‘Have you got a garden or somewhere I can smoke?’
The landlord set a carefully poured pint of Murphy’s before him. ‘Upstairs. The room marked Private. You can kill yourself there.’
‘Ta.’
Everything about the room was small. A couple of logs smouldered in a tiny grate, rickety tables for two stood in front of three slits of windows and a skinny bench opposite the fire completed the furnishings. The room was empty. Just what the inspector had ordered. Sitting by the window closest to the fire he drank and smoked. Below him lay the warren of the Old Town and beyond that the harbour basin. The sun soon set over the wasteland on the opposite shore, briefly throwing disused loading cranes and a few surviving structures into silhouette against the sky.
Somewhere out there the next episode was being planned. Somewhere out there a man, surely a man, was dribbling gunpowder into a harmless object, turning it lethal. Out there his next victim walked unawares. Unless …
Footsteps outside, then the door opened. The invasion force consisted of just one woman in her forties. She was carrying a drink in a tall glass and lit a long cigarette already dangling from her lips. Her hair looked an unlikely shade of brown and was held in a tight twist at the back of her head. She acknowledged him with a nod and sat facing the window at the next but one table, sucking greedily at her cigarette. ‘Can’t smoke at work, can’t smoke on the bus, can’t smoke in the bloody bar. This country is beginning to piss me off.’ She spoke not to him but at the window in a hoarse, aggrieved voice.
McLusky nodded and lit another cigarette himself.
After a minute’s silence she turned to him. ‘What about the bloody bombs then? Did you hear the copper on the telly? We’re all supposed to go about our business and stay calm but vigilant. They’ll ask us to dig for victory next.’ She snorted smoke through her nostrils.
That sounded like Superintendent Denkhaus had been rolling out the spirit-of-the-blitz platitudes. But what else could he have said to them? He nodded in agreement. ‘Yes, I wouldn’t go around picking up things off the street. Gold compact, can of beer or whatever. God knows what’ll blow up next.’
‘It’s human nature though, isn’t it, you find something interesting, you wouldn’t just leave it. You don’t look at a can of beer and think, That could blow my hand off, do you?’
‘Perhaps people should from now on.’ Of course a lot depended on where you found the thing. Unless …
She took a long gulp from her glass. ‘Now tell me this, though. What’s the motive? Who’s behind it? What kind of person does such a thing?’
He shrugged. ‘A coward. Also someone quite mad. It doesn’t look political so I guess it’s personal. Psychotic bastard would be my guess.’
‘D’you think they’ll get him? Any time soon?’
‘I doubt it.’ He realized that he very much meant it. ‘He’ll be difficult to find. He might be living quite a normal life otherwise. People compartmentalize their minds. When he’s not making bombs he’s probably Mr Boring of Sleepy Street and kind to birds.’
McLusky didn’t really feel like talking. When the table between them was taken he took the opportunity to leave the room. He drank another pint downstairs where the place had filled up, mainly with men drinking in groups or by themselves. He wondered whether the name of the pub kept most women away.
By the time he made it back to the Albany Road car park he reckoned he had worked off a sufficient amount of alcohol to drive home. Via another drink at the Barge Inn.
* * *
Chris Reed pushed his bicycle along the sparsely lit street in Redland. It was an excellent district for his purpose. It was middle class but not too posh. In some middle-class areas all the 4?4s were in the garages and only the second cars left on the streets. But the tarted-up terraces in this street had no garages and the agricultural machinery was parked where he could get at it.
Earlier he had visited the covered market at closing time and had stocked up on all the fruit they were going to throw away at the end of the day. What a waste. Just because they were bruised or a bit past it they were going to chuck it, as if there weren’t enough poor people in this town who would appreciate it. He had come away with a good haul, apples and oranges mainly but also an overripe pineapple. He kept that and a couple of apples for eating, the rest he was using for his new double-whammy. Every 4?4 got the exhaust blocked with fruit and the windscreen splattered with mud. The leaflet — If the off-roader won’t go to the country then the country will come to the off-roader — went under the windscreen. First they would have to read his leaflet, clean the mud off, then they’d find that their engine wouldn’t start. They’d get the message. And the windscreens weren’t easy to clean either. This wasn’t just any old mud. He got it from a special place near the Floating Harbour. It was dark, sticky and slimy from decades of spilled oil from a refuelling point for boats and barges. The reservoir on his bicycle was nearly empty but there really wasn’t any point in using the mud sparingly. The mud had to represent a real inconvenience for the drivers, not a symbolic one. He’d get some more of the stuff some night soon. He didn’t need any help. Sod Vicky. You couldn’t rely on others. He’d work by himself from now on.
A black Mercedes four-wheel-drive gleamed. It was parked in the pool of light from a streetlamp, which wasn’t good but the car was so shiny it was practically screaming out for the treatment. Putting the bike on its side-stand he took a half-rotten orange from the left pannier and rammed it expertly up the car’s exhaust. The second pannier held two containers made from sawn-off petrol cans. The mud really was nearly finished yet he managed to scrape together one more ladleful. The splat across the windscreen was also expertly executed, without getting a single drop on his clothes. As he reached for the leaflet in his jacket the door of the nearest house opened. From it a man came charging towards him, swinging a walking stick like a weapon. ‘What the fuck are you doing to my car?’
Chris jumped on his bike and pedalled off furiously while the man gave chase. Christ, he looked quite fit, if he caught up he’d be in trouble. The road climbed uphill here and it was difficult to get any speed up on this boneshaker, another skip-find. At last he was pulling away from his panting pursuer. ‘Just delivering an important message!’ He shouted it across his shoulder when he was sure he was getting away. The man issued a stream of insults that echoed along the street, then he hurled the walking stick after him. It fell short.
When he reached the safety of the next street corner and realized he had lost his pursuer Chris laughed. It was the laughter of relief. He’d have to be more careful from now on, or his one-man campaign could easily come to a premature end.
McLusky left the Polo unlocked at the first parking space he found and walked briskly down to the Barge Inn. Another couple of drinks would see the day out in agreeable enough fashion. It was Rebecca’s night off. The pub was busy but he found a stool at the corner of the bar and was soon sipping a pint of Guinness served by the bald landlord. He found it difficult not to think about his work. It was his case and he was responsible. There would be another bomb, therefore he was already responsible for the next victim because it was up to him to stop the bombs. But you couldn’t work twenty-four hours a day, even though it felt like you were. Especially at the very beginning of a murder investigation there was pressure to work non-stop for the first forty-eight hours which is when a result was most likely. Of course most murders were committed by the victim’s nearest and dearest or by rival criminals, so you had a pretty good idea of who to look for to begin with. Not here, not this time.
He suddenly felt ravenous and ordered a double portion of chips from the landlord. It arrived together with another pint and a hefty bottle of ketchup. He was warming to this pub. As he glugged ketchup over his chips a group of men detached themselves from the bar and headed for the exit. Through the gap they had left he spotted Rebecca. He could tell it was her day off since she was wearing her paint-spattered multi-coloured art student gear. She sat very close to a boy of about nineteen or twenty, their legs entwined, hands on each other’s thighs while they talked. When the girl looked up her eyes met McLusky’s. She acknowledged him with a brief smile and a nod. Then she bent to the boy’s ear and spoke a few words. The boy laughed.