Murder Club (13 page)

‘Jesus, Delaney!’

‘I know.’

‘The CPS knew that, this would never even have made it to court.’

‘The man is guilty, boss.’

Diane Campbell shook her head, disgusted. ‘Eddie-fucking-Bonner!’

Sergeant Eddie Bonner had been Jack Delaney’s partner for a while. Up until the time he tried to kill him, that is. Bonner had been involved in serious and criminal corruption within the force, working with Kate Walker’s uncle, a senior police figure now in jail awaiting trial for murder, attempted murder and child-rape charges, amongst others. Delaney was getting close to exposing him, and Bonner, who wasn’t involved in the child crimes, changed horses mid-gallop. He was going to give Delaney information to help put Walker away. He didn’t get the chance to, for Bonner was killed in a hit arranged by Walker, and Delaney was nearly taken out too.

‘Bonner may well have shown her a photo – I wouldn’t put it past him, but I doubt it.’

‘Why?’

‘She could have said Bonner showed her the photo, if in fact he ever did. But she didn’t; she said I did.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. But Michael Robinson called me this morning. He seemed very upbeat.’

‘Jesus, Jack! You didn’t think a little detail like that was important enough to mention it to me?’

‘I’m mentioning it now.’

Diane took a healthy glug of her vodka. ‘What the fuck was that sick flake calling you for?’

‘He mentioned Kate and Siobhan, Diane. And
the baby on the way
.’

Diane gestured to the barmaid. ‘Can we get some more drinks over here, and make mine a large one,’
she
said and turned back to Delaney. ‘You want a whiskey with that?’

‘No. I’m okay with this, thanks,’ he gestured at his half-finished glass of Guinness.

‘You reckon he was making some kind of threat?’

‘That was my understanding. Plus he seemed confident about the court case. Almost as if he knew Stephanie Hewson was going to recant on her testimony.’

‘What did he actually say?’

‘Just that. He knew he was getting off.’

‘How?’

‘Somebody got to the woman. Someone has been in contact with him. Watching me. Intimidating her.’

‘He had a partner?’

‘He has a partner. Maybe not that night. But yeah. There’s two of them.’

‘He’s definitely guilty, Jack? He did rape and slice the woman?’

‘Stephanie picked him out, Diane. I saw her when she did it. She wasn’t faking it. And what would be the motive?’

‘So what do we do?’

‘We go over everything again.’

‘Something you might have missed?’ she asked, taking the glass from the barmaid and swallowing at least half the contents.

‘There’s two of them, Diane. Stephanie Hewson wasn’t the first. I’d bet my mortgage on it.’

‘They are going to turn over every stone in your career, Jack.’

‘Of course they will. But it’s bureaucracy, Diane. Red tape. We haven’t got time for that.’

‘Okay. You’ve got the weekend. I’ll try and stall things as best I can.’

‘Napier won’t like it.’

‘Napier can kiss my arse.’

‘He might enjoy that.’

Diane looked at him coolly for a moment or two and then nodded. ‘Just don’t fuck me over on this, Jack. Nail the sick son of a bitch!’

‘Boss.’

Diane tossed back the remains of her drink and headed to the door. Delaney grinned at the barmaid. ‘Be an absolute darling, Lily. And give me a shot of Jameson’s, will you?’

The barmaid placed the shot glass in front of him and he looked at it for a long moment. A woman came up the bar and sat next to him. She had a tumble of auburn hair framing a heart-shaped face. Her eyes were big and blue. As she turned to Delaney, she had a smile on her face that could have melted frozen tundra.

‘Are you going to drink that whiskey or just look at it?’ she said.

‘I haven’t decided yet,’ Delaney replied.

‘Could go either way?’

‘Life’s a lot like that. Sometimes the small decisions help you make some big ones.’

‘And have you got a big decision to make?’

‘Seems like my life is full of big decisions,’ Delaney said and smiled back at her.

‘My name’s Kimberley Gold,’ she said.

‘Hello Kimberley, my name’s Jack Delaney.’

‘And don’t you shake a lady by the hand when you meet one?’

‘I’m married,’ he said and held his hand out.

Kimberley looked at his open hand for a moment and then slapped an envelope in it. ‘And you’re served, Jack Delaney!’ she said, got off her stool and walked out.

