by Mark Pearson
Graham Harper ran past him, tears rolling down his face, as Delaney pulled his cigarette packet out and walked out of the marquee into a late afternoon that was already as dark as the black hole he felt forming in his soul.
*
Standing on the iron bridge above the railway track, Delaney put a cigarette in his mouth. Scratching a match alight he lit his cigarette and held the flame close. But he felt no heat from it. He looked out at the black expanse of the railway track as it headed west into the distance and shivered, remembering.
The snow was falling fast now, the fat frozen flakes dancing in the air and floating into Jack’s eyes, blinding him. He wiped his hand across them and struggled as fast as he could along the bank, the worn soles of his boots still sticking in the slippery mud as he ran along the side of the river. ‘Hold on, Siobhan,’ he screamed. ‘I’m coming.’ He could hear her words echoing in his ears as he scanned the swirling waters.
‘Please, Jack. Please. It’s so cold.’
He had said, ‘It’s okay, Shiv. I’ve got you now.’
But he had lied. He hadn’t got her at all. And she had fallen into the icy embrace of the water and had been swept out into the river out of his reach.
‘No,’ cried Jack as he watched his sister’s head bob below the surface of the water.
‘No.’
He ran harder, calling out desperately to his sister. He caught a flash of her faded blue dress as it sank beneath the rough eddies of the water and then she was gone.
And Jack, throwing off his jacket, ran and dived into the river, not even registering the icy cold of it, his arms swept ahead of him and wrapped around his sister, and freeing one arm he splashed and paddled as powerfully as he could to the side. He pushed his sister up above him and clambered up after her onto the riverbank. He ran back to get his jacket and bundled Siobhan up in it and picking her up he cradled her to his chest and set off for home as fast as he could. Siobhan’s teeth were chattering but she laughed as she looked up to him with bright twinkling eyes and said, ‘I knew you’d save me, Jack. You always do.’
*
Delaney snapped out of his reverie. The cigarette had burned to the stub and he realised that Sally Cartwright was standing next to him.
‘It’s not him, sir,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘The boy. It’s not Archie Woods.’
Delaney frowned, trying to take it in, and picked on Sally’s expression. ‘What is it, constable? Who is he?’
‘You’re not going to believe it, sir …’
‘Just tell me, Sally!’
‘It’s Samuel Ramirez.’
She was right. Delaney couldn’t believe it.
Seventeen years after the two children had been abducted, one of the murdered children’s bodies had finally been discovered.
‘Doctor Bowman says the body has been deep-frozen, the skin slightly scalded post-mortem. Rectal damage, and bruising round the throat consistent with strangling.’
‘Peter Garnier.’
‘His MO, sir. Yes.’
‘Someone has kept the body frozen all these years?’
‘It looks that way, sir.’
‘Who, for God’s sake?’
‘The same person who has taken Archie Woods. We need to find him, sir. We need to find him quickly.’
Delaney flared another match and lit a fresh cigarette. He thought of the sister that he had saved, living happily in America now, and who his own daughter had been named after; and he thought of the promise he had made to another girl, now a grown woman, whom he had rescued from Peter Garnier all those years ago. A promise he could still keep.
‘Yeah,’ he said, the reflection of the lit match dancing in his eyes. ‘And we will.’
