by Mark Pearson
Apart from one thing.
Kate read the document again and wished she never had.
Days later, as she held Jack Delaney’s hand and looked down at the gravestones of his wife and son, she realised that she would never tell Jack the terrible truth that she had learned about the boy. That when the baby had been born it had needed blood; the surgical team had checked automatically but Jack Delaney was not a match.
He wasn’t a match because he hadn’t been the father.
*
Kate blinked her eyes, realising that Jack was still talking to her. ‘He told me that the baby she was carrying when she died wasn’t mine, Kate. He told me it was his.’
Kate could feel a flush rising from her neck, burning her cheeks, felt Jack’s stare upon her as the realisation struck him.
‘You knew this, didn’t you?’ he asked, taken aback.
‘Not all of it. I knew about the baby …’
‘How?’
‘When you were shot, Jack. I looked at your records.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
She almost couldn’t bear to look at the disappointment in his eyes. ‘I shouldn’t have known, Jack. I’m sorry. Would it have helped you if I had told you?’
‘I don’t know.’ He shook his head as though it were an impossible question to answer. ‘It might have.’
‘I thought you’d been through enough.’
Delaney looked at her. ‘We shouldn’t have secrets between us, Kate.’
‘It wasn’t my secret, was it, though? It was your wife’s.’
‘Maybe.’
‘I’m sorry, truly I am. I didn’t know what was for the best. But what about you? I sometimes get the feeling there’s things you are not telling me.’
Delaney looked away and sighed. Then he shook his head and immediately regretted it. ‘No. You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.’ He rubbed his bruised hand. ‘I went to punch his face, just once … but I didn’t. I smashed his picture instead of his face, you know. Not so long ago and I would have hurt him, Kate, really hurt him. But I didn’t … and that’s down to you.’
‘No, it’s not.’
‘Yeah, it is,’ he said emphatically. ‘And you and I both know it.’
Kate took his hand and cleaned the crusted blood gently with a wet tissue, then kissed his bruised knuckles tenderly. ‘So who did beat Roger up?’
‘I don’t know, Kate.’ He shrugged. ‘With all that’s going on right now, there’s not a lot I do know.’ Delaney looked up at her, a determined look in his eye. ‘But I reckon it’s way past time we started finding out.’
*
‘Please, if anybody knows anything about where our boy is. Please, I am begging for you to come forward.’
Archie Woods’s mother’s eyes filled with tears. Alongside her, behind the narrow news conference table, her husband shifted uncomfortably. His hand was gripping his wife’s hand tightly, but his eyes were cast down, his face unreadable.
‘Do you want to turn that down, please?’ Bennett asked the serving guy behind the counter, who responded with a casual nod before muting the sound on the small television mounted on the wall behind the curved Formica counter.
Bennett was sitting on a tall red-vinyl-topped stool, drinking a large espresso in a small Italian café right in the heart of Soho. The coffee was strong enough to kick-start a dead elephant but Bennett didn’t even grimace as he took another sip. The café itself was pretty much as it had been in the 1950s when it first opened. Soho was in a constant state of flux. As fashions and social mores changed so did the architecture of the place, both literally and figuratively. But some places weren’t affected: they didn’t seem to age and custom didn’t stale their infinite capacity for inertia year after year. The coffee bar that Bennett was sitting in, The French House not far around the corner on Dean Street, The Coach and Horses. Bennett approved of that. He didn’t like change.
He finished his coffee and looked up and smiled as the person he was waiting to meet walked into the small café.
My God, she was beautiful, he thought. Young, deadly and beautiful. Just like a black-widow spider.
*
The governor of Bayfield prison stood up as Delaney and Detective Inspector Duncton walked into his office.
‘Can I get you some tea, coffee?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Have there been any specific developments apart from what we have seen on the news?’
‘You know as much as we do, governor.’
‘The good news is that Garnier has agreed to see you.’
‘Big of him!’ said Duncton.
