Mark Pearson - Death Row

‘I meant as a comedian.’

He started to reply but Kate held up a hand to stop him. ‘Just shut up and drive!’

Bennett put up his hands in mock surrender, then put the car in gear and steered it towards the car-park entrance. Kate shook her head and looked out of the window to hide a small private smile. The guy Bennett was replacing, Detective Sergeant Eddie Bonner, he’d thought himself a bit of a comedian too. But then he’d gone up against Jack Delaney and got himself killed in the process. She hoped the new guy would fare somewhat better.

*

Delaney balanced the porcelain saucer a little uneasily on his knee and took a sip of his tea. He looked across the room at the young girl he had taken from the boot of Garnier’s car all those years ago. She was sitting next to his cousin on the sofa. Fully grown now, educated, beautiful. The thought of what might have happened to her if Garnier hadn’t been arrested when he was still sent a chill to his heart. He looked across at her and smiled, chasing away the thoughts. She was one of the lucky ones. She had been saved.

‘I tried calling you on your mobile this morning, Gloria,’ he said.

The young woman grinned apologetically. ‘It’s kaput. Haven’t got around to getting a new one. Not top priority with a loan to pay off and I’m between temp jobs right now.’

Delaney pulled out his wallet. ‘How much do you need?’

Gloria smiled. ‘Nothing, Jack. Really. I’ve got a new gig starting next week. It’s only a small student loan. I was one of the lucky ones who had parents who supported me.’

‘How are Henry and Joan?’

‘They’re fine. And I don’t want you mentioning this. They’ve been really concerned since that man started appearing on the news. They want me to go back to Warwick.’

‘But you don’t want to?’

‘I’ve got work here, Jack. And a home.’ She smiled at Mary. ‘And friends.’ But it was a small, nervous smile and Delaney picked up on it.

‘You say you have been getting some flashes of memory, Gloria?’ he asked sympathetically.

The young woman nodded.

‘It’s since that monster’s face started appearing all the time on the news again,’ said Mary.

‘I’ve been having nightmares. I see faces, I hear voices. I wake up and I try to remember …’

‘And can you?’

She shook her head. ‘No. But I recognised … I recognised his face when he came on television.’

‘You hadn’t seen any photos of him before?’ asked Sally.

‘No.’

Mary shook her head. ‘We thought it best. Gloria was traumatised by the events. Completely traumatised. She had no memory of who she was. Where she had been. How long she had been in the car, where she came from.’

‘It must have been terrible for you,’ said Sally.

Gloria smiled and shrugged almost apologetically. ‘I don’t remember, to be honest. It was all so very long ago …’ She trailed off. ‘But it’s happening all over again, isn’t it?’

‘We don’t know, Gloria,’ said Delaney. ‘Something’s happening and we think he is tied in to it.’

Gloria sighed, frustrated. ‘I know who I am, I just don’t know who I was.’

Delaney’s cousin put her hand on the young woman’s knee. ‘It was the trauma, like I said. You had to hide deep inside yourself.’ Mary turned to Sally. ‘It was as if her identity had been stripped from her and we had to build it up again.’

Sally, a puzzled look on her face, gestured towards the doctor. ‘I’m sorry. I hope you don’t mind me asking but …’

‘Why me?’ said Mary.

‘Well, yes — why were you involved?’

‘Mary’s a child psychiatrist, Sally,’ said Delaney.

‘When Gloria was taken from the car she clung onto Jack,’ Mary explained. ‘She screamed whenever he put her down, wouldn’t let anyone near her. He cleared it to bring her to me. I had done a lot of work with the police in the past. Working with child victims. Helping those without a voice to have one.’

‘It took me about six months to find mine again, apparently,’ said Gloria.

‘And you still have no memory of who you are?’

Gloria shook her head. ‘Were,’ she said pointedly. ‘No. And in some ways that’s how I want it. This man coming back into my life …’ She stopped, blinking back tears, unable to continue the thought.

‘It’s okay, Gloria,’ said Delaney.

‘But it’s not okay, is it?’ she said, clearly distressed. ‘What if I do remember? What if I remember who I was, what happened to me? What if I can’t deal with it? What then?’

‘Then we’ll be here to help,’ said Mary softly, the warm Irish lit to her voice becoming more pronounced.

‘I know.’ Gloria sniffed and sat up straighter. ‘In some ways I want to know. In some ways I hope I never will.’

‘Is there anything you can remember from your dreams?’ Jack asked.

Gloria closed her eyes, concentrating. ‘There are sounds. Music. A song I can almost hear it but every time I think I have it … it slips away. It’s like trying to catch mist in your hand.’

‘Don’t try so hard,’ said Mary. ‘When you are ready it will come back to you.’

Gloria opened her eyes. ‘And I hear voices. At least two of them. Sometimes it seems like more.’

‘Both male?’ asked Delaney.

‘Sometimes, yes, I think so. One of them has a higher pitch.’ She shook her head, frustrated. ‘I just don’t know.’

Delaney pulled a Dictaphone from his pocket and looked to his cousin for approval. She gave him a small nod. Delaney held the Dictaphone forward and pushed the play button. Garnier’s voice filled the room, tainting it.

‘See, both you and I know that the world is made of chaos, not order, and there is an imperative in the human psyche either to embrace that chaos or to try and tame it. The first is irrelevant and the second is a fool’s errand. God knows that. The God of the Old Testament. Our existences are scattered fragments of meaning. You try to fit the shapes together, resolve the randomness of things, like a jigsaw puzzle building bit by bit to make a perfect picture. You have to get each piece in order to make sense of the world, don’t you? Like that perfect portrait of Christ and his disciples on the jigsaw your mother bought for you when you were seven years old.’

‘Turn it off!’ Gloria almost screamed, tears prickling into her eyes as she drew in deep gulps of air.

Mary moved to sit beside her on the sofa, cradling her head into her body and patting her back softly. ‘It’s all right, Gloria. You don’t have to listen to any more. Just take some deep breaths.’

Delaney stood up and walked out of the room. After a few moments he came back with a glass of water. ‘Here you go, Gloria. Drink this.’

Gloria took the glass from him. ‘Thanks.’ She took a few sips. ‘I’m okay now. I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine,’ she repeated as if just by saying it she could make it true.

Delaney sat down again, put his hands flat on his knees and leaned forward, his expression apologising for asking the question.

‘Was it him?’

Gloria took another sip of her water and looked back at him. ‘I don’t know, Jack. I’m sorry.’

‘You have nothing to be sorry for.’

‘That’s just it, though, isn’t it?’ said Gloria. ‘I might have everything to be sorry for.’

Delaney nodded.

‘And what about that poor kid who’s been taken? What has that got to do with him? What’s it got to do with me?’ Her voice trembled.

‘It’s got nothing to do with you, sweetheart. You’re safe. No one knows who you are. No one knows where you live.’

Gloria looked up at Delaney again, her small hands clasping one another. ‘What’s going to happen to him? To the little boy?’