Falling More Slowly ilm-1

by Peter Helton

  ‘What is it you need help with?’

  McLusky handed over the slim file he had brought. ‘I got this report from Forensics in Chepstow. What I want to know is — ’

  She interrupted his flow with a shake of her head. ‘Let me read it first, then ask your questions. That way I can read it without bias.’

  She really was a scientist then. ‘Sure, doc.’

  Dr Louise Rennie made herself more comfortable in her chair and started reading. Every time she turned a page she also returned imaginary strands of her fine blonde hair behind her ears with an unconscious gesture of one hand which made him believe that her severely short haircut was a recent development. There was a fan humming somewhere and the wheezy lab rat clinked and padded to and fro, eyeing them with irritation at each passing. Yet it was quiet enough in the room for him to hear the swish of her tights when she crossed, uncrossed and recrossed her legs. He noticed her skirt riding up a few inches above her knee and she noticed him noticing and sighed. She was a very fast reader. ‘Yes, that’s all quite straightforward.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure it is, really.’ Rennie probably thought he was an idiot for not understanding it but he hadn’t touched a chemistry book since school, and even then reluctantly. ‘I was wondering though if you, as a chemist and being local and … being a chemist, if you could tell me …’ He was making a hash of this for some reason. ‘Tell me what you think. What kind of person would use those chemicals to build a bomb like that? How easy would it be? That sort of thing.’

  ‘That sort of thing.’ She gave him a quick smile. It vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

  ‘Yes please.’ It was the blueness of her eyes, he decided. Same blue as Laura’s. Laura, who had had enough. Who had dumped him while he was in hospital recovering from having been run over in the line of duty. Laura, for whom ‘getting himself run over’ had been the last straw. As soon as he’d been definitely recovering, as soon as she heard him try the first feeble joke about getting a job as a sleeping policeman, she had decided it was safe to go. Police officers needed police officers’ wives, she’d told him, and sorry but she knew she would never make one of those.

  ‘Okay, then concentrate, inspector. Potassium nitrate, sulphur, charcoal, surely you must remember that much from school?’

  ‘I was rubbish at science.’

  ‘History, then.’

  ‘What’s potassium — ’ he lent across to read — ‘nitrate?’

  ‘Potassium nitrate is saltpetre.’ She prompted her slow pupil. ‘Saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal …’

  ‘Oh, that’s gunpowder.’

  She nodded slowly. ‘Good old black powder, inspector.’

  ‘So we’re not talking fertilizer bomb, plastic explosives or dynamite.’

  ‘We’re talking cannon, musket, firecracker, rocket. It says here that it was pure, industrial grade, so wasn’t home-made from stuff you scrape off a urinal wall and mix with barbecue charcoal, though that can be done if you have enough chaps peeing long enough against a wall. Can’t say I’d fancy that route either.’

  ‘So unless it’s someone licensed to fire historical weapons that require gunpowder then this is someone who bought a lot of fireworks, took them apart and then filled his container with the gunpowder? So it could be kids, after all.’

  ‘Kids with a bit of pocket money, yes. That amount of gunpowder would require quite a few fireworks.’

  ‘But probably not enough to arouse suspicion if you bought them over a period of time or at different outlets. Enough to kill …’ McLusky knew this already but was thinking aloud now.

  ‘Oh, certainly. Anyone too close could have been killed by the shrapnel or burnt to a frazzle when the petrol in the container caught. It’s just as it said in the paper, it was a miracle no one died.’

  ‘Burnt to a frazzle, is that a scientific term?’

  ‘Absolutely. And an apt description of what would have happened had someone been sitting on the bench under which the device exploded.’

  ‘Though if you wanted to make sure to kill and maim lots of people you would stuff the thing with nails etc.’

  ‘Yes. My guess is this was designed to make a big bang and look spectacular.’

  ‘It certainly did that, it sent up a huge black cloud.’ A smoke signal. ‘Could still just be vandalism then.’

  ‘Yet whoever did it clearly didn’t care that people might get killed, maimed and burnt or they wouldn’t have left it where they did.’

