Читать книгу Inspector Bliss Mysteries 8-Book Bundle - James Hawkins - Страница 34

Anoisy seagull dive-bombed Roger’s raft, mistaking it for a fishing boat in the swirling mist, hoping to snatch some offal from the deck, and his thoughts of Trudy were interrupted as he fended it off with a lazy swipe.

“Clear off.”

Returning to his daydreams, Trudy’s aesthetically improved likeness appeared again and again in selectively recreated memories: The heart-pounding thrill of their first meeting in the railway refreshment room; the stolen glimpse of her vagina as she lay unconscious on his bed; her pink breast flopping out of the torn white top when he caught her trying to escape; her neat little body squatting over the bucket to pee.

From out of the swirling mist he conjured other images of Trudy—a vision of whatever and whoever he wanted her to be—before her spectre had transmogrified into a very solid, snivelling, sixteen year-old: The times he had sat in front of his computer with her loveliness, her innocence, her whole being, flooding through the Internet and appearing as words on his screen. And his face warmed at the way he had sat naked in his little room, his hand in his groin, as he read and re-read her often misspelled, and frequently misused, words.

Trudy’s captivity had altered everything and, as he rushed home from work on the Monday evening, he missed the expectant thrill of meeting his true love—his computer bearing Trudy’s E-mail message. It wasn’t that he wanted to communicate with her, he wanted to really communicate with her, and would have been hard pushed to explain the difference.

“Come on Trude. It’s just a game,” he said enthusiastically, trying to pretend nothing had changed by her capture. “We can play it together. I’ll leave a message for you, then you can send a message back to me.”

Pouting, “No,” she turned her back and sat cross-legged on his bed in the dungeon.

“Oh come on,” he implored, his hand worming toward his groin.

“Sod off.”

He begged … “Please, Trude.”

“Fat slob.”

… insisted, “Come here.”

“Asshole.”

… ordered, “Get over here.”

“Bollocks.”

Losing control, he grabbed her long ponytail, dragged her to the stool beside him, and started to type. “I love Trudy McK …” then a pang of remorse swept through him and his fingers shook as they wrote “I’m sorry, Trude. I didn’t hurt you, did I ?”

“Screw you,” she had typed valiantly in response, determined he should not see her weaken.

Just twenty feet above the water, the fog thinned and the seagull glided gracefully in the brilliant sunshine, searching for greener pastures. A trace of sunlight stole through the mist and Roger instinctively held his face up to bask in its grudging warmth. Staring at the inside of his eyelids, he formed a picture of Trudy which bore no resemblance to the bruised and battered body now lying on the rough flagstone floor beneath the house in Junction Road. His mind’s eye could never have imagined the pathetic comatose figure with knotted hair, bloated eyes, and diarrhoea encrusted legs, though a sudden dark thought sent a shiver down his spine and shook his eyes wide open. Trudy’s sleek image evaporated in the haze. “Trudy,” he called softly, his lips hardly moving. But she was gone.

The dark memory clouded his mind with darker thoughts: Trudy’s first morning in the little room under his house, the previous Saturday.

“Why are you keeping me here?” she had blubbered, as soon as he unlocked the door and let himself in. She was curled on the edge of the bed, head buried in hands, tears dripping uncontrollably off her chin onto the swell of her breasts.

“’Cos I love you, Trude.”

“You lied to me.”

“You lied to me too,” he retorted, in a “tit for tat” voice.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

“White lies,” she conceded, in between wet sniffles. “I never sent you Marge’s photo or nothing like that. And you said you had a big house.”

“It is Trude. It is a big house,” he shot back, deluding himself.

“Show me,” she said, uncurling herself and starting toward the door, looking for a way out.

Ignoring her request, he blocked her path. “And I’ve got a car.”

“A poxy Renault,” she taunted, stabbing him with her finger and feeling the flabby flesh give way. “A poxy little Renault. What sort of car is that? You said you had a Jag.”

He blushed. “I’ll get one.”

She poked him again, taunting, goading. “Like hell you will.” Another poke. “You’re just a fat slob with a poxy little Renault.”

