Death Row

by Mark Pearson

  The young woman nodded.

  ‘It’s since that monster’s face started appearing all the time on the news again,’ said Mary.

  ‘I’ve been having nightmares. I see faces, I hear voices. I wake up and I try to remember …’

  ‘And can you?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. But I recognised … I recognised his face when he came on television.’

  ‘You hadn’t seen any photos of him before?’ asked Sally.

  ‘No.’

  Mary shook her head. ‘We thought it best. Gloria was traumatised by the events. Completely traumatised. She had no memory of who she was. Where she had been. How long she had been in the car, where she came from.’

  ‘It must have been terrible for you,’ said Sally.

  Gloria smiled and shrugged almost apologetically. ‘I don’t remember, to be honest. It was all so very long ago …’ She trailed off. ‘But it’s happening all over again, isn’t it?’

  ‘We don’t know, Gloria,’ said Delaney. ‘Something’s happening and we think he is tied in to it.’

  Gloria sighed, frustrated. ‘I know who I am, I just don’t know who I was.’

  Delaney’s cousin put her hand on the young woman’s knee. ‘It was the trauma, like I said. You had to hide deep inside yourself.’ Mary turned to Sally. ‘It was as if her identity had been stripped from her and we had to build it up again.’

  Sally, a puzzled look on her face, gestured towards the doctor. ‘I’m sorry. I hope you don’t mind me asking but …’

  ‘Why me?’ said Mary.

  ‘Well, yes – why were you involved?’

  ‘Mary’s a child psychiatrist, Sally,’ said Delaney.

  ‘When Gloria was taken from the car she clung onto Jack,’ Mary explained. ‘She screamed whenever he put her down, wouldn’t let anyone near her. He cleared it to bring her to me. I had done a lot of work with the police in the past. Working with child victims. Helping those without a voice to have one.’

  ‘It took me about six months to find mine again, apparently,’ said Gloria.

  ‘And you still have no memory of who you are?’

  Gloria shook her head. ‘Were,’ she said pointedly. ‘No. And in some ways that’s how I want it. This man coming back into my life …’ She stopped, blinking back tears, unable to continue the thought.

  ‘It’s okay, Gloria,’ said Delaney.

  ‘But it’s not okay, is it?’ she said, clearly distressed. ‘What if I do remember? What if I remember who I was, what happened to me? What if I can’t deal with it? What then?’

  ‘Then we’ll be here to help,’ said Mary softly, the warm Irish lit to her voice becoming more pronounced.

  ‘I know.’ Gloria sniffed and sat up straighter. ‘In some ways I want to know. In some ways I hope I never will.’

  ‘Is there anything you can remember from your dreams?’ Jack asked.

  Gloria closed her eyes, concentrating. ‘There are sounds. Music. A song I can almost hear it but every time I think I have it … it slips away. It’s like trying to catch mist in your hand.’

  ‘Don’t try so hard,’ said Mary. ‘When you are ready it will come back to you.’

  Gloria opened her eyes. ‘And I hear voices. At least two of them. Sometimes it seems like more.’

  ‘Both male?’ asked Delaney.

  ‘Sometimes, yes, I think so. One of them has a higher pitch.’ She shook her head, frustrated. ‘I just don’t know.’

  Delaney pulled a Dictaphone from his pocket and looked to his cousin for approval. She gave him a small nod. Delaney held the Dictaphone forward and pushed the play button. Garnier’s voice filled the room, tainting it.

  ‘See, both you and I know that the world is made of chaos, not order, and there is an imperative in the human psyche either to embrace that chaos or to try and tame it. The first is irrelevant and the second is a fool’s errand. God knows that. The God of the Old Testament. Our existences are scattered fragments of meaning. You try to fit the shapes together, resolve the randomness of things, like a jigsaw puzzle building bit by bit to make a perfect picture. You have to get each piece in order to make sense of the world, don’t you? Like that perfect portrait of Christ and his disciples on the jigsaw your mother bought for you when you were seven years old.’

  ‘Turn it off!’ Gloria almost screamed, tears prickling into her eyes as she drew in deep gulps of air.

