Falling More Slowly

Chapter Eleven

‘Result, Moneypenny.’ Sorbie flung his imaginary hat towards the invisible hatstand in the CID room, then tried to plant a kiss on DC French’s cheek.

French pushed him away good-naturedly. She didn’t really mind Jack’s attentions, not that he actually meant them. No one else seemed to even notice that she was a woman, certainly not while the glamorous Fairfield was about. ‘You’ve been celebrating, I can smell it. You made another arrest then?’

‘Traffic scooped him up for us, but he’s ours. We can link the little scrote to at least eleven burglaries through his lavish and evil-smelling DNA donations in his victims’ underwear drawers, the stupid wanker. That’s the second outstanding warrant sorted and all from the council car park. We must do this more often. McLusky might be less than useless at catching the bench bomber but he does wonders for my clear-up rate.’

‘I’m glad to have been of some small service to you, DS Sorbie.’ McLusky walked past him on his way to the tea kettle.

‘Ah, ehm, sorry, sir, didn’t see you there.’ Sorbie sat down heavily at his desk and busied himself with logging on.

McLusky took his time making himself a mug of instant coffee, leaving Sorbie to squirm in the ensuing silence. Secretly he had to agree with the sergeant’s assessment. In terms of his own investigation the car park CCTV had been of no help at all. Yet the prodigious number of man-hours spent marrying faces to number plates from the endless footage had resulted in no fewer than three arrests of known criminals. The hapless suspects hadn’t counted on police officers looking at the footage, which only ever attracted police attention if an incident occurred. Once they had been recognized and their number plates read it had only been a matter of time until they were picked up. Two had been outstanding warrants in Fairfield and Sorbie’s open files. A third was a missed court appearance who had been scooped up because an officer spotted a 2002 number plate on a 2003 car. That man too was now in custody.

McLusky thought he could hear the CID room breathe out collectively behind him as he left carrying his mug of coffee. He hadn’t really meant to pour cold water on Sorbie’s celebration; there was never quite enough to celebrate for police officers as it was, and the sergeant had made good use of the footage and followed up well. Only there was something about DS Sorbie that made McLusky suspect that he probably deserved the odd bucket of cold water occasionally. He would mention Sorbie’s good work in his report while not forgetting to point out that only the footage watched by police officers had yielded fortuitous results. Those worked on by civilian operators had drawn a blank since they were unfamiliar with the faces of the suspects.

Perhaps he should have mentioned to Sorbie though that he thought smelling of quite so much booze after lunch was never a good idea in a nick where the superintendent had a habit of prowling about.

Two hours later Sorbie viewed his dispiriting surroundings through the metallic pulse of a dehydration headache; Nelson Close was an unheroic huddle of three dozen prefabs, a third of them with their flimsy backs to a ghostly road that once serviced a now derelict industrial estate. The council ought to have bulldozed them years ago only some of these poor deluded people refused to be rehoused into nice new high-rise flats with a view. They liked their ‘bit of garden’ and didn’t want to move. The council had lost their court case against them and now they had to wait for the tenants to die off before they could develop the site along with the rest of the area.

He burped acidly. His stomach had turned sour after all that cider he had gulped earlier. Kicking about impatiently at a mouldering cardboard box in one of the empty plots he looked about for a place to relieve himself. He just couldn’t bring himself to ask one of these weirdos for permission to use their toilet. Only a dozen of the creepy little bungalows were still being lived in, if you could call this living. The rest did service for target practice by passing kids. The ones that were inhabited were being broken into one by one, three so far. The empty ones had now been boarded up to try and keep the junkies out.

Behind him he could hear Kat doing her ‘reassuring the public’ bit with two wrinklies, probably a lot better than he could himself, he had to admit. But then women were always going to be better at that kind of thing. What a dump this was. It had probably been all right fifty years ago but even then these flimsy things must have been freezing in winter and roasting in summer. And anyone in possession of a tin opener could break in. Pathetic.

