Hampstead, north-west London. 6.30 a.m., Saturday
JACK DELANEY YAWNED and got out of bed. He peeled back the edge of the curtain and peered through the window; it was still dark outside.
Dark, but still snowing heavily in London and had been all night, by the looks of it. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he could see the garden thick with it. Five days away from Christmas now, and the capital was blanketed in snow. The bookies would be paying out big time this year, he thought to himself, as he slipped his feet into a pair of sheepskin slippers that Kate had bought for him. He hadn’t worn slippers for years. Thin end of the wedge, he had told her; but a nice wedge, he conceded.
He could hear her snoring gently behind him. The corners of his lips slipped into a smile as he listened to her. Kate denied she ever snored, and truth to tell it was more of a sighing sound, and a gentle smack of her lips, than a proper snore. It was a peaceful sound, a contented one, but Delaney was a light sleeper, unless he had had a skinful of whiskey of course, and then he slept through pretty much anything. But it was getting rarer and rarer for him to tie one on nowadays. The last few months had changed him. That much was for sure. He’d put the past back where it belonged and was concentrating on the present, on the future. At least he was trying to. He knew he was a changed man, and a lot of that change had been down to the good lady doctor who shared his bed.
He looked out at her back garden again. A picture-postcard scene. Hampstead in winter. It could have been 100 years ago, 200. Kate owned the whole house, but rented the upstairs flat to a gay couple, Patrick and Simon, a pair of musicians with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Violinists. They spent most of their time away and so she hadn’t bothered parcelling the garden into two lots, as her tenants were quite happy not having the use of it — if it meant they had to pay less rent. It suited Kate fine, and she and Delaney had talked about not letting the flat out again, if the musicians decided to move on. At some stage, in the hopefully not-too-distant future, they had discussed selling Kate’s house and buying somewhere out in the country. The Chilterns maybe, or somewhere else equally rural out near Oxford.
The garden was long and narrow, but beautifully laid out. Not that you could tell at the moment, with the thick snow covering every surface like the frosting on a wedding cake. Jack smiled to himself again, as the image came to his mind. Kate and he had never actually discussed the idea of getting married. But others had. Particularly down at White City Police Station. It was becoming something of a standing joke.
The main line of questioning on the marriage issue, however, came from his daughter Siobhan. Seven years old, going on twenty! More of an interrogation than a questioning, come to that. Jack had thought she might have been against the idea, seeing as her mother had died when she was still young. Jack had carried the guilt of her death around like a small child carries a comfort-blanket. But meeting Kate had changed all that. It had changed everything. And for the better.
He looked back over his shoulder and squinted through the gloom to look at her. Her dark and gloriously curly hair was piled around the pillow that supported her head. He resisted the urge to cross over and smooth it. She had got in late last night and he didn’t want to disturb her. She deserved a lie-in now and again, and she wasn’t rostered on at the police station or at her general practice at the university until later.
He looked back out at the garden again and pulled the curtain shut. He’d talked with Kate about digging a fish pond when spring came and the ground was soft enough. But she had pointed out that they had a baby on the way. Maybe later, when the new addition to the family was old enough for it to be safe, but for now maybe a small fish tank for Siobhan would suffice.
Downstairs he yawned, stifling the noise with his hand, pushed the button on Kate’s DeLonghi Prima Donna coffee machine and waited for it to work its magic. He had dressed in a coal-black woollen suit that Kate had bought him. A white shirt with a new dark-blue silk tie.
He caught sight of himself reflected in the glass of the window looking out over the sink into the lawn. He didn’t recognise himself from the wreck of a man he had been only some few months ago. A shambling, borderline alcoholic on the verge of coming apart at the seams. His jaw was clean-shaven, his dark hair was cut and brushed, his deep-blue eyes were clear and intelligent. Even his black shoes were polished to a military shine.
He looked like he was going to a wedding or a fashion shoot for a men’s magazine cover … or what he actually was going to be doing, later that morning.
Appearing in court.
Seemed that some of his past wouldn’t stay buried after all.
DONGMEI CHANG WAS in a foul mood as she came out of Edgware Road station.
Her first name might well be a translation of Tung Mei which translated as ‘winter plums’ for some, but the truth was that she hated winter. And always had. To her it meant ‘younger sister from the east’ and she would have dearly loved to return east. To Hong Kong, where she was born. But Dongmei was in her late sixties now and resigned to the fact that she would never be going home. She had been in the United Kingdom since 1962, when she had been brought over to marry a man her father had chosen for her. He was starting a Chinese restaurant and, although she didn’t love him when they first met, he was older than her and he wanted her respect and obedience more than her love. It wasn’t an unusual concept to Dongmei, for she had seen her elder sisters married in a similar fashion. Daughters were business assets in her family. But she and they worked hard, and the business prospered in a modest way, and over the years she came to love her husband in her own way.
He had died ten years ago from a brain embolism suffered during celebrations for Chinese New Year in Soho. They had never been blessed with children, and her husband had refused her requests to seek medical help, so she had carried on the restaurant on her own, staffed mainly by family members who came over from China in generational waves. Trained up for years and then moving on, setting up their own restaurants in different parts of the country. Nobody could afford to buy or rent in London now. Dongmei Chang held the deeds to the building, however, and had been advised to sell up and retire many, many times. But the restaurant was more to her than just a business. She had toyed with the notion of selling up immediately after her husband had died, but even though she wanted to go back home to Hong Kong, she knew that it no longer existed. It wasn’t just that it was now under communist China’s governance, but everything about it had changed. She had left it half a century ago and there was nothing there for her now, and there was nothing here for her either if she sold the Lucky Dragon. And so she hadn’t.
Some mornings, though, the thought did still tempt her. And it certainly tempted her again that morning. Even though it was still dark, her train from Paddington, where she lived in a small apartment that she also owned, was late and subsequently packed full of early-morning commuters. Nobody had offered her a seat, so she had been jostled and bumped all the way on her admittedly short journey.
The rest of her staff and family wouldn’t be in until later, but she had come in early to do the bookkeeping. She didn’t trust handing her accounts over to a family member to prepare for her accountant. Her financial business was just that — hers.
She was muttering to herself as she came out of the station. There are two Edgware Road stations in London, for some reason, neither of them connected and about 150 yards apart. Dongmei Chang used the Marylebone Line one, next to the flyover on the corner of Edgware Road, Harrow Road and Marylebone Road.
She was still muttering as she made her way down Edgware Road to her restaurant. She had been in England for more than fifty years now, but still thought and spoke in Chinese. She could speak a little English, but didn’t care to. The snow was heavy underfoot as she turned into the side-street, and she had her eyes focused on the pavement. The flakes were swirling in the wind, lighter now, but enough to make her eyes water. As she fumbled for the keys to her shop she didn’t at first notice the shape lying against the wall, a heavy coating of snow on it. But when she got nearer and looked more closely, she could see it was a man. As she bent down to look even closer, she could see the thick mat of dried blood on the man’s skull, and the red staining of it on the snow beneath and around him. And then she gasped with shock, clasping a hand to her chest, which had suddenly become impossibly tight and painful, and collapsed in a gentle heap to lie beside him on the snow-crusted pavement.
GEOFFREY HUNT STOOD up and rubbed his right hand at the base of his spine, arching his back and tilting his head skywards.
From the warmth of their kitchen his wife, Patricia, watched him as he did so. After a moment or two he bent over again and continued to shovel the snow that had covered the path running along the side of the garden, down to the summerhouse that Geoffrey used as an office. Fair weather or foul, he always spent an hour or two in there writing.
For some twenty years, since he had retired, Geoffrey had been writing stories, as well as mystery and romance novels, and sending them off to magazines and publishers. As yet he had had no luck, but he hadn’t given up hope. At school he had always wanted to be a writer, a novelist, but things had turned out differently for him. He knew better than most that the plans men make when young are sometimes as resistant to the forces of change as a stick tossed into a river.
Patricia watched him as he worked, methodically clearing the snow, although she knew full well the pain would be shooting through his body. Snow was no friend to arthritis. She knew very well too that his body was stooped and burdened with more than the manual effort and the inflammation in his joints.
She looked at the calendar on the wall. At today’s date circled in red, and at the flowers he had placed on the table beneath it.
Flowers that would never be placed in any cemetery.
Diane Campbell stood by the window of her office, looking at some uniformed officers who were hard at work shovelling snow from the car park.
Grit had been ordered, but as yet there was no sign of it. No doubt there would be a national shortage of the stuff, like last year. The uniforms had a Sisyphean task, she reckoned, as she watched the fat flurries of snowflakes swirling in the air around them, settling on the ground and freezing. Another cold, hard winter on the books.
She took a sip of her coffee and grimaced; she hated the instant muck that passed for it at White City nick, but she needed something. What she really wanted to do was throw the window open and fire up a cigarette. But she couldn’t. Not because it was illegal now in public buildings — Chief Inspector Diane Campbell didn’t give a damn about that. But she couldn’t fire up a cigarette because her boss — a jobsworth if ever there was one — was standing by her desk fixing her with a serious look designed to intimidate her. She would have smiled, Diane didn’t do intimidated, but her political sensibilities kept her face neutral. Jack Delaney didn’t have a political bone in his body, so for his sake, she’d play the game with her boss. That morning at least.
The man in question, Superintendent George Napier, was an imposing figure. Tall, ebony-skinned, and dressed with military neatness and precision in his full uniform. Most people quailed beneath his critical scrutiny; but Diane Campbell wasn’t most people.
‘I’m sure everything will be fine, sir,’ she said and looked out at the car park again. Still no sign of Delaney’s ancient Saab, and George Napier had expressly told her that he wanted the detective inspector to be in first thing.
‘Everything had better be better than fine!’ said Napier and looked angrily at his watch. ‘And where is the bloody man?’
Diane reckoned if she had been given a pound for every time she had been asked that question about Jack Delaney, she could have retired five years ago and set up an antiques shop in Norfolk. Not that she knew anything about antiques, mind, but her partner — who worked downstairs in the evidence store — did. And what made her happy usually ended up making Diane happy. She smiled slightly at the thought, remembering how she had been woken earlier that morning.
‘Something amusing you, Diane?’ snapped the superintendent.
Diane shook her head, putting on the kind of serious expression her boss expected. ‘No, sir. Just pleased at the prospect of seeing justice done. Finally.’
‘Justice would have been done if the man who stood on Robinson’s neck had done a proper job of it there and then. Saved the taxpayer a great deal of wasted time and money.’
‘True.’
Napier tapped his finger on his colleague’s desk. ‘But your man Delaney has a history of cock-ups, Diane. This trial better not turn into another one or I will have his arse on a plate and served back to him.’
‘You’re mixing your metaphors, sir.’
Napier looked at her straight face. ‘Are you being flip with me, Diane?’
‘Not at all, sir! Sorry, I’m a bit anal about grammar and the like. Drives my PA mad.’
Napier nailed his finger on her desk again. ‘I mean it. This goes pearshaped and he’s gone. My word on it!’
‘Michael Robinson is guilty, sir. We all know it.’
‘The press don’t share your level of confidence, Chief Inspector.’
‘With respect, sir, some of the press don’t share the same gene pool as the rest of the human race.’
‘Like I say, Diane. This is not the time for levity. Michael Robinson spent nine months in hospital. The fact that he didn’t die is considered a medical miracle.’
‘I am aware of that.’
‘Do you need me to list the broken bones?’
‘No, sir.’
‘The crushed larynx.’
‘I know the injuries he sustained.’
‘Injuries. The man spent weeks in a coma, five months before he was able to walk properly again, and damn near a whole year before he was fit to stand trial.’
‘He’s certainly able to do that now, sir.’
‘Isn’t he just!’ Napier slammed a copy of that morning’s Times on the Superintendent’s desk. The headlines reading, POLICE ON TRIAL AS MICHAEL ROBINSON COMES TO COURT.
Diane glanced briefly at the paper. She’d already seen it and the others, including the more aggressively accusatory red-top banners.
‘I would point out that the assault on Michael Robinson took place under the aegis of Her Majesty’s Prison Service, sir. The Metropolitan Police had no culpability whatsoever.’
‘Jack Delaney is not culpable, you damn well mean! After all, the man is as pure as driven snow, isn’t he?’ Napier added sarcastically.
Diane looked at the piles of snow being shovelled from the car park and resisted the urge to smile again; winding her boss up was one of the small pleasures she took delight in, but, as he had said himself, this morning was not the time for it.
‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,’ she said instead.
‘No! But I’d go so far as to say the man is a bloody liability!’
‘To be frank, sir, I don’t know why you allow the press to agitate you so much. It was a righteous arrest.’
‘Righteous? What are we — in the United States of Bloody America now?’
‘It was a sound arrest. The CPS would never have allowed it to get to court, if it hadn’t been.’
‘And yet Michael Robinson is swearing he was fitted up. Fitted up by Detective Inspector Jack Delaney.’
‘Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?’
‘Maybe he would. But he is also saying now, to whoever will listen to him, that the person who attempted to murder him said he was doing so at the behest of your Irish bloody troublemaker. We are talking conspiracy to murder here, Diane.’
‘Jack Delaney would never be a party to that, sir.’
‘And are you absolutely sure of that?’
Diane Campbell looked at her boss without answering. She didn’t trust herself.
DR KATE WALKER closed the passenger door of the car and nodded to DC Sally Cartwright who had driven the pair of them out of town to the churchyard near to the QPR football ground, a half a mile or so from White City Police station.
The DC had called Kate earlier that morning, waking her from a dream: she and Jack were having a barbecue in her back garden. It was summer, and the sun was as hot as she could remember. She had looked puzzled at the pond in her garden; the York stones that had been laid around it were green with moss. And the fish in the pond were large carp, their reds and golds flashing in the sunlight. A voice behind her, and she turned round. There was Siobhan, only she wasn’t seven any more — she was in her early twenties and was dressed in a beautiful wedding gown. And behind her were four bridesmaids, her daughters, ranging from seven years old to thirteen. Hers and Jack’s daughters. All with his curly black hair and bright blue eyes. The youngest one ran up and took her hand.
‘Come on, Mummy, we’ll be late,’ she had said.
‘Where’s Jack?’ Kate had asked, and Siobhan had looked at her, tears welling in her beautiful, big eyes.
‘Oh Kate,’ she had said. ‘Don’t you remember?’
Then the sound of a police siren that pierced the hot summer air. And the siren had become the sound of a bell, her bedside phone ringing, and Kate had started awake. Her heart thumping in her chest and her mouth dry. She snatched the phone up and it took her a moment or two before she could steady her breath and speak. It had been Detective Constable Sally Cartwright.
‘Not the wake-up call I had in mind first thing this morning,’ she said, yawning now into a gloved hand and tightening her jacket as she walked beside the constable into the churchyard. The gravestones visible in the cemetery attached to the church sent goosebumps down her back as she remembered her dream.
‘Sorry, Kate. Like I said on the blower, I couldn’t get hold of Dr Chilvers and David Riley called in sick. So it was down to you.’ She shrugged apologetically.
Kate looked up at the sky, still thick with snow clouds, although it had actually stopped snowing, for a time at least. ‘At least this time David Riley was being genuine and isn’t at a golf-society match!’
Sally shook her head, chuckling. ‘I wouldn’t put it past him. Strange breed, golfers. Probably play with red balls or something. Sorry again — I know you were on a late shift last night.’
‘It’s not your fault and at least it wasn’t an all-nighter,’ said Kate as she unlatched the gate and they walked into the church grounds. ‘But I had a pile of paperwork to catch up on, and I don’t want anything hanging over me with Christmas coming. I want to have the decks totally clear. Have a proper holiday this year.’
‘I know how that works. How was the inspector this morning?’
Kate shrugged ruefully. ‘He left before I got up, was sleeping like a baby when I got in.’
‘Not too worried about the court case then?’
Kate rolled her eyes. ‘You know Jack!’
Sally returned the grin. ‘That’s true. Personally I hope they lock the door on that sick, fucking bastard Michael Robinson and throw away the key!’
Kate looked across at her, surprised to see the anger flashing in Sally’s usually cheery eyes. And she was pretty sure she had never heard the detective constable swear before.
Sally picked up on the look. ‘Sorry, Kate, pardon the French. But what is it with the name Michael? When I remember what nearly happened to me …’ she said by way of explanation, then shook her head to interrupt the thought, as if to chase the memory away. ‘But nothing did happen to me,’ she continued with a small nod, ‘because of Jack Delaney.’
