Honour Bound by Keith Walker Page B

journey towards oblivion. He pushed the wires and the battery
back into the hole and climbed out of the van. After locking the door, he
walked back the way he had come, turned left into the Minories ,
made his way to Aldgate tube station, and caught the first eastbound train.

 
    -13-
     
    He
wished the noise would stop. He had been enjoying himself although he could not
quite remember why. It had been something warm and comfortable and the
irritating noise was pulling him away from an already forgotten pleasure.
Sighing deeply, he rolled over.
    The
persistent ringing of the telephone continued, dragging Norton from the depths
of sleep. He reached for his watch, its face readable by the dim flood of light
forcing its way through the thick curtains. A quarter to seven, two hours
before he had intended to surface. A muted throb, like the sound of distant
road drills buzzed through his head, a mental reminder of the lengthy spell at
the police station, a long written report and a lack of sleep. He had finally
made it to bed just over three hours before, it felt more like three minutes.
    He
picked up the handset and eyed the recorder. "Norton." His usual response.
    "Sam,"
it was Talbot, "sorry for dragging you out. Caruso has struck again. Two
bombs this time. The first one was on Tower Bridge, the
other was a car bomb outside Tower Hill station, no word on casualties from
either scene yet."
    Norton's
brain mentally kicked into gear, immediately throwing off the last vestiges of
sleep. “Anybody see anything?" He asked.
    "We've
got one witness, a woman. She saw a van parked on the path on the centre span
of the bridge just after five this morning. She assumed it was a works van, and
took no further notice. Other than that, nothing, but it’s still early days
yet. Anyone who was in the area may be at work and probably hasn't heard the
news."
    He
paused. "I heard about what happened yesterday. I'm sorry about
Willie."
    "Thanks.
It was always a possibility something like that would happen. He was well aware
of the risks dealing with that sort of scum."
    Talbot
left a respectable silence.
    Norton
had thought a lot about Willie over the last few hours, shot down in cold blood
in a rat-infested street, apparently for nothing.
    “Could've
been a mugging gone wrong,” one of the young constables had suggested at the
police station.
    “Hardly,”
Norton had replied. “Very few people would want to touch him let alone rummage
through his clothing. He was not a very savoury looking character at the best
of times.”    
    “Just
a thought,” the young man had said before adjourning into the depths of the
station to write his report.
    He’d
been driven from the police station to the mortuary to officially identify the
body, and fill in the blanks on the coroners report sheet. Willie's frail,
emaciated corpse, stripped of clothing and any remaining dignity, was laid on a
plastic tray in a freezer compartment awaiting a post mortem later in the day.
Norton stood by him for a little while, silently, knowing there was no one else
who would care. Although they had never been friends in the true sense of the
word, Norton had come to respect the guts Willie had shown in getting him
information, usually dangerous information, from his many sources on the
streets. He had decided yesterday as he walked, hands raised towards the police car, that he would find who was responsible for his death.
The two men who had killed him had carried the hallmarks of professionals,
someone had sent them and someone would be punished. Willie deserved at least
that.
    Norton
was roused from his thoughts by the sound of Talbot’s voice.   
    "I
put your ideas about the mail vans," he was saying, "to Jamie
Stewart. He's the chief boffin at the Royal Mail security section. I've given
him a very basic outline, mainly because that's all we have, and he's going to
dig through their computer records. You've got an appointment with him later on
this