For Rye by Gavin Gardiner (books for 10th graders txt) 📗

‘Yes, I had a clear view of the trucks,’ said Renata. She took a seat opposite the man. He watched her yanking at a loose strand of wool from her Aran knit. ‘I saw it all, but I’m not sure I can tell you much you don’t already know. The largest lorry, it just…well…’ She paused, twirling the beige strand around a trembling finger. ‘…it blew up. I’ve never seen anything like it. The light, the blast. It came out of nowhere. And the trapped men…’ Silence. ‘I can still hear their screams,’ she breathed.

‘Alright,’ Hector grumbled, ‘I think that’s enough.’ He leant close enough for Renata to smell his breath. No scotch. ‘I’m going to be straight with you,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t take a genius to see the connection between your mother’s death and the truck explosion.’ He paused. ‘Rye.’

‘The flask,’ she said. ‘You didn’t really drink from it, did you?’

‘He’s been nothing but cooperative, but I had to be sure.’ The man sat back, toothpick sticking from his mouth. ‘Criminals have been the bread and butter of my career, Miss Wakefield. You come to realise they’re all the same, really. You grow antennae, develop a sense for them. I knew Mr Rye was genuine from the get-go but, like I said, I had to be sure. I needed him to drop his defences.’

She got up to close the kitchen door. ‘So if Quentin has nothing to do with it, what about this connection?’

Hector frowned, stopped chewing for a moment, then recommenced his gnawing of the pick in his mouth. ‘That’s where it gets tricky. Of course, there is another connection: you.’

Renata blinked.

‘Or rather, your family. Sylvia wasn’t a random victim and your house wasn’t a random blast site. The fact that your mother…’ He took a breath. ‘…met her end on the altar of the church where your father served his whole life, the church a short walk from your family home, suggests both incidents were statements of some kind. I believe this was, as they say, personal.’

‘And the note you mentioned left by the body,’ said Renata, picking a nail, ‘the one with the rhyme from Quentin’s book.’

‘Like I said,’ Hector said under his breath, ‘it’s tricky.’

The chair creaked as he stood and stepped to the window, the kitchen tiles sticky under his shoes.

Despite his retirement, Hector O’Connell was still dressed for the part – that is, his usual part of oddly-dressed detective. His ill-fitting faded blue waistcoat and shirt buttoned up to the neck – no tie – clung to his hefty mass and made his considerable stomach look like a shrink-wrapped slab of meat. And yet here, under the tattered navy raincoat and apparent disregard for the state of his attire, was a man who moved with the pace of someone who didn’t know how to rush, but was always on time. Unhurried and precise, eyes constantly darting from detail to detail, the detective still lived. The pocket watch danced in his unsteady hand.

‘There’s more,’ he rasped between coughs. He turned from the window. ‘Miss Wakefield, have you heard of nitrate film?’ She shook her head. ‘Movies used to be shot on stock made from a compound called nitrocellulose. The stuff was lethal, highly flammable. The lighting of a cigarette on the other side of the room was said to be enough to ignite it. Picture houses regularly went up in flames.’ He sunk back into the chair opposite Renata. ‘Anyway, this nitrocellulose was eventually replaced with stock made from a less flammable compound called cellulose triacetate, which had fewer self-oxidizing—’ He clocked her blank expression and cut the lecture short. ‘Easy to get caught up in the details of a case. Apologies.’

‘No, you’ve obviously…done your homework. But if you’re saying you think the explosion was caused by this material, then why would the truck be filled with flammable film in the first place? Sorry, what’s the theory here? It was placed deliberately?’

‘First off, I know the explosion was caused by nitrate film.’ He swiped at a moth. ‘Fragments of the wreckage have been analysed. Nitrocellulose ignition was the cause of the explosion.’

‘Analysed already? It was only yesterday.’

‘I wasn’t unpopular with everybody in the force,’ Hector said. ‘I still have connections in forensics. I’ve been told there was a massive payload of the stuff in that truck.’ He leant back. ‘Miss Wakefield, do you know the name Sandie Rye?’

‘Quentin’s ex-wife?’

‘No, his teenage daughter. Upcoming actress. Starred in several of his films but made the news when Mr Rye let slip to a journalist he’d had a Colt .45 stuck in her mouth for a scene – loaded. I could tell how much he loves his daughter, she seems to be his world, but he related several such decisions he’s made during filming in order to…well, that’s where he lost me. Something about ‘truth’, about wanting to introduce true danger to the production.’ He cleared his throat. ‘The important part is that Mr Rye himself had the nitrate film loaded onto that truck. It’s meant to produce a better image or something, but his real reason for shooting with it was to bring this ‘true danger’ to the film, just like with the Colt. Turns out he’s used the stock before. Rustled the feathers of his company’s lawyers in the process, too. The question is how, and why, it ignited.’

‘Insurance scam? Ignite it deliberately and claim the loss?’ she suggested. Part of her was enjoying this.

‘Compared to the kind of cash he makes from his films? Unlikely. Besides, no insurance company would pay out over that kind of flammable material. The truck was effectively loaded with explosives.’

‘Coincidence then,’ Renata offered. ‘The film was unstable, ready to explode, and it did. Just like it was bound to.’

‘Safety procedures were in place,’ countered Hector. ‘A