by Peter Helton
What he really wanted to do was to cast off and take her back in time all the way to the Indian Ocean of the nineteen-twenties and — thirties, to Ceylon and on to the islands off Siam. He ran his fingers over the cool, polished teak of the wheelhouse. He’d had a hand in restoring it, as in most other things wooden on the yacht: her steamed oak beams, rock elm timbers and teak deck. He wouldn’t really call himself a shipwright yet, though he had when he applied for the job. He’d lied a fair bit but got away with it and learnt on the job. Now that the project was finished there was no more work here for a while. Perhaps he would move to Cornwall or up north, he hadn’t decided yet. There was still boat building going on in Scotland, he knew.
Dusk had crept through the harbour and the sodium glow of the city lights threw workshop and sheds into sharp relief. Without illumination from the boat or the office there was just enough residual light in the west for him to take one more turn around her deck. Trailing the fingers of his left hand lightly over the familiar surfaces of the wheelhouse, the edge of the coach roof, the radar mast and finally the wheelhouse again he completed his last inspection. As he got ready to go ashore via the short gangway connecting the yacht to the deserted quay his foot nudged a heavy object that did not belong there. Gary stepped back and picked it up. It was a bottle.
A full bottle of champagne. An unlikely bottle of champagne. He could just make out the label, a supermarket own-brand! How did it get there? All the champagne drunk earlier had been vintage stuff. He knew, he had been given a glass, well, half a glass, most of it had been froth, and he had seen the bottles, it was Something amp; Something French champagne. Had this one been bought for the lower deck to drink and then forgotten about? Yet he was pretty sure that a bottle of champagne, supermarket or not, would have been spotted if it stood on deck right by the gangway. In fact he was pretty sure it hadn’t been there a few minutes ago when there had still been more than enough light to spot it.
Stranger things happened at sea. The bottle felt well chilled and it was perfect for the occasion. Even the fact that it was cheap champagne fitted well with his tiny contribution to the story of the Eleni. He would drink a private, quiet toast to their parting. The foil top slid off easily. Unused to opening champagne bottles, a little fearful of the bottled power behind the cork, he pointed the neck of the bottle well away from himself as he untwisted the wire clip and set his thumb under the rim of the cork. His nervousness and the sturdiness of the champagne bottle probably saved his life. The neck of the bottle disintegrated as the small explosive charge ignited the petrol in the bottle. The content self-propelled in an imperfect arc towards the door of the wheelhouse and splattered flames across the varnished teak. Gary fell backwards on to the deck with his hair and clothes enveloped in petrol flames. He wasted no time rolling towards the guard rail and heaving himself overboard into the harbour. When he resurfaced the shock and pain made him gasp and thrash as he struggled in the freezing water towards the quay.
Above him the Eleni burnt. Oiled planks and varnished timbers caught easily even as the petrol burnt itself out. A petrol bomb. One minute he was going to toast her, the next she was ablaze. He had set her on fire. He had to make it to the quay, he had to put it out somehow, call for the fire brigade. She mustn’t burn, not after all the work they had put into her, not after all she had survived. It was his fault. It was insane, completely insane, but it was. When he reached the quay a few yards away from the burning yacht and the raw flesh of his palms closed around a rusty ring set in the harbour wall, Gary screamed.
‘It doesn’t smell as bad as I expected.’
‘Yeah, quite pleasant really.’
‘The owners might not agree of course.’
‘Perhaps not.’ McLusky sniffed audibly. ‘Or is that your sandwich I can smell?’
Austin folded up a corner of sliced white from his home-made sandwich. ‘Bavarian smoked cheese. You’ve got a good nose.’
‘It’s house fires I can’t stand, they smell truly awful. It’s all those burnt plastics and melted TVs.’
