Mark Pearson - The Killing Season

Kate was waiting at the window. She went to open the door as Laura ushered Siobhan in.

‘Jack,’ Kate called to me as I walked back to the car.

‘Go in and pack some clothes, Kate, for you and Siobhan — just for a few days for now. Laura will help you.’

She was about to say something but I held up my hand.

‘Please, Kate. I’ll be there in a minute.’

She must have heard something in my voice because she nodded and went back inside the house.

I opened the boot of my Saab and pulled back the spare-wheel covering. In the recess underneath was an oiled-leather package. I unwrapped it and took out a gun and a shoulder holster. I took off my coat and put the shoulder rig on, then donned my coat again and went in to explain to Kate.

Night-time in sheringham.

It was bitterly cold. Yellow light pooling on the ground from sulphurous street lamps. Here and there kids and adults dressed in Halloween masks. Ghouls, monsters, witches, a woman in an Edvard Munch ‘scream’ mask.

The distant wails of police and ambulance sirens in cacophonous disharmony somewhere. Cars flashing past in both directions. I threw my cigarette out of the open car window a hundred yards shy of the petrol station. Moments later I pulled the car hard left and parked. Switching off the engine but keeping the radio on. Radio Norfolk was playing a sea shanty sung by a local group. ‘Captain Stratton’s Fancy.’ ‘Oh, some are fond of red wine, and some are fond of white, and some are all for dancing by the pale moonlight.’

I stood for a while, breathing the cold, almost purifying air.

I holstered the petrol pump back in its cradle and turned round to see Superintendent Susan Dean standing there. She wore her trademark black wool suit. Her lipstick was the colour of fresh blood and her skin was the colour of the pale moonlight. Her eyes looked steadily at me, filled with contempt but also with purpose. A cold purpose. She held a shotgun in her hands and she raised it and pointed it at me. She was too far away for me to make a move towards her. I felt the beads of sweat trickle down from my forehead onto the bridge of my nose and into my eyes. I blinked to keep the moisture away.

I held a hand up in a calming gesture to stop her. But she shook her head, almost apologetically.

‘Whatever it is, Susan, we can work it out.’

‘It’s “superintendent” to you — I’ve told you that. And it’s too late for that, Delaney. Far too late.’

‘It’s never too late.’

‘We’re all born with a use-by date! You wouldn’t be told. You wouldn’t stop meddling.’

‘I was just doing my job.’

‘It wasn’t your job. You wanted the truth so I guess you’re going to find out.’

Before I could reply she had pulled the trigger. The noise was like a clap of thunder and I could feel the blood boiling in my ears now. The shotgun blast was like a burning iron fist in my gut. I cried out in pain and spun round and dropped to my knees. The shot had passed straight through me. Kate was standing there, holding her hands over her shattered stomach, with blood running through them like crimson rivulets. She had taken the full force of both barrels. She fell to her knees and smiled sadly at me. Her eyes were peaceful and she seemed in no pain, but large tears welled after a second.

‘It’s all right, Jack,’ she said. ‘Take care of Siobhan and baby Jade for me.’ And then her eyes closed.

I cried out and startled awake. My breath ragged. I was disorientated for a moment. I had no idea where I was.

‘Was it the dream again, Jack?’ Kate asked.

I took a sip from a glass of water that I had picked up from the bedside cabinet. ‘Yes, and no. It was different.’

‘In what way?’

I shook my head as if to clear the images that still lingered there. ‘It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you’re safe.’

After Kate had packed clothes for her and the children and supplies for the baby we had driven to the house of a friend of mine in Thornage, a small town just outside Holt. He was an ex-army man and ran a security firm based in Norwich. We had met over a contract we had worked on together.

I had explained everything to him and he had gladly taken us in, saying that Kate and the children were welcome to stay for as long as necessary. And, moreover, he would get enough personnel in to make sure that the house was guarded the whole time.

‘Tell me about your grandfather, Kate,’ I asked her.

‘I never really met him much. My dad didn’t get on with him. And when I went to live with my uncle in London he only visited a few times.’

‘Did your uncle get on with him?’

Kate laughed harshly. ‘Yeah — I think they were cut from the same cloth.’

‘Would he know anything about what happened, do you think? Would his father have told him anything he knew about David Webb’s murder and disappearance if he was involved?’

Kate looked across at me. ‘From what I can gather he would have bragged about it to him.’

‘He wouldn’t have been alive himself when it happened.’

‘No. But that wouldn’t make a difference. My uncle used to let certain people know just what sort of a man he was and I bet his father was no different.’

‘I’m going to see him.’

‘When?’

I looked across at the clock. It was four o’clock.

‘No time like the present. It’s a long drive — the sooner I get there the sooner I can be back.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘No, you won’t. You’ll stay here with the girls and keep safe.’

‘He won’t tell you anything, Jack. You know that. Even if he does know something.’

‘It’s worth a try. I’m not seeing you hurt, Kate. I can promise you that.’

Some hours later, and the dawn had finally broken.

I had taken Kate’s car, partly because it had a full tank of petrol and partly because I didn’t want my old Saab breaking down on me. Much as I hated to admit it, maybe Kate had a point about the car.

At that time of the morning I was able to make good progress: no idiots in 4×4s, no tractors or beet lorries. The A11 was mostly clear, as was the motorway when I hit it. Getting near the end of the M11, London was looming in the distance, the big urban sprawl of it lighting up the dark morning sky. The size and the spread of it as I hit the M25, which was busy with traffic by now, made me feel almost claustrophobic. Crossing the M25 and heading into the heart of the Smoke felt a bit like crossing the Bosphorus between Europe and Asia. It didn’t feel like coming home, that was the strange thing. ‘Never get out of the boat,’ as Martin Sheen once said. ‘Once you get out of the boat you ain’t never coming back.’ Or something like that.

A weak sun had risen in a milky sky by the time I left the Governor’s office and was escorted by a couple of uniformed guards to the interview room where Kate’s uncle would be chained and waiting for me. Diane Campbell hadn’t been best pleased when I had called her shortly after four o’clock this morning but when I’d explained the urgency of the situation she had got straight on the case and made the necessary call.

Walker had changed a lot since I had last seen him. At the time of his arrest he had been a tall, upright man, exuding arrogance and authority.

As the door of his cell opened he looked at me with a sneering expression on his face. He wasn’t arrogant any more — his flesh just couldn’t suppress his thoughts. For years he had lived behind a mask, and now that the mask had been stripped away his features were mobile with his emotions. Hate, mainly, as he looked at me.

‘Detective Inspector Jack Delaney, what an unexpected honour.’