Mark Pearson - Death Row

‘What about on his feet?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘Ethnicity?’

‘Like I say, he was wearing a hooded top.’

‘Height?’

‘Hard to tell from the distance. Not tall. Medium height, I’d say.’

Bennett nodded and threw his cup into the bin. ‘When we know who the vic is, might give us somewhere to start.’

‘Usually helps.’

The detective gave her an appraising look. ‘How about I shout you lunch later, as we’re going to be working together?’

‘No can do, I’m afraid.’

‘Back to the day job, then. What is it, medical centre at the university?’

Kate nodded. ‘That and the odd lecture. But not until next Wednesday. The students have half-terms nowadays, reading weeks.’

‘Not in my day.’

‘Nor mine. Sad to say. Still,’ she smiled, ‘at least the policemen aren’t looking younger.’

‘Ouch. So … lunch?’ Bennett obviously didn’t give up easily.

‘Prior arrangement — sorry.’ Kate smiled again, over Bennett’s shoulder this time, as Jack Delaney came walking down the corridor towards them.

‘Morning, Jack. This is Tony Bennett, the new DI.’

Delaney nodded and held his hand out. ‘Pleasure to meet you,’ he said, his voice clipped, all business.

‘Likewise.’

They shook, the briefest of handshakes. Kate looked at Delaney, sensing his troubled mood. ‘Everything all right, Jack?’

‘Fine as. Why?’

‘You look like someone’s just walked over your grave.’

Delaney smiled humourlessly. ‘Dancing on it, more likely. I’ve just been to visit Peter Garnier.’

Bennett whistled through his teeth. ‘I heard about what happened this morning. Someone took a shot at him.’

‘That’s right. Shame they missed.’

‘How’d anyone know he’d be there?’

‘Good question. Someone leaked it to the press, too.’

‘Someone on the force?’ asked Kate.

‘Exactly.’

‘Why?’

Delaney poured himself a cup of water. ‘Garnier was just telling me people do things for all sorts of reasons. That the universe itself makes no sense and is designed that way. Working here …?’ He shook his head and took a gulp of water. ‘I don’t know, maybe he’s right. There’s no sense to half the fucking things people do to one another, after all. And we’re just here to pick up the pieces, not make sense of any of it.’

Kate look across at him, concerned. ‘What’s going on, Jack? Why did that man want to see you?’

‘I honestly don’t know, Kate.’ Delaney shrugged and looked puzzled as Sally Cartwright came running up the corridor.

‘Sir. You’d better come quick,’ she said in a breathless rush, clearly very agitated.

‘What is it?’

‘A child’s gone missing.’

‘And …?’

‘An eight-year-old boy, sir.’

‘When?’

‘About an hour ago.’

‘An hour. Surely that’s too early to start panicking about-’ DI Bennett started to say before Sally held up her hand, cutting him off.

‘He was taken from Carlton Row, sir. Harrow on the Hill. The same street where Peter Garnier abducted those children all those years ago.’

‘I know where it is, Sally.’

‘From a house just across from where their houses were.’

Kate looked across at Delaney. His gaze was impassive. His dark eyes a mystery to her once more.

Delaney looked at his watch and the action stuck a spike in his heart. ‘The son of a bitch.’

‘What is it, Jack? What the hell is going on?’

‘I have no idea.’ He took his sergeant by the arm. ‘Come on, Sally.’

They strode off down the corridor.

‘Jack!’ Kate called after him but to no effect.

‘You got any idea what that was all about?’ DI Bennett asked her.

‘Not the first thing.’

‘Looks like your lunch might have been cancelled.’ He raised a questioning eyebrow hopefully.

‘Yeah. Nice try.’

She turned and hurried after Delaney.

Bennett stood there a moment or two, watching after them thoughtfully. Then he crushed the plastic beaker tightly in his fist and threw it into the bin.

*

Any copper knows that the first forty-eight hours of an investigation into a murder are critical. And the same applies to an abduction. Perhaps more so, as the longer the investigation continues the higher the probability that the child will not be returned home unhurt. Sexual predators who prey on children act on impulses that they cannot control. Some don’t wish to control them, but when the moment has passed, when their actions have brought them relief from their uncontrollable urges, they are left with the child. And the child is evidence. Evidence that can bring the howling pack right to their very door. For some it is not about the killing. It’s just evidence disposal. For other people the killing is very much a part of it. People like Peter Garnier.

Jack Delaney knew that better than most. There was a babble of concerned chatter around him in the briefing room that morning, but he wasn’t listening to it. Tuning it out like so much white noise. He knew all about sexual predators and the morning’s events had sent him back to places that he had never wished to revisit. His own daughter, Siobhan, had been taken by the worst kind of sexual predator. Kate Walker’s uncle, a man who not only treated children as objects for his foul lusts, he treated them as a commodity, making films and distributing them to the worst sort of deviants like himself, who somehow seemed to recognise each other and form networks. Like the nursery-school club that formed on Facebook and distributed images between themselves up and down the country. Delaney couldn’t even begin to imagine how these people did it, how they recognised their own types and made contact with each other. And, like them, Kate’s uncle had taken the rape of children and made it a commodity. But he had also, like Garnier, taken it further and made murder part of the sick mix. Had it not been for Kate’s intervention, putting her own life at risk, Delaney shuddered to think what would have become of his own precious daughter. He certainly hadn’t been able to protect her. His vision was clouded with guilt, with self-loathing, with a self-pity that made him a shambles of a father, a shambles of a man. He looked up from the printed report he was reading as Kate came into the room and felt a small flashback of fear as he read the concern in her eyes. The human form was such a delicate thing, such a fragile vessel. His gaze dropped to her stomach; her jacket was buttoned and he knew she wasn’t showing yet, but he still felt he could see the signs. Such a soft, vulnerable, defenceless form for such precious cargo. He met her gaze again and knew that his heart would break if anything ever happened to her and to the child she was carrying. His hand clenched inadvertently, crumpling the paper he was holding.

‘Is it bad?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know, Kate.’

The hubbub died as someone turned the volume up on the television in the corner of the room and Melanie Jones’s face filled the screen.

‘Breaking news just in. In another bizarre twist in the Peter Garnier story, police sources have confirmed that a young child has gone missing from a house only a few doors away from where two children were abducted by Garnier in 1995. DNA traces linked Garnier to their abduction and murder and although he has confessed to it he has never revealed where their bodies are buried. A further six children’s bodies were discovered buried under his garden shed in 1997 but the mystery of where the remaining bodies are has never been resolved. Dramatically, two weeks ago Peter Garnier broke his vow of silence and promised to lead the police to the two children’s burial ground. This morning, in a covert operation that myself and Sky News had access to …’