“Don’t make fun of me,” he cried, sticking his hands over his ears.

“Fat slob, fat slob, fat slob,” she yelled.

The smack sent her reeling as she took a fall for a thousand previous tormentors, and her cheek stung as a torrent of blood gushed from her left nostril, but she didn’t give up. “Bloody monster,” she shouted, then scuttled into a corner and huddled into a miserable ball awaiting a further attack. Nothing happened. Her whimpers subsided, her breathing slowed, and she carefully raised her head, anticipating the thump that didn’t come. Roger sat on the edge of the bed, his whole body heaving as he silently cried.

The deluded seagull swooped again, its battle cry piercing the haze long before its mottled grey plumage shot out of the murk and lunged. Perfectly camouflaged in the mist, the turkey-size bird buzzed the raft repeatedly, appearing from nowhere, screeching ferociously, then disappearing—only to re-appear a few seconds later from an entirely different direction. After a dozen or more fruitless passes, the bird showed its contempt with a badly aimed dollop of shit and vanished.

The shifting brightness of the early afternoon caught Roger’s attention. A hint of movement in the water suggested a breeze. A slight lulling motion stirred the raft and one edge lost its grip on the water and dropped back with a little “plop.” Balancing himself precariously, he raised himself as high as possible and strained his eyes into the surrounding sphere of mist. Then a stab of pain doubled him over and he sank back into the raft clutching his belly. Another cramp hit him as his stomach fought with the contents of the emergency ration box—three days provisions for ten, devoured by one person in five hours.

The thought of food reminded him of Trudy, but everything reminded him of Trudy. Warm, fuzzy memories of their evenings together swam into view but were bent beyond recognition. Candlelit dinners followed by sessions of passionate lovemaking were as fictional as the Barbie he’d fallen for. Most evenings he had munched a mountain of junk food while transfixed by the computer screen, watching it as if it were television.

“Do you want some chips, Trude?” he had offered one evening, without taking his eyes off the screen. She picked a few from his outstretched newspaper bundle but had little appetite.

“Happy families,” he mused with the briefest glance and the thought of a smile. And he meant it.

It was Tuesday evening, the day before his departure to Holland. “It’s nice having you here,” he continued, still concentrating on the moving picture in front of him.

She mumbled, saying nothing.

“I’m glad, Trude.”

“Ummh,” she hummed and could have meant absolutely anything.

“It’s nice having my own family.”

“I’m not your family, Roger,” she said reproachfully.

“You are now, Trude.”

Her fight was gone. “Alright, Roger.”

“I love you, Trude,” he said, not taking his eyes of the screen.

“I love you, too,” she responded mechanically.

Just like Mum and Dad, he thought, and wasn’t so very wrong.

Following supper, he had a few minutes while a computer program downloaded and turned his attention to her. “I’ll brush your hair, Trude.” The brushing led to stroking, stroking to licking, then he made a clumsy stab at her ear with his tongue.

“Get off,” she screeched. His sad round face turned back to the computer and he ignored her until a little after midnight when he rose to leave. Scared of being alone, frightened of waking, choking for breath, she pleaded, “Please don’t go, Roger.”

His face lit up. “I’ll stay if you let me …”

She sat quietly for a few seconds deep in thought then shook her head.

Roger locked the door on his way out.

Detective Constable Jackson, together with his partner from Watford police station, returned to Roger’s house mid-afternoon to check on the glazier’s handiwork, and surprised Edwards’ staff sergeant as he was letting himself in.

“What the hell d’ye think you’re doing?” enquired Jackson without subtlety, catching the man with the key in the lock.

“And who the hell do you think you are sonny?” sneered the sergeant drawing his warrant card and holding it up to Jackson’s nose.

Jackson miffed, but outranked, introduced himself, “We’ve already searched the place Serg. There’s nothing in there.”

Unconvinced, the sergeant shoved the door and they piled into the familiar hallway. “I looked myself yesterday,” he admitted. “But we may have missed something.”

“Something about the girl?” enquired Jackson.

