Hard Evidence

by Mark Pearson

  Kate looked at Norrell, a trail of drool pooling on his lower lip. 'How do you know him?'

  'I busted him on a drugs-dealing charge a short while back.'

  'And?'

  'Cocaine, good quality. We took him down with about a key of the stuff.'

  'So why isn't he safely locked up?'

  'Because the evidence went missing. That's what Bonner was talking about. He took it. The CPS wouldn't proceed and rhinoceros boy here walked free.'

  Delaney's mobile rang and he looked at the caller's number before answering it.

  'What have you got?' He listened intently to the reply. 'You've found her?' He looked across at Kate and smiled. 'You're a star, Sally. I owe you big time.' He shut his phone up and checked that the telephone he had smashed into Norrell's teeth was still working. It was. Score one for petroleum by-products. He handed it to Kate. 'Call an ambulance.'

  'Then what?

  'Then we're out of here.'

  'Out where?'

  'To see a tom.'

  'Tom who?'

  Delaney smiled as Kate dialled 999. 'A tom is a brass, Kate. A prostitute.'

  'Any particular reason?'

  'Because she just might know what's the hell's going on.'

  The traffic not so much crawled as stumbled and wheezed round Cambridge Circus. Like sick, broken and arthritic creatures, automotive elephants following a trail of pitch and tar to a secret graveyard. The temperature was now over thirty-eight degrees, breaking all records for the time of year. The tarmac on the road was melting and the vehicles' tyres stuck slightly to it as they inched nose to tail from Shaftesbury Avenue down to Covent Garden.

  Delaney led Kate past the theatre that stood on the circus, past one of the pubs that Jeffrey Bernard frequently got unwell in and up to a doorway next to another small minicab office. There were a couple of tacky coloured signs offering a variety of exotic services. What was it about cab offices and prostitutes? Delaney wondered. A fat tourist stopped to watch as Kate looked at the notices, a bead of sweat rolling down his forehead as he gazed at her like a starving man might look at a joint of beef.

  'What's Greek?' she asked Delaney.

  Delaney glared at the fat man, who was reddening even more in the face, his mouth hanging open as he watched Kate. Delaney took Kate's arm and steered her through the doorway. 'Let's just say it's not a lunch option.'

  The hall was narrow and stifling; the heat trapped inside radiated off the walls like an oven. There were no carpets on the floor, although the two-toned wood showed where carpet had once been, and it looked like the wallpaper hadn't been changed since the mid-seventies. A half-eaten McDonald's meal was thrown in one corner, and the air was rich with the scent of cheap perfume and even cheaper air freshener.

  Kate picked her way delicately as she followed Delaney up the narrow staircase to the second floor. Delaney pushed the button next to a colour-ful yellow card that had the name Aisleyne written on it, with the legend 'Blonde and Busty' below.

  Muffled footsteps were heard behind the door, and then a voice.

  'I'm busy. Come back in twenty minutes.'

  The footsteps receded again and Delaney leaned on the buzzer, letting it ring. The footsteps came back, as did the voice, angrier this time.

  'I said I was busy.'

  The door opened to reveal a woman in her early thirties, surgically enhanced to prove one part of her advertising slogan, with a straw-coloured wig on her head to prove the other.

  'Hello, Karen.'

  Karen sighed, recognising Delaney. 'Fuck.'

  She tried to close the door, but Delaney slammed his foot in the gap, shouldered the door open and pushed her back inside with the palm of his hand. Kate followed them in and shut the door behind her.

  Delaney glared at Karen. 'We can do this the easy way, but one way or the other you are going to talk to me.'

  Karen sighed. 'All right, Delaney. You win. Not here; come through to the kitchen.'

  They turned down the corridor, passing a bedroom door on the right, and into a kitchen area where a small television was showing some daytime reality show. A door led off it. The room was sparsely decorated with faded, torn wallpaper and some small, functional units; a hot plate for a kettle, a fridge for some cans of beer. Not a kitchen for a chef, but perfect for a forty-pound-a-blow-job tart, thought Delaney.

  A long-haired man in his forties with two days' worth of stubble and a Motorhead T-shirt sat at the table rolling a joint. His face had the kind of pale sickliness found in grubs that live under rocks; it was wrinkled and spotted with blackheads. He looked up, outraged, as Delaney turned off the television.