Jack watched her leave, then put the envelope on the bar counter and looked at his whiskey. Then he stood up, picked up the envelope and headed out himself. Leaving the whiskey untouched.

KATE WALKER WAS
seated at her desk drinking a cup of coffee and reading the morning paper when there was a quick knock on her door and Laura Chilvers stuck her head round.

‘Have you got a minute?’

‘Sure, come in.’

‘Thanks.’

Kate looked at her. ‘What’s up? You look terrible.’

‘I feel terrible.’

‘What’s happened?’

‘I’m not sure.’

She held her hands out – they were raw. Streaks of blood dried on her fingers, her knuckles puffy and swollen. Split.

‘Dear God, Laura, what’s happened? Have you been attacked?’

‘Like I said, I don’t know, Kate. I can’t remember.’

‘Let me clean that up for you.’

‘No!’ said Laura sharply and drew her hands back, clasping them together and holding them on her lap. ‘There’s more.’

‘Go on?’

‘I think I was raped.’

Kate looked for a moment too stunned to say
anything,
remembering the trauma she had gone through when she thought she had been raped. Only she hadn’t.

‘Oh my God, I’m sorry.’

‘The thing is, I can’t remember what happened last night. I’m okay up to a point and then it goes hazy.’

‘You think you might have been drugged?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I was at a club. I had some drinks. Took some other stuff.’

‘Laura!’

‘Yeah, I know, I know. I should have known better! I’m a doctor. But if every doctor who took drugs was fired today, there would be queues at every health centre stretching for miles.’

‘I know – sorry. I wasn’t judging you.’

And Kate wasn’t. She recalled again the time she thought she had been raped. She had had a big argument with Jack and had got herself completely plastered at The Holly Bush in Hampstead. Drowned her sorrows, as they say, in a small pond of vodka. She had allowed herself to be chatted up by a smooth Delaney lookalike. Dark curly hair, handsome, full of charm. Except that was where the similarities ended. His charm was as false as the smile on a double-glazing salesman’s face. He was a children’s doctor and she thought she could trust him, only she couldn’t. She let him stay in her bed and was convinced he had raped her. Only he hadn’t, and was playing sick mind-games with her. Delaney had busted him on the nose, and she wished he had done more than that.

‘I know what it’s like to lose control, Laura,’ she said.

‘I had things … I don’t know, I couldn’t deal with them, Kate. I wanted to be in a different place. I was stupid.’

‘Whatever happened, it isn’t your fault.’

‘That’s just it, though. It
is
my fault. All of it. I deserve this.’

‘Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that.’

Laura wiped the sleeve of her overcoat across her eyes. ‘I need your help.’

‘Of course.’

‘You’ll need your rape-kit.’

JACK DELANEY STOOD
by the side of the ditch watching as ‘Bowlalong’ Bowman, the forensic pathologist, and his team worked on uncovering the body. A protective marquee had been erected over the site. It had stopped snowing, but judging by the heavy sky overhead, it wouldn’t be long before it started again.

The skeleton had nearly been fully uncovered, and rags still clung to part of the body, bits of a suit by the looks of it. The rest had decomposed over the years that the body had lain there. The skull had been broken in several places and what looked like a book lay under the skeleton’s right arm.

‘You want to talk me through it?’ said Delaney, putting an unlit cigarette into his mouth.

Derek ‘Bowlalong’ Bowman looked up at the detective. He was a large, portly, cheerful man. His hair, as ever, was a tangled mass of grey curls, his dress sense equally scruffy, although he was now encased in a white forensic examination suit. ‘Hello, Jack. Didn’t expect to see you here. I’d have thought Napier would have had you on a convict ship to the colonies by now. Hard labour under the Australian sun.’

‘If he had his way, he probably would,’ Delaney
agreed.
‘Some minor details to sort out first. Things have to be investigated thoroughly after all – innocent before being found guilty, and all that kind of malarkey.’

The large man smiled. ‘I know you’re a stickler for due process yourself.’

‘Famous for it.’

‘I take it you didn’t show the woman in question the photograph of Robinson?’

‘I hope not.’

‘Yes, I can see that might be awkward. No clear recollection?’

Delaney shook his head. ‘I certainly don’t remember doing that, no.’

‘Lost-weekend kind of thing.’

Delaney nodded drily. ‘Sometimes a little longer.’

‘The man was guilty, though?’

‘And now he’s walked free. But not for long.’