‘No plastics here, she was a posh boat, all natural ingredients.’ Austin rocked lightly on his heels beside McLusky as they continued to look down on to the charred hull from atop a tarpaulined nest of oil drums on the quay. The Eleni had remained afloat but her wheelhouse had disappeared and the galley had burnt fiercely after a small propane bottle had exploded there with the fire spreading to the saloon. There were two holes in the deck, which was blackened from bow to stern. Now that there was daylight fire investigators were going through the treacherous remains.
Further up the quay, at the perimeter of the taped-off area, a silver Porsche was being carefully parked. As the driver approached the police tape he was challenged by a constable and after a short conversation allowed to proceed. McLusky watched him take his time as he picked a route through the harbourside snake pit of hoses, cables and ropes. His hand-made shoes crunched reluctantly over crushed glass and eroded concrete. He was talking on a mobile. ‘Place is a mess. I can see the boat, she’s a goner. It’s a disaster from start to finish. I’m flying into Palma this afternoon, you can kill me then.’
‘Jane, go and ask him what …’ McLusky rolled his eyes at Austin who appeared to have stuffed the entire sandwich into his mouth at once. ‘Forget it.’ He called to the new arrival. ‘Hello. Are you the owner?’
The man walked over before answering. ‘Was. One of them. Nothing much left to own.’
‘She might be worth restoring … not that I know much about boats.’
‘Then what, may I ask, are you doing here?’
McLusky held out his ID for the man to peruse.
The man shrugged: so what? ‘It was arson, I’m told. Have you got someone in custody?’
‘Not yet.’
‘What about the shipwright chap? Wasn’t it him?’
‘We don’t think so. He just happened to be the one who picked up the incendiary device. He’s recovering nicely in hospital, by the way.’
‘Good for him. Meanwhile we are short one motor yacht. I’m going to get the blame for this. There are plenty of yachts for sale in Majorca but, like an idiot … I saw her advertised, liked the style and persuaded my partners. She was hardly seaworthy then. We had her brought up overland from Cardiff last year. They worked like demons, only finished her yesterday.’
‘Why here?’
‘I’m from here. My children live here with their mother. And I wanted to give work to the last surviving boat builders here. Bloody disaster.’
‘She was insured?’
‘Generously. That’s not the point. Might not look it here but in Majorca the summer is well under way. There’s people waiting.’
‘What do you do there?’
‘Financing development. Balearics and southern Spain. I hope you find who did this. Not that it’ll make much difference. I’m flying back to face the music now. Goodbye.’
‘Goodbye Mr …’
The man was already walking back to his car and didn’t bother to turn around. ‘Chapman.’
They both watched him blast off, blaring his horn impatiently at an elderly man wheeling a bicycle along the harbour front. Austin rolled the tinfoil wrapping of his sandwich into a ball and flicked it in the direction of the departing Porsche. ‘Cheery chappy, Chapman.’
McLusky didn’t comment. Something had disturbed him this morning and it wasn’t the extremely early appearance at his door of DS Austin with news of a suspicious incendiary. No, the early hours of the morning he had always considered to be the best of the day, still fresh, untainted, at least if you avoided police radio. It was something else that niggled at him now, back of the mind, tip of the tongue. Something he heard, saw or smelled but he couldn’t grasp it. Hopeless. It slipped away like the tail end of a dream, back into his unconscious. He was out of cigarettes, too. He thought better with a cigarette, a walk and a cigarette. ‘Got a ciggie, Jane?’
‘Didn’t I say? I’ve packed it in. As of to
day. Eve is making me, she was livid when I started again.’
McLusky looked hopeful. ‘So … no doubt you have stocked up on mints, chewing gum and chocolate-covered peanuts then?’
‘No, I’m going cold turkey.’
‘Well, that’s no use to anyone. You’re really not getting the best out of your addiction, DS Austin.’ He hopped off the oil drums. With his mobile phone held at arm’s length he turned through 360 degrees, recording the entire scene, ending with Austin’s glum face. ‘Smile, Jane, think of the money you’ll save. See you back at the station, I’m taking a walk.’