‘He does have his moments.’
‘He does that.’
Kate patted Sally on her shoulder as they walked up to the waiting uniforms.
Some months earlier Sally Cartwright had been kidnapped by a mentally ill man. His name was Michael Hill and he was a police forensic photographer. He was off his medication and, together with his psychotic sister Audrey, they had gone on a killing spree. Sally had gone on a date with him, and when he realised that she was getting close to discovering his involvement in the killings, he had drugged her and taken her to his aunt’s empty house.
She had woken to find herself chained to a wall, wearing only her underwear, in a cellar hidden in the house. The walls were thick stone and no amount of shouting would help. As she struggled to break free of the manacles holding her to the wall, she remembered what mutilations had taken place to two previous women’s bodies at the hands of this mad man. She didn’t let him see her terror at the time, had fronted up to him in a way she wouldn’t have believed possible. Those kinds of perverts got off on power and control — she had gleaned that much from her studies at Hendon Police College. So Sally had shown him no fear, had mocked him in fact. But she had had nightmares about it ever since. Waking and starting bolt upright in the middle of most nights. Her skin clammy with sweat, a scream unuttered on her lips. But the scream was there, always there. She reckoned if she ever let it go, she wouldn’t be able to stop. She would hold a hand to her mouth, bite on her knuckles, shiver at the thought of what might have happened if Jack Delaney hadn’t rescued her.
Sally smiled back gratefully at Kate as the older woman took her hand off her shoulder. ‘Yeah, for a miserable old bastard he’s not too bad sometimes, is he?’
‘Less of the old,’ said Kate. ‘He’s the father of my unborn child, remember, and I’m not much younger than him!’ Automatically her hand went to her stomach as she turned to the uniformed officer who had come across to meet them as they neared the top of the path. ‘Hey, Danny,’ she said. ‘So what have you got for us, this cold and snowy December morning?’
‘Probably nothing,’ he said, then flashed a nervous smile at Sally Cartwright. ‘Morning, Detective Constable.’
Sally flicked him a brief nod. She had gone out on a date with him before she had agreed to go out for an Indian meal with Michael Hill. Playing them both off against each other. A stupid thing to do, in the circumstances. PC Danny Vine had been walking on eggshells around her after what had happened, but he had still made it clear he was interested. But Sally wasn’t about to rush into anything romantic any time soon, and she had decided that if she were to get into a relationship with a man again, it certainly wouldn’t be with anyone she worked with. Been there done that. Bought the T-shirt.
She looked over Danny’s shoulder. They were some thirty feet from the church, which had been built some time back in the nineteenth century, early in Queen Victoria’s reign, and stood in its own fair-sized plot. There was scaffolding running all the way around the building; clearly some extensive renovation was taking place. In real estate terms, given its location, the place was worth millions. Sally wondered what the planning permission guidelines were for old churches. She had been looking into getting a mortgage on a small flat and realised she couldn’t even afford a garden shed in west London, nowadays.
Danny Vine jerked his thumb back at the church. ‘It’s been deconsecrated apparently. Built on the site of a plague pit.’
‘Nice.’
‘Back in the fourteenth century. The plague, I meant, not the church.’
‘I kind of gathered that, Danny,’ said Sally. ‘I’m a detective. I’m supposed to notice details like that.’
‘Yeah, sorry.’
‘They’re knocking the building down?’
‘They are. Dangerous subsidence. Can’t really fix it without clearing the area. So they are going to do that and build a block of apartments.’
Sally looked over at the cemetery. ‘Nice view.’
Danny shrugged. ‘They’re going to plant trees around.’
‘What’s the trench for?’ asked Kate Walker. ‘If they’re demolishing the building.’
‘They’re putting in some power cables. Heavyduty. They’re not knocking it down in one go. Just taking it apart bit by bit. Some very valuable architectural salvage there.’
The trench had been dug in the ground, leading from the side of one of the flying buttresses of the building and heading for the road. Outside the trench stood the other uniformed officer and a couple of builders, judging by their outfits. Two spades lay on the ground beside them. They didn’t seem too bothered by what they had discovered. One was eating a sandwich and the other was having a mug of tea. A thermos flask was propped up by an open canvas bag alongside their discarded spades.
‘It’s probably just an animal bone. A family dog buried here years ago?’
‘A pet buried on hallowed ground. Doesn’t sound likely,’ said Kate as she stepped into her forensic bodysuit and pulled the zip up and the hood over her rich, dark hair.
Danny Vine jerked his thumb back at the vicarage. ‘I was thinking the vicar’s pet maybe. Who knows, back in the last century sometime. It certainly looks old.’
‘Is this hallowed ground anyway?’ asked Sally. ‘It’s not the cemetery, quite a way from the church.’
Kate shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Not my area. Ask Jack, if you see him. Used to be a choirboy, you know.’
Sally laughed. ‘Now that I do find hard to believe.’
Danny gestured at the trench again. ‘You think it’s an old bone?’
Kate nodded with a wry smile. ‘Why don’t I find out,’ she said, as she snapped on a pair of latex gloves. She swung her evidence kit over her shoulder and used the short, three-step ladder that had been put up to climb into the trench.
The workman watched disinterestedly as she made her way along the frozen mud of the trench towards them to where they had stopped digging. Both men were in their forties with wide shoulders and short grey hair. They were dressed in black trousers with silvered reflective cloth around the lower part of them, and thick donkey-jackets. They looked like brothers.
‘You stopped as soon as you discovered it?’ she asked them.
The taller of the two stepped forward. ‘Well, it’s a cemetery, isn’t it?’ he said belligerently, as if Kate had made some kind of accusation. He was Irish but his accent had none of the charm or, sometimes, softness of Jack Delaney’s.
Kate looked around. ‘Not this part of the grounds it isn’t.’
The man shrugged. ‘Anyway. Standard procedure.’
‘You dig up a lot of bones?’
‘It happens. Usually animal.’
The other man stepped forward, his accent the same. ‘We’re told to stop with the dig, you see, if bones come up.’
‘Good job too. Let’s see what you’ve found, then.’
Kate bent down and, using a fine-haired brush, swept a light falling of snow away from the exposed bone. It was about three inches long, seemingly brown with age, and pitted. The earth around it was hard with the cold and she brought out a stiffer-haired brush and slowly started to clear the soil.
‘How long do you think it’s been there?’ asked Sally Cartwright.
‘It’s not recent,’ Kate replied. ‘I can tell you that much. Could be years, could be decades. Could of course have been moved and planted here at any time.’
‘Why?’
Kate looked up at her. ‘I have absolutely no idea, Sally. You should know as well as I do that people do things for all kinds of reasons.’
‘True.’
‘Let’s see what we’ve got first.’
‘Is it human bone?’
‘Not sure yet.’
Kate brushed some more of the mud away and then gestured to Sally: ‘There’s a camera in my bag, get down and get some shots.’
Sally fished Kate’s camera from the bag, a Canon she had bought herself as an early Christmas present. It took very high-quality stills and extremely good, high-definition video footage. Kate wanted to capture their first Christmas together, and figured it was worth the expense. Sally climbed down into the trench with Kate and handed it over to her.
‘What have you found?’ she asked.
Kate pointed at the piece of bone that was more visible now through the earth. ‘Hang on, I’ll set it up for you.’ She took the camera from the young detective constable, took the lens cap off and altered some dials. ‘Okay, focus here,’ she said, showing Sally the various dials. ‘Just hold the shutter halfway and it will do it automatically, then push it in for the shot.’
‘Okay.’
‘And push this button here for video and, as you’re filming, take some shots in the normal way and it will record both.’
‘All right, Kate. I got it. What have you seen, then?’
‘Looks like metal here.’ Kate knelt down again and brushed some more dirt away while Sally filmed. ‘Not quite sure what yet.’
After a few moments a small sliver of rounded metal became visible. ‘Take some photos here,’ she said.
Sally crouched down and fired off a number of shots.
‘Okay, Sally. That will do for now,’ said Kate. They both stood up and Kate took back the camera. ‘I think my work here is done,’ she said, putting the lens cap back on.
Sally Cartwright looked down at the sliver of metal on the bone. ‘What is it then?’ she asked.
‘In the unlikely event that the vicar’s family pet wasn’t a watch-dog, I am guessing we are dealing with human remains.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s a watch, Sally. On a human wrist bone. I am guessing the rest of whoever it is is attached also. I don’t want to contaminate the site. The forensic pathologist needs to take over from here.’
‘Outside my pay-grade then,’ said DC Cartwright, fishing her mobile phone out of her pocket.
‘Mine too nowadays, can’t say I miss it.’
The workman gestured with his sandwich at the exposed bone. ‘Murdered, you reckon?’
Kate looked at him coolly. ‘What I reckon,’ she said, ‘is you won’t be finishing this job for a little while yet. You had better phone your bosses.’
The taller man shrugged and pulled out his mobile phone.
‘No skin off mine,’ he said.
‘More than you can say for him,’ said the other man, looking down at the exposed bone and taking a last bite of his sandwich.
LAURA CHILVERS GROANED and rolled onto her side.
She immediately regretted it. Her groans became deeper, visceral, and she was clearly in great pain. She breathed heavily but didn’t dare to open her eyes. She moaned like a hurt animal and held her hand to her dry lips. She tasted blood. Her eyes flew painfully open. Her stomach convulsed and she nearly retched, dry-heaving as if she was choking. But after a moment or two, she stopped and gulped some air into her lungs. She closed her eyes again. It was pitch-dark but somehow the lack of perspective, and any awareness of where she was, made her head spin and the nausea rise in her throat again. She took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself and ran her other hand over her body. She was naked apart from a pair of ripped cami-knickers. She rubbed her sore hand over the smooth, silky fabric of them and groaned again.
She took some more deep breaths and put her hand to one side and almost sighed with relief. She could feel the familiar outline of her radio alarm clock on her bedside cabinet. She was home at least, and in her own bed. She knew that much, if little else. She reached tentatively around her, but no one else was there. She contemplated switching on the light but thought better of it. The throbbing in her head was getting worse if anything. As if someone had taken an ice-pick and was tapping away on it, the pain spiking through her head like a pulse. It was a pulse, of course, she knew as well as anyone what the brain did when exposed to too much alcohol, too many drugs.
Christ, she couldn’t remember what she had taken. Couldn’t remember anything much at all. Had her drinks been spiked? She was certainly displaying the symptoms of having taken Rohypnol. She had had the rape-kit out far too many times not to recognise the symptoms.
She rolled over to her side once more, cradling the pillow under her head, and tried to remember.
Think!
Late night. Flashes of memory were coming back.
She had been looking through her office window as the snow had started to fall. She had locked the door, pulled the curtain across and changed her clothes. Her hand went to her thigh again. She remembered stripping completely out of her work clothes. Looking at herself in the mirror and admiring her taut and toned body. She had put a hand to her chest, her nipples stiffening as she ran a nail across her right breast.
She remembered turning round and looking at her bottom. She worked out every day at the gym, or at home, and she was not displeased with the results. She didn’t consider herself a narcissist but treated her body like a temple. A temple of pleasure. Her Scandinavian heritage coming into play probably. She had moved her hand around and cupped her bare sex, smiling as she did so. Knowing that Slimline Dave Matthews was just beyond the locked door with DC Cartwright. What would they make of her? she had wondered. She had laughed and opened the small case she had brought with her, snapping open the locks and taking out a pair of deep purple, silk cami-knickers.
In her bed she ran her hand over her bottom again, gasping involuntarily as her fingers lingered over the thick welts. She moved her hand upwards. Welts criss-crossed her back, her buttocks, her upper thighs.
She reached out to her bedside cabinet, and found a glass of water. Her eyes had adjusted a little now and she could just about see it. She opened the drawer, fumbled for a couple of ibuprofen tablets from the pressed foil and swallowed them. Then took a long drink of water. She breathed a little, took another gulp, replaced the glass and lay back on the pillow, closing her eyes. Remembering.
Disjointed images flashed into her mind. Strobe lights. Sounds. Distorted music. The music was a physical thing. Sensual. The light and sound surrounded Laura. She felt like a goldfish in a surrealist fish tank. The other clubbers shimmering around her like a shoal of shiny creatures. Decked out in leather or rubber or PVC. Dominatrixes, slave outfits. Policewomen, schoolgirls, masters and schoolboys, maids and mistresses. One woman walked past wearing a ring-mistress outfit complete with red shorts, top hat and long whip. She looked like Amanda Holden, but Laura guessed she wasn’t. She looked down at the glass she held in her hand. A large shot of Absolut vodka over ice. She swirled the glass, just about hearing the clink and tinkle of the ice over the heady music and the loud chatter surrounding her. She tilted her head back and downed the shot in one.
‘Prosit!’
The man beside her at the bar was in his thirties and smiling at her. He was wearing tight, black leather shorts and that was all. He had hairless, sun-bronzed skin and short cropped white hair. His excitement was all too evident.
She looked him up and down. ‘Fuck off!’ she said.
‘Was just going to offer you a drink,’ he replied.
‘Now!’ said Laura and turned her back on him, holding out her shot glass to the barmaid, who was dressed as a Bavarian waitress from a beer cellar. ‘Hit me!’ she said.
‘I thought you’d never ask.’
Laura sighed and turned back to the man. ‘Run along and play with someone else. I don’t do men.’
‘Pity.’
‘Not for me.’
She turned away and sipped on her new drink. Swirling the ice and remembering what the homeless man had said to her. Her hand shook as she finished the drink and held it out again.
‘Hit me again, Heidi.’
After a while she lost track of time, and Laura felt the warm, familiar buzz. But it hadn’t taken the edge off her thoughts, it had intensified them. The vodka didn’t seem to be doing the job. She picked up the short riding crop she had laid on the bar and held it tightly in her grip.
She became aware of another presence beside her and turned round. It was the woman she had met the week before, Nicola French. Petite and blonde with fine porcelain-like skin and large, expressive baby-blue eyes above her chiselled cheekbones. Her lips were painted the colour of strawberries with a glossy sparkling layer added. Laura felt like sinking her teeth into them and biting them. The woman was dressed like a Roman slave girl. Her hair was coiled in plaits, a gold chain around her thin neck. A silky, diaphanous shoulderless gown gaped open and revealed her breasts. Breasts that had had the nipples painted and glistened like her lips. The skirt of the dress fell just below her waist. She wore high-heeled, golden sandals on her feet and a chain around her waist.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said.
‘You will be, Nicola!’ said Laura, noticing the nipples on the younger woman’s breast harden.
‘I’ll make it up to you?’
‘Do you like to be disciplined?’ asked Laura, stroking the tip of her crop against Nicola’s breasts.
‘Yes,’ said the younger woman with a breathless sigh.
‘Yes, what?’ barked Laura and flicked the tip against her nipple.
‘Yes, mistress,’ she said. ‘If it please you.’
‘Tonight just might be your lucky night then,’ said Laura as she slipped her left hand under Nicola’s mini-skirted dress.
‘Thank you, mistress.’
Laura leaned in and whispered in her ear. ‘You are not wearing any panties, Nicola,’ she said.
‘No, ma’am’
‘Good girl. But that is very, very naughty!’ The woman gasped as Laura worked a finger into her. ‘I think you are going to have to be punished, very, very severely.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Shush.’ Laura removed her hand from under Nicola’s skirt and put her finger in her mouth. ‘From now, on you speak only when I give you permission.’
The younger woman’s eyes dilated with desire and excitement. Something was dancing in Laura’s eyes too. But it was a desire of a completely different nature.
‘Come with me then,’ she said and led Nicola away from the main room.
Laura took another glass of water, squeezing her eyes shut trying to remember what happened next.
She swung her legs over the bed and held her head down, not noticing the tears that splashed onto her red and welted thighs.
DETECTIVE INSPECTOR JACK Delaney blew on his mug of tea and took a sip, stamping his feet up and down a little, and tapping his heels on the side of the kerb to knock off the snow.
‘Any chance of getting that bacon sandwich before Easter, you reckon, Roy?’ he asked.
‘You’re a real miserable sod in the mornings, Jack. Anyone ever tell you that?’ Roy, the ruddy-faced owner of the burger van, called over his shoulder.
‘And make sure it’s crispy.’
