybe anthrax made your memory go funny. ‘Did she say what it was about?’
‘No.’ Joe shook his head.
At least she’s discreet, Carlyle thought. He held up a hand to Joe. ‘Okay, I’ll give her a call. Thanks. See you tomorrow.’
‘Sure, no problem.’ Joe turned and headed off again. This time he kept going. Carlyle watched him disappear round the corner, then took his official work mobile out of his jacket pocket, found the number he wanted and listened to it ring. He was almost resigned to leaving a voicemail, when a real live person finally responded at the other end.
‘Hello?’
‘Susan?’
‘Ah, John,’ the woman laughed. ‘Let me guess, you are standing on Agar Street, wondering what the hell is going on?’
‘Actually,’ he told her, ‘I’m just round the corner wondering what the hell is going on.’
‘Not a bad guess, huh?’
‘Susan Phillips – so much more than just your everyday pathologist.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
‘It most definitely is a compliment. What the hell is going on? My sergeant tells me it’s an anthrax scare. Should I be running to find the nearest hospital or the nearest priest?’
‘Neither really,’ Phillips sighed, all laughter draining from her voice now. ‘What’s happening down there is a complete overreaction. Poor Mr Felix did indeed die as a result of inhaling anthrax, almost certainly transferred from the skins on his drums.’
‘How did he manage that?’
‘He was a guy who liked to travel and I’m guessing that he got the skins in Africa. It’s fairly common for animals to ingest or inhale the spores while grazing. Diseased animals can spread anthrax to humans. Maybe he ate the flesh or, more likely, inhaled some spores while putting the skins on the drums himself.’
‘Poor sod,’ said Carlyle, with feeling.
‘He was very, very unlucky,’ Phillips agreed. ‘It’s not unheard of, but the risk to anyone else has got to be negligible.’
‘So what’s with the boys in the Noddy suits?’ Carlyle asked.
‘Good question,’ Phillips replied. ‘Someone should have come along and quietly removed the evidence. Then I could have run some further tests and we could have kept an eye on anyone we thought might have had even a tiny chance of catching anything. Going into the station like that was way over the top.’
‘Whose decision was it?’
There was a pause on the other end of the line. ‘Who do you think?’
‘Simpson?’
Phillips lowered her voice a notch. ‘Commander Carole Simpson, everyone’s favourite bureaucrat.’
‘But how did this problem reach all the way up to her?’
‘You know how these things work, John,’ Phillips said. ‘No one would make a decision, so it was kicked up the chain of command until it got to someone who couldn’t pass the buck any further and had to do something.’
‘Safety-first Simpson.’
‘This isn’t safety first,’ Phillips scoffed, ‘this is blind panic. She’s probably petrified of being sued by anyone who’s stepped inside Charing Cross in the last twenty-four hours.’
‘Quite,’ Carlyle agreed. ‘Maybe I should sue her myself.’
Phillips laughed. ‘Maybe you should. I’m sure your Federation rep would be only too happy to help.’
‘No question about it.’
There were voices in the background. Phillips told someone, ‘Don’t worry, I’m coming,’ and there was a pause while she listened to a reply. ‘John,’ she said, coming back on the line, ‘I need to get on now. But don’t worry. Trust me, there’s no risk. Doubtless there’ll be lots of messing about for the next few hours, but everything should be back to normal by tomorrow morning. If I were you, I’d just take the rest of the afternoon off.’
‘Good idea!’ Carlyle was pleased that his fears had been allayed. ‘Thanks for the tip. Good to speak to you, Susan. See you soon.’
‘You too, John. Take care.’
The line went dead and Carlyle stood for a moment glancing up and down the street. Nothing much had changed: still the same WPC on one side of the tape and a small group of onlookers on the other. Then he saw a camera crew making its way towards them from the direction of St Martin’s Lane. ‘That’s my cue to leave,’ he said to himself and set off in the opposite direction, heading towards the piazza where Dennis Felix had drummed his last.
Reaching King Street, he checked the clock on his mobile. He just about had time for a quick workout at Jubilee Hall gym and still get home in time to meet Alice when she got back from school. That was the kind of metrosexual multi-tasking that would impress Helen more than his making it over to Padding-ton for lunch. At least, he hoped so. Bringing the handset to his ear, he let a smile cross his lips as he prepared to give her the good news.