Broken Lines (3 page)

Mikey screamed his name and Donovan looked round, a little vaguely, as if he didn't quite know where he was.

Then Mikey Dickens did something no one would have anticipated – not his father, not his best friend, least of all himself. He went back. He wasted no time. He grabbed Donovan without ceremony and dragged him away, stumbling on his hands and knees and then at least approximately on his feet.

And the van blew up.

Flame fountained into the dark sky. Bits of the van lanced through the air like fighter planes. When the force-front of the explosion caught the stumbling men it hurled them forward then slammed them down face-first on the tarmac and poured over them in a maelstrom of sound and smoke and shrapnel and flames.

The first Donovan knew that he was on fire was Mikey battling to get his jacket off. It was leather, it protected him from injury, but there were a lot of fastenings to unclip and unbuckle, and by the time he was out of it the jacket was past saving. Mikey flung it away from them, back into the inferno, along with his own gloves that had caught light while they struggled. Then, keeping low, they helped one another out of range.

By then the first of the cars from Queen's Street had arrived. WPC Flynn took in the mayhem open-mouthed, then busied herself at the white saloon whose occupant was still lying trapped on her side. Helpless to escape or protect herself, the explosion had terrified her; now she was crying hysterically.

While Cathy Flynn did what she could to calm her, PC Stark hurried towards the burning van, meeting the men staggering away from it half-way. ‘Was there anyone else? Donovan! – was there anyone else inside?'

It would have been too late to matter if there had been. Donovan shook his head wearily, then wished he hadn't. ‘Just your man.' In moments of stress he reverted to an almost impenetrable Ulster vernacular.

‘There's an ambulance on its way,' said Stark. ‘You'd better sit down till it gets here.' He'd spotted the blood still pulsing from Mikey's leg. ‘I'll stick a bandage on that while we wait. What about you, Serg – are you hurt?' The gaping wound on Donovan's cheek that had so alarmed Ash Kumani had disappeared under the smoke and dirt.

Donovan considered for a moment. ‘Nothing a cup of tea won't cure.' But he lurched against Jim Stark as if he had no idea whether his feet were touching the ground.

‘Right, sure,' agreed Stark, steering him to the bench against the wall where Chevening's three senior citizens waited for the bus on pension day. ‘They make a decent brew down Castle General, so I've heard.'

Donovan cranked up an eyelid in order to scowl at him. He knew he wasn't going to win this argument, but nor was he going to let a downright lie pass unchallenged. ‘I've had better tea out of a gypsy's welly.'

Stark applied himself to Mikey's leg. ‘Is somebody going to tell me what happened here?'

Mikey Dickens, discovering a sudden interest in church architecture, couldn't take his eyes off the lych-gate. Donovan sighed. ‘Mikey made a slight error of judgement: he mistook Chevening roundabout for the straight at Silverstone. I yanked him out of the van, he yanked me out of the explosion. Jesus, he threw my jacket in the fire! That's why I'm so cold. I thought it was shock.'

Cathy Flynn came over with a blanket which Donovan shrugged around himself. He sat on the bench looking like a vulture whose last antelope disagreed with him.

Soon after that the ambulance arrived, and on its tail the fire engine. When the fire was out no more remained of the red van than a few tangled spars of blackened metal sitting in a hole in the road.

The paramedics helped Mikey into the back of the ambulance. By then firemen with cutting equipment had freed the woman from the white saloon and they went to check that she too was fit to be moved. She was: she had escaped virtually without injury. With a little support she was able to walk to the ambulance.

One of the paramedics peered at the angular figure on the bench with its smoke-blackened face and blanket. ‘It's Detective Sergeant Donovan, isn't it? Are you coming with us?'

Donovan nodded and climbed creakily to his feet. ‘Better had. There's something I have to say to Mikey.'

His head was clearing all the time. In the ambulance he found a seat opposite where Mikey Dickens was stretched out. His battered face ventured a fractional smile. ‘Mikey—'

Now he was out of danger Mikey was high on adrenalin. For possibly the first time in his life he'd behaved better and achieved more than anyone could have expected. For possibly the first time in his life he was not merely pleased with himself but proud of himself.