‘Well, do you want it now or do you want it crispy?’
‘Just get on with it.’
Roy gave him a quizzical look. ‘You’re not worried about this court case, are you?’
‘Do I look worried?’
‘Hard to tell with you, Jack, you always look as happy as an Irishman chewing on a lemon.’
Delaney would have responded, but his mobile phone trilled in his pocket. He fished it out and flipped it open, looking at the caller ID, but not recognising it.
‘Delaney?’ There was a wheezing sound on the other end of the line. ‘Still economical with your words, I see, Jack?’
‘Who is this?’
‘It’s an old friend, don’t you recognise me, Detective Inspector?’
The man had a raspy, low voice and Delaney nodded. ‘Michael Robinson.’
‘In the flesh, large as life. So to speak.’
‘What can I do for you?’
‘Just wanted to tell you I’m looking forward to seeing you in court.’
‘I’ll talk to you there then …’
He would have hung up, but Robinson spoke again. ‘I hear you’re going to get married, Jack. I wanted to congratulate you.’
‘You heard wrong.’
‘Shacked up with a lovely lady doctor, with your daughter all nice and cosy, and a new one on the way as I heard.’
Delaney breathed through his nostrils. ‘You better hear this then. You’re going down today, and this time you are staying down.’
‘I wouldn’t count your chickens.’
‘You can count on this, Robinson. You get in my life or my family’s life, and I will fucking destroy you.’
He clicked the phone off and put it back in his pocket. ‘That sandwich ready yet?’ he said to Roy.
Roy forked a few rashers of bacon onto a thick slice of white bread, added a fried egg, squirted some tomato ketchup over, slapped another slice of bread on top and handed it over to Delaney in a paper napkin.
‘There you go,’ he said. ‘Just as you like it.’
‘About bleeding time.’
Roy looked at him, unsmiling. ‘So what was that all about?’
‘A nuisance call is all.’
‘Michael Robinson?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What? They just let him phone you up?’
‘Prisoners on remand get to make phone calls, Roy. This isn’t Victorian England.’
‘More’s the pity, you ask me. They would have that filthy, raping scum hanged and dancing the dead man’s jig long before now.’
‘He’ll get what’s coming to him.’
‘Will he, though? How many fuckers like him get off?’
‘He won’t be getting off.’
‘There’s plenty as do. And what will he get anyway? Some nominal sentence and serve half of it?’ Roy scraped the fat from his hot plate angrily.
‘We do what we can.’
‘I know.’
‘And he did more than just rape the woman, Roy.’
‘I’d have been in your shoes, Jack, I’d have made sure he didn’t even make it to court.’
‘Not the way I operate.’
Roy twitched the corner of his mouth. ‘That’s not what they say in the papers.’
‘Not true, Roy.’
‘Might influence the jury, though.’
Delaney took another bite of his sandwich. Drops of the red sauce squirting from it stained the snow beside his feet. He looked down at the bright red splatters glistening against the brilliance of the snow in the early-morning sunlight, and then back up at the roadside chef.
‘Like I said, he’ll get what’s coming to him.’
He scuffed his foot over the crimson stain, crushing it under the snow.
Delaney walked along the platform towards the steps leading up to the ancient courthouse. He was aware of the barrage of questions being shouted at him, of the lights flashing as photographs were taken, of the fact that film cameras were being pointed at him. But he ignored it all. He walked through them, not even bothering to say: No comment.
‘Knock ’em dead, Delaney.’
Delaney turned, recognising the familiar voice. Melanie Jones, the Sky News reporter, was standing close by, her cameraman training a state-of-the-art HD video camera on him. Time was when Delaney would have ignored her too. But things had changed. Maybe Delaney was getting less cynical, maybe Melanie Jones was. Either way, when Delaney looked across at the woman, she seemed to be genuinely encouraging. He gave the smallest, barely noticeable nod to her and walked into the court building.
His boss, Superintendent George Napier, was standing in full dress uniform inside, waiting for him.
He strode across and pulled Delaney to one side. ‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’
‘Something came up, sir.’
‘What?’
‘Breakfast, sir. Needed to get something to eat.’
‘You better be bloody joking, Delaney.’
‘The car was playing up. The cold, sir. Took longer to sort out than I thought.’
‘And in the meantime you didn’t think to call or return any of Diane’s calls?’
‘The phone was inside on charge, boss. Didn’t see the calls missed until I was halfway here.’
Napier looked at Delaney closely. He was pretty certain the man was lying to him, treating him as he did everything else — like it was some kind of joke. Only Napier wasn’t laughing. The man had been skating on thin ice so long, it was a miracle to him that Delaney was still in the force. If Diane hadn’t protected him like a jealous tiger protects her cubs, he’d have been gone long ago. True, he had cleaned his act up in recent months — Dr Kate Walker was clearly having an influence on the man. But he didn’t trust him. Not as far as he could kick him.
‘Just make sure you stick to the script, Delaney.’
‘Of course, sir,’ said Delaney and smiled, walking onwards into the court.
The look in his eyes told a very different story, however.
PATRICIA HUNT TOOK the large aluminium kettle from the trivet it was sitting on beside her range-style cooker and carried it over to the sink to fill. As she did so, she watched her husband, still working in the garden. He had cleared the pathway to his wooden studio completely of snow and was now clearing the birdbath. He brushed the snow aside and, with the handle of a small trowel, tapped the surface of the frozen water, tilting it so that he could remove the top layer of ice. It came loose in one frozen circle, which he put to one side, and then filled the bath with fresh water from a can.
Patricia smiled, for she knew the water would be frozen again in no time at all, but Geoffrey hated to see the birds suffer. He hated to see anything or anybody suffer. It was one of the things she loved so much about him. It broke her heart to see him in so much pain himself. But they had done what they had to do. It was for the best, they had both agreed that.
In the background West London radio was playing. Another single from this year’s X Factor winner. She wasn’t sure if she preferred the old days when it would be Cliff Richard on the radio all the time, come Christmas. Sometimes it was good to know where you stood. She put bread in the toaster and fetched a jar of home-made marmalade from the dresser. Seville orange, a bit too bitter for her taste, she preferred lime marmalade, but Geoffrey liked it. She put it on the table and laid out some plates. As the song finished, she picked up the teapot and took it over to the work surface beside the range.
An announcer came on the radio with the local news. Patricia wasn’t listening until the announcer mentioned St Luke’s Church.
‘… St Luke’s Church south of Queen’s Park Rangers football ground. It is not known at this stage how the body came to be buried there, or how long it has been there. The police pathologist is onsite and we will update you with developments.’
Patricia Hunt screamed and looked down at her hand, which she had spilled boiling water from the kettle on. She dropped the kettle back on the range and ran to the sink to run cold water, putting her hand under it. As her husband came hurrying up the garden to see what had happened, Patricia found tears in her eyes.
Stephanie Hewson was an above-average-height woman with dark, curly hair. She exuded confidence and authority, and dressed accordingly. A pin-striped two-piece suit with a dark-red silk blouse. Her hair was tied back and she wore plain-framed black glasses.
Her voice, when she spoke, however, belied the assertiveness that her dress and bearing seemed to wish to present to the world. Her voice trembled in fact.
‘It was a Friday night. Ten o’clock …’ She paused to take a drink of water.
‘It’s okay, Miss Hewson. Take your time,’ said the judge, Helen Johns, a stern-faced woman in her late fifties. The severity of her expression softened, however, as she looked across at the woman standing in the witness dock.
‘Thank you, Your Honour. I know it was ten o’clock,’ she continued, ‘because I had just missed a train. And there were eight minutes until the next one. I was worried about missing my connection at Marylebone and having to wait another half-hour.’
The counsel for the prosecution, Selena Carrow, inclined her head solicitously. She was a woman in her late thirties, of medium height with a soft voice that belied her single-mindedness.
‘And were you alone on the platform?’
‘I was initially. Like I said, I had just missed my train. But other passengers came onto the platform.’
‘Could you describe them?’
‘It was a long time ago.’
Selena Carrow, QC, sketched her hand in the air. ‘Any stand out in particular?’
‘There was a group of young women, in their twenties, I should say. They had been on a hen-night, I think, some kind of party. It was close to Christmas. Maybe a works outing.’
‘What makes you say hen-party?’
‘They were drunk, unsteady, holding onto each other. Giggling loudly. One of them had on a pair of bunny ears, and they all had short skirts or dresses. Light coats on. It was cold but they didn’t seem to notice.’
‘And anyone else?’
Stephanie Hewson looked to her left across the courtroom to the gallery, where DI Jack Delaney was sitting, watching events with an impassive expression on his face.
The defence barrister, Hector Douglas — a tall, balding man in his fifties, a leading light in the firm of Gable & Wilson, and wearing a suit that cost more than Jack Delaney’s monthly salary — leapt to his feet.
‘Objection! Counsel is leading the witness.’
Selena shook her head, as though annoyed by the interruption. ‘Not at all, My Lord. I ask only if there were other persons present that night that she might recall.’
The judge nodded. ‘Overruled. You can answer the question, Miss Hewson.’
‘I saw a man further along the platform, he was looking at the women.’
‘And could you describe him?’
Stephanie Hewson looked across at Jack Delaney again, and once more the defence barrister sprang to his feet.
‘Your Honour!’ he said, seemingly outraged. ‘The witness seems to be seeking advice in this regard from members of the gallery. Are we not to have her opinion unalloyed by prejudicial direction?’
The judge sighed. ‘Please spare the court your theatrics, Mr Douglas, and sit down. And, Miss Hewson, please try to focus on counsel and her questions.’
‘He was a long way down the platform from me.’ She shrugged. ‘He was of medium height, had a dark coat on, was wearing a hat and had glasses.’
‘Okay. Now please tell the court what happened next?’
‘I waited for my train. More people came onto the platform. The train arrived and I made it in time to Marylebone to catch my overland train to Harrow-on-the-Hill.’
‘But you had to run in order to do so?’
‘Relevance, My Lord,’ asked Hector Douglas, this time not bothering to rise.
The judge gestured to Selena Carrow.
‘Goes to her state of mind, Your Honour. Focus as to who she may or may not have seen.’
‘Continue.’
‘So you were running, Miss Hewson?’
‘I was. As fast as I could, I had court shoes on.’
‘And did you notice the man you had seen in the hat earlier?’
Douglas stood up. ‘Objection, My Lord!’
‘You know better than to lead the witness, Miss Carrow.’
‘Sorry, My Lord.’ She turned back to the witness. ‘Did you take any notice of the people around you?’
‘I did not. No. Like I said, I was running as fast as I could.’
‘Quite so. And you made your train?’
‘I did.’
‘And then what happened that evening?’
‘The train came into Harrow station some twelve or so minutes later and I continued my journey home on foot.’
‘Could you describe that journey for us?’
‘I live on the hill, so it is a ten-minute walk. Usually I take a taxi.’
‘But that night you didn’t.’
Stephanie Hewson looked at the woman for a minute, her hand trembling. She took a sip of water, spilling some, then placed the glass down. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I did not.’
‘Why was that?’
‘It was a nice evening.’
‘You said earlier it had been cold?’
‘It was cold. But it was a nice night. Clear sky. The moon was full, so there was plenty of light, there were stars in the sky …’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I was in a good mood. I thought I would enjoy the walk.’
‘But you didn’t enjoy the walk?’
Stephanie Hewson looked down at her feet for a moment, then looked back up, her eyes wet. ‘No, I did not enjoy the walk.’
‘Can you tell the court what happened?’
The judge looked sympathetically at the woman in the witness dock. ‘It’s okay. Take as long as you like.’
‘Thank you,’ she said and raised the glass to her lips once more, taking a few more sips of the water. She placed the glass back down and then straightened herself, as if steeling herself for what was to come. ‘I was gagged and raped. And when he was done with me, he took a sharp knife and sliced it across my breasts, my stomach and my thighs.’
THE WOMAN LOOKED across at the accused, who was watching her intently, but seemed neither agitated nor concerned.
Michael Robinson was in his early fifties with receding sandy-coloured hair, of medium height, but stocky with broad shoulders. He wore tortoiseshell retro-style glasses, and the skin on his balding pate was flaky. He was dressed in a two-piece suit and wore a white shirt with a green tie. He met the woman’s gaze with unblinking eyes, then turned his gaze on Delaney, a hint of a smile playing on his lips.
Stephanie Hewson took another sip of her water and the prosecuting attorney waited for her to collect herself.
‘Please tell the court exactly what happened, Miss Hewson.’
‘I left the station at approximately ten to eleven.’
‘Had you looked at your watch?’
‘No, but the ten-thirty train was on time from Marylebone. It takes about twelve minutes to get to Harrow, and so a few minutes to walk up the steps, through the concourse and out the back entrance.’
‘The one that leads out to the hill, and not to the shopping centre?’
‘Yes. I walked down the steps and up to the alleyway that runs through to Roxborough Park.’
‘Were you aware of being followed?’
The defence counsel stood smoothly to his feet. ‘Objection, My Lord, it has not been established that Miss Hewson was indeed followed. Counsel is leading the witness yet again!’
‘Sustained.’ The judge threw Selena Carrow a look. ‘You really do know better than this.’
‘Sorry, Your Honour.’ If she meant it, it wasn’t evident in her expression. She turned to the witness stand again. ‘At that time were you aware of anyone else?’
‘No, I was not. I was walking home and didn’t notice anybody else out. But, like I said earlier, I was lost in my thoughts a little.’
The prosecution lawyer consulted her notes. ‘Yes, you said you were in a happy mood.’
‘Relevance, Your Honour?’ asked Hector Douglas.
The judge gestured to the prosecution counsel.
‘State of mind, Your Honour. We intend to establish that the accused, Michael Robinson, targeted Miss Hewson, that he followed her home on the train, that he pursued her down the alleyway that she has just described. That Miss Hewson was not aware of anyone else that night was because her thoughts were preoccupied.’
‘Your Honour,’ Douglas stood up. ‘My client has never denied being on that train — he lives in Harrow. That her mind was elsewhere prior to this terrible assault taking place is evident in that she has mistakenly identified my client as the man who attacked her.’
‘Sit down.’ The judge rapped her gavel sharply. ‘You will have ample opportunity to cross-examine, Mr Douglas. Please continue, Miss Carrow.’
‘I am obliged, My Lord. Miss Hewson, please tell us what happened next.’
‘I came out of the alleyway into Roxborough Avenue, when a man suddenly appeared behind me and said that if I screamed, he would kill me.’
‘And did you believe him?’
‘Your Honour, leading the witness!’
‘Sustained.’
‘He had a knife in his hand, which he held to my side. I was too terrified to scream.’
‘This alleyway, and the one opposite, is overlooked by housing.’
‘Yes, there are apartments. But I was too scared to call for help. His voice …’ She took another sip of water. ‘His voice was ugly, terrifying!’
‘So, as you say, you were in fear for your life?’
‘Yes.’
‘What happened next?’
‘He stood beside me telling me to keep my head down, so as not to see his face, and led me into the alley that leads to the hill.’
‘And did you see his face?’
‘Not at that time.’
Selena Carrow consulted her notes again. ‘So he led you across the road into the opposite alleyway. This is the one that runs alongside the Catholic church of Our Lady and St Thomas, past a junior school and out onto Harrow Hill itself.’
‘Yes, only we didn’t go so far.’
‘What did happen then, Miss Hewson?’
‘Just past the church, before the primary school, there is a Scout hut.’
The lawyer made a show of consulting her notes again. ‘The Seventeenth Roxborough?’
‘Yes. He opened the door and pushed me inside, telling me to be quiet.’
‘How did he open the door?’
‘He had a key.’
Selena Carrow turned pointedly and looked at Michael Robinson for a moment or two, letting the jury see the scorn on her face.
‘Can you tell the court, please, what took place in that hut, Miss Hewson.’
‘He closed the door behind him; it was dark inside.’
‘Even though it was a moonlit night?’
‘The windows were grimy, it was dark. He came in, like I said, and closed the door. He ordered me not to look round. He said he would hurt me if I didn’t do exactly what he said. He held the point of the blade to my throat as he said it. It was a very sharp blade.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I …’ She paused for a moment and took another sip of water. ‘I voided my bladder,’ she said.
‘You wet yourself?’ Selena Carrow clarified and looked at the jury.
‘Yes.’
‘And what did the man do?’
