Falling More Slowly ilm-1

by Peter Helton

  They stood by the Land Rover and watched. McLusky was shocked at the extent of it. ‘I had no idea it was that big.’

  ‘Spring kite festival. People come from all over the country to show off with stunt kites and what have you. It’s a big deal.’

  ‘I thought it was just a couple of hundred kids flying their kites. There must be a thousand people here.’ He took out his mobile and started recording the panoramic scene of exodus from the festival site.

  ‘We usually get two-and-a-half thousand visitors, perhaps fewer this year thanks to our little problem.’

  McLusky saw the plume of smoke and the man falling a second before the crack of the explosion reached his ears, like the blast from a large-bore shotgun. People started to converge on the spot halfway up the slope, others hurried their children away. Some waved kites and clothing in the air to attract the attention of the paramedics parked on the road. They didn’t need telling. Having heard the noise they had started their engine and were now already driving on to the grass.

  Denkhaus fixed him with an evil stare. ‘McLusky, I hate intuition and hunches and especially hunches that come too late to be of any bloody use. I want to know how you knew!’

  McLusky’s mobile told him he had reached the limit of his recording facility. He pocketed it. ‘I didn’t know anything, sir. I don’t even know where I heard about the kite festival before, on the radio perhaps.’ They made their way up the slope, walking fast, following the tracks the ambulance made on the grass. ‘I think we can expect many more devices to go off. He says in his letter something like … can I have it again, sir?’

  Denkhaus stopped, glad to catch his breath for a moment, and handed him the note, now protected by a clear evidence bag.

  ‘Here. Now I will employ my armies. The devices are his soldiers. I think he has a suitcase full of the damn things and he’ll probably dot them all around the city in one go, if he hasn’t already done it. From then on all he has to do is stay at home and watch it all on telly.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’ Denkhaus took the letter back and stared at it with disgust for a few seconds, then put it away. ‘I know what you’re saying, but you might be wrong there.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘You got us here, didn’t you? You were just not quick enough and you haven’t got a clue why you brought us here. You’re unmethodical, McLusky, that’s your problem. Get yourself organized!’

  They had arrived at the site of the explosion. Curious onlookers had formed a tight circle around the paramedics who were tending to a middle-aged man sitting on the grass, a woman and young boy kneeling by his side. Denkhaus waved his ID and bellowed at the civilians. ‘Make your way to the nearest exit unless you’re close relatives of the victim. Get going, this emergency isn’t over. Walk, don’t run, and for God’s sake don’t pick anything up, not even if you find the crown jewels.’

  The man doesn’t need a megaphone, McLusky thought. He squatted down by the victim, who drank shakily from a water bottle. ‘How are you feeling, sir? What happened?’

  ‘I nudged it. It was just back there.’ He nodded his head at the hill behind him.

  ‘What was?’

  ‘It was a box of biscuits. I hadn’t seen it before but I thought it might be ours. I had my hands full so I nudged it with the folding chair I was carrying. To see if it was full or empty. It knocked me back off my feet. Completely winded me. Thank God my wife and son had gone ahead.’ The man’s face and hands were peppered with angry red spots where debris from the device had hit him. ‘I mean, I know we were told not to pick anything up but it was instinctive, you know?’

  ‘Do you remember what kind of biscuits they were?’

  ‘I don’t know the brand. It had pictures of different sorts on it, what you call it, an assortment.’

  McLusky left a sergeant in charge of getting personal details and securing the site and joined Denkhaus who was staring unhappily out across the park and the city beyond.

  ‘We’ll have to search the entire park again for devices. Possibly all the parks. How many are there, sir?’

  ‘Too many. We might as well close the entire city. It can’t be done without declaring martial law and imposing a curfew. People will just have to be extra vigilant. I’ll arrange for another press conference but we can’t have people panicking, that’s what the bastard wants to happen.’

  ‘I get the feeling he wants people to stay quietly at home.’ So he can do what? McLusky had a mental image of a lone skateboarder moving through an empty town on an electric board, unimpeded by people or traffic. John Kerswill’s dream.

