Mark Pearson - Death Row

The shot on the television turned to a series of pictures: Peter Garnier, the murdered children, the church where the head of a woman had been discovered, her own photo as a little girl held in the arms of Jack Delaney. Gloria picked up the Sky+ remote control and froze the picture, staring at herself and the Irishman when he was much younger than he was today, in so many ways, handsome in his uniform, his smile fit to break a thousand hearts.

But Gloria wasn’t smiling and her eyes were unblinking at she stared at the television screen. The music in her head was swelling ever louder, like surf at high tide in the depths of winter.

*

Sally Cartwright and Jack Delaney were at the back of the large police marquee that had been erected to cover the whole of the allotment where Maureen Gallagher’s mutilated body had been discovered. Several floodlights had been mounted on poles, filling the space inside with a cold bright light. A small trench had been dug in the centre of the allotment and two suitably suited scene-of-crime officers were excavating the ground. They gestured for the photographer and videographer to come forward as they scraped the last few lumps of mud off a green tarpaulin that had been exposed in the base of the shallow trench. With the photographers in position one of the SOCO, took the corner of the tarpaulin and pulled it back.

The first thing Delaney noticed was the feet. One was wearing a sock only and the other had on a small black and white trainer, a match to the one discovered earlier in the scrubland at the end of the allotments, which was now sitting in an evidence bag at the police station at Paddington Green. Delaney barely noticed the high-pitched scream of a woman as the tarpaulin was pulled fully open, or the slump as she fainted into the strong arms of her husband, who was standing beside her, his eyes filling with tears. Delaney was too focused, registering the jeans and the jumper with a picture of a large cartoon giraffe on the front of it. He didn’t need to look to know that beneath it there would be a new Chelsea-strip shirt with the word SAMSUNG emblazoned across the front. He looked at the curly hair on the top of the boy’s head, so brown that it was almost black, he looked at the closed eyes that would never sparkle with impish pleasure again. He looked at the smooth skin of the boy’s face, obscenely pale, and he heard his own words in his head, the promises he had made to another abducted child. One he had been in time to save. He felt the muscles in his heart harden and the hands that were thrust deep into his jacket pockets become fists, the pain of his nails, digging into his own flesh, against the tears that threatened to start in his eyes.

Graham Harper ran past him, tears rolling down his face, as Delaney pulled his cigarette packet out and walked out of the marquee into a late afternoon that was already as dark as the black hole he felt forming in his soul.

*

Standing on the iron bridge above the railway track, Delaney put a cigarette in his mouth. Scratching a match alight he lit his cigarette and held the flame close. But he felt no heat from it. He looked out at the black expanse of the railway track as it headed west into the distance and shivered, remembering.

The snow was falling fast now, the fat frozenflakes dancing in the air and floating into Jack’s eyes, blinding him. He wiped his hand across them and struggled as fast as he could along the bank, the worn soles of his boots still sticking in the slippery mud as he ran along the side of the river. ‘Hold on, Siobhan,’ he screamed. ‘I’m coming.’ He could hear her words echoing in his ears as he scanned the swirling waters.

‘Please, Jack. Please. It’s so cold.’

He had said, ‘It’s okay, Shiv. I’ve got you now.’

But he had lied. He hadn’t got her at all. And she had fallen into the icy embrace of the water and had been swept out into the river out of his reach.

‘No,’ cried Jack as he watched his sister’s head bob below the surface of the water.

‘No.’

He ran harder, calling out desperately to his sister. He caught a flash of her faded blue dress as it sank beneath the rough eddies of the water and then she was gone.

And Jack, throwing off his jacket, ran and dived into the river, not even registering the icy cold of it, his arms swept ahead of him and wrapped around his sister, and freeing one arm he splashed and paddled as powerfully as he could to the side. He pushed his sister up above him and clambered up after her onto the riverbank. He ran back to get his jacket and bundled Siobhan up in it and picking her up he cradled her to his chest and set off for home as fast as he could. Siobhan’s teeth were chattering but she laughed as she looked up to him with bright twinkling eyes and said, ‘I knew you’d save me, Jack. You always do.’

*

Delaney snapped out of his reverie. The cigarette had burned to the stub and he realised that Sally Cartwright was standing next to him.

‘It’s not him, sir,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘The boy. It’s not Archie Woods.’

Delaney frowned, trying to take it in, and picked on Sally’s expression. ‘What is it, constable? Who is he?’

‘You’re not going to believe it, sir …’

‘Just tell me, Sally!’

‘It’s Samuel Ramirez.’

She was right. Delaney couldn’t believe it.

Seventeen years after the two children had been abducted, one of the murdered children’s bodies had finally been discovered.

‘Doctor Bowman says the body has been deep-frozen, the skin slightly scalded post-mortem. Rectal damage, and bruising round the throat consistent with strangling.’

‘Peter Garnier.’

‘His MO, sir. Yes.’

‘Someone has kept the body frozen all these years?’

‘It looks that way, sir.’

‘Who, for God’s sake?’

‘The same person who has taken Archie Woods. We need to find him, sir. We need to find him quickly.’

Delaney flared another match and lit a fresh cigarette. He thought of the sister that he had saved, living happily in America now, and who his own daughter had been named after; and he thought of the promise he had made to another girl, now a grown woman, whom he had rescued from Peter Garnier all those years ago. A promise he could still keep.

‘Yeah,’ he said, the reflection of the lit match dancing in his eyes. ‘And we will.’

*

DI Tony Bennett yawned. He had been speed-skipping through the CCTV footage that the manager from The Outback pub on Camden High Street had given them earlier in the day. Jamil had come into shot a couple of times but he had always been alone and had seemingly ordered the same drinks both times. As the bar manager had pointed out, the coverage was sketchy at best. It was focused on the till and he had only recognised Jamil by the shirt he was wearing. Certainly no one came into shot looking like the racist skinhead he suspected of attacking the Iranian outside, up the street from the pub. He looked at his watch and yawned again as one of the detectives, he couldn’t remember her name, left the office. Five o’clock in the evening and, save for him, the CID office was now deserted. He stood up, took his overcoat off the peg and slipped into it. Time to call it a night. He stood by the window for a moment, watching as a few uniforms coming off shift walked out of the car park and headed towards the pub. He considered joining them for a nanosecond before standing up, picking up a shoulder bag from the floor and heading across to Delaney’s desk. Delaney’s laptop was open but in sleep mode. Bennett tapped on the Esc key and the machine hummed into life. He looked around him and quickly pulled his outside hard drive from his shoulder bag and connected it to the laptop. A couple of quick key strokes and he moved round to stand in front of it. Footsteps approached and he pulled out his mobile phone, starting to speak into it as DC Sally Cartwright came in. He held up a finger to her.