“What girl?” queried the sergeant. He’d not seen the newspaper and knew nothing of Trudy. Jackson briefed him while his partner idly sleuthed around, kicking the thick layer of dust into a cloud that split the shafts of afternoon sunlight into a million glittering motes.

Trudy lay beneath them, her breathless body now in a coma. Her frantic efforts of the morning had finally exhausted her dehydrated body, and she no longer had the energy, or the will, to keep her mouth glued to the keyhole. The computer screen in the corner still gave out its faint rays of hope and still bore her final entreaty to her mother.

“MUM, MUM, MUM,” it flashed repeatedly and was programmed to do so until eternity.

The brief wartime diary of the Nazi sympathiser who had dug the shelter, together with his family’s little silver Swastikas, remained in the OXO tin in a corner of the dim, damp chamber. The underground cell, abandoned for nearly sixty years, had failed to preserve the lives of the family who built it, and was now preparing to become the permanent resting place of Trudy Jane McKenzie, aged sixteen years and a couple of months.

In the hallway above, Jackson and the staff sergeant pored over photographs of Trudy and Roger.

“Have you shown the neighbours?” enquired the sergeant.

“Not yet,” replied Jackson. “We’ve only just got the one of the McKenzie girl and we had to get this one of LeClarc from his mother. The picture in the Daily Express was one of LeClarc’s bosses. That’s why we’re pretty sure there’s a link between him and the missing girl.”

“Sergeant,” Jackson’s mate shouted from the front room, “take a look at this.”

“I bet this is where the bed was,” he said, pointing out scuffmarks on the floor, and they followed the trail to the cupboard under the stairs, the entrance to Trudy’s cavern. “It ain’t in there,” called Jackson, “I’ve already checked,” so he shut the door and moved toward the staircase.

“Let me look at that picture again,” requested the sergeant, sneaking it from Jackson’s hand. “I thought so,” he continued mysteriously, bending down to scrape a few long dark hairs from the floor.

“They come from a Greek woman who used to live here,” explained Jackson’s partner pompously, seemingly having an answer for everything.

“Who says so?”

“Bloke across the road … Mitchell at 71, told me this morning.”

“And you believed him?”

Doubt suddenly flooded the detective’s face and reservation crept into his voice. “That’s what he reckoned anyway.”

The sergeant held the hairs against Trudy’s photograph. “What do you think?”

“Possible,” breathed Jackson and his partner reluctantly nodded in agreement.

The stiletto heels of the dumpy waitress clicked in time to the old station clock as the sergeant and the two detectives sat down to order tea fifteen minutes later. The railway refreshment room was busier than it had been when Trudy and Roger had waited a week earlier. The uniforms had changed as well: Board meetings, business luncheons, and bottom lines were far from the minds of the Friday afternoon mob in their ripped jeans and offensively decorated T-shirts. The smartly dressed commuters wouldn’t be back for another two hours, leaving the refreshment room at the mercy of the unemployed and unemployable.

“At least they remembered LeClarc,” said the sergeant, referring to several of Roger’s neighbours who had identified him from the photograph.

“Old George Mitchell doesn’t miss much,” added Jackson. “You’d think he would have seen the girl if she’d been with Roger.”

“Yes,” demanded the waitress, making it clear from her stance that she was unlikely to stand any nonsense. “What do you want?” Her tone, and expression said everything: “No credit—don’t even ask; if it isn’t on the menu we haven’t got it, and even if it is we might not have it, and pinch my bottom and I’ll stuff your teeth down your throat.”

Not intimidated, the sergeant laid his hand expressively on her tubby forearm, looked her straight in the eye, and addressed her as if she were his maiden aunt. “Now my dear,” he said, “we’d like three cups of your finest China tea and some of your very best roast beef sandwiches.”

She melted.

“Oh, and by the way,” he added, “I don’t suppose you’d recognize either of these two?”

She did—both of them.

