Peter Helton - Falling More Slowly

All the staff here were civilians of course, which was another source of worry. He didn’t want anyone drawing the same conclusions he had until it became inevitable. As soon as he had the copies he had asked for he took the footage back to Albany Road.

At the station he had requested and received three battered TVs and three DVD players and had managed to cram them all into a corner of his tiny office, one balanced on top of the other, and plugged them into the only available socket via an adventurous knot of extensions. Ensconced in his chair and with a notebook beside him he wrote endless, detailed and systematic notes. Having long recognized his woeful inadequacy when it came to paperwork he tended to overcompensate by sifting everything into separate sheets, columns and folders, with large simplistic headings. This would generate piles of papers all with directions at the bottom like ‘cf. DOGWALKER 1’ or ‘see also SECOND NOISE REPORTED’.

The angles on the cameras covering the entrances were shallower and allowed number plates to be read. The time counter helped him to synchronize the footage. Any person walking in or out who could have simply dropped the booby-trapped compact he tracked from camera to camera. Those that walked out he tracked backwards, those that came in he tracked forward. Some people of course merely used the car park as a shortcut but most were coming from or walking to their cars. He then noted down the appearance of the people and the make and age of car and laboriously tracked the vehicle back to when it arrived or left, noting the index number if possible. Nobody however could be observed placing the bomb by the entrance or dropping it, though the camera might not pick up such sleight of hand. The area was just outside the picture, perhaps by less than a yard, he estimated. After two hours of this he reminded himself that he was acting on the assumption that what he had seen in the original footage was indeed Maxine Bendick bending down to pick up the glittering find that later claimed her face. His headache had got steadily worse. Time for a break. He stopped the playback and called the hospital.

Sitting on the sill of the open window he was glad of its unprestigious view over the backs of houses, away from the eyes of punters, colleagues and superiors, because it allowed him to defy the smoking ban. While he was waiting for a doctor at Southmead Hospital to come back on the line there was a knock at the door. It sounded like Austin’s knock but you could never be sure. Just in case it wasn’t he hid his cigarette by balancing it on the window frame behind him. A slight breeze made it roll off and fall into the void.

‘Shit. Come in.’

It was Austin. ‘Shit come in? Charming. Or did you think it was DCI Gaunt? I forget, you haven’t met him yet.’ Seeing that his superior was on the phone the DS sat down. He produced his own cigarettes and lit one with a silver lighter. Not before time, McLusky thought — the man’s addiction had been costing him a fortune.

Austin frowned at the tower of TV sets. ‘Why didn’t you use the computer, you could have had all three on a split screen?’

‘Really? Now he tells me.’ The doctor came back on the line, armed with files and superior advice, no doubt, to refuse his request.

McLusky had expected no less. ‘Dr Thompson, I said interview. I have no intention of interrogating Miss Bendick. She’s a witness and a victim of crime. I only need to ask her a few questions.’

‘Not for a few days, I’m afraid.’

‘One question? I tell you what, doctor. You ask her one question for me and I might not have to interview her at all, how’s that? Would you do that? It might just help stop more cases like Miss Bendick coming through your door.’

A short pause during which McLusky rolled his eyes for Austin’s benefit.

‘I can’t promise you anything. It might depend on the question. She needs rest.’

‘It’s a simple question. Just ask her where she got the powder compact.’

‘That’s all?’

‘Nothing else.’

‘I’ll call you back.’

‘Oh no, I’ll hold.’

‘You’re a suspicious man, inspector.’

Too right. Waiting for people to call back, being abandoned by operators in little-explored corners of the switchboard, phantom messages left with imaginary people and all things ‘in the post’ were part of an officer’s daily round and high on McLusky’s list of spirit-draining nuisances.

He wedged the receiver between ear and shoulder, stretched his legs out along the window sill, folded his arms and turned to Austin. ‘You found nothing, I take it?’

The DS had just returned from supervising a search of Colin Keale’s locker at the distribution depot where the man drove a fork-lift at night. ‘Nothing relating to bomb making. An overall, a newspaper and a vacuum flask that had whisky in it.’

‘Whisky? Mmm. Glenfiddich, by any chance?’

‘I don’t have your nose, Liam. I could tell it was whisky but not which one. We’ll send it off for analysis of course.’

‘And wait four weeks? Bollocks to that. Give me one sniff, Jane, and I’ll tell you if it is. What time does his plane land?’

‘16.55.’

‘We’d better get a move on soon. Is the flask still here? Then go and get it.’ While he waited for Austin to return he fluted bored invective down the line where Dr Thompson and Southmead Hospital were offering him nothing but static.

Keale’s Turkish holiday was over and he was flying back into Bristol Airport this afternoon. It would be good to have at least something to scare him with when they questioned him. Of course an awful lot of people drank Glenfiddich. Few stuffed the tin it came in full of gunpowder and shoved it under a park bench.

‘There you are, impress me.’ Austin handed over the red plastic flask. It was scratched and grimy.

McLusky unscrewed the plastic cup and popped the old-fashioned cork stopper. He inhaled the fragrance deeply and was instantly troubled by a strong desire to put the half-litre flask to his lips and empty it. ‘It’s Glenfiddich all right.’

‘Sure?’

‘Can’t be a hundred per cent sure without tasting it, but we can’t go around drinking the evidence.’

‘Am I bothering to send it off?’

‘Pointless at this stage, it wouldn’t prove a thing. We’ll wave it under his nose first during the interview and ask him. Then we’ll send it off.’

‘Because you’ve been known to be wrong?’

‘Indeed.’

The receiver against his ear crackled to life. ‘Inspector?’

‘I’m here.’

‘Miss Bendick told me she found the compact at a car park that day. Is that any help?’

On the contrary. ‘It is. Thanks for doing that, Dr Thompson. I must ask you to keep that detail to yourself for the time being. It’s important it doesn’t become public knowledge at this point in the investigation.’ He returned the receiver to its cradle with exaggerated gentleness.

‘Is it what I think it is?’

McLusky slid his jacket on. ‘Yup. Let’s go.’

By the time they had arrived at Austin’s car the implications were sinking in. ‘Bastard. Now what do we do?’

McLusky strapped himself into the back seat as conscientiously as someone about to loop-the-loop in an open-cockpit plane. ‘You have my permission to panic. Meanwhile we continue to have every available bod explore every possible avenue. How are we doing with the fireworks sales?’

‘We’re nearly through them all. Nothing. No one reports any suspiciously large sales or people coming back for several purchases, though that’s very hard to keep track of if you have several staff. If our bomber has any savvy he’ll have gone round lots of shops anyway.’