by Mark Pearson
'He certainly is that.'
Delaney looked at Moffett's grotesque corpse. 'Was it suicide?'
Campbell looked at him for a long moment. 'Did you know him personally, Jack?'
'I don't think I went to the right school.'
'Just answer the bloody question.'
Delaney's eyes flattened. 'What going on, Diane?'
'You've never met or had dealings with Alexander Moffett?'
'You have a point to make, why don't you just make it?'
Campbell held up a piece of paper. 'His suicide note.'
'And?'
'And in it, Detective Inspector Delaney . . . in it he tells us why he committed suicide. It says that you were blackmailing him.'
Delaney gritted his teeth angrily. 'I never met the man.'
'Not only that, but you were selling him cocaine and turning a blind eye to the party games he played with young children. The private films he made.'
Delaney nodded, the penny dropping. 'Ah.'
'For money, Delaney. Lots of money.'
'And you believe this?'
'Why would he lie?'
Delaney shrugged. 'And why would he kill himself now?'
'Because he has a young child of his own, Jack. Coming up to her ninth birthday. She lives with her mum, but he has access. And he was scared of what he might do.'
'He told you this?'
Campbell held up the sheet of paper. 'All in the letter.'
'Convenient that it's typewritten.'
'He couldn't live with himself any more so he thought he'd make amends.'
'It's all bullshit, Diane.'
Campbell glared at him. 'Don't call me that.'
'How am I supposed to fit into all this?'
'Jackie Malone. It all comes back to her.'
Delaney looked over at Bonner, but Bonner's face was impassive, unreadable. He looked back at Campbell. 'Go on?'
'Alexander Moffett didn't just make shows for Sunday morning television.'
'I'm listening.'
'He made all sorts of films. Pornography. Like Sin Sisters, for example, starring your old friend Jackie Malone.'
'What's that got to do with me?'
Campbell carried on, ignoring him. 'The thing is, he made other kinds of films too. Films for a specialised market. Kiddie porn and other very nasty stuff.' She held up a DVD case. 'Jackie Malone dying.'
Delaney went very quiet and Campbell gave him a hard, flat look. His phone suddenly rang, shattering the silence. Delaney answered it before Campbell could object.
'Delaney?' He could hear Kate's worried voice on the other end of the phone and kept his face neutral as she spoke.
'It's Kate. Someone's setting you up for the murder of Jackie Malone.'
'It's in hand. Don't say anything to anybody, okay? I'm dealing with it.'
He clicked the phone off.
'Who was that, Jack?'
'If it is any of your business, it was my sister-in-law. Some of your people have been questioning her.'
'Standard procedure. You know how it works.'
'Anybody upsets my daughter and they'll have me to deal with.'
'Let's get back to the kiddie porn, shall we, Jack.'
'It's got nothing to do with me.'
'We found copies in your flat.'
'You've been to my flat?'
Campbell's look was pure granite. 'Yes, we've been to your flat.'
'You had no right.'
'We had every right. We had a warrant and we found the cocaine.'
Delaney shook his head angrily. 'Jesus Christ, Diane, half a dab.'
'I told you not to call me that. And damn near a kilo is a little more than a dab. I told you to talk to me, didn't I? About Jackie Malone, about your relationship with her.' She shook the suicide note at him and pointed at Moffett. 'And now this sick dead fuck is saying you killed her.'
Delaney sighed, resigned. He could see the way this was going, but couldn't see a way out of it, for now. 'This is a set-up, Diane. I didn't take that cocaine, it's a plant. I've got nothing to do with those films or with Moffett. I've never even heard of him. And I sure as shite had nothing to do with Jackie's murder. You know that!'
Campbell shrugged angrily. 'You've left me with no choice, you stupid prick.'
'Just do it then.'
'Detective Inspector Jack Delaney, I am arresting you on suspicion of murder. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.' She turned to Bonner. 'Cuff him and take him in.'
Bonner shrugged apologetically and held out the cuffs. Delaney turned round and held out his wrists, looking back at Campbell. 'Is this going to affect my promotion?'
