Go Out With A Bang! (2 page)

'Tom
Grover, Channel One News. How long do you think it will be before
the bodies are recovered.'

The Chief
said, 'It could take weeks to extricate their remains from such
extensive devastation. Ladies and gentlemen. This press conference
is now concluded. Any additional information will be released as
and when it becomes available, at the appropriate times. Thank you
for your cooperation.'

The media
filed out and the Chief closed the door after them. He stood before
his officers. 'What the bloody hell happened last night? I want
answers and I want them soon.'

He
stormed out and found sanctuary in his office. From the drawer in
his desk he took out a strip of paracetamol and washed two down.
The phone on his desk rang.

'Poppy.
Hi.'

'Uncle
Bernie. Have you seen Fred?'

'Fred?
No. There's been such a lot of crazy stuff going on at the moment,
I hadn't noticed him. I thought he was with you?'

'I've
been trying to phone him. His phone is off.'

'He
didn't go home last night?'

'No,
Uncle Bernie. I saw all that on the news and thought he was trying
to help out.'

'Poppy.
I...Give me a moment.' He pressed the old fashioned brass intercom
on his desk. 'Monica. Any idea where Fred Ducket is?'

'I'll try
to find him, Sir.'

'Poppy.
Monica is trying to locate him. What time is it? Hell. I feel like
I've not gone home in a week. Fred should normally be starting work
by now. Hang on. Monica?'

'Sorry,
Sir. I can't locate him anywhere.'

The Chief
was confused by the missing Ferret. 'Poppy. He isn't here. I'll
give him an ear-bashing when I see him. I'm sure he's okay. I have
a lot to do today, so...'

Poppy
said, 'I know. Tell him I want to talk to him when you see him,
won't you?'

'I will.
Take care.'

After the
call from Poppy, Bernie wondered if the paracetamol was ever going
to kick in.

Chapter 3

Fire
Chief Rick Brooks orchestrated the firefighters. All streets around
the collapsed building had been cordoned off with barriers. The
fire appliances were the only vehicles allowed inside the barriers.
Several crews were already rolling up their hoses and stowing the
gear away. The thermal imaging teams gave the all clear. Morris and
Crow dared to approach the busy man.

'Hi,
Rick,' said Morris. 'Winning the battle?'

'We're
wrapping up now. That was one hell of a night.'

'Tell me
about it. We're off home to get some shuteye. Do you think we'll
ever get the bodies out?'

Brooks
shrugged. 'Stan. It could take weeks. What kind of mess we get out
is anybodies guess. All the hot spots have been seen to. The
thermal imaging hasn't picked up any living bodies. I'd have been
surprised if they had. Nothing survives a building collapse like
that. Somehow, I doubt they'll be doing time.'

Morris
agreed. 'You got that right, Rick. At least it'll save the poor
bloody tax payer some money. We'll get a few clues when we find
some body parts. Okay. To sleep, perchance to dream.'

* * *

It was
five o'clock that evening after a few hours sleep, when Morris,
Crowe and Andersen braved overdosing on black coffee by returning
to work.

Morris
said, 'Disappeared?'

Andersen
said, 'Stanley. The Ferret's missing. His wife hasn't seen him for
two whole days. He's not turning his mobile on. Nobody knows where
the hell he is.'

'That's
not like the Ferret,' said Crowe. 'We could do with his help right
about now.'

Morris,
on caffeine overload, tried to clear the fog from his mind.
'Whatever he's up to, he'll have a good reason for it.'

Andersen
said, 'We'll see. Right. Moving on. There was nothing useful on the
recordings the Tactical team took. Just fully automatic weapons
firing from top floor windows. The gunmen can hardly be seen. Just
a vague shape.'

Morris said, 'I suggest we
check out the CCTV footage of the building.' He yawned, stretched
and scratched the stubble on his chin. 'Dale. Tell me the security
company had working CCTV?'

'Partial.
The owner of the security company is bringing it in himself. He
should be here by now.' Andersen called reception. 'Is Mr Ripply
here yet? Well, when he turns up, will you...Oh, right. Can you
have him brought to my office, please. Thanks.' Putting the phone
down, he said, 'He's here.'

A
constable escorted Sam Ripply to Andersen's office. Ripply was a
short, barrel chested man in his late fifties, with thinning grey
hair. His face showed the stress and concern he was feeling inside.
He forced a nervous smile as he shook hands with the detectives.
'Sorry it took so long, but the camera was so badly damaged, I
didn't think we would be able to retrieve anything
usable.'

'Is that
the disc?' Andersen asked.

'Yes. We
had four camera's attached to the building with recorders inside
the main building. They're history. Fortunately, we had one on the
corner of the adjoining two story car park that belonged to the
Petroxel Haynes building. It was smashed to pieces by the flying
debris, but we got the disc out of it.'

'Have you
played it?' Morris asked.

'No. I
came straight here with it. I have no idea if it picked anything
up.'

Andersen
loaded it into the player. 'Only one way to find out.'

Chapter 4

'Yeah,'
said Crowe. 'Result.'

The
recording was scratchy, but it was better than nothing. The four
men sat and watched the screen.

'It's on
a two hour loop,' said Ripply. 'This camera was almost an
afterthought for the entrance of the car park.'

'By
whom?' said Crowe.

'Come
again?' said Ripply.

'Who
asked for it to be installed, you or the owners of the
building?'

'Hmm. Sort of a team effort. I
think I sort of suggested it, like a
by the way
kind of thing, and the manager said, yeah,
why not. Good thing we did, right?'

Morris
nodded and asked, 'Was it intentional that it covered part of the
main building?'

'Err, not
really. As long as it covered the car park entrance, anything else
was a bonus.'

