Hard Evidence (27 page)

Delaney lowered the gun.

Walker sobbed as his body crumpled with relief.
'Thank you.'

Delaney shook his head coldly. 'Don't thank
me. Where you're going, when they found out
who and what you are, you'll wish I had killed
you.'

Walker collapsed back against the wall and
Delaney turned to Andy. 'Thanks.'

Andy looked blankly at Walker. 'He lied.' He
turned and smiled at Siobhan, and another cold
chill ran through Delaney's heart. 'And I like your
daughter.'

Delaney picked up his sobbing child and held
her in his arms, unable to stop the tears that stung
his eyes and ran down his cheeks as he looked at
the still body of Kate Walker.

There was a slight chill in the air, and the young
nurse shivered a little as Delaney watched her close
the window and angle the slats of the Venetian
blind against the still bright rays of the sun.

She hurried out of the private hospital room,
leaving Delaney alone with the woman who lay on
the bed, tubes coming out of her arms and monitors
keeping a constant check on her.

The woman groaned slightly as she opened her
eyes and propped herself up on the pillow,
focusing on her visitor. She smiled, her voice a
soft, croaky whisper.

'Jack.'

Delaney stepped forward and put a basket of
fruit on her bedside cabinet. 'Hello, Wendy.'

'You brought flowers last time. You going off
me?'

Her voice was undeniably sexy with that husky
croak in it, and Delaney laughed. 'Never going to
happen.'

'I don't blame you, you know.'

'Maybe you should.'

'We're family, Jack. Never forget that.'

'I know.'

'What's going to happen to the boy?'

Delaney looked at her for a moment. 'Nothing
good.' He looked out of the window and saw
Wendy's husband walking across the car park
with Siobhan.

'I've got to go, Wendy.'

Wendy looked puzzled. 'You just got here.'

'I know. I've got a funeral to go to.'

Delaney walked towards the door.

'Jack.'

He turned back as Wendy flashed him a sympathetic
smile.

'I'm sorry about what happened. But you can't
stop taking care of yourself. Not now.'

Jack didn't reply; just nodded and left the room.

Two o'clock in the afternoon, north-west of
London. Some trees still had a thick coat of green
with flashes of gold here and there, while the top
branches of others stretched out like skeletal
fingers of coral, scratching the sky, all of it
heralding change. That fine line between summer
and autumn. A season no longer dictated by the
calendar since carbon emissions had made global
warming a hard reality. The sky leaked a vivid
blue here and there, jagged streaks of pale cobalt
showing through an off-white cloth of cloud, and
below that were thicker clouds, fat and scudding
as the cool winds blew, rattling the dry leaves
from the tall trees. Cool enough now so that
Delaney pulled his overcoat tighter around
himself. A black woollen overcoat to match his
black suit and his black tie and his dark eyes as he
looked down at the open grave at his feet.

The wind lifted a little, picking up some leaves
and making them dance across the grass, and
bringing the familiarity of a particular perfume.
Delaney looked up to find Kate Walker standing
beside him.

'You came, then?'

Delaney shrugged. 'Seemed the least I could do.
He took a bullet for me.'

Kate stooped down to lay a wreath by the grave.

'He said there would be no one here to put
flowers on his grave.'

Some two months after he had disappeared, the
body of Bill Hoskins had been discovered in an
abandoned well on a run-down farm near Henley.
A young child had gone missing after an argument
about being allowed to watch an unsuitable film
on television, and every nook and cranny in the
area had been searched. The missing child turned
up safe and sound, hiding out in a Wendy house in
a friend's garden.

Bill Hoskins, however, was found in far worse
condition. Two months' exposure in the summer's
heat had not been kind to his already undernourished
body. The autopsy revealed that he had
been shot once, in the heart.

Kate stood up and looked at Delaney. 'Why
didn't you return any of my calls, Jack?'

'I thought it best.'

'Best for you?'

'Best for you, Kate. When I saw you shot . . .'

