by Mark Pearson
And in the other freezer, next to the shickle-filled one. Frozen in a single clear block of ice. A Catholic priest, his eyes closed, his hands by his sides. Like some bizarre religious relic. Father Fitzpatrick, the fifth member of Peter Garnier’s group. Sally couldn’t understand how these people found each other out and made their associations. She only knew that they did. And for every paedophile ring that the Met or the international police forces busted, more would spring up around the world. Like fungal growth.
But most of those in this particular ring were either dead or dying and that left only one. Bill Thompson. The fisherman. The crab and lobster dealer. The fragment of shell found in Maureen Gallagher’s ear made perfect sense now. Even if how she’d become involved in it all didn’t. Sally understood why the severed head had been put on the altar at Saint Botolph’s: it was indicating the identity of the priest at the time of the murdered children’s capture. Father Fitzpatrick, who would never harm a child again and whom she fervently hoped was even now burning in hell. Sally understood that but she didn’t understand why Maureen Gallagher had been killed. Maybe it had just been bad luck. The wrong place at the wrong time. Like Samuel Ramirez and Alice Peters.
Sally turned to Delaney, who was still gripping the steering wheel as if it might come off the column into his hands. ‘Sir—’ she said but that was all as Delaney snapped back at her.
‘Not now, Sally.’
She nodded and took out her mobile, hitting the speed dial. ‘Hello, sergeant,’ she said as the phone was answered and then she frowned, covering for Delaney. ‘I’m not sure where we are and the inspector’s a bit busy right now. He just asked me to see if you could chase up Crimint. Did we get any results back on Maureen Gallagher? Has she been in the system at any time?’ Sally nodded again. ‘Just text back if the signal’s out of range,’ she said as Delaney entered a tunnel and the phone, true to her prediction, cut straight out.
Sally closed her eyes as the blinding flash of another pair of headlamps swept over them, a screaming horn held down for long seconds as they passed. And she kept her eyes pretty much closed for the rest of the journey, which thankfully wasn’t for long. It was probably the quickest journey in terms of speed that she had ever made in a car, but it absolutely felt like the longest.
She whispered a little prayer silently in her head, over and over again. ‘Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep; should I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.’
*
Voices were singing in Bill Thompson’s head.
The man on the radio walking in a rainstorm, trying to wash the pain and hurt away. Failing. He was remembering the smell of the shickle, ripe in his throat, the sharp cuts in his knees as he was forced to kneel on the slivers of lobster and crab shell.
His uncle singing along to the music. Grunting. Drowning out the sound of Bill’s own screams, the tears running down his face, marking him. He looked across at the small window again, fifty-six years later, stained so green with algae that hardly any light filtered through and the bottom of the ocean that he was in was now as dark and as cold as the deepest sea on earth.
He looked down at his twitching right hand, arching it so that the sinews stood out like cord and made the blood vessels move below the translucent skin like thin blue slugs. His fingers curled inward, making his hand a crab once more.
The year of Our Lord 2010.
He moved his head weakly to one side, looking up at the figure above him, his right eye wet with tears, his left blind, unfocused. He tried to work the muscles in his lips and managed a ‘please’. Or what passed for it. But he couldn’t manage the words don’t shoot.
But Jack Delaney was perfectly capable of speech.
‘He’s right, Gloria,’ said Delaney. ‘Put down the gun.’
And the girl in the boot spun round to point the shaking gun that she held in her small, perfectly formed hand at her rescuer from thirteen years earlier.
‘I don’t think so,’ she said.
*
Bennett had parked his car further up the beach. He walked across the sand carefully. The sky overhead was dark with rain and the visibility was poor. He was dressed in a black overcoat with a Black Watch cap on his head. If somebody had been standing twenty yards away they probably wouldn’t have seen him coming. Which was just as Bennett liked it. Moving unseen. Coming up on people unexpectedly. It was what he was trained for after all. It was what he was good at.
That, and killing people.