He propped himself up on one elbow and his pinched little face glowed. ‘That's all right, Mr Donovan, you don't need to say it.'

But Donovan did. ‘Michael Dickens, I am arresting you for the armed robbery of Ashog Kumani's Garage, Cambridge Road, on January the fifth. You are not obliged to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention now … er … something which you later wish to rely on … um … Will be taken down.' Even when he wasn't concussed he had trouble with the new caution. He thought for a moment longer, then gave up. ‘Hell, Mikey, you've heard it before, you know what it means. It means you're nicked.'

‘You do not have to say anything,' said Detective Superintendent Frank Shapiro sternly. ‘But I must caution you that if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court it may harm your defence. If you do say anything it may be given in evidence.'

‘Uhhuh,' said Donovan.

Shapiro bristled. ‘Never mind Uhhuh: this matters. The first time I have a case thrown out of court because you couldn't be bothered to caution the suspect correctly I'll have you directing traffic.
Why
is it a problem, anyway? Twenty-year-old kids in their first week of basic training have it off word-perfect. So, for that matter, have old codgers like me and Sergeant Bolsover who learned the old one when Adam was under the age of criminal responsibility. In God's name, Sergeant, what is your problem?'

Donovan mumbled something, avoiding his eyes.

‘What?'

‘I was concussed,' Donovan said defensively. The cut over his cheekbone was held together by butterfly plasters and the whole orbit of his eye was black. ‘First the sod hit me in the face, then we clashed heads. I'm sorry I wasn't up to giving the Gettysburg Address under these circumstances but I have to say, I doubt Lincoln would have been either.'

Shapiro sighed. Tearing strips off Detective Sergeant Donovan was a thankless task. For one thing, it was like painting the Forth Bridge: you'd barely finished when it was time to start again. For another, although you could always find something to criticize about the way Donovan did his job he did it well. He put himself out, he got results, in all the important ways he was a good policeman. Whenever Shapiro was dragging him over the coals, which he did at regular intervals, half-way through he started feeling foolish because what he was complaining about didn't matter as much as the things Donovan got right.

‘How's the head now?' he asked.

‘Fine,' said Donovan. ‘I'll be in to work tomorrow.'

It was Monday evening, they were talking in the saloon of Donovan's boat on the Castlemere Canal. In January only a handful of boats remained on the water and only one other was occupied so Broad Wharf seemed like a ghost town. Shapiro had left his car on Brick Lane and cut through on the footpath. It always made him nervous, leaving his car so close to The Jubilee. The half-dozen streets of black Victorian brick made a sort of walled city which much of Castlemere's criminal fraternity, the Dickens clan among them, called home. In fact, the car was quite safe. The nice thing about old-fashioned criminals, as distinct from the yuppie kind who used mobile phones and joined golf clubs, was that they had a sort of respect for the enemy. They called him Mr Shapiro. They even called Donovan
Mr
Donovan.

‘There's no rush,' said Shapiro. ‘Apart from Mikey the ungodly are still on their holidays.'

‘Just the same.' Donovan only took today off because the doctor insisted. He hated being sidelined. He seemed to think crime would grind to a halt if he wasn't there.

Shapiro nodded and struggled to his feet. Donovan favoured low furniture because of
Tara's
low ceilings, but Shapiro had reached an age and a shape which called for a nice upright chair with stout arms. ‘Good enough. I just thought I'd stick my head in, see how you were.'

Donovan uncoiled from the low sofa like a snake rising; behind him, shadow-silent, rose the dark shape of the dog.

Shapiro said, ‘Lost any fingers yet?'

Donovan gave his saturnine grin. ‘Him? He's a pussycat.'

‘Sure he is,' agreed Shapiro. ‘Till one morning you're late with his breakfast.' He smiled into his chest. ‘Never mind, those big white gloves cover a multitude of sins.'

Donovan didn't understand. ‘Big white gloves?'

‘The ones for directing the traffic.'