‘He laughed and said I would be punished for it, then ordered me to take my clothes off.’
‘And what did you do?’
The woman put a hand to her neck, in an involuntary gesture.
‘I did as he said.’
‘You stripped naked?’
Stephanie Hewson shook her head. ‘I left my knickers on.’
‘And what did he do?’
‘He told me to get on all fours, pushing me down. Then he held my knickers and ripped them up hard. I gasped with pain as they pulled between me and then he tore them right off, stuffing them in my mouth and ordering me to keep quiet.’
Selena Carrow nodded sympathetically, letting the words hang in the air as she consulted her notes.
‘And you did?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did he do?’
‘I heard a zip being pulled. He said he was going to put on a condom, that he couldn’t afford to pick up diseases in his line of work.’
‘And then he raped you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Repeatedly?’
‘Yes, first he …’
She trailed off and Selena Carrow held her notes up. ‘It’s okay, Miss Hewson. I know it is hard for you to talk about it. To relive the horror. I have your police statement here. You informed the police surgeon on duty that night at Harrow Police Station that you had been anally and vaginally raped. Is that correct?’
Stephanie Hewson nodded her head, tears springing in her eyes.
‘I am sorry, but we will need to hear your answer. Is it true that you were brutally raped, anally and then vaginally?’
‘Yes! And when he was done he sliced me with his knife and left.’
‘And what did you do?’
‘I got up and went to the window.’
‘You weren’t feeling any pain?’
‘I didn’t register the knife at the time. I was in shock. The surgeon said I was in shock. It was later … it didn’t really hit me until later.’
‘So you went to the window. Could you see anything?’
‘He was outside, adjusting his hat, and then he hurried off past the school towards the hill.’
‘Did you see his face?’
‘Sideways on.’
‘Enough to recognise him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then what did you do?’
‘I waited some minutes, then I put my coat on, grabbed my other clothes and ran to the apartment block to raise help.’
‘And then the police and ambulance came, and they treated you and took your statement.’
‘They took my statement the next day at the police station. I was sedated overnight and kept in at Northwick Park Hospital.’
‘Thank you very much, Miss Hewson. I know this hasn’t been easy for you.’
‘I can go now?’
‘Not just yet, my learned colleague will have some questions for you. But I have one final question?’
‘Yes?’
‘You said you could recognise the man again, from what you saw of him through that Scout-hut window?’
‘Yes, I would.’
Selena Carrow nodded and paused for a moment. ‘Can you look around this room then, please, and tell the court if you can see him here.’
Stephanie Hewson slowly looked around the courtroom, at the accused, at the visitors’ gallery, at the jury and finally at Jack Delaney. She looked at him for about three seconds, studying him, and then turned back to the lawyer.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t see the man who attacked me.’
THERE WAS UPROAR in the courtroom. The judge had to bang her gavel several times to get order restored. Selena Carrow was about to speak, but the judge motioned her to silence.
‘Sit down, please, Miss Carrow,’ she said, then turned to the woman in the witness box.
‘Miss Hewson, you do understand you are on oath?’
‘I do.’
‘Mr Robinson was arrested and charged and brought to court, largely based on the identification you made of him.’
‘Yes.’
‘You picked him out of a police line-up. How were you able to do that, if he was not the man that you saw through the window of the Scout hut?’
‘Because I had seen a photo of him, Your Honour.’
‘When did you see the photo?’
‘Before the line-up took place.’
‘Days before the line-up, weeks?’
‘It was less than an hour.’
Murmurs ran around the court once more, and yet again the judge gave a couple of sharp raps with her gavel. ‘And who showed you this photo of Michael Robinson?’ she asked.
‘He did,’ said Stephanie Hewson and pointed at the visitors’ gallery. ‘Detective Inspector Jack Delaney showed me the photo.’
DI JACK DELANEY took a sip of his pint of Guinness and looked at his watch.
He was sitting at the bar in the Viaduct Tavern on the corner of Newgate Street and Giltspur Street, right opposite the Old Bailey. He took another sip and smiled approvingly at the barmaid; it was a Fuller’s pub and they kept their beer well.
‘So what’s new and different then, Lily?’
‘How do you know my name?’
Delaney pointed to her polo shirt with her name printed on it.
‘Keep forgetting about that. Only started yesterday.’
‘Well, you’re doing a magnificent job!’ He flashed her a smile and she smiled back, a tad embarrassed, and went off to serve another customer.
Delaney put his beer glass neatly on a London Pride coaster and looked around the bar. It wasn’t the first time he had been there and as sure as Shinola wouldn’t be the last, he figured. Fighting for the cause of justice was thirsty work after all, and the tall lady on the dome of the building across the road was famous for turning a blind eye. The Viaduct Tavern had been built in 1869, the selfsame year that Her Britannic Majesty Queen Victoria had opened the Holborn Viaduct opposite, after which it had been named. The world’s first flyover connecting Holborn to Newgate Street over the River Fleet, which likewise gave its name to the famous street of shame nearby. A river that fittingly enough had become a sewer by the eighteenth century and was now the largest of London’s subterranean rivers. Subsumed as London grew. The Viaduct Tavern was a reverse Tardis of a pub, smaller on the inside than the large, curved frontage on the outside would suggest. But it kept its Victorian origins proudly evident. A square-shaped wooden and canopied bar in the centre of the room, with silvered and gilt mirrors on the wall and original art.
Delaney liked it.
A stool was moved beside him and DS Diane Campbell sat on it. She gestured to the barmaid. ‘Large vodka and slimline tonic, please.’
‘Cheers, Lily,’ said Delaney and smiled at her again.
‘Lily?’ said Diane and looked at him.
‘She’s got her name printed on her polo shirt.’
‘Hard for a man like you not to notice a thing like that.’
‘As a trained and experienced detective, you mean?’
‘I was thinking more of as a committed lecher.’
Delaney held up his hands. ‘I’m a reformed man, Diane. There’s only one woman in my life now. Two, if you count my daughter.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. Kate is a lovely woman.’
‘So she is.’
‘And she’s been through enough.’
‘Yeah, I know.’ Delaney’s eyes darkened, remembering how close he had been to losing her, and sipped his Guinness.
Diane picked up her change from the barmaid and took a sip of her vodka too.
She looked back up at Delaney for a moment or two and then jerked her head backwards in the direction of the Old Bailey. ‘Well, that certainly didn’t go according to plan.’
‘No. Seems someone had rewritten the script.’
‘A clusterfuck in fact, as our ex-colonial cousins across the pond would have it.’
‘I take it Napier is not pleased?’
‘I would go so far as to say Superintendent George Napier would quite like to have your balls removed with a rusty pair of secateurs and fed to his pet dog.’
‘I didn’t know he had a dog?’
‘Small one.’
‘Figures.’
‘So what Stephanie Hewson said in court — you showed her a photograph of Michael Robinson just prior to the line-up?’
Delaney shrugged. ‘I don’t think so.’
Diane took a contemplative sip of her drink. ‘You don’t think so?’
‘It was a while ago, Diane.’
‘I know. We had to wait until the man’s bones healed.’
‘That was nothing to do with me.’
‘You remember that then?’
‘I had nothing personal against the man.’
‘You had everything personal against any man who hurt women, Jack. You still do.’
‘I’m not a vigilante.’
‘No — what you are is a pain in the bloody arse.’
Delaney winked at her. ‘Nice arse, though!’
‘This one is out of my ability to control.’
‘What I figured.’
‘There’s going to be an investigation.’
Delaney shrugged. ‘I’m on holiday after Christmas anyway.’
‘Yeah, I know, Jack. Not really the point here.’
‘I guess not.’
‘You’re going to lose your job over this, if it isn’t sorted. Napier will see to that. The official interview is for Monday afternoon. So you have the weekend to get your facts straight.’
‘Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.’
‘What isn’t?’
‘Losing my job.’
‘Really? What would Kate think? What with a baby on the way and all?’
‘Kind of my point. This job is toxic, Diane. This whole city is toxic.’
‘No, it’s not. People are toxic, Jack. Some of them. That’s why we do the job we do.’
‘Sanitation engineers?’
‘About that.’
‘I can’t remember what happened that morning, Diane. But I am pretty sure Eddie Bonner covered for me. I didn’t get in until just before the line-up.’
‘Jesus, Delaney!’
‘I know.’
‘The CPS knew that, this would never even have made it to court.’
‘The man is guilty, boss.’
Diane Campbell shook her head, disgusted. ‘Eddie-fucking-Bonner!’
Sergeant Eddie Bonner had been Jack Delaney’s partner for a while. Up until the time he tried to kill him, that is. Bonner had been involved in serious and criminal corruption within the force, working with Kate Walker’s uncle, a senior police figure now in jail awaiting trial for murder, attempted murder and child-rape charges, amongst others. Delaney was getting close to exposing him, and Bonner, who wasn’t involved in the child crimes, changed horses mid-gallop. He was going to give Delaney information to help put Walker away. He didn’t get the chance to, for Bonner was killed in a hit arranged by Walker, and Delaney was nearly taken out too.
‘Bonner may well have shown her a photo — I wouldn’t put it past him, but I doubt it.’
‘Why?’
‘She could have said Bonner showed her the photo, if in fact he ever did. But she didn’t; she said I did.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. But Michael Robinson called me this morning. He seemed very upbeat.’
‘Jesus, Jack! You didn’t think a little detail like that was important enough to mention it to me?’
‘I’m mentioning it now.’
Diane took a healthy glug of her vodka. ‘What the fuck was that sick flake calling you for?’
‘He mentioned Kate and Siobhan, Diane. And the baby on the way.’
Diane gestured to the barmaid. ‘Can we get some more drinks over here, and make mine a large one,’ she said and turned back to Delaney. ‘You want a whiskey with that?’
‘No. I’m okay with this, thanks,’ he gestured at his half-finished glass of Guinness.
‘You reckon he was making some kind of threat?’
‘That was my understanding. Plus he seemed confident about the court case. Almost as if he knew Stephanie Hewson was going to recant on her testimony.’
‘What did he actually say?’
‘Just that. He knew he was getting off.’
‘How?’
‘Somebody got to the woman. Someone has been in contact with him. Watching me. Intimidating her.’
‘He had a partner?’
‘He has a partner. Maybe not that night. But yeah. There’s two of them.’
‘He’s definitely guilty, Jack? He did rape and slice the woman?’
‘Stephanie picked him out, Diane. I saw her when she did it. She wasn’t faking it. And what would be the motive?’
‘So what do we do?’
‘We go over everything again.’
‘Something you might have missed?’ she asked, taking the glass from the barmaid and swallowing at least half the contents.
‘There’s two of them, Diane. Stephanie Hewson wasn’t the first. I’d bet my mortgage on it.’
‘They are going to turn over every stone in your career, Jack.’
‘Of course they will. But it’s bureaucracy, Diane. Red tape. We haven’t got time for that.’
‘Okay. You’ve got the weekend. I’ll try and stall things as best I can.’
‘Napier won’t like it.’
‘Napier can kiss my arse.’
‘He might enjoy that.’
Diane looked at him coolly for a moment or two and then nodded. ‘Just don’t fuck me over on this, Jack. Nail the sick son of a bitch!’
‘Boss.’
Diane tossed back the remains of her drink and headed to the door. Delaney grinned at the barmaid. ‘Be an absolute darling, Lily. And give me a shot of Jameson’s, will you?’
The barmaid placed the shot glass in front of him and he looked at it for a long moment. A woman came up the bar and sat next to him. She had a tumble of auburn hair framing a heart-shaped face. Her eyes were big and blue. As she turned to Delaney, she had a smile on her face that could have melted frozen tundra.
‘Are you going to drink that whiskey or just look at it?’ she said.
‘I haven’t decided yet,’ Delaney replied.
‘Could go either way?’
‘Life’s a lot like that. Sometimes the small decisions help you make some big ones.’
‘And have you got a big decision to make?’
‘Seems like my life is full of big decisions,’ Delaney said and smiled back at her.
‘My name’s Kimberley Gold,’ she said.
‘Hello Kimberley, my name’s Jack Delaney.’
‘And don’t you shake a lady by the hand when you meet one?’
‘I’m married,’ he said and held his hand out.
Kimberley looked at his open hand for a moment and then slapped an envelope in it. ‘And you’re served, Jack Delaney!’ she said, got off her stool and walked out.
Jack watched her leave, then put the envelope on the bar counter and looked at his whiskey. Then he stood up, picked up the envelope and headed out himself. Leaving the whiskey untouched.
KATE WALKER WAS seated at her desk drinking a cup of coffee and reading the morning paper when there was a quick knock on her door and Laura Chilvers stuck her head round.
‘Have you got a minute?’
‘Sure, come in.’
‘Thanks.’
Kate looked at her. ‘What’s up? You look terrible.’
‘I feel terrible.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘I’m not sure.’
She held her hands out — they were raw. Streaks of blood dried on her fingers, her knuckles puffy and swollen. Split.
‘Dear God, Laura, what’s happened? Have you been attacked?’
‘Like I said, I don’t know, Kate. I can’t remember.’
‘Let me clean that up for you.’
‘No!’ said Laura sharply and drew her hands back, clasping them together and holding them on her lap. ‘There’s more.’
‘Go on?’
‘I think I was raped.’
Kate looked for a moment too stunned to say anything, remembering the trauma she had gone through when she thought she had been raped. Only she hadn’t.
‘Oh my God, I’m sorry.’
‘The thing is, I can’t remember what happened last night. I’m okay up to a point and then it goes hazy.’
‘You think you might have been drugged?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I was at a club. I had some drinks. Took some other stuff.’
‘Laura!’
‘Yeah, I know, I know. I should have known better! I’m a doctor. But if every doctor who took drugs was fired today, there would be queues at every health centre stretching for miles.’
‘I know — sorry. I wasn’t judging you.’
And Kate wasn’t. She recalled again the time she thought she had been raped. She had had a big argument with Jack and had got herself completely plastered at The Holly Bush in Hampstead. Drowned her sorrows, as they say, in a small pond of vodka. She had allowed herself to be chatted up by a smooth Delaney lookalike. Dark curly hair, handsome, full of charm. Except that was where the similarities ended. His charm was as false as the smile on a double-glazing salesman’s face. He was a children’s doctor and she thought she could trust him, only she couldn’t. She let him stay in her bed and was convinced he had raped her. Only he hadn’t, and was playing sick mind-games with her. Delaney had busted him on the nose, and she wished he had done more than that.
‘I know what it’s like to lose control, Laura,’ she said.
‘I had things … I don’t know, I couldn’t deal with them, Kate. I wanted to be in a different place. I was stupid.’
‘Whatever happened, it isn’t your fault.’
‘That’s just it, though. It is my fault. All of it. I deserve this.’
‘Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that.’
Laura wiped the sleeve of her overcoat across her eyes. ‘I need your help.’
‘Of course.’
‘You’ll need your rape-kit.’
JACK DELANEY STOOD by the side of the ditch watching as ‘Bowlalong’ Bowman, the forensic pathologist, and his team worked on uncovering the body. A protective marquee had been erected over the site. It had stopped snowing, but judging by the heavy sky overhead, it wouldn’t be long before it started again.
The skeleton had nearly been fully uncovered, and rags still clung to part of the body, bits of a suit by the looks of it. The rest had decomposed over the years that the body had lain there. The skull had been broken in several places and what looked like a book lay under the skeleton’s right arm.
‘You want to talk me through it?’ said Delaney, putting an unlit cigarette into his mouth.
Derek ‘Bowlalong’ Bowman looked up at the detective. He was a large, portly, cheerful man. His hair, as ever, was a tangled mass of grey curls, his dress sense equally scruffy, although he was now encased in a white forensic examination suit. ‘Hello, Jack. Didn’t expect to see you here. I’d have thought Napier would have had you on a convict ship to the colonies by now. Hard labour under the Australian sun.’
‘If he had his way, he probably would,’ Delaney agreed. ‘Some minor details to sort out first. Things have to be investigated thoroughly after all — innocent before being found guilty, and all that kind of malarkey.’
The large man smiled. ‘I know you’re a stickler for due process yourself.’
‘Famous for it.’
‘I take it you didn’t show the woman in question the photograph of Robinson?’
‘I hope not.’
‘Yes, I can see that might be awkward. No clear recollection?’
Delaney shook his head. ‘I certainly don’t remember doing that, no.’
