‘A word in private, DI Dylan,’ barked the policeman.
‘No.’ My friend Mike is rank conscious, normally, but a fiery enema is liable to make anyone unco-operative. The Chief Inspector, clearly not programmed for that response, stared at him, his mouth hanging slightly open and his heavy moustache twitching.
‘I’m not leaving Susie. You want to talk to me, you do it here.’
Mr Senior Plod glanced at Prim and me, in an attempt to be meaningful.
‘What’s your name, Sir,’ asked Dylan.
‘Chief Inspector Brown,’ he replied, then nodded towards the fireman. ‘This is Mr Callaghan.’
‘Well, Mr Brown, this is Mr Blackstone and Miss Phillips. They’re friends and they’ve had their eyebrows singed too, so they have an interest in this. We’ll talk here.’
Chief Inspector Brown folded his cards. ‘Pull up a chair from the table,’ I offered.
They settled themselves in front of us, but Brown managed still to behave as if Prim and I weren’t there. ‘What are you working on just now, Inspector?’ he began.
‘I can’t tell you that.’
For the second time in as many minutes, the policeman was stuck for a word. So he simply repeated the question, more emphatically this time. Dylan repeated his answer.
‘Look,’ snapped Brown. ‘Do I have to get your senior officer to order you to tell me?’
As I looked at Mike, I saw something in his face I’d seen only once or twice before. ‘Just you fucking try it,’ he said quietly.
‘I’ll do just that. Where d’you work from?’ The Chief Inspector’s mouth was set in a tight line.
‘Headquarters. Pitt Street.’
‘Right. Use your phone, Mr Blackwood?’
‘There’s one in the kitchen, Mr Brown,’ I told him. He stood and stomped off, leaving Divisional Officer Callaghan sitting in an awkward silence.
When he returned, almost five minutes later, his face was distinctly red. I always feel sorry for people who blush. It’s like wearing a sign round your neck reading, ‘I’ve been a dickhead.’
Brown settled awkwardly on to his dining chair. ‘You might have told me you were Special Branch,’ he mumbled.
I stared across at my pal. ‘You might have told me too,’ I said. ‘If I’d known that our nation’s security was resting in your buttery grip I might have felt differently about staying in this country.’
Dylan grinned. ‘Need to know, Oz. Need to know. I was transferred four months ago.’ He turned to Brown. ‘Now, can we forget about all that silver braid on your uniform and assume that I’m in charge here?’
Not waiting for a reply he turned to the fireman. ‘What have you got, Mr Callaghan?’
‘Someone doesn’t like you, Mr Dylan,’ the DO replied. ‘There were two seats to this fire; the car’s petrol tank and another source. I think someone followed you here and when you were inside, secured a firebomb device close to the fuel tank, beside the exhaust. It had a small explosive charge, and a quantity of petrol in a plastic container. I’d say it had a trembler trigger and that the vibration from the silencer was enough to set it off.
‘The heat from the first blast was enough to blow the vapour and fuel in the main tank. If you’d still been in that motor, son,’ said the grizzled fireman, grimly, ‘you’d have been done to a fuckin’ crisp.’
‘Yeah.’ Mike nodded. ‘That’s what I thought.’ He looked at Callaghan, then at Brown. ‘But as far as your reports go, it was a wiring failure. A tragedy averted, but an accident nonetheless.’
Brown drew in a deep breath and shook his head. ‘I don’t know about that, Inspector.’
‘Well I bloody do, Chief Inspector. That’s how you’ll write it up, and if anyone says anything different to the press, I’ll bloody have him. Police or fire service, it doesn’t matter, his carcass will be mine.’ I hadn’t realised till then that Mike was turning into a Glaswegian; his Edinburgh veneer was being worn away. He went on, ‘Oh yes, and one other thing; neither my name nor Miss Gantry’s will feature in your reports.
‘You can go and make another phone call if you like, but I promise you that is how it will be. I’m not having the world knowing that some bastard thinks he can kill an SB officer. I’m damn sure you’ll find that the Chief Constable will feel the same way.
‘Now, maybe you’d do us a favour and send for a traffic car to give Susie and me a lift out to Clarkston.’
Brown nodded and left, meek and dismissed, Callaghan following in his wake. As soon as they were gone, I turned to Dylan. ‘What’s happening here, man?’ I demanded. I was confused, probably still a bit shocked from the blast, and just a touch impaired by the fine Austrian red. ‘What do we make of that?’
He shrugged, but only with one shoulder since Susie had fallen asleep, immobilising the other. ‘I don’t know for sure, Oz. I haven’t been in SB all that long. I can’t tell you what I’m doing there, but I suppose it’s possible that what happened tonight was connected to that rather than to Susie’s letters.
‘I doubt it, though. Most of the people we target assume that they’re under surveillance and let us get on with it. As the new boy, I’m still on the routine stuff; I doubt if any of our customers even know I exist.
‘I don’t like even thinking it, far less saying it, but I fear that the letter-writer wasn’t kidding.’
‘ “You are going to die with your world in ashes all around you.” ’ Both of us looked round at Prim as she spoke. ‘That’s what the last letter said, wasn’t it. Looks as if we should have taken it literally.’
‘When I catch this bastard,’ Mike muttered, looking more thunderous than I had ever seen him, ‘I’ll. . I’ll. . What’s worse than reducing him to ashes, Oz?’
‘How about a really good kick up the arse?’
He nodded, grimly. ‘That’s where I’ll start, then.’
‘That’s where you’ll start?’
‘Oh yes. This is a different game now. Office bodyguard or not, I never really thought that those letters were meant to be taken literally; I always guessed, just like you did, that they were only the ravings of some crank. I’d never have exposed you to real danger, pal.’
I scowled at him. ‘You mean apart from the real danger of a kicking from Malkie Campbell?’
‘Ach, I’ve got faith in your ability to handle the likes of him. . as you did.’ He looked up at the ceiling, with a sudden, tension-relieving grin. ‘Christ, I wish I’d seen the look on his face when he clapped eyes on your big pal.’
‘So,’ I said, ‘what you’re telling us is now that we’ve done all the hard work and identified your number one suspect, we’re off the case.’
‘Exactly. Thanks for all you’ve done up to this point, both of you, but this belongs with the police now.’
‘But what about Susie? What about the effect on her business? What about your reasons for involving her in the first place?’
‘Not a problem any more. There’s no danger of publicity now. Chief Inspector Chocolate there, he’ll write up his report like I told him, and that’ll be that as far as the official side is concerned. This’ll be a Special Branch inquiry from now on.
‘I’ll take this to my boss first thing tomorrow morning, and I’ll tell him about the car thing. I’ll mention the letters at the same time, and tell him that it was because of my Special Branch involvement that I asked you to look into it informally, rather than make an official police complaint. He’ll buy that all right. He’ll also agree that on the off-chance the explosion could have been job-related, our lot should investigate it.’
The un-Dylanlike grim expression returned. ‘I tell you, Mr Stephen Donn. . if it is him. . has no idea what he’s bitten off.’
I couldn’t help it: I wasn’t ready to believe completely in the new Mike. ‘Oh aye?’ I asked. ‘You think your outfit can find this guy, if his own mother doesn’t know where he is?’
‘You sure she doesn’t?’ he shot back. ‘Look at the sequence of events. You go to see Mira Donn this afternoon asking her about Stephen. A few hours later, Susie’s car blows up.’