Falling More Slowly (4 page)

‘Is she alive?’

He looked up at Austin. ‘Barely, I think.’ He felt helpless, useless, but pushed the feeling back, swallowing it down. ‘What the hell happened here? What was that thing that blew up there?’ He gestured with his head at the smoking fire at the centre of the devastation. He was a stranger in town again, he had no idea what this place ought to look like.

‘Eh? Ehm, it was just some sort of rustic shelter with benches all round. Kids use it for snogging and cider drinking. Tramps sleep in it sometimes. Uniform move them on.’

‘So it was just … wooden? I mean, I can see it was, but there was nothing else to it, nothing in it that could blow up like that? It’s one hell of a blaze. Can you smell petrol?’

Austin nodded grimly. ‘Yeah, that’s not a simple wood fire. But it was just a big wooden shelter on a concrete base. Nothing else to it.’

‘It was a bomb then. Must have been.’ A thin mist of rain began to fall. He looked around him. Constable Hanham was trying to help the howling boy but couldn’t persuade him to move his hands off his face. Austin was circling the burning jumble of timber, shooing away some kids. A
young woman had appeared next to McLusky, bending down to the victim. ‘I’m a nurse.’ She spoke in a matter-of-fact way, as though unaffected by what had happened, and proceeded to check that the woman’s airways were clear, and covered her body with her coat.

That’s what I should have done, McLusky thought, I’m useless. He could hear the first sirens over the screeching and warbling of the car alarms. A small crowd of onlookers had gathered. People were taking photographs; some had camcorders, every other person appeared to be snapping away on mobiles. He pulled out his own and began to do the same, taking a 360 degree shot of the scene of destruction, confusion, anxiety, curiosity. Where was the bloody ambulance? The first to arrive were a couple of patrol cars at the bottom of the hill. They parked some way off on the grass, knowing that fire and ambulance had to come through soon. Thinking ahead, professional. Next to arrive were the fire engines. By now there wasn’t much of a fire to put out; the drizzle had increased, keeping the flames down.

A constable pointed a fireman in his direction.

‘You in charge here?’

‘For the time being. I’m DI McLusky.’

‘I’m Barrett, senior fire officer.’ He stood next to McLusky and watched his officers deal swiftly and efficiently with the incident, looking after the victims, damping down what was left of the fire. ‘CID? You got here quickly. We usually get to incidents long before you lot. You’d send Uniform to scout first, surely?’

‘We were passing, heard the explosion. It was quite a bang. I’m no expert but I suspect it doesn’t take much to blow up a wooden shelter. Someone made very sure it would go up properly. We could feel the shockwave. Some people got blown over standing twenty yards away.’

‘My guess is some kind of accelerant was used, too. There was no warning?’ There was suspicion in the man’s voice. ‘You weren’t here because you got a call …?’

‘Nothing like that. My DS would have mentioned something if things were likely to go bang in this town.’
My DS
. He indicated Austin who was locked in an argument with a tourist about relinquishing the memory card of his camera to him so they could examine the images on it. Camcorder man didn’t look happy. ‘I think I’d have been made aware of any bomb threats, even though it’s my first day here.’

‘I know.’

McLusky widened his eyes at him.

‘It might be your first day but you do keep busy, DI McLusky. You attended the Nunnery Lane incident earlier but then disappeared before I could talk to you. The house will have to be pulled down, by the way. Let us have your report on that as soon as you can. It’s certainly a weird one.’

‘Is it?’ McLusky didn’t think so. People used the weapons that came to hand. If they had sticks they’d use sticks, if you gave them guns they’d use guns. He thought he understood the appeal of a wheeled digger. He squinted with worry into the worsening rain. It would take some creative writing to show that he had made best use of the equipment by stuffing the Skoda under the digger.

‘You formed any opinions as to who and why yet, inspector? Terrorism? Here?’

‘Strange target for a terrorist. When did they take to blowing up park benches?’

‘What then, vandals?’

‘Don’t know yet. But I intend to find out.’

At last the ambulances arrived, fifteen minutes after Hanham had made the call, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Both the boy and the unconscious woman were stretchered off and driven away very soon with Blues and Twos. Those with minor injuries were being assessed by paramedics on the grass opposite the smouldering remains of the shelter. Most injuries came down to splinters and bruises where wooden debris had thumped into bodies. In the end only two more casualties, both suffering from
shock, were sent up to the Royal Infirmary. The hyperventilating woman recovered enough to be collected by a relative in a taxi.

Austin arrived by McLusky’s side, holding several memory cards he had requisitioned from cameras and mobiles, and nodded at the large grey Ford coming to a halt behind the collection of emergency vehicles at the bottom of the hill. ‘Super’s here.’

