by Mark Pearson
And he realised as he looked at the photograph that they had all got it completely wrong.
Delaney felt like someone had taken a heavy hammer and struck him on the head. It was definitely time for a new job, he thought. Somewhere warm. Somewhere quiet. But, as he cracked open his bloodshot eyes, he realised that new employment prospects were the least of his problems. His hands had been tied behind his back and he was sitting in a lock-up garage somewhere, propped uncomfortably on a wooden chair. The door opened and Mickey Ryan walked in, followed by his cubic minder and his traitorous fucking cousin. If Delaney could have worked up the saliva he would have spat at him.
There was a metallic clang. Delaney looked across to see the gorilla of a henchman putting a toolbox on the workbench that ran along the whole left-hand side of the garage. The man made Kevin Norrell look human, he realised with a shudder.
'You might wonder why you are still alive, Delaney.'
'Must be my guardian angel.'
Ryan laughed, his blue eyes sparkling with amusement. 'I wonder if you'll still be laughing when my man here goes to work on you with a pair of needle-tooth pliers.
Liam stepped forward. 'Nobody said anything about that.'
'Nobody points a gun at me and gets away with it. You're going to learn that, Delaney. And that grassing tub of lard Norrell is going to be next.' He turned to Liam. 'Put one in his gut, give him something to think about.'
Liam raised the pistol he had been holding in his right hand, a semi-automatic with a silencer. Delaney could see no mercy, no compassion in his eyes as he pulled the trigger.
The minder made a sound like a dog swallowing a fly and dropped to the floor, a hand fluttering towards his heart but not making it. Liam pointed the gun at Mickey Ryan.
'The fuck you think you're doing?'
'The fuck you think I'm doing?' Liam retorted.
Ryan shook his head. 'We had a deal.'
'I don't make deals with scum. Gut shot, wasn't it?' He pulled the trigger again, and Mickey Ryan dropped to his knees, squealing and holding his stomach. 'Hurts, doesn't it?'
Ryan's face had gone purple and he hissed between his teeth, but if they were words they were not intelligible.
Liam grabbed a Stanley knife from the toolbox and slashed the ropes binding his cousin.
Delaney stood up and wobbled on his legs. He had to hold on to his cousin's arm before he could steady himself. 'What's going on?'
Liam smiled. 'I made some calls after you left. Figured out what was what and realised you'd be way out of your depth.'
'I had it covered.'
'Sure you did, cousin. But you weren't going to kill him, were you?'
Delaney didn't answer.
'Which means that one way or another he would have ended up killing you.'
'Maybe.'
'No maybe about it.'
'What did you have to hit me for, then?'
'You might be ten kinds of death-wish on legs, Jack, but I still enjoy my life. I did what I had to do. And you should be grateful, so take a Panadol and shut the fuck up with the whining already.'
Ryan gurgled again, hissing through wet lips, his face contorted with pain.
Liam turned to Delaney and held the gun out. 'Do you want to do it?'
Delaney made no move to take the pistol. Liam nodded then fired two bullets into the kneeling man's head. He slumped sideways and the gurgling stopped.
Delaney looked at the dead body. He wasn't sure what to think any more. 'What now?'
'Now, cousin, we walk away from here.'
Delaney shook his head. 'We can't. There's DNA all over the place. You go. Leave me the gun.'
Liam reached into his overcoat and pulled out a large brown packet. 'Did you know Mickey Ryan was in big with the old IRA? Back in the seventies?'
'No.'
Liam nodded. 'Back in the day he made a fair few bob out of it. Pissed a fair few people off too. People who didn't take the laying down of arms at all happily. Formed new groups.'
'The Real IRA?'
Liam shrugged. 'Amongst others. Either way, he's on a list. And this . . .' he tossed the packet on the workbench, 'is the boys' old friend.'
'Semtex?'
'There won't be enough left of Mickey Ryan, his sidekick, or this garage to fill a teaspoon.'
Delaney nodded. It didn't feel like closure. He just felt empty.
'I guess that makes us even, Liam.'
'Hardly.' He handed back his mobile phone. 'Thought you might like this back.'
'Thanks.' Delaney flipped it open and pushed the speed dial for Kate Walker.
'Jack, where the hell have you been?'
Liam smiled, he could hear every word. 'What is it with you and feisty women?'
'Are you still at the station?' Delaney asked Kate.
'Yes, I'm still here.'
