Mark Pearson - Death Row

He heard the sound of footsteps approaching and without looking up saw a pair of Doc Marten boots come into view. Maybe this was the time, Arnold thought, maybe this was his time. He didn’t die overseas serving queen and country, he’d made it through that, but maybe this was to be his end, this was what was written down for him. Kicked to death in a Camden back street and left to die in the rain by a skinhead thug who wouldn’t know duty or service or loyalty if it was tattooed on his Neanderthal forehead. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d got a kicking and at least it would be better than being set on fire like so many others had been. Arnold dashed the water from his eyes and looked up. It wasn’t a skinhead at all but a young woman with black hair and black make-up and a lacy black skirt under a black leather jacket. Ballerina by the Brothers Grimm and Vivienne Westwood, he thought. Then he held his hand out.

‘Spare some tin for a cup of tea?’ Arnold Fraser said.

The young woman rustled in her pocket and pulled out some notes.

‘I haven’t got any change,’ she said apologetically.

‘That’s all right, love,’ the ex-soldier said. Then he coughed, his whole body shaking because he couldn’t control the convulsion. He felt a note being pressed into his hand.

‘Get yourself a six-pack.’

Arnold’s coughing subsided and he looked up to say thank you. But Jennifer Hickling didn’t hear him — she had already hurried away, her fingers curling comfortably again around the handle of the knife that she had stashed in her jacket pocket. She didn’t notice that the man’s hacking coughing had started up again and was fading away in the distance as she strode up the road. Jennifer Hickling had business to attend to.

*

Roger Yates sat on the bottom of the staircase in his hall. His head propped in his hands. Lost in dark thoughts.

He jumped as a pounding came on the door, his heart leaping in his chest like a speared salmon on a gaff. He looked up, his eyes wide. The pounding came again and, resigned, he stood up and crossed the hallway to open the door. His expression relaxed a little. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said.

Delaney put one hand on Yates’s chest and pushed him backwards into the hall, so hard that he almost fell over.

Delaney watched him stumble, picturing him sprawling to smash his head on the cold tiled marble floor. But Yates regained his balance, if not his composure. He was an attractive man, a successful businessman. Delaney knew that Yates was used to getting his way in a corporate world that was not famous for subtle niceties. But he also knew that Yates had no misunderstandings about the kind of violence that Delaney was capable of and that was why he was a little puzzled not to see more fear in the man’s eyes. Delaney knew one thing for certain: all bullies were cowards. And the men who beat up women were the worst kind of cowards of all. Yates stood up, an arrogant cockiness to him once more as he walked back towards Delaney.

‘I’m sure if we can just talk about this-’

But Delaney interrupted him again. This time by grabbing him round the throat with his left hand and propelling him backwards to smash him up against the wall at the foot of his stairs. A portrait of himself hung beside him, smiling and holding up a gold trophy. His smile was in stark contrast to the genuinely scared face he now presented to the world.

‘I don’t know what she has told you but-’

‘Just shut it, Yates!’ Delaney cut him short. He could feel the blood roaring in his veins now, felt the heat of it suffusing his whole body. It was like a drug, pure adrenalin pumping round his system so that the world around him dissolved to a single point of focus.

‘I know you fucked her, Jack.’

‘What?’ Delaney was taken aback.

‘Wendy. You fucked her and I knew about it.’

Delaney loosened his hand and Yates leaned back against the wall, his breathing ragged, his eyes wild. ‘And that gives you the right to hit her, does it?’

‘I slapped her once. It was an accident.’

‘Accident, right!’

‘You back on your white horse, Jack? Is that it? Riding to the rescue of the innocent maiden, carrying her back to your castle? Well, the thing of it is, cowboy’ — he almost spat the word — ‘you’re not the only one who’s been riding another man’s mount.’

‘What are you saying to me?’

‘Your wife Sinead, Jack. She of the blessed, sainted memory.’

Delaney could feel his blood heating again, he could feel it behind his eyes, in his neck, it felt like a blaze consuming his own body and the roaring in his ears made it hard to hear what the man in front of him was saying. But he had heard enough. Roger Yates’s mouth continued to move but Delaney had stopped listening — his fist had formed once more. Yates’s eyes stared back at him, challenging, like a man who didn’t care. And Delaney lashed out, oblivious to the pain in his hand, oblivious to the screaming from Yates. Oblivious to everything except the red mist that filled his head.

*

‘And yet another bizarre twist has been revealed in the ongoing Death Row story in Harrow, West London, as the horrors continue to unfold. Police so far have been unable to trace the whereabouts of missing child Archie Woods, who was abducted yesterday morning from this very allotment below, which is two streets from Carlton Row.’

Melanie Jones was standing on the road bridge above the allotments. She stood aside so that her cameraman could cover the police activity below. Then the picture swung back to Melanie Jones.

‘As we have reported earlier today the severed head of a bald woman was discovered on the altar of St Botolph’s Church, again a stone’s throw from this location, and this afternoon the grandfather of the missing boy made another gruesome discovery. The headless body of a woman — naked, cruciform and nailed to the ground. The police have still to make an official statement but unofficial sources confirm that they have little doubt the grizzly find is related to the gruesome discovery at the church round the corner. How this ties in with Peter Garnier, if indeed it does, they are at a loss to understand. A copycat abduction is the most likely scenario but the murder and mutilation of the woman’s body doesn’t fit into any pattern of Garnier’s activities. That the two incidents are not related is a very real possibility and, again, inside sources have confirmed that the killing of the woman as part of a ritualistic murder involving Satanism or some kind of devil worship is being very seriously considered. It wouldn’t be the first time that children have been used in gruesome rituals in this country.’

The picture on the television changed to old footage of police processing a crime scene on the banks of the Thames, but the reporter’s voice went mute as Gloria Williams thumbed the button on the TV’s remote control. She watched the TV for a moment or two longer, the reflected light dancing in her immobile eyes. The she blinked, stood up and turned to face away from the screen.

Her lounge was carpeted in a rich red and green pattern. It was cluttered with small tables and bookcases, green plants on every available surface that wasn’t covered with magazines, books, sketch pads. Behind her was a long wall running from the left-hand side of the room where a window overlooked the West Hampstead Pizza Express. It was entirely covered with photos, newspaper cuttings — some yellow with age, some extremely recent — with a map blown up and marked with pins and string, and at the centre of it all a photo of a man in police uniform who was holding a small dark-haired girl in his arms. A girl with scared brown eyes.

Gloria put the fingertips of her right hand to the young girl’s mouth and lights danced in her eyes once more.