  Mary moved to sit beside her on the sofa, cradling her head into her body and patting her back softly. ‘It’s all right, Gloria. You don’t have to listen to any more. Just take some deep breaths.’

  Delaney stood up and walked out of the room. After a few moments he came back with a glass of water. ‘Here you go, Gloria. Drink this.’

  Gloria took the glass from him. ‘Thanks.’ She took a few sips. ‘I’m okay now. I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine,’ she repeated as if just by saying it she could make it true.

  Delaney sat down again, put his hands flat on his knees and leaned forward, his expression apologising for asking the question.

  ‘Was it him?’

  Gloria took another sip of her water and looked back at him. ‘I don’t know, Jack. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You have nothing to be sorry for.’

  ‘That’s just it, though, isn’t it?’ said Gloria. ‘I might have everything to be sorry for.’

  Delaney nodded.

  ‘And what about that poor kid who’s been taken? What has that got to do with him? What’s it got to do with me?’ Her voice trembled.

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with you, sweetheart. You’re safe. No one knows who you are. No one knows where you live.’

  Gloria looked up at Delaney again, her small hands clasping one another. ‘What’s going to happen to him? To the little boy?’

  Delaney stood up and looked at her steadily. ‘‘We’re going to find him, Gloria. That’s what!’

  ‘You promise?’

  ‘I promise.’

  Mary shot him a reproving glance but Delaney ignored it, gesturing for Sally to join him as he stood up.

  ‘We’re going to find him and return him home safe to his mother. You have my word on that!’

  *

  DI Tony Bennett watched as a nurse held a clear plastic cup of water to Jamil Azeez’s lips and he took a swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his slender neck.

  ‘Not too much, now,’ said the nurse, letting him have another sip before she took the cup away. Bennett smiled gratefully at the nurse. She was petite, with midnight-black hair and delicate Asiatic features.

  ‘And not too long!’ she said to him reprovingly. ‘He is still very far from well and the last thing he needs right now is any added stress.’

  ‘I understand,’ Bennett said.

  ‘Good,’ she replied. ‘I’ll be back in five minutes.’

  Bennett watched her walk from the room, pulling the door closed behind her and nodding to Danny Vine who was standing guard outside. Then he looked at his watch, pulled the bedside chair closer to the bed and sat down on it. ‘Pulled yourself a cracker there,’ he said to the patient.

  Jamil Azeez blinked his eyes in what could have been a sign of accord and croaked something that could have been an agreement.

  ‘Do you know who did this to you? Do you know who hurt you?’ asked the DI.

  Jamil shook his head. ‘No,’ he said in another painful croak.

  ‘Can you tell me anything of what happened?’

  The patient shook his head and winced. Bennett put his hand on his arm. ‘Okay, try not to move. Try not to upset yourself. I don’t want to have that pretty nurse telling me off.’

  Jamil swallowed again and nodded almost imperceptibly.

  ‘What do you remember?’

  ‘Nothing. I can’t remember a thing.’

  Bennett was taken aback a little – Jamil’s accent was pure British.

  ‘You speak very good English, Jamil. How long have you been here? You’re in your second year at university
, is that right?’

  Jamil blinked his eyes. He had long dark lashes. ‘Yes, but I grew up here. My family moved back to Iran five years ago. English is my first language.’

  ‘What can you remember?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He closed his eyes, squeezing them shut as if he could somehow press some memories from them. ‘I don’t know. I can’t remember.’ He opened them again, clearly distraught. ‘I just don’t know.’

  ‘It’s okay, Jamil,’ said Bennett sympathetically. ‘It’s not uncommon. After a tragic accident it is quite normal sometimes for the brain to shut out memories. Hide them away until you can deal with them. Usually they do come back. That was what the lovely nurse said, and I guess she knows her stuff.’

  ‘But this wasn’t an accident, was it?’

  Bennett looked at him sympathetically. ‘No. It wasn’t.’

  Jamil blinked back tears, and Bennett was fairly sure it had nothing to do with whatever physical pain the young man was feeling. ‘Why would anyone want to do this? Who would want to stab me?’

  ‘We don’t know. That’s what we need to find out.’

