Peter Helton - Falling More Slowly

‘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 circulated 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.