Force Of Habit v5 by Robert Bartlett

and a couple of grills on the downstairs windows and that’s all. They want to deter any chancers but you’ve seen in there, other than the meagre stock needed to run the place and whatever takings are in the safe waiting to be banked, there’s nothing in there worth nicking.’
    ‘Someone totalled your pub when you were in it. Maybe they meant for you to get totalled too.’
    The look on his face showed that the thought had already occurred to him.
    ‘Is this what you escaped in?’ He was wearing trainers and a track suit.
    He looked at himself. Nodded. ‘I threw some of my stuff out the window before I jumped.’
    ‘You were upstairs?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Out back?’
    He nodded.
    ‘What happened?’
    ‘I was asleep, heard a crash, woke up, then there was another crash and a weird sound, probably the petrol catching fire in the next room. Then there was a crash in front and then a brick came through my window and -’
    ‘They were coming in front and back?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    So there were two of them, not just one. You couldn’t just lob a few bottles in the front and then nip to the back. It was a long way round. He let the PC know they were looking for a pair of scallies.
    ‘My room went on fire and I went to the window. There was no one there. I grabbed the stuff by the bed and jumped.’
    There was the bog and the storeroom out back. He couldn’t have injured himself too bad coming down via either of those.
    ‘Do you still have your phone?’
    A hand went to his side.
    ‘Let me see it.’
    ‘Why?’ he said, taking it from his pants pocket and handing it over without any fuss.
    North ran through the numbers. Nothing matched Lumsden’s set. He had made only one call after the time of the fire. It was the only call since yesterday morning. There was no incoming.
    ‘Who did you call yesterday?’
    ‘No one.’
    North waived the phone at him. ‘Last night?’
    He thought about it.
    ‘My mam!’ It dawned on him. ‘I called my mam from the hospital.’
    ‘I need you to come with us to the station to make a statement.’ He was about to protest but North shouted him down. ‘At best this is arson Mr Smith, at worst attempted murder and I expect your full co-operation.’ He would never be able to instil the same kind of fear as an arsonist but he was the law and just talking to the law in public next to the scene where a threat on his life had just been made had its advantages. ‘Who do you run the place for?’
    ‘The brewery.’ The name was just about visible on a metal sign that lay on the kerb. It was the biggest brewery around so if there was a drug link and dope was being pushed through it, it was by a third party through this guy.
    ‘I'm sure your employer will expect your full co-operation too.’
    ‘I'll lose my job, my home’ it seemed to have just occurred to him. ‘They'll never open the place again. They'll take the insurance money and run. It was on its knees like everywhere else round here. The money is down the quayside with the kids. Everyone else goes down the workies and everyone barred from the workies comes here.’
    ‘Take him in and get his statement would you?’ North said to the other PC who appeared.
    ‘You can't, they'll do me for sure! Terry was a regular is all. He'd only been out the nick five minutes and the filth -’ he realised his error but could only stare, expecting a reprisal, but North said nothing. ‘Were after him again,’ Smith went on in hushed tones. ‘You should have seen him, he was in a right state. Shitting himself like you wouldn't believe – he’d actually pissed himself before he got here. The front of his trousers were soaked through. It didn't seem right you harassing him again already. He said he needed to make a call, keep out of sight for an hour or so, then he would be off.’
    ‘He use the phone in the pub?’
    ‘Yeah, I’m on pay-as-you-go, I can’t afford for people to be using it willy-nilly. The rest of it, we were just