Hard Evidence

'I'd watch your back if I were you, Sally.'

'Why?'

'Because people reckon you were close to him.'

Sally shook her head, shocked. 'What are you saying?'

'Just rumours. He has got a reputation, you know.'

'For Christ's sake, Bob, he's old enough to be my dad.'

Wilkinson laughed. 'From what I've heard, most of the women on the relief would've been banging him like a drum.'

'Well he wasn't banging me, and this isn't funny, Bob.'

Wilkinson nodded seriously. 'I know.'

'What are we going to do?'

Wilkinson shrugged. 'Who was it said there's something rotten in the state of Denmark?'

'Hans Christian Andersen?'

'Whoever it was. Something in this whole set-up stinks.'Wilkinson looked across as Bonner walked in at the end of the room, his face a picture of bruised pride and even more bruised flesh. 'And that slag's not so squeaky either.'

'You don't trust him?'

'Put it this way, love, You turn your back on him, you'd best be wearing iron knickers, you know what I'm saying?'

'I thought he was quite close to the inspector.'

'Trust me. The only thing that slag is close to is his own right hand.' He looked at Sally pointedly. 'He'd fuck his own grandmother and her postman if he thought there was something in it for him.'

Bob stood up and finished his coffee. 'I'd better get back. Like I said, just watch your back.'

Sally turned back to her paperwork but couldn't concentrate. She went across to open the window; the heat in the office was unbearable. She leant a little into the cool breeze as it blew through the open window, running her hand around her neck, wiping a damp palm on her skirt.

'Hot, isn't it?'

Sally turned back, startled and flustered, to see Bonner standing right next to her.

'Yeah.'

He leaned in and spoke quietly. 'You heard anything from Jack?'

Sally shook her head.

'The damn fool. What's he playing at?'

Sally looked at the bruising spoiling Bonner's normal good looks. 'I'm guessing you're not too happy with him?'

Bonner ran a hand over his face. 'I don't blame him for this.'

'You don't?'

Bonner shrugged. 'Maybe a little. But I would have let him go if he'd asked. He didn't need to kill us both to do it.'

'You'd have let him go?'

Bonner nodded, his face a picture of sincerity. 'Murder. It's not Jack's style, for Christ's sake. He's been fitted up.'

'It's what a lot of us think.'

'We're going to have to stick together, Sally. He needs our help.'

Sally shook her head. 'What can we do?'

Bonner stood up straighter as Diane Campbell walked into the room, her face thunderous. He lowered his voice. 'I'll let you know. But if he gets in touch, tell him I want to see him.'

'Bonner. My office, now,' Campbell barked at him.

Sally watched as Bonner walked across to Campbell's office. As he closed the door she pulled out her mobile phone and looked at a text message. She stood for a moment or two in indecision, then, making her mind up, snatched her jacket off the back of her chair and hurried out of the office.

Kate was sitting at her desk, trying to work but unable to concentrate, when her mobile rang. She snatched it up and frowned angrily at the withheld number, then answered it. 'Kate Walker?'

'Kate, it's Delaney.'

'Jack, where the hell did you go?'

'Sorry.'

'Sorry? For Christ's sake, do you know how I felt?'

'I didn't want you to get involved.'

'And you thought fucking me was the best way to achieve that, did you?'

'It wasn't like that.'

'Then what was it like? I had to check my bedside cabinet to see you hadn't left a couple of twenty-pound notes behind.'

'Kate…'

'My name's not Jackie Malone, you know.'

'I didn't want you getting hurt.'

Kate snorted angrily. 'Good job!'

'It's your career. You can't afford to be associated with me. Not right now. I just wanted to do the right thing.'

'Then don't patronise me, Jack. I want to help.' There was long pause and Kate could hear Delaney breathing, thinking.

'Okay.'

'Okay? Is that it?'

'Yeah, Okay.'

Kate smiled. Damn the man.

Half an hour later, Kate was looking out of a wooden-framed window on to a picture of English tranquillity. Lush green grass, sedate willows lining ordered and well-tended gravel paths. Somewhere a fountain tinkled and Kate could imagine the cool water in the air, giving gentle relief from the relentless sun. In the centre of the park was a small lake with a semicircle of trees behind it, and splashing on the water was a family of moorhens. It was a beautiful spot to spend eternity, she thought.

She turned back to the caretaker who looked after the cemetery. 'It's a lovely place, Mr Hoskins.'

The caretaker nodded. 'I try and keep it nice.'

'You do it very well.'

'People don't get the respect they deserve in life, do they?'

Kate shook her head in agreement. 'Not often. Not in this world.'

'So when they die and come here, I like to think they all get respect. At least they do from me.'

'And Jack Delaney's grateful for it?'

'He always brings fresh flowers. Always leaves a little something in the donations box. He doesn't think anyone sees, but I do. I see everything.'

'I can imagine.'

'I don't spend it on myself. Now and again I buy flowers for them as don't get any visitors.'

'That's good of you.'

He grimaced. 'Yeah, well, no one's going to be putting any flowers on my grave, miss.'

Kate gave him a small smile. 'You're absolutely certain of the date?'

'Positive. I never forget a date. It goes with the job really. Spend all my day looking at them.'

Kate nodded gratefully. If Delaney was here grieving for his dead wife all day long, then he couldn't have been in Ladbroke Grove murdering a prostitute. 'I might need you to make a statement later.'

'I've already done that.'

Kate looked back at him, surprised. 'I'm sorry?'

'At the nick. One of your sergeants, he's got my written statement.'

'Which one?'

'Can't remember his name, arrogant little cockerel.'

Kate nodded again gratefully, pretty sure who he was referring to.

Outside in her car, Kate hesitated for a moment, flipping her mobile phone round in her hand. She watched as a young couple came and placed a bunch of flowers by a small memorial marker, then made a decision. She thumbed the number in quickly and set her jaw firmly as the call was answered.

'Superintendent Walker, please.'

There are all kinds of secret places in London. Buildings hidden away in the labyrinths of old cul-de-sacs and dead ends that lie moments away from the main thoroughfares. The Church of Saint Mary is one such place. A small gothic church, with its own walled garden, set back at the top end of a cul-de-sac just a stone's throw from the middle of Oxford Street, but, as the morning services had finished, it was as quiet now as a building can be in London.

The sun still beat down, as relentless as it had been all summer. Dazzling the pavements with light and melting the tarmac of the roads, so that the tarry smell hung in the air like a modern-day smog. But inside the church it was cool. As cool as a mountain stream and a menthol cigarette. As cool as a Martini served dirty in a New York cocktail bar. But still Delaney sweated, and it wasn't the fact that he was wearing his leather jacket that moistened his neck and sent small beads of perspiration running from his broad forehead to drip into his eyes and along his nose. It was the church itself. He tasted the sweet saltiness of his own sweat and dragged his coat sleeve across his brow. Ever since he was a child, churches had unsettled him. He had a rational mind, but he nonetheless felt a tangible presence whenever he was in a church. He didn't think it was God. In Delaney's opinion, God was just as likely to be in a hotel bedroom, or a supermarket, or a bowling alley as in a church. Given the amount of horror perpetrated on a daily basis in His name, it was perhaps more likely that He wouldn't be in a church, or a mosque, or a synagogue.