  ‘We don’t have the resources to close and search every park, railway station, bus and public space.’

  ‘I’m aware of it. We’ve had over five hundred false alarms so far, it seems we’re doing little else but chasing up suspicious packages.’ Each time a car backfired the phone lines got jammed with reports of bomb blasts. People saw bombs everywhere.

  The sun disappeared and the first heavy drops of rain began to fall. McLusky cheered up. ‘We did them all a favour closing down the festival, saves them getting soaked. All snug in their cars now.’

  Denkhaus grunted and walked off quickly towards his own car. He hated getting wet. ‘You’re in charge. I’ll call a press conference.’

  McLusky stood on the knoll as the heavens opened. By the time Forensics turned up every officer in the park was soaked to the skin.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘I still can’t get over how quickly you made up your mind. It would have taken me days of thinking about it. And you didn’t even test drive it.’

  ‘I’ve driven one before.’

  Austin had given him a lift to the dealership. After spending half an hour looking at nothing but black cars he had turned around, pointed at an olive green Mazda 323 with excessive mileage and a thirsty engine and bought it.

  ‘It’s a kind of elimination process. If I look long enough at the wrong stuff then I suddenly find the right stuff.’

  ‘Does that work with suspects?’

  ‘Not so far.’

  ‘Shame.’ Austin rubbed a smoothing hand over the letter on the table to deflate the air bubbles in the evidence bag that protected the paper. He read out loud for the second time. ‘Perhaps This will Shut you Up. I have Warned You. Now I will employ My Armies everywhere. Homes and Churches will be safe but Silence will settle on the Parks and Streets of this City.’

  ‘I know it by heart, Jane, there’s nothing there, no hidden clues. Photocopy it and get it off to Forensics. Even they should know it’s urgent by now though I expect them to find nothing.’

  McLusky drove to Trinity Road, the central police station in St Phillips. At Technical Support he clicked the memory card from his mobile and handed it to a young suntanned technician. ‘See if you can do something with this. I shot some video at the kite festival just as the bomb went off. It’ll be crap quality — do you think you can sharpen it up somehow and stick it on a disk for us?’

  ‘Yeah, no sweat, we do that all the time. I’ll have a go at it now if you want to wait. Not got him yet, then?’

  It was a rhetorical question and McLusky treated it as such. In turn he didn’t ask any questions beginning with ‘How on earth …’ about imaging technology and video enhancing. To him it was pure witchcraft. How you could take a rubbish image and turn it into a clear one was beyond his comprehension. Surely if something wasn’t there it wasn’t there?

  But apparently not; in less than twenty minutes the technician was back, handing him his card and a CD in a hard protective case. ‘See how you get on with that. Hope you catch him soon.’

  Back in his own office, still cramped with several TV monitors, he slipped the disk into his computer and settled down to watch with a mug of instant coffee and a custard Danish. There was only three minutes of footage. What Technical Support hadn’t managed to fix was the jerkiness of the camera movement. Off screen a tin-voiced superintendent spoke of the kite festival’s popul
arity. Then the sudden movement of the man falling backwards and the small plume of smoke blowing on the wind. People reacted by moving either away or towards the locus of the incident. Except …

  Except one man. An elderly man carrying what looked like a canvas satchel on a strap across his chest and wheeling an electric bicycle. He looked up towards the victim, nodded — clearly nodded — and kept going. He was in shot for no more than four seconds but at least McLusky had been holding the mobile more or less still at the time. Old boy on bicycle. Another old boy on a bicycle. He remembered the man cycling away from the site of the burnt yacht Eleni. Had it also been an electric one? He couldn’t remember. There had to be thousands of men over sixty riding bicycles in this city, electric or otherwise.

  He dug about on his already cluttered desk and found the disks Technical Support had produced from the SD cards Austin had commandeered on Brandon Hill after the first explosion. Some contained video footage and pictures taken before the explosion as well as after the incident. It didn’t take him long. There he was once more in a still photograph, obviously taken before the explosion. The camera was focused on the group in the centre, three middle-aged women posing in front of a bed of red and white flowers in the park. On the tarmac path behind he once more wheeled a bicycle, same man, same bicycle, same satchel. While zooming in on his target with clicks of the mouse he dialled the CID room number but before he got an answer there came a knock on his door. It was DC Dearlove with a sheaf of reports.