DI Fairfield said her goodbyes to the old couple and soon joined him with her clipboard. ‘You didn’t spend a lot of time with your lot, did you?’

‘Well, there isn’t really all that much to say, is there? If you live in a stupid place like this it’s no wonder you get broken into.’

‘You didn’t tell them that, did you?’

‘Not in so many words, though I did point out that if they don’t have locks on their windows then they might as well leave them open. Same thing to a burglar.’ Sorbie rubbed his unruly stomach, which was churning. ‘I’ve never been any good at this stuff, not when I was in uniform and not now. And this is definitely a uniform job.’

‘I know. They’ve been round too.’ Fairfield sniffed the air and didn’t look at all put out. The sun was going in and out of the clouds, beginning to burn away the greyness that had hung around her mind all winter. When she first joined the force she’d never imagined it would mean spending so much time sitting indoors hammering on keyboards, filling in forms, chasing targets, following initiatives. She much preferred being outside, talking to people away from neon lights and computer screens. She should move away from the city, get a job in a little seaside town … it would take forever to make DCI. ‘You know exactly why we’re here.’

‘Yes, so Denkhaus doesn’t get his gold stars tarnished.’

‘It’s politics, Jack. People need to see that we take this seriously, that’s why the ACC wants us to show our faces. To reassure people. We’ll have one more chat before we go. That chap standing in the door, last-but-one house.’ Fairfield cheerfully waved at a man in his sixties standing in his front door. He didn’t wave back. ‘That’s the last of the inhabited ones. It’s vulnerable that one, it’s the last-but-one, has empty houses on either side and it backs on to the old service road. He hasn’t been burgled yet, perhaps we can convince him to get some security. This is all about perception of crime anyway, not actual crime. Denkhaus doesn’t want another newspaper crusade over this one. Or more suggestions that we’re not protecting these people because the city wants them to pack up and go. Of course the fact that these prefabs are isolated and full of old folks was publicized by the stupid papers in the first place.’

The morose expression of the man didn’t change when Fairfield showed her ID and introduced DS Sorbie. ‘Caught them yet?’ He snorted dismissively before Fairfield could draw breath to answer. ‘Thought not. According to your own statistics it isn’t likely you ever will. And if you do, the courts will let them off with a slap on the wrist so they can go and do it again.’

‘Not quite, Mr …’ She looked down her list.

‘Cooke.’

‘Mr Cooke. We have been quite successful in driving down the rate of burglaries in the city. One of the ways in which householders themselves can help of course is by fitting locks and shutters to windows. Has anyone spoken to you about that yet?’

‘They have. I told them what I’m telling you now: fitting window locks won’t make a blind bit of difference to the criminals. They just go somewhere else. Do you think they’ll go, “Oh dear, window locks, well, I’d better go straight then and get a respectable job”? Rubbish! It won’t stop a professional housebreaker and it’ll just make the drug addict try next door. You don’t stop criminals with locks on your windows, you stop them with locks on their cells. And by keeping them locked up.’

‘There might be something in that, Mr Cooke. In the meantime I hope you’re not making it easy for them.’ She looked down the sad cul-de-sac. One more boarded-up house separated Mr Cooke from a derelict and overgrown site where a brickworks had been demolished. She certainly wouldn’t feel safe living here.

‘Making it easy? It’s the council who are making it easy for them. The burglars and the kids who throw empty beer bottles at our houses and the drug addicts who leave their needles lying about, they all come down the service road. Then they come through the fence. We’ve asked the council to put in a decent fence several times but they’d rather wait until we’ve all been robbed blind or brained by a flying bottle.’

‘I’ll look into that for you and tell the council what I think about it.’ What was left of the flimsy wooden fence that separated the cluster of prefabs from the derelict road was richly overgrown, the gaps full of builder’s waste, fly-tipped rubbish and rubble. It wouldn’t keep out anyone. Even to her it looked like the council had deliberately let the area become run down to make staying there less attractive. Fairfield had the heavy feeling CID would sooner or later be down here again, perhaps sorting out worse than plain house-breaking. Sorbie was right, she thought, these people should have moved away. Only now did she notice that Sorbie was no longer standing behind her. ‘Mr Cooke, you wouldn’t by any chance have noticed where DS Sorbie has got to?’