The arrival of Superintendent Denkhaus electrified the constable guarding that end of the road. Denkhaus walked straight at him and at the police tape as though neither existed. The constable lifted the tape high over the man’s head and the burly policeman walked through without acknowledgement. He was aiming at him, McLusky noticed, but the superintendent’s face gave nothing away. After what Austin had said earlier he hoped the man wasn’t on a diet.

Denkhaus pointed a fleshy digit as he approached and stopped just short of poking his new DI in the chest with it. ‘DI McLusky, you had an appointment with me at nine o’clock this morning.’ His voice boomed loud enough for several uniforms to turn their heads.

‘I know, I’m sorry, sir, something urgent came up.’ He put on what he thought of as his reasonable face.

‘I heard all about it. You’d be surprised how quickly news of the complete annihilation of police property travels on this force. You chose to intervene in what was clearly not a CID matter even though you had business elsewhere. With me. Next time I ask you to my office, and I think that might happen very, very soon, you’ll make it a priority and will get there on time. Clear?’

‘Very clear, sir.’

‘I bloody well hope so. So what the fuck happened here?’

Inside the cramped Mercedes command unit parked in Charlotte Street Superintendent Denkhaus doled out tasks to the team in a practised stream, much of it devoid of punctuation. Then he slowed to add a few more thoughts. ‘Colin Keale, most of you will remember, planted three pipe bombs behind the Magistrates’ two years ago and got twelve months suspended because of his medical history. I sent Uniform round there to pick him up and see if he’s up to his old tricks again. In the absence of DCI Gaunt, DI McLusky, who most of you will have met by now, will be in charge of this investigation. That’s all.’ He looked around the familiar faces in the room, several of which allowed their surprise to show. Like DS Sorbie: sharp, smart and dark; DI Kat Fairfield: immaculate, eager and self-possessed. DS Sorbie was fiercely chewing his biro while watching DI Fairfield for a reaction to the news that the new man was in charge. Kat Fairfield was looking straight ahead, rigid with anger, avoiding all eye contact. ‘Carry on, then. DI McLusky? A word.’

McLusky followed his superior outside. Denkhaus pointed a fat finger straight at his chest, lightly tapping his tie. ‘It’s your investigation for several reasons. A, because you somehow managed to be first on the scene. B, because I like to shake things up and C, because it’ll give you a chance to jump in at the deep end. You won’t have to run after anybody, they’ll all come to you. You’ll not make many friends but then I’m not running a social club. And
there’ll be a lot of questions, none of which you can answer since you only just got here. My theory is that by the end of it you’ll know the answers and feel right at home. Of course there’s always the possibility that you’ll completely louse it up in which case I’ll make your sojourn in the city a short one. You might not be in charge for long, of course. You know how it is, not that this looks much like a terrorist bomb, but anything goes bang and CAT will immediately want to take over. I’m expecting a visit from them soon and I want to be able to show them that we’re not a band of yokels waiting to be rescued by the Combined Anti-Terrorism bunch. Colin Keale went before the magistrate for drunk and disorderly, resisting arrest etc. and got a fine. He took exception to this and built some pipe bombs which he set off behind the courts. They weren’t really meant to harm anyone, just meant to express his displeasure with one hell of a bang. He’s got mental problems, that boy. In a way I hope it’s not him, because that would mean his illness just progressed. We’ll see. What’s your first impression, anyway?’

‘Hard to say, sir. It was quite a blast but an unlikely target for even the weirdest terror group. We might be looking for local lads here.’

‘Let’s hope so. I agree it’s a strange place to plant a bomb. But then bombers are weird by definition, which makes them so dangerous.’ He checked his improbably thin wristwatch. ‘I’ll be going to lunch now after which I will be in my office.’

‘There’s only one thing, sir …’

‘Yes?’

‘I don’t have any transport at the moment.’

Denkhaus’s nostrils flared. ‘Then get a space hopper or something, I fear we’re fresh out of Skodas! And you can also stop using my uniformed officers as chauffeurs, they’re needed for more important things than driving young DIs around town.’ A passing constable smiled grimly.
Too right
.

Despite the extended side pods – the van’s ‘hamster pouches’ – the office of the Mercedes command unit was small for all the bodies crammed inside it. When McLusky went back in a few heads remained studiously down while some of the detectives studied the new man with open curiosity.