  ‘Dearlove, where is DS Austin?’

  ‘Ehm, haven’t seen him.’

  He hung up. ‘Look at this man, Dearlove.’ He swivelled the monitor for him. ‘I think this might be our man.’

  ‘The wrinkly with the bike?’

  The phone rang. ‘Hang on.’ He snatched up the receiver. ‘McLusky.’

  ‘Inspector McLusky, it’s Dr Thompson. At the Burns Unit, Southmead. We spoke in connection with a patient of mine, Ms Bendick.’

  ‘Oh yes, how is Ms Bendick?’

  ‘Recovering, though she will require extensive surgery. But that’s not what I’m calling about.’

  ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘Well, it’s a bit tricky for me. It would mean breaking patient confidentiality and puts me in an awkward position.’

  ‘Look, doc, if you’re calling me then you’ve already made up your mind to tell me so why don’t you just go ahead and do it because I’m a bit busy right now.’

  ‘Okay, sorry, I’ll get to the point. I treated a patient in A amp;E the night before last. For burns to his right hand. These burns and the damage to his skin were quite severe in some places and will need aftercare but the point is he told me he had burned his hand at a barbecue. I’ve treated burns for eight years now and those injuries were not consistent with burning yourself on a barbecue. I have seen injuries like these before and they were invariably caused by fireworks going off in people’s hands. Naturally I thought of all those devices going off. The man may just be an innocent victim, I want you to bear that in mind.’

  ‘You were right to call me. You haven’t still got him there, then?’

  ‘Unfortunately not.’

  ‘Do you have his name?’

  ‘He didn’t want to give his name. Then later he said his name was Dave. But one of the nurses recognized him from a previous injury he presented involving some barbed wire and she thought his surname was Daws.’

  ‘Daws! Around twenty-eight years of age?’

  ‘About that, yes.’

  ‘Doctor, you did the right thing when you called me. I’ll get back to you. In the meantime, if he shows his face for some more treatment you must call. Not just me, dial 999 and try and keep him there for as long as you can. I’ve gotta go now, thanks, doctor.’

  For a few seconds he remained standing at his desk, staring at the image on the screen, then grabbed his jacket and keys. Old boy or Daws, what did it matter? He wasn’t precious about his hunches. ‘Dearlove, get this image printed out and distributed and put it up on the board in the incident room. I want that man found.’

  ‘Okay. Where will you be, sir?’

  ‘I’m going to check something out. Tell Austin to get in touch with me when you see him.’ He walked down the corridor, then fell into a trot. Daws, Timothy Daws. They had never followed that up.

  As he unlocked his car in his new reserved parking space he was hailed from the far end of the car park.

  ‘DI McLusky, sir?’

  He recognized the grey-haired officer from Traffic. ‘What can I do for you, sergeant?’

  ‘Not sure I should show my face here. I owe you an apology for leaving the mud sample in your lobby without telling anyone but I was in a hurry as usual. And I want to thank you for delivering the perpetrator as well. That was well beyond the call of duty, sir.’

  ‘No problem, though I’ve had mud-jokes up to here.’ He indicated a line below his chin. ‘But while you’re here, there’s something that’s been bugging me. Was it you who mentioned the kite festival to me?’

  ‘Might have done. I think we were talking about the gridlock situation we had last year. The traffic from the kite festival was definitely a contributing factor.’

  ‘Remind me what else went on.’

  ‘A tourist bus broke down …’

  ‘One of those Citytours things?’

  ‘I don’t remember what company. There was also a running fight between drunks and an abnormally wide load came in off the motorway from Wales.’

  ‘What kind of abnormal load?’

  ‘A boat, sir. It couldn’t have come at a worse time. Big thing, they delivered it to the docks here. I didn’t see it myself.’