‘Lost-weekend kind of thing.’
Delaney nodded drily. ‘Sometimes a little longer.’
‘The man was guilty, though?’
‘And now he’s walked free. But not for long.’
‘Best tread careful, Jack.’
‘My middle name.’
‘Really, I thought it was Daniel.’
Delaney gestured at the skeleton. ‘Our friend here a John or a Jane?’
‘Definitely male. Probably somewhere in his fifties.’
‘Can you tell how long he’s been in there?’
‘Bowlalong’ shrugged. ‘Not recent — the best I can do for you. For now at least.’
‘They look like old bones. Might have been moved here, you mean?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Why not?’
‘The clothing has decomposed, you can see it in the soil. We’ll do some tests, but the bone alignment, the clothing … I’d say this was the original site of burial.’
‘But you can’t say when.’
‘Bones react differently with different soil. Acids, alkalis, chemicals.’ He waggled his hands. ‘All manner of things either preserve or speed up the decaying process. I’ll know more when Lorraine and I get him back to the office.’
Delaney nodded at the young woman ‘Bowlalong’ had just gestured at. She was Kate’s former assistant, when Kate still worked as a forensic pathologist, until she decided she preferred working with the living to the dead and quit. Lorraine was a shy woman, with an expressive face that blushed readily. She was blushing now as Delaney nodded to her and he found himself wondering, not for the first time, why she was in a job like this. Kate had explained to him that Lorraine couldn’t cope with people dying on her, but didn’t want her medical training to go to waste.
‘Here you go, sir.’
Delaney turned round as DC Sally Cartwright handed him a styrofoam cup of coffee. Another attractive young woman working amongst the dead. He would probably be called a sexist pig, but it seemed wrong to him somehow. He didn’t articulate the thought.
‘Cheers, Sally,’ he said instead.
‘Any further forward?’ she asked the pathologist.
‘Not till we get back to the lab.’
‘What about the skull injuries?’
‘The doctor thinks they’re post-mortem.’
Derek Bowman nodded. ‘Like as not the workman with his spade.’
‘Maybe,’ said Delaney. ‘Maybe not.’
Lorraine delicately lifted the rotting book from under the dead man’s arm. She placed it to one side on a plastic sheet. The book was leather-covered, black originally by the look of it, although slimed with mud and moisture from the years it had lain with the man in the ground. She brushed away some of the mud on the cover with a stiff brush, revealing the object mounted on the book’s cover.
A crucifix.
‘Indeed, detective,’ said Doctor Bowman as he looked back at the fractured skull of the dead man. ‘Maybe not the workman’s spade at all.’
PATRICIA HUNT RUBBED some cream onto her hand.
‘You should see a doctor, darling,’ said her husband, watching her, concerned.
‘I’ll be fine, I ran it under cold water straight away; don’t fuss, Geoffrey.’
‘When I heard you scream, I didn’t know what had happened.’
‘I know, dear. It was nothing.’
‘But how did you spill it on your hand? That’s not like you at all. I’m supposed to be the clumsy one.’
‘I’m tired. And I’m not as strong as I used to be. My hand shook holding the kettle, that’s all.’
She looked away, unable to meet his eyes.
Geoffrey would have responded, but he suddenly went into a paroxysm of coughing, his whole body shaking as he held a handkerchief to his mouth.
His wife looked across at him, her hand forgotten. ‘I told you, you shouldn’t have gone out there this morning.’
He took a moment or two to catch his breath, his breathing ragged and wet. ‘There was work to be done.’
‘Standing here in the kitchen in the dead of night. With no slippers on, in the freezing cold. No wonder you’ve got a cough.’
‘Fresh air never killed anyone, Patricia.’
His wife looked at him for a moment. ‘You know that’s not true!’
Jack Delaney walked through A&E reception towards the intensive-care units, talking on his mobile telephone and ignoring the hostile glances that he was getting from the hospital staff as he passed.
‘I’ll give you a call when I’m heading in. Thanks, Tony, appreciate the heads-up.’
He closed the phone and put it in his pocket.
‘The ball rolling?’ asked DC Cartwright.
‘Yeah, a bloody big ball made of stone, and heading straight for me.’
‘Indiana Delaney.’
‘Yeah, only I might not make it out of the tunnel this time, Sally.’
‘Who was on the phone?’ she asked, trying to make the enquiry as casual as possible.
‘Detective Inspector Tony Hamilton, Constable,’ said Delaney, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. ‘Didn’t you and he …?’ Delaney wiggled his hand suggestively.
‘No, sir, we didn’t,’ said Sally Cartwright, feeling a blush rise to her cheeks despite herself.
‘Oh, I thought—’ continued Delaney, amused.
‘Well, we didn’t!’ Sally repeated, ending the discussion. ‘Seems he’s the go-to man for any investigations involving you, sir.’
‘Seems that way, but you’d be wrong.’
‘Oh?’
‘Diane arranged it. He’s part of the investigation team anyway. Much better him than that little prick Richard Stoker.’
‘True. I don’t like that man. And Tony Hamilton did save your life a few months back.’
Delaney smiled at her as he pushed the swing doors at the end of the corridor open. ‘Sure now, I had that covered.’
Sally gave him a little jab in the arm. ‘Of course you did, boss. And besides, it was your picture on the front of all those papers, not his.’
‘Jeez, don’t remind me.’
At the end of the summer Delaney had made headline news when he had rescued a young boy. The boy, Ashley Woods, had been kidnapped by a woman who had herself been kidnapped some fifteen years or so earlier. When she escaped she returned to Harrow to seek revenge. Whilst killing those she thought responsible, she also took the little boy, the grandson of one of the men in the group. As the killings mounted, Delaney had nearly been killed himself before rescuing the boy and making the front pages all over again.
‘Just saying, sir …’ said Sally Cartwright, amused at her boss’s discomfiture.
‘Well, don’t.’
‘Either way, it’s probably a good thing he is the one investigating you.’
‘It’s not an investigation — it is a preliminary inquiry to ascertain whether there is a case for formal investigation, at which time it will be turned over to the appropriate people.’
‘Which isn’t going to happen, is it?’
‘God knows, Sally. God only knows what that toerag Bonner did or didn’t do.’
‘Never trusted him myself. Too good-looking, with sleazy eyes.’
‘Right.’
They arrived at the intensive-care unit. A doctor, a very petite woman, and a nurse stood outside the first room. Delaney glanced inside. An elderly Chinese woman was lying on a bed, with drips and heart monitors attached.
‘I’m Detective Inspector Jack Delaney,’ he said. ‘And this is my assistant, Detective Constable Sally Cartwright.’
‘Lily Crabbe, the consultant registrar,’ said the doctor, a woman in her late twenties, but didn’t hold her hand out. The nurse, an older man, nodded but didn’t speak.
‘How is she?’
Dr Crabbe flicked a glance through the window. ‘She’s an elderly woman. We’re keeping a close eye on her.’
‘Was she attacked?’
‘That is more in your line of expertise, surely?’
‘The inspector means were there any signs of assault?’
‘There are bruises on her arms and legs, and her head has suffered some trauma.’
‘So she could have been attacked?’
‘She could have been, Detective Inspector. We ran an ECG scan and it looks like she has suffered from some form of stroke. That could of course have occurred if she was being assaulted. It could also have occurred and caused her to fall. Her injuries would be consistent with that.’
‘Even though there was snow on the ground?’
‘Hard snow, it was cold out there this morning.’
‘Yes. And the pavement would have been frozen. How do you rate her chances?’
‘I’m not a loss adjuster, Detective. She has a chance, but she is not in a good place right now.’
Delaney nodded, pointed to the next room along and walked towards it. ‘And the homeless man?’
‘Bible Steve.’
‘You know him?’
‘He’s been in before. The ambulance crew recognised him.’
‘How is he?’
‘To be honest, Detective Delaney, the fact that he is alive at all is what I would class as a minor miracle.’
‘How so?’
‘He was attacked some time in the night, as far as I can tell. It was cold this morning, it was below freezing last night. He was knocked into a comatose state. God knows how long he spent out there. He’s been living rough on the streets for years. He had a blood alcohol level that was through the roof. He should be dead, in my opinion.’
‘Somebody else’s opinion too, it would look like,’ said Sally Cartwright as she looked through the window. Bible Steve had as many tubes and monitors attached to him as the Chinese woman next door. But his hair was matted with dried blood, where it was visible; the rest was hidden under a thick white bandage wrapped around the top of his head. ‘My diagnosis … that looks like a clear case of attempted murder.’
‘I would hold fire on the “attempted” if I were you, Detective Constable,’ said the young doctor.
Delaney turned back to look at her. ‘You don’t think he’s going to make it?’
‘It’s not looking good for him, given what I said earlier. He’s in a coma. I’m not sure he has the health to pull himself out of it.’
‘There’s nothing you can do to help?’
‘We’ll do everything we can, of course. But short of further divine intervention, I am afraid his chances aren’t good.’
‘Why would someone want to kill a harmless old street person?’ asked DC Cartwright.
‘He’s not harmless, Sally. Look at his knuckles. “Slimline” Matthews tells me Bible Steve is a bit of a fighter.’
‘Let’s hope he is,’ said Dr Crabbe.
‘I still don’t get it. Why would someone want to murder him?’
‘This is London, Constable,’ said Jack Delaney. ‘Who needs a reason!’
DR LAURA CHILVERS came out of the police surgeon’s office, her face drawn, her eyes still haunted, her pupils dancing nervously.
‘I’ll make sure this is given top priority, Laura,’ said Kate Walker reassuringly as she followed close behind.
‘I don’t want anyone knowing, promise me,’ Laura whispered, leaning in and gripping Kate’s arm tightly.
‘I already have promised.’
‘I know you have, sorry. It’s my head. I can’t take it all in.’
‘I understand, Laura. It’s a perfectly natural state after what you have been through.’
‘It’s just the paperwork, I don’t want you getting into trouble.’
‘Let me worry about that. I have plenty of favours I can call in.’
‘Thanks, Kate. For everything.’
‘I haven’t done anything. But I will. Anything that’s needed.’
‘I appreciate it.’
‘Go home, take a shower, get some rest. I’ll call you as soon as I hear anything.’
Laura shook her head, trying to compose herself. ‘I don’t know if I want to go home. An empty house?’
‘Take a shower here, then. I know it sounds trite, but it will help.’
Laura knuckled her fist, furious with frustration, against her temple. ‘I just wish I could remember.’
‘I know you do.’
‘Christ, though, Kate! Maybe it’s best if I don’t.’
Kate stroked her arm.
‘Go and take that shower. You’ve got something to change into?’
‘I brought clothes. I know what the procedure entails, don’t I?’
Kate gave her arm a final rub. ‘You have my number. Just give me a call. Any time.’
Laura nodded and headed off. Kate watched her for a moment and then went back into her office.
Laura was pushing through the door into the corridor leading to the staff changing rooms when the sound of someone running made her spin round, terrified for a moment.
‘God, Dave!’ she said. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack.’
‘Sorry, Dr Chilvers, but I need to speak to you.’
‘What about? This isn’t a good time right now.’
‘I tried phoning you at home, on your mobile.’
‘I’ve been busy.’
‘You’re not rostered in for today?’ said the sergeant, puzzled.
‘I had things to take care of.’
‘We’ve got things to take care of too.’
‘Spit it out, Sergeant. Like I said, this really isn’t a good time for me.’
‘It’s Bible Steve.’
‘What about him?’
‘He’s lying in an intensive-care bed, Laura.’
Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh, my God, what’s happened to him?’
‘We don’t know.’
‘I knew you should have kept him in last night.’
‘We have to be very clear on what happened last night.’
‘I am.’
‘You asked me to keep him in, but you also said he was fit to be released.’
‘He was. But it was freezing out there, and you said he doesn’t always stay in the shelter.’
‘I know. But we’re not a homeless refuge.’
‘I do know that.’
Dave Matthews looked at her. ‘Are you all right, Laura?’
‘Of course I’m all right, what do you mean?’
‘You seem very distraught.’
‘I’m a doctor, Sergeant! Forgive me for being concerned if someone who was under my care is now in an intensive-care bed.’
‘He was under both our care. We charged him and released him on your judgement—’
‘And?’ snapped Laura, interrupting.
‘And,’ he continued pointedly, ‘another woman was found unconscious beside him, and is also in that same unit fighting for her life.’
‘I don’t understand?’
‘We don’t know if he attacked her or not. So, like I say, we have to be very clear about what happened last night. His state of mind when we released him. His blood alcohol levels were sky-high this morning.’
Laura’s eyes danced nervously again as she ran a hand through her dishevelled hair. ‘He must have got hold of some more.’
‘Bible Steve may have killed that woman.’
Laura blinked, taking it in. She ran a hand through her bedraggled hair. ‘What happens next?’
‘Detective Inspector Delaney is at the hospital now. If Bible Steve recovers, he’ll take a statement and we’ll take it from there, I guess.’
‘And if he doesn’t?’
‘There’ll be an inquiry. But our hands are clean, aren’t they?’
Laura didn’t reply for a moment or two. ‘I may go to the hospital myself. See how he is.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe I feel responsible.’
‘But you’re not, are you?’
‘What if I missed something?’
‘Let’s find out why he collapsed, and what happened to the woman, before we decide who’s to blame.’
Laura nodded distractedly. ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said and hurried off towards the changing rooms.
Sergeant Dave Matthews watched her for a while, absent-mindedly scratching his chin and unaware that he was doing so.
GEOFFREY HUNT STOOD up from adjusting the thermostat on his electric radiator mounted on the back wall, and stretched his aching back once more.
He was in the studio that he had built in the garden. It had been made from breezeblocks, with split-beamed pine logs clad on the front and stained wooden panels on the inside, so that it looked like a log cabin. His wife had called it his folly, and she didn’t just mean in the architectural sense. Inside it was very comfortable, with a dark-stained wooden floor that was covered with colourful rugs. A stable door looked out to the garden, the top half open when the weather allowed. A large desk stood in front of a broad panelled window beside the door. An antique captain’s chair rested in front of the desk. On the walls were a clutter of photographs and memorabilia. His wife, his family, old friends. Bookshelves lined one side-wall of the cabin; they were full of jumbled books. Geoffrey liked to read, almost as much as he liked to write.
On his desk top stood a modern laptop that his wife had bought him for his birthday a couple of months ago. The truth was, though, that he never felt comfortable using it. A stack of notebooks stood beside it. One open. He was supposed to have started transcribing what he had written so far of his latest story from the notebooks into the computer. But he hadn’t. He hadn’t even turned the laptop on. He sat at his desk and slowly moved the pen, which lay on the open book, in a circle with the index finger of his right hand. The other truth was that he hadn’t picked up a book to read in two weeks and hadn’t written a single word, either.
But he liked coming out to his studio. It gave him space to think, even if he didn’t like the thoughts that came to him. He looked at the wall to his left. A large crucifix was centred above the desk, and below it another small bookshelf. These books were kept neatly. A collection of his diaries over the years and, at the end, a copy of the Bible. Given to him when he was seven years old by his favourite aunt.
He took it from the shelf and held it in his hands for a moment, his thin fingers trembling as he felt the weight of it. He placed it down on the desk and laid his right hand on it, tracing the outline of the crucifix stamped onto the cover. The fading gold leaf was as much testimony to that ritual as it was to the passing of the years.
The door opened and Patricia came in, bundled in an oversized duffel coat, her feet in blue wellingtons, a large university scarf wrapped around her neck. She held a plate in her hand with a sandwich resting on it.
‘You shouldn’t have come out in this weather, Patricia,’ her husband said.
‘And neither should you. Here, I’ve brought you a sandwich,’ she said, placing the plate on his desk. ‘And a thermos of tea. Got to feed the creative mind.’
‘Thanks, darling,’ he replied and then coughed into his hand.
Patricia looked at him fondly and shook her head. ‘Why you can’t work inside I’ll never know.’
‘It’s as warm here as it is there. The radiator works a treat. Probably warmer, if anything.’
Patricia took a thermos flask from the bag she had slung over her shoulder and put it beside the sandwich plate. Then she rummaged in her bag and brought out a bottle of pills. ‘It’s time for your medicine.’
‘Yes, dear.’ Geoffrey sighed and took a bite of his sandwich, chewed it and then peered inside. ‘You put butter on the bread. You know I don’t like my bread buttered.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Geoffrey!’ his wife snapped suddenly. ‘I can’t think of everything! Not now, not today.’
