Good Friday
Page 16
“They shouldn’t tire you out so much,” Jane said.
“Well, I can’t read anything as I don’t have my glasses.”
Jane showed Daphne the three pairs of glasses she had brought in, and Daphne frowned.
“These are my old glasses . . . where did you get them from?”
“I went to your flat.”
“You had no right to do that without my permission! I’m not mentally ill, you know. All you had to do was ask, and I could have organized for my friend to be there.”
“Sorry, Daphne. I wanted you to have your glasses as soon as possible so we could get a detailed artist’s impression of the suspect you saw, and because you said you had no family I just thought you would appreciate someone getting them for you.”
“Well, I don’t approve at all.” Daphne sniffed. “The pair with the tortoiseshell frames are the best ones, and they’re also very light.”
“While I was there, your friend Raymond Brocklesby called by. He was concerned about not hearing from you. I explained that you were in the hospital, but didn’t give him any details. I just said that there had been an accident, and that when you were allowed visitors I would arrange for him to see you.”
“Well dear, you seem to be taking a lot of responsibility on your shoulders. Surely if I wanted Raymond to see me I could contact him myself? He is a dear man, and I know he’s not that mobile so it must have taken him some time to make the journey to my flat from his home.”
“Daphne, we are really only concerned for your welfare and recovery. As you must now be aware, you are a very important witness to the IRA bomb explosion, and until we catch the perpetrators your safety is imperative.”
“I understand that, dear. I could pick him out in an identity parade. But I do find this invasion into my private life unacceptable. I don’t want strangers in my home. I don’t want you, or anyone else, telling my friends when they can or can’t see me.”
“If you would like to give me a list of friends you’d like to visit you, I can arrange that.”
“Most of them are in the grave, apart from Raymond, who has wandering hands. As soon I’m able, I’ll be out of this place. I’m not afraid. I’ve never been afraid and I don’t intend to live the rest of my life being fearful. Now, I would like you to leave . . . and please ask Michael to bring me a copy of The Times.”
Jane was astonished at Daphne’s strength of will. Far from regressing in her recovery, it appeared to be the contrary. Michael was busy attending to another patient, so she left a message for him.
As Jane was walking along the corridor toward the stairwell down to the main hospital exit, she bumped into a young woman passing her.
“I’m so sorry . . .” she said to Jane, then she stopped and turned. “Good heavens! It’s Jane Tennison, isn’t it?”
Jane was nonplussed for a moment and then recognized the woman as Natalie Wilde, who had been a trainee with her at Hendon Police College. Natalie was taller than Jane, with short, curly, blonde hair, and she was wearing a fawn raincoat over a dark, tailored suit.
“We were at Hendon together, don’t you remember? I was the one who had to drop out because I couldn’t swim well enough.”
“Of course I do! It’s Natalie, isn’t it?”
“Yes! What’re you doing here?”
“Just visiting a sick colleague,” Jane said, keen not to give any details about who she was seeing.
“I’m visiting a friend on the maternity ward who’s just had a baby. She was rushed in yesterday after her waters burst. I used to share a flat with her, before she got married.”
“Is she all right?”
“Yes, she’s fine . . . Anyway, you’re not in uniform. Are you no longer in the Met?”
“I am, actually: plainclothes detective.”
“No!”
“Yes, I’ve been in the CID for just short of a year and a half. What about you?”
Natalie flipped open her raincoat to show she was wearing a name tag.
“I work for NatWest Bank. It’s rather tedious, but the pay is good. Do you have time for a coffee, so we can talk about old times? I’d love to know what all my old Hendon classmates are up to.”
Jane hesitated, then decided that perhaps she should go straight back to work. She opened her bag and took out her notebook.
“Here’s my phone number. I should be back about seven tonight, so call me and we can fix a date to go out, or you could come over to me.”
“Great, I’ll do that. I should get back to work anyway. Whereabouts are you stationed?”
Jane didn’t mention that she was temporarily working at Woolwich, and instead said that she was with a squad at Vine Street. They walked out of the hospital together, and Natalie gave Jane a hug.