  ‘Why would a boat come by road rather than sea?’

  ‘Not seaworthy?’

  The Eleni had come overland from Cardiff, he was pretty sure that’s what the owner had said. ‘Bloody hell. Didn’t you also say emergency services couldn’t get through? Thanks, sergeant, I think we might be quits.’

  Sitting in his car he dialled Austin’s mobile. It was answered instantly. ‘Jane, it’s Liam. I’m in the car park about to pay Daws a visit.’

  ‘You want me to come down?’

  ‘No. I want you to check something urgently. Last year, I’m not sure of the date, you had virtual gridlock here one day.’

  ‘Nothing virtual about it — ’

  ‘I want you to check the logs for all emergency calls for that day. Find any that had a long delay in being responded to. I think that’s where our man’s grievance might originate. Get back to me as soon as. I’m following up on Daws. Apparently he presented with a burnt paw at A amp;E.’

  Timothy bloody Daws. Damn. Why hadn’t he followed that up ages ago? Because he didn’t fit the bill, that’s why. A cheat and petty criminal of his age certainly had the potential to graduate to the big stuff, especially if he was sent to prison for any length of time, but a sustained campaign of terrorizing citizens with bombs surely was too long a jump?

  Yet the boy he had living at his house had definitely been nervous about something, he thought, as he parked the Mazda out of sight of Daws’ front door. He shouldn’t be doing this by himself, really needed someone to cover the back of the house. Better check the back of the house first.

  As soon as he rounded the corner McLusky began to feel uncomfortable, though he couldn’t explain why. He hesitated at the entrance to the alley that ran along the rear of the fenced-off back gardens. Why should he suddenly feel spooked in the middle of the afternoon? Mentally shaking himself free of the strange feeling he nevertheless advanced cautiously to the locked back door of Daws’ desolate little garden. He pulled himself up, peered across and dropped back instantly. Someone was in the kitchen, just behind the window, and it didn’t look like the young kid. He walked back to the glass-strewn entrance of the alley. What was the rush? Better call for back-up.

  As he reached inside his jacket for his phone he was grabbed by two men and slammed against the fence, face first.
‘Police, don’t move, don’t speak!’ Suddenly the place was busy. In the corner of his eye he saw uniformed officers in body armour troop past up the alley. Seconds later he heard the splintering of wood and the familiar shouts. ‘Police! Show yourselves! Police, come out, keep your hands where we can see them!’

  The two officers released their grip and swivelled McLusky around. Both were in their twenties, had shaved heads and weighed fifteen stone plus. ‘Who are you, what are you doing here?’

  ‘Detective Inspector McLusky.’ He showed his ID.

  ‘Ah. Sorry, sir. Bad timing. Drug squad raid. What were you doing here?’

  ‘Is it Daws you’re hoping to find in there?’

  ‘That’s who we should be finding there. And quite possibly a cannabis factory. Helicopter chased some kids around here a few days back, using infrared. Apart from the kids the infra showed up a huge heat signature for the roof of this house. Now unless he’s converted his entire loft into a sauna that usually means it’s full of heat lamps for growing pot.’ A message over the radio soon confirmed it. ‘Two in custody. Tropical gardens upstairs, wall to wall cannabis plants.’

  McLusky nodded grimly. No wonder the kid had been nervous. ‘Ask him if one of his prisoners answers to the name of Daws and if he has a bandaged hand.’

  The answer came back instantly. ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘Gentlemen, I need to ask Daws a few questions and I need to ask them quickly.’

  ‘Whatever he tells you he remains our prisoner.’

  ‘First come first served, naturally.’

  Daws was still in the kitchen cuffed by his left hand to a huge officer. Innis Cole, his young apprentice, sat bewildered and close to tears on a kitchen chair. The place was busy with officers. The front door had been knocked at the same time as the officers had entered the garden. McLusky showed his ID to Daws who tried to look bored, though fear had widened his eyes. ‘Timothy Daws, I presume. That’s entirely the wrong type of gardening you’ve been doing up there.’