  ‘Yes. The technical police term for those is arseholes.’

  ‘The psychology department is in a different building, inspector.’ Dr Rennie pushed the report towards him.

  McLusky rolled it up like a newspaper, then patted his pockets for a card. ‘I was going to leave you my card but I haven’t had time to get any printed yet. I’m new in town.’ He spotted a cube of notepaper on the desk and pulled it towards himself, then found a pen in the inside pocket of his jacket. It was a heavy brushed-steel biro he didn’t remember buying. Nice, though. ‘I’ll leave you my numbers.’ He scribbled down office and mobile numbers, hoping he’d got them right.

  ‘What are you leaving them for, inspector?’

  McLusky had no idea. He shrugged. ‘Just in case.’

  ‘I see.’ She rose, the interview terminated.

  He thanked her, nodded at the lab rat, who ignored him, and left.

  Once outside again it took him a moment to remember where he had left the Polo. Mallzheimer’s they called it now when you couldn’t remember where you’d parked your car. Fortunately his stood out by dint of being old, ugly and a shade of white no manufacturer had used for twenty years. He wondered just how this piece of junk had survived to be a police vehicle in the twenty-first century. He turned on his airwave radio and it sprang to life with urgent calls. McLusky answered it and everything changed.

  Maxine Bendick dried herself quickly, pulled her shower cap off and shook her hair loose. She had it cut shorter when she joined the gym so as to save even more time. After checking her watch she dressed in front of her locker. It might be a bit of madness but taking the thirty-minute lunchtime slot changed her working day completely. On the days when she trained, lunch breaks were something to look forward to, and not just because it meant a change from the tedium of pacifying irate tax payers on the phone. For years she had spent depressing lunch breaks walking to the Metro Market, cramming a plastic container with as much pasta salad in mayonnaisy gunk as would fit, then eating it with a plastic fork, sitting on the tiny green near her office in good weather but, this being England, for much of the year at her desk. Now she had the frisson of the dash across town, the mad rush to get changed and what usually amounted to no more than twenty minutes of training with Pat. Even though it hardly progressed beyond the warm-up it left her invigorated and helped her survive the afternoon. Pat stood for Patricia but Maxine had been quite happy to let her colleagues believe it stood for Patrick and that he was handsome. She had no idea what had brought on the fitness craze, she had no weight to lose, in fact had put on weight as she built up muscle, and didn’t know anyone else at the gym. It had just grabbed her imagination one day and she’d got hooked. Going to the gym meant eating a home-made sandwich in the car while she was driving and less time to chat with colleagues but it was worth it. Even here she didn’t have time to make friends at this pace. She’d seen all four other girls that were in this changing room before but never had enough time to do more than smile and nod at them while she rushed. She crammed the gear into her holdall, pulled on her jacket and slammed the locker. As she hoisted the bag over her shoulder she could feel the hard object in her jacket pocket. She pulled it out. Why she had picked it up when she never used face powder or any make-up for that matter was beyond her. Probably because it was shiny and it meant getting something for free. Perhaps she should offer it to one of the girls. She prised the lid open.

  The crack of the explosion and the blue, searing flash were simultaneous. Had she not b
een blinded and distracted by the agonizing pain of her nose being burnt away by a tongue of flame, she’d have noticed the first third of her left thumb fly off and thud into the open locker of one of the girls. All she knew was that her face was on fire. She didn’t know that she was screaming, she thought it was the others. Running blindly in the direction of the showers she collided with the door frame and fell to the ground. She clutched at the unbelievable pain in her face. It felt sticky.

  ‘Oh God, oh my God.’

  ‘What the fuck happened?’

  ‘Her face just blew up.’

  ‘Someone call an ambulance.’ Someone was screaming it into the darkness. Or perhaps she was just thinking it. ‘Someone call a fucking ambulance!’

  Then there was nothing, just the hammering rhythm of blood in the dark.

  The constable in the viz jacket bravely stepped in front of his car, signalling him to stop. McLusky wound the handle and the window dropped in a series of jerks.