*
DI Tony Bennett yawned. He had been speed-skipping through the CCTV footage that the manager from The Outback pub on Camden High Street had given them earlier in the day. Jamil had come into shot a couple of times but he had always been alone and had seemingly ordered the same drinks both times. As the bar manager had pointed out, the coverage was sketchy at best. It was focused on the till and he had only recognised Jamil by the shirt he was wearing. Certainly no one came into shot looking like the racist skinhead he suspected of attacking the Iranian outside, up the street from the pub. He looked at his watch and yawned again as one of the detectives, he couldn’t remember her name, left the office. Five o’clock in the evening and, save for him, the CID office was now deserted. He stood up, took his overcoat off the peg and slipped into it. Time to call it a night. He stood by the window for a moment, watching as a few uniforms coming off shift walked out of the car park and headed towards the pub. He considered joining them for a nanosecond before standing up, picking up a shoulder bag from the floor and heading across to Delaney’s desk. Delaney’s laptop was open but in sleep mode. Bennett tapped on the Esc key and the machine hummed into life. He looked around him and quickly pulled his outside hard drive from his shoulder bag and connected it to the laptop. A couple of quick key strokes and he moved round to stand in front of it. Footsteps approached and he pulled out his mobile phone, starting to speak into it as DC Sally Cartwright came in. He held up a finger to her.
‘Hang on, Jack.’ He lowered the phone slightly and covered the mouthpiece with his hand. ‘Could you be a love, Sally, and get us a glass of water? I’m not being a sexist pig, honest. I’ll owe you one. This call is important.’
Sally rolled her eyes a little and nodded at him. ‘Too right you’ll owe me one!’
She walked back out of the office. Bennett looked down at the computer screen. ‘Come on,’ he muttered under his breath, looking at the file transfer indicator as it crept forward slowly. In a few seconds more it was done. He had the hard drive back in his bag and had closed down Delaney’s laptop just as Sally walked in with the water.
He snatched up a pen and wrote a telephone number on a piece of paper. ‘Okay. Thanks for that, catch you later.’ He clicked off his phone and smiled at Sally as he took the cup of water from her. ‘Dying of thirst here.’
‘Talking of which, a few of us are going across to The Pig and Whistle, It’s been a hell of a day here.’
‘I heard.’
‘So if you fancy joining us?’
‘I would, but I have a bit of a lead on a case I need to follow up.’
‘Was that Detective Delaney on the phone?’
‘What?’
‘Your call just then. I heard you say Jack.’
Bennett covered, taking a sip of water. ‘No. Someone from back home.’
Sally nodded. ‘Well, if you change your mind. We’ll be down there for a little while.’
‘Appreciate it.’
Sally shrugged into her coat. ‘Can’t see there being a lot of time off just now.’
‘The media certainly aren’t going to let it lie.’
‘No.’
‘And there’s no leads to where the boy is?’
‘Whoever has taken him has been leaving us some clues, obviously. Taunting us. We just have no idea what they mean.’
‘And Inspector Delaney?’
‘Yeah?’
‘He on top of things?’
Sally finished buttoning up her coat and threw Bennett a suspicious look. ‘Why wouldn’t he be?’
Bennett shrugged and flashed her a guileless smile. ‘It’s just that it can’t be easy with him tied up in it all somehow. What with finding that small girl that Garnier had abducted all those years ago. What was her name again …?’
‘I don’t know, inspector. Way before my time.’ Sally sketched a wave as she headed to the door. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘See you.’
Bennett’s smile vanished as she left the room. He picked up the cup of water, drained it and lobbed the empty beaker into Delaney’s bin.
‘Oh, we’ll see all right,’ he said and smiled again. ‘We’ll definitely see.’
*
Dave ‘Slimline’
Matthews looked up from the crossword he was doing as DI Bennett walked towards the exit. ‘Hold up, inspector. I didn’t know you were in the building,’ he called out.
Bennett turned back, puzzled. ‘What is it, sergeant?’
‘I just tried calling you.’
Bennett held up his mobile phone. ‘Sorry, the battery’s dead.’
‘It’s your collar today …’
‘What about him?’
‘We had to bounce him. No charges.’
‘Go on.’
‘Turns out the weapons are all genuine Nazi memorabilia, including the knuckledusters. Antiques. So he’s allowed to have them, sell them, whatever.’ Matthews shook his head, bemused. ‘At least, in this country he is. Germany, France – we’d have him bang to rights.’
‘What about the son, Matt Henson?’
‘He’s just been brought in.’
‘Really?’
