Falling More Slowly

Chapter Ten

Libby Hart checked her watch. Six minutes to nine, very nearly done. She hated the new late opening hours. But libraries were struggling and it had been decided that more people would use the place if they stayed open late once a week. First Sunday opening, now late opening, soon all-night opening? She didn’t know if this really was improving library use since the numbers had not been worked out yet. She did know they had more problems with drunks when opening late, especially when it rained hard, like it had earlier on. Attracting new clients. Or was it ‘end-users’? What was wrong with calling them ‘people’? The library had changed over the last few years and she didn’t think it was for the better. People now came to watch videos and to use the internet. It certainly meant that more people came to the library without ever taking a book off the shelves. The noise level had risen with it, especially around the computers. You often heard mobiles ringing and being answered too despite the notice at the door asking for them to be turned off.

‘Goodnight, my colleague will let you out.’ She gave the young woman a relieved smile. That was the last one, she was sure. While Doug let the woman out she went on one last tour of the entire library just to make certain there was no one left ignoring the announcements or sitting asleep or hiding between the canyons of shelves, hoping to be locked in.

The woman had left a heavy red book lying on the table where she’d been sitting. Libby picked it up and took it on her tour of the library. A Chronicle of Crime. Infamous murderers and their heinous crimes, promised the subtitle. Why would anyone want to know about this stuff? She had reached the last corner of the library, the quietest one furthest away from the entrance. No one here either, the library was clear. She walked with the book towards the issue desk and wondered what had brought the woman to the library on a rainy evening to study this grisly tome. Grainy images of convicted murderers looked up at her from the cover. She opened it at random. Woman Kills Rival: Dumps Body on Wasteland. Libby hoped the woman who had studied it tonight hadn’t been looking for inspiration. She closed the book with a determined slap and set it heavily on to a trolley. One for the morning shift to sort out.

At the desk Doug had cashed up, locked the sliding cupboards and was now tidying away the last things on the desk. She liked working with Doug. He was near retirement age and only worked two days a week which meant he was a lot more cheerful than some she could mention.

‘I think we’ve done it, Libby.’

‘Yup, I think we have. And it’s even stopped raining.’

‘Good.’ He waved a fat silver biro. ‘Someone left this behind. If no one claims it by the end of the month I’ll have it. It’s nice.’

‘Put your name on it then.’

‘Certainly will.’ Doug ripped a square of yellow notepaper from a block and clicked the biro. It exploded in a gas-blue flash that left a red after-image on Libby’s retina. Doug’s hand was a pulpy red mass and there was blood streaming from his neck. His head trembled and his dimming eyes were fixed at a bloodied horizon thrumming with fear. His body crumpled and slumped behind the smouldering desk. For several heartbeats Libby stared at the space where he had stood. Then she filled her lungs and ran screaming for the door.

‘Will he live?’ McLusky was standing on top of a desk from where he could appraise the bloodstain on the carpet, the bloody foot- and handprints, arcs of spatters and the bloodied work station where the victim had stood. Scene of Crime were still hunting for bits of tissue as far as twenty feet away from the point of the explosion. The victim had been removed to the Royal Infirmary.

Austin, knee-high to his superior, shrugged. ‘Touch and go. If he does then it’s entirely thanks to his colleague who called the security guard who’s a first-aider. The ambulance would never have got here in time. He was losing a lot of blood from the wound in his neck.’

McLusky took another look at the bent and blackened stub of metal in the evidence bag he was holding. It was all that was left of a polished steel biro, thick as a finger, solid and seductive. Anyone using the library could have picked it up, staff or punter, man, woman or child. It was rigged to blow up as soon as someone tried to use it. A whisky tin, a beer can, a powder compact, a biro. It made no sense. McLusky jumped off the desk. ‘It makes no bloody sense. There’s no rhyme or reason I can see. Who’s he after? Just anyone? Does he have a grudge so vague that it doesn’t matter to him who he blows up?’