‘I would. He’s down there, throwing up against the back of number twenty-two.’

Witek Setkievich could already see the end of his shift. Getting there was another matter. He only had three punters left on top, the others had got off at the science museum, but passenger numbers hardly mattered. Getting back to the starting point at Broad Quay and handing over at the end of his shift was all that mattered. The ancient red Routemaster open-top bus may have been fitted with a low-emission engine but it was still as big as a house and nearly as hard to drive. In this traffic it could take ten minutes to cover the last five hundred yards to the harbourside stop. This was where the company’s touts hunted for tourists, trying to entice them to take the ‘hop-on hop-off’ tour of the city. A few hundred yards away near the Hippodrome the company kept a draughty little ground-floor office.

As was usual at lunchtime the roundabout was clogged with idiots not knowing where they were going and all getting in each other’s way. But Witek didn’t really mind. He liked driving the bus. Getting a licence was the best thing he had ever done. It had fed him since coming to this country. And driving the city tour bus was much, much better than driving a regular bus around the city which he had done for a year before landing this job. Tourists were much more polite than the passengers on ordinary buses. Especially foreign tourists. They hardly ever wanted to beat him up, did not call him stupid Polack, didn’t tell him to ‘go back home to Moscow’ and didn’t spit at the security screen. Tourists never pissed between the seats and didn’t throw up so much.

Traffic moved on for a few car lengths and he could at last cross the junction. The road system in this city was madness, of course. Three times they had changed the layout, reversed the one-way systems, and nothing they tried worked properly. Some people wanted tourist buses banned to lighten the traffic but looking at this chaos that would be a drop in the ocean. It did worry him though. Driving was all he had ever been good at and he liked this job. He liked the bus.

Witek strained to see who was doing the afternoon shift handing leaflets to the tourists. He recognized Ben and yes, there she was, her blonde hair shining in the sunlight: Emma.

Witek liked Emma. He liked her so much he could not bring himself to shorten her name to Emm like everyone else did. Of course he had no chance. Emma was nice and polite with him but that’s all it was. She was on her gap year and would go travelling to Asia and Australia soon, something he could never do. Afterwards she would go to university. And he would still be driving a bus.

When at last Witek swung the Routemaster into the reserved bay by the harbour Emma was talking to Ben and neither of them even turned their heads to see which driver was pulling in. Dave, who would relieve him and drive the next shift, was slouching by the railings. He gave a slow wave and carried on smoking.

Witek announced the end of the tour over the microphone and added a reminder. ‘Everyone please be sure to take belongings with you.’ He opened the doors and waited for the three single passengers to alight. Each one said thank you as they left, so polite. The last thing he had to do was check that the vehicle was reasonably clean and pick up any rubbish and anything accidentally left behind. He checked first downstairs then the upper deck, collecting a few chocolate wrappers and a plastic sandwich carton. Right on the last seat lay a small pink lady’s umbrella. He picked it up. It looked cheap. Nobody would call for it at the office, they’d simply go out and buy a new one. But it was company policy to keep all found items for a couple of weeks before letting the staff take them home if they wanted to.

Dave was downstairs leaning in the open door, lighting a last cigarette before the start of his shift. Witek checked his watch. Dave’s shift started in one minute but he would hang around for another five in plain view of the office, something he himself wouldn’t dare to do.

‘What you got, pink brollie? They never leave anything useful like a carton of fags or a hundred quid. What’s traffic like?’

‘Is crap. Always is by now.’ Witek smiled over Dave’s shoulder at Emma who was looking in his direction without registering him.

‘Yeah, I don’t know why I keep signing up for the afternoon shifts, they’re so much worse than the morning ones. I just can’t hack the early start, know what I mean? Not that I couldn’t drive this heap in my sleep. Watch this.’ After one last drag from his cigarette he flicked the butt at a council rubbish bin and missed.