“It’s so good to bump into you. I’ve often thought of contacting you. We had some good laughs at Hendon, and I was so depressed when I didn’t make it. But times goes on, and I lost contact with everyone from Hendon. Let’s have a good catch-up when we meet.”
Natalie hailed a taxi and Jane headed for Waterloo East station. They had not been all that close at training school, but they had liked each other. Natalie was an open, friendly recruit who had tried her hardest to become a fully-fledged probationary WPC. She was intelligent, but had been dismissed over an incident in the swimming exercise sessions. All recruits had to be accomplished swimmers, and they were all tested and timed doing lengths. There was also an exercise that involved either diving or jumping from the top board of the swimming pool. Natalie had not done well in the swimming timings, and had also stopped mid-length as she had a fear of water. When the instructor had told everyone to climb to the top board Natalie had refused and had shouted at the instructor, before breaking down in tears and admitting that she was frightened of heights. By the next morning her locker and been cleared and Natalie had gone. She had not even been given time to say goodbye to any of the other recruits.
Jane worked out that it must have been October 1972 when she had last seen Natalie, who looked very different now. They would certainly have a lot to catch up on, and Jane was looking forward to meeting up with her.
The journey back to the Royal Arsenal was quicker than Jane had expected. Arriving at the explosives lab, Jane was told by the MOD police officer on guard that DS Lawrence had requested that she report to him at the chemistry section. She thanked him and went straight to the lab, where Lawrence greeted her in a tone that gave away his excitement.
“We’ve managed to reconstruct most of the Covent Garden bomb from the bits found in the debris. It was detonated by high-frequency wave band, using a 27-megahertz radio signal.”
“Do you mean the detonator was a radio that you listen to?”
Lawrence laughed. “No, it was a transmitter switch from a remote-control toy car. It’s powered by a small HP7 battery and can be easily concealed in the palm of your hand, or a handbag or purse. You press the switch and it sends a radio signal to the receiver, which triggers the bomb detonator lodged in the explosives.”
“Does that prove I was in no way responsible for the bomb going off?”
“You weren’t responsible, Jane. Whoever had the detonator was.”
“So, it had to have been detonated remotely by the man I chased or an accomplice?”
“One or the other.”
Relieved, Jane asked if DCI Crowley and DS Dexter had been informed about the results.
“Of course they have. I’m on my way over to the explosives range where they’re testing out a new explosives protection suit and jammer.”
“Can I come with you?”
Lawrence looked uncertain. “Only approved personnel are allowed on the testing range.” He saw the disappointment on her face and added, “But it’s fine if you stick with me.”
They walked toward a large area of waste land where there was a small reinforced bomb shelter. “That’s called a ‘splinter-proof,’” he explained, “it’s capable of withstanding bomb fragments.”
“Oh shit . . . looks like they’re about to live test the jammer!” Lawrence grabbed Jane and pulled her toward a wall of sandbags nearby.
“What’s a jammer?” she asked, ducking down with him behind the sandbags.
“It’s an electronic counter measure, a device for blocking the 27 megahertz signals on the toy car transmitter.”
Suddenly there was a large explosion, causing Lawrence and Jane to crouch down even further. Jane peered over the sandbags as a mushroom of sand, dust and debris spiraled upward. She could see Dexter flying through the air, then hitting the ground and lying completely motionless. She let out a scream of panic and started to run toward the prostrate body.
“Bollocks! It didn’t work.” Dexter shouted, as he walked out of the shelter and threw the jammer on the ground. He looked at Jane and saw her shock.
“What’s up with you?” he asked.
“The explosion . . . I thought . . . I thought you’d been hurt by the bomb . . . I thought you were dead!”
To Jane’s amazement, Dexter started laughing, as Crowley and the head scientist walked out from the splinter-proof.
“You all right, Tennison?” Crowley asked.
Dexter turned to Crowley. “She thinks I’m dead, Guv. Do you reckon the mannequin in the bomb suit felt much pain?”
