Falling More Slowly

by Peter Helton

  ‘It didn’t look good at first but he’s recovering well.’ He would send Jane to speak to him. They were constantly playing catch-up, going with the slow grind of the police machine, giving the bastard time to get the next bomb off. This egg proved just how easy it was for the devices to travel in time and space before they went off. Planted nearly three weeks ago, a safe distance. ‘How are they set off, just out of interest? Do they have detonators that might be traceable?’

  ‘Detonators? Good lord no, nothing as snazzy as that, inspector, you don’t need any of that. It’s simplicity itself. The action of opening the device completes an electric circuit. At the centre of the gunpowder sits a filament from an ordinary torch bulb with the glass removed. Connected to a battery. The moment the circuit is closed and the filament is connected to the battery it glows white hot. Works just like a fuse. Simple but deadly effective. Low-tech is always best. Take a revolver, for instance, as opposed to a semi- …’

  ‘Fascinating, thanks for that.’ McLusky withdrew his head and walked off briskly.

  The interior of the hotel surprised him. He had expected something more traditional, a little worn perhaps. What he found was a champagne bar and a well-appointed lounge and Philippa Warren on a sofa by the fireplace.

  ‘Another one of those?’ McLusky nodded at her drink, clear liquid, ice and lemon.

  ‘No thanks, I have the distinct feeling I ought to be sober for whatever is coming. Or will I need the alcohol to numb the pain?’ Her voice was as hoarse as it had been at the Quiet Lady, so presumably this was a permanent feature.

  ‘You’ll be fine.’ He ordered a cappuccino and sat down next to Warren, their elbows almost touching.

  ‘You mean you’re not going to be tedious and berate me about dubious journalistic practices? Because I have an answer for all that.’

  ‘You have? Let’s have it.’

  ‘Tough.’

  ‘That’s it? That’s your answer?’

  ‘You talk, you’ll get quoted. Whatever you say in a public house is by definition in the public domain.’

  ‘You may have a point there.’

  ‘“May” doesn’t come into it. Okay, I knew who you were and had the advantage. A girl’s gotta live.’

  ‘And you were only doing your job.’

  ‘Quite.’

  His coffee arrived. Someone had sprinkled grated chocolate over the froth. McLusky hated chocolate and laboriously scraped it off before trying the liquid underneath. It was barely drinkable by his standards. ‘How did you find me? Were you following me?’

  ‘Yup. Though not very far. Only from the station to the pub. I expected you to nip into the Green Man in Candlewick Lane but you had other ideas. You’re a loner.’

  ‘I’m not a loner. You didn’t follow me home a few days ago?’

  ‘Nope, don’t know where you live. So someone’s been following you?’ She drained her glass, rattling the remaining ice in it which attracted the attention of the waiter. ‘I think I will have another drink after all.’

  ‘And I’ll have a different drink. What was that?’

  ‘G&T.’

  ‘Two gin and tonics.’

  ‘Thanks. Are you going to answer my question?’

  ‘What was the question?’

  ‘Has someone been following you?’

  He picked up the spoon and prodded the collapsing froth of his vile cappuccino, remembering the figure by the street corner. Perhaps, perhaps not. A bit of paranoia, most likely. ‘Only you, it seems.’

  ‘Mm.’ Warren filed the answer under ‘evasive’. ‘The new bomb was hidden inside an Easter egg? Were there chocolates inside apart from the bomb?’

  ‘D’you know, I never asked?’

  A superior smile. ‘Only a man could forget to ask that.’

  She was right. But what would it signify? An added bit of perversity? Or the fact the bomber didn’t care for chocolates either? ‘Unimportant.’

  ‘Shame on you, inspector. It’s the kind of detail my readers want to know. Are you guys still maintaining the choice of container for the bombs has no significance? Chocolate, beer, make-up, there’s got to be a theme here. To a puritan soul they might all be indulgences he’d disapprove of.’

  ‘Biros?’

  ‘Nobody is perfect.’

  McLusky used his mobile rather than his radio, to get the information, calling Austin at the station. ‘Jane, find out if the egg contained anything other than the device. Like the chocolates that were supposed to be in there?’

  The mention of Austin’s nickname attracted Warren’s attention. ‘Who’s Jane then?’