  ‘Were they trying to kill me?’

  Bennett leaned in. ‘They nearly did, Jamil. I’m sorry but whoever did this to you was in all likelihood trying to murder you. There is no one you can think of who would want to harm you?’

  ‘No one. No. Was it a racist attack, do you think?’

  Bennett shrugged. ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘Where did it happen?’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  Jamil shrugged. ‘I can’t remember a thing about it. I remember waking up here.’

  ‘What do you remember? Go back to yesterday. Lunchtime – can you remember that’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay, then. After lunch what did you do?’

  ‘I remember going to the library.’

  ‘The university library?’

  ‘No. At my hall of residence. Whitefriars. It’s a small one but it makes a change from sitting in my room. I remember going there. I remember doing the crossword.’

  ‘Which one?’

  Jamil looked embarrassed for a moment. ‘The Daily Mail. I don’t read it … but I like the crossword.’

  Bennett held up his hand. ‘It’s okay – no one is here to judge you.’

  ‘And then …’ Jamil concentrated for a moment or two, looking down at the floor to the side of his head. He hesitated for a moment and then shook his head. ‘No. Nothing after that.’

  Bennett leaned forward. ‘You looked as if you might have remembered something then, Jamil.’

  ‘No. Some other students came into the library, I think. But no, that was early evening. You say I was found at midnight?’

  ‘Just about. You were lucky!’

  ‘Lucky?’

  ‘Relatively speaking. The woman who found you is a police surgeon. She was able to keep you alive until the paramedics found you.’

  ‘What is her name, please? I must thank her.’

  ‘Kate Walker. Doctor Walker.’ He gestured with his thumb to the general ward outside. ‘She’s trying to find your consultant, right now.’

  ‘And where was I when she found me?’

  ‘Just off Camden High Street.’

  Jamil reacted, surprised. ‘Camden. What was I doing there? I’ve never been to Camden in my life. Why would I want to go there?’

  ‘We don’t know, Jamil. Maybe it was a random attack. Maybe it was racially motivated, like you said, or maybe it was just a robbery gone wrong.’

  Jamil looked at the side table. ‘My wallet?’

  ‘No. Sorry, there was nothing on you.’

  ‘It was a mugging, then?’

  Bennett shrugged. ‘Most likely. But maybe why you were there in the first place has something to do with the attack on you.’

  ‘Can’t see how. Like I said, I’ve never been to Camden.’

  ‘You’ve been there once.’

  Jamil held a hand to his bandaged chest, his breathing becoming more ragged as he laboured to draw in breath. ‘Yeah, and it seems like once was too often.’

  Bennett would have replied but the nurse opened the door quietly and came in.

  ‘Okay. Time’s up,’ she said in a manner that would brook no argument.

  Bennett looked at her appraisingly. ‘I’m sorry – I didn’t get your name?’

  ‘Jessica Tam,’ she said.

  Bennett held out his hand and after hesitating for a moment the nurse shook it. ‘I’m Tony Bennett.’

  Jessica Tam raised an eyebrow but before she could say anything Bennett handed her a card. ‘If Jamil remembers anything more be sure to give me a call straight away.’

  Jessica put the card in her pocket. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Or, you know …’ he said, with a smile. ‘If you just want to give me a call.’

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ she said coolly, and taking his arm by the elbow she steered him out of the room. She closed the door on him and turned back to her patient. ‘Are you okay, Jamil?’

  ‘I’ve been better,’ he said weakly. ‘I just wish I knew who would want to do something like this to me.’

  ‘I know how you feel,’ she said thoughtfully, remembering a time when she had been attacked by a deranged former patient. ‘Sometimes it’s just because you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  ‘Why was I there, though? That’s what I don’t understand.’

  Jessica Tam nodded. ‘Give it time. Sometimes that’s all we can do.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘And try to get some rest. We need to get you well first. Maybe things will be better for you tomorrow.’

  Jamil sank his head back deeper into his pillow and closed his eyes.

  Maybe he would find some peace in his sleep, Jessica thought.

  But she was wrong.

  Very wrong.