At a newsagent’s McLusky handed over his bank card to pay for two packets of cigarettes. Austin’s fiancee was right. Quite apart from the health risk the damage to your finances was insane. There were people out there earning less per hour than the price of a packet of twenty. But this was not the right time to stress over it. Or the fact that even Extra Lights made him cough like a coal miner in the morning. He would compensate with fresh air, go for a walk, set his brain working, try and retrieve the disappearing strands of thought in his unmethodical mind.
He had simply turned his back on the harbour, intent on exploring a few more streets of his new home, and was pleasantly surprised when he came across a small park. Queen Square with its tree-lined perimeter and its lawn dissected by a star of paths was just what he needed. He would walk its perimeter under the trees and think.
Only when he had walked one length of the square did he allow himself to light the cigarette he’d been craving. Games, they were just games, he had to pack it in for good. When he caught the bastard. The day he caught the bastard he would give up smoking. Just please don’t let it be today.
It promised to be a warm, sunny day yet here in the shade under the trees it was cool and the smells of the nearby river and of early morning lingered. At this time of day there were few people in the park, mainly mothers with children and the elderly. A community support officer on a mountain bike was making the rounds, cycling past him at a leisurely pace. There had to be worse beats than one that included Queen Square in the morning.
Two devices in two days. Phil Warren’s latest article on the bomber had graced the front page of the Post only yesterday. True to what McLusky now recognized as her form she had called the bomber not only a coward but also a twisted loner and a perverted madman who had clearly targeted children when he hid explosives in Easter eggs. Neither the bottle nor the phone would have been planted in response to the article, it would have taken too much time to build them. If the bomber was to react his response was still to come.
The mobile might have been there for days, there was not enough left of it for Forensics to give a verdict on that. The champagne device had clearly been tailored to the occasion. But why the boat? Why include the yacht in his list of targets when all the others had been left where they could be triggered by anybody who found them? The apparently random nature of the attacks suggested a man — surely a man — who hated everybody. Random attacks always meant that the perpetrator was dissociated from real people. The man he was looking for was isolated, a loner, a man for whom other people had no real substance.
Only the yacht was different. How could the yacht offend a man like the bomber? Did it stand for something, symbolize something — luxury, conspicuous consumption? Did all the places and devices have a symbolic value? Or did that only happen on TV, where eventually you found that it all corresponded to some damn poem or Shakespeare play or verses of the Bible? Unfortunately it was difficult to tell what was significant to an unhinged personality until after you had caught him and taken a good look at the hinges. Few murderers had a poetic streak and in his experience the poetry-writing, opera-going, hard-drinking but lovable CID officers who solved such crimes were thin on the ground in the force. Hard-drinking, maybe …
Unhinged, another word Warren had used. As instructed she had also used ‘according to a source close to the investigation’ more than once. So far there had been merciful silence about that from the super’s office since Denkhaus probably assumed Warren had simply made it up. But the bomber would assume no such thing.
He dropped the butt of his cigarette on the ground, refusing to feel guilty. Well, why didn’t they supply ashtrays? The great outdoors was one of the last places you were allowed to smoke after all. For now. His mood hadn’t lifted, far from it. He clawed another cigarette out of the packet. Extra Lights just didn’t work as well as real cigarettes. As he focused his eyes on where he touched the flame from his lighter to the end of the cigarette a blurred movement entered his line of sight. He looked up, refocused. Away to his right beyond the equestrian statue in the centre moved a skateboarder. McLusky stared hard at the small receding figure. Move your legs, let me see you move your legs. The figure didn’t, just glided on in effortless, lazy zigzags. It might be his imagination, might be wishful thinking, but the skateboard looked larger than normal, chunkier. He couldn’t hear an engine but what of it, perhaps the guy had silencers fitted, whatever. He screwed up his eyes as the quickly disappearing figure moved into the shadows under the trees. There it was, the hand holding the control wire — a motorized bloody skateboard. Which way was he going? Left.