The governor shook his head apologetically. ‘I’m sorry, detective – he’s only agreed to talk to Inspector Delaney.’
‘That’s outrageous.’
The governor held his hands out. ‘There’s nothing we can do.’
‘You are aware that yesterday we found the body of a child he murdered fifteen years ago and kept on ice as a souvenir?’
‘I do know, yes. But the point is, inspector, that he has already confessed to those murders, been tried and sentenced. Finding the body now makes no difference. We can’t charge him again, can we?’
‘He had an accomplice,’ said Duncton. ‘Somebody who knew where the body was. We know that now and he hasn’t been charged, has he?’
‘Not yet,’ said Delaney pointedly.
‘He’s playing us for fools.’
‘Why don’t you sit down, Robert? Have a cup of tea. You’re going to give yourself a heart attack.’
Duncton was certainly turning an unhealthy shade of red. He sat down and loosened his collar. ‘I’ll be waiting here,’ he snapped at Delaney.
Delaney nodded and turned to the governor. ‘You’ve been through the records and are absolutely sure that the only visitor he has ever had was Maureen Gallagher?’
‘Absolutely positive.’
‘What about mail?’
‘He has never received any mail. He has no living relatives, as far as we know.’
‘Did he have any particular friends inside? Anyone who has been released recently?’
The governor shook his head. ‘Nobody has been released from the segregated section for over nine months and nobody is due to be released.’
‘We’ll need the records of all those who have been released from that unit since he has been a prisoner here,’ said Duncton.
The governor nodded. ‘I’ll get on to it. You think he might have … what? Trained an apprentice from here?’
‘It’s possible.’
Delaney shook his head. ‘I think he’s had an accomplice all along and is somehow getting messages to him. What about the guards?’
‘What about them?’
‘Is he ever alone with one of them? Is one of them given particular responsibility for him?’
The governor shook his head again. ‘There’s always a minimum of two guards with him at any time when he is being moved or being treated. It’s prison policy.’
‘Why?’ asked Duncton.
‘Should any accident befall a prisoner …’
‘Which happens,’ said Delaney darkly.
‘Which happens,’ agreed the governor. ‘So protocols are in place.’
‘And in the interview room?’
‘We’ll have eyes on you again, inspector, if not ears. The guards will be just outside at all times.’
‘If they need to come in, tell them not to hurry.’
*
Peter Garnier had his eyes closed. He was humming a tune to himself. Delaney thought it sounded vaguely familiar but he couldn’t quite place it. The door closed behind him. He pulled a chair across, sat down and stared at Garnier without speaking.
After sixty seconds Garnier opened his eyes. Blinking behind the thick lenses of his glasses. ‘The first person to speak loses. Is that it?’
Delaney didn’t reply.
Garnier smiled. His lips thin, bloodless.
Delaney could pi
cture the disease working its way through him. Destroying the neurons in his brain. Some time in the future and he wouldn’t be able to control his balance, movement, speech or even the ability to swallow. The soulless obscenity of the disease. Delaney used to think that nobody deserved it. But Garnier did. He just hoped the drugs they were giving him kept him alive as long as possible. The longer he suffered the better.
‘I’ll make a deal with you, Inspector Delaney,’ said Garnier.
‘I don’t make deals with pond scum.’
‘Then why are you here?’
‘To look you in the face and tell you it’s over.’
‘You’re here to make a bargain. You need my help and you know it.’
‘You’ll die eventually, Garnier. And like I promised, when you do I’ll come and piss on your grave.’
‘What is it the media are calling my old stomping ground? Death Row, isn’t it?’
Again, Delaney didn’t reply.
‘But we’re all living on Death Row, Delaney. We’re all going to die. It’s when and how that’s important.’
‘You are going to die alone and in pain.’