  'The fuck you think you're doing? I'm watching that.'

  Delaney glared at him. 'Take a break.'

  'You what?'

  Karen nodded towards the door. 'Do what he says, Daniel.'

  'I'm not having some Irish prick tell me what to do.'

  'It's me that's telling you. Go on, give us ten minutes.'

  The man stood up and glared belligerently at Delaney. 'You got ten minutes.' Delaney held his stare until Daniel turned away and headed out of the kitchen. 'He give you any grief over this and you tell me. Okay, Karen?'

  'He won't do anything.'

  'Either way.'

  Karen turned back to Delaney as the man left. 'What are you doing here, Inspector?'

  'You know why I'm here.'

  'No I don't.' She looked over at Kate as if seeing her for the first time. 'And who's the bint?'

  'Be nice, Karen.'

  Karen was about to respond when a small man in spectacles, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and a neatly knotted tie, came into the kitchen.

  'What's going on?'

  Karen nodded at him angrily. 'Get back in the room, I'll be through shortly.'

  The small man shook his head angrily. 'That's not good enough. I've paid my money.'

  Delaney stepped towards him. 'Why don't you take a hint and leave?'

  The man shook his head. 'I paid my money. I want my service.'

  Delaney pulled out his warrant card. 'Maybe you'd like to be serviced down at White City.'

  The man bristled, his red eyes tightening behind the steel frame of his spectacles.

  'You can't do that. The nature of my business transaction with Aisleyne here is perfectly legal and you know it. I'm going to take your name and report you.' He looked across at Kate and smiled. 'Unless of course this other one is available.'

  Delaney would have moved towards him but Karen stepped forward, reaching into her pocket, and stuffed some notes into his hand.

  'Come back later, Reginald. Give me half an hour.'

  'I can't come back later. I've got work to do.'

  'Do you want me to tell Marjorie?'

  The small man paled and seemed to deflate somehow.

  'There's no need to be nasty.'

  Karen smiled. 'I'll make it up to you.'

  'How?'

  'I'll do the egg custard, no surcharge.'

  The small man nodded, pleased, and made his way out into the corridor.

  Delaney gestured towards Kate as the front door shut. 'This is Kate Walker. She's a colleague.'

  Karen shrugged. 'So why are you here?'

  'Don't be stupid. You know what we're here for.'

  'She don't look the type.'

  'Don't fuck me around, Karen. I can make your life a whole lot more miserable than that loser pimp of yours.'

  'He's not my pimp.'

  Kate uncrossed her arms. 'You phoned him, Karen. You obviously want to help.'

  Karen shook her head.

  'I don't want to get involved, Delaney. People are getting hurt all around you. I don't want to end up like Jackie Malone or her lowlife brother.'

  'That's not going to happen.'

  Karen shook her head, conflicted.

  Delaney leaned in. 'It's your choice. You tell me everything you know and I put a stop to this. If you don't, you could be next on their list.'

 
; 'They don't know about me.'

  'I found out about you. You willing to take a chance they won't?' He reached into his pocket and pulled out a six-by-four photo of Jackie Malone's mutilated body. 'You want to end up like this.'

  'For Christ's sake, Delaney, you've made your point. Put that away.'

  'Start talking then.'

  Karen sighed and picked up the cigarette papers from the table and a small bag of grass. 'Jackie's boy, Andy.'

  'Go on?'

  'It's all to do with him.' Karen started rolling a joint. 'He was supposed to be with his uncle. Only he wasn't. They had a falling-out. He came back to London.'

  'But he didn't go back to his mum?'

  'No. You know what Andy's like.'

  'Yeah, he's thirteen years old.'

  'Anyway, he had mates. A whole bunch of them living in a squat up Finchley Road. All ages.'

  'And?'

  'And he used to work the begging game. On the streets, down on the tubes. Billy used to organise it. Homeless sign, skinny dog, borrowed baby. You know the kind of thing.'

  'I know the kind of thing. So Andy used to beg in the streets?'

  'But one day he got picked up by a social centre.'

  Kate looked over at her. 'What social centre?'

  Karen shrugged. 'Looked after stray kids. Not your usual wagman, though.'

  'Wagman?' Kate asked.

  Delaney waved Karen on.

