Peter Lovesey: The Tick of Death

There was a marked slowing of the pace after Westminster Bridge, not unconnected, Cribb decided, with the fact that they were now in ‘A’ Division, the home of the Yard itself. But the driver disabused him of that notion by saying through the communication-window: ‘Sorry about the holdup, Sergeant. The traffic’s jammed all the way along Whitehall. It’ll be the crowds ahead, I reckon.’

Crowds? Before eight in the morning on Saturday in Whitehall? Who could they be-Socialists? Suffragists? Extraordinary time for a public demonstration.

‘You’d be just as quick on foot, if I might suggest it,’ the driver went on. ‘It’ll take us twenty minutes this way.’

He was right. It would be quicker to foot it, so long as he didn’t find himself in the thick of a demonstration. ‘What’s going on this morning?’ he asked.

‘Sight-seers, I reckon, Sergeant. There was a crowd already gathering in the Yard when I left soon after six this morning.’

Cribb had never regarded Great Scotland Yard as one of the sights of London. Visitors from the provinces occasionally called at the Convict Office and in return for a small contribution to police funds were taken up to the garret to see a collection of grisly relics that had come to be known as the Criminal Museum, but the Yard itself was otherwise one of the dullest spots in the capital-until this morning, apparently. Well, he was damned if he would ask the van-driver a second time what was going on. ‘I shall make my way on foot, then, Constable.’

‘Very well, Sergeant. Inspector Jowett said you was to report to him in his usual office.’

Confounded cheek, telling him where to report, as if Jowett had ever said such a thing. Some of these drivers seemed to think that managing a pair of horses successfully gave them a privileged position in the Force. Why, a man like Thackeray had never breathed an insubordinate word in all the time he had known him, yet here was this jumped-up stable-lad coolly giving orders to a sergeant after driving him across London at a rate that could only be described as hair-raising.

He was glad of the walk to cool his temper a little. The way he felt on leaving the van, he was liable to say something to Jowett he might regret. Besides, he was actually making quicker progress than the line of vehicles. Some of the cabmen had resignedly attached nosebags to their horses’ heads. But his fellow-pedestrians interested him more than the traffic. There were more travelling in his direction than one usually encountered, and by no means all were Civil Servants on their way to work. By their appearance, many were members of the poor class who had trooped across Westminster Bridge from the backstreets of Lambeth, some in considerable groups, children, parents and grandparents marching purposefully up Whitehall, bright-eyed with the expectation of some family treat in store.

At a loss to account for it, Cribb strode briskly on until the press of people beyond the Horse Guards slowed him to a shuffle. The Yard itself, when he reached it, was as thick with humanity as a painting by Frith. The concourse had come to an enforced stop. They stood shoulder to shoulder, bowler to bowler. Infants sat astride their fathers’ backs and snatched at the tassels of passing parasols. Newspaper-boys and fruit-sellers had materialised from nowhere and bawled their wares into the captive ears around them.

Being tall, Cribb could glimpse the helmets of a police cordon controlling the crowd. He pressed forward with difficulty. It was some minutes before he reached the front ranks. There, the reason for the crowd’s presence came dramatically in sight.

A hole about fifteen feet by twenty had been blasted in the Criminal Investigation Department. Debris was scattered widely across the quadrangle, amongst it broken cupboards, a battered safe and the remains of two carnages, a landau and a brougham. The front of the Rising Sun, on the opposite side, was in ruins, although the landlord had contrived an entrance for the public, who were paying to look inside. Every window in the Yard had been shattered by the explosion. Workmen were engaged in shoring up the Police Office with wooden beams.

Cribb reached the police-line, was recognised, and passed through, stepping over the rubble with a sureness of foot quite recently acquired. The entrance was on the side away from the explosion. He mounted the stairs to Jowett’s office.

‘Kindly leave the door open behind you,’ the Inspector called to him as he went in. ‘We shall at least be able to breathe if there is an unobstructed passage of air. This dust is asphyxiating me by degrees.’ He was seated at his usual desk in front of a window-frame empty except for a few jagged segments of glass. A large fall of plaster from the ceiling had all but obliterated the tufted rug to which, as a senior officer, he was entitled. A thin film of white dust lay over everything in the room, including his hair and suit. ‘Unfortunately, there is nowhere else for us to talk.’

‘When did this happen, sir?’

‘Shortly after nine o’clock last night. One of the newspapers has already produced a special edition to report it. I have been here myself since the small hours.’ He stroked the unshaven bristles on his chin to emphasise his quick response to the emergency. ‘They sent a cab out to South Norwood for me.’

Better than a police-van, thought Cribb. ‘Is this the work of the Clan-na-Gael, sir?’

‘Without a shadow of doubt. Did you notice which room was the target of the attack?’

‘It looked to me like the Hackney Carriage Licensing Department, sir.’

‘No, on the upper floor. It is the room next to this, the new headquarters of the Special Irish Branch. They have struck directly at the officers who are investigating them. If that isn’t the Clan snapping its fingers in our faces, I don’t know what is.’

‘Was anyone hurt, sir?’

‘Several. None fatally, we think. P.C. Clarke, the constable on duty in the Yard, was blown against a wall and suffered a severe scalp wound. Six others, including a coachman and the barmaid from the Rising Sun, are in Charing Cross Hospital. Mercifully, no one was in the office at the time. It is extensively damaged, as you may imagine.’ Jowett paused, and frowned. ‘I have not seen inside, but I doubt whether my telephone-set has survived.’

‘I’m sorry, sir. One other point: I wouldn’t wish to criticise a man in no position to defend himself, but if P.C. Clarke was on duty in the Yard, how was it that he didn’t notice the infernal machine before it exploded?’

‘A perfectly proper observation, Cribb. The answer is that it was not in view. The dynamitards had secreted it in what one might describe as a convenient hiding-place adjoining the wall of the building.’

‘Oh? What was that, sir?’ said Cribb, blankly.

Jowett looked embarrassed and ran his hand over the back of his head, producing a small halo of dust. ‘Well, not to beat about the bush. .’

‘Ah! The public urinal, sir! Perfectly sited for their devilish purpose.’

‘Exactly so.’

‘That would account for the blast effects,’ said Cribb, pleased to air his new expertise. ‘The vertical thrust of the blast quite surprised me. The bricks have been displaced to a height of up to twenty feet. The urinal acted like a cannon, you see. Instead of the force being dispersed in all directions from the point of detonation, it was concentrated upwards. Curious-I was due for a practical demonstration of blast effects this morning. I didn’t know the Clan was going to provide it for me.’

‘You have not seen all that they provided,’ said Jowett.

‘What do you mean, sir?’

‘There were two other explosions last night, in St James’s Square. The Junior Carlton Club was attacked at eighteen minutes past nine. Fifteen seconds after, there was a second explosion across the Square, at Sir Watkin Wynn’s residence.’