Witek’s voice was heavy with the tragedy of it. ‘Every day you miss, Dave. Never get better. Always miss rubbish bin.’

‘Tomorrow, Witek, my son. Now excuse me while I drive this rubbish bin.’

Emma had moved and was busy working on a tourist couple who were already holding a leaflet each. She was standing on the wrong side of the parking bay for him to walk past casually, perhaps exchange a few words, ask how she was. The office, where he had to sign out, lay in the opposite direction. Now she moved even further away. Witek sighed. He’d sign out and somehow contrive to walk past her afterwards. It would mean taking quite a detour around the roundabout since home was in the opposite direction but it would be worth it. Witek smiled to himself as he walked quickly towards the office. Emma was very pretty even though she was English. Polish girls were famously pretty, much prettier than the English. But Emma was very beautiful in a very English way. Hard to explain. Different pretty.

Sally, the office girl who almost single-handedly did all the admin jobs for the company, comically waggled her head while chewing down the cheese sandwich she had just dispatched. This one was not pretty. Sal was nice, though definitely not pretty. But she was always so cheerful, so perhaps she didn’t mind.

‘Hello, Witty, another day done? S’all right for some. Driving round in circles, calling it work, then knocking off early. I’ve got another four hours to go.’ She handed him the relevant clipboard holding the form for the drivers to tick and sign. Witek gave her the umbrella in exchange. ‘Oh, cute, can I have it if no one comes for it?’

‘Is not my colour, Sal. I don’t think is your colour too. You can have it, of course.’

Sally made a note of the date then bent down to the cupboard where left items lingered among till rolls and boxes of rubber bands. As she found room for the umbrella her eyes fell on a plain white carrier. ‘Oh yeah, the egg, Witty, the egg! That’s one of yours and it’s been here more than two weeks now.’ She slipped it from the carrier and placed it on the counter between them. The heavy papier mache Easter egg rocked gently between them. Its varnished shell was brightly decorated with Easter bunny motifs and a paper banderole around its waist promised fine dark, milk and white chocolate treats inside.

‘Nobody came for it? Someone somewhere is sad now.’ He gripped the shiny ovoid with one long-fingered hand. ‘Can I take the carrier too?’

Disappointment spread over Sally’s face. ‘Oh, Witty … You’re not taking it home to snaffle by yourself, are you? I thought we could share …’ She tilted her head and fluttered her eyelids in a parody of silent-movie seduction.

Witek hesitated with one hand resting on the egg, the other stretched out towards the carrier bag. He had thought of presenting the egg to Emma. His eyes wandered towards the window. He could see the quayside but no sign of her. Happy Easter, Emma … But then she might know that he had found the chocolates on the bus and not bought them for her. She might think it was a cheap gesture. And if he took it away Sally would think he was mean and greedy. Everything to do with girls was complicated. You always found you wanted to please them and it broke your heart to disappoint them. ‘I remember now, I don’t really like chocolate. You will eat them, Sal.’

‘Are you sure? You don’t want any of it? They’re expensive chocolates …’

‘Total sure. You will enjoy them more. I go home now.’ On a sudden impulse he gave the egg a vicious twist, leaving it spinning on the counter in front of a mesmerized Sally as he walked out of the office.

He stood on the pavement, squinted towards the bus stop and tried to make out Emma among the people on the quay. The force of the explosion made him stagger against an old lady. With a cry of dismay she fell to the ground beside him. Witek thought he heard the crack as her hip bone shattered.

They walked to the locus, McLusky had insisted on it. Austin was glad he had as the traffic turned out to be particularly bad. They were easily keeping pace with the cars and by the time they got within sight of St Augustine’s Parade traffic was stationary everywhere. As they approached the Citytours office it didn’t take them long to discover why. The building that housed Citytours had been evacuated, along with the buildings to either side. The stretch of road in front of them was closed to passing traffic. The tarmac beyond the police tape was crowded with police cars and Forensics vehicles.