  'So Andy got taken to a home. Residential. Out in the country, though.'

  'Where in the country?'

  'Somewhere near Marlow.'

  'Henley?'

  Karen shrugged again, then lit up the joint and took a long drag on it. She held it out to Delaney, who shook his head, and then to Kate, who smiled politely.

  'No thank you.'

  'So what was this place called?'

  Karen shrugged at Delaney. 'I don't know. Just a big house, somewhere betweenMarlow and, like you say, Henley. But the thing is. It was a set-up. A group of them, all with short eyes. They made films there.'

  'Short eyes?'

  Karen nodded to Kate. 'They liked children. Pae-dophiles. Nonces.'

  'And what happened to Andy?'

  'He got away, didn't he? He's smart, that kid. Not a proper runaway like the rest of them. Christ, he's lived his whole life on the move.'

  'I know he's a smart kid, Karen. Are you telling me he did something stupid?'

  'Yeah, he did. His uncle Billy found him and made him tell him all about it.'

  'And Billy thought he'd earn out of it?'

  'Yeah. Blackmail. The cocksucker. But the point is, Andy knew who one of the men was. The one who did the filming. Alexander Moffett. His mum and I were in a porn film he made.'

  Delaney nodded, picturing her in a black wig and industrial levels of make-up. 'Melody Masters. Sin Sisters. Right?'

  Karen nodded. 'That's right. She'd taken Andy to the set once, kept him in the car, and he saw Alex Moffett. So he knew where he was based.'

  She took another nervous drag on her joint. 'Jackie didn't want anything to do with it, though, Jack. And neither do I. These people . . .'

  'Where is he, Karen?'

  'Who?

  'Andy. Where is he?'

  'He doesn't want anything to do with you.' She glanced over at Kate. 'With any of you.'

  'You saw what they did to his mother.'

  Karen nodded, scared. 'You reckon you can help him?'

  'Yes, Karen. I can.'

  Karen looked over her shoulder at the closed door by the cooker, opposite the one they had walked in through. She took another long drag on her joint, her eyes glazing slightly but not so much as to mask the fear that lurked in them.

  Delaney walked over to the door and opened it. Behind it was a bathroom, and standing in it was a boy with dark curly hair. Delaney immediately recognised him, just as he had when he had seen the film he had been sent. The dark-haired boy abusing a much younger girl. Jackie's son. Andy Malone.

  Andy glared at Delaney as he walked into the kitchen, his head held high. 'I ain't coming in with you.'

  'What's going on, Andy?'

  'Why don't you ask your boss?'

  'Who?'

  Andy looked at him for a moment. 'Don't tell me you don't know. That pervert Moffett's partner. One of yours, Delaney. Captain Scarface. Why don't you ask him?'

  Delaney nodded, his face suddenly darkening like a front of bad weather. He looked across to Kate, who, despite the humid, sweltering heat in the squalid kitchen, had lost all the colour in her own face, and Delaney remembered what Bonner had said about someone on his team having loose lips.

  32.

  Delaney pulled his seatbelt around himself, jerking angrily as it stuck in its mechanism, and looked across at Kate.

  'What did you tell Walker, Kate?'

  'Just that I'd spoken to the caretaker. That he could give you an alibi for the . . .' she looked back at Andy as he glared at her from the back seat of the car, 'for the day of the incident.'

  Andy squirmed uncomfortably and leaned forward between her and Delaney, his dirty face scrunched into a frown.

  'Where you taking me?'

  Delaney looked back at him. 'We've got a visit to make first, and then we'll take you somewhere you'll be safe for a while. Now sit back and put your seatbelt on.'

  The boy snorted. 'Fuck off.' He sat back on the seat. 'What are you going to do, arrest me?'

  Kate smiled soothingly in the rear-view mirror. 'It's going to be all right, Andy.'

  Andy snorted again. 'Get real, Lady fucking Diana. You don't know the guy.'

  Kate looked out the window, wishing it were true.

  Delaney finally gave up on his seatbelt, turned the key and gunned the engine.

  The traffic was bumper to bumper once they hit the main road. It was peak rush hour; cars were overheating and being abandoned, clogging up the roads and slowing movement down to an infuriating crawl. Delaney slammed his hand angrily on the horn, joining in with a pointless chorus of honking that had absolutely no effect. He knew that the cemetery was open in the evenings for people to visit outside of work hours, but it closed at seven and there was only twenty minutes to go.