Detective Inspector Liz Graham was in charge of the investigation, and a baffling case it was too. One minute the room had been full of valuables, a flick of the curtain later they were all gone. The open boxes full of diamonds and rubies, the stacks of gold ingots, the strings of pearls: all vanished as if by magic.

At least she had a suspect: a thirteen-year-old wearing a cut-down Lurex evening dress and a pink velvet turban. She herself was wearing a plastic helmet held under her chin by a length of elastic. ‘Ali Baba,' she intoned solemnly, ‘I'm arresting you for the theft of the Wazir's treasure. You do not have to say anything, but I must caution you that if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court …' One thing about Castle High School pantomimes: they were good on detail.

Another thing about them was that, by and large, the adults involved enjoyed them more than the children. More into pop groups than Middle Eastern myths, they went along with the nonsense amiably enough because it amused their parents and teachers and was a high point of the Christmas holidays for younger siblings. For themselves, they'd just as soon have been in Philadelphia.

After the children had been packed off home, those unencumbered by sprogs with bedtimes gathered round some bottles of wine and some cheese straws in the staffroom. They were still in costume. Brian Graham, who was the Wazir, was wearing burnt-cork whiskers, a long brocade waistcoat and something that might have been a Victorian smoking cap. Liz thought he looked more like Mr Mole than the Wazir of Baghdad. But then, she didn't look much like a chief of detectives either.

The part does not figure prominently in the original story. It was created specially for her when she saw a rehearsal a couple of weeks ago and laughed herself silly. It was the funniest thing she'd seen since Donovan took her to a pub where folk music was perpetrated. She only came to admire the scenery – as head of the art department Brian had a dual contribution to make to the festivities. But by the time she'd hooted her way through a couple of scenes – comedy, love interest, the death of Ali Baba's mother, the lot – it was generally agreed that she'd better be given a part to play since the alternative was probably having her in the audience.

Now it was over, and unless a theatrical agent was waiting with a contract at the stage door it was back to Castlemere's generally less picturesque crime scene tomorrow morning. For Ali Baba's mother read Mikey Dickens's grandma Thelma; for the Wazir's treasure read a nice little earner in second-hand car stereos with the serial numbers unaccountably missing.

She liked Brian's colleagues. She'd met most of them at one time or another, but dressing up in false beards and discarded curtains showed them in a whole new light. Who'd have thought that the best education in Castlemere was being purveyed by people whose idea of entertainment was I-say-I-say-I-say jokes and sand dancing?

Brian spotted someone he wanted to talk to and left her to the tender mercies of Slasher Siddons, head of Religious Studies. The Reverend Simon Siddons was a fencer in his youth: thirty years later the nickname still gave him so much pleasure he made sure no one forgot it. He'd played the part of Mrs Baba, in drag.

He looked over the heads of the assembly – he was the tallest person present as well as, at least temporarily, the best endowed bosom-wise – and saw Brian talking to a mousy woman in the last dirndl skirt in England. ‘Marion Cully,' he said, for Liz's benefit. ‘She's Mrs Taylor's deputy in the English department, she went round with some flowers this afternoon to see how she was. After the accident.'

‘Accident?' Liz hadn't been at Queen's Street today or she'd have known.

‘She was run off the road by some young tearaway last night. She wasn't hurt, apparently, just very shaken. But it must have been a close thing. One of the cars caught fire.'

‘The accident in Chevening? I heard something about it on the radio. They said three people were taken to hospital but that none of the injuries was serious. Do you know who the others were?'

She wondered why Mr Siddons was regarding her oddly, as if he thought she might be fibbing and couldn't work out why. ‘One of them was the boy involved – one of the Dickenses, I think. The other was your sergeant. The Irish one.'

Liz had a sort of reflex action for when people mentioned Donovan: her heart sank and her chin rose, ready to defend him. In the three years he'd worked for her she'd called him every name under the sun, but never in front of third parties. In front of third parties, which included all the general public except Brian and all the police except Shapiro, she backed him to the hilt because she knew he did the same for her.

‘Donovan was in one of the cars?'

‘I think he came on the scene right after the crash. He pulled young Dickens clear in the nick of time.'