Falling More Slowly (26 page)

Sorbie braked hard then looked back. In the gloom he could see very little on the water. He turned and directed his beam at the crash site. The scooter had disappeared. One helmeted shape frantically splashed and thrashed about, shouting something. Sorbie turned off his engine but kept the lights on.

‘I can’t swim! Help! I can’t … fucking … swim!’

There was no sign of the second mugger. The helmet dipped under water, arms thrashed, a wordless scream. Even a proficient swimmer might have trouble swimming after a crash, clothes and boots heavy with water and wearing a helmet, probably injured. The figure bobbed up again, coughing, screeching. ‘Help me!’

Still no sign of the other one. And all that was holding this one up was probably the expanded foam in his helmet.
Sorbie swung the handlebar to direct the light here and there but nothing was visible on the surface apart from bits of plastic debris from the scooter and the thrashing figure of the drowning man. He had sounded like a teenager. Now he was just gurgling and retching. Sorbie looked about him. Just when you needed some rubbish to throw in the water for the bastard to hold on to there was none around. He took off his helmet. ‘Ah shit.’ The black, oily water didn’t look inviting. ‘Tell me it’s nice and warm in there, you bastard.’ Quickly he shrugged off his jacket and grappled with the zips of his boots. He dropped them disconsolately just as the mugger’s helmet disappeared under the surface. ‘Oh shit. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe I’m fucking doing this.’ DS Sorbie jumped feet first towards the empty spot where the man had slid under.

Eleni
. Gary loved the name. It suited her. A simple name, old-fashioned, unpretentious, yet classy. He was glad the new owners hadn’t insisted on renaming her. Not only would he have considered it bad luck for a boat to be renamed but a modern name would not have fitted a classic motor yacht like the
Eleni
. Laid down in 1915, completed in 1920, she was a gentleman’s yacht and every one of her seventy-three feet and seven inches a lady. Loved, abused and neglected in turn, she had been at home in the Adriatic, had languished in a lonely berth in the thirties, had seen action in WWII on harbour defence patrol and had survived a near miss off Dunkirk. Gary tapped the soft soles of his shoes on the wooden deck. Beautiful women had sunbathed here under tropical skies, soldiers had huddled here after having been picked off the beaches. Both tanning lotion and history had soaked into these planks and would stay sealed inside them now for as long as she stayed afloat, no matter who walked on them. He would miss her, missed her already. The refurbishment had taken six months and he had worked on her almost from the beginning.

In the light of the setting sun the
Eleni
inspired nostalgic dreams. Here, moored at the very end of the harbour basin, surrounded by nothing but boat sheds and the gutted hulls of barges and houseboats waiting for a second chance for a useful life, it was easy to forget which century you lived in. You could lean back against the woodwork and dream.

Almost as soon as the press had finished scribbling notes and taking pictures of smiling people holding aloft glasses of champagne everyone had packed up and left. Gary was not important enough to have been invited along to the celebration dinner, only the project leader, engineer, vendor and new owners went. He himself, along with Dave the mechanic and Sharon the general dogsbody, had been given money to celebrate in the pub. But he’d declined and Dave and Sharon had left without him. All day sadness had crept up on him, and more than sadness. Not far below it nagged an irrational anger as though the yacht had been stolen from him. Sold into slavery. Like a beautiful woman the
Eleni
could inspire jealousy as well as love.

The fact they had chosen to celebrate in a restaurant rather than here, probably for fear someone might spill champagne on the polished fittings, simply added to his resentment. If they felt any real connection to her they’d have celebrated on board, started up her two Gardner engines and taken her out to sea, where she belonged. But the new owners were not really interested in her, she was a business tool now, to be used for corporate hospitality around Majorca. He wasn’t likely to see her again let alone be allowed on board. In the end he had chosen to remain behind and say a quiet, undisturbed farewell.

What he really wanted to do was to cast off and take her back in time all the way to the Indian Ocean of the nineteen-twenties and -thirties, to Ceylon and on to the islands off Siam. He ran his fingers over the cool, polished teak of the wheelhouse. He’d had a hand in restoring it, as in most other things wooden on the yacht: her steamed oak beams, rock elm timbers and teak deck. He wouldn’t really call himself a shipwright yet, though he had when he applied for the job. He’d lied a fair bit but got away with it and learnt on the job. Now that the project was finished there was no more work here for a while. Perhaps he would move to Cornwall or up north, he hadn’t decided
yet. There was still boat building going on in Scotland, he knew.

