Hard Evidence

by Mark Pearson

  'Do you have a boyfriend, Detective Constable Cartwright?'

  'Sir?' Her smile fading.

  'Somebody on the force? Somebody to chat to on refs. Someone to sneak off with. Have a crafty fag, a quick kiss, a fumble in the corridor.'

  She shook her head, puzzled. 'No, sir.'

  'What the bloody hell kept you with this then?'

  He snatched the file from her hands. She blinked nervously. 'Records, sir.'

  Walker waved a dismissive hand. 'Go.' Sally walked slowly back to the door. 'And where the blue bloody hell is Delaney?'

  She shrugged apologetically at him and closed the door behind her.

  Walker drummed his manicured fingers on the polished mahogany of his desk, his eyes hardening as he read the report that the detective constable had just delivered.

  Jasper Harrington was in his early thirties. As polished as the pine desk he sat behind. Which was to say, if you were to take a penknife and scratch beneath the surface, you wouldn't find a great deal of character in either. In truth Harrington looked a lot like Richard Hadden, and if Delaney hadn't disliked him before he met him, he certainly did now.

  'Thirty thousand pounds really is quite a large sum of money to carry around on your person.'

  'I'll be all right. I have a police escort.'

  Harrington flicked a small condescending smile. 'If you could tell me what you need the cash for? I'm sure the bank could arrange proceedings in a far safer manner for you and your capital.'

  Harrington had a large stack of bundled twenty-pound notes on the desk in front of him. Delaney gestured at the cash. 'Is this the bank's money?'

  'Technically not. But we still have a duty of responsibility.'

  Delaney held his hand out. 'A duty which you have fulfilled. By getting the money out and returning it to me.'

  The manager still hesitated. 'Things can be done far more safely electronically now.'

  'It's not a loan, is it?'

  'No, sir.'

  Delaney stood up and opened a small overnight bag he had brought with him. The look in his eye made Jasper Harrington sit back a little too sharply for his normal studied poise.

  'If it had been a loan you'd have every right to keep me here, filling in forms, asking endless questions,' Delaney said as he started filling the bag with the stacks of notes.

  'Naturally we need to take certain steps . . .'

  'But this isn't your money. It's my money. And what I do with it is my business. Not your business, not the bank's business. My business. We clear on that now?'

  Harrington nodded, swallowing nervously. His throat had suddenly gone very dry. As a bank manager he wasn't used to dealing with dangerous, violent men, but he could see that that was what he was dealing with right now.

  Delaney walked out, pulling the door shut quietly behind him.

  Harrington took a moment or two to recover his composure, and then picked up the phone, punching in some numbers quickly.

  *

  Delaney walked up to his car, where Bonner was snapping his fingers to the rhythmic rapping of a white English teenager singing about slapping his bitches around. Delaney leaned in through the window and turned it off.

  'What have I told you about my radio?'

  'Jeez, Cowboy, if I had to listen to one more song about a lonely trucker missing his sweetheart Mary-Jane-Jo-Bobbi I'd have ended up cutting my wrists.'

  'Touch it again and you won't need to bother.'

  'Had a couple of calls whilst you were sorting out your pension in there.'

  'Good for you.'

  'You want the good news or the bad news?'

  'No such thing as good news, Bonner.'

  'We've found Billy Martin.'

  Delaney slid in to the passenger seat and threw the sergeant a knowing look. 'You see.'

  'Out near Henley.'

  'Only he isn't going to tell us a thing? Right?'

  'Right.'

  'Somebody beat us to him and made sure of it.'

  'What's that, Irish intuition?'

  'Call it a stab in the dark.' He reached over and pushed the preset button on his radio, and Kenny Rogers' smooth voice flowed out like a twentyyear-old single malt.

  'Are we going to Henley, then?'

  'We're going to Wigmore Street first.'

  'What's there?'

  'Nothing you need to know about.' Delaney held the bag close to his chest as Bonner pulled out into the traffic.

  23.