  ‘You can’t come through here, you need to — ’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ He cut him off by showing his warrant card.

  The PC stepped back a little in order to fully admire the state of the ancient Polo and tilted his head so he could read the inscription on the bonnet. Could the ID be a fake?

  ‘Never mind the car, it’s the hard-boiled eggs that are getting me down.’ He left him standing there, one constable who was sure to recognize him in future.

  The dreaded thing had happened. Not only had the bomber struck again but only a few hundred yards from the first explosion. There was a message in that he didn’t want to hear. It was a message about who owned the place. At the moment it sure as hell wasn’t him.

  The corner of Park Street and Great George Street was busy. The ambulance had already left but the rest of the circus was there. The private little gym had been evacuated and some of its members hung about outside to watch the police machine at work. The entire area was being searched for more devices. He was directed down a corridor past an empty cafeteria. Lanky Constable Pym was standing guard outside the ladies’ changing room further along. On one of the benches in the corridor a female officer was comforting a young woman in a dressing gown. Two more young women stood nearby, looking pale.

  All McLusky had to do was follow the voices, the police voices, so different from those of civilians — purposeful, using the vocabulary of incident, procedure, of cover-your-back and make-doubly-sure. In the dressing room he found Austin giving instructions to a young police photographer. ‘Get shots of every particle of the exploded device in situ, get the CSI techies to show you where they all are. Hello, inspector, they managed to find you then?’

  ‘My mobile needs charging.’ He didn’t mention that he had forgotten to turn on his personal radio until he left the university. He sniffed the air. This place smelled of calamity, of singed hair, roasted flesh, burnt fingernails, gunpowder and sweat, the sweat of fear mingling with that of work and concentration. Blood-spurts covered lockers and benches. There was a pool of vomit on the floor. ‘Tell me what happened, Jane.’

  Austin talked fluently about the facts so far established. ‘The victim is a Maxine Bendick. Late twenties. She comes here for fitness training in her lunch break, works with a personal trainer, Patricia Maine, who’s out in the lobby right now giving a statement, but she wasn’t in this room when it happened. She was already talking to her next client. There were four women using the changing room when it happened. According to one girl — ’ he consulted his notebook — ‘a Tamara Tasker, Bendick had changed back into street clothes and was about to leave but stopped and took out a gold powder compact which appeared to blow up in her hand.’

  ‘Marvellous.’

  ‘One of her fingers …’ Austin pointed at an open locker containing blood-spattered clothes.

  ‘Thumb.’ A white-suited technician furnished them with the detail without looking up from his task of scraping something unsavoury off the wall next to the locker. ‘Left hand.’

  Austin continued. ‘There you have it. Left thumb. Landed in there.’

  McLusky took a good look. It looked like pain, a great deal of pain. ‘Other injuries?’

  ‘Her face. Apparently her face is badly burnt. The same witness said her face was actually on fire. Yes. Extensive burns to her face and hands.’

  ‘But she’ll live?’

  ‘I think so, the injuries aren’t life-threatening per se, unless she dies of shock, of course. Ambulance got here quite quickly for once. Did you know our ambulance service is on the bottom of the league tab — ’

  ‘Spare me statistics and league tables, Jane, wherever possible.’

  One of the CSI technicians piped up. ‘You’re not a football supporter then, inspector? Nor a betting man.’

  ‘Got it in one.’ It was almost obligatory in the force to like football. He had even tried supporting Southampton for a while just to fit in, but had found it mind-numbing. It seemed a long time ago now when he had still tried to fit in.

  The girl would live. But would she want to live once she saw what was left of her face? ‘So. Someone fills her powder compact with Semtex? What’s going on here, d’you think?’

  ‘Search me.’

  ‘Where’s the rest of her stuff?’

  ‘Her bag is over here.’

  The pink and white sports bag was sitting on a bench by the door. Austin talked to the nearest technician. ‘You finished with it?’

  ‘We haven’t touched it. If you must open it wear gloves.’

