Near the museum he had adopted a bistro that served tapas, a drinkable cappuccino and wine by the glass. A few tables stood empty on the uneven pavement, waiting for the arrival of spring. The waitress smiled in recognition as she handed him the menu. Would she still smile at him if she knew that he was a police officer? He ordered bread, olives, a dish with spicy sausages and something that looked like overcooked ratatouille but tasted fine. The food here, although Spanish, reminded him of Greece but was conveyed to his table with un-Mediterranean haste.
If murder and mayhem spoilt your appetite then the police force was clearly not for you. McLusky enjoyed every morsel of his food and his glass of red precisely because he had a bad feeling about these explosions. Over the past few days he had completely convinced himself that he was dealing with a one-off, whatever the target had been, whatever the motive. The second explosion changed everything. And the super had put him in charge. He raised his eyes from his empty plates and found the waitress looking at him from behind the high bar. He nodded at her, intending to ask for his bill, but when she arrived at the table found himself ordering more wine instead.
The second bomb had nothing prankish about it. It was a deeply malicious thing. This could not be misconstrued as someone wanting to create a bang. Someone had wanted to hurt Maxine Bendick. Someone had gone to considerable lengths to hurt Maxine Bendick, constructed the device, concealed it inside her compact. It took a particular kind of person to imagine the injuries the device would cause and still persist in building it, planting it. It took an extraordinary depth of feeling, like hate or the desire for revenge, on the one hand, and a complete lack of empathy on the other. The person behind this was not lashing out, here was forethought and planning. Malice aforethought. McLusky drained his glass. Two could play that game.
Chapter Five
‘What I was afraid of most has happened, then, a second device has been detonated. I had hoped we were looking at a one-off, a badly judged prank, but I was wrong.’ McLusky was glad about the two glasses of wine he had had. The incident room that had been set up at Albany Road in record time was tiny and crowded with tables, computers and personnel. He had perched himself on a folding table to appear casual as he talked to the assembled crew, only to find that the table was so rickety he felt it might collapse under him. Yet he stayed where he was. To compensate he lit a cigarette. Sod the no-smoking rules. He would stop smoking at work when people stopped killing, robbing and mutilating each other. This time nobody objected. Just a short while later one or two other cigarettes were furtively lit elsewhere in the room.
Addressing the troops was nothing new, but getting new troops on your side was important for anyone hoping to lead an investigation. Any roomful of detectives contained a selection of bright, intelligent sparklers, competitive climbers, dullards treading water, skivers, sharp operators and sometimes downright villainous specimens of police-hood. You couldn’t afford to take your time over finding out who was who, that would come later. You had to size them up as you would a roomful of drunks where you were expected to restore order. Who were the troublemakers, who could be an ally, who would slink away, and who might stab you in the back?
‘But we were told the two devices were quite different.’ DI Kat Fairfield was holding her biro like a dagger, jabbing it against her notebook for emphasis. ‘The first could still have been by a different perpetrator. Could still have been an act of vandalism, in fact. While this one was personal. Aimed at one specific person, Maxine Bendix.’
‘Bendick. It could be. It could be a copycat thing, someone suddenly getting a taste for blowing up people. It could be coincidence even, but I don’t believe that. No. Making these devices takes time, getting the ingredients for the bombs together, that alone takes a lot of time.’ Every shop in the area that had sold fireworks over the past twelve months was being contacted, staff and owners quizzed about large amounts of fireworks being purchased. That too took a lot of time, a lot of man-hours. ‘Of course we can never rule out anything until we have bagged our man.’
‘Do we know it’s a man, sir?’
French? DC Claire French, was it? He was good with names but the DC had a face so plain it bordered on the expressionless and he only vaguely remembered seeing her before. She took plain clothes to an extreme, too, and would disappear into any shopping centre crowd without leaving a trace on the retina. A good trait in a detective. ‘No, you’re right, we don’t know that at all, nor do we know that we are dealing with a single perpetrator. We can make the thing as complicated as we like, really. We could have two separate perpetrators or one, a single bomb maker or a group, an original bomber and a copycat bomber.’ Some nodded in assent, let’s keep it simple by all means.
A sudden thought struck him and a dark vista of horrors opened up before him. He was about to throw this into the ring, then decided to keep his suspicions to himself. Concentrate their minds on what we’ve got. ‘There has been no communication from the bomber, no declaration, no demands. In the absence of that we’ll need to look at the victims for a motive.’
A hand was raised with pointed index finger in school-boy irony. DS Sorbie. ‘What if the attacks are motiveless?’
‘Have you ever come across a motiveless crime?’
‘Loads.’
‘I doubt that. Unprovoked, yes, senseless, certainly, motiveless, never. Since we know little or nothing about the suspect we might find a lead in who the victims are. At the moment it’s all we’ve got, though I admit I’m a bit baffled. We have three victims so far. One, a boy returning home from an interview at the parks department. He makes an unlikely target. Perhaps for a bomb built by his old school mates but that’s a little outlandish for me. Elizabeth Howe, recently-made-redundant postmistress. It is hard to imagine a less likely target for a bomb attack. Surely something involving brown paper and string would be more appropriate. Which leaves Maxine Bendick. What do we know about her? Who wants to harm her?’
DS Sorbie looked contemptuous. ‘She works for the council — spoiled for choice, I should think.’
‘What department, was it housing?’
‘Yes, mainly, but she also did stints in other departments, processing forms, sorting out queries. Half the people who come in there must feel pretty murderous about backlogs, delays and such, waiting lists, council tax, fines etc.’
‘Good point, Sorbie. Find out if anyone has made any threats, are there any particular disputes between the council and a member of the public where Bendick was the one dealing with them, either directly or by letter where she could be identified.’
‘Sir, we … DI Fairfield and I, are supposed to get urgent results on the Mobile Muggers as well.’ It simply wasn’t fair on them and if Kat wasn’t going to speak up then he would. ‘The super is leaning on us to get a result re the muggings and make arrests, yet now we’re supposed to work on the bombings as well. There’s also been a spate of burglaries all along the …’
DI Fairfield shot Sorbie a look and his complaint fizzled out. The last thing she needed was for McLusky to get the impression she couldn’t cope with her workload.
‘I’m aware of the pressures on you. I’m leaning on you, the super leans on all of us, so go lean on some other poor sod.’
DI Fairfield’s biro was poised over the paper. ‘This second device. Was it designed to kill?’
‘No, too small, by all accounts and a different kind of explosion apparently.’ He watched Fairfield scribble it all down without even looking at her notebook. McLusky was impressed. He had tried writing without looking once and produced an undecipherable mess.