‘Perhaps he just likes building bombs and all else is incidental. Or perhaps Sorbie was right, there’s no motive.’

‘Then God help us.’ The large device in the park had merely been the overture, the rapping of a conductor’s baton in order to get everyone’s attention. Now the bomber was playing his tune and leading them a dance.

‘There’s no CCTV in here, I’m surprised. They’re relying on their alarm system.’ Austin nodded his head at the big security gates that would sound an alarm if anyone tried to smuggle out any items.

McLusky looked morose. ‘You’d need a camera between every two shelves. And you could still drop a biro without it being picked up. And that’s basically our problem. The devices are small and can be delivered any time. We have no idea where this guy picked the biro up but it could have been sitting between a couple of books for ages. His bad luck. Someone else could easily have picked it up, put it in his pocket, carried it around then used it miles from here. And then if he’d died we’d never know. We wouldn’t have a bloody clue where it came from.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Forensics have been less than useless so far.’ He gave the item in the evidence bag one more exasperated look then handed it back to the chief technician, who dropped it into his case.

There was nothing more to do here. He had spoken to Libby Hart, the librarian who had witnessed the incident. She’d barely been coherent enough to make sense and had repeated the same things over and over: how he had just crumpled, how his thumb just disappeared, how it all happened so suddenly.

That was the nature of the thing, you couldn’t very well have a slow explosion. It was clear that the woman was deeply shocked and when it transpired that she lived by herself he had made sure she was accompanied home. If she didn’t settle the officer would know to call a doctor who could administer a sedative. All she probably needed was to talk it out of her system and get some sleep. Sleep … McLusky checked his watch: two in the morning. The discovery instantly provoked a yawn. He turned to Austin. ‘We’re done. There’s nothing here. The woman didn’t know where or when her colleague picked the thing up but if he pulls through and tells us then we’ll try and match the area where it was found with today’s book issues. Yesterday’s, I should say.’

Austin scratched the tip of his nose with the nail of his index finger. ‘Ehm … I’m not sure I follow.’

‘Let’s say it was found in the music section then we’ll check on the library computer to see who took out CDs and interview them, see if they remember anything.’

‘Oh, right. And if the guy doesn’t live?’

‘Then we’ll interview everyone.’

‘Oh joy.’ Austin gave the library, still full of crime scene officers, one last disapproving look and wondered just how many people wandered in and out during a day. He hoped fervently he’d never have to find out.

Later the next day at his desk and dealing with the paperwork that had begun to litter it, McLusky felt he was in hiding from the case. Unlike some CID officers he had known who seemed happy to spend most of their working life behind their desks, it made him feel resentful and guilty. This paper and computer stuff had to be dealt with but sometimes it seemed like it was deliberately designed to keep him away from his work. There was enough red tape in this building to tie the entire station in knots. While being new on this patch had kept the mail and paperwork down — compared to what some of his colleagues were suffering — he knew it wouldn’t take long to catch up with him. He threw his biro down in disgust, looked at it for a moment, then picked it up again, weighing it in his hands. It was the brushed steel biro. He was sure he hadn’t bought it and almost certain it hadn’t been a present. Which meant he had picked it up somewhere. Just like the librarian. It was so easily done. Something as simple as picking up a pen could mean you ended up fighting for your life in intensive care, like Douglas Boon who had a hole in his throat the size of a pound coin where part of the pen’s metal casing had hit. He’d been doubly unlucky. The device had been designed to take the victim’s fingers off. Which it had also done. He had lost part of a thumb and the tips of two fingers.

McLusky reached for the only letter that was not internal mail and slid it open using the biro. It contained a narrow slip of paper, densely crowded with lines, typed single spaced. Randomly capitalized words danced through the text. Before he had taken in a single sentence he knew what he was looking at. It was from him.

He withdrew his hands from the paper as though it was on fire and let it glide on to the computer keyboard. One hand crept across his desk in an unconscious search for cigarettes, the other towards the phone, while his eyes remained nailed to the page.