McLusky fell into a trot on the path across the green. After a few yards he dropped his cigarette and speeded up. The skateboarder looped sharply and moved in the opposite direction. McLusky turned too and jogged back under the trees. Fingering his radio he thought of calling for back-up, then thought better of it. Just a hunch, could be anybody, and by the time they got here … Denims, red scarf. Looked like a red scarf. He was wearing blue, anyway. If he left the park he’d never catch him. McLusky speeded up. Definitely give up smoking. If he caught him and it turned out to be him, he’d quit. His legs ached already. Definitely quit. He had to cut him off without alerting him. When he saw the community police officer cycle back towards him he stopped running, rested his hands on his knees for a second to catch his breath, then he flagged him down, waving his ID.
‘I’m DI McLusky.’
‘CID? I wasn’t aware — ’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Botts, sir.’
‘I need to borrow your bicycle, Botts.’
Community Support Officer Eric Botts hesitated, standing astride his bicycle. ‘I’m not sure, I mean, when will I — ’
‘Get off the damn thing, he’s getting away.’
‘Who, sir? Do you want me to pursue him?’ To Botts, who went swimming on Tuesdays and cycled everywhere, the inspector didn’t look too fit. But he sure looked furious. ‘Okay, here. Third gear’s a bit sticky, mind.’ As soon as he had got off it the inspector dragged the bike around, swung into the saddle and started pedalling away furiously. Botts felt uneasy. He’d never heard of a Detective Inspector McLusky. What if it was a fake ID? You could run up anything on a computer now and laminate it. If so, then he’d just been mugged of his police issue mountain bike. He’d never live that down. He called after the man who was riding his bike straight across the grass now. ‘I’ll just wait here then, shall I?’ No answer. Sod this. He started jogging after him under the trees.
McLusky bumped on to the grass into the dazzling light. Where was the bastard? A glimpse of red on the far side, moving too fast for a walker, was all he could see. McLusky pedalled. As the bike’s tyres left the grass and reached the hard, flat surface of the path he gained more speed. He could see him clearly now, the age was right, the clothing, he was wearing sunglasses, all fitted the description apart from the hair, which wasn’t spiked. So what? It was him and he would cut him off in a minute. How did you make this damn thing go faster? Impatiently he pushed at the gear lever: the gears crunched, the chain raced and became slack. The bicycle rolled to a stop — the chain had come off. McLusky told the square what he thought about it: ‘Crap!’ Then he got off and started wheeling the bike back. The skater was still gliding along the perimeter. He lost sight of him on the other side. The man’s description had been circul
ated internally, though no one had been told what he was wanted for. ‘In connection with a serious incident’ was the euphemism. Why hadn’t that dopey hobby bobby spotted him then? He wheeled the bike across the grass and back under the trees. No sign of the support officer. This hadn’t turned out to be the stroll he had had in mind.
‘Sir!’ He turned around to the voice behind him. It was Botts. And behind Botts, blissfully unaware, approached the skateboarder, doing a showy slalom around the promenading people.
McLusky pointed. ‘Botts, stop that skateboarder!’
The officer turned around, walked into the man’s path and opened his arms wide. ‘Stop, police!’ The skateboarder careered past him with an easy manoeuvre and turned the speed up, looking panicked across his shoulder at the officer.
‘Not like that, Botts.’ McLusky picked up the bicycle and threw it at the skateboarder just as he whizzed past him. It hit him at waist height and sent him sprawling on to the tarmac. ‘Like that!’
Botts trotted up. ‘Sir, my bicycle.’
The skateboarder groaned as he disentangled himself. He remained sitting on the ground, massaged a wrist and bellowed at his assailant: ‘You fucking maniac!’
McLusky held out his ID for him. ‘The nice officer asked you nicely. I’m not so nice, of course.’ He wagged a finger. ‘Motorized skateboards — not allowed in the park.’
‘You can’t be serious. I could have cracked my skull open.’
‘Yeah, that’s another thing. No helmet, so I thought I’d have a word.’
‘You’re nuts. I’m going to sue you for assault. I’ll have you investigated and thrown off the force.’