'Good, stay there. I'm on my way in.'
*
Sally Cartwright looked at her watch for the fifth time.
'Has he stood you up, Sally?'
'Yeah, funny, Danny.' Sally flashed a none too amused smile at her colleague at the other end of the table. There were a few of them there, having a drink or two and, as yet, Michael Hill hadn't shown up. Danny, jealous that she was going out for a curry with him, had been making snide little remarks, doing himself no favours in her book at all. But she wasn't worried about Michael, she'd seen the eagerness in his puppy-dog eyes. He was probably nervous. No, it wasn't Michael Hill who had her looking at her watch, it was Jack Delaney she was concerned about. There was a darkness is his eyes when he had left her on Shaftesbury Avenue. Something darker than she had ever seen before.
A cheer went up from Danny and a couple of his mates as Michael Hill eventually came in and walked over to join them. Sally thought he looked nice. Black jeans, a nicely ironed white shirt and a black jacket.
'It's Rhydian!' Danny called out. 'Go on, sing us a song.'
'Ignore him,' Sally said. 'He's an idiot.'
'I will.'
He sat down beside her.
'Actually, I'm glad you're here,' said Sally.
'Of course. We're going for a curry, aren't we?'
'Yes. Later. But I meant I'm glad you're here because I want to talk to you. About work. About the crime-scene photos of the second victim that were posted on the Net. There's something a little wrong with them.'
Michael Hill stood up. 'Well, if we're going to talk shop, there's a little bar I found. I thought we could go there for a drink first, before the ruby? Bit quieter than here.'
Sally looked down at his feet as she stood up. 'New boots?'
Michael Hill looked down at his snakeskin cowboy boots, polished to a gleam, and smiled as he admired them, stroking his black shoestring tie as he did so. 'Fairly new, yes.'
Sally looked at her watch again and then shrugged; if anybody could take care of himself, Jack Delaney certainly could. Besides, she had earned herself a bit of fun.
She stood up and gave Michael a quick kiss on the cheek. 'Come on then. Let's leave the peanut gallery to it.'
Sally headed for the door, Michael Hill put his hand to his cheek where Sally had brushed her lips, and then followed her, desire dancing in his eyes and the faintest of smiles quirking the corners of his mouth.
Diane Campbell was leaning against Jack Delaney's desk. Looking through the Filofax that Jimmy Skinner had just brought back from the flat in Mornington Crescent. Kate Walker, meanwhile, was working at Sally's computer going over the forensics reports on both the dead women. 'So Jennifer Cole's real name is Katherine Wingrove.'
Jimmy Skinner nodded, a gesture on his tall thin body somewhat akin to an albatross dipping for food. 'She was a midwife at the South Hampstead Hospital, and did escorting work on the side. The first victim, Maureen Casey but calling herself Janet Barnes, was a student nurse, also at the South Hampstead, about eighteen months ago. According to Katherine Wingrove's diary, she had been working in prostitution since she was fifteen years old and had com
e to London as a runaway from domestic abuse. She wanted to qualify as a nurse, put that life behind her, but found she couldn't. Student bills to pay, debt mounting up. Katherine Wingrove helped her out, showed her the classier end of the trade. She gave up the nursing and took up escorting full-time.'
'Why did nobody recognise them at the hospital?'
'They look completely different, with the make-up and clothes on. Katherine Wingrove was on scheduled holiday this week so no one was expecting to see her anyway. And Maureen's own mother took some time to come forward she looked so different.'
'Either way it's not about prostitution, it's about the hospital. All three of his victims have worked there at some time.'
Kate typed in the address that Melanie Jones had given the police, truecrimeways.com. It opened on to a general site detailing true crimes, murders of a particularly brutal and violent nature. On the sixth page was a picture of a gravestone, at the bottom of a long article about Fred West. Following the instructions they had been given, Kate clicked on the cross at the top of the gravestone. A box appeared requesting a password.
Skinner watched what she was doing. 'It's just a like the paedophiles, hiding hyperlinks within a seemingly legal site. You need to know where it is and a password to get into the specialised area.' He said the word 'specialised' with a definite curl to his lip.
'And people actually pay money to look at these pictures?' Kate asked the room in general as crime-scene photos of the mutilated women appeared on the computer screen.
Diane shrugged. 'Kate, people pay a licence fee to watch Holby City at dinner time.'