‘Do you know what the Apache Indians believed?’ Garnier didn’t wait for Delaney to reply. ‘They believed that everybody had a spirit. Or essence. Not what the Christians think of as a soul. More like what Philip Pullman refers to as dust, or stuff. Wasn’t it dust that Jahweh blew into Adam’s mouth to give him life, after all? Have you read Philip Pullman, inspector?’
Delaney stared flatly at him.
‘The Apache warrior believed that the slower and more painful a person’s death, the more of his essence the killer took from his victim. Likewise, the mightier the opponent the warrior slayed … the better the essence he took from him, or her. Or someone of spiritual significance.’ He looked at Delaney pointedly. ‘You know, like a priest … or a nun.’
‘You’re a warrior now, are you, Garnier?’
‘I’m a collector, inspector. A special kind. I’ve been collecting life force. It makes me stronger than you can possibly imagine.’
‘You’re not looking too strong to me just now.’
‘I am strong in dust. In essence.’
Delaney shook his head. Whatever he had hoped to get from the man, it was clearly a fool’s errand. The sickness had entered his brain. Literally and metaphorically. He stood up.
‘Take me back to the woods, Delaney. I’ll show you where the final body is buried. The last of the children – and I’ll tell you everything you need to know.’
Garnier smiled again, his thin slips sliding over the yellow bone of his teeth.
Delaney shook his head. ‘You have nothing to deal with, Garnier. We’re done here.’
‘Then the killing will continue.’
Delaney looked at him for a long moment. His hands surprisingly still. He stood up, walked to the door and opened it.
‘Come back here!’ Garnier screamed.
Delaney closed the door behind him.
*
An hour or so later and Delaney stood in front of the display boards in the CID briefing room. The morning meeting was over. Nothing new had been added. Delaney admitted he had learned nothing new from his visit back at Bayfield. Paddington Green had the ball after all, the superintendent had pointed out. White City was just backup, dogsbody work.
The trouble was, Jack Delaney had never been anybody’s dog and he wasn’t going to start now.
He was alone in the room save for Bob Wilkinson, who was collecting the briefing notes that hadn’t already been removed.
Delaney pointed at one of the boards: a blown-up map of Carlton Row and the surrounding areas. A number of coloured markers indicated where the boy had been abducted, the body found in the allotment, the severed head placed on the altar of Saint Botolph’s. The addresses of the murdered children from Carlton Row who’d been taken by Peter Garnier fifteen years before. ‘What are we missing, Bob?’ he asked. ‘What’s at the heart of it?’ He tapped on the board.
Bob Wilkinson joined him at the board, looking at the map that Delaney had indicated, staring at it as if it were some ancient symbol that, if they could only translate it, would solve the mystery for them. In some ways it was.
He pointed to the yellow pin. ‘Used to be that the church was at the heart of the community.’
‘Not any more,’ said Delaney.
‘Why the allotment? The boy was taken from there, Maureen Gallagher’s body was placed there as a marker for the body of Samuel Ramirez.’
‘Maybe it’s not the allotment, sir.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Maybe it’s whose allotment it is. Maybe Archie Woods wasn’t a random victim at all. Maybe he was targeted.’
‘Because of his grandfather?’
Wilkinson shrugged. ‘Maybe. Paddington Green have been all over him, though, and he’s sticking to his story.’
‘He seemed genuinely upset enough to me.’
Sally Cartwright came into the room at that moment, carrying two cups of coffee.
Delaney looked across at her. ‘Do you want to take a rain check on those?’
‘What’s up?’
‘I’m going to have another word with Graham Harper.’
‘I thought Paddington Green was running all this now?’
‘They are. I’ll catch you later, Bob.’
He steered Sally towards the door as Wilkinson nodded at them and picked up the cups of coffee with the look of a man who has lost a penny and found a sixpence.
‘Have you seen Detective Inspector Bennett this morning, sir?’ Sally asked Delaney as they hurried down the stairs towards the exit.
Delaney shook his head. ‘No, and he wasn’t here for this morning’s briefing either. What’s going on?’