‘Caused a bit of trouble at The Outback pub earlier, tried to make a run for it and the manager made what we might like to call a citizen’s arrest.’
‘Meaning?
‘Meaning he jumped him and held him down until some uniforms could get there.’
‘Very civic-minded. Where is he now?’
‘We’ve got him in holding.’
‘Fit to be interviewed?’
‘Yeah, bruised ego. Nothing much else.’
‘Good.’
‘How’s the victim?’
Bennett nodded. ‘Spoke to the hospital a short while back. He’s stable, conscious. Still doesn’t remember a thing about who attacked him, apparently.’
The sergeant looked thoughtful. ‘Genuine amnesia, you think?’
‘What else?’
The sergeant shrugged. ‘I’m just plod, you’re the man in a natty suit. But maybe he’s scared.’
‘Scared of what?’
‘That if he says anything, Henson will come back and finish the job. Him or another one of his neo-Nazi thug associates.’
‘It’s a possibility.’
‘Wouldn’t be the first racially motivated murder in this fair city of ours, would it?’
‘Not by a long chalk. Why don’t you rustle up a uniform for the interview and settle him down in interview room one, if it’s available?’
‘It certainly is.’
‘Thanks, Dave.’
*
Delaney flicked through the CDs lined up in an old three-tiered pine shelf that stood above a mahogany bookcase in his lounge. The bookcase was half empty. It held some cookbooks – the ubiquitous Delia Smith’s Summer Cookbook, Nigella Lawson’s Feast – and the rest was mainly fiction, some crime, some classics. He picked up the best of Dolly Parton and put it back again, finally selecting Górecki’s Symphony Number Three Opus 36 also known as the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. He walked over to his CD player and slipped the disc in, using the button to skip to the second movement. Some songs were too sorrowful. They seemed somehow relevant, though, all dealing with motherhood and the separation from a child through war. As the hauntingly beautiful second movement started Delaney poured a couple of fingers of whiskey into a tumbler and added a couple of ice cubes from a crystal bucket with a silver-plated lid and matching tongs that Kate had bought him. He took a sip and let the warmth of the spirit work its way through his body. He felt some of the tension of the day lift as the soprano hit impossibly pure notes. Motherhood and loss. The separation from a child – he couldn’t help thinking of Archie Hall and his devastated mother. He couldn’t help thinking of the promise he had made to Gloria. That he would find the boy and save him. But he couldn’t see any sense in what was happening. There was a pattern forming. There always was. But Delaney couldn’t see it. Everything seemed so random. So disparate. Peter Garnier, the only man who might know what was going on, certainly wasn’t saying anything. Apart from the killer, of course: he knew what he was doing.
*
Bennett was sitting opposite Matt Henson with a uniformed female officer beside him and the recording device already running. Bennett had noted who was present and announced that he was commencing an interview with Matt Henson.
The man in question had his arms crossed and a neutral expression on his face. This wasn’t the first police station interview room he had ever been in. Not by a long chalk.
‘I’ll ask you again. Where were you last Friday night just before midnight?’
The young man grinned arrogantly. ‘And I’ll answer you again: no comment.’
Bennett slid a photograph of Jamil Azeez across the table. ‘Do you know this man?’
Henson hardly flicked his eyes downward and kept his arms crossed.
‘Never seen him before in my life.’
‘Really?
‘What I said.’
Bennett slid the still photo from the CCTV footage of Henson arguing with Jamil Azeez on Camden High Street across to him.
‘How come you’re seen here getting in his face on Friday night, then?’
Henson didn’t even look at the photo. ‘It’s not me.’
Bennett nodded. ‘You have been doing some community work, I’m led to believe?’
Henson glared back at him. ‘So?’
‘So you’ve been doing it at the university where the young man here is a student. Just a coincidence, is it?’
‘Must be.’
‘And someone else who looks just like you also has a tattoo with the B-negative blood-group sign tattooed on the back of his head as well, I suppose?’