Crowe
asked, 'Mr Ripply. Doesn't your security company do monitored
alarms?'

'Of
course. But it was work in progress. These things take time to set
up properly. Prior to my company coming on the scene, the people
working on the building were responsible for security. Once they
had nearly completed the job, we were called in and we agreed with
the building owners to install our security systems in the time
between the building completion and the company occupying the
place. Because neither the car park or main building were in use,
they decided it was okay not to be monitored, as long as we were up
and running when they were in use.'

Morris
sighed with frustration. 'I suppose nobody was going to steal cars
from an empty car park, or break into an empty building. Food for
thought for the future, Mr Ripply.'

'I'll not
be caught out like that again, that's for sure.' Feeling a little
hot under the collar, Ripply turned his attention to the screen
again. 'Wow. Did you see that?'

'Play it
again, Sam,' said Andersen.

'Here we
go,' said Ripply. 'There, see? Somebody comes out of the shadows.
He has a ski mask on. What's that he's doing?'

Morris
said, 'He's using some kind of a grappling hook with a line with
footholds in. How high up was the camera?'

'About
four metres from the ground,' said Ripply. 'Fixed to the main steel
lintel of the entrance. The box was bracketed just
inside.'

Andersen
said, 'That line and hook was exactly the right length to get him
to the camera. It was made just for that one job. Now he's putting
plastic explosives on the camera. It'll be detonated remotely. See?
He's back on the ground. Got the hook and line down. See that in
his hand? He intends to take out the camera with it. Any
second...boom. Camera gone.'

'Wouldn't
somebody have heard something?' Ripply asked.

'It was a
small amount of explosives,' said Morris. 'More of a dull thud,
than a bang. Just the perfect amount to blow out the
camera.'

'Top
professionals,' said Crowe.

'So the
building blowing up was just an accident?' said Andersen. 'So what
went wrong? How come the main building blew up?'

Morris
said, 'We may never have the answer to that one.'

Andersen
said, 'Thanks for bringing this in, Mr Ripply. That's all for
now.'

Ripply
stood up to go. 'Glad to help.' He went to the door, paused and
said, 'This isn't down to me or my company. We still had a couple
of days to have a monitored system. If you don't believe me, check
with the owners.'

Andersen
said, 'For what it's worth, don't beat yourself up over this.
Nobody is looking in your direction. The gang who did this would
have found a way around any security system. You may want to learn
from this experience, though. We'll hang on to the disc. Good
evening, Mr Ripply.'

Ripply
took some comfort from Andersen's comments. He forced a tired
smile, nodded and left the room. The detectives played the
recording over and over, hoping to get something useful from it,
but got nothing. They called it a night, to be fresh for the next
day.

Chapter 5

'Poppy.
Sorry I couldn't get here sooner.'

'Oh,
Uncle Bernie,' said Poppy, hugging her silver haired uncle. I'm
worried sick. Where is he? Where has he gone?'

'I've
honestly no idea. He's missing from work, too. His input would be
useful right now, but he's simply vanished. He's lucky I've got his
back. Anyone else would be facing disciplinary action by now,
taking time out without giving the necessary notice. Even I can't
cover for him indefinitely. I'm sorry, but I have to ask this. Have
you two had some kind of row?'

Poppy
shook her head. 'No. Nothing. We were fine. But...'

'Out with
it.'

'A day or
so before he disappeared, he went sort of moody.'

'Oh? In
an angry way?'

Poppy
shook her head. Bernie could see from her reddened eyes how much
crying his niece had been doing. He wrapped his arm about her and
kissed her forehead. He was just about all the family she had, him
and Sandra, his globe trotting sister.

'Everything seemed fine,' said Poppy. 'But he was strangely
quiet. I asked him if there was anything wrong, and he said no.
He...held me and kissed me. He said something. I thought it was a
bit odd when he said it. He said, everything will be okay and that
he would fix it.'

'Fix
what?'

Poppy
sighed. 'He didn't say. Was he working on anything before that
building blew up?'

Bernie
thought back. 'Nothing out of the ordinary. I'll talk to Morris
about it in the morning. I have the code to get into Fred's office.
We'll take a look and see if we can find anything.'

'Good
idea.'

Bernie hugged her again. 'Come
home with me. Let me
and Debbie
take care of you.'

'I need
to be here for him when he turns up.'

'Okay.
But if you change your mind, just come over. If there's nobody
home, you have a key so just let yourself in. Take
care.'

* * *

The
Chief keyed in the code to the Ferret's office. Morris and Crowe
followed him inside. It was an eerie feeling to be in there with no
Fred Ducket and everything turned off and looking like some dead
spacecraft from an alien planet.

The
Chief stroked the top of “Old Cranky”. 'Think we should turn it on?
Perhaps there's a clue in there.'

Morris
said, 'This is the Ferret we're talking about. I doubt anybody
could get through his security.'

'Did he
ever write anything down?' the Chief asked.

Crowe
said, 'With an actual pen on actual paper? Not a whole
lot.'

Bernie
looked at the detectives. Men he knew well and trusted completely.
He knew they wouldn't be holding anything back from him.
Almost.

'I'm
just going to ask this once. That witch case a few months back.' He
noticed the involuntary shudder Morris gave. It was obviously still
a raw experience. 'To this day, I don't know what happened in the
end. Neither does Andersen.' He saw the guilty look that passed
between Morris and Crowe. 'Is there any possibility the Ferret
going missing has anything to do with that witch case?' Crowe
studied his shoes and Morris stared at the ceiling and the Chief
bristled.'Stanley? Vincent?'

'I
hadn't thought about it until you just mentioned it,' said Morris.
'I can't see a connection.'