One hour later, Junction Road, Watford had become a circus, with Roger’s home the star attraction. Gaily coloured ribbons of red and yellow cordoned off the area outside the house. Brightly painted vehicles with flashing lights and musical sirens completely blocked the narrow street. The ambulance appeared to be entirely unwarranted but, as at any circus, somebody felt it wise to have one standing by. Why anybody summonsed the fire engine was unknown, but, in the initial panic following Detective Jackson’s call for assistance, someone must have thought it a good idea.

The official audience of residents, reporters, and cameramen were augmented by an ad-hoc bunch of busy-bodies, excited children, and a couple of drunks who had stopped to heckle the uniformed policeman acting as usher. Patrolling up and down inside the police perimeter with a stone face, he minutely scrutinized every scrap of identification before lifting the flimsy tape, and allowing the artists into the ring.

George Mitchell and Mrs. Ramchuran were waiting to play a fringe performance to an audience of several dozen television and newspaper reporters denied access to the main attraction. The press had been unable to prise any information from the police beyond two comments: One, from D.C. Jackson, “Just routine enquiries,” and the other, from a brash young sergeant, turned the face of the young female reporter prawn pink as he suggested an alternative use for her microphone should she stick it in his face again.

Now she wavered the microphone threateningly under George’s nose and the cameraman gave a signal. The sideshow began.

“How long have you lived at 71, Junction Road, Watford, Mr. Mitchell?” she asked, attempting to cram as much information as possible in a single shot.

“Sixty years,” he replied crisply.

“What can you tell us about Mr. LeClarc, at number 34, Sir?”

“Funny looking bugger …”

“Sir, this is for national television,” she reminded him.

George, with a vacant confused look, tried again, “Well he is a funny …”

“O.K., Sir,” the interviewer cut in quickly. “Can I ask you about the girl. Trudy McKenzie?”

“Never ’eard of her,” he replied shirtily, wondering who on earth she was talking about.

“Is there anybody in the house now, Mr. Mitchell?”

“Loads of policemen,” answered George truthfully, missing the point entirely.

The interviewer pulled a face and swung her microphone to attack Mrs. Ramchuran. She knew even less than George but at least she didn’t waste their time. “I’ve only seen the man a few times. He was sort of fat with whitey hair. But I never saw no woman there.”

Then a young newshound, in Bermuda shorts, spotted Daft Jack standing in the half-opened doorway of his house and the crowd of reporters and cameramen drifted in a wave in his direction.

In Roger’s kitchen, hidden from the stare of the cameras, the main performance was in full swing. Superintendent Edwards’ staff sergeant was running the show to the chagrin of the local officers—openly chatting while he tried to address them.

“Gentlemen,” he started, clapping for attention. “First of all I can tell you Roger LeClarc, the owner of this dump, has drowned at sea. But,” he stressed, “the press must not be told under any circumstances.” A hush settled over the nine officers in the cramped little room as he continued with enormous solemnity, “Gentlemen— this case is much, much, bigger than two missing people.”

Speaking for a few moments he laid out a short history of LeClarc’s disappearance, making vague references to the potential for international catastrophe and general mayhem, then added, “Now that we have a firm connection between him and the McKenzie girl we want to know: If she was here, where is she now? She certainly didn’t leave with him.”

“How do you know?” asked the disembodied voice of a stubby officer straining to be seen at the back.

“Our men lost him once, possibly twice, in the past couple of weeks,” admitted the sergeant, “but they always found him pretty quickly. They never saw the girl, and she definitely wasn’t with him the day he left for Holland.”

“Where do you think she is?”

“I have no idea son,” he said darkly, “But if she came here with him and didn’t leave then,” he paused pointedly, “your imagination is as good as mine.”

A civilian crime scene officer tried to squeeze into the crowded room but ended up poking his head round the corner and speaking as if he were being charged for every word. “Had a quick look in the hallway Serg: long dark hairs; clothing fibres, probably white; scratches on walls. Photographer’s getting pictures— we’ll take casts.”

“Any idea what may have caused them?” asked the sergeant as the man paused for breath.

“Furniture … fingernails,” he suggested vaguely, then added a general accusation, “a clumsy cop.” Then continued, “Fingerprints and footprints all over the place.” His eyes swept the audience, “Mainly yours I suspect.” He waited as if he had something to add but was reluctant to run up his bill.

