Peter Helton - Falling More Slowly

Daws met his eyes with an unbelieving stare. ‘Nah, rubbish, that’s got nothing to do with me.’

‘Who has it to do with?’

‘How the fuck would I know, I had nothing to do with that shit.’

‘Who has, Daws?’

‘I don’t know his name, do I?’

‘But you know where? Because you, Mr Daws, during your recent spree of burglaries, got a painful surprise somewhere.’

Daws clamped his mouth shut and stared out of the window.

‘Daws, if you think it would incriminate you then I wouldn’t worry about it. It’ll be nothing compared to withholding evidence in a terrorism case. If one more person dies because you didn’t tell us, we’re going to add manslaughter to your charge sheet. I’ll see to it personally.’

Daws appeared to be thinking it over but his shoulders had already sagged. ‘Nelson Close, one of the old prefabs.’

‘Which one?’

‘At the end. The last one before the field. But it was an empty one, boarded up, no one lives there, so it wasn’t even really breaking in or anything. Only I’d seen someone go in and out the back the day before so I thought I’d check it out. It had some kind of workshop in there. There was an MP3 player on the workbench. It blew up in my fucking hand. I got the hell out of there and down to A amp;E.’

‘It didn’t occur to you to let us know what you had stumbled upon there?’

Daws shrugged. ‘It’s not exactly my style, is it?’

The incident room was empty. DC Dearlove had enlarged the photograph of the old boy with the bicycle to A4 size and printed several copies, one of which he now pinned up on the board opposite the row of photos of the bomb victims, all thankfully taken before the explosions. The girl was the most upsetting, he thought, although the gym woman had been quite a looker too. It wasn’t really fair, of course. The better looking you were the more sympathy you got. He had noticed that long ago. If you were ugly and covered in spots and had thin hair nobody really cared.

Where was everybody? Further down the corridor in the CID room he found only DC French listening to someone on the phone while demolishing a packet of Jaffa Cakes and ignoring him, both as per usual. Through the open door he spotted DS Sorbie in the corridor, moving past in a curious slow motion. When he called after him he only got a feeble wave in return. He drew level with him by the stairs. ‘Are you okay, sir?’ The DS certainly didn’t look it. His skin was glistening and he seemed to have shrunk into his suit.

‘No, I’m not, thanks for asking. I’ve been throwing up merrily and worse and I feel shite. Drank too much river water the other day. I’m out of here.’ Or it could have been the celebrations of course. Should have taken a couple of days off like Fairfield.

‘It’s only that DI McLusky asked me to disseminate this picture.’ He held out a copy to him. ‘He thinks this might be him. The bomber.’

‘Oh yeah? About time. Hang on. I’ve seen him before, I’m sure of it.’ And he hadn’t been feeling too clever that day either. ‘He’s that grumpy bastard at Nelson Close, in those prefabs.’ A new wave of nausea was gathering just above his navel. You’d have thought all that alcohol would have killed any bugs he might have swallowed with the river water but apparently not.

‘You wouldn’t have a name, would you?’

‘For him? No. Last but one of the bungalows before the demolished brickworks.’ He was feeling hot, sweat pricked his skin. ‘Go get him, Deedee. Cover yourself in glory. Before I cover you in puke.’

Dearlove watched the DS turn away and shuffle back down the corridor towards the toilets like a very old man. ‘Right. Okay.’ Well, he would certainly have a look at him. One old dear he could deal with. And then if he found anything suspicious he would call it in, of course.

DS Austin was in the process of dialling the inspector’s number when McLusky stuck his head into the incident room. ‘Jane, what have you got?’

Austin consulted a sheet of notes. ‘Well, there was a flood of calls as you’d expect on a day like that, most of them what you’d call nuisance calls, about being stuck in traffic and when the hell were they going to do something about it. But there were some serious calls. Two women in labour, for a start. They got attended by local midwives and a doctor legging it round there. But I just found this. The name is Cooke. The wife took an overdose and her husband found her and called for an ambulance. He called six times. When they eventually got her to the Royal Infirmary it was too late. She died later of liver failure.’

‘And he lives in a prefab?’

‘How did you know?’

‘Because he’s our man, Jane. Let’s go, let’s go.’

A thin, half-hearted rain began to fall as McLusky drove across town in his usual style, though he did refrain from using the pavements. Austin found he had to give fewer directions now; the inspector was getting to know the city.

‘I think he always tried to watch, that was his mistake. He was certainly there when the bombs in the park went off. And I do think he was at the docks that morning looking at the aftermath of the firebomb on the Eleni . He enjoys the fruits of his work a bit too much.’

‘It all makes hideous sense. He blames whatever caused the gridlock and takes his revenge.’

McLusky grunted with disgust and swerved to avoid a child struggling on a tiny bicycle into the middle of the road. ‘Only it’s gone far beyond that. He hates everyone, he hates the city. He wants us all to stay at home and be quiet. So he can grieve in peace.’

‘If he was hoping to scare people into staying at home then he should have known better. Especially if he is the old boy in this picture.’ Austin patted the photocopy on the dashboard. ‘Even the blitz didn’t make people stay at home.’

‘I think it soon stopped being about getting a result and became all about doing it, hurting people. You hurt me — now I’ll hurt you back.’

‘We’re nearly there. What kind of back-up have we got?’

McLusky checked the clock on the dashboard. ‘Firearms unit will meet us in forty minutes. Just here actually.’ He slowed down. They had arrived at the turn-off to the close. A clump of trees, untidy shrubs and a substation obscured the view of the prefabs from the main road. ‘It was the best place I could think of, not knowing the area too well. We’ll send some of the boys across the other side through the demolished brickworks. But that’s all academic until we know that the bastard’s at home.’

‘Do you think he’ll be armed?’

‘Hard to say. But we know he doesn’t mind killing or maiming so he might not come quietly.’ He turned the car down the narrow potholed road into Nelson Close and stopped by the first bungalow. ‘This is number one, unsurprisingly, what number is he?’

‘Last but one with the back to the service road, number thirty-five. Right at the back.’

Standing in the rain they surveyed the area. The bungalows were arranged in a rigid grid, with wide concrete paths between front and back gardens. Every two bungalows shared an area of perished concrete hard standing, most of which gave room to bins, rusting white goods, old paint tins and broken furniture. While all the bungalows looked identical — hunched, asbestos-grey shapes with moss-covered roofs — it was the gardens that had once given them their individuality. Waist-high weeds surrounded most of the boarded-up prefabs but some still showed signs of cultivation. There were only a few small cars visible in the close, parked in front of neatly kept houses. An old two-stroke disability vehicle rusted in front of a bungalow where the front garden had been concreted over.