Something about the way the police tape hung limply across the road threatened to drain McLusky of his goodwill to mankind. He grabbed the first uniformed officer he saw. ‘What’s with the bloody roadblock?’

‘Standard procedure, inspector, with a bomb threat.’

‘I thought the bomb had gone off.’

‘It has. There could be secondary devices, though. Couldn’t there?’ The constable looked unsure now.

‘What kind of bomb was it?’

‘A small device. Hidden in an Easter egg, is what I heard.’

‘Any Easter eggs in the road?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘What about the victim?’

‘Two victims, sir. An old lady got knocked off her feet, suspected pelvic fracture, the ambulance has just left. The other was an office worker, she was closest to the blast. Slight bruise and a nasty shock, otherwise she’s fine, apparently.’

‘That’s the first good news I’ve had since this thing started.’ He saw that Forensics were already at work. ‘Where is the office worker now? Not still inside, I take it?’

‘No, she and a co-worker are in that cafe further along, with PC Purkis.’

‘That’s the second good piece of news. How did the egg get here, any idea?’

‘Left on one of their buses, I believe. Driver found it.’

‘Right. Do you see any Easter bunnies in the road? No? Then get the damn traffic going, constable. Pronto.’

The constable set about getting all the police vehicles moved while muttering about sarky CID gits and making up one’s bloody mind. McLusky ignored the Citytours office and swept on to the cafe. Here he found PC Purkis sharing a large pot of tea with a pale woman sporting a burgeoning bruise on her forehead and a broad-shouldered blond man with mournful eyes.

‘Every time I see you, constable, you seem to have a cup of tea in front of you.’

Purkis didn’t know how to answer that, since it was true, but then she had only met the inspector once before, at the old man’s house in Knowle West. He seemed to be in a foul mood so perhaps he was in need of a cuppa himself. ‘That’s true, inspector. Best thing in a crisis, I always think.’

McLusky sat down on the last free chair, next to the broad-shouldered man. ‘Jane, you heard what the officer always thinks, so get us a large pot of tea. And a chair for yourself. Hang on, I’ll give you the money.’

‘I think I can manage.’

The cafe was crowded with refugees from the evacuated buildings and the voices sounded excited, even happy, perhaps at the interruption of an otherwise dreary day at the office.

Purkis made the introductions. McLusky noticed that Sally’s hands displayed a small tremor as she lifted her teacup. ‘Has that bruise been seen to?’

PC Purkis resented the implication that she might have neglected the basic care for the victim. ‘The paramedics took a look and ruled out concussion.’

Sally spoke up. ‘They offered to take me to the Royal Infirmary just in case but I’m fine, really. Considering. Even my ears have stopped making that horrible high-pitched sound. I mean, compared to what could have happened I’m all right. It could have blown my fingers off.’

‘That’s probably what it was meant to do. Do you feel like telling us exactly what did happen? I know you already told the story but I’d like to hear it myself.’

‘Sure.’ Sally told the tale right from the beginning, from how and when the egg arrived to how Witek had left it spinning on the counter. Halfway through her account Austin arrived with the tea then disappeared again in search of a chair. By the time he reappeared Sally’s tale was coming to its conclusion. ‘The phone rang. I went to my desk to answer it. I had my hand on the receiver when it happened. It blew me over. It was like a big wave on the beach that knocks you off your feet. And I nearly brained myself on the edge of an open drawer. Stuff from the counter was flying everywhere. It looked like a storm had blown things about. Nothing broke or anything apart from the egg, that was just gone completely. It took me a while to realize what’d happened. Do you think it was a time bomb?’

‘I doubt it, though it’s possible. It’s more likely that it was meant to go off when someone opened it and that the spinning motion set it off prematurely. Forensics will tell us, no doubt.’ He turned to Witek, who was pale and looked preoccupied. ‘You found it, Mr Setkievich.’

‘Yes. Ehm, two weeks ago.’

