Peter Helton - Falling More Slowly

Despite the extended side pods — the van’s ‘hamster pouches’ — the office of the Mercedes command unit was small for all the bodies crammed inside it. When McLusky went back in a few heads remained studiously down while some of the detectives studied the new man with open curiosity.

He stood in front of the whiteboard. Austin had spent some time bringing him up to speed with the current caseload they were battling. It was quite insane but average for a city this size. He hoped he could strike the right note. ‘Okay, I’ll make this short. There’s always a chance that Mr Keale of past pipe-bomb fame is responsible, but let’s not pin our hopes on it. We do however want a quick result on this and we’re stretched, with lots of Uniform tied up doing fingertip searches of the park. There’s also the matter, I’ve been told, of hunting a roving gang of mobile phone muggers that appears to be high on the super’s list of priorities.’

Some murmurs and groans. The public — and the press — saw the so-called Mobile Muggers as the main menace in the city. Until today perhaps. Chasing them down to get them off the Evening Post ’s front page had until now been one of the superintendent’s pet projects.

‘That’s why even overqualified detectives like DI Fairfield will be joining in the house-to-house effort to bring in as many witness statements as possible by the end of the day.’ A curt nod from Fairfield, a hard stare from her DS. ‘Anything to do with explosions will naturally attract the attentions of the Combined Anti-Terrorism people. Several of them may even as I speak be riding west to pay us a visit.’ Groans. ‘The super feels it would be nice to have something to show our visitors, specifically evidence of our competence, brilliance, efficiency and, I’m sure, cost effectiveness.’ Boos and ironic cheers. ‘Any questions?’

Only a few hands went up, everyone wanted to get going. He dealt swiftly with the questions then dismissed his troops. ‘Right, let’s do it.’

Shuffling of papers. The team were getting ready, most to go out, a few to start sifting through the witness statements already taken.

The relief of having started work began to relax his shoulders. He shook a cigarette out of the packet and lit it, mainly to dampen his hunger. That Danish was a distant memory to his stomach.

‘Sir?’ It was Sorbie, standing by the exit door.

‘Yup?’

‘It’s no smoking in here, sir.’

He grunted an acknowledgement and went to stand outside, watching the detectives troop off, Sorbie and DI Fairfield among them. There’d been no time to talk to the inspector. If she felt resentful about a newcomer of identical rank and seniority being put in charge then she hid it well. Fairfield seemed the efficient type. Very smartly dressed and almost too good-looking for a detective. He wasn’t sure himself what he meant by that but wondered how suspects reacted, most of them young and male, in the interview room, for instance.

At least it had stopped raining for a bit. Austin joined him. ‘Couldn’t scrounge another cigarette, sir, could I?’

McLusky obliged. ‘If you’re going to keep smoking my cigarettes you might as well call me by my name. I’m Liam.’

‘I’m Jane.’

‘You are?’

‘Well, it’s James Austin, so everyone calls me Jane.’

‘You don’t mind?’

‘Not really. Bit late for that anyway. She lived just down the road in Bath, did you know that?’

‘Did she?’

Austin nodded. ‘She hated it. Too pretentious, too noisy.’

Too noisy. McLusky reckoned here in the park the police made all the noise. Calls, engines, doors slamming, the growls of so-called low-noise generators. ‘It’s beginning to look like a bloody film set out there.’

It was a gloomy day so arc lights had already been set up to make sure crime scene investigators and Forensics didn’t miss anything. This side of the park was out of bounds to the public now, entrances closed off. Lines of uniformed police were doing a fingertip search of the surrounding area. Every bit of debris, down to the smallest wood splinter, was being recovered. A photographer with a large video camera took endless shots of the scene, the surroundings, the entire operation. Press photographers had managed to scramble up through the undergrowth to get as close as possible to the locus of the explosion. They were popping off so much flash photography towards the scene that investigators had to avert their eyes in order to avoid being temporarily blinded. When their protests fell on deaf ears they complained to McLusky.

He sent Austin. ‘Go sort them out.’ The DS sauntered over, then at the top of his voice threatened to arrest ‘the next idiot using a flash for obstructing the investigation’. McLusky approved. He hated the press. Unless he could use them for his own ends, of course.

The chief investigator repaid them five minutes later.

McLusky flicked his cigarette into a puddle. ‘What have you got for us?’

The white-suited man twitched his blond moustache. He probably thought he was smiling. ‘It was a bomb, homemade. We can’t say for sure what type of explosive was used, we’ll leave that to Forensics, though I have my own theory. What I can tell you gentlemen is that the explosive material was probably housed in a thin metal canister.’ He held up an evidence bag containing a triangular piece of torn metal. ‘It’s a bit of a miracle that apart from the boy no one else was injured by the shrapnel but then it’s quite flimsy stuff. Are you a drinking man, inspector? Does this look at all familiar?’

McLusky took it off him and leant back, angling it into the light coming from inside the command unit. Despite the slight blistering he could still make out the embossed writing, Special Reserve and Aged 12 years . The type of metal canister single malts came in. He half-closed his eyes, visualizing the bottle. ‘That’ll be Glenfiddich. I prefer the Ancient Reserve myself.’

‘You’re a connoisseur, then?’ Austin squinted at the bag.

‘Not on my salary.’ McLusky handed it back. ‘Thanks for the preview.’

‘No sweat.’ The man left to rejoin the group of CSI technicians working the area.

‘The public’s new heroes, apparently.’ Austin nodded towards the white-suited army.

‘What, crime scene techies?’

‘So it would appear. American TV series. All you have to do, apparently, is run that bit of tin through the lab and they’ll tell you where it was bought, what the perp has for breakfast and whether he takes water with it. Then you wash it through the computer and it’ll spit out his address. You haven’t seen it either? I can’t get Channel Five.’

‘I haven’t got a telly.’

‘Blimey, that’s radical.’

‘Hardly.’ It was probably just another of those things he’d forgotten to get, like a wife and kids and a group of close friends he could ask round for supper. He did have friends of course but they fell into one of two categories: they were either drinking friends or colleagues and former colleagues. Both those categories he had now left behind in Southampton and he didn’t expect any of them to come and find him. Tabula rasa . He could start over.

Witness statements had been taken and were now being collated in the office inside the command vehicle where for the time being all information came together. House-to-house inquiries were being made at every property that overlooked the park on this side.

‘All right, Jane, so what are we looking at here? Terrorists? Kids? A crank?’

Austin rocked lightly from side to side, making himself comfortable on his feet. ‘Not sure what I think. It could have been a schoolkid prank that went wrong. It was one hell of a bang. Kids do hang out here, though not so much after dark now since the Mobile Muggers have struck here twice.’