  The sound of a siren joined in with the horns as an ambulance approached, heading the other way. Delaney looked out of the window, watching it pass, and then mentally slapped himself on the forehead.

  'You're a doctor. You got one of those green lights, Kate?'

  'Yeah, I have.' She reached over to her glove box and took out her flashing green light. She opened her window and put it on the roof, and then flicked the siren on.

  Delaney pulled out of the traffic, moving over to the right, and smiled approvingly as the cars ahead moved left to let them pass.

  They arrived at the cemetery five minutes before locking-up time, but there was no sign of Bill Hoskins near the gates or in the parkland. They hurried down the path to the caretaker's hut, calling out his name as they approached. But there was no answer, and no sign of him. As Delaney reached the hut, he could see the door was open.

  He turned back to Kate, who had a tight grip on Andy's arm. 'Keep hold of him.' Then he put his hand under his jacket, curling his fingers round the grip of his pistol, and walked into the hut.

  There was nobody there. The armchair was empty. A book was lying face down on the floor. He looked around the hut, his professional eye sweeping round and taking it in. It was sparse but cosy. A battered upholstered wing chair. A small desk. A gas ring with an old aluminium kettle on it. A bookshelf with a number of well-read paperbacks. All mysteries, by the looks of them. Andy came into the hut, followed by Kate.

  'What a dump. What are we doing here?'

  'Shut it.' Delaney opened the desk drawer. Inside were a number of work-related letters from the council, an address book and a home electricity bill. Delaney put the other items back in the drawer and kept the bill. It had Hoskins' address on it.

  He turned round to see Kate looking closely at the
armchair.

  'What have you got?'

  'A stain, Jack. It's small and it could be gravy or coffee . . .'

  'But?'

  'But I think it's blood.'

  Back in the car, Delaney handed the electricity bill to Kate and told her to look Bill Hoskins' road up in the A to Z. Kate flicked through the pages until she found the right one.

  'It's about five minutes from here.'

  'Good.' Delaney fired the engine up.

  'What are you going to do if . . .'

  'If he's still alive?'

  'Yeah.'

  'I'm going to get him and laughing boy here somewhere safe, and then I'm going to go in.'

  He crunched into first gear and spun away, the gravel kicking up from his back tyres like shotgun pellets.

  About fifty yards behind them, a grey Volvo pulled out of its parking space, a lot more smoothly, and headed in the same direction.

  Bill Hoskins lived in a mid-terrace house built somewhere in the late Victorian era. A lot of the houses in the row were showing signs of disrepair, shabby paintwork, overgrown gardens. But Bill's was neat and orderly. His small front garden as manicured as the cemetery where he worked. Kate watched as Delaney took his finger off the bell button that he had just pushed for the fifth time, and knew with a cold certainty that Bill was never coming home. Delaney shouldered the door open and ran inside, but Kate knew there was no one waiting for him. There was going to be no one to miss Bill Hoskins. He had spent his life looking after the dead, and now his own body had been dumped somewhere, she knew it. Dumped with no ceremony, no respect. Suddenly Kate wasn't scared any more. She was angry. People were going to pay, her uncle most of all.

  Wendy was a little flustered as she ushered Delaney, Kate and the boy into her kitchen. 'It's a shame you missed Siobhan. She's at a friend's for her tea, but she shouldn't be too long.' She lifted the lid on her large range cooker and put a kettle identical to Kate Walker's on the hob. Her hand was shaking a little so that the kettle rattled heavily.

  Kate watched her. 'I keep meaning to switch mine off. It's been so hot, and I could quite happily survive on salads.'

  Wendy looked over at her and smiled. 'I know, it's been unbearable. Seems crazy to keep them on just for cups of tea.' Seemed pretty crazy talking about the weather and range cookers to a strange woman in her kitchen, who had arrived with her fugitive brother-in-law and a filthy-looking child in tow too. She shook the thought away as she set out some cups and saucers and smiled reassuringly at the wild-haired youth standing next to her. The boy didn't smile back. Judging by the look in his slightly feral eyes, he probably hadn't smiled in a long, long time.