  The same river that had earlier swallowed him into her cold depths in the dead of night had disgorged Billy, tiring perhaps of his company, as did all who had spent more than a little time with him in life. But in the full brightness of day, that river was a different thing. The air was busy with the sounds of tourists, of wildlife, of oarsmen stroking in their skiffs and sculls, of powered craft chugging softly through the water, of gentle lovers strolling and laughing far in the distance on the footpath. The banks seemed closer together by day, and the masonry of the bridge ahead was a soft grey, not a forbidding black. The sunlight sparkled on the surface of the water like the flash of revelation. The depths below were soothing, inviting. On a day such as this, when the relentless sun burned like an all-cleansing fire, the human spirit looked back to its past and would slip into the water to be reborn. Born again in the cool, ancient water as a beautiful creature of supple movement and flight.

  But the thing that lay on the bank would never go swimming again, would never dart and shimmer in the cool water, and, truth to tell, had never been considered beautiful.

  Delaney pushed roughly through a crowd of morbid onlookers and ducked under the yellow police tape, wincing as his neck muscles objected. He walked over to the group of officers processing the scene, followed by an amused Bonner.

  'You're getting old, Cowboy.'

  'Every day.' He was surprised to see Kate Walker in attendance. Henley was out in the sticks, and although her accent blended into the background as smoothly as a cucumber slice in a crust-trimmed sandwich, she was a town girl work-wise. Strictly city limits.

  'Bit out of your jurisdiction isn't it, Dr Walker?'

  'I was asked.' Kate turned her attention back to the thing that had washed up on the shallow bank. The time in the water had not been kind to Billy Martin. His corpse was bloated with gas and his skin was loose and grey; a rough stroke would slough that skin straight off the body.

  'Lucky for us he was carrying ID. His mother wouldn't recognise him.'

  Delaney watched, feeling neither pity nor loss, as Kate carefully tilted the head to one side. Billy Martin was the kind of person Delaney joined the police force to hurt. Not physically hurt, but in every other way he could. To stop him and to stop his kind. He was a pimp, a rapist, a trader in other people's misery, and Delaney wouldn't have thrown him a rope of piss to save him from drowning. What he did feel as he looked down on Billy Martin's aborted body was disappointment. His death was linked to his sister Jackie Malone's death, Delaney was sure of it, and now whatever secrets Billy Martin had to tell were beyond his powers of persuasion to extract. Delaney dealt with the living; it was up to Kate Walker now to probe Martin's inner recesses and find, if any, what secrets the bloated corpse might conceal.

  'What have you got?'

  Kate looked back up at Delaney, squinting still in the bright sunlight. 'He was tied up with coat-hanger wire. Hands and feet. Then dumped in the water.'

  'Alive?'

  Kate nodded grimly. 'For a while.'

  'They say drowning is one of the better ways to die.'

  'Not like this. He must have been terrified out of his wits.'

  'Billy Martin didn't have a lot of those.'

  'You knew him?'

  'He's Jackie Malone's brother. Her maiden name was Martin.'

  'What happened to her husband?'

  'He died of a heroin overdose eight months after they got married and six months after she fell pregnant.'

  'Not a lucky family.'

  'Never were
. Can you make a guess at what time it happened?'

  'Judging by the state of his skin and the time he was found, I would say he's been in the water a few days. Roughly about the time of the Malone murder. Can't be more specific, I'm afraid.'

  'Anything else you can tell me now?'

  Kate nodded towards one of the forensic officers. 'He had a quarter of an ounce of cocaine on him. Kept sweet in a waterproof plastic container.'

  'Convenient.'

  'Yeah.'

  Delaney took in the dark lustre of her hair, the brilliant flash of emerald from her eyes, the way she almost always had a hint of a smile dancing on her lips, then he caught himself and looked down again at Billy Martin's grossly disfigured face.

  'Thanks, Kate.' A dismissal. He walked over to speak to the Scene of Crime Officers, feeling her gaze on his back but not turning round.

  Half a mile or so upriver from where the body of Billy Martin was found was an old ivy-covered brick pub called the Saracen's Head. Bonner, at the bar, scowled as Delaney fed the jukebox some more coins and punched buttons. It was an old-fashioned country pub. The kind that had a large fireplace and bowls of water and nibbles for dogs. A pub with history, with original oak beams and warm brick walls, and photos of the Victorian forebears of local people who still used the place. A half-a-yard-of-ale glass hung on the wall, and the stone flags on the floor in front of the bar were worn smooth and slightly concave by the countless pairs of feet that had walked across them over the passing centuries.