“Anything else?” enquired the sergeant after a second or two, feeling it was expected of him.

He had deliberately kept the best to last—a conjurer building up his trick, then he pulled out the rabbit, “Several drops of blood.”

“Blood?” the word was breathed around the room.

“Oh yes. Definitely blood.”

“Whose?”

Peering over the top of his spectacles he gave the speaker a supercilious look. “How the hell should I know,” he said dismissively, then studiously consulted his notebook for several seconds before adding, formally, “There are indications of a possible struggle in the front hallway.”

“A definite maybe?” suggested one of the officers without sincerity, and was ignored.

“When was the struggle?” enquired another.

“I wouldn’t like to theorize,” he replied, but then did just that. “Judging by the state of the blood and the look of the scratches ….” he paused, meditatively and let his eyes wander to the ceiling, “several day’s ago— could be week—not more.”

The sergeant took command amid a speculative hum. “O.K. sort yourselves out—two men to a room. Check everything. Usual routine: floors, walls and ceilings. Don’t disturb anything if you can avoid it but don’t miss anything. Two of you can start in the garden before it gets dark—check for any sign of recent digging.”

“What about the waste dump next door?” asked Jackson recalling his previous excursion over the wilderness. “It’d take a bloody month to dig that lot.”

“We could try infra-red detection there,” replied the sergeant. “But let’s finish with the house and garden first. Let’s do this quickly. We’re probably too late, but my guess is she’s around here somewhere.”

The Dutch herring trawler had ambled all day to reach the area of Roger’s disappearance despite Motsom’s relentless urging. The sun was diving toward the western horizon before the skipper admitted they were close. “If your brother’s still alive he should be somewhere near here,” said the skipper, still paying lip service to Motsom’s claim.

With the persistent fog making it impossible to see the water rushing past the hull, it was difficult to judge the speed of the vessel, or even the direction of travel, and Motsom had no idea the skipper had nudged the little vessel along at a mere 5 knots, hoping someone may have picked up the deck hand’s brief mayday call from the lifeboat’s emergency transmitter early that morning. Around mid-day, before the fog had begun to lift, Billy Motsom had stood in the wheelhouse next to the skipper when he had a nasty feeling something was wrong.

“How do I know we’re going the right way?” he suddenly enquired after a long period of silence.

“We are.”

“How do I know?”

“You’ll have to trust me,” the skipper replied, deliberately weaving doubt into his tone.

Shit, thought Motsom, we’re going round in circles, and had visions of winding up alongside a police launch in the middle of the port when the fog lifted.

“Stop!” he yelled.

“What?” cried the skipper.

“Stop,” he demanded, “right now.”

The gun was unnecessary, the skipper got the message and eased back the throttles. “What’s the matter?”

“Show me,” said Motsom, roughly grabbing the elderly skipper’s arm and spinning him to face the large map on the table at the rear of the tiny wheelhouse. “Where are we? Which direction are we going in?”

The old man hesitated for a second, as if considering giving false information, then ran his finger along a line marked, “Ferry,” and said, “About here.”

Motsom followed the line: a double row of red dots across the pale blue ocean—like a neatly stitched seam binding England to Holland.

“But how do I know we’re going the right way?”

The skipper eased his arm free and pointed at the compass.

“Look,” he said.

Motsom obeyed, and saw the little needle swinging gently back and forth through a short arc, undeniably pointing west. Satisfied, he ordered the skipper to get going, and faster, something the wily old man had no intention of doing.

Below decks, McCrae and his newly acquired partner, Jack Boyd, were getting to know each other. Boyd, known on the street as, “Jack the Sprat” or simply “Sprat,” because of his skinny frame and slippery reputation, could list eighteen armed robberies among his accomplishments; questioned three times, charged twice, convicted only once—as a teenager—a rookie. He had been a fast learner. His murder record was better; a perfect score: Boyd—three, Police—nil. Apart from a short stretch in a juvenile detention centre for a kid’s prank, and two years for the one unlucky robbery conviction, he might have been considered a model citizen. McCrae on the other hand would never have been considered a model anything—other than a hit man.

