Carver

47

Rosconway

Carver found Tyrrell and Schultz staring despondently at a podium set up in front of a massive steel column, ringed by gantries and pipes. It looked like a rocket on a launch pad. More columns, chimneys and buildings rose behind it. Massive steel pipes wove between them, and ran past the small open space where the minister would address the media. A crowd of journalists and civil servants milled around, waiting for the show to begin. Willie Holloway, meanwhile, was having a heated argument with a pink-faced young man in a pinstriped suit who seemed unhappy with the positioning of the dais. Carver saw a look of undiluted loathing on Holloway’s face as he caught a braying, arrogant voice declaring, ‘I don’t give a damn about your ridiculous health and safety rules. The minister has to have the optimum backdrop. You’ll just have to move it.’

The SBS men were no happier. ‘Look at this,’ Schultz moaned, waving in the direction of the columns. ‘Fucking firing positions everywhere. Enough cover to hide a fucking regiment. Even a fucking para could get a shot off before we could stop him.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t put it quite like that, but I can’t say I disagree,’ Tyrrell said, giving Carver a nod of greeting. ‘How familiar are you with the way these things work?’ he asked.

‘I know more about mining and ore extraction.’

‘Well, you heat the crude up to about six hundred degrees centigrade, till it vaporizes, then stick the gas in these distillation columns, where it separates into different petrochemicals. They all condense at particular levels of the column: the higher up you go, the finer the product. And here’s the bit that we need to worry about: every one of those petrochemicals has different properties of flammability, explosiveness and toxicity.’

‘In simple English, having a bloody great media bunfight at a refinery is like having a barbecue at a fireworks factory,’ said Schultz.

‘Well, you lads enjoy the party,’ said Carver. ‘Can I have the keys to the car?’

‘Off to the pub, are you, sir?’ asked Schultz, smirking.

‘No, just curious about something Holloway and his lads might have missed.’

Tyrrell frowned. ‘Anything I need to know about?’

‘Not yet,’ said Carver. ‘Just want to take a look around the area.’

Tyrrell looked at him searchingly. ‘That’s all you’re doing?’

‘Positive.’

‘Well, if you come across anything suspicious, give me a call.’

‘Will do… So, the keys?’

‘Catch,’ said Snoopy Schultz.

Carver plucked them from the air one-handed, and headed for the car park.