Geoffrey looked up at her, concerned. ‘What’s happened?’
Patricia shook her head, wiping the back of her hand across her eyes. ‘Nothing — it’s just my hand is sore. Sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped.’
‘No, it’s my fault.’
‘Nothing is your fault, Geoffrey. God made us, didn’t he?’ she said, pointing at the Bible. ‘He made us and he can judge us. Everyone else can go hang.’
‘Yes, dear.’
‘We agreed. So eat your sandwich and try not to think of the butter. You know you’re supposed to feed a cold.’
‘Yes, dear,’ he said again. He picked up the sandwich once more, giving his wife a small smile as she left. Not seeing the tears coming to her eyes again. He contemplated the sandwich for a while as he had contemplated the Bible earlier — as though he might find within the answers that he sought. He sighed again and put down the sandwich. Made the sign of the cross on his forehead and chest, closed his eyes and then started praying softly.
‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors.’
His eyes opened and seemed to shine as he gazed out on his snow-covered lawn.
‘Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’
DEREK ‘BOWLALONG’ BOWMAN contemplated the skeletal form laid on his forensic-examination desk.
‘So what have we learned?’ he asked his young assistant.
‘Definitely male.’
‘Yes.’
‘A tall man, somewhere in the six-foot range.’
‘Correct.’
‘Been in the ground for some twenty-odd years.’
‘Probably.’
‘Cause of death?’
‘Ah, now that’s the thirty-two-thousand-dollar question.’
Lorraine smiled. ‘I thought it was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, Derek?’
‘Was, Lorraine. Don’t you know there’s a recession on?’ He stepped up to the skeleton. ‘Come and give me a hand.’
Lorraine slipped on a pair of latex gloves and joined him at the examination table.
‘These skull fragments, if you can give me a hand holding them together.’ The doctor held the section of skull that had been broken into four pieces. ‘You take those two pieces and hold them together with mine.’
They each picked up two pieces of broken bone and held them together, forming the gap that was missing from the left-hand side of the skull.
Bowman smiled grimly. ‘Can you see that?’
‘That wasn’t made by a workman’s spade.’
‘No, you can see here where the spade shattered the skull — the edges are different, whiter. But the edges here are as brown as the rest of the bone.’
‘Which means that it was made at the same time, or thereabouts, as the body was put into the ground.’
‘Exactly so, Lorraine.’
‘He was shot?’
Derek Bowman looked down at the ragged hole formed in the centre of the bone pieces they were holding together. ‘Looks that way: left temple, small-calibre pistol, close-range.’
‘No exit wound for the bullet.’
‘No.’ The forensic pathologist put down the two fragments he was holding and picked up the larger section of skull, turning it over. The openings to the skull were packed with earth. As he held it up, a worm wriggled loose and Lorraine grimaced.
‘Once we’ve cleaned this up, I should imagine we will find it still in situ.’
‘The workman was right, then.’
‘Indeed. It looks like Jack Delaney has got a murder on his hands!’
DI TONY HAMILTON was a tall well-built man in his thirties. He had dark hair, blue eyes and was dressed in an immaculate suit. He could have been Jack Delaney’s younger brother, if it wasn’t for his accent, his Protestantism and his all-round clean-cut image. Whereas Jack Delaney charmed people, unaware that he was doing so — his rough moodiness attracting women against their better sensibilities — Tony Hamilton used his charm as he used his intelligence. Like a tool. But the woman standing on the doorstep of her house and giving him a cool, level gaze was going to be impervious to any charm he could muster. He was pretty certain about that.
‘Didn’t take you long,’ said Stephanie Hewson.
‘Do you mind if I come in?’ asked the detective.
‘Do I have a choice?’
‘I need to speak to you formally. It might be more comfortable here than down at the police station.’
‘Is that a threat?’
DI Hamilton smiled at her reassuringly. ‘Not at all, Ms Hewson.’
‘Why is it, then, that I feel like it’s going to be me on trial now?’
‘You have made some very serious allegations.’
‘I have simply told the truth.’
‘And yet a man has spent a year in prison when, if you had told the truth earlier, he might have been released sooner.’
The woman looked at him for a moment, containing her anger. Then she seemed to calm herself, shivering almost, and her eyes dropped from his gaze to look at the detective’s highly polished shoes.
‘Why don’t you come in for a nice cup of tea then?’ she said in a flat voice, unable to hide the sarcasm inherent in her invitation.
A few minutes later, she handed Tony Hamilton a mug of tea. The mug was decorated with a scene from Winnie-the-Pooh. Pooh and Piglet playing Poohsticks. He wondered if there was any significance to it. He knew Stephanie Hewson didn’t have children. She still lived in the same downstairs apartment that she had been in at the time of the attack. He wondered if she would move, now that the man she had said was her attacker had been released from prison; but he didn’t articulate the thought.
‘Thank you,’ he said simply instead. ‘You have a lovely home.’
‘You can buy it if you want, it’s going on the market.’ She sat down on the sofa opposite the wing-backed chair in which the detective was sitting.
Tony Hamilton kept his face level, wondering when the decision had been made. ‘Had many offers?’
‘Not many. It’s not on the Internet yet.’
He took a sip of his tea. ‘Why did you recant your statement, Ms Hewson?’
‘Straight down to business?’
‘It’s a very serious matter.’
‘Did you see the scars on my stomach and on my breasts, Detective? I presume you have seen the photos?’
‘I did.’
‘Do you think I need telling how serious a business it is, then?’
‘Why did you change your mind?’ Hamilton persisted.
Stephanie Hewson took a sip of her tea. ‘I was shown that man’s photo. That’s not right, is it?’
‘And you are sure it was DI Jack Delaney who showed you that photo?’
She looked up at him defiantly. ‘Yes. Who else would it have been?’
‘Sergeant Bonner maybe?’
‘His assistant?’
‘Yes.’
Stephanie shook her head, flustered for a moment. ‘No. It was Inspector Delaney.’
‘Jack Delaney doesn’t remember meeting with you before the line-up.’
‘What do you mean, he doesn’t remember?’
DI Hamilton took a sip of his own tea. ‘In his recollection, he met you just before taking you through for the identity parade. Are you sure it was not Sergeant Bonner you met with?’
‘Yes, I’m positive.’
‘Was Eddie Bonner with him?’
‘I can’t remember.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Why do you think? I’m shown a photo of the man who raped me and cut me. What am I going to do: take an inventory of everybody in the room?’
‘So you do think Michael Robinson was the man who raped you, then?’
‘I was told he was,’ she replied angrily. ‘I was shown his picture. Why would somebody lie about something like that?’
‘We don’t know that anybody did. Why do you now think he wasn’t the man who attacked you?’
‘I never said that.’
‘But your statement in court this morning meant that he walked free.’
‘That wasn’t my fault.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I took an oath to tell the truth. It was your job to find the man who did this to me. Your job to find the evidence, not just make it up.’
‘Jack Delaney says he never did show you that photo.’
‘Then he’s a liar!’
DI Hamilton looked her in the eye. She was angry, no doubt about that, but there was something else in her eyes. Something that looked a lot like fear.
‘We will find out exactly what happened, Ms Hewson. You have my word on that.’
‘I couldn’t stand up in court and perjure myself, Detective. I let myself believe that Michael Robinson was the man who assaulted me. Who hurt me. Detective Delaney showed me that photo, and I believed it. I believed it because I had to. Do you understand me?’
DI Hamilton could see tears forming in her eyes. ‘No, tell me,’ he said.
‘It meant that they had the man. That he would be put away, and that I wouldn’t have to flinch at every little noise. That I could leave my house without feeling absolutely terrified that he was there again. Watching me. That he would hurt me again. If it was him, then I had some of my life back.’
‘Okay. We absolutely believe Michael Robinson was the man who raped you, Stephanie. You know that.’
DI Hamilton looked at her sympathetically, but she wouldn’t meet his gaze. She stood up and took his mug from him. ‘I couldn’t lie in court. I didn’t see him clearly. It was too dark, the window was too grimy. You need to find evidence. Proper evidence.’
‘It was over a year ago, Ms Hewson.’
‘I know exactly when it was, thank you, Detective!’ she said, the anger flaring back into her voice.
Tony Hamilton stood up. ‘Of course you do, I’m sorry.’
‘Will Detective Inspector Delaney be arrested?’
Hamilton shook his head. ‘No. He won’t be. At worst there will be a disciplinary hearing. He’s been served with a notice of investigation — that’s all.’
‘Good.’ Stephanie Hewson walked him to the front door and opened it. ‘All I want is justice, Detective.’
Hamilton looked at her for a moment and then nodded.
‘Welcome to the club,’ he said.
IN THE INTENSIVE-CARE ward Delaney crumpled the plastic coffee cup he had just been drinking from and looked around for a bin to put it in. A young nurse who was passing held her hand out.
‘It’s all right, I’ll take it for you.’
‘Cheers, darling,’ Delaney said, flashing her a smile.
‘Any time,’ she said and carried on walking, swinging her hips a little more.
Sally Cartwright shook her head, pulling a face.
‘What?’ Delaney asked her. ‘What?’
‘Just my gender, sir. Sometimes I despair for it.’
‘What can I tell you? She’s a nurse. The caring profession, Sally. She sees a person in need and her natural instinct is to help him out.’
‘She sees a man in need, maybe. And I can imagine the kind of help she’d like to administer.’
‘Sally, I am a happily …’ He paused.
‘Were you about to say “married man”, sir?’
‘No, I was not.’
‘What were you going to say?’
‘As a happily partnered man, I have no interest in other women, Constable,’ he said, looking as the nurse pushed through the swing doors at the end of the corridor. ‘No matter how pretty they are.’
Sally punched him lightly on the arm. ‘I’ll tell Kate you said that!’
Delaney gave her a stern look. ‘Did you just strike a superior officer?’
Sally Cartwright grinned. ‘Yeah, I did.’
Delaney would have responded, but the doors swung open again and Dr Laura Chilvers walked down the corridor towards them. She had changed her outfit, and was now dressed in black trousers with a large red jumper and flat, sensible shoes. Her face was scrubbed of make-up and her hair was tied back. She looked about ten years younger to Delaney. She still had her coat on, but it was open and the flaps sailed behind her like a cloak as she hurried down the corridor.
‘How’s Bible Steve?’ she asked.
‘Not in good shape, Dr Chilvers.’
Laura carried on past them into the room. She picked up the medical chart at the base of the man’s bed. Delaney followed behind her.
‘What are you doing here, Laura?’
‘Sergeant Matthews told me what happened. I wanted to see for myself.’
‘We don’t know what happened yet.’
‘That he was hurt, I meant,’ she said, flustered, as the consultant registrar came into the room and took the chart from her hand.
‘Can I help you? What are you doing in here?’
‘I’m a doctor. Laura Chilvers. I’m with the police.’
‘Dr Chilvers is a police pathologist,’ Delaney confirmed.
‘I treated Mr …’ She gestured at the comatose man. ‘Bible Steve last night.’
‘Treated him? With what exactly?’
‘I didn’t mean treated him in that sense. He was brought into the police station. He was drunk. He had been urinating on the window of a Chinese restaurant. He passed out in front of it.’
‘So you didn’t give him any medication?’
‘No. He was drunk, that was all.’
‘But he was lucid when you released him?’
‘When the desk sergeant released him, yes. Well, as lucid as he ever is apparently.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He has mental-health issues, I am led to believe.’
‘You haven’t treated him before?’
‘He’s quite well known to us at the station, Dr Crabbe,’ said Delaney, flashing her a quick smile.
‘It’s Lily, please.’ She returned the smile.
Behind her, Sally Cartwright, who had followed the registrar in, rolled her eyes.
‘So what is the prognosis?’ Laura asked the smaller woman.
Dr Crabbe shrugged. ‘He’s stable. That’s all I can give you for now. You have read his notes.’
‘When do you think we will be able to speak to him?’ Delaney asked.
‘I am afraid, like I said earlier, it’s an “if”, not “when”, Detective.’
‘He’s comatose, Jack,’ agreed Laura. ‘It’s something we just can’t tell.’
‘He may never regain consciousness,’ agreed the registrar.
‘But he’s stable, you said,’ Delaney replied. ‘That means he is not going to die on us?’
‘It’s not that simple, Inspector,’ said Laura Chilvers.
‘He is stabilised, yes,’ said the registrar. ‘But that can change. His overall health is extremely poor. Judging by his alcohol levels when he came in and his general appearance, his skin, it looks like he has serious alcoholism issues. I would suspect cirrhosis of the liver. Possibly quite advanced. He could deteriorate at any time. And I gather he has been living rough on the streets for quite some time?’
Delaney nodded. ‘Years.’
‘So it is unlikely he will have received any recent medical treatment?’
‘Very unlikely. I get the sense that he’s extremely wary of any kind of authority figures.’
‘He’s homeless,’ Sally added. ‘It kind of goes with the territory.’
‘The blow to the head. Is that what knocked him unconscious?’ asked Delaney.
The surgical registrar adjusted Bible Steve’s intravenous drip and made some notes on his chart as she spoke. ‘Probably. But not necessarily.’
Delaney gestured for her to elaborate. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He could have collapsed some time after receiving the blow.’
‘How much later?’
‘It could be many hours. If he suffered a subdural haematoma for example. Or he could have fallen or been pushed to the pavement at some stage, occasioning the trauma.’
‘So it could have been an accident?’ Delaney asked.
‘It could be,’ replied the registrar. ‘But unlikely. He has fresh abrasions to his hands and knuckles. I would say he had been in a fight, wouldn’t you?’
Despite cleaning, there was still blood crusting on Bible Steve’s inflamed knuckles. ‘Yes, I would.’
‘I’m not a detective, but it looks to me like someone wanted to hurt him.’
Delaney looked over at Laura who was staring at the man on the bed. ‘Did he have any bruising to his head when he was brought into custody last night?’ he asked her.
Laura shook her head, her forehead creasing.
Delaney picked up on her hesitation. ‘You did check?’
‘Of course I did!’ she snapped back. ‘I treated his hands. He was drunk. I was just assessing how drunk, and whether he was fit to be released.’
The registrar looked down at the comatose man. The monitor sounded louder now that no one was speaking. ‘Doesn’t look like he was, does it?’
‘This isn’t my fault!’ said Laura.
The registrar leaned back, a little surprised. ‘Nobody says it was.’
Delaney would have said something, but a loud alarm sounded from the intensive-care room next door and the registrar ran out.
Five minutes later, the crash team came out of Dongmei Chang’s room, wheeling their resuscitation equipment away. A short while afterwards, Dr Lily Crabbe came out of the room and shook her head at Delaney who was standing outside in the corridor.
‘We did everything we could,’ she said.
From inside the room, the sound of wailing could be heard. A Chinese man came out. He was in his late twenties, dark-haired, about five foot nine and thin. His hair was slicked back and he had a black jacket over a white T-shirt and black jeans. He looked like an Asian Fonz, Delaney thought.
‘You are the police detective?’ he asked.
‘Detective Inspector Jack Delaney, yes. And you are?’
‘My name is David Chang. Dongmei Chang was my aunt.’
‘I’m sorry for your loss.’
‘I don’t need your pity.’ The man practically spat the words out. ‘What are you going to do about it?’
‘Trust me, there will be a thorough investigation into how she came to be injured.’
‘She wasn’t injured, Detective. She was murdered!’
DELANEY ZIPPED UP his coat, his shoes crunching in the snow as he and Sally Cartwright walked back towards his car. Pulling out his mobile phone, he saw that he had a number of missed calls.
He punched in some numbers and tossed his car keys to Sally, who pushed the button to open the doors.
‘You drive,’ he said as he waited for the phone call to be answered.
‘That will make a nice change,’ said Sally wryly.
‘Hi, Bowlalong. It’s Jack Delaney. What have you got for me?’ He listened for a while. ‘Okay, Derek, thanks for that. Let me know if Ballistics can get anything off of that shell. Will do.’ He clicked his phone shut. ‘Bowman sends his love,’ he said to Sally, who was pulling on her seatbelt.
‘What did he have for us?’
‘Our body in the churchyard this morning …’
‘Yeah?’
‘He and Lorraine fitted all the pieces together like an osteopathic jigsaw.’