  ‘My DS.’

  ‘Pretty?’

  ‘Very. I’ll point Jane out to you sometime.’

  Austin came back to him quickly. ‘Yes, they are finding traces of chocolate but very small amounts. You think it could be significant?’

  ‘No. Just wondered.’ He terminated the call. ‘A small amount of chocolate. A token chocolate. Symbolic chocolate. Which leaves us with a man who eats chocolates but has a perverted sense of humour. He gives you one chocolate but blows your fingers off. And that is what I want you to concentrate on in the next piece you write. He is a bastard. He’s a coward, he has a twisted sense of humour. He thinks he has a good reason for doing what he does but he hasn’t. It’s his delusions of self-importance that make him think he’s justified, not any cause he might have. And by using an Easter egg he’s clearly targeted children, which makes him the biggest coward imaginable.’

  ‘Says Detective Inspector Liam McLusky?’

  ‘Says a source close to the investigation.’

  Warren’s face lit up. ‘You are trying to provoke him.’

  ‘Two can play.’

  ‘So you had contact before? He contacted you after my last piece, am I right?’

  McLusky drank silently.

  ‘I knew it. What did he say? Did he call, write, email?’

  ‘Can’t tell you. You can’t mention it, it would put the entire investigation at risk. And that’s official. If I hear about it I’ll issue a warrant for your arrest.’

  Warren snorted dismissively. ‘You won’t make it stick, no witnesses. So what’s in it for me?’

  ‘Exclusive when I get him.’

  ‘Can I have that in writing?’

  McLusky drained his glass and stood up. ‘Don’t be daft. I gave you the piece of chocolate, that proves you have inside information. Go make the bastard feel small.’ He turned away towards the exit.

  ‘Do you drink at the Quiet Lady often, inspector?’

  McLusky didn’t turn around. ‘No, never.’ In an inside pocket his mobile vibrated. A text message from Louise Rennie. Mud analysed. Collect results 8 pm at the Myristica, King Street. Smart casual. He texted his acceptance. Then he remembered the bin-liner waiting to be taken to the launderette and went in search of the nearest clothes shop to stock up on smart casual.

  Sorbie fiddled with the strap on his helmet, having trouble remembering how it went through the double metal loop. It was such a long time since he’d ridden a motorbike. His hands fluttered a little with the adrenalin of it and he turned away from the patiently waiting vendor. No point giving the teenage mutant opportunity to sneer.

  But it seemed the kid was more interested in the state of his helmet. ‘That’s old-fashioned lids for you. The new ones are all seatbelt style. I’m not being funny but you really should get a new one anyway, looks like yours has been dropped, you’ve got a scuff on the side. ‘

  The scuff on the side of Sorbie’s helmet was the result of the spill that had interrupted his biking career ten years ago. His bike had not been worth repairing and a car had suddenly seemed a sensible alternative. Yet he had held on to the gear, along with vague dreams of one day making a comeback. And here it was. The teenage mutant with the nose-ring and eyebrow studs who now had a significant wodge of his hard-earned in his pocket was right, of course, the helmet was junk. It would probably come apart like a raw egg if
his head hit the tarmac, but it satisfied the demands of the law. He had intended to buy a new one with the money he got off the asking price for the bike but had surprised himself again by how completely inept at haggling he was. ‘It’ll do for now.’

  ‘On your head be it.’

  ‘Ha, very good.’ At last the strap fastened. He shook hands with the kid, pulled on his gloves and straddled the tall trail bike. The engine growled into life and Sorbie’s excitement mounted. Ten years. He gingerly pulled away. In his mirrors he thought he saw the teenager shake his head. In response Sorbie accelerated away hard along the dimly lit street, trying to remember the way out of the estate back to the main road. When he reached it he opened the throttle wide and took off towards the dual carriage-way at twice the speed limit. ‘Yyyyyes!’ He shouted his delight inside his helmet, born again. The engine on this thing had enough grunt to catch any scooter and the bike was skinny enough to go wherever they went. Solo units with their half-ton of equipment and modifications could get stuck in traffic nearly as easy as a police car. But not this. This could go anywhere, on the road or off the road. And if he caught up with the bastard Mobile Muggers he’d blow them into the weeds for good. Unofficially of course. In his spare time.