He stood in front of the whiteboard. Austin had spent some time bringing him up to speed with the current caseload they were battling. It was quite insane but average for a city this size. He hoped he could strike the right note. ‘Okay, I’ll make this short. There’s always a chance that Mr Keale of past pipe-bomb fame is responsible, but let’s not pin our hopes on it. We do however want a quick result on this and we’re stretched, with lots of Uniform tied up doing fingertip searches of the park. There’s also the matter, I’ve been told, of hunting a roving gang of mobile phone muggers that appears to be high on the super’s list of priorities.’

Some murmurs and groans. The public – and the press – saw the so-called Mobile Muggers as the main menace in the city. Until today perhaps. Chasing them down to get them off the
Evening Post
’s front page had until now been one of the superintendent’s pet projects.

‘That’s why even overqualified detectives like DI Fairfield will be joining in the house-to-house effort to bring in as many witness statements as possible by the end of the day.’ A curt nod from Fairfield, a hard stare from her DS. ‘Anything to do with explosions will naturally attract the attentions of the Combined Anti-Terrorism people. Several of them may even as I speak be riding west to pay us a visit.’ Groans. ‘The super feels it would be nice to have something to show our visitors, specifically evidence of our competence, brilliance, efficiency and, I’m sure, cost effectiveness.’ Boos and ironic cheers. ‘Any questions?’

Only a few hands went up, everyone wanted to get going. He dealt swiftly with the questions then dismissed his troops. ‘Right, let’s do it.’

Shuffling of papers. The team were getting ready, most to go out, a few to start sifting through the witness statements already taken.

The relief of having started work began to relax his shoulders. He shook a cigarette out of the packet and lit it, mainly to dampen his hunger. That Danish was a distant memory to his stomach.

‘Sir?’ It was Sorbie, standing by the exit door.

‘Yup?’

‘It’s no smoking in here, sir.’

He grunted an acknowledgement and went to stand outside, watching the detectives troop off, Sorbie and DI Fairfield among them. There’d been no time to talk to the inspector. If she felt resentful about a newcomer of identical rank and seniority being put in charge then she hid it well. Fairfield seemed the efficient type. Very smartly dressed and almost too good-looking for a detective. He wasn’t sure himself what he meant by that but wondered how suspects reacted, most of them young and male, in the interview room, for instance.

At least it had stopped raining for a bit. Austin joined him. ‘Couldn’t scrounge another cigarette, sir, could I?’

McLusky obliged. ‘If you’re going to keep smoking my cigarettes you might as well call me by my name. I’m Liam.’

‘I’m Jane.’

‘You are?’

‘Well, it’s James Austin, so everyone calls me Jane.’

‘You don’t mind?’

‘Not really. Bit late for that anyway. She lived just down the road in Bath, did you know that?’

‘Did she?’

Austin nodded. ‘She hated it. Too pretentious, too noisy.’

Too noisy. McLusky reckoned here in the park the police made all the noise. Calls, engines, doors slamming, the growls of so-called low-noise generators. ‘It’s beginning to look like a bloody film set out there.’

It was a gloomy day so arc lights had already been set up to make sure crime scene investigators and Forensics didn’t miss anything. This side of the park was out of bounds to the public now, entrances closed off. Lines of uniformed police were doing a fingertip search of the surrounding area. Every bit of debris, down to the smallest wood splinter, was being recovered. A photographer with a large video camera took endless shots of the scene, the surroundings, the entire operation. Press photographers had managed to scramble up through the undergrowth to get as close as possible to the locus of the explosion. They were popping off so much flash photography towards the scene that investigators had to avert their eyes in order to avoid being temporarily blinded. When their protests fell on deaf ears they complained to McLusky.

He sent Austin. ‘Go sort them out.’ The DS sauntered over, then at the top of his voice threatened to arrest ‘the next idiot using a flash for obstructing the investigation’. McLusky approved. He hated the press. Unless he could use them for his own ends, of course.

The chief investigator repaid them five minutes later.

McLusky flicked his cigarette into a puddle. ‘What have you got for us?’

The white-suited man twitched his blond moustache. He probably thought he was smiling. ‘It was a bomb, homemade. We can’t say for sure what type of explosive was used, we’ll leave that to Forensics, though I have my own theory. What I can tell you gentlemen is that the explosive material was probably housed in a thin metal canister.’ He held up an evidence bag containing a triangular piece of torn metal. ‘It’s a bit of a miracle that apart from the boy no one else was injured by the shrapnel but then it’s quite flimsy stuff. Are you a drinking man, inspector? Does this look at all familiar?’

McLusky took it off him and leant back, angling it into the light coming from inside the command unit. Despite the slight blistering he could still make out the embossed
writing,
Special Reserve
and
Aged 12 years
. The type of metal canister single malts came in. He half-closed his eyes, visualizing the bottle. ‘That’ll be Glenfiddich. I prefer the Ancient Reserve myself.’