“You did that double wet job in Hammersmith in the sixties didn’t you?” Boyd said, recalling the well-publicized murder trial.

“Got off with manslaughter,” said McCrae gruffly, suggesting he was being unjustly accused. “Then I got parole when they found out the bastards I killed had tortured my auld man to death.”

“Did they?” Boyd asked with a lift in his voice.

“Och no. ’Course they didn’t you pratt, but they wasn’t around to deny it, wuz they?”

Boyd laughed. “Nice one,” and lashed out to kick the deck hand who was lying on the floor of the cabin. “Laugh son,” he said, and laughed again.

The deck hand couldn’t laugh, he had been bound and gagged by someone who’d had more experience in his field than many professionals in more traditional occupations.

“What are you going to do with this?” Boyd enquired, sweeping his hand around to indicate the boat. “And him,” pointing down at the trussed deck hand.

“Och. I dunno yet, I havn’a decided.”

“What about doing the same as you did with the other boat?”

“What do you know about that?” demanded the Scotsman, alarmed that details had leaked.

“I heard a rumour.”

“Motsom told ya I bet.”

“So.”

“He should keep his bloody mouth shut.”

“He said it were real funny.”

McCrae’s face relaxed, coming as near to a smile as it was ever likely. “It was one of these computer snatch jobs,” he reminisced, “a couple of months ago.”

“There were two of ’em weren’t there,” added Boyd helpfully, as if McCrae might have forgotten.

“Yeah, that’s right—two birds with one stone. Motsom had the contract for both of ’em and it just so ’appens they go fishing together in one of them’s boat.”

“Were it a big ’un?” enquired Boyd with the excitement of a wide-eyed kid.

“Och. No. But it were very fast. Anyhow,” he continued, “the idea was to snatch ’em afore they got on the boat, then take it out to sea and sink it. But it had to look like an accident in case anybody ever found the bloody thing.”

“What about the bodies? You’d need bodies.”

“Och aye, you’d need bodies,” agreed McCrae. “But the plan was to ditch the boat in really deep water so by the time anybody found it, if they ever did, there’d only be skeletons left.”

Boyd began to smile, he’d heard the outcome from Motsom, but didn’t want to spoil its re-telling by the master.

“So,” McCrae continued, “I figured why waste two good bodies, why not use skeletons.” The distinct twist to his face could have been mistaken for an attempt at a smile. “Motsom and me snatched the two computer blokes and sent ’em on their way. Then we stuck the skeletons in the driver’s seats and went out miles.” He paused, the memory of the sight of the two skeletons dressed in the kidnapped men’s clothes, including their caps, was too much for him. He almost laughed. Boyd was laughing already.

“Anyhow,” he went on, exaggerating wildly, “there they was, two f’kin skeletons driving the f’kin boat a hundred miles an hour then ’boom!’” he slapped his hands together. “The f’kin thing explodes.”

Boyd was laughing uncontrollably, having difficulty hearing what McCrae was saying.

“Then …” McCrae stopped and started again, “then, ’Whoomph,’ one of the f’kin skulls comes flying through the f’kin air and missed Motsom by a f’kin inch … Whoomph,” he shouted again for effect and tittered just a little. “Came flying right passed us, and we was a long way off …

Whoomph,” he said finally, making sure Boyd had missed nothing. “Whizzed right passed Motsom’s head.”

Boyd almost wet his pants.

Above them, the afternoon sun was shining on the wheelhouse. The skipper and Billy Motsom could see ahead for miles, but nothing of the water just twenty feet below. A dense crust of fog remained glued to the sea’s surface like a thick cotton-wool blanket and the wheelhouse of the fishing trawler gave them a ghostly outlook. An amputated mast, complete with rigging and sails, could be seen gliding along in the distance as if unattached to the yacht sailing in the murk below; the upper decks of a small freighter drifted across the horizon without the benefit of a hull; seagulls wheeled hungrily above them.