*
Delaney held his hand up, placating, putting himself between Sally and Gloria. Gloria’s eyes were dancing. Wild with anger. With pain.
‘I remembered, Jack. I remembered what he did to me. Peter Garnier appearing on television was like a key turning. Stuff that I had been holding back for so very long came flooding back to me.’
‘I know,’ said Delaney. Tears pricking in his own eyes as he saw the pain in the young woman’s as her mind took in again the horror of what had happened to her.
‘And not just him, but Peter Garnier and the priest and Graham Harper and the young one who had the camera and took the pictures and filmed it as it was happening.’
‘I know,’ said Delaney once more. ‘But this is not the way. Look at him. He’s helpless.’
Delaney pointed at the frail old man lying on the floor, his right side twitching, the left half of his face slack and unmoving, drool running from the corner of that lip onto his chin. His one watery eye, pleading and pathetic.
‘Why did you have to kill them, Gloria? Why kill the woman?’
‘She didn’t,’ said a voice behind him and Delaney looked round shocked to see a single-barrelled shotgun pointing straight at him. Shocked even more to see who was holding it.
*
‘Jack Delaney, saviour of little girls, and here you are, finally, in the flesh.’
‘I’m sorry – I don’t know who you are,’ Delaney said, clearly puzzled.
‘Oh yes, you do,’ said the blonde woman, who had big wide innocent blue eyes. ‘I waited for you, but you never came. All these years and you never came for me like you did for Gloria.’
‘Who are you?’
‘She’s Alice Peters, sir,’ said Sally Cartwright. The thought that had been niggling at the back of her mind during the car journey suddenly came clear to her. ‘She’s Maureen Gallagher’s daughter.’
The woman smiled, and her face softened. Her voice became that of a child. A seven-year-old girl. ‘That’s right. I’m Alice Peters,’ she said and Delaney felt the hairs on his arms and on the back of his neck rise. ‘I’m a good girl.’
‘Why don’t you put the gun down, Gloria?’ said Delaney. ‘You don’t have to be part of this.’
‘I didn’t remember. Not all of it,’ said Gloria, her voice trembling. ‘Even after you came to see me and Mary. I had flashes of it after Garnier started appearing on television. But then you led Alice to me – she’d been following you, Jack. And she showed me the photo and told me their names, and then I remembered.’ Tears sprang into her eyes. ‘I remembered it all. They hurt me, Jack. They hurt me so badly.’
Delaney felt like telling her to go ahead and pull the trigger but he knew that his cousin would never forgive him if he did. It struck Delaney that this was the real therapy that most victims of abuse needed. Revenge. But he looked again at the seemingly angelic face of Alice Peters and changed his mind. There were all kinds of madness in the world. Not all of it could be cured the same way.
But he didn’t have to say anything.
Gloria looked down at the sick man, who was twitching on the floor like a crab that had had its back stepped on, and let the gun slip from her fingers.
Delaney could see now that the gun was only in fact a taser, but he wouldn’t have been surprised if the shock of it would have killed the man anyway. He didn’t look like he had many days of breath left in him and Delaney felt no sorrow at the fact. Gloria crossed to him and Delaney held her in
his arms, mindful of the shotgun still trained on him and Sally.
‘You don’t look strong enough to cut off your mother’s head. Did you have help?’ he asked Alice as he kissed the top of Gloria’s head and hugged her to him, making reassuring sounds as best he could. He was trying to keep Alice talking.
‘Yeah. She had help killing the whore,’ said a deep voice.
Delaney looked up, surprised once more.
*
Alice seemed to have grown taller, her shoulders thrown back, her eyes full of knowledge now, full of anger.
‘I look after little Alice when that old pervert,’ she pointed at Bill Thompson, ‘doesn’t keep me locked up with drugs and tasers and ropes.’
‘And what’s your name?’ asked Delaney, fighting to keep his voice level, the hairs on his neck standing up again, his mind whirling. He looked across to the taser lying at Thompson’s feet and knew that he wouldn’t have time to reach it before she pulled the trigger.