Dusk had crept through the harbour and the sodium glow of the city lights threw workshop and sheds into sharp relief. Without illumination from the boat or the office there was just enough residual light in the west for him to take one more turn around her deck. Trailing the fingers of his left hand lightly over the familiar surfaces of the wheelhouse, the edge of the coach roof, the radar mast and finally the wheelhouse again he completed his last inspection. As he got ready to go ashore via the short gangway connecting the yacht to the deserted quay his foot nudged a heavy object that did not belong there. Gary stepped back and picked it up. It was a bottle.

A full bottle of champagne. An
unlikely
bottle of champagne. He could just make out the label, a supermarket own-brand! How did it get there? All the champagne drunk earlier had been vintage stuff. He knew, he had been given a glass, well, half a glass, most of it had been froth, and he had seen the bottles, it was Something & Something French champagne. Had this one been bought for the lower deck to drink and then forgotten about? Yet he was pretty sure that a bottle of champagne, supermarket or not, would have been spotted if it stood on deck right by the gangway. In fact he was pretty sure it hadn’t been there a few minutes ago when there had still been more than enough light to spot it.

Stranger things happened at sea. The bottle felt well chilled and it was perfect for the occasion. Even the fact that it was cheap champagne fitted well with his tiny contribution to the story of the
Eleni
. He would drink a private, quiet toast to their parting. The foil top slid off easily. Unused to opening champagne bottles, a little fearful of the bottled power behind the cork, he pointed the neck of the bottle well away from himself as he untwisted the wire clip and set his thumb under the rim of the cork. His nervousness and the sturdiness of the champagne bottle probably
saved his life. The neck of the bottle disintegrated as the small explosive charge ignited the petrol in the bottle. The content self-propelled in an imperfect arc towards the door of the wheelhouse and splattered flames across the varnished teak. Gary fell backwards on to the deck with his hair and clothes enveloped in petrol flames. He wasted no time rolling towards the guard rail and heaving himself overboard into the harbour. When he resurfaced the shock and pain made him gasp and thrash as he struggled in the freezing water towards the quay.

Above him the
Eleni
burnt. Oiled planks and varnished timbers caught easily even as the petrol burnt itself out.
A
petrol bomb
. One minute he was going to toast her, the next she was ablaze. He had set her on fire. He had to make it to the quay, he had to put it out somehow, call for the fire brigade. She mustn’t burn, not after all the work they had put into her, not after all she had survived. It was his fault. It was insane, completely insane, but it was. When he reached the quay a few yards away from the burning yacht and the raw flesh of his palms closed around a rusty ring set in the harbour wall, Gary screamed.

‘It doesn’t smell as bad as I expected.’

‘Yeah, quite pleasant really.’

‘The owners might not agree of course.’

‘Perhaps not.’ McLusky sniffed audibly. ‘Or is that your sandwich I can smell?’

Austin folded up a corner of sliced white from his home-made sandwich. ‘Bavarian smoked cheese. You’ve got a good nose.’

‘It’s house fires I can’t stand, they smell truly awful. It’s all those burnt plastics and melted TVs.’

‘No plastics here, she was a posh boat, all natural ingredients.’ Austin rocked lightly on his heels beside McLusky as they continued to look down on to the charred hull from atop a tarpaulined nest of oil drums on the quay.
The
Eleni
had remained afloat but her wheelhouse had disappeared and the galley had burnt fiercely after a small propane bottle had exploded there with the fire spreading to the saloon. There were two holes in the deck, which was blackened from bow to stern. Now that there was daylight fire investigators were going through the treacherous remains.

Further up the quay, at the perimeter of the taped-off area, a silver Porsche was being carefully parked. As the driver approached the police tape he was challenged by a constable and after a short conversation allowed to proceed. McLusky watched him take his time as he picked a route through the harbourside snake pit of hoses, cables and ropes. His hand-made shoes crunched reluctantly over crushed glass and eroded concrete. He was talking on a mobile. ‘Place is a mess. I can see the boat, she’s a goner. It’s a disaster from start to finish. I’m flying into Palma this afternoon, you can kill me then.’

‘Jane, go and ask him what …’ McLusky rolled his eyes at Austin who appeared to have stuffed the entire sandwich into his mouth at once. ‘Forget it.’ He called to the new arrival. ‘Hello. Are you the owner?’

The man walked over before answering. ‘Was. One of them. Nothing much left to own.’

‘She might be worth restoring … not that I know much about boats.’

‘Then what, may I ask, are you doing here?’

McLusky held out his ID for the man to peruse.

The man shrugged: so what? ‘It was arson, I’m told. Have you got someone in custody?’

‘Not yet.’

