by Mark Pearson
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.’
33.
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!’
34.
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.
35.
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.