Sally waved her hand in disagreement. ‘Three weeks this Friday, actually.’

‘Is there CCTV on the buses?’

‘No. We do not need TV. Is peaceful, nice people normally, nobody makes us trouble.’

‘Can you remember where you found it?’

‘Lower deck, I think. On the floor, in a white plastic bag.’

‘You don’t remember who sat there?’

‘No, no. Could be anybody. I don’t look at passengers, I look at the road. And people move about. We go slow, is quite safe.’ Witek nodded reassuringly.

For once McLusky wished for more CCTV. ‘People don’t book these tours in advance, do they?’

‘Mostly they pay me. They come and go as they want. No booking.’

No bookings, no names, no CCTV, no witnesses, no memories. ‘I suppose I’ll have to talk to your boss too, just to cover all the angles. Where would I find him?’

‘Her.’ Sally sniffed at the built-in sexism of the inspector’s question.

‘Her, sorry.’

‘Madeira. For another week.’ She sighed. ‘On the plus side it’s been raining there ever since she arrived, I checked on the net.’

McLusky decided that Sally would recover from her experience soon. ‘Mr Setkievich, what time of the day would it have been when you found the egg?’

‘I found it after the first tour. So about twenty past ten is when I pull in again, depends on traffic. Sometime is later.’

‘And you’d have set off when?’

‘Nine thirty.’

He turned to Austin. ‘Right, we’ll work backwards, get the route, get all available CCTV for that morning and find footage of the bus going round the city. Mr Setkievich, how many Citytour buses are there?’

‘Two. But the other was not running that day. I remember because someone made sabotage on bus. Mechanic took all day to find rotten fruit in bus exhaust. I think apple.’

‘Well, that makes it easier. If we spot the bus then we might catch a glimpse of the passengers.’ He nodded at the civilians. ‘Thanks, you’ve been very helpful. We will need written statements from both of you in due course.’

Sally looked put out. ‘Will we have to come to the station to do that?’

‘Oh, no. PC Purkis here will visit you at home. You can do it over a mug of tea.’

Purkis perked up. ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’

Outside the scene had changed. Traffic was once more flowing in normal treacle fashion. Behind the now much smaller police cordon stood a bevy of reporters and photographers. He spotted Phil Warren just as she looked his way. Her gaze was interested and unrepentant. McLusky signalled to her with one hand at waist-height, you/me, flashed an open palm for five, mouthed Marriott Hotel. Warren widened her eyes in surprise, gave a slight nod, then walked away casually. The whole transaction was so quick no one else appeared to notice, including Austin who walked beside him.

‘There’s that Phil Warren slinking off. Probably scared you’ll have a go at her.’

‘Oh yeah, so it is. I’ll get a chance to mess with her mind some other time. Right, Jane. Get on to CCTV, grab as much help as you can find, see if we can spot anything at all.’

‘What will you be doing?’

‘Me? Just … stuff. I’ll catch you up.’ He ducked under the tape and stuck his head into the door of the Citytours office but didn’t cross the threshold. Forensics were everywhere, picking the place over. The team leader with the blond moustache looked up from bagging fragments of bomb mechanism. ‘Someone was damn lucky, inspector. This could have removed more than her sweet tooth.’ The team groaned. ‘Blinded her, more likely. Common fireworks injury. There must have been a pound of gunpowder in this one.’

‘Any chance it was a time bomb?’

‘No, we can safely rule that out. Same type as the others, perhaps not as lethal.’

‘How so?’

‘It’s all about containment, the tighter the charge is confined the more powerful the explosion. You see, the can killed the bloke because it was soldered shut. The pen too was bad news because of the metal casing, that’s what nearly did the librarian in.’

‘It didn’t look good at first but he’s recovering well.’ He would send Jane to speak to him. They were constantly playing catch-up, going with the slow grind of the police machine, giving the bastard time to get the next bomb off. This egg proved just how easy it was for the devices to travel in time and space before they went off. Planted nearly three weeks ago, a safe distance. ‘How are they set off, just out of interest? Do they have detonators that might be traceable?’