'I was wearing your Kevlar vest, Jack. You
made me put it on. If I hadn't, I'd have been dead.'

'I know. And I'm sorry, but it made me realise.
I'm bad news, Kate. You don't need me in your
life.'

'They told me you've handed in your notice.
You're going to move, is that right?'

'Yeah.'

'Move where?'

Delaney shrugged again, the words bitter in his
mouth. 'Out of this city.'

'And there's nothing I can say?'

'I'm sorry.'

Kate looked at him angrily, blinking back tears.
She nodded to the open grave. 'Why don't you
climb in there with him and be done with it?'

She turned on her heel and walked away. She
didn't look back.

Delaney watched her go, a painful knot forming
in his stomach. He wanted to call out, ask her
back, but couldn't bring himself to do it. He'd
been a liability to every woman he'd slept with
over the past few years. His wife, Jackie Malone,
Wendy, now lying in an intensive care hospital
bed. He wanted Kate back, but he knew what was
causing the knot in his stomach. Fear. And he
didn't feel any better about himself for knowing it.

He waited until Kate was gone from sight, then
walked thirty yards in the opposite direction and
knelt beside another memorial.

He took a single red rose from the inside pocket
of his coat and laid it on his wife's grave. 'I'm
sorry.' His voice a pained whisper. Then he stood
up quickly and walked towards the gates of the
cemetery.

Outside, Diane Campbell leaned back against her
car, a trademark cigarette hanging from her
carmine lips and a lazy blue cloud of smoke
floating towards him on the cool breeze. If he was
surprised to see her, his face didn't register it.
Campbell ground the cigarette under her heel and
snapped another out of the packet, flicking it into
her mouth and offering the pack towards Delaney.
Delaney took one and bent low so Campbell could
light it for him before she lit her own.

'I heard you'd be here.'

'You come to wish me luck?'

'I've come to ask you to take back your
resignation.'

'That's not going to happen.'

'You're a good detective, Delaney. You know
that.'

'Yeah, I do.'

'We need you on the force.
I
need you on the
force.'

Delaney shook his head. 'Made my mind up.'

'I said I was sorry.'

'Doesn't change anything. This isn't about that.'

'You're absolutely certain?'

'Haven't been more sure of anything in my life.'

Campbell took a deep drag on her cigarette,
then looked at Delaney sympathetically. 'There's
something I need to tell you.'

Delaney saw the look in her eyes. 'What is it,
Diane?'

'The forecourt robbery. The guys who shot your
wife . . .'

Delaney could feel the wind roaring, the blood
pounding in his ears as he gripped her arm, tight
enough for her to wince. 'Tell me?'

'We've got a lead, Jack.'

The Ancient Mariner, it is told, could fix people
with his beady eye in a room and, to a man and
woman, they'd listen spellbound to his tale. If I fix
people with my beady eye in a room they scatter
like the thirteen tribes of Israel. So thanks are
firstly due to you, reader, for letting me take you
on this journey into Delaney's world. Not, it has
to be said, a pleasant world, but made richer by
your presence.

Louise Tam ordered me to write this book in the
first place, Robert Caskie, the Lancelot of the
publishing world, championed its completion and
cause, James Nightingale made it far better than it
was and Jane Selley polished it up like a shiny
apple. Thanks to Caroline Gascoigne, Kate Elton
and all the wonderful people at Random House
for not booting me out of their door in the first
place. And thanks, of course, to Mum and Dad
without whom nothing much, least and most of all
this, would have been possible.

Lastly, the careful reader may have noted that
DI Jack Delaney is partial to an occasional drop of
the fortifying spirit, and in this regard I must
acknowledge the Wheatsheaf and Lobster public
houses, of West Beckham and Sheringham respectively,
for the invaluable assistance their excellent
staff provided in this most vital area of research.

As for the city, Delaney's London is like a
terminally infected, sick man crying out for
medical attention. Delaney is certainly no surgeon,
but, as Bernard Cromwell might well put it, he
will don his gown and march, scalpel in hand,
once more.

MP

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