I am Disappointed to read such Nonsense reported about me in the Paper. I expected Better from an Officer of the Law. If you really think I am mad then you are a very Very Stupid Man. The Madness walks Out there and it is I who Will Stop it. And to this Fight which is a Good Fight I bring a Courage You Cannot Appreciate. I Am Not A Coward. You Are Part of the Problem if you Lie To People About Me. I will not waste Any More Time with you But if you give me More Trouble and Lie to people Again then I will come and Shut you up. I will Shut You all up, and then there will be Quiet Again!

Using the biro and an unopened letter as levers he flipped the page over. Nothing on the other side. It was less than a third of an A4 sheet, typed in a common font.

Bloody hell, did he need a cigarette now. A short and hectic hunt produced only empty packets. The part of his brain not engaged in keying Austin’s mobile number into the desk phone painted scenario after scenario of the future and for once not all of it seemed gloomy. At last Austin answered.

‘Jane, get in here and bring your ciggies.’

‘In where, boss? I’m at the library.’

‘Oh. Thought you were down the corridor. Okay, stay where you are, I’ll find you.’

McLusky only consciously registered that he was driving once he got stuck in traffic for the second green-light sequence at a junction near the harbour. According to an article in the Post it was theoretically still faster to drive in the city if your journey was longer than two miles. Anything shorter and a pedestrian would beat the car. Now he wished he had tried it. For one thing it would have allowed him to buy cigarettes. When at last he had fought his way to the back of the library he parked the car on a single yellow line with two wheels on the pavement. He pushed the groaning door shut, leaving it unlocked. For several seconds he stood, unmoving. Then he opened it again, put the keys back into the ignition for good measure and pushed the door shut once more.

A PC guarded the library entrance. Both lending and reference libraries were still closed to the public while a meticulous search for more hidden devices was under way. McLusky’s footsteps echoed in the stone corridor inside the solid Edwardian building. He found Austin in the lending library checking his notes. The DS had spent his time interviewing all the staff that had turned up for work and drawn a blank.

Austin shook his head in answer to his superior’s raised eyebrows. ‘Nothing out of the ordinary, nobody saw anything or anybody suspicious. No one saw the biro. So what was so urgent? A nicotine crisis?’ He held out his packet of cigarettes and box of matches.

‘Swap.’ McLusky handed him the letter inside a sealed evidence bag. ‘Let’s step into the foyer.’

‘Shit, it’s from him. You got him narked with that article and it flushed him out.’ The DS looked at McLusky in admiration. ‘Did you plan it like that?’

‘What? No. No, nothing as clever as that, I honestly had no idea, I’d never heard of Phil …’

‘Warren.’

‘… Phil Warren, I thought she was just another punter.’

Austin read the note twice. ‘He sounds quite a loon. Look at the capitalization. Odd language, too. You can’t smoke in here, public building.’

‘Closed to the public due to pyrotechnical writing accident.’ McLusky inhaled deeply from a freshly lit cigarette.

‘Good thinking.’ Austin lit one for himself. ‘Those capitalized words, could they add up to a message or something? Have you tried stringing them together?’

‘You’ve watched too much Inspector Morse.’

‘It was worth a thought. He’s just mad then?’

‘Mad as a box of frogs. You didn’t really expect anything else, did you? But he’s made contact. It’s a classic “Don’t call me stupid” thing.’

‘He thinks you’re a “very Very Stupid Man”.’

‘Good. Underestimating the opposition can be fatal. The important thing is that we got him riled enough to take risks. Contacting me was a big risk. His first mistake.’

‘Shame he didn’t sign it while he was busy making mistakes.’ He fanned the thick smoke between them with the letter. ‘Do you think Forensics will find anything on this?’

‘Apart from my fingerprints? I shouldn’t think so. But you never know. The postmark is central.’

‘That covers several districts, including yours. What he doesn’t tell us is why he’s doing all this.’

