Mark Pearson - Death Row

A few moments later Stella Trent came out of the Ladies and up to the bar. She looked around, puzzled.

‘He’s left,’ said the barman economically.

‘Damn you, Delaney!’ she muttered under her breath. ‘A girl can’t turn her back for five minutes.’ She picked up her half-finished glass of wine and downed it, then held her glass forward as the barman turned away. ‘Oi, barkeep!’ she said, her Irish accent getting stronger. ‘There’s a lady here in need of refreshment.’

‘Why don’t you let me get you that?’

Stella turned round to the dark-haired stranger who had sat himself on the bar stool beside her. ‘And why should I be letting you do that?’

‘Because I can’t bear to see a damsel in distress,’ he said and smiled widely as he held his hand out. ‘My name’s Tony.’

*

Kate Walker’s lips narrowed as she listened to the voice on the other end of the telephone.

‘Thanks for letting me know, Jimmy.’

She hung up the phone and looked across at the bruised face of Jack’s sister-in-law.

‘Your husband has just been admitted to the Royal Hampstead, Wendy,’ she said.

Wendy’s hand flew involuntarily to her mouth. ‘Dear God, no.’

Kate nodded sympathetically. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘And Jack?’

‘He’s been arrested. They’ve just taken him down to Paddington Green.’

The colour had drained from Wendy’s face. ‘What has he done, Kate?’

‘I don’t know, I’m sorry. But Roger has been very badly beaten up.’

Wendy ran her fingers through her hair. ‘I’d better go to him.’

‘I’ll stay here with Siobhan.’

‘What about Jack?’

Suddenly there was an arctic frost in Kate’s voice. ‘He can wait,’ she said.

DI Tony Bennett was looking down at Roger Yates as he lay wheezing painfully on his hospital bed. A thick bandage ran across his nose, above which two bloodshot eyes blinked painfully from a panda-like face. His lips were cut and scabbed. To Bennett’s mind he looked like he’d walked into a threshing machine. Maybe he had.

The man mumbled something again, a wet bubbling sound that could have been words. Bennett nodded and put his hand inside his jacket. Then he froze and looked across the small ward as DI Jimmy Skinner and Sergeant Bob Wilkinson came in and walked towards them. Bennett turned away from the battered man on the bed and walked towards the door.

‘What are you doing here, Tony?’ asked Skinner, affably enough.

‘Checking up on my own squeal across the way — thought I’d look in on Delaney’s brother-in-law while I was here. Seems like our Jack’s not a man to cross.’

Skinner gave him a considered look. ‘No,’ he said. ‘He definitely isn’t that. But fellow-me-lad on the bed over there is none of Jack Delaney’s doing.’

‘Is that right?’

‘Trust me, Tony. If the Irishman wanted to kill a man … he’d have got the job done.’

Bennett’s smile was devoid of humour. ‘To protect and serve, isn’t that what they say?’

‘They do in America.’

‘Yeah, well, whatever starts off in America … it gets to England eventually, doesn’t it?’

Bob Wilkinson pointed over to Roger Yates. ‘Like Detective Skinner said, Delaney’s not in the frame for this.’

Bennett smiled almost imperceptibly. ‘Is that right?’

‘That’s exactly right. We have a witness seeing Delaney leave and then another man entering the house, with Roger Yates very much alive if not kicking.’

‘Well, this is your case, not mine. I’m sure you’re on top of things.’ Bennett nodded and walked out of the room.

Bob Wilkinson turned to Skinner. ‘What’s that all about, you reckon? Things starting in America.’

‘I don’t know, but I reckon he wasn’t talking about McDonald’s.’

‘Something is not quite right about him, you ask me.’

‘In what way?’

Wilkinson shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He says he’s from Doncaster, for a start.’

‘And?’

‘I’ve got a friend from Doncaster makes glass — for the military, stuff like that …’

Skinner raised an eyebrow as they looked down at Roger Yates, whose eyes were now closed but who was still making a faint bubbling sound with his battered lips. ‘And your point would be?’

‘Bennett doesn’t sound like him. That doesn’t sound like a Doncaster accent.’

‘People move about, Bob. Look at our own Jack Delaney — he ain’t exactly North London born and bred, is he?’

‘And that’s another thing.’

Skinner simply looked at Wilkinson this time and waited.

‘The other day he said he was off for some lunch.’

‘Yeah, not exactly the crime of the century, you know, Bob.’

‘Yeah, but in Doncaster — that’s South Yorkshire, that is — they don’t go for lunch, see?’

Jimmy Skinner nodded. ‘That’s right, it’s part of their religion,’ he said sarcastically. ‘That’s why they are the slimmest people in the country. The whippet people of England.’

‘You’re missing my point. They go for lunch all right, but they call it dinner. Do you see what I’m saying?’

‘Not really, Bob. Let’s see if we can get some more sense out of Roger Yates here, shall we?’

Jimmy Skinner listened to the burbling sound coming from the assaulted accountants lip’s and very much doubted that they would.

*

Delaney winced and squeezed his eyes shut.

‘Open your eyes, Jack,’ said Kate Walker, not quietly.

‘Do you want to dial that down a little?’ Delaney said, his voice a hoarse croak. ‘I’m just here you know, not halfway across the street.’

‘You get no sympathy from me. Just open your eyes.’

Delaney opened his eyes a crack and winced again as Kate shone a small but bright torch at them.

‘Is this strictly necessary?’

Kate shrugged. ‘Not at all. I just like watching you squirm.’

Delaney closed his eyes again.

‘I mean, what the hell were you thinking of?’

‘I wasn’t thinking, was I?’

‘No, Jack. You weren’t.’ Kate slammed the torch down on her desk.

Delaney winced and held both hands to his ears. ‘Okay. I’m sorry, all right?’

‘I’ve been awake all night long worrying about you. Why didn’t you just tell the custody sergeant last night that it wasn’t you?’

‘I don’t think I actually got to talk to anybody. I kind of remember the guys arriving.’ Delaney shrugged a little sheepishly. ‘I seem to remember taking a swing — it might have been in slow motion. The next thing I remember is you shaking me awake with all the tenderness of a Waterford washerwoman shaking out her laundry.’

Kate wasn’t amused. ‘I’ll give you tender. And why didn’t you come home after you went round there? Why go to King’s Cross, of all places?’

Jack held his head again, covering it. ‘I just needed a drink.’

‘We’ve got drink, Jack. Plenty of it.’

‘I know.’

‘So why, then?’

Delaney sighed. ‘It very nearly could have been me, you know.’

‘Could have been you that what?’

‘That smashed that man’s smug face in. Good Lord, I’ve wanted to do it often enough before now but last night he gave me the perfect temptation.’

‘I know. He hit Wendy. You’re an unreconstructed male, we all know that about you, Jack. But the point is that you didn’t do it.’

‘It’s not just that. Not just because he slapped her.’

‘What, then?’

‘It could have been, though.’ Delaney found his hand forming involuntarily into a fist again. ‘I swear to God, darling, last night I was this close to smashing my fist into his face and keeping on doing it.’