  Well, someone had to show some initiative round here.

  Chapter Twelve

  Carol Farr could hardly believe how late it was. She should have been back by seven but her coach from London had been stuck on the motorway for two whole hours and even after that the traffic had crawled along. Two massive accidents, apparently. Once the traffic started moving again they had made the driver stop at a service station, the whole coach was dying for a wee and the onboard toilet was out of order. They had run out of refreshments for the passengers so half of them also queued to buy stuff like drinks and sandwiches. In the end it had taken another half-hour to get everyone back on board. What a nightmare journey.

  She hated walking home in the dark but she had spent her last penny in that service station on a Coke, some chewing gum and a magazine just to alleviate the boredom. Should have bought a sandwich, starving now.

  The bridge seemed to go on forever tonight. There was still quite a bit of traffic, which made her feel safer. She had turned her iPod off now she was in the suburbs. With the music and the wind and the traffic noise you wouldn’t hear if someone came up behind you. She checked over her shoulder – there was nobody walking on the bridge at all. Just her. The wind blustered in her ears and snatched at her clothes. It had been a good gig, worth going, just a shame Jo had managed to get ill at the last minute leaving her to go by herself. She’d bought her tickets ages ago, there was no way she was going to miss it. And it had been worth it. Then today, after leaving Jo’s friends who had put her up on the sofa, she’d done Oxford Street, mainly clothes and record shops. She didn’t have much money left to spend so in the end she’d bought three CDs and that was that. Sensible. She could have got more money out but the whole trip had already cost too much.

  Well, that was the bridge done. Not that this was civilization yet, Bedminster Bridge led you into some scenery that was bloody depressing. Coronation Road seemed to go on forever, nothing but the muddy river and shrubbery to the right, supermarket car park and shrubbery to the left. And she had to walk right to the end of it to get home, what a boring end to a brilliant couple of days. Carol turned her iPod back on.

  They were just sitting there, on their scooters, two on each on both sides of the road. Suddenly there was no more traffic. Why was there no traffic? She just knew it was them. They closed in quickly on their scooters, surrounding her. Two of them got off.

  They all shouted at her. ‘Your bag, your money!’

  ‘Hand it over!’

  ‘Now!’

  The biggest one ripped her bag open, took her mobile and the CDs. ‘Your money, where’s your fucking money?’

  The pillion from the other scooter grabbed her hair and twisted, yanked back her head and grabbed at her throat. ‘The money, now!’

  Carol tried to prise away his gloved hand but he tightened his grip and kneed her in the back. ‘I – I haven’t got any.’ She only just managed to squeeze the words out.

  ‘Don’t lie!’ The big man in front of her went through her outer pockets, then ripped her jacket open, pawing at the inside pocket.

  She glimpsed one, two cars going by. Couldn’t they see what was happening?

  The punch in the stomach came as a surprise. The man behind her let go of her throat, spun her head around by her hair and kicked hard into the back of her knees. Then she was on the ground and they were kicking her. She shut her eyes and covered her head, curled up, as the kicks rained. Then it suddenly stopped. A car horn blared, the engines of the scooters whined. They were gone. Only when all was quiet did she dare to open her eyes again. Two more cars drove by slowly, the drivers curious, but then accelerated away. Carol hated them more than the muggers.

  McLusky was glad it was a mild night because it meant they could walk. If he had thought about it he’d have found he was simply glad all round. The evening was going unexpectedly well, he hadn’t put his foot in it once, the food at the Myristica had been excellent and the night was curiously mild, giving it an almost Mediterranean feel. Even the Georgian houses around here didn’t look a million miles away from Italian architecture, though you couldn’t quite imagine people stringing washing across the streets. He hadn’t really known where else to walk so he had steered Louise towards his flat in Northmoor Street and she seemed happy to walk without asking the destination. He had been gently teased about his obviously brand new clothes that clashed with his comfortably worn shoes. What Dr Louise Rennie would make of his flat, even after the hour-and-a-half he had spent clearing up the worst mess, remained to be seen. At least the sofa and coffee table he’d bought from the junk shop down the road had been delivered and she wouldn’t have to stand. He had bought a bottle of red too, just in case.

  As they turned into Northmoor Street he couldn’t help feeling that it had been presumptuous to lead her here. ‘Well, this is where I live, doctor, thanks for walking me home.’

  ‘Is that what I’ve been doing?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘And are you going to ask me in?’

  ‘I was going to try that next. Would you like to come up for a drink?’

  ‘Thank you, I would.’

  ‘I must warn you, I haven’t had time to decorate yet. Or buy a lot of things, there hasn’t really been the time to do anything much yet, careful, the tread is broken on that step.’ He noticed he was talking too fast as they climbed the narrow stairs and with some effort stopped apologizing until they got to his floor. His mail had been left by the door. He scooped it up without checking it and inserted the key in the lock. ‘Well, here goes, don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ She dismissed his warnings as self-deprecation but only until she had negotiated the empty hall and stood in what was meant to be the living room. There were no curtains and no lampshade on the bare bulb dangling from the ceiling. In fact it would have been much quicker to list what actually was there: an unfashionable blue sofa and a pine coffee table standing on a thin ethnic rug. The walls were white. ‘Interesting, who’s your decorator?’

  ‘Warned you. The rest is worse. The spare room is still full of boxes, I’m not really unpacked yet.’ In the kitchen he popped the cork on a bottle of Australian red while Louise took in the spartan fittings with a deepening frown. McLusky noticed it. ‘I ordered a fridge, should come any day now.’

  She ran a finger over the cream enamel of the WWII gas cooker. ‘A nice steam-driven one, I hope. Do all policemen live like this?’

  ‘No, I doubt it. Though I’m sure a lot of them survive on canteen food and pizza.’ He looked for wineglasses, couldn’t find any and had to settle for a couple of tumblers. ‘It’s only temporary, I’ll get it all sorted once I’ve got my bearings.’

  The sofa was hard and smelled of dust an
d long storage. It reminded Louise of her student days in shabbily furnished accommodation, all that was missing were the posters of rock groups on the walls. She watched McLusky light a cigarette, manipulating the expensive-looking lighter with slender fingers. He used a saucer as an ashtray. This was like dating a teenager in his first digs away from home. She fortified herself with half a tumblerful of wine, reached out and gently grabbed and twisted his new blue shirt, pulling herself closer. ‘Okay, time you came clean. Unless this fabled spare room with all your boxes is one hell of a cavern you don’t seem to have … well, let’s just call it stuff. What happened? Did your last place burn down? Burglary? Repossession? Left somewhere in a hurry? Or did you just upgrade from a caravan?’

  McLusky smiled down at Louise’s fist holding on to the shirt material. The grab had turned into a small, two-fingered caress. ‘I’m trained to deal with shirt-grabbers, you know?’

  ‘Well, you can show me that later. This is my interview technique. So. What happened? You’ve been very cagey all evening about your life in Southampton while I’ve told you practically every story of my life.’

  ‘I just don’t do stuff very well, that’s all. In Southampton I moved in with someone who seemed to have all that kind of thing already, fridges and cookers and heated towel rails. So I never accumulated any. When we split I simply threw some things into a few boxes and bin-liners …’ It had been Laura in fact who had packed all his possessions into boxes, carefully wrapped naturally, while he was still recovering in hospital. It was all there waiting for him at the section house when he got out. Half of it had never been unpacked since. ‘I’m not hung up on material things.’

  ‘Neither am I. Just a place to lay my head, really.’ She let herself sink back along the length of the sofa, bringing him with her by the shirt. Slipping her fingers into his hair she pulled him close until their lips met in a series of slow, tentative kisses. His aftershave seemed to have mellowed and blended with his own particular fragrance into faint hints of cinnamon and musk. She enjoyed the weight of his body on hers and wriggled lower, sliding her hands down his back as their kisses grew longer. His hands insinuated themselves smoothly into the small of her back, the arch of her neck. A hum of pleasure vibrated his chest and he pulled her body harder towards his own. Louise walked her fingers over the unfamiliar topography of his muscles under the shirt material, a whole landscape in urgent need of exploring. The unfamiliar buzz of the door bell froze both of them in a silent, trembling pause. The door bell sounded again, longer, more insistently.