by Mark Pearson
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.
20.
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 par
k 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.
21.
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 esta
te 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.
