Mark Pearson - Death Row

She tossed the towel aside and walked over to the opposite wall. Looking at her montage of photos and articles. The yellow light from the street lamp outside spilled through the gap in the curtain to throw a slash of sulphur-yellow light across the wall, catching the picture of Peter Garnier and giving his eyes a feral, alien look. She looked at the photo of Jack Delaney holding her when she’d been rescued as a seven-year-old girl. Then she pulled her robe tight around herself and dropped her right hand, letting it come rest on a motorcycle helmet on the side table beneath the picture.

‘Turns out you couldn’t save them all,’ she said as she stared at the man in uniform holding her in his arms. ‘Could you, Jack?’

‘Has he gone?’

Gloria turned round and nodded. ‘Yes, George. He’s gone.’

‘Good. Get dressed, then.’

*

Sally Cartwright pulled the car to a stop in the White City police station car park and turned off the engine. Delaney snapped his seat belt off and reached for the door handle. Then he looked back at Sally who seemed a bit lost in thought. ‘Something on your mind, detective constable?’

‘Just wondering how Garnier is getting messages out, sir. He doesn’t have access to the internet, he’s never alone with a guard. None of them are. He’s had no mail, no visitors apart from Maureen Gallagher. Who’s now dead. So we know she’s not involved.’

‘Somebody else in there, someone who does have visitors, you think? Somebody from the outside who’s carrying messages to one of the two men in the photo?’ asked Delaney.

‘He’s talking to someone, sir.’

Delaney looked at her for a long moment, the synapses in his brain firing as he turned her words over and over. Then he smiled. ‘Of course he’s talking to someone. And he told me who it is the very first time I visited him.’

‘I don’t understand, sir. Who?’

Delaney pulled out the photo of the five men and handed it to her. ‘Like we thought, it’s one of these two men, and I know which one.’

Sally looked at the photo and would have asked Delaney a further question but he held up a finger to silence her. Then he took out his phone and notebook and flipped through it until he came to a number and punched it in. After a few seconds the phone was answered.

‘Father Carson Brown? It’s Detective Inspector Jack Delaney. Are you in your office? Good. Could you look up for me the name of the priest in charge of your church in the summer of 1995?’ Delaney waited for a while as the priest did as he was asked and then wrote down the name that Carson Brown gave him. ‘Thank you, Father,’ said Delaney and clicked off the phone. Sally started to speak again but once more Delaney held up a finger as he punched in another phone number. He pointed at the photo as he waited for his call to be answered. ‘The man in black, Sally,’ he said. ‘Who wears black suits?’

Sally got it immediately. ‘He’s a priest!’

‘Garnier said he converted to Catholicism six months ago. I knew he was lying but I couldn’t see why.’

‘Why, then?’

‘The confessional, Sally. His old associate started visiting the prison and so he got to have a private conversation with him every Sunday. That’s who he’s been talking to.’

‘Oh my God.’

Someone at the other end of Delaney’s phone call finally answered. ‘Governor, it’s Jack Delaney. I’ve got two questions for you. The priest who visits to conduct the Catholic Mass on a Sunday … is his name Father Michael Fitzpatrick?’ He nodded, pleased. ‘Second question, then: what’s his address?’

As Delaney waited for the governor to look it up he flashed a triumphant grin at Sally. ‘We’ve got the bastard!’

Sally blew out a sigh. ‘Let’s just hope we’re in time, then.’

*

Delaney and Sally Cartwright rushed up the pavement. A team of uniformed and flak-jacketed police with combat helmets were approaching the front door of a detached suburban house in Ealing. Half the team crept around the side of the house while the others approached the door. Sergeant Emma Halliday and Detective Inspector Duncton stood behind them at the front gate of the garden.

‘Go, go, go!’ Duncton shouted — like someone off a cheap television drama, Delaney couldn’t help thinking. The lead uniform swung the heavy tubular device into the door and smashed it open. Two of the armed units behind him moved into the house with their semi-automatic weapons raised.

‘Armed police!’ they shouted, moving into covering positions as their colleagues cautiously entered the house behind them.

‘Just stay back, Delaney! This is my collar!’ shouted Duncton as Delaney and Sally reached the house.

‘Yeah, don’t mention it, Duncton. We were just glad to be of assistance, weren’t we, Sally?’

‘Don’t give me that. If you had kept the lines of communication open as you were supposed to do, then maybe we would all have got here a bit sooner.’

‘To be fair to Inspector Delaney-’ Emma Halliday started to say but Duncton cut her off.

‘And you can shut it, sergeant. Given your involvement in all this you’ll be lucky not to be back walking the beat come end of play.’

‘With all due respect, sir: why don’t you go fuck yourself? You silly little man,’ she said with a sweet smile.

Duncton’s face was turning his usual shade of red but before he could respond one of the armed officers came out of the front door.

‘It’s secure, sir.’

‘You’ll keep!’ said Duncton to his sergeant and headed into the house.

The others followed behind him. But there was no hurry: even as Delaney approached the door he could tell that no one was there.

‘He cleared out some time ago, by the looks of it,’ said the armed officer. ‘There’s mail and papers on the hall floor from the last few days and his wardrobe and drawers have been emptied.’

‘Shit!’ said Duncton. ‘Shit, shit, shit!’

Delaney would have laughed at the disappointment written on the angry man’s face, but in fact he felt the polar opposite of amusement. They might know who they were dealing with now, but they had no idea where he was and were no further forward in finding the missing boy.

Truth to tell, Jack Delaney felt sick as he stood in the hallway looking around at the deserted house. Sick to his stomach.

*

Kate held a hand to her stomach and winced a little, breathing heavily. Bob Wilkinson stuck his head around the door and walked in, carrying a cup of tea.

‘Thanks, Bob,’ Kate said. ‘You’re a lifesaver.’

Wilkinson shook his head. ‘I heard that was Jack Delaney.’

‘Still no sign of DI Bennett, I gather?’

‘No. Seems like he’s fallen off the side of the planet. If he was ever on it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I phoned Doncaster nick. Nobody there has ever head of him.’

*

‘Okay. Calm down, Mary,’ said Jack Delaney into his mobile phone as he stood outside Sally’s car, parked up the street from Father Fitzpatrick’s abandoned house. ‘We’re in Ealing now. So we’re not too far away. I’ll check back at her house.’

He closed the phone and got into the car. ‘Let’s get going.’

‘Something wrong, sir?’ Sally asked as she started the engine and pulled away from the kerb.

‘Gloria had an appointment with Mary today. She never showed up.’

‘And …?’

‘And I don’t know. But I’ve got a bad feeling about this. So put your foot on the floor.’

Delaney leaned forward to flick the siren switch on as they hammered past a bemused-looking Duncton who was coming out of the missing priest’s house.

*

Delaney walked across the room and opened the curtains. Bright daylight spilled into the room. Lighting up the display of photos and maps and newspaper cuttings that covered the facing wall. Sally was stood examining the cuttings. The photo of Delaney in uniform holding the young Gloria in his arms had been circled many times in green ink. She looked at the rest of the material, baffled.