‘Oh, but he does. Here.’ McLusky tapped the letter. ‘The madness is out there and I’m going to stop it, or something. He thinks the world has gone mad and only he has remained sane. He’s going to shut us all up.’

‘Yes. He’s threatening you personally though.’

‘That’s the beauty of it.’

‘How?’

‘Because it wasn’t part of his plan. I’ve irritated him. If he comes after me it’ll interfere with the rest of his crazy scheme. Which is obviously planned in advance. What I have to do is wind him up some more.’

‘Careful, Liam. It could backfire, then what?’

‘Admirable choice of words, Jane.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘I’ll be careful. I’ll try not to pick up any strange objects.’

‘I’m not sure the super will go for it. Provoking the bomber doesn’t sound like a Denkhaus strategy. He’ll scupper it.’

‘I mean it as a last resort. But you’re right, Jane. Best not burden Denkhaus with the knowledge of this.’ He took the evidence bag from Austin and made it disappear in his leather jacket.

‘You mean not tell him you got a communication from the guy? Are you serious?’

‘Why bother the man with operational detail? He’s far too busy with public relations and performance targets.’

‘This could mean real trouble, especially if — ’

‘Okay, look, it’s my problem. I never showed you the letter, you need not be involved. And if it has to be mentioned later, well, it’s not dated and I might lose the envelope, I can be so sloppy, and I’ll pretend it only just got there.’

Austin thoughtfully scratched the tip of his nose. This kind of thing could easily go wrong, especially if the case came to court. ‘Just so long as you know what you’re doing …?’

‘That’s very unlikely. But it makes me feel less naked having this up my sleeve.’ Perhaps this metaphor-mixing was catching. ‘So far he has all the weapons and we’re just mopping up behind him, waiting for him to make a mistake. It’s a costly strategy.’

‘Depends on how quickly he can make the bombs.’

‘Yes. Unless …’

‘What?’

McLusky prised a cigarette out of the packet Austin was holding and walked off, talking to the echoing foyer. ‘Unless he’s made them all in advance. For all we know there could be fifty of them already out there.’ He turned at the end of the corridor. ‘And then what? We’re up the creek then. Catching him wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference then.’

McLusky stocked up on Extra Light cigarettes at a nearby newsagent’s. Lunchtime had crept up on the city and everywhere people were rushing to join queues in cafes, post offices, supermarkets and sandwich bars. His own internal clock appeared stuck at breakfast time. He bought a sticky Danish pastry at a nearby bakery and ate it while he walked.

When he returned to his car he found it unmolested by car thieves and traffic wardens. It was another warm spring day. The fungal damp-canvas smell of the Polo’s interior had intensified with the rising temperatures. McLusky suspected a dead mouse or rat under the broken upholstery but had so far failed to locate it.

Back at Albany Road he found the station car park was crowded with a large army truck awkwardly parked. Not having been allocated a permanent parking space yet meant he only just managed to squeeze into a corner at the back. Here he made sure to lock the car, in case someone was watching. He looked up. There was. There were faces at every window. He saw DC Dearlove wave at him which had to be a bad omen.

Outside the main entrance stood a group of Uniforms plus Tony Hayes, the desk officer. ‘You can’t go in, sir. Suspect package. The ground floor has been evacuated and no one from upstairs is allowed to come down.’ He pointed at the army truck. The cab door was marked 33 Engineer Regiment. ‘Explosive ordnance disposal. The package was addressed to you, sir.’

‘What? Get out of my way.’

‘But, sir …’

Impatiently McLusky shouldered his way through the group and opened the door to the lobby.

Inside three engineers in full body armour looked up and shouted at him almost in concert. One rushed towards him, arms outstretched. ‘Please move outside, sir.’

McLusky held up his ID. ‘I’m McLusky.’

‘That’s who it was addressed to. But it makes no difference.’

‘It does. I don’t want the thing to blow up. No controlled explosions if you can help it.’

‘Please, sir, let’s talk outside.’

Away from the door and the uniformed officers McLusky and the engineer, a man with freckles and a moustache, talked quickly.

‘Try not to blow it up. If at all possible we need it intact. Why hasn’t the rest of the station been evacuated?’

‘Because all personnel would have to practically file past the thing, this station is badly designed.’

‘How big is the device?’

‘Big enough to demolish the lobby but perhaps not enough to do structural damage. It’s heavy, according to the desk officer, and looks to be about four by three inches and three inches deep. Rectangular. We have a portable X-ray already in the lobby and are about to have a shufti, that should give us a better idea.’

‘It relates to a case I’m working on …’

‘Yes, we have followed that with interest. We expected to be called sooner or later. Fortunately we’re never far away.’

McLusky tapped the man’s bulky armour. ‘Got another one of these?’

‘We have but I’ll have to ask my superior about that. Please wait here this time.’

It seemed an age until the engineer returned. ‘Follow me.’

Inside the truck he found that putting on the bulky body armour took him longer than expected. ‘I thought a stabbie was heavy but this weighs an absolute ton.’ The weight of the helmet with its blast-proof visor gave him a headache in less than the time it took him to walk across the car park. Tony Hayes’ ever-mobile eyebrows had risen to maximum elevation. He had asked if he could be there when they dealt with the package — after all, it was his lobby, or at least he thought of it like that. They had flatly refused to entertain the thought. How come the new DI always got what he wanted?

Inside the lobby McLusky found the other two engineers busy around a grey contraption balanced on the counter. Two station phones were ringing unanswered in the background.

One soldier waved him over. ‘Come and have a look, inspector.’

On the small monitor beside the X-ray machine was a faint grey image that to him looked like nothing identifiable.

‘There are no metal parts in this package and it looks like no device I have ever encountered. There is a dense mass at the centre, hard to draw any conclusions. On that basis I’m willing to proceed and open the package. Please stand off.’

The package, he could now see, was wrapped in brown paper and sealed with clear tape. ‘How did it get here, does anyone know?’

‘It was hand-delivered but no one saw it arrive. They sensibly evacuated the ground floor. It has your name on it, as you can see, nothing else.’ The man slid a scalpel around the sides of the package. ‘Nothing in the wrapping, no resistance.’ He gently folded up a flap of paper. ‘Red plastic container.’ He removed the top of the paper, revealing a red plastic tub with a white lid. The engineer laid his heavily gloved hands on it. ‘Here we go then, I’m opening it now.’

On cue the phones stopped ringing and the lobby fell silent. The plastic creaked as the engineer prised the lid off the container. McLusky strained to see clearly. The engineer produced a plastic screwdriver and gingerly prodded the content with it.

‘Well, inspector, it appears to be full of mud.’

* * *

Twenty-four hours later, while trying to beat the traffic by finding his own intuitive route to the university, McLusky wondered just how long the mud jokes would keep running at the station. Not that Superintendent Denkhaus had found anything even remotely amusing in the incident which had paralysed his station for hours. And he had left him in no doubt about that either. Denkhaus had once more sharply reminded him that his brief was to avoid anything that might sidetrack him and here he went offering his services to Traffic Division. Naturally he wanted the mud-flinging little scrote caught but if McLusky had a mind to have a go then it was definitely to be in his spare time.

Which is why he now found himself driving to the university during his lunch break, in order to spring some muddy suggestions on Dr Louise Rennie. This time he knew where he was going and parked close to the building next to a red Fiesta with its driver window knocked out. He left the keys in the ignition and went in search of Rennie.

For a while he was walking against an outgoing tide of students in the science block but by the time he found the laboratory again the place had fallen silent. From the corridor it looked empty. He knocked on the glass door and entered.

‘Anybody home?’

