Back at Daws’ house he made Austin leave the car at the street corner. ‘I’ll go round the back this time, you can take the front. Don’t want it to get boring for the boy.’
Along the back of the terrace ran a narrow tarmacked alley full of oozing bin-liners, broken glass and dog shit. He found the back of the house. The flimsy wooden door to the garden was locked. He jumped up and easily pulled himself over it. There was indeed a large shed at the bottom of the desolate little garden. It looked to be at least twelve by eight foot. The double door was secured with a large padlock, the window blocked from inside with fibreboard and chicken wire. McLusky reached the back door just as Innis Cole unlocked it from the inside, dressed to go out. His face fell in resignation and he opened the door.
McLusky stepped into the kitchen. ‘Don’t mind if I do. Not much of a kitchen gardener is Mr Three Veg. Not even two veg out here. Aren’t you going to let DS Austin in? Not very polite that.’ Austin was working the bell as well as banging his fist against the front door.
‘What is it you want now?’ Cole looked for a second as though he would stamp his foot in indignation but instead walked off down the hall and opened the front door to the noisy DS who swept him back into the kitchen.
McLusky boomed at the boy. ‘We’ve come to take a look at your shed.’ He hooked a thumb over his shoulder.
‘It’s not my shed, it’s Tim’s. And I don’t have a key. Anyway, you’ll need a warrant, won’t you? Search warrant?’
‘Search warrant? If we came with a search warrant we’d start by searching under your mattress and you wouldn’t want that. Nah, son, we don’t want to search the shed. You’re going to open it and we’ll just stand there and look over your shoulder. That’s not a search, that’s called noticing things. Let’s have it then.’
‘As I said, I don’t have a key.’ His eyes strayed involuntarily to a large biscuit tin on the window sill.
McLusky picked up the greasy tin and thumped it down in front of Cole. ‘Go on, have a rummage. It’s called cooperating with the police and we like it a lot.’
Cole sounded younger by the minute. ‘He’ll kill me.’ He popped the lid and emptied the tin on to the table. Rubber bands, springs, screws, corroded triple-A batteries, leaky biros, fuses. There were several keys, dull from lack of use, and one shiny Yale key on its own split ring. Cole picked it out without enthusiasm. ‘This is the spare one, I think.’
‘Okay, let’s have a look-see.’
Cole led them to the shed with the air of a man being made to walk the plank. ‘Whatever is in there has nothing to do with me.’ While he sprung the lock and opened the double doors he appeared to be holding his breath. Then he exhaled noisily. The shed was full of tools, mainly for gardening use: apart from three lawn mowers there were forks, spades and rakes, leaf blowers, strimmers and hedge trimmers of various makes and ages.
Cole was visibly relieved. ‘Well, what do you know? Gardening stuff. He was a gardener, probably still is.’
‘Probably.’ Austin leant this way and that so he could get a good look without going anywhere near the door. ‘Looks to me though as if he’s gone a bit overboard on the tools. You could kit out ten gardeners with that lot. I mean, who needs four hedge trimmers? Three lawn mowers?’
‘As I said, nothing to do with me. Can I lock it again?’
McLusky sighed. ‘Yes, go on.’ The shed was full of stuff obviously stolen but a bomb factory it wasn’t — for a start there was no space left inside — and Superintendent Denkhaus’s speech from this morning was still fresh in his mind. No distractions, no damsels in distress, no kittens up a tree. This looked like a kitten up a tree.
Austin dug up some professional courtesy as they left by the front door. ‘Well, thank you for your cooperation, Mr Cole.’
‘That’s all right.’ Relief at their departure made Cole generous.
McLusky turned round and towered over him. ‘Just out of interest, how much rent are you paying Daws?’
‘What?’ Cole’s eyes widened helplessly.
The words rabbit and headlight came to the inspector’s mind. ‘Well? How much? Quickly now.’
‘Ehm … fif … fifty pounds?’
‘Fif-fifty pounds.’ He nodded gravely while the young man tried not to squirm under his gaze. ‘Okay, bye for now.’
Cole stood in the door, breathing rapidly, watching them walk to the car. He had to move out, they were bound to come and search the place properly after this. Might as well start packing now. Of course he couldn’t leave until Three Veg came back or he’d be in deep shit with him. He had to keep looking after the place though he wasn’t sure who was scarier, Three Veg with his explosive temper or the weird inspector and his unblinking eyes.
Chapter Four
‘You don’t really think he planted the bench bomb, do you? Anyway he couldn’t have, he’s on holiday.’ Colin Keale’s upstairs neighbour was a fleshy forty-year-old man with sparse hair and a moist voice. He reluctantly handed over the spare key Keale had left with him so he could water his house plants. ‘He would hardly have left me the key to his flat if he had a bomb factory down there.’
‘I’m sure you’re right.’ McLusky took the key off him and thought that he probably meant it.
‘Unless you think I’m involved in the bomb plot too, inspector.’ He sounded hopeful, relishing the thought. ‘I know all about Colin’s bit of silliness with the pipe bombs but he wasn’t very well at the time. I assure you he’s completely normal now. He’d never do anything like it again.’
‘We just need to eliminate him from our inquiries, that’s all.’
Colin Keale lived in a small basement flat on Jacob’s Wells Road, not five minutes’ walk from the site of the explosion. If he did plant the bomb then it would seem the height of laziness to do it within hearing distance. Or perhaps it gave the act an added frisson. But surely the ultimate satisfaction must be to watch it happen.
Austin barred the neighbour’s way on the steps. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to stay up here.’
‘What, are you afraid I might interfere with the evidence, or something?’
Austin ignored him and followed the inspector down the cast-iron steps into the basement forecourt.
A fig tree in a half-barrel sent fleshy leaves up to the sun and other plants in pots thrived inexplicably in this deeply shadowed sinkhole. McLusky gave the half-barrel an exploratory kick. It felt and sounded solid enough. Next he flicked open the letter box and peered through. The narrow hall looked dark and crowded with jackets hanging from the wall. There was nothing on the floor as far as he could make out. He rang the bell and immediately afterwards inserted the key and opened the front door.
The place smelled faintly of chip shop curry sauce. To the right a door led into a small sitting room; electric heater in a blocked-up fireplace, sofa, stereo, TV and potted plants, lots of them. Everything was tidy. The kitchen was a narrow galley made even darker than necessary by the fact that several house plants crowded around the tiny window. The bathroom was a windowless and plantless hole but the bedroom was a jungle. There was a narrow bed and a couple of chests of drawers. Plants stood on every surface, a big palm grew in a large pot on the carpetless floor. All this vegetation stretched yearning shoots towards the ungenerous basement window. McLusky ran a latex-gloved finger across the front of a bookshelf and harvested a worm of dust. Next he ran a thumb over a polished yucca spike — not a speck of dust. There were books, mainly on the care of house plants. He turned to Austin. ‘Go get the neighbour, will you, whatsisname …?’
‘Tilley.’
Mr Tilley appeared pleased to be asked at last. ‘Satisfied, inspector? No bomb factory here.’
‘What does Colin Keale do, fork-lift driver?’
Austin confirmed it. ‘That’s what it says in his file.’
He turned to Tilley. ‘Where?’