Mark Pearson - Death Row

‘Sally, you want to cut to the chase here?’

‘We don’t catch a lot of sociopaths because they have no conscience, no desire to be caught. But some do. People like Ted Bundy, they want to be caught, they even want to be killed and they want to control that as well. They play games with the police because in the end they want us to catch them. In America maybe they want to be caught so they can be killed. In those states where they have the death penalty, anyway.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, nothing’s ever black and white, is it, except in a police uniform. Sometimes people want to be caught because they want to be stopped.’

‘Peter Garnier was caught a long time ago.’

‘But if he had an accomplice like you said, maybe he’s going to lead us to him. He’s talking to us, sir. Well, he’s talking to you , anyway. It’s a thin thread, sir, but it’s something to hold onto. Something to develop.’

Delaney threw her an appraising glance. ‘You’ve learned a lot from me over these last few months, haven’t you?’

‘I already knew how to drink, sir.’

Delaney grunted. ‘Including a proper respect for authority.’

‘It’s a line, sir. From The Sting — I like that film.

‘Well, then just keep thinking, Sally. It’s what you’re good at.’

‘Sir.’

‘And pull off at the next left.’

‘That’s not the way to Harrow.’

‘I know that, Cassidy. It’s not the way to Amarillo, either. We’re going to Pitshanger to see someone first.’

‘Who?’

‘One of my cousins.’ Delaney paused for a moment. ‘One of my cousins on the respectable side.’

*

Kate was sitting in the police surgeon’s office, which was a small room downstairs just off the custody and booking area. She looked up when there was a knock on her door and DI Bennett stuck his head round.

‘Got a minute?’

Kate gestured with her hand. ‘Sure. Come in. Just catching up with the paperwork.’

‘Don’t get me started on paperwork. Cut down the number of forms we have to fill in and we’d raise our solve rate exponentially, you ask me.’

‘Who was it who said bureaucracy is the bedrock of incompetence?’

Bennett shrugged. ‘I don’t know but if he was in the Met I imagine he’d have been fired.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I’m on my way over to part of your university. Thought you might like to tag along.’

‘I told you I’m not working there this week.’

Bennett smiled. ‘I know you did.’

Kate looked at him. ‘You’re not hitting on me, are you, Inspector Bennett? I thought we cleared all that up.’

Bennett laughed. ‘No. No. I don’t swing my truncheon on another man’s beat.’

Kate looked at him coolly. ‘ Swing your truncheon on another man’s beat ?’

‘I was speaking metaphorically.’

‘Let me guess … Germaine Greer is your godmother.’

Bennett shrugged. ‘When I am with attractive women, I just use humour as a defence mechanism. What can I say?’

‘You can say what you’re doing here. I am busy. It’s paperwork but I’m busy.’

‘Someone has come forward. From the university. We might have a name for your stabbing victim.’

‘Go on.’

‘A fellow student across the corridor from some fellow in their hall of residence called the police because he was concerned. This guy hasn’t been home since last night, he missed his lectures this morning and he matches the description.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Jamil Azeez. Second-year student. Studying law. An Iranian.’

Kate looked at the paperwork on her desk and stood up, pulling her coat, a tailored black cotton jacket that matched her skirt, off the back of the chair. ‘The paperwork can wait.’

‘Bennett nodded ‘Good call. I’ll drive.’

Kate threw him a cool look, snatched up her car keys off her desk and rattled them at him pointedly. ‘We’ll both drive.’

‘Shame. I thought we could have got to know each other better on the way there, and you could tell me all about Inspector Delaney. He seems a fascinating character from all I hear.’

‘I wouldn’t believe half of what you’ve heard. He’s a lot worse than that.’

Bennett pointed at her jacket. ‘You’ll need something warmer than that on. It’s cold out there.’

Kate grabbed her black parka with its faux-fur trim and sailed out of the office, leaving DI Bennett to follow in her wake.

*

Pitshanger Village is a small area some miles west of Central London, just outside Ealing and off the Western Avenue. Hidden in the scar of housing that runs from well east of the city to the borders of the Green Belt in the west, it is a little-known but exclusive area. Like a miniature version of Greenwich Village in New York it is home to artists and writers, to musicians, cameramen, actors, lawyers, businessmen and businesswomen. It has boutique bakeries, independent bookshops, organic pizza-parlours. A bit like Hampstead Village, Delaney thought as they turned along Pitshanger Lane, but not that much, not by a long chalk. Well heeled by Prada, though. Christ, he thought to himself, I’m turning into one of them. Maybe moving to Belsize Park hadn’t been such a good idea, after all: he’d be wearing Hunter wellies next and buying the FT and discussing the Nasdaq with Nigel in the Holly Bush over croissants and coffee on a Sunday morning. He shuddered.

‘Something up, sir?’

‘It’s cold, Sally. That’s all. Sure, I’d never have left the sun-kissed shores of Cork if I’d have known the weather was going to be this bleeding miserable year in and year out.’

‘We had a cracking summer, sir.’

‘Seems like a lifetime ago now.’

Sally looked through the softly thwumping windscreen wipers at the rain-drenched urban landscape of West London beyond and couldn’t help but agree. London in the summer was a different place. No doubt about that.

A short while later, Sally pulled the car to a stop on the street across from the library, next door to the bookshop that was painted Tardis blue and was busy with customers, seemingly defiant in the face of the recession and the competition from Amazon and the supermarkets. Maybe people in Pitshanger could afford to pay the full price for books, or maybe they just didn’t want to be seen shopping in Asda or Tesco. ‘Do you want me to wait in the car?’ she said.

Delaney shook his head. ‘Not at all, Sally. Come with me. We might need some thinking done after all. And you’re the girl for that.’

‘Woman, sir.’

‘Jeez, you’re all so keen to grow up. I don’t know what’s wrong with the youth of today, I surely to God don’t.’

‘I sometimes think you were born a grumpy old man, sir.’

‘Nah,’ said Delaney. ‘A proper miserable personality is like a good beer belly — it takes many years and serious application to achieve it.’

Sally glanced across as Delaney levered his tall athletic frame out of the car, at his flat stomach and powerful shoulders. ‘Well, at least you’ve got time for the beer belly, sir.’

Delaney closed the car’s passenger door and pulled the collar of his jacket up against the cold rain that was slanting across the street. Then he led Sally across the road, past the bookshop and through a double doorway to a staircase leading up into a group of flats called Kenmure Mansions that ran above the shops that lined the street. They both shook the moisture from their hair as they climbed upward. Delaney’s shoes clattered loudly on the bare concrete steps and Sally’s curiosity was piqued. She knew better than to ask him what they were doing here — she’d find out soon enough, she was sure of that. Must be pretty important for him to delay getting to Harrow, she knew that much. Or then again, maybe she didn’t, she realised. Who knew with Jack Delaney, after all? The man was about as predictable as the weather in barbecue season.