‘Nobody can get hold of him. And he was supposed to be interviewing Matt Henson this morning about the Jamil Azeez stabbing.’
‘Matt Henson?’ said Delaney, half surprised.
‘Yeah – didn’t you know?’
‘No, I didn’t. I suppose it was only a matter of time before he graduated to his brother’s league.’
‘His lawyer is demanding that he be bounced.’
‘Someone else can cover for Bennett.’
‘I guess.’
‘What’s Henson got to say for himself?’ Delaney asked, nodding sheepishly at Dave Mathews as they passed the front desk. Matthews gave him an amused salute and Delaney hurried through the double doors and out into the car park before he got a chance to add any further comment.
‘Henson’s lawyered up and is saying nothing.’
‘Doesn’t take after his father in that respect, then.’
As soon as the words were out of his mouth Delaney became aware of the very man heading towards him. His face puce and his fist waving in the air.
‘I want a word with you, Delaney,’ he shouted.
Delaney turned to Sally. ‘Get in the car. I won’t be two ticks.’
Sally headed off to her car and Delaney turned to confront Adam Henson, who promptly poked a finger against his chest. Delaney grabbed the finger, turning his back to the station and the CCTV camera mounted on the wall above the entrance, and pushed it back until Henson squealed with pain and dropped to his knees.
‘I don’t like being poked,’ said Delaney and walked off calmly to join Sally at her car.
‘Did you break his finger, sir?’ she asked evenly.
‘Don’t think so,’ he replied. ‘Let’s go back to Harrow.’
*
Delaney pressed his finger against the bell again, leaning on it for five seconds this time.
‘Maybe he’s got his hearing aid in.’
‘Maybe.’
They waited a little while longer. ‘Come on,’ said Delaney. ‘Let’s go round the back.’
He led the way round the small side alley along the left-hand side of the house, into a small overgrown garden. He tried the handle on the outside door that led into the kitchen bu
t it wouldn’t budge. He moved across to peer through the murky glass to see inside and clearly didn’t like what he saw. He went back to the door and kicked it. It stayed closed. He raised his foot again and kicked harder. It still stayed closed.
‘Do you want me to have a go, sir?’ asked Sally.
‘No, I don’t, constable,’ said Delaney, casting his gaze to the ground and looking for something suitable. He spotted a half-brick in an abandoned flower bed, picked it up and used it to smash the window.
A few moments after picking the shards of broken glass clear he clambered through into the kitchen, looked at the motionless figure of Graham Harper seated in his armchair with his eyes closed and then opened the door to let his assistant in.
Delaney put his hand against the old man’s neck and felt for a pulse. After a moment or two he shook his head at Sally.
Sally pointed to a scrap of paper by a bottle of pills on the kitchen counter. ‘He left a note.’
‘What does it say?’
‘It’s all my fault. Sorry.’ Delaney pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket and hit speed dial.
*
Half an hour later Kate Walker closed up her medical bag and watched as Graham Harper was stretchered out to the waiting ambulance.
‘When did he do it, do you think?’
‘Last evening sometime, I’d say. There was nothing anybody could do. He took a massive dose of medication.’
‘Definitely self-administered?’
Kate shrugged. ‘There was no sign of a struggle, you say?’
Delaney shook his head.
‘No sign of a forced entry?’
‘No. Apart from mine and that was only because the doors were locked.’
‘When did his family last speak to him?’
‘Not since the day before yesterday. The mother blames him for her son’s disappearance.’
‘Looks like suicide, then. That’s more your area, Jack, than mine.’
‘Actually it’s my bloody area!’ said DI Robert Duncton as he barrelled into the room, followed by his Amazonian sergeant, who had to duck a little as she came through the kitchen door. ‘I thought I told you to clear anything through me.’
‘We’ll leave you to it then, Robert,’ said Delaney, smiling and ignoring the way the other man bristled when he used his first name. ‘Come on, Sally. The detective inspector has a scene to process and he doesn’t need us under his feet.’