  It had tradition and heritage, everything Bonner hated in a pub, Delaney surmised, judging by the look on his face as he joined him at the bar. Bonner took his change from a twenty-something barman who had the same enthusiasm for his work as a duck has for orange sauce, then handed Delaney his pint, his frown deepening as the sound of a Dixie Chick, regretting losing her virginity to someone named Earl, started playing in the background.

  Delaney took a swallow of his ale. 'Jesus, Eddie, what is this shit?'

  'They call it Old Peculier for a reason, boss. It's supposed to taste like that. I thought you'd like it.' He smiled, taking a pull on his own cold pint of lager.

  Delaney put his glass back on the counter, wiping his lips as Kate Walker came in through the front door and walked over to them. She smiled tentatively at Delaney. 'Hot out there.'

  'It is.'

  'Thought I'd join you for a drink, if it's not a problem?'

  Bonner moved a bar stool across for her. 'Of course it isn't.'

  Kate flashed a quick smile at the young barman, who had suddenly become more interested in his job. 'Vodka and tonic, please.'

  The barman nodded enthusiastically and took down a glass. Kate looked across at Delaney and arched an eyebrow. 'Anything for you, Inspector?'

  Delaney gestured at his glass of ale. 'I'll trade this for a whisky, please.'

  Kate looked over at Bonner. 'Sergeant?'

  'I'm fine with this, thanks.'

  The barman lifted a hefty whisky glass to the optic, but Kate stopped him before he could pour. 'The good stuff, and make it a double.'

  He nodded and poured out a large shot of Glenmorangie and put the glass on the bar.

  Kate gestured. 'Scottish whisky all right with you?'

  Delaney picked up the glass. 'We live in troubled times, Dr Walker. So needs must when the Devil drives.'

  'It's Kate. Please.'

  Delaney swirled the whisky around the glass, the sun lighting it to a sparkling tawny gold. He held it up to Kate. 'Slainte.'

  'What does that mean exactly?'

  Delaney considered for a moment. 'That I'm probably living in the wrong country.'

  Kate clinked her glass against his and drained her vodka and tonic in one. 'I have to go.'

  Delaney looked surprised. 'You just got here.'

  'Just for a quick one, it's so damn hot out there. And besides, I'm driving. Got a date with Billy Martin waiting for me back in the office.'

  'Be careful. He's got a reputation,' said Bonner.

  Kate looked pointedly at Delaney. 'Haven't they all?'

  Delaney almost smiled. 'Drive carefully.' He watched her as she walked to the door. There was definitely an animal litheness in her movement, a sensuality that wasn't lost on him or on the young barman, who was watching her leave with open admiration. Delaney glared at him and he turned back quickly to polishing beer glasses. Delaney took another sip of his whisky and had to concede to himself that he liked it. A day for surprises all round.

  Bonner leaned forward, interrupting his thoughts. 'So, Billy Martin, what do you reckon, boss?'

  Delaney shrugged. 'He's not going to win any more beauty contests.'

  'He was a piece of work. No doubt about that. Seems he upset the wrong people this time.'

  'I want you to go back to Jackie Malone's flat. Canvass her neighbours again. See if he had been there on the day she was killed.'

  'You reckon she was murdered because of him?'

  'Some people just get in the way, don't they? They're in the wrong place at the wrong time.'

  Delaney watched through the pub window as Kate climbed into her open-topped BMW. The music changed, the Cowboy Junkies singing 'Blue Moon', and he was back in another place, another time.

  Sinead turned the dial on the radio, twiddling it with mock annoyance.

  'How many times have I told you not to fiddle with the radio?'

  Delaney's wife laughed; it was a musical laugh, full of sunlight and joy. 'Just because you like that rubbish doesn't mean the rest of the world should suffer.'

  'I should wash your mouth out with carbolic soap, young lady.'

  Delaney spun the wheel, turning in to the forecourt of the petrol station. The adverts finished and the Cowboy Junkies started to play. 'Blue Moon'. One of Delaney's favourites. 'Now you can't tell me that isn't proper music.'