'Just take him away, Sergeant.'
Bonner led Delaney out of the room as Campbell glanced down at the dead body of Alexander Moffett and shook her head. She looked at the shell-shocked uniforms who were gathered about the room.
'And for fuck's sake, someone give me a cigarette.'
Outside, Delaney walked ahead of Bonner and a uniformed officer to a waiting car. As Bonner opened the door for him to get in, Kate drove into the driveway and jumped out of her car.
'What the hell's going on, Jack?'
'Unpaid parking fines.'
Kate rounded on Bonner. 'Eddie. Come on. What's going on here?'
Bonner shook his head. 'It doesn't concern you, Dr Walker.'
Delaney looked at her impassively. 'He's quite right, there's a dead man in there. Stick with him.'
Kate turned back to Bonner. 'Where's Campbell?'
'She's inside. Not in a good mood.'
'It's not going to improve any.'
She turned sharply on her heel and walked into the house. Bonner put his hand on Delaney's head, bending him into the car. Delaney sat in the back and Bonner turned to the uniform. 'I can take it from here, thanks, Jimmy.' The policeman nodded and headed back towards the house. Bonner walked around and got in the front seat, firing up the engine. He tilted the rear-view mirror so he could see Delaney's face.
'What's going on, Jack?'
'You tell me.'
'That's not the way it works. You know that.'
Delaney held up his hands. 'Not really. Not used to sitting in this position.'
'I had to put the cuffs on.'
'Sure you did.'
'She wasn't a happy bunny, Cowboy. No point both of us pissing her off.'
Delaney nodded his head and looked out the window. 'You reckon this good weather will hold?'
'We'll make an Englishman of you yet.'
'Not in this lifetime.'
Bonner laughed drily. 'As for good weather, you said there was a shit storm coming and you were right. And it's all coming your way, Cowboy.' He shook his head and readjusted the mirror.
Kate walked into the study, her heart hammering in her chest. She fought hard to stay calm. Delaney needed her to stay focused, she reckoned. And strangely, the knowledge made her heart beat a little faster.
Campbell gave her a curt acknowledgement as she entered and gestured atMoffett's body. 'I need to know if it was suicide or if he was helped.'
Kate knelt down by the body of Alexander Moffett, opening her police surgeon's bag and letting the familiar routine steady her nerves. She felt as if every eye in the room was trained on her. She looked at the ligature marks around the dead man's neck. Rope burns that, had he survived, would have marked him for the rest of his life. But he hadn't survived. The man's death was clearly tied up with Jackie Malone, but she didn't know how. She looked up at Diane Campbell.
'What exactly do you think happened here?'
'We don't know, Dr Walker. He was found by his housekeeper.'
'A suicide note?'
'A typed one, left on his computer.'
'What did he say in it?'
'Said he couldn't live with himself. Couldn't live with the guilt.'
Kate looked back down at the swollen face, twisted in agony. 'He chose a particularly unpleasant way to go.'
Campbell nodded. 'I have a hypothetical for you.'
'Go on.'
'Somebody orders a man – at gunpoint say, or some other threat – to stand on a low stool. The rope has been fixed, the noose tied. He tells the man to put the rope around his own neck. He has a gun on him, so who knows, he probably would do it. Then the stool is kicked away and the man is strangled.'
'What's the question?'
'Is there any way of telling that? Any way of telling it was murder and not suicide.'
Kate shook her head. 'Under those circumstances, probably not. If there was a struggle, we could get some indicators – skin under his fingernails, that kind of thing. Otherwise it's very hard to prove.'
'What about fingerprints off the rope?'
Kate shook her head again. 'No chance. We'll test for fibres, but the surface is too rough for prints.'
Kate tilted the man's head and looked at the bruising around his neck.
'I can tell you one thing.'
'What?'
'This wasn't a quick death. He would have taken a while to die. He'd have to really hate himself to do it.'
'Unless he had help.'
Kate looked down at Moffett again.