‘George,’ she said. ‘My name is George. And I know who you are. You’re the disappointment.’ Her voice was still unnervingly deep.
‘And is Alice there, is she with you?’ asked Sally.
‘Alice is safe, but she doesn’t want to talk to you right now.’
Delaney was sure it was his imagination but it seemed that the ends of the young woman’s hair were sticking out now too, as if they’d been brushed with static electricity. ‘What happened then, George? How did you get free?’ he asked.
The woman shuddered and her eyes closed. When she opened them again, they were different once more. ‘George doesn’t like you, Inspector Delaney,’ she said in the voice of the young woman they had first met.
‘Why is that?’
‘Because you disappointed little Alice.’ She pointed at Gloria. ‘You were in the papers for rescuing her. She was supposed to be Alice’s replacement. Little Alice was too old for him at eleven. But Gloria never came and so he kept her. And as she grew older he drugged her and beat her and made her work. And used her. And every couple of years he made her speak to other children and get them to play. And after a while he killed them. Like Peter Garnier killed the little boy all those years ago.’
‘And he kept him in the deep freezer.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘He used hot water so the ice froze clear. So he could show the children, you understand.’
‘No,’ said Delaney, his head spinning.
‘He’d show the children the little boy’s body so that they could see what would happen to them if they didn’t do what he said. And then he made them do things.’
‘And why didn’t he kill you, Alice?’
Alice closed her eyes and then opened them again, her voice once more that of a little girl’s. ‘Because I was special. I could play with the children. I could bring them to the party. And I always had ice cream.’ She shuddered again, her eyes widening, her nostrils flaring, her adult woman’s voice thick with anger. ‘Gloria never came and you never rescued me.’
Delaney nodded, keeping his voice calm. He could hear police sirens in the distance and wondered who had called them. He needed to keep her talking. ‘It wasn’t her fault. And if Garnier had brought Gloria down here he would have killed little Alice too.’
The woman’s face crumpled. ‘But you could have rescued me too,’ she said in the frightened whisper of a little girl. ‘But nobody ever came. Never.’
She squeezed her eyes shut as tears poured out and Delaney dived for the taser, rolling up to his feet and pointing it at her.
Only her eyes were wide open now and this time they were furious.
‘Nobody hurts Alice any more!’ she screamed at him.
And Delaney pulled the trigger, sending fifty thousand volts into the woman’s body. She staggered back and her body convulsed but she stayed standing and her mouth pulled wide in a rictus grin as she levelled the shotgun at Delaney.
‘You’ll have to do better than that,’ she said.
‘No!’ screamed Gloria as she threw herself at Delaney.
And Alice Peters pulled the trigger.
*
The scream seemed to hang in the air as if time were suspended. Delaney rolled over and looked around. Alice was lying on the floor with Tony Bennett holding her down. Kate was standing behind him. She rushed across as Delaney and Gloria stood up.
‘Are you all right, Jack?’ she asked breathlessly.
‘I’m fine. What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Tony brought me.’
Kate walked across to the body of Bill Thompson. The shotgun blast had removed most of his face. It seemed a ridiculous thing to do but she knelt down and put her hand on his wrist. She was not at all surprised to find that he had no pulse.
Delaney walked to the back of the large boathouse, to the door from behind which the scream had sounded. The door was locked but a shoulder charge from Delaney battered it loose to hang from one hinge. Inside, huddled in the corner, Archie Woods looked up at him with wide frightened eyes.
‘It’s all right, Archie,’ said Delaney. ‘You’re safe now.’
He held his arms wide and the little boy, sensing that Delaney was right and that he was indeed safe, ran into their enfolding embrace.
Delaney stepped out of the boat shed, the young boy cradled in his arms hanging onto his neck.
A broadside of flashbulbs blinded him momentarily and then he saw the army of news reporters and photographers behind the cordon line that had already been set up. At the forefront Melanie Jones, as ever … only this time she wasn’t shouting questions at him, she was clapping her hands and smiling. Delaney looked at her for a moment and then nodded.