The door to the store room at the other end was open, its strip lighting on. A small tinkling noise came from there, then stopped. He walked over and stuck his head round the jamb and found himself looking at the balding head of the laboratory technician, who was standing motionless in front of a steel locker, one hand on its chromed door handle.

He found he couldn’t recall the man’s name. ‘Hi, Dr Rennie about?’

The technician turned around slowly and laboriously cleared his throat. ‘She’s gone to lunch.’

It was the man he had seen by the Tobacco Factory, he was sure of it, no matter what Dr Rennie thought. ‘Where?’

‘Common room.’ There was a definite wheeze to the lab rat’s chest and the pallor of his neon-grilled skin made McLusky want to shudder. He decided to ask elsewhere for directions.

Once he had been shown to the senior common room it took him only seconds to spot Louise Rennie. A man sitting opposite her talked animatedly while Rennie nodded at her lunch. She looked up long before he had got near her table. A few words spoken to the man opposite her made him get up and leave.

‘Don’t tell me, inspector, another forensic report? I may have to start charging.’ Rennie’s food looked as yet untouched.

‘Would you mind if I joined you for lunch, doctor? If I can get some food here, that is.’

‘Yes, go ahead. Just go and choose something. Don’t look so worried, you could pass for a lecturer, no problem. And you still have to pay for it.’

McLusky didn’t know why the thought of being mistaken for a lecturer should give him such pleasure since he didn’t mind being a detective. Until it came to canteen food. He asked for the trout and while piling salad into a bowl noted the complete absence of unidentifiable brown stuff shrivelling under hot lamps.

When he sat down at her table Rennie’s food still looked untouched. ‘You shouldn’t have waited, it must be getting cold.’

‘I found I’m not really hungry. Bon appetit, inspector.’ Rennie smiled, leaning back. Her grey silk top shimmered like water across her chest as she did so, tugging at McLusky’s eyes. ‘Is this a social call then?’

He waggled one hand. ‘Expect further attempts to impose on your time and good nature.’

‘You think me good-natured? Interesting. Does it have anything to do with what’s in your carrier?’

‘It has.’ He put his fork down.

‘No, no, you eat. You look like they’ve been starving you.’ She pushed her tray aside and pulled the bag towards her. ‘A tub. It’s heavy. What’s in it?’

‘Mud.’

‘You know how to treat a girl. How does this fit in with the bombings, inspector?’

‘You can call me Liam, doctor.’

‘You can call me Louise, Inspector Liam.’

‘It’s a different … case. I was wondering if it was possible to tell where it came from.’

‘Liam. Mm.’ She moved her lips as if savouring the taste of the name. ‘I do already have a job, did I not mention that?’

‘I know, that’s quite okay, you don’t have to do it, I just thought it was worth asking. I was hoping there might be a really easy test for that kind of thing.’

‘Did you now. Only if you’re looking for something specific or if you know what’s what. It’s a job for the forensic lab, surely.’

He reached over and put the tub back in the bag, shoving it aside. ‘Too busy. It’s low priority stuff. Not really important.’

‘Important enough for you to come up here, though. Oh, I get it.’

‘Good.’

‘You didn’t really need to bring an excuse along, you know.’

‘Good. So how are you?’

‘Fine, I’m good, I’m having a good day.’ She checked her watch. ‘I’m teaching a bunch of first years next, keen but dim. I enjoy it. And you?’

‘I’m enjoying this.’

‘Yeah, the food’s all right here.’

‘No, I mean this.’ He waved his hand between Rennie and himself.

‘You’re easily pleased.’

‘I don’t think so. I’ve been thinking about you. It was a shame our evening the other day got interrupted.’

‘Truncated would be a better word. Severely pruned. You arrived late and left early.’ Rennie reached an arm across and retrieved the mud-filled tub. She peeked under the lid and poked a well-manicured finger in. ‘Sticky stuff. I’ll spend five minutes on it and it’ll cost you dinner whether I find anything or not. Deal?’

McLusky smiled at his food. ‘Deal.’