'Yeah. Unless he had help.'
In the back of Bonner's car, Delaney looked down at the cuffs on his hands and flexed his wrists. There was no chance of sliding them off, the sergeant had made sure of that. He shifted sideways on the seat and looked at Bonner in the rear-view mirror.
'You getting a buzz out of taking me in, Eddie?'
'Someone had to do it, boss. That's what the taxpayers pay their taxes for.' He shrugged. 'Nothing personal.'
'From this angle, it feels kind of personal.'
'What is it we always say? If you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to be scared of.'
'We know the system better than that, though, don't we?'
Bonner nodded with a sly smile. 'I'd be lying if I said we didn't.'
'It's a frame. I don't know why. But someone has put me in it. Think about it.'
Bonner shook his head again. 'Not my job, Cowboy. I'm just a policeman, and only a sergeant at that. I don't get paid to think.'
Delaney grunted. 'Cheers, mate.'
'I'm not your friend, Delaney. I never was. I work with you. End of story.' He met Delaney's eyes in the mirror. 'That is, I used to work with you.'
Bonner turned his attention back to the traffic and Delaney slumped against the side of the car. He hoped Kate Walker would be careful who she spoke to. One of his colleagues had set him up. They had killed more than once, and to Delaney it was perfectly clear that they would happily kill again.
Siobhan screamed. High-pitched and terrified. She yelled again and Wendy laughed as she pushed the swing higher. 'Don't stop!' Siobhan loved to go as high as she could. She loved it and was terrified by it at the same time. She remembered last year when her dad had taken her to an amusement park. She couldn't get enough of some of the rides. Ones that went high in the air and crashed to the ground. Ones that whirled like gigantic whisks, spinning and wheeling and turning and dipping. She'd laughed, screamed herself hoarse on that day. Her dad had paid for her to go on the rides time and time again, but wouldn't go on them himself, even though she and Wendy had teased him mercilessly. He claimed he had an inner ear problem which meant he couldn't go on spinning rides. Siobhan laughed as she remembered it.
Across the park, a tall man in a dark raincoat sat on a bench and watched as her aunt swung the little girl higher and higher. The man took a long, thin cigar from a case and lit it, the flame from his silver lighter flaring his pupils to pinpricks and flashing the blue of his eyes. He watched Siobhan as she swung higher, her excited, terrified screams loud in the hot evening air. And he smiled.
Delaney looked out of the side window at the traffic speeding past. People hurrying home to their Saturday tea. Hundreds of different lives locked in the bubbles of their own cars. Their own worlds. He thought of the tens of thousands of faces he must have seen through the lens of a car windscreen over the years. Commuters returning home. Sales executives knocking off early. Office workers keen to make happy hour at their local. Nurses, teachers, civil servants, account clerks and shop assistants, bank managers and chemists. People who could work nine to five and switch off with the clock. People who could go home to normal families and normal lives. Something that Delaney couldn't do. He sometimes wondered what his life would have been like if he had become an accountant or a solicitor instead of a policeman. His wife would probably still be alive, he knew that. They'd be living in a nice house in a suburb somewhere outside of London, sitting on the green belt with the country on his doorstep. A wife at home with him and their children, kicking a football in the garden and getting told off for spoiling the vegetable patch. But Delaney wasn't a solicitor, and his wife wasn't alive and complaining about broken tomato plants. She was dead. Delaney looked away from the window and a cold calm came over him.
Bonner swung the wheel, turning the car off the main street into a suburban cut-through, and as he did so, Delaney leaned forward, held his hands out and quickly looped them over Bonner's head, pulling the chain of the cuffs tightly into his neck.
Bonner swerved and fought to keep control of the car. His voice a painful rasp. 'Jesus, Jack. What are you doing? You want to get us killed? Jack?'