‘You’re a connoisseur, then?’ Austin squinted at the bag.

‘Not on my salary.’ McLusky handed it back. ‘Thanks for the preview.’

‘No sweat.’ The man left to rejoin the group of CSI technicians working the area.

‘The public’s new heroes, apparently.’ Austin nodded towards the white-suited army.

‘What, crime scene techies?’

‘So it would appear. American TV series. All you have to do, apparently, is run that bit of tin through the lab and they’ll tell you where it was bought, what the perp has for breakfast and whether he takes water with it. Then you wash it through the computer and it’ll spit out his address. You haven’t seen it either? I can’t get Channel Five.’

‘I haven’t got a telly.’

‘Blimey, that’s radical.’

‘Hardly.’ It was probably just another of those things he’d forgotten to get, like a wife and kids and a group of close friends he could ask round for supper. He did have friends of course but they fell into one of two categories: they were either drinking friends or colleagues and former colleagues. Both those categories he had now left behind in Southampton and he didn’t expect any of them to come and find him.
Tabula rasa
. He could start over.

Witness statements had been taken and were now being collated in the office inside the command vehicle where for the time being all information came together. House-to-house inquiries were being made at every property that overlooked the park on this side.

‘All right, Jane, so what are we looking at here? Terrorists? Kids? A crank?’

Austin rocked lightly from side to side, making himself comfortable on his feet. ‘Not sure what I think. It could
have been a schoolkid prank that went wrong. It was one hell of a bang. Kids do hang out here, though not so much after dark now since the Mobile Muggers have struck here twice.’

‘Could well be kids. It’s the kind of stupid thing they would blow up.’

‘I can’t see the terrorist angle at all. It wasn’t a big enough explosion for that. And there weren’t enough people around. You’d leave it in a crowded place, wouldn’t you?’

‘And you’d spike it with nails to do as much harm as possible.’

‘Then there’s always the crank with a grudge against … gazebos?’

‘Yes, quite. What do we know about the boy who was hurt? Could he have been the one who planted it, only it went off too soon, injuring him in the process? Not forgetting the woman. Stands to reason that the two people who got hurt most were probably closest to the centre of the explosion. We don’t know yet how the bomb was triggered but if it was by remote control for instance then they might of course have been the bomber’s targets. Do we have any news on their recovery or otherwise?’

‘I’ll find out.’ Austin disappeared inside. McLusky took the opportunity to count his cigarettes. Not enough to get him through the rest of the day. He didn’t mind sharing his cigarettes around as long as there were enough of them. Almost without his participation in the process another one appeared between his lips, flaring as he touched the flame from his plastic lighter to it. He walked across the street towards the wet, steaming heap of debris, still being attended by the army of white-suited technicians. The press had given up and returned to their offices, no doubt to fill in the gaps in their knowledge with column inches of speculation. Were he to write the front-page article it would run something like this:
At 11.20 a.m. today an explos
ive device detonated inside a wooden shelter in Brandon Hill
 
Nature Park, destroying it completely. Several passers-by were
injured. The identity and motive of the bomber(s) are unknown.
End of transmission.

Now it was up to him to provide the rest of the copy. With an incident like this you hoped for a witness and prayed that Forensics came up with something useful, however small. The problem was, forensic laboratories all over the world were stretched beyond endurance. The backlog of items to be examined and analysed was now so great that a simple blood or DNA sample took several weeks to come back. If it was urgent it seemed longer. Even then the most you could usually hope for was another person eliminated from your list of suspects.

Austin reappeared by his side with a scrap of paper filled with his swirly handwriting. ‘Good news and not so good news. Uniform went to Colin Keale’s place. According to the upstairs neighbour he’s on holiday in Marmaris. That’s in Turkey.’

‘Yeah, I know where it is. We need it confirmed and we need to know when he left.’

‘He left yesterday, apparently, so that’s him out.’

‘Is it hell. The bomb could have been sitting there for days. I want to know exactly when and where he left the country and when he’s coming back. Do we know that?’

‘Not yet, someone’s checking it out for me.’

‘What else?’

‘The woman who got hurt, an Elizabeth Howe, remains unconscious though they’re not sure why. No fractured skull as they first thought but she has damage to both eardrums, hence the bleeding, and probably won’t be listening to any questions for a bit even if she does wake up. The boy, a Joel Kerswill, had a metal splinter removed from his right eye. They managed to save his eyesight. They’re keeping him in for observation too but we might get a couple of minutes with him.’