  *

  Delaney pushed the fingers of his right hand through his damp hair. It had stopped raining a short while ago but there was still a stiff breeze in the moist air, and it was cold, too damn cold. He shouldered through the crowd of people who had gathered behind the yellow ribbons sealing off the top end of Carlton Row. Sally Cartwright was sailing behind him in his slipstream and smiling apologetically at the disgruntled members of the public shunted aside by him.

  Melanie Jones was shouting something at Delaney as he ducked under the ribbon and he could feel the lights of a video camera trained on the back of his head – a new cameraman stepping into the breach for her, he guessed. But he had had enough of that particular reporter for one day and had tuned her out entirely. However, he couldn’t tune out the red-faced man who was even then barrelling towards him, clearly agitated.

  ‘Delaney, where the bloody hell have you been?’

  Detective Inspector Robert Duncton of the serious crimes unit based at Paddington Green was a stocky man in his early forties. Delaney had run into him a few weeks back on another case and Duncton had made it quite clear that he regarded Delaney as a dangerous, ill-disciplined throwback with no place in the modern police force. The fact that Delaney had solved that particular case, rescuing at least three people in the process, didn’t seem to concern him much and his attitude towards Delaney didn’t seem to have mellowed any. Duncton’s wide shoulders were straining the fabric of his overcoat as he glared at Delaney, waiting for an answer.

  ‘Traffic was a nightmare on Western Avenue, wasn’t it, Sally?’

  ‘Horrendous, sir,’ Sally agreed.

  ‘Don’t bullshit me, Delaney. What the hell took you so long?’

  ‘You want to dial that attitude down a notch or two, hombre?’ Delaney asked.

  Duncton stepped closer. He didn’t raise his voice, mindful of the gathered crowd, but he clearly wasn’t happy. ‘No, I bloody don’t. You might act like the Lone bleeding Ranger out of your hick nick out in White City. But if you are on my watch you do things my way. Comprende, hombre?’ he added s
arcastically.

  Delaney smiled at Sally Cartwright, not believing what he was hearing, and jerked his thumb towards Duncton. ‘Can you believe this guy?’ he asked her.

  ‘Let’s just get one thing clear …’ said Duncton, poking Delaney in the chest with a thick finger.

  But that was as far as he got because Delaney, turning his shoulder to block his movements out of view, grabbed hold of Duncton’s finger and leaned in close to whisper, keeping his face smiling in case any cameras were still trained on him.

  ‘No!’ he said. ‘Let’s get this clear. You ever fucking lay a finger on me again and I will break it off at the fucking joint. I don’t work for you. You don’t outrank me, so keep the showboating for someone who gives a shit and let’s just focus on the matter in hand. Okay?’

  He released Duncton’s hand and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘So what have we got, detective inspector?’

  Duncton, now even more red-faced and furious with it, would have slapped his hand forcefully away but was as aware as Delaney of the scrutiny that Melanie Jones was giving them from beyond the perimeter screening and of the camera that was trained on them, the zoom no doubt closing in on their faces. It wouldn’t be too hard to get a lip-reader to work out what they were saying, even if they were too far away for the microphone to pick up their conversation. He returned Delaney’s smile and spoke through gritted teeth.

  ‘Let’s go inside.’

  Delaney, followed by Sally Cartwright, accompanied the stocky detective into the house. Duncton pulled them up in the small hallway and shut the door behind him. From the lounge ahead of them they could hear a woman sobbing and another woman making comforting sounds.

  Duncton held his hands up in a conciliatory gesture. ‘There’s a woman in there whose son has been abducted. God knows what has happened to him. Let’s focus on that.’

  ‘What I said,’ said Delaney.

  Duncton nodded and sighed. ‘Okay. So bring me up to speed. Garnier. This boy who’s missing. What’s the connection?’

  Delaney shrugged. ‘You know as much as I do.’

  The other detective shook his head. ‘We know the square root of bugger-all. What’s this got to do with the sick bastard you’ve just been to visit?’

  ‘Trust me, it wasn’t a social visit. Two children went missing here fifteen years ago. Garnier was involved. We know he is a child murderer and rapist. What has this to do with the child that’s gone missing today? Garnier was in police custody.’