‘Detonators? Good lord no, nothing as snazzy as that, inspector, you don’t need any of that. It’s simplicity itself. The action of opening the device completes an electric circuit. At the centre of the gunpowder sits a filament from an ordinary torch bulb with the glass removed. Connected to a battery. The moment the circuit is closed and the filament is connected to the battery it glows white hot. Works just like a fuse. Simple but deadly effective. Low-tech is always best. Take a revolver, for instance, as opposed to a semi- …’

‘Fascinating, thanks for that.’ McLusky withdrew his head and walked off briskly.

The interior of the hotel surprised him. He had expected something more traditional, a little worn perhaps. What he found was a champagne bar and a well-appointed lounge and Philippa Warren on a sofa by the fireplace.

‘Another one of those?’ McLusky nodded at her drink, clear liquid, ice and lemon.

‘No thanks, I have the distinct feeling I ought to be sober for whatever is coming. Or will I need the alcohol to numb the pain?’ Her voice was as hoarse as it had been at the Quiet Lady, so presumably this was a permanent feature.

‘You’ll be fine.’ He ordered a cappuccino and sat down next to Warren, their elbows almost touching.

‘You mean you’re not going to be tedious and berate me about dubious journalistic practices? Because I have an answer for all that.’

‘You have? Let’s have it.’

‘Tough.’

‘That’s it? That’s your answer?’

‘You talk, you’ll get quoted. Whatever you say in a public house is by definition in the public domain.’

‘You may have a point there.’

‘“May” doesn’t come into it. Okay, I knew who you were and had the advantage. A girl’s gotta live.’

‘And you were only doing your job.’

‘Quite.’

His coffee arrived. Someone had sprinkled grated chocolate over the froth. McLusky hated chocolate and laboriously scraped it off before trying the liquid underneath. It was barely drinkable by his standards. ‘How did you find me? Were you following me?’

‘Yup. Though not very far. Only from the station to the pub. I expected you to nip into the Green Man in Candlewick Lane but you had other ideas. You’re a loner.’

‘I’m not a loner. You didn’t follow me home a few days ago?’

‘Nope, don’t know where you live. So someone’s been following you?’ She drained her glass, rattling the remaining ice in it which attracted the attention of the waiter. ‘I think I will have another drink after all.’

‘And I’ll have a different drink. What was that?’

‘G amp;T.’

‘Two gin and tonics.’

‘Thanks. Are you going to answer my question?’

‘What was the question?’

‘Has someone been following you?’

He picked up the spoon and prodded the collapsing froth of his vile cappuccino, remembering the figure by the street corner. Perhaps, perhaps not. A bit of paranoia, most likely. ‘Only you, it seems.’

‘Mm.’ Warren filed the answer under ‘evasive’. ‘The new bomb was hidden inside an Easter egg? Were there chocolates inside apart from the bomb?’

‘D’you know, I never asked?’

A superior smile. ‘Only a man could forget to ask that.’

She was right. But what would it signify? An added bit of perversity? Or the fact the bomber didn’t care for chocolates either? ‘Unimportant.’

‘Shame on you, inspector. It’s the kind of detail my readers want to know. Are you guys still maintaining the choice of container for the bombs has no significance? Chocolate, beer, make-up, there’s got to be a theme here. To a puritan soul they might all be indulgences he’d disapprove of.’

‘Biros?’

‘Nobody is perfect.’

McLusky used his mobile rather than his radio, to get the information, calling Austin at the station. ‘Jane, find out if the egg contained anything other than the device. Like the chocolates that were supposed to be in there?’

The mention of Austin’s nickname attracted Warren’s attention. ‘Who’s Jane then?’

‘My DS.’

‘Pretty?’

‘Very. I’ll point Jane out to you sometime.’

Austin came back to him quickly. ‘Yes, they are finding traces of chocolate but very small amounts. You think it could be significant?’

