Hard Evidence

She put the report she had brought him on top of his files, suddenly feeling guilty, and started as Bob Wilkinson came across, a thinly veiled anger in his eyes.

'Come to gloat, have you?'

'What are you talking about?'

'Come off it, Dr Walker. We all know you're no friend of Jack Delaney.'

Kate shook her head, puzzled. 'You've lost me.'

'What are you doing here, then?'

'I promised Jack a copy of the autopsy report on Billy Martin.'

Bob Wilkinson was a little taken aback. 'Right.'

'And for your information, whatever differences Jack and I had in the past are just that. In the past.'

'I'll take your word for it.'

Bob Wilkinson went to move away, but Kate gripped his arm firmly. She lowered her voice to a whisper. 'What are you talking about, though? What's going on?'

'There's rumours flying around. That's all.'

'What kind of rumours?'

'About Jack.'

'What about him?'

Bob leaned in and lowered his voice too. 'They're saying he was involved in Jackie Malone's murder.'

Kate shook her head, shocked. 'That's ridiculous!'

'You and I know that,' said Bob Wilkinson, letting the implication hang in the air.

'You've got to do something.'

He shrugged. 'I'm just a foot soldier, what can I do?'

Kate looked across the office, her face hardening as Chief Superintendent Walker came out of DCI Campbell's office, forcefully pulling the door shut behind him. He strode angrily down the corridor, not even glancing at his niece.

Wilkinson looked pointedly at Kate. 'If something bad is coming down on Jack Delaney, and if you are his friend like you say,' he looked across at the superintendent's retreating figure, 'then he's going to need friends with connections in high places.'

'I'm not sure I have any influence there.'

'Maybe it's time to find out.'

Kate considered for a moment, looked down at the photo on Delaney's desk and hurried after her uncle. Time to swallow her pride and ask for help.

Outside the church, Delaney leaned against the cool stone of the old flint wall and caught his breath, telling himself it was just the heat. But the feverish pump of blood in his heart told a different story. He took a couple of deep breaths and forced himself to relax. He started as the mobile phone in his pocket rang and had to take a moment or two to answer it. 'Jack Delaney?'

The voice on the other end of the phone was breathy and low. A woman. 'Did you get the film?'

'Who is this?'

'It doesn't matter who I am. Did you get the film I sent?'

'I got the film.' Sweat was breaking out on Delaney's forehead once more.

'Did you enjoy it?'

'Who is this?'

'You can call me a friend.'

Delaney barked a short dry laugh. 'My friend?'

'I don't know you.'

'Whose friend, then?'

'Jackie Malone's friend.'

Delaney sighed, running his hand across the top of his forehead again.

'What do you want?'

There was a small chuckle on the other end of the line. A chuckle that had as much warmth in it as a penguin's foot. 'That's the twenty-four-dollar question?'

'You want money?'

'No. I don't want money.'

'What do you want then?'

Delaney could hear the woman on the other end covering the phone and hissing to someone: 'Give me a minute.' He heard a man's voice replying to her but couldn't make out the words.

Delaney's patience was wearing thin. 'What do you want?' He spoke curtly into the phone.

'I want justice for Jackie. I want retribution.'

'Why don't you come in and talk about it?'

Another harsh laugh. 'I don't think so, Jack. People involved in this business seem to get hurt, don't they? Jackie. Her dropkick brother Billy.'

'What do you know about Billy Martin?'

'I know they both ended up getting terminally hurt. And I never was like Jackie. I don't play the rough games. And this is a sick business.'

Delaney frowned. 'What business?'

'Blackmail.'

Delaney sighed again. 'I see.'

'Billy Martin thought he had stumbled on a little goldmine, but Jackie didn't want anything to do with it. She gave me the tape to look after. Anything happened to her, she said to send it to you.'

Delaney nodded. 'Where's the boy?'

'I don't know anything about a boy.'

'Who am I talking to?'

'Anyway, that's it. I don't want anything more to do with it. She said you'd know what to do with the DVD. She said you'd take care of those responsible. She didn't trust the police but she trusted you to make sure they got what was coming to them.'

Delaney could hear the man in the background shouting at her, urgent, angry. He thought he could make out the name Carol, or Karen.

'I've got to go.'

'Just tell me where-' But the line had gone dead. Delaney closed his phone angrily and looked over to the church doors, where children flanked by happy parents were spilling noisily out. Delaney watched them for a moment or two and then ran to his car.

Wendy came out with Siobhan. Shielding her eyes against the sun and squinting as she looked around for Delaney.

'Jack?'

But Delaney had gone.

In his car he lit up a cigarette and took a few deep drags, then picked up his mobile phone and tapped a number in. 'Sally, it's Delaney. I want you to get Jackie Malone's file out. Trace all her known associates and go back as far as you can. I'm looking for a Carol or a Karen. Probably on the game. And do the same with Stella Trant's file too. And I want it yesterday.'

'Yes, boss, but…'

'Just do it, Sally. There's something I need to take care of.'

He closed the phone and it rang immediately. He looked at the number. Campbell. He switched the phone off and took a few more hits on his cigarette as he turned the key in the ignition, his eyes dark pools of anger.

26.

Alexander Moffett's tongue poked thickly from his mouth. His eyes bulged painfully, small blood vessels in them breaking as he twisted. The veins and muscles of his neck were thick with effort, like cords or snakes writhing under his skin. He grunted with desperation. With madness. His head rocked back and the skin on his neck burned and tore. Struggling just made the noose tighter, however, and his breathing stopped completely with a last horrible gurgle. His legs strained downward but his toes couldn't find the floor. His eyes bulged even more and red tears leaked from the corners of his eyes, his tongue so swollen now as to fill his mouth, blocking it even if he could draw air. He jerked once, maybe twice more, and was still. The eyes rolled back, and the body swayed silently on the rope in a gentle circle like a drunken, grotesque ballerina.

Behind him on a large flat-screen television, Billy Martin was screaming soundlessly as Kevin Norrell picked him up and threw him, hands and feet tied with coat-hanger wire, into the cold night water of the Thames.

A hand reached down, ejected the DVD and turned off the television. His face was reflected in the wide, staring pupils of Alexander Moffett, but as the man left the room, his image went with him.

Parked a few doors up from Moffett's house in Paddington, Delaney crushed a cigarette into his already full ashtray and automatically put another in his mouth. Flaring a match, he watched blue-suited forensic investigators hurry into the house, past flashing lights, and uniforms stretching out yellow and black tape to cordon off the area from curious passers-by. Nothing to see here. Not any more, thought Delaney.

Inside, Chief Inspector Diane Campbell nodded sourly at the uniformed constable who stood to the side of the door opening into Moffett's study. She walked into the room swearing quietly under her breath. It was an opulent room. A man's study from another era. Book-lined walls. A deep-pile carpet underfoot. A large globe of the world from a time when most of it was coloured pink. A sideboard with decanter and crystal glasses. A large mahogany desk with a green leather inset. A humidor stocked with the finest cigars from Cuba. The only modern things were the flat-screen TV and the telephone. It was a man's room. A dead man's room.