‘And?’
‘And … there was a piece missing.’
‘Left behind in the grave?’
‘No. It was a piece missing,’ he put a finger to his temple, right in the middle of his temple. ‘Bullet-sized.’
‘He was shot.’
‘Yes,’ said Delaney as he hit the speed-dial on his phone.
Sally turned the key in the ignition and kicked the engine into life. ‘Back to the office?’
Delaney nodded. ‘Hi, Tony,’ he said as his call was answered. ‘It’s Jack Delaney.’
Sally reversed Delaney’s old Saab out of its parking spot and headed for the car-park entrance as he listened to Tony Hamilton on the phone.
‘Where are you now?’ He nodded again. ‘Okay, we’ll meet you in The Castle in about fifty minutes. Change of plan, Sally.’
‘Where to now then?’
‘Harrow-on-the-Hill. The Castle pub. Do you know it?’
Sally shook her head.
‘Don’t worry, the Saab knows the way.’
Sally changed gears, the crunching audible. ‘This car should know its way to the knacker’s yard, if you ask me.’
‘Well, no one is asking you! So step on it. Your boyfriend’s waiting for us.’
Sally grimaced. ‘Bloody men!’
Delaney smiled, but not for long, as what DI Tony Hamilton had told him ticked over in his brain.
Sally looked over at him as a thought struck her. ‘It’s not going to take fifty minutes to get to Harrow-on-the Hill, sir,’ she said.
‘I know, Sally, got to make a little visit first,’ he replied, all humour having vanished now from his blue eyes.
Laura was sitting on a chair by the base of Bible Steve’s bed. A uniformed constable stood outside. Next door, CID officers from Paddington Green were interviewing Dongmei Chang’s relatives.
She sipped on a clear plastic cup of water, her eyes unfocused, lost in thought.
She remembered taking the girl to a play area of the club. She remembered dark lights, throbbing music. Velvet Underground. Lou Reed, the song playing in her mind continuously — she couldn’t seem to stop it. An earworm. Lyrics about leather and boots. Tasting a whip. She remembered the whip in her hand. She remembered lashing down with it hard. Again and again. But the memories blurred. She couldn’t see who or what she was hitting. Just the song and a red mist. Flashes of images came back. Outside, in the snow, blood on her hands. Putting her hands in the snow to ease the pain.
She held her hands to her ears, trying to stop the song. Trying to remember.
‘Dr Chilvers! Are you all right?’
Her eyes flew open, startled. Dave Matthews was standing in the doorway, practically filling it with his massive shoulders and looking at her, concerned.
It took her a moment to find her voice. ‘Yeah, I’m fine, thank you, Sergeant.’ She finished her cup of water and held it out to him. ‘Just a touch of migraine; it will pass in a minute, but could you get me some more water?’
Dave Matthews left and Laura closed her eyes again. Steadying her breathing. Willing her heart to slow down. For Christ’s sake, Laura! Get a grip on yourself, she said to herself.
And then screamed as a strong hand seized her arm.
Sally Cartwright brought Delaney’s Saab to a stop in a suburban street in Harrow. Warrington Road, just a few streets away from Carlton Row, where the children had been kidnapped all those years ago and made Jack Delaney a household name for a while. His face plastered over the front covers of most of the papers. Not once, but twice.
There was a huddle of press outside a house about fifty yards up the road.
‘Do you think this is wise, sir?’ asked Sally as they stepped out of the car and shut the doors.
‘I don’t know, Sally,’ said Delaney as they walked up the road towards them. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think, sir, in the words of Chief Inspector Diane Campbell, that George Napier will want your balls dipped in chocolate and served up at the ambassador’s ball.’
‘That’s Superintendent Napier to you!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And George-fecking-Napier can kiss my black Irish arse.’
‘Glad to hear it, sir.’
‘Detective Inspector Delaney!’
Delaney didn’t know who had called out to him from the gaggle of press outside Michael Robinson’s front door. Because they were all shouting the same thing.
Delaney held a hand up to silence them. ‘I have no comment to make at this time,’ he said and pushed through them, Sally Cartwright trailing in his wake.
Delaney let the noise wash over him. Aware of the photo flashes bursting behind him, but not much caring.
A short while later and the door opened. Michael Robinson blinked at the barrage of white light that ensued, then smiled.
‘Detective Inspector Delaney. What a pleasant surprise!’
‘Good. May we come in?’
‘I’m not sure that would be appropriate under the circumstances.’
Delaney stepped forward so that Robinson had to take a step backwards. ‘Come on, Detective Constable,’ he said to Sally. ‘The nice man is going to put the kettle on.’
He took hold of Robinson’s arm and steered him further inside. Sally followed closely behind and shut the door.
‘What do you want, Delaney?’ Robinson asked, all veneer of politeness stripped away as they stood in his hall.
‘You sent me some mail, Robinson. I’m sending it back.’ He took out the summons that he had been served in the Viaduct Tavern and tossed it against the man’s chest.
Robinson let the envelope fall to the floor. ‘It makes no difference. You’ve been served, Detective Inspector. I’ll see you in court.’
‘I’ll see you in hell first.’
Robinson grinned. It made Sally Cartwright’s skin creep as he looked at her. ‘I hope you’re making notes of all this, Detective Constable? Sounds like your boss was threatening me.’
‘See, that’s where matters of opinion vary,’ Sally replied with a sweet smile of her own. ‘What I heard the detective inspector say to you is that he won’t need to see you in court on a trumped-up civil case. Because the CPS will have you banged up long before that.’
‘The case was thrown out of court.’
‘For now. But you know that you are cowardly rapist scum. I know you are, and what is more important … is that Detective Inspector Delaney does too. And he really doesn’t like people like you.’
Robinson kept the grin on his face. ‘I couldn’t really give a shit what you or DI Bogtrotter of the Yard here thinks. You have nothing on me, and you know it.’
Delaney stepped forward and grabbed the man in the groin.
‘You’re hurting me,’ Robinson said through clenched teeth.
‘Ah that’s a shame.’ Delaney looked over his shoulder at Sally Cartwright. ‘See, that’s the thing about bullies, rapists and paedophiles — they’re all cowards at heart.’
‘I’m no paedophile!’ said Robinson, his eyes watering.
‘You mentioned my partner and child, on the phone this morning. I just came here to tell you. You go near either one of them and you, my friend, are a dead man!’ Delaney squeezed his hand and Robinson stood up on his toes. ‘We have a congruence of understanding on this matter?’
Michael Robinson nodded his head and Delaney released him.
‘You’re crazy,’ said Robinson, his breath ragged.
‘Certifiable,’ Sally Cartwright agreed.
‘I’m a stone-cold killer. You’d do well to remember it.’
Robinson cowered back against the wall, unable to meet Delaney’s gaze.
Delaney gestured to Sally Cartwright and they left. Robinson took a moment to collect himself. ‘Motherfucker,’ he said in a low whisper, then ‘Motherfucker!’ more loudly. Calming his breathing, he snatched up the phone stabbing in some numbers. ‘We have to meet,’ he said when the call was answered.
OUTSIDE IN DELANEY’S car, Sally put the key into the ignition and looked across at her boss. ‘Did you mean what you said in there, sir?’ she asked.
‘Every fucking word.’
Sally thought about it for a moment and turned the engine over. She guessed he had his reasons.
Bible Steve was sitting up looking at his bruised knuckles. Sergeant Dave Matthews stood beside him at the head of his bed. Dr Chilvers waited by the door.
‘Just tell us what you remember?’ said the sergeant.
The man blinked his haunted eyes for a moment or two. ‘I can’t remember anything!’ he said finally.
Dr Lily Crabbe came into the room, followed by a nurse. ‘I am not sure this is the right time to be interrogating him, Sergeant,’ she said, with the kind of voice a teacher might reserve for an unruly child throwing litter in the playground.
‘I’m simply asking some questions, Doctor. A woman did die, you know.’
‘Yes, thank you, Sergeant, I am well aware of that!’
‘It was nothing to do with me,’ said Bible Steve, shaking his head.
‘Nobody is saying it was, Steve.’
‘I want to leave,’ said the homeless man, pulling at the tubes still attached to him.
Dr Crabbe rushed over. ‘Try not to get excited, please. You will hurt yourself.’
‘But I want to leave, I don’t belong here.’
‘You are still a far-from-well man. You need to stay here, so that we can take care of you.’
‘Listen to the doctor, Steve. She’s trying to help,’ said Dave Matthews.
Bible Steve looked up at him angrily. ‘Stop calling me that. Why are you calling me that?’
‘It’s what everybody calls you, Steve. Bible Steve, that’s your name.’
‘Isn’t that your name?’ asked the registrar as Steve’s eyes darted wildly.
‘No,’ he said.
‘What should we call you then?’
Steve screwed his eyes shut. When he opened them there were tears on his cheeks. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.
The registrar held out her hand. ‘It’s okay. Really, it’s okay. You have had a blow to the head.’
‘I know he is your patient,’ said Laura Chilvers to Dr Crabbe, speaking for the first time, ‘but he is clearly still in shock. Maybe a mild sedative?’
Dave Matthews turned to the registrar. ‘I’d like to talk to him a little first, if that is okay?’
‘He’s had a head injury. We need to check his consciousness levels before we can sedate him.’
Bible Steve was swivelling his head like an audience member at Wimbledon.
‘Of course,’ said Laura, feeling the colour rise into her cheeks a little. ‘I meant a painkiller.’
‘Who are you? Who are you all?’ Bible Steve cried.
‘I’m Sergeant Dave Matthews,’ said the policeman. ‘Don’t you remember me, Bible?’
‘Don’t call me that! And no I don’t remember you.’ His gaze flicked from person to person, coming to stop as he stared at Laura.
‘Who are you?’ he asked. Laura looked away. ‘Who am I?’ he said in a hoarse whisper.
Geoffrey Hunt sat in the snug that lay just off the kitchen. They called it a snug, a small affectation, but one that amused them. A smallish lounge, but cosy, with an open log fire opposite a comfortable sofa and a wide arched opening to the kitchen beyond. On the left was a pair of leaded-light windows that looked out to the front garden.
There were logs burning in the firedog and the crackle and spit of the flames seemed to add to the festive decorations that bedecked the walls and beams overhead. There were more than a hundred Christmas cards displayed. In the corner stood a small tree: a six-foot-high Norwegian Blue. Patricia always insisted on a Norwegian Blue, as it didn’t shed needles into every nook and cranny, and take a month to clean up after Twelfth Night when it was carried into the garden. Geoffrey usually laughed and made a joke about the old Monty Python sketch featuring a Norwegian Blue parrot, but this year he hadn’t laughed when he made the joke, and neither had his wife. They were saying things to each other but half the time they weren’t really listening. He supposed a lot of old couples got like that. They didn’t really need language to communicate their thoughts, their feelings. In the background the radio was playing some classical Christmas carol. Geoffrey always had the radio on. Hated the television. Always had. Patricia occasionally insisted they watch some programme or other, but it never held his attention. He’d rather listen to his record collection or read a good book. Not that he had done that recently either.
He took out his handkerchief and coughed into it, then coughed again uncontrollably.
Patricia came through from the kitchen where she had been making a hot-drink remedy and waited for him to stop. After a moment or two Geoffrey wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt and smiled gratefully to her as she handed him the steaming mug.
‘Thanks, darling.’
‘Your cold does seem to be getting worse, Geoffrey.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘I’m worried about you, that’s all. What with your asthma.’
‘Like I say, I’m fine. I’ve got my sprays and my inhalers.’
The classical music finished on the radio and the presenter announced that the news would be following the adverts.
Patricia crossed over to the small, occasional table where the radio stood and turned it off.
‘I was listening to that, darling,’ Geoffrey said.
‘I know you were, but we need to talk.’
‘I wanted to catch the news!’
‘Later, Geoffrey, this is important.’
‘What is it?’
Patricia sat down next to him. ‘You know we were always talking about moving away. To Spain. To Barcelona.’
‘A pipe-dream. We’re too old now.’
‘Rubbish! But we are getting older. There is no denying that, and this climate here does nothing for your lungs.’
‘What’s put this in your mind all of a sudden?’
‘It’s your chest, and this damned cold. And now there’s this snow and goodness knows when it will end.’
‘If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind.’
‘That’s all very well for Shelley, darling, but he didn’t live in Queen’s Park.’
‘Well we can certainly think about it. Turn the radio back on.’
‘But that’s all we ever do, Geoffrey. Think about it, let’s seize the horn right now, today!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve been on the computer …’
‘Again!’
‘Yes, and I’ve found some really cheap flights to Barcelona.’
‘For when?’
‘For tomorrow, Geoffrey. Why don’t we go and spend Christmas in Spain and see what we think?’
Geoffrey coughed into his handkerchief again. ‘I know what I think?’
‘What’s that?’
‘I think you’ve finally lost your marbles,’ he said. ‘And we’ve no chance of making a quick sale, what with the housing market as it is. Let’s wait till the market picks up and then we’ll talk about it.’
‘It might be too late by then.’
‘There’s nothing to connect us, Patricia. Nobody will know who he is now, even if he does turn up.’
Patricia nodded, close to tears. ‘I just worry about what’s to become of us.’
Geoffrey took her hand and patted it. ‘I promised you I’d take care of everything, didn’t I?’
She nodded, blinking back the tears. ‘Yes.’
‘And I will, darling,’ he said, his eyes suddenly clear and focused. ‘I will!’
JACK DELANEY PARKED his car at the Harrow School theatre. Built in 1994, the Ryan Theatre had cost more than four million pounds, and was worth more than many professional theatres. Then again, the school charged pupils thirty grand a year to attend. Getting on for a quarter of a million pounds for their time at school, and with approximately 850 pupils in attendance, they could pretty much afford it. Pretty much afford anything! Most of the land and the buildings on the Hill were owned by the school. They had invented the game of squash and Harrow’s old-boy honours list contained eight former prime ministers, amongst many other luminaries.
Delaney was not surprised, therefore, as he slammed shut the passenger door of his battered old Saab, to see an outraged figure with curly hair strolling from the theatre towards him.
‘You can’t park there!’ the man said.
‘And you’d be?’ replied Delaney.
‘I’d be the technical manager. And this is school property.’
‘We won’t be long,’ said Sally Cartwright, smiling sweetly at him. ‘We’ve got a quick meeting at The Castle.’
The technical manager looked across at her and beamed. ‘Good choice,’ he said. ‘Take as long as you like. Tell them I sent you.’
‘Cheers,’ she said and walked out of the car park with Delaney. ‘See, sir, didn’t even have to flash my warrant card.’
‘Not your warrant card, no, Sally,’ said Delaney.
‘Sir!’ Sally replied in mock-outrage.
They walked up to the main road and down towards The Castle. ‘They do a nice drop of ale here apparently, Sally.’
‘Bit early for me, boss.’
Delaney looked at his watch. ‘Past lunchtime, isn’t it?’
‘Maybe a cheese and onion roll.’
They turned right out of the car park and walked downhill on West Street a few yards to the pub. Loud singing was coming from the larger of the two bars, and Delaney figured that Tony Hamilton would have gone into the smaller one. He figured right. There were a few regulars drinking pints of London Pride and scowling at the noise emanating from next door. Delaney wasn’t sure if it was an office party that had started early or was finishing late. The school had closed a while back for the holidays, but there was a pantomime running in the theatre and plenty of people still living on the hill.
Delaney used to come to the pub in the old days, when he walked the beat in the area. It was usually a lively pub on a Friday back then, at any time of the year, as he recalled.
‘Second Fuller’s pub I’ve been into today,’ he said to Tony Hamilton as he steered Sally to the bar.
‘What’s it to be, then?’ said the detective inspector, taking a sip from a tall glass of what looked suspiciously like Coca-Cola to Delaney.
‘I’ll have a pint of Guinness.’
‘And the lovely detective constable?’
‘The lovely detective constable will have a soda water and lime. She’s driving.’
‘Yes and the lovely detective constable can speak for herself as well, sir.’
‘At least we all agree she’s lovely,’ said Hamilton and Delaney groaned.
‘Dear God, do you not have a Saturday job selling cheese in the market?’ he said.
Hamilton pulled a stool out for Sally to sit on and gestured the barman over. ‘Pint of Guinness please.’ He looked enquiringly at Sally.