‘No. Just wondered.’ He terminated the call. ‘A small amount of chocolate. A token chocolate. Symbolic chocolate. Which leaves us with a man who eats chocolates but has a perverted sense of humour. He gives you one chocolate but blows your fingers off. And that is what I want you to concentrate on in the next piece you write. He is a bastard. He’s a coward, he has a twisted sense of humour. He thinks he has a good reason for doing what he does but he hasn’t. It’s his delusions of self-importance that make him think he’s justified, not any cause he might have. And by using an Easter egg he’s clearly targeted children, which makes him the biggest coward imaginable.’

‘Says Detective Inspector Liam McLusky?’

‘Says a source close to the investigation.’

Warren’s face lit up. ‘You are trying to provoke him.’

‘Two can play.’

‘So you had contact before? He contacted you after my last piece, am I right?’

McLusky drank silently.

‘I knew it. What did he say? Did he call, write, email?’

‘Can’t tell you. You can’t mention it, it would put the entire investigation at risk. And that’s official. If I hear about it I’ll issue a warrant for your arrest.’

Warren snorted dismissively. ‘You won’t make it stick, no witnesses. So what’s in it for me?’

‘Exclusive when I get him.’

‘Can I have that in writing?’

McLusky drained his glass and stood up. ‘Don’t be daft. I gave you the piece of chocolate, that proves you have inside information. Go make the bastard feel small.’ He turned away towards the exit.

‘Do you drink at the Quiet Lady often, inspector?’

McLusky didn’t turn around. ‘No, never.’ In an inside pocket his mobile vibrated. A text message from Louise Rennie. Mud analysed. Collect results 8 pm at the Myristica, King Street. Smart casual. He texted his acceptance. Then he remembered the bin-liner waiting to be taken to the launderette and went in search of the nearest clothes shop to stock up on smart casual.

Sorbie fiddled with the strap on his helmet, having trouble remembering how it went through the double metal loop. It was such a long time since he’d ridden a motorbike. His hands fluttered a little with the adrenalin of it and he turned away from the patiently waiting vendor. No point giving the teenage mutant opportunity to sneer.

But it seemed the kid was more interested in the state of his helmet. ‘That’s old-fashioned lids for you. The new ones are all seatbelt style. I’m not being funny but you really should get a new one anyway, looks like yours has been dropped, you’ve got a scuff on the side. ‘

The scuff on the side of Sorbie’s helmet was the result of the spill that had interrupted his biking career ten years ago. His bike had not been worth repairing and a car had suddenly seemed a sensible alternative. Yet he had held on to the gear, along with vague dreams of one day making a comeback. And here it was. The teenage mutant with the nose-ring and eyebrow studs who now had a significant wodge of his hard-earned in his pocket was right, of course, the helmet was junk. It would probably come apart like a raw egg if his head hit the tarmac, but it satisfied the demands of the law. He had intended to buy a new one with the money he got off the asking price for the bike but had surprised himself again by how completely inept at haggling he was. ‘It’ll do for now.’

‘On your head be it.’

‘Ha, very good.’ At last the strap fastened. He shook hands with the kid, pulled on his gloves and straddled the tall trail bike. The engine growled into life and Sorbie’s excitement mounted. Ten years. He gingerly pulled away. In his mirrors he thought he saw the teenager shake his head. In response Sorbie accelerated away hard along the dimly lit street, trying to remember the way out of the estate back to the main road. When he reached it he opened the throttle wide and took off towards the dual carriage-way at twice the speed limit. ‘Yyyyyes!’ He shouted his delight inside his helmet, born again. The engine on this thing had enough grunt to catch any scooter and the bike was skinny enough to go wherever they went. Solo units with their half-ton of equipment and modifications could get stuck in traffic nearly as easy as a police car. But not this. This could go anywhere, on the road or off the road. And if he caught up with the bastard Mobile Muggers he’d blow them into the weeds for good. Unofficially of course. In his spare time.

Well, someone had to show some initiative round here.