But Delaney didn't answer. He flexed the powerful muscles in his forearms and pulled harder. Bonner started choking, unable to speak. He held his hands to his throat, trying to prise Delaney's fingers loose, and as his legs jerked uncontrollably, his foot stamped down on the accelerator and the car swerved off the road, mounted the pavement and smashed headlong into a lamppost. Bonner flew forward, Delaney dragged behind as the airbag exploded in the sergeant's face and the gurgling stopped.
27.
Delaney unhooked his cuffed hands from Bonner's neck and whispered in his ear, 'Nothing personal.'
He awkwardly manoeuvred his hands into Bonner's jacket pocket and pulled out the key for the cuffs. He had just slipped them off his wrists when the wrecked front passenger door was wrenched open and a large, muscular man in a tracksuit leaned in.
'Are you guys all right?'
Delaney nodded, catching his breath. 'I think so, but if you've got a mobile, could you call an ambulance?'
Delaney opened the back door and climbed out.
The large man gave him a puzzled look as he fumbled in his pocket for his phone. 'Jesus. What happened here? You drove straight into that lamppost.'
Delaney held out his warrant card. 'It was an accident, the steering went.'
The man nodded towards Bonner. 'Is he okay?'
'He'll be fine. The airbag knocked him out.'
'You're both lucky to be alive.'
'Tell me about it.'
The jogger pulled out his mobile phone and punched in the call. 'Ambulance, please. There's been an accident.'
He described what had happened and their location, but when he turned back to speak to Delaney, he was gone.
Bonner groaned and opened his eyes, and looked around him. As his memory came painfully back, he blinked up at the large man, who finished his call and smiled down at him reassuringly.
'You're going to be all right. I've called an ambulance.'
'The guy who was with me?'
The man shrugged. 'He was here a moment ago. He's probably gone to get help.'
Bonner groaned again and shifted in his seat, releasing the seatbelt and wincing at the pain that ran from his shoulder to his waist and exploded in his head with each movement.
'You'd probably best try not to move. Wait for the ambulance.'
Bonner slumped back, resigned, surveying the wreckage and damning Delaney to all kinds of Irish hell.
Bill Hoskins sat back in his battered wing-backed armchair, which was almost as old as he was. He stirred some suga
r into his tea, the spoon clinking as it hit the sides of his enamel mug. He picked up a remote control and turned the volume up on the television set. The news was on and the public were being warned that a serving detective in the Metropolitan Police had violently resisted arrest and was on the run. The reporter went on to report that Jack Delaney was wanted for questioning in a series of murders including that of Jackie Malone, a prostitute who was found slain and mutilated in her flat last Monday.
The picture of Jack Delaney flashed on the screen and Bill shook his head. Something about the murder and the time and the date didn't seem right. He put down his mug of tea, then levered himself out of his chair, his old knees creaking almost as loudly as the wooden floor as he walked across to the door.
Sergeant Bonner came back into interview room one, pulled out a chair and sat down awkwardly, wincing with pain. His face looked like he'd just gone nine rounds with Mike Tyson and his ribs hurt like hell. He put a file on the long wooden table and then leaned back, looking into the eyes of the man sitting opposite him. Bill Hoskins was in his late sixties and had a crumpled, colourless face that matched the creases in his shirt and his faded grey jacket. He scowled at Bonner.
'I thought you were getting me a cup of tea.'
'They ran out.'
Hoskins sniffed, unimpressed. 'Right.'
'Let's go over it again.'
'Do we have to?'
Bonner glared at him and Hoskins nodded, resigned.
'You were there in your capacity as caretaker all day long. You could swear to that?'
'I don't have to swear. I told you, didn't I? I don't lie.'
'We never get any liars in here, Mr Hoskins. Funny thing, that. A police station and we get all sorts in. Rapists, burglars, murderers, arsonists, racists . . . No liars, though.'
'I am none of those things, and I was there all day.'
Bonner glanced down at a sheet of paper in his hand. 'Ten o'clock in the morning to seven o'clock at night.'
'That's what I said. And—'
Bonner held up a hand to stop him. 'Yeah, yeah, I know. I want you to look at a photograph for me now.'
'All right.'
Bonner slid a photo across the table.