  His wife laughed again. 'I can't tell you anything, Jack. I've learned that much by now.'

  Delaney got out of the car, popped open the petrol tank and was reaching for the fuel nozzle when the plate-glass window of the shop exploded. Delaney instinctively raised his arm to protect his eyes from the storm of flying glass. His wife's scream carried over the sound of the shotgun blast and two men came out of the shop. Thick-set men dressed in black with balaclavas covering their heads, shotguns held at waist level, sweeping the forecourt in front of them.

  They shouted at Delaney, their shotguns trained on him, but he couldn't hear them, and he watched frozen for a moment until his wife screamed at him and her words finally registered.

  'For Christ's sake, Jack, get in the car.'

  And he did so, watching as a transit van drove across the forecourt with its back doors open. One of the men jumped in and the other ran to catch up. Delaney turned the key in the ignition and gunned the engine, not listening as his wife shouted at him, putting the car in gear and screeching after them, swerving to avoid an incoming car.

  The second man jumped into the van, half falling back with the motion and landing with a bone-jarring crash on his knees, but a hand to the inside wall of the van steadied him and he brought his shotgun round to bear on the pursuing car. Sinead screamed again, and the sound ripped into Delaney's consciousness like a dousing of ice-cold water as he realised what he was doing. But it was too late. The shotgun blasted, and Delaney's windscreen exploded, the car spinning out of control as the screaming blended with the screeching of brakes and the crumpling of metal . . . and a curtain of blood and black descended over Delaney's eyes, over his life.

  Delaney jolted awake from sleep, back in his flat, and it was night-time. Four years had passed, and there was not one single night since when he had not woken from the same nightmare. Only this time it was different. This time when he turned at the sound of his wife's musical laugh, it wasn't her eyes that he saw sparkling back at him, but Kate Walker's. Kate Walker's slender alabaster throat, her ebony hair, the blood red of her lips and the green brilliance of her eyes. Her lips parted and her hot,
moist breath brushed over him like a velvet kiss.

  He ran a hand across his forehead and it was wet with sweat, his sheets rumpled. He wasn't sure what it was he was feeling, but it was only partly guilt.

  He reached over to the bottle that stood on his bedside cabinet, poured himself a measure of whiskey and swallowed fast. If it was a fever he had, then the medicine he was taking wouldn't provide a cure, but he took another swallow and hoped that the burn of the alcohol would do its job and keep the dreams from him at least. But it never had yet, and in truth he wasn't sure that he wanted them kept away any more.

  24.

  Bonner had spent the morning speaking to Jackie Malone's neighbours, even though he knew it was a waste of his time. He had better things to be doing on a Saturday, and true to his prognosis he had nothing new to report. It was the land of the three wise monkeys. Nobody saw anything, nobody heard anything and nobody was saying nothing to nobody. Bonner had left the next-door neighbour on the right-hand side until last. The top flat. The same set-up.

  He sat uncomfortably on the wooden kitchen chair, squirming a little, trying to get his buttocks comfortable as the hard ridge in the centre of the chair bit between them. He watched as Melissa poured him a cup of tea. Her real name was Karen Stuple but she felt the name Melissa sounded sexier. Bonner didn't think she looked like a Melissa, or a Karen come to that; to him she was more of an Ingrid or a Tonya. She was from Germanic stock and it showed, with long, powerful legs and a decidedly Teutonic chest. She was the kind of woman the poet Betjeman would have enjoyed watching play tennis or riding about town on her bicycle. Bonner looked at her legs, balanced on four-inch spiked heels and encased in black stockings and suspenders, then upwards from her creamy muscled thighs to her generous upper body, moulded by a lacy basque into something almost cartoonish. Jessica Rabbit meets Betty Boop. The loose green cardigan on top did little to detract from her sexiness, Bonner thought, nor the thick red lipstick or the sunshine-yellow hair. Bonner liked his women to look like women, and with Melissa there was very little doubt. If her hair colour came from a bottle and her chest from a plastic surgeon's shopping list, he didn't mind at all. It just showed she cared more about her appearance than other women, and that was a trait that Bonner thoroughly approved of.