*
Bennett handed Delaney a cup of tea as, behind them, a squad of SOCO and CID headed into the boat shed. Bennett shook his head, puzzled. ‘She could kill all those people. Could cut the head off her own mother, and yet couldn’t bring herself to kill the man who had been holding her captive all these years.’
‘The adult Alice couldn’t – the controlling personality.’
‘Stockholm syndrome?’
Delaney shrugged. ‘Something like it … which was why she brought Gloria here to do it for her, I guess.’
‘And she couldn’t kill Thompson either?’
‘No. And I’m glad. She’s had enough to deal with as it is.’
‘You’d have pulled the trigger?’
Delaney looked at him for a moment. ‘I take it you’re not really from Doncaster?’ he said, taking a sip of the hot, sweet tea.
‘No. Organised crime tactical unit. Right here in this fair city. CO19 before that.’
‘So. How did you find us?’
‘You were under investigation, Jack.’
‘Me?’ said Delaney, trying to keep his face neutral. A number of possibilities running through his mind about what he could have been investigated for. None of them good.
‘A guy called Alexander Zaitsev. Came here in the early 1990s. Russian Mafia. A major, major player. Drug dealing, prostitution, people trafficking. He’s been the focus of our attention for a long time and today we moved to close him down. Multitask forces from the States, Russia, France, Holland and Great Britain all coordinating.’
Delaney’s brow furrowed. ‘What the hell’s that got to do with me?’
‘Zaitsev’s London accountant.’
Delaney took another sip of his tea and the penny dropped. ‘Roger Yates,’ he said.
‘Exactly. Your brother-in-law. Up to his neck in laundering money for Zaitsev. We weren’t sure about your connection. You just bought a house in Belsize Park and paid a very large deposit in cash. Let’s just say our interest was piqued. As was Zaitsev’s: he wasn’t sure if Yates was feeding you information, apparently, so he tried to take you out.’
‘The shooter at the burger van?’
‘Yep.’
‘And the woods?’
Bennett shook his head.
‘How c
an you be sure?’
‘Someone like Zaitsev goes down and, believe me, there are all kinds of high-level lieutenants queuing up to do a deal.’
‘So who did it?’
‘Don’t know. But it wasn’t the Russians.’
‘But it was this Zaitsev who worked Roger over?’
Bennett nodded. ‘His people, anyway. Yates wasn’t supposed to survive.’
Delaney shrugged. ‘This is all news to me.’
‘I know, inspector. Yates agreed to give us what we needed. He’s turned Queen’s evidence. You’re in the clear on this.’
Delaney nodded, relieved: he had too many skeletons in the closet for too much close examination. ‘I still don’t understand how you came to be here.’
‘Just in the nick of time, too.’ Bennett smiled.
‘Well, yes.’ Delaney didn’t like to dwell too much on the recent memory of a deranged woman pointing a shotgun at him and pulling the trigger.
‘After the operation today I was in White City briefing your boss,’ said Bennett. ‘Kate spoke to me – she was worried about you when you dropped off the radar.’
‘And …’
Bennett grinned more widely. ‘And you didn’t drop off my radar … I had a tracer on you.’
Delaney finished his tea. ‘Please tell me your name’s not Tony Bennett, at least?’
Bennett held his grin. ‘Nah. It’s Tony Hamilton.’
Delaney held his hand out. ‘Nice to meet you. Thanks for the assist.’
The younger cop slapped him on the arm. ‘Well, you’re the poster boy for the Met, aren’t you? We couldn’t have your face plastered over that boathouse wall.’
Delaney grimaced again at the memory. ‘What’s going to happen to Roger?’
Tony Hamilton shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Witness-protection programme, I should imagine. You’ll probably never see him again.’
Delaney crumpled the plastic beaker in his hand. ‘I always knew he was a little shit.’
Hamilton slapped him on the arm again. ‘Well, his shit just got canned, Jack.’