Kate nodded, she had a good point. How close-ups of heart surgery, ribcages being cracked open and worse, had become evening family viewing on the BBC she had absolutely no idea.
'Can they be traced, whoever's putting up these pictures?'
Diane shrugged again. 'Paddington Green has their best technical people on it but they don't hold out much hope. Not of finding the guy who posted these pictures. Anyone can set up a bogus account, from an Internet cafe or a library. Hack into our systems, download the photos and put them up where they like. It can be impossible to trace.'
'Why lead us to it then?'
Diane rummaged in her handbag. 'Because we hadn't mentioned it to the press. These sad fucks need an audience, Kate. Pardon my fucking French.'
Kate sensed that Diane Campbell was hanging out for a cigarette. She was proved right as Diane found what she was looking for in her handbag, opened the window in front of Delaney's desk and lit one up.
Kate looked at the photos on the screen, pausing at one and then flicking through her files to look at the same photo in hard copy. She leaned in and peered at the computer screen when a voice behind her made her heart leap into her throat.
'You better have one of those for me, Diane.'
Kate spun round and jumped out of her chair. She didn't know whether to kiss him or slap him.
'Where have you been, Jack?'
'Christ, Delaney. You look like you've been run over by a combine harvester,' Diane Campbell added.
Delaney ran a hand over the rough stubble of his chin and nodded. 'I've had better days.'
Diane Campbell threw him a cigarette which he just about managed to catch with one hand. He leaned in for her to light it for him. 'Jimmy has identified the first two victims,' she told him. 'They both worked at the South Hampstead as did the third. The escorting isn't the link, it's the hospital itself.'
Kate pointed at the computer monitor. 'And there's something else. Look at this picture that was posted on the web. Sally Cartwright left me a note, something she'd picked up on. Asking me to check our forensic records.'
Diane walked round. 'What is it?'
'Look closely at this picture of the second victim. You can just about see the foot of the photographer reflected in the bit of mirror that the killer left.'
'And?'
Kate held up the photo from her file. 'And in this one you can't see anything. The mirror is clear, no reflection. No foot.'
Delaney shrugged. 'So? What does that mean?'
'The second is from our files and the first isn't. We don't have it. It means that whoever it was who put these pictures up on the Internet in the first place hasn't hacked into our files. Because that photo wasn't in our files in the first place.'
Diane nodded, taking it in. 'So that means—'
'Christ!' Delaney interrupted her as the implications hit him. 'Where's Sally Cartwright?'
Skinner ran a hand over his head. 'She said she had a hot date tonight.'
'Michael Hill.'
'That's right,' Skinner answered him. 'Danny Vine wasn't too happy about it, been moaning all afternoon.'
'Who's Michael Hill?' Kate asked, puzzled by their tone.
'He's the scene-of-crime photographer, Kate. He took those pictures and if there is one on that site that isn't on our files then he took that one too, and made a mistake when he was putting them up on the Net.'
Diane stabbed her cigarette in the air. 'We've got the bastard then.'
Delaney shook his head angrily. 'Not yet we haven't.'
Kate Walker stood up. 'For Christ's sake, Jack. Are you telling me he's got Sally?'
'He doesn't know we're on to him. There's no need to panic.'
Diane Campbell shook her head. 'He's been playing games with you all along.'
'It doesn't fit the pattern, Diane. She never worked at the hospital.'
'And what if she mentions what she asked Kate to look into?'
Delaney didn't answer her, what colour left in it was draining from his face.
Jessica Tam smiled at the sour-faced receptionist as she headed for the exit but, as usual, got nothing in response. The woman had been working there long enough to recognise most people by now, but there was no sign of it on her stony face. Maybe she reserved the smiles for the doctors and consultants, in that regard she wouldn't be unlike many others that worked at the South Hampstead. Seemed to her that if you didn't like people, being a receptionist wasn't exactly the best job in the world. Jessica loved people, loved helping people in need, and for her nursing wasn't just a job, it truly was a vocation. Shame it didn't pay any better, though, she couldn't help thinking as she stepped out into the cold car park not at all surprised to see it was raining again. Be nice to be able to save up enough to buy a better car. One that had heating that worked properly, that didn't steam up every time in wet weather. One that would start first time in the winter. She looked up at the sky above her, far too dark for this time of year. It was nights like these she wished her paternal grandfather hadn't come all that way and fallen in love with an English barmaid. Mind you, if he hadn't come to England, she thought with a little wry smile, she wouldn't have been born.