  McLusky wriggled his fingers at him, already clad in latex.

  ‘All right, then. But it could also be booby-trapped of course.’

  ‘Rubbish. The compact blew up after she had changed so she’ll have packed this herself. But by all means stand well back, everyone.’ A spray pattern of blood adorned the top and left side of the bag. Tight whorls of ashen residue looked like the worm-shaped remains of charred hair. McLusky unzipped the bag in one quick movement and rummaged about. Apart from towel and leotard he found a grey Tupperware box. He noticed his DS instinctively lean back as he prised off the lid. The box contained a home-made sandwich, cut into two chunky rectangles. McLusky approved. ‘No revelations here.’ He closed the Tupperware box. The aroma of cheese and tomato faded, filling him with regret.

  Austin continued his report. ‘She was on her lunch break. According to her coach she works for the council at a so-called access point in Hotwells. Inquiries, advice, that sort of thing.’

  McLusky recognized the senior CSI man with the blond moustache from the first bomb site and approached him. ‘Do you feel like saying something rash, like whether the two explosions are in any way connected?’

  The man’s moustache twitched. ‘Impossible to say, inspector. At this stage. But the sizes of the explosions are very different. This was a very compact design, so to speak.’ There were groans from his colleagues. ‘This was made to hurt a single person. Almost certainly victim-activated.’

  ‘Victim-activ …’ The language of these people. ‘You mean it was meant to go off when someone handled it?’

  ‘Precisely. The other bomb had a timer. This one could have sat unexploded for years. Until someone opened it, probably, or shook it. Hard to say at the moment. Forensics might be able to tell us more.’

  He thanked the man. By now his stomach was rumbling audibly, a result not of revulsion at the awful smell in the room but of hunger, victim-activated by sniffing Maxine Bendick’s uneaten sandwich. He gave Austin a push on the shoulder. ‘Let’s get out of here.’ Statements were still being taken in the foyer. They walked straight past and stepped outside. The usual crowd of onlookers had gathered beyond the police tape, including the press who started firing cameras and questions at them as soon as they walked up Great George Street where the police units were parked.

  ‘Inspector, is the victim still alive?’

  ‘Are the two incidents connected?’

  ‘Is it the work of the same bomber?’ />
  ‘What’s the motive behind the bombings?’

  ‘Was there any warning?’

  ‘Is this part of a campaign?’

  ‘Have you made any progress on the first bomb?’

  McLusky ignored the press and walked on. ‘You’ve got some of the questions right there.’ At least they seemed to have stopped pushing the Al Qaeda angle. Denkhaus had devoted his press conference to stamping out the rumours of terrorism. The city had a sizable Muslim community and everyone was aware of the racial tensions already at work.

  McLusky spoke to the nearest uniform. It was Constable Hanham. ‘Couldn’t you have cordoned off the area beyond the vehicles? Press and public are swarming all over the place.’

  Hanham was in defiant mood. ‘Yes sir, only we ran out of tape and we don’t have enough bodies to keep them further back.’

  He surveyed the straggly line of police tape strung from a car to a drainpipe to another car. ‘Then close off the entire street, that’ll only take half the tape, and string what’s left across the road up there. Move them right back.’

  ‘Sir, there’s people wanting to get to their cars they parked further up.’

  ‘Well, they’ll have to walk round then. Do them good.’ Naturally McLusky himself avoided any kind of exercise on the grounds that police work was enough foot slog to begin with. He walked on with Austin beside him. ‘But there are plenty of other questions. Like how the hell did she end up with an exploding powder compact, for one. And who wants to blow her to kingdom come would be good to know too. If this area is covered by CCTV then we’ll examine the footage of course.’

  ‘There’s CCTV in the foyer and the gym but obviously none in the dressing rooms.’

  ‘Right. It’ll all be a complete waste of time since she could have had the compact for ages, but it’s got to be done. I’ll even look at it myself, don’t worry.’ A pale-faced young DC, who he had earlier seen taking statements in the lobby, came out of the front door of the gym. ‘Who’s that walking question mark?’