Free The Devil's Breath by Graham Hurley Page A

roll. Billy got up and said he was hungry. McVeigh returned to thekitchen. He had bread and jam, and half a packet of crumpets. Turning from the cupboard to start a question, he bumped into his son. Billy looked up at him, very close. ‘You will find them, won’t you? These men?’
    McVeigh frowned for a moment, still in a muddle about the jam, whether Marmite might be better. Billy pulled out a stool and clambered on to it. He put his arms round McVeigh’s neck, and McVeigh smelled the musty, slightly sour smell of the classroom. Billy asked the question, his nose touching McVeigh’s. McVeigh shrugged. ‘I dunno …’ he said.
    ‘No—’ Billy held his eyes, refusing to let him go ‘—but you
will
, won’t you?’
    ‘I’ll try.’
    ‘And when you do?’
    ‘Yeah?’
    Billy raised two fingers, pressed together, the shape of a gun, and held them to his father’s head.
    ‘Bang,’ he whispered, his mouth close to McVeigh’s ear. ‘Bang, bang.’
    *
    The fishermen finally deposited the small red drum marked ‘Poison’ on the quayside at Ramsgate, a cluttered little harbour on the eastern shoulder of the North Kent coast.
    They’d spotted it shortly after midnight, low off the port quarter, most of it submerged in the confused lop of the cross-seas in the lee of the Goodwin Sands. One of the hands on deck thought it might be a mine, but in the glare of the big overhead lights it was difficult to be certain until they were close enough to read the heavy black stencil.
    The skipper of the 40-foot trawler, a recent convert to ecological issues, supervised the capture of the drum. Lately, the Straits of Dover had begun to resemble the scene of a maritime disaster. Bits of rope, baulks of timber, assorted plastic debris, even whole containers came bobbing down the Channel on the flooding tide. At night especially, the larger objects could be lethal. When the weather and the trawl permitted, the skipper tried to do what he could.
    The drum was secured to the side of the boat with ropes andwinched carefully aboard. When they berthed next morning at the fish dock in Ramsgate, it was the first object off. Midday, the night’s catch already en route to the London markets, the skipper walked the quarter-mile to the harbour-master’s office, reporting his find and staying just long enough to confirm that a reward was unlikely.
    Later in the day, the harbour-master studied the drum. It was red, a little sturdier than usual, with the vertical seam double-welded, and thick welts around the top and bottom. There was a black diamond enclosing a death’s-head on the side. Stencilled across the middle of the diamond, in heavy capitals, was the single word ‘POISON’. Detailed information was normally coded beneath the warning, in keeping with international regulations, but in this case there was nothing. No ADR panel, no numbers to identify the specific contents or degree of risk. Simply two words in German at the bottom of the drum, ‘
Eigentum der
…’, the rest of the sentence crudely painted over.
    The harbour-master, who’d never seen a drum quite like this before, returned to his office and called the local fire service. He explained the situation and said he’d be glad for someone to take a look. He could see no leaks himself, but he’d prefer to be certain. The duty officer confirmed the details and promised to send an appliance. The call was logged at 15.53.
    *
    The old man, Abu Yussuf, turned his back on the hot glare of the street and stepped into the darkness of the garage. The place stank of oil and the sour tang of exhaust. With the light still off, he might have been back in Ramallah. He smiled, switching on the light and hanging his cap on the back of the door.
    The tiny lock-up garage was three blocks from the tall row of Newark tenements that was, for the time being, home. He walked here every morning, already sweating in his overalls in the heat, soaking up time before he could start the new job in