‘Best tread careful, Jack.’

‘My middle name.’

‘Really, I thought it was Daniel.’

Delaney gestured at the skeleton. ‘Our friend here a John or a Jane?’

‘Definitely male. Probably somewhere in his fifties.’

‘Can you tell how long he’s been in there?’

‘Bowlalong’ shrugged. ‘Not recent – the best I can do for you. For now at least.’

‘They look like old bones. Might have been moved here, you mean?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Why not?’

‘The clothing has decomposed, you can see it in the
soil.
We’ll do some tests, but the bone alignment, the clothing … I’d say this was the original site of burial.’

‘But you can’t say when.’

‘Bones react differently with different soil. Acids, alkalis, chemicals.’ He waggled his hands. ‘All manner of things either preserve or speed up the decaying process. I’ll know more when Lorraine and I get him back to the office.’

Delaney nodded at the young woman ‘Bowlalong’ had just gestured at. She was Kate’s former assistant, when Kate still worked as a forensic pathologist, until she decided she preferred working with the living to the dead and quit. Lorraine was a shy woman, with an expressive face that blushed readily. She was blushing now as Delaney nodded to her and he found himself wondering, not for the first time, why she was in a job like this. Kate had explained to him that Lorraine couldn’t cope with people dying on her, but didn’t want her medical training to go to waste.

‘Here you go, sir.’

Delaney turned round as DC Sally Cartwright handed him a styrofoam cup of coffee. Another attractive young woman working amongst the dead. He would probably be called a sexist pig, but it seemed wrong to him somehow. He didn’t articulate the thought.

‘Cheers, Sally,’ he said instead.

‘Any further forward?’ she asked the pathologist.

‘Not till we get back to the lab.’

‘What about the skull injuries?’

‘The doctor thinks they’re post-mortem.’

Derek Bowman nodded. ‘Like as not the workman with his spade.’

‘Maybe,’ said Delaney. ‘Maybe not.’

Lorraine delicately lifted the rotting book from under the dead man’s arm. She placed it to one side on a plastic sheet. The book was leather-covered, black originally by the look of it, although slimed with mud and moisture from the years it had lain with the man in the ground. She brushed away some of the mud on the cover with a stiff brush, revealing the object mounted on the book’s cover.

A crucifix.

‘Indeed, detective,’ said Doctor Bowman as he looked back at the fractured skull of the dead man. ‘Maybe not the workman’s spade at all.’

PATRICIA HUNT RUBBED
some cream onto her hand.

‘You should see a doctor, darling,’ said her husband, watching her, concerned.

‘I’ll be fine, I ran it under cold water straight away; don’t fuss, Geoffrey.’

‘When I heard you scream, I didn’t know what had happened.’

‘I know, dear. It was nothing.’

‘But how did you spill it on your hand? That’s not like you at all. I’m supposed to be the clumsy one.’

‘I’m tired. And I’m not as strong as I used to be. My hand shook holding the kettle, that’s all.’

She looked away, unable to meet his eyes.

Geoffrey would have responded, but he suddenly went into a paroxysm of coughing, his whole body shaking as he held a handkerchief to his mouth.

His wife looked across at him, her hand forgotten. ‘I told you, you shouldn’t have gone out there this morning.’

He took a moment or two to catch his breath, his breathing ragged and wet. ‘There was work to be done.’

‘Standing here in the kitchen in the dead of night.
With
no slippers on, in the freezing cold. No wonder you’ve got a cough.’

‘Fresh air never killed anyone, Patricia.’

His wife looked at him for a moment. ‘You know that’s not true!’

Jack Delaney walked through A&E reception towards the intensive-care units, talking on his mobile telephone and ignoring the hostile glances that he was getting from the hospital staff as he passed.

‘I’ll give you a call when I’m heading in. Thanks, Tony, appreciate the heads-up.’

He closed the phone and put it in his pocket.

‘The ball rolling?’ asked DC Cartwright.

‘Yeah, a bloody big ball made of stone, and heading straight for me.’

‘Indiana Delaney.’

‘Yeah, only I might not make it out of the tunnel this time, Sally.’

‘Who was on the phone?’ she asked, trying to make the enquiry as casual as possible.

‘Detective Inspector Tony Hamilton, Constable,’ said Delaney, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. ‘Didn’t you and he …?’ Delaney wiggled his hand suggestively.