‘I’ll have a soda and lime, and a cheese and onion roll, if they have one?’
The barman grunted, indicating that they had, and set about pouring Delaney’s pint.
‘So what did you learn from the woman?’ asked Delaney.
‘She wasn’t exactly keen to talk.’
‘You think she was lying?’
‘I don’t know. Did you show her the photo?’
Delaney shrugged. ‘I don’t think I did.’
‘Well there you go then. She’s lying. Lying about something anyway. Not about being raped and slashed with a knife. Not about that.’
‘No, she wasn’t lying about that,’ agreed Sally Cartwright.
‘So someone got to her?’ said DI Hamilton.
‘Yeah.’
‘She’s put her house on the market. Suddenly. And she’s put it on cheap.’
‘Can’t blame her for wanting to leave the area.’
‘No.’
‘Specially if she knew that Michael Robinson was moving back in.’
‘Which she would know, when she decided to make that statement in court.’
‘Exactly.’ Delaney took a pull on his pint of Guinness and placed the glass down. ‘I want you to go to Northwick Park Hospital this afternoon, Sally.’
‘Why?’
‘Michael Robinson is a sick fuck. But he has a friend, one assumes.’
‘A partner-in-crime.’
‘Yeah, someone has put the frighteners on Stephanie Hewson, is my guess. Maybe he has put the frighteners on other women. Maybe he has hurt other women. Check the records, see if there have been any women in with knife injuries over the last few years.’
‘We’d have known if something similar had happened before, sir.’
‘No we wouldn’t. Not necessarily. How many women who are raped come forward do you reckon, Sally?’
‘We can’t know for sure.’
‘We do know it is a great deal more who don’t come forward than do,’ agreed Tony Hamilton.
‘With six per cent conviction rates, I’m not too surprised, are you?’
Hamilton shook his head. ‘We’re just the ratcatchers, that’s all. Other people’s job to decide what to do with them.’
Sally looked at Delaney. ‘That’s your expression, isn’t it, sir?’
Delaney ignored her. ‘The thing is a woman might not report a rape, but she would have to report a knife assault.’
‘Unless she claimed it was self-harming.’
‘Self-harmers don’t slash themselves across the belly, Constable.’
‘Some might.’
Delaney drained his Guinness and stood up. ‘Can you give her a lift to Northwick Park?’
DI Hamilton considered for a moment, then smiled at Sally. ‘I’d be delighted.’
‘Where are you going, sir?’
‘Just a little call to make and then I have to go and see the vicar.’
‘Sorting out the wedding?’ said Sally with an innocent expression.
‘Just give me my car keys and save your wit for someone who might appreciate it.’
He nodded at Hamilton who couldn’t see him, and Sally rolled her eyes.
‘Don’t get up to anything I wouldn’t,’ Delaney said as he headed out the door.
Hamilton took a sip of his drink. ‘Just you and me then.’
‘What’s going to happen to Jack?’
‘Not a lot, I should imagine.’
‘Aren’t you supposed to be investigating him?’
‘I’m interviewing you, aren’t I?’
‘Is that what you’re doing?’
‘Yeah, I’m the good cop. It’s my technique.’
‘All charm?’
‘Is it working?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Rome wasn’t built in a day.’
‘It was destroyed in one.’
‘So you think he showed her the photo?’
‘I wouldn’t put it past him, but he doesn’t think he did. And that’s good enough for me.’
‘I don’t think he did either.’
‘So what are we going to do about it?’
‘Prove him innocent.’
‘Good.’
‘And then, maybe dinner? Do you like Chinese?’
Sally finished her drink, then stood up. ‘Still not working.’
DI Hamilton stood up and jangled his keys. ‘Northwick Park then?’
‘Sounds as good a plan as any!’
Sally walked to the door and Hamilton watched her for a moment then grinned and followed her out.
STEPHANIE HEWSON HESITATED for a moment before slamming the door shut. Delaney took that moment to hold his hands up in an I surrender gesture.
‘I’m not here to give you a hard time, Stephanie.’
‘What are you here for then?’
‘To help.’
‘You’d help me by leaving me alone.’
‘Is that what they said?’
‘Who?’
‘Someone has threatened you, I know that much.’
‘You don’t know anything at all.’
‘I know Michael Robinson was the man who hurt you.’
‘He didn’t just hurt me. He raped me and sliced me like a carcass of meat.’
‘And I am going to make him pay for what he did.’
‘You can do what you like, as long as it is not at my expense.’
Delaney took a card out of his pocket. ‘I know nothing I say can make up to you for what has happened. The truth is there is never the kind of justice that that man deserves.’
Stephanie Hewson looked at the detective standing on her doorstep, some of her anger evaporating. ‘I have to protect myself.’
‘I know,’ said Delaney and then nodded sadly. ‘Take my card. It has my mobile number on it. Call me any time, day or night. I promise I’ll be there for you.’
‘I’m not going to change my statement.’
‘I’m not asking you to. I know why you did it, and that’s all that’s important to me.’
Stephanie looked down at the card Delaney was holding out.
‘Take it, Stephanie. Please,’ he said. ‘I can’t promise you that the Metropolitan Police force will do everything in its power to bring Michael Robinson down. But I do promise you I will. It was personal to me when I was assigned the case in the first place. I wasn’t functioning properly then. I was borderline alcoholic.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘Because I want you to understand. My wife was killed and it was partly my fault. I didn’t pull the trigger on the shotgun, but I put her in harm’s way. I blamed myself and I couldn’t deal with that, so I drank. My eye was off the ball. We should have had a stronger case against Robinson. What we had was circumstantial and it mainly came down to your identification in the end.’
‘I know.’
‘So you have been put in a place you shouldn’t have been. Twice.’
She looked at him, waiting for him to continue.
‘But I am going to make that stop now.’
‘Thank you,’ she said and took the card.
Delaney waited until she had closed the door and listened to the bolts being slid home, and then walked back to his car.
DELANEY LOOKED UP at the sky for the hundredth time that day and frowned. Thick flakes of snow had begun to fall, settling in his long eyelashes. He blinked and locked the door to his Saab. The snow was crusty and slippery underfoot as he walked into the churchyard.
It was starting to get dark now and there was a glow coming from the forensic ‘marquee’ that had been erected over the grave where the body of the unknown man had been discovered.
Diane Campbell was standing outside the tent with a lit cigarette in her hand. Beside her stood a tall thin woman, with silver-grey hair slicked back. She wore a dark woollen overcoat but a dog collar was just about visible.
‘Jack,’ said Diane as he approached. ‘This is the Reverend Leslie Hynd. She’s the vicar here.’
‘Was the vicar here,’ she corrected her. ‘The church is deconsecrated, remember.’
‘Detective Inspector Jack Delaney.’ He shook the vicar’s hand.
‘Are we any further forward in finding out who the unfortunate man might be?’
‘No. Which is why we wanted to talk to you.’
‘Of course. Anything I can do to help.’
Delaney nodded and turned to his boss. ‘Could I get one of those, Diane?’
‘Thought you’d given up?’
‘New Year’s resolution. It’s not the New Year yet, is it?’
‘Not unless I missed Christmas.’
Diane tapped out a couple of cigarettes, lit one from the dying embers of her own and handed it to Delaney. Then lit herself a fresh one.
The vicar gestured towards the church. ‘Why don’t we talk inside,’ she said.
‘You go ahead. We’ll finish these and catch up with you.’
‘As you wish.’ The Reverend Hynd headed off towards the church.
Diane looked at Delaney for a moment. ‘Are we any the wiser, Jack?’
‘A day older nearly, no wiser.’
‘I hear you talked to Michael Robinson.’
‘Yes. And Stephanie Hewson.’
The deputy superintendent blew out a long stream of smoke. ‘At the risk of sounding like John Le Mesurier in Dad’s Army, “Do you think that wise?”’
‘The man served a civil suit on me.’
‘I know.’
‘So I’m entitled to prepare my side of the case.’
‘That’s what you were doing, was it?’
‘No. I had his balls in my hand and told him that he ever went anywhere near Kate or Siobhan I’d tear them off.’
‘I imagine that got his attention.’
‘The cockroach is guilty, Diane.’
‘Yes.’
‘Stephanie Hewson is absolutely terrified. Someone has got to her.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know yet. But I intend to find out.’
‘She didn’t say?’
‘She’s not saying anything.’
‘But she talked to you.’
‘I promised her I’d take care of things, whatever it took.’
‘You make a lot of promises, cowboy.’
‘Only ones that I can keep.’
‘Good,’ said Diane Campbell, grinding the cigarette butt under the heel of her boot. ‘Make sure that you do.’
Delaney didn’t reply, just flicked his cigarette away, watching the trail of tiny sparks as it wheeled through the air, the light winking out as it hit the snow-covered ground, then followed Diane into the church building.
The Reverend Leslie Hynd was closing her mobile phone as they both walked in.
The church was a shell, stripped of pews, altar, decorations. A vast, empty hall of a room now. The last of the day’s light came weakly through the stained-glass windows, but electric lighting had been set up. And a kettle, mugs and the fixings for cups of tea were on a side-table near the entrance door.
‘Sad to see the place like this,’ said the vicar, gesturing at the dust-covered floor of the church, broken tiles scattered here and there. ‘So many services, wedding, funerals, baptisms, Easters, Christmases. So many years, so many people.’ She sighed. ‘So many stories. It seems criminal.’
‘How long were you the vicar here?’ Delaney asked.
‘Not long. About three years.’
‘And before you?’
‘The Reverend Patrick Hennessy.’
‘And how long was he here?’ asked Diane Campbell.
‘About sixteen or seventeen years, I believe.’
‘And where is he now?’
‘He is doing missionary work in the People’s Democratic Republic of the Congo.’
‘And can he be contacted?’
‘Not easily. But I have put a message out for him to get in touch.’
‘And who was in charge here before then?’ asked Delaney.
‘My assistant is looking into it, Detective. I’ll let you know as soon as I do.’
‘Thanks. Do you have any idea who the person might be that we found in your grounds?’
‘Absolutely none, I’m afraid. I understand he has been there for quite some time.’
‘About twenty years, we think.’
‘And the cause of death?’
‘This is a murder investigation, Reverend. He was shot in the head.’
‘Oh, my goodness, that’s terrible. Why would they bury him here?’
‘We don’t know,’ said Sally Cartwright.
‘If we knew that, then maybe we’ll know why he was killed, Reverend,’ said Delaney.
MICHAEL ROBINSON STOOD on the platform at Baker Street waiting for the east-bound train that had just left Edgware Road and would take him to Piccadilly Circus.
He jiggled some coins in his jacket pocket. Not that he was scared as such, more a nervous excitement. He had a meeting first and then he was free to spend some time in Soho. It had been more than twelve months since he had enjoyed female company and he intended to savour the opportunity now. Ideally, he would have liked to pay that haughty bitch Stephanie Hewson another visit. He felt himself harden as he remembered the look she had given him in the courtroom that morning. Since he had recovered consciousness in hospital, every day, every night he had replayed in his mind what he had done to her in that Scout hut in Harrow-on-the-Hill. Grunting as he entered her, her gasps of pain making him harder still. He could remember the feel of her. His hands on her cool buttocks as he rammed himself into her. He remembered taking his knife and cutting her. Her sudden intake of breath. He remembered walking home over the back of the hill. Her scent in his nostrils, and he hardened again almost immediately.
He’d look for someone just like her. There were plenty of women to choose from in Soho, if you had the cash in your pocket. He hadn’t bought a new knife, though. The old one was hidden somewhere no one would ever find it and he wasn’t going to risk trying to recover it. He was many things, but one thing Michael Robinson wasn’t, was any man’s fool. He wasn’t any man’s bitch, either. And certainly not that arrogant fuck DI Jack Delaney’s. Coming into his house. Threatening him. The fuck didn’t have any idea who he was dealing with. But he was going to find out soon enough just what kind of man Robinson was. Delaney could wait, howevert. Wheels were in motion and the bastard would get what was coming to him.
Stephanie Hewson — she’d get what was coming to her soon too. But for now he was going to concentrate on himself. He jingled the coins in his pocket again, and a slow smile spread across his face as he imagined what lay ahead for him that evening.
He stepped forward as the train came clattering out of the tunnel from Marylebone.
And then he felt a lancing needle of pain in his right thigh. An unbearable pain searing through his neural pathways. His body convulsed and he stepped forward into thin air. He didn’t even have time to scream before the east-bound train hit him.
And then he didn’t think much of anything at all.
He was dead.
DELANEY CAME INTO the bedroom loosening his tie.
Kate was sitting up in bed reading the latest Shardlake novel. The hunchback of Olde London town solving crimes for Henry the Eighth. Not Delaney’s cup of tea. It seemed to him that the serial killer Shardlake never caught was old Henry himself. Kate’s glasses were perched on the end of her nose and she peered over them at Jack as he tossed his tie on the chair beside the bed.
‘Where’ve you been, Jack?’ she said.
Delaney leaned over and kissed her. ‘My car broke down.’
‘Again? Isn’t it about time you got rid of that old thing?’
‘Probably. But I like my Saab.’
‘It doesn’t like you.’
‘Got the Tube.’
Kate wrinkled her nose suspiciously. ‘After a couple of beers, by the smell of you, I’d say.’
‘I might have had a couple. It’s been a bit of a day.’
‘Funny how your car often breaks down when you’ve had a bit of a day.’
Delaney lay on the bed and rested his head on the pillow. ‘Just a coincidence.’
‘I don’t believe in coincidences.’
Delaney grinned. ‘Me neither.’
‘I heard about the court case.’
‘Hard not to.’
‘Yes. Pretty much over the news continually.’
‘Small-news day.’
‘What’s going to happen?’
‘Nothing, darling. Old cowboy here, he’s pretty much bullet-proof.’
‘Man from Krypton?’
‘Something like that.’
Kate rested her head on his chest and he stroked her hair. ‘How was your day?’ he asked her.
‘Not the best, if I am honest.’
‘Want to talk about it?’
‘Not yet.’
Delaney nodded. ‘Fair play.’
‘What about yours?’
‘Started bad, got worse, ending up nice, though.’ He stroked her hair some more. She looked up and kissed him.
‘Glad to hear it.’
Delaney’s mobile trilled and he fetched it out of his pocket, checked the caller ID, then answered the call. ‘What’s up, Sally … Yeah, yeah, I know. I had it switched off for a couple of hours. Okay, let me grab a piece of paper.’
Delaney fumbled in his pocket for his notebook and grabbed a pen off the bedside table. ‘Shoot.’
‘Reverend Geoffrey Hunt. Okay, got that. How did you get on at Northwick Park Hospital?’ He listened for a while. ‘All right, I’ll meet you seven tomorrow morning. Usual place. And how did Inspector Hamilton behave himself?’
He grimaced and held the phone way from his ear. ‘No, you hang up,’ he said and closed his phone.
‘So you switched your phone off for a couple of hours?’ said Kate.
‘Forgot to turn it back on.’
‘Another coincidence.’
‘Mobile phones in pubs, they shouldn’t be allowed. I am very consistent on that point.’
Kate laughed. ‘Nothing should come between a man and his Guinness.’
‘Only you, sweetheart.’
‘What was that about Reverend Hunt?’
‘You know him?’
‘Sort of. I know his wife. She used to teach at the university, still registered to the practice there.’
‘What did she teach?’
‘She’s a doctor of divinity. Why?’
‘I don’t know. I’m a detective, Kate. I like asking questions. Ask enough, and sometimes things make sense.’
‘And sometimes they don’t.’
‘True.’
‘Is her husband in some kind of trouble?’
‘Not that I know of. St Luke’s is his old church.’
Kate sat up. ‘I didn’t know that. I was called out there this morning. Before they knew it was human remains.’
‘Your friend’s husband was the incumbent vicar at the time the body was put in the ground.’
‘So they’ve got you on that case?’
‘Amongst others. Till I get suspended, that is.’
‘The Devil finds work for idle digits.’
Delaney slipped his hand down the duvet. ‘Best keep them busy then,’ he said.
Kate slapped his hand. ‘You can have a shower first, busy boy.’
‘Good idea.’ Delaney swang his legs round and stood up. He leaned over and kissed the bump of Kate’s belly.
‘Henry the Eighth got one thing right,’ he said.
‘And what would that be?’
‘It’s good to have lots of children.’ He smiled and headed to the bathroom.