Mark Pearson - Death Row

‘Did he have any particular friends inside? Anyone who has been released recently?’

The governor shook his head. ‘Nobody has been released from the segregated section for over nine months and nobody is due to be released.’

‘We’ll need the records of all those who have been released from that unit since he has been a prisoner here,’ said Duncton.

The governor nodded. ‘I’ll get on to it. You think he might have … what? Trained an apprentice from here?’

‘It’s possible.’

Delaney shook his head. ‘I think he’s had an accomplice all along and is somehow getting messages to him. What about the guards?’

‘What about them?’

‘Is he ever alone with one of them? Is one of them given particular responsibility for him?’

The governor shook his head again. ‘There’s always a minimum of two guards with him at any time when he is being moved or being treated. It’s prison policy.’

‘Why?’ asked Duncton.

‘Should any accident befall a prisoner …’

‘Which happens,’ said Delaney darkly.

‘Which happens,’ agreed the governor. ‘So protocols are in place.’

‘And in the interview room?’

‘We’ll have eyes on you again, inspector, if not ears. The guards will be just outside at all times.’

‘If they need to come in, tell them not to hurry.’

*

Peter Garnier had his eyes closed. He was humming a tune to himself. Delaney thought it sounded vaguely familiar but he couldn’t quite place it. The door closed behind him. He pulled a chair across, sat down and stared at Garnier without speaking.

After sixty seconds Garnier opened his eyes. Blinking behind the thick lenses of his glasses. ‘The first person to speak loses. Is that it?’

Delaney didn’t reply.

Garnier smiled. His lips thin, bloodless.

Delaney could picture the disease working its way through him. Destroying the neurons in his brain. Some time in the future and he wouldn’t be able to control his balance, movement, speech or even the ability to swallow. The soulless obscenity of the disease. Delaney used to think that nobody deserved it. But Garnier did. He just hoped the drugs they were giving him kept him alive as long as possible. The longer he suffered the better.

‘I’ll make a deal with you, Inspector Delaney,’ said Garnier.

‘I don’t make deals with pond scum.’

‘Then why are you here?’

‘To look you in the face and tell you it’s over.’

‘You’re here to make a bargain. You need my help and you know it.’

‘You’ll die eventually, Garnier. And like I promised, when you do I’ll come and piss on your grave.’

‘What is it the media are calling my old stomping ground? Death Row, isn’t it?’

Again, Delaney didn’t reply.

‘But we’re all living on Death Row, Delaney. We’re all going to die. It’s when and how that’s important.’

‘You are going to die alone and in pain.’

‘Do you know what the Apache Indians believed?’ Garnier didn’t wait for Delaney to reply. ‘They believed that everybody had a spirit. Or essence. Not what the Christians think of as a soul. More like what Philip Pullman refers to as dust, or stuff. Wasn’t it dust that Jahweh blew into Adam’s mouth to give him life, after all? Have you read Philip Pullman, inspector?’

Delaney stared flatly at him.

‘The Apache warrior believed that the slower and more painful a person’s death, the more of his essence the killer took from his victim. Likewise, the mightier the opponent the warrior slayed … the better the essence he took from him, or her. Or someone of spiritual significance.’ He looked at Delaney pointedly. ‘You know, like a priest … or a nun.’

‘You’re a warrior now, are you, Garnier?’

‘I’m a collector, inspector. A special kind. I’ve been collecting life force. It makes me stronger than you can possibly imagine.’

‘You’re not looking too strong to me just now.’

‘I am strong in dust. In essence.’

Delaney shook his head. Whatever he had hoped to get from the man, it was clearly a fool’s errand. The sickness had entered his brain. Literally and metaphorically. He stood up.

‘Take me back to the woods, Delaney. I’ll show you where the final body is buried. The last of the children — and I’ll tell you everything you need to know.’

Garnier smiled again, his thin slips sliding over the yellow bone of his teeth.

Delaney shook his head. ‘You have nothing to deal with, Garnier. We’re done here.’

‘Then the killing will continue.’

Delaney looked at him for a long moment. His hands surprisingly still. He stood up, walked to the door and opened it.

‘Come back here!’ Garnier screamed.

Delaney closed the door behind him.

*

An hour or so later and Delaney stood in front of the display boards in the CID briefing room. The morning meeting was over. Nothing new had been added. Delaney admitted he had learned nothing new from his visit back at Bayfield. Paddington Green had the ball after all, the superintendent had pointed out. White City was just backup, dogsbody work.

The trouble was, Jack Delaney had never been anybody’s dog and he wasn’t going to start now.

He was alone in the room save for Bob Wilkinson, who was collecting the briefing notes that hadn’t already been removed.

Delaney pointed at one of the boards: a blown-up map of Carlton Row and the surrounding areas. A number of coloured markers indicated where the boy had been abducted, the body found in the allotment, the severed head placed on the altar of Saint Botolph’s. The addresses of the murdered children from Carlton Row who’d been taken by Peter Garnier fifteen years before. ‘What are we missing, Bob?’ he asked. ‘What’s at the heart of it?’ He tapped on the board.

Bob Wilkinson joined him at the board, looking at the map that Delaney had indicated, staring at it as if it were some ancient symbol that, if they could only translate it, would solve the mystery for them. In some ways it was.

He pointed to the yellow pin. ‘Used to be that the church was at the heart of the community.’

‘Not any more,’ said Delaney.

‘Why the allotment? The boy was taken from there, Maureen Gallagher’s body was placed there as a marker for the body of Samuel Ramirez.’

‘Maybe it’s not the allotment, sir.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Maybe it’s whose allotment it is. Maybe Archie Woods wasn’t a random victim at all. Maybe he was targeted.’

‘Because of his grandfather?’

Wilkinson shrugged. ‘Maybe. Paddington Green have been all over him, though, and he’s sticking to his story.’

‘He seemed genuinely upset enough to me.’

Sally Cartwright came into the room at that moment, carrying two cups of coffee.

Delaney looked across at her. ‘Do you want to take a rain check on those?’

‘What’s up?’

‘I’m going to have another word with Graham Harper.’

‘I thought Paddington Green was running all this now?’

‘They are. I’ll catch you later, Bob.’

He steered Sally towards the door as Wilkinson nodded at them and picked up the cups of coffee with the look of a man who has lost a penny and found a sixpence.

‘Have you seen Detective Inspector Bennett this morning, sir?’ Sally asked Delaney as they hurried down the stairs towards the exit.

Delaney shook his head. ‘No, and he wasn’t here for this morning’s briefing either. What’s going on?’

‘Nobody can get hold of him. And he was supposed to be interviewing Matt Henson this morning about the Jamil Azeez stabbing.’

‘Matt Henson?’ said Delaney, half surprised.

‘Yeah — didn’t you know?’