“There’s no need to be sarcastic, Dexter, not after what Jane went through at Covent Garden,” Lawrence said. “She was concerned for your safety, that’s all. I’m sorry, Jane. I should have explained that there would be a mannequin in the bomb suit.”
Dexter was quick to turn on the charm. “I’m flattered by your concern Jane, but, believe me, I’m not stupid enough to test a bomb suit on live explosives, even in a controlled situation.”
Crowley, totally unaware of the tension between Lawrence and Dexter, interjected. “On a positive note, I’d say that, with a bit of adjustment, we can get the jammer to work.”
Dexter nodded. “Besides, the Covent Garden bomb was crude and amateurish. A schoolboy chemistry student could build that piece of crap.”
“I wouldn’t underestimate the IRA. They’re well trained and quick to develop new technology. They know we will piece the bomb together from the debris, so the next one may well have a different remote mechanism,” Lawrence retorted.
Dexter looked complacent. He knew that was possible and said that he was about to do some stopwatch-timed practice on disarming different types of mock bombs, with both radio-controlled and time-delay detonators.
Lawrence, irritated by Dexter’s blasé attitude, turned to Jane. “Do you want to come back to the lab?”
“I apologize for my overreaction, but if you don’t mind I’d like to stay and watch Dexter at work . . . if that’s all right?”
“That’s fine by me.” Dexter said, with a smile that irritated Lawrence even more.
As Lawrence walked off Crowley brought out another replica rucksack from the shelter, handed it to Dexter and took a stopwatch out of his coat pocket.
“I’ll blow the whistle and start the stopwatch when you give me the signal. Then, after eight minutes, I’ll sound the klaxon to simulate detonation.”
“Make it five. I like to minimize the danger, so the quicker I’m in and out, the better. They don’t call me Felix for nothing.” He laughed.
Seeing Jane looking puzzled, Crowley explained that Felix was Latin for “lucky.”
“I thought Felix was a cat’s name.”
“Cats, like Dexter, have the innate ability to always landing on their feet.”
Dexter invited Jane to stand beside him and watch as he disarmed a bomb. She looked nervously at Crowley. “Are we going to wear protective suits?”
“No, we aren’t using real explosives. But to make the exercise more difficult, Dexter here doesn’t know what type of bomb mechanism is inside the rucksack.”
“It’s standard procedure to talk through the disarming of the bomb,” Crowley added. He picked up a small military radio and tucked it into Dexter’s back pocket before clipping the mic to his shirt collar. “Normally the bomb disposal officer wears a tape recorder, but in a mock situation we use a radio to communicate, and record the exercise on tape.”
Dexter tapped the radio in his pocket. “Life is irreplaceable, but in a real situation if I was blown up and killed, the recording would give other bomb-disposal officers an insight into what went wrong. An expo was killed recently and the tape was invaluable. We learn from our mistakes.”
Dexter picked up the rucksack and Jane followed him over to the practice area. As they walked he explained that the first rule of bomb disposal was to assess the improvised explosive device, or IED, to minimize the chance of accidental ignition when disarming it. He would then either cut the circuit or interrupt it by cutting out a section of detonation cord. Finally, he would remove the detonator and main charge by hand.
Jane was impressed. “How many bombs have you defused?”
“Hundreds, maybe, but to be honest I’ve lost count. Most of them were when I was working in Northern Ireland with the Army. I had to attend suspected or live devices, and the aftermath of explosions, almost every day.”
“You must have seen some horrible sights.”
“Yes, and lost colleagues. But you have to put it out of your mind to do the job. If you can’t detach yourself, you could make a mistake that leads to your own death.”
As they passed the mannequin she was amazed to see that the bomb suit was intact. A large burn mark ran like a bruise over both jacket and trousers. Fragments of metal peppered the dummy. Dexter knelt over the mannequin and prodded the chest.
“The bomb suit stops fragmentation injuries, but the explosive force from larger bombs doesn’t care about the suit. Either the explosive force hits you without it and you hemorrhage and die, or it hits the suit and the suit hits you and you hemorrhage and die.”
Jane was amazed at how matter-of-fact and unemotional Dexter was. Both of the mannequin’s hands had been blown off.
“Don’t you wear protective gloves?”
“No, they’re too bulky and make it nigh on impossible to hold the tools properly. I made this tool kit up myself,” he said, unfolding his gear. “Medical items, like scalpels, are best—high quality. I’ve also got pliers of various sizes, wire cutters, screwdrivers and spanners. Everything is non-magnetic so they won’t cause a spark, which could detonate the bomb. Mind you, if you’re lucky and it’s a combustible-type IED, then simply pulling the fuse from the device and separating the detonator to render it safe takes seconds.”
“What’s the worst type of bomb to deal with?” Jane asked.
“Bloody car bombs. The vehicles are usually booby trapped so even getting to the bomb is a major problem. It’s worse still if it’s radio-controlled, as the bastard bomber could be nearby. He waits for you to approach the car and triggers the bomb.”
“Would you two fucking get on with it?” Crowley shouted over the radio.
Dexter turned to Jane. “No more questions now. I need to concentrate.”
He placed the rucksack by the sandbags before raising his hand in the air to indicate to Crowley that he was ready, then the klaxon sounded.
Kneeling beside the rucksack, Dexter carefully opened the flap, and very slowly removed a large wooden cigar box. He held it at eye-level and, using a magnifying glass, checked around the rim of the lid. Next, he took a thin paper clip from his toolkit, which he unraveled, then eased it into the rim of the box, slowly moving it along the edges. As he did so he gave a continual commentary over the radio.
“I’m checking for any anti-handling wires that may be connected to the lid to set the bomb off on opening it. I’m satisfied there’s no such
device attached.”
Dexter placed the box on the ground and Jane watched as he carefully opened the lid. She could see some Eveready batteries and an alarm clock with wires attached leading to a small metal rod which was protruding from a round white lump of what looked like bread dough. She suddenly felt nervous and took a couple of paces backward.
“Don’t worry, it’s only a lump of Play-Doh. It’s rigged so the only thing that will happen if I screw up is a small pop and a puff of smoke from the detonator.”
Dexter continued to describe in detail what he had in front of him over the radio, using terminology and phrases that Jane didn’t understand. Under the circumstances, she thought it best not to ask. Dexter picked up a pair of wire clippers and moved his hand toward one of the wires on the alarm clock. He was about to snip it when he stopped, put the clippers down and lifted the box. He picked up the paper clip and, using it as a measuring stick, held it against the cigar box, both outside and inside.
“Thought you had me there, didn’t you, Crowley? But I’ve seen this type of device when I was in Northern Ireland. The box is deeper on the inside than it appears . . . so that means the bomb mechanism is resting on a false bottom and the wires I can see are probably part of a collapsing circuit.”
Dexter slowly removed the false bottom. Attached to the underside were more wires and another battery. He looked at Jane.
“It’s a form of booby trap. If I’d cut the wire attached to the alarm clock, the power would have been relayed to the concealed circuit, and BOOM.”
Dexter took out another paper clip from his kit, connected it to two wires, then removed the detonator.
“Job done,” he said into the radio. “How long did it take to disarm the bomb, Crowley?”
“Well done. Three and a half minutes.”
Dexter and Jane walked back to the shelter as the head scientist and Crowley started clapping and congratulating him. He shook his head.
“I could, and should, have done it in three minutes. Right, let’s get to work in the lab on another jammer.”
Jane watched the three men walk away. Dexter’s composed professionalism had impressed her. When she returned to the lab, she found Lawrence standing by a table with one of the scientists. Pieced together like a jigsaw and laid out on a white sheet were lots of pieces of torn and burnt gray cloth material, bits of brown leather and the piece of strap and buckle which Jane had found when sifting through the debris of bin eight. The two shapes formed the back and front of the rucksack she had seen the ticket guard holding when the bomb went off, she was sure of it. Lawrence smiled and, with a gloved hand, picked up a ½ inch square scrap of material.