‘What about the shipwright chap? Wasn’t it him?’

‘We don’t think so. He just happened to be the one who picked up the incendiary device. He’s recovering nicely in hospital, by the way.’

‘Good for him. Meanwhile we are short one motor yacht. I’m going to get the blame for this. There are plenty of 
yachts for sale in Majorca but, like an idiot … I saw her advertised, liked the style and persuaded my partners. She was hardly seaworthy then. We had her brought up overland from Cardiff last year. They worked like demons, only finished her yesterday.’

‘Why here?’

‘I’m from here. My children live here with their mother. And I wanted to give work to the last surviving boat builders here. Bloody disaster.’

‘She was insured?’

‘Generously. That’s not the point. Might not look it here but in Majorca the summer is well under way. There’s people waiting.’

‘What do you do there?’

‘Financing development. Balearics and southern Spain. I hope you find who did this. Not that it’ll make much difference. I’m flying back to face the music now. Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye Mr …’

The man was already walking back to his car and didn’t bother to turn around. ‘Chapman.’

They both watched him blast off, blaring his horn impatiently at an elderly man wheeling a bicycle along the harbour front. Austin rolled the tinfoil wrapping of his sandwich into a ball and flicked it in the direction of the departing Porsche. ‘Cheery chappy, Chapman.’

McLusky didn’t comment. Something had disturbed him this morning and it wasn’t the extremely early appearance at his door of DS Austin with news of a suspicious incendiary. No, the early hours of the morning he had always considered to be the best of the day, still fresh, untainted, at least if you avoided police radio. It was something else that niggled at him now, back of the mind, tip of the tongue. Something he heard, saw or smelled but he couldn’t grasp it. Hopeless. It slipped away like the tail end of a dream, back into his unconscious. He was out of cigarettes, too. He thought better with a cigarette, a walk and a cigarette. ‘Got a ciggie, Jane?’

‘Didn’t I say? I’ve packed it in. As of today. Eve is making me, she was livid when I started again.’

McLusky looked hopeful. ‘So … no doubt you have stocked up on mints, chewing gum and chocolate-covered peanuts then?’

‘No, I’m going cold turkey.’

‘Well, that’s no use to anyone. You’re really not getting the best out of your addiction, DS Austin.’ He hopped off the oil drums. With his mobile phone held at arm’s length he turned through 360 degrees, recording the entire scene, ending with Austin’s glum face. ‘Smile, Jane, think of the money you’ll save. See you back at the station, I’m taking a walk.’

At a newsagent’s McLusky handed over his bank card to pay for two packets of cigarettes. Austin’s fiancée was right. Quite apart from the health risk the damage to your finances was insane. There were people out there earning less per hour than the price of a packet of twenty. But this was not the right time to stress over it. Or the fact that even Extra Lights made him cough like a coal miner in the morning. He would compensate with fresh air, go for a walk, set his brain working, try and retrieve the disappearing strands of thought in his unmethodical mind.

He had simply turned his back on the harbour, intent on exploring a few more streets of his new home, and was pleasantly surprised when he came across a small park. Queen Square with its tree-lined perimeter and its lawn dissected by a star of paths was just what he needed. He would walk its perimeter under the trees and think.

Only when he had walked one length of the square did he allow himself to light the cigarette he’d been craving. Games, they were just games, he had to pack it in for good. When he caught the bastard. The day he caught the bastard he would give up smoking. Just please don’t let it be today.

It promised to be a warm, sunny day yet here in the shade under the trees it was cool and the smells of the
nearby river and of early morning lingered. At this time of day there were few people in the park, mainly mothers with children and the elderly. A community support officer on a mountain bike was making the rounds, cycling past him at a leisurely pace. There had to be worse beats than one that included Queen Square in the morning.

Two devices in two days. Phil Warren’s latest article on the bomber had graced the front page of the
Post
only yesterday. True to what McLusky now recognized as her form she had called the bomber not only a coward but also a twisted loner and a perverted madman who had clearly targeted children when he hid explosives in Easter eggs. Neither the bottle nor the phone would have been planted in response to the article, it would have taken too much time to build them. If the bomber was to react his response was still to come.

The mobile might have been there for days, there was not enough left of it for Forensics to give a verdict on that. The champagne device had clearly been tailored to the occasion. But why the boat? Why include the yacht in his list of targets when all the others had been left where they could be triggered by anybody who found them? The apparently random nature of the attacks suggested a man – surely a man – who hated everybody. Random attacks always meant that the perpetrator was dissociated from real people. The man he was looking for was isolated, a loner, a man for whom other people had no real substance.