Henson shrugged.
Bennett opened the file next to him and made a show of flicking through some papers. ‘Only I see from your records that B-negative isn’t your blood group, is it?’
Henson shrugged again.
‘When did you get the tattoo done?’
‘It was a birthday present from my dad.’
‘Nice.’
Henson didn’t reply.
‘You sure you don’t want a lawyer here?
‘You charging me with anything?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Don’t need a lawyer, then, do I?’
Bennett smiled patiently. ‘Do you know what the significance of the tattoo on the back of your head is?’
Henson shrugged again.
‘The SS used to have them. B-negative was thought to be the best blood group for the Aryan super-race. Only they got it wrong. The Saxons, the Nordics, type A – that’s the Holy Grail when it comes to blood types. Himmler got that wrong, apparently. Type A – just like you, Matt.’
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
‘Your dad reckons you have Scandinavian heritage.’
Henson shook his head, puzzled. ‘Are you going to make a point here or what?’
‘The little armoury in the shrine to Hitler you’ve got back in your house.’
‘What about it?’
‘That sword looks like it could do a bit of damage. Oh, I know it’s a dress sword, but it works, doesn’t it?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘And there’s a little depression where a knife used to sit. Isn’t there? Where’s the knife, Matt?’
‘I have no idea. Dad bought that case off another collector. That’s how it was when he bought it and it has nothing to do with me.’
‘He was just a filthy immigrant, wasn’t he, Matt – no loss to anyone?’
Henson shrugged again. Folding his arms tighter and leaning back in his chair.
‘I mean, he comes over here, ponces around the university. Maybe shagging the Dean while he’s at it. While you get to clear up leaves and pick up litter after him. Is that what it was, Matt? Did you see him with the Dean? Did you get jealous? I mean, she’s got a soft spot for you, hasn’t she?’
Matt uncrossed his arms and put his hands flat on the table. He was angry now.
‘You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!’
‘That’s it, isn’t it? The filthy Paki immigrant comes over here and cops onto a woman you’ve
got your eye on, the filthy bastard. Is that what you called him?’
Henson smiled contemptuously. ‘I thought you said he was an Iranian.’
‘I didn’t say that at all, did I, constable?’ Bennett turned with a small smile himself to the uniform, who shook her head.
‘Yeah, well, Jamil is an Arab name, smartarse, I know that much.’
Bennett leaned in. ‘I didn’t tell you his name, either.’
Henson’s surly smile disappeared. He sat back and folded his arms again. ‘I want a lawyer, he said.
*
Stella Trent sat at the small table in the corner of her lounge. She ran slender fingers through her gloriously copper-coloured hair and smiled. It wasn’t so long ago that her hair had been lank, her skin pale, not the porcelain-cream it was today but sallow, waxy. Her green eyes had been lifeless, those same eyes that now sparkled with mischief and delight. It had been three months since she had taken the cocaine that had wasted her life. Three months since she had been released. Since she had been rescued.
She picked up a gloss lipstick and touched up her lips. They were the colour of coral. If she had been a member of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood she would have painted herself, she thought, and then made love.
A lot of people had made the mistake of thinking that Stella Trent was uneducated. That she had fallen into prostitution through circumstances beyond her control. But that was only partly true. She was convent-school-educated and had come to London thinking she could be a model: she was tall enough, had the long, shapely legs that a catwalk demanded, had a beautiful face that screamed innocence and Ireland. Trouble was, there were a thousand girls every day coming to the city with the same dreams. And Stella’s looks just weren’t fashionable. She wasn’t gooky or weird enough. But there were modelling jobs available if you didn’t mind going topless. And there were drugs available if you wanted to party all night on the club scene, looking to be spotted. And pretty soon it was more than a sniff here and there, and pretty soon after that it wasn’t just the bra that was being slipped off for the photographers. And pretty soon after that there wasn’t even a camera.