“I have to go to engine room,” the skipper said as the afternoon wore on. “I must check the engine.”

“O.K.,” responded Motsom leerily, “I’ll come with you.”

The skipper had his answer prepared. “No,” he said quickly. “Someone must stay and keep watch.”

Motsom smelled a rat. The little ship had puttered along for hour after hour without any apparent assistance of the skipper, other than an occasional tweak of the wheel. A quick trip to the engine-room for a splash of grease was unlikely to make much difference. He put his hand on his gun, “I said, I’ll come.”

The skipper’s plan was already unravelling. For several hours, drawing ever nearer to the search zone, he had tried to think of a way to save himself and his young mate, guessing that once LeClarc was found, or the search abandoned, Motsom and his hoodlums would have no choice but to dispose of them—a simple task in mid-ocean. But if he disabled the engine they would be marooned together until rescued. Motsom would surely realize the difficulty of explaining the absence of crew to the authorities and might think twice about getting rid of them.

Careful not to let his disappointment show, the skipper eased back the throttle, and tried again. “It might take half an hour,” he warned. “We could hit something.”

Motsom relented, stuck his head out of the wheelhouse and yelled, “McCrae. Get up here will you, Sprat as well if he wants.”

“So how are you going to sink this one?” the Sprat enquired of McCrae, as soon as they had replaced the skipper and Motsom on the bridge.

McCrae stared blankly ahead, concentrating on holding the wheel straight, his dour face suggesting he wasn’t comfortable disclosing professional tactics. “Bomb I expect,” he replied, with a shrug.

“Plastic or jelly?”

“Neither, you idiot. This sort of job ain’t like doing a safe you know.”

Boyd’s surprise showed on his face, so McCrae gave him a lesson in the finer points of murder. “Look, when you blow a safe everyone knows what happened so it don’t matter what you use. But if you blast a car or ship with plastic or jelly, or even bloody fertilizer, then the cops knows it’s murder. There’s bits of the bomb left everywhere afterwards.”

Boyd nodded. He knew that.

“So,” continued McCrae, “The trick in my game is only use the stuff that’s already there.”

Boyd wasn’t sure what he meant, but wasn’t going to say so.

McCrae sensed the lack of understanding. “Look,” he explained, recalling a recent exploit, “if you’re going to blow up a plane, use the stuff on board. Blow up a fuel tank or an oxygen cylinder. They’ll think it was an accident. Do it over water and they’ll never work out what hit them—might even think it was a f’kin missile or a laser gun of some sort, but they won’t find any explosives ’cos you didn’t use any.”

Boyd understood. “The two skeletons in …”

“Gas tank,” replied McCrae, adding, “You heard about the computer bloke who crashed into the train?”

Boyd nodded. “Yours?” he asked, with an admiring look.

“Yeah, a classic,” he said, and his eyes glazed as he stared into the fog recalling the event.

They had stopped the unfortunate man on a quiet stretch of country road on his way home from work, his computer disks and various files in two briefcases on the seat behind him. Motsom, dressed in a police uniform, stolen for the occasion from a real policeman’s home, leaned into the car and accused him of drinking and driving.

“I’ve only had one, Officer,” protested the hapless man.

“If you would just step this way, Sir,” said Motsom guiding him toward the unmarked car with dark tinted windows. The naïve man suspected nothing and was neatly stripped, bound, gagged, and bundled into the trunk by McCrae within seconds. With the kidnap victim out of the way, McCrae quickly set to work on his car—wiring an explosive detonator into the fuel tank and refilling the windshield fluid container and radiator with gasoline.

“Motsom had dragged a bum off the street,” explained McCrae, recounting the event to Boyd. “Gave him fifty quid and told him he just wanted him to drive his car for some reason. And you should have seen his face when Billy gave him a load of new clothes, the one’s we took off the computer bloke. He was really chuffed—sat in that car like he owned it.”

“How do you like your new vehicle, Sir?” Motsom had teased in the tone of a car salesman.

“Very nice mate,” the simpleton beamed, happy to go along with Motsom’s fantasy.

“And would Sir like to go for a little drive.”