Mark Pearson - Death Row

That, and killing people.

*

Delaney held his hand up, placating, putting himself between Sally and Gloria. Gloria’s eyes were dancing. Wild with anger. With pain.

‘I remembered, Jack. I remembered what he did to me. Peter Garnier appearing on television was like a key turning. Stuff that I had been holding back for so very long came flooding back to me.’

‘I know,’ said Delaney. Tears pricking in his own eyes as he saw the pain in the young woman’s as her mind took in again the horror of what had happened to her.

‘And not just him, but Peter Garnier and the priest and Graham Harper and the young one who had the camera and took the pictures and filmed it as it was happening.’

‘I know,’ said Delaney once more. ‘But this is not the way. Look at him. He’s helpless.’

Delaney pointed at the frail old man lying on the floor, his right side twitching, the left half of his face slack and unmoving, drool running from the corner of that lip onto his chin. His one watery eye, pleading and pathetic.

‘Why did you have to kill them, Gloria? Why kill the woman?’

‘She didn’t,’ said a voice behind him and Delaney looked round shocked to see a single-barrelled shotgun pointing straight at him. Shocked even more to see who was holding it.

*

‘Jack Delaney, saviour of little girls, and here you are, finally, in the flesh.’

‘I’m sorry — I don’t know who you are,’ Delaney said, clearly puzzled.

‘Oh yes, you do,’ said the blonde woman, who had big wide innocent blue eyes. ‘I waited for you, but you never came. All these years and you never came for me like you did for Gloria.’

‘Who are you?’

‘She’s Alice Peters, sir,’ said Sally Cartwright. The thought that had been niggling at the back of her mind during the car journey suddenly came clear to her. ‘She’s Maureen Gallagher’s daughter.’

The woman smiled, and her face softened. Her voice became that of a child. A seven-year-old girl. ‘That’s right. I’m Alice Peters,’ she said and Delaney felt the hairs on his arms and on the back of his neck rise. ‘I’m a good girl.’

‘Why don’t you put the gun down, Gloria?’ said Delaney. ‘You don’t have to be part of this.’

‘I didn’t remember. Not all of it,’ said Gloria, her voice trembling. ‘Even after you came to see me and Mary. I had flashes of it after Garnier started appearing on television. But then you led Alice to me — she’d been following you, Jack. And she showed me the photo and told me their names, and then I remembered.’ Tears sprang into her eyes. ‘I remembered it all. They hurt me, Jack. They hurt me so badly.’

Delaney felt like telling her to go ahead and pull the trigger but he knew that his cousin would never forgive him if he did. It struck Delaney that this was the real therapy that most victims of abuse needed. Revenge. But he looked again at the seemingly angelic face of Alice Peters and changed his mind. There were all kinds of madness in the world. Not all of it could be cured the same way.

But he didn’t have to say anything.

Gloria looked down at the sick man, who was twitching on the floor like a crab that had had its back stepped on, and let the gun slip from her fingers.

Delaney could see now that the gun was only in fact a taser, but he wouldn’t have been surprised if the shock of it would have killed the man anyway. He didn’t look like he had many days of breath left in him and Delaney felt no sorrow at the fact. Gloria crossed to him and Delaney held her in his arms, mindful of the shotgun still trained on him and Sally.

‘You don’t look strong enough to cut off your mother’s head. Did you have help?’ he asked Alice as he kissed the top of Gloria’s head and hugged her to him, making reassuring sounds as best he could. He was trying to keep Alice talking.

‘Yeah. She had help killing the whore,’ said a deep voice.

Delaney looked up, surprised once more.

*

Alice seemed to have grown taller, her shoulders thrown back, her eyes full of knowledge now, full of anger.

‘I look after little Alice when that old pervert,’ she pointed at Bill Thompson, ‘doesn’t keep me locked up with drugs and tasers and ropes.’

‘And what’s your name?’ asked Delaney, fighting to keep his voice level, the hairs on his neck standing up again, his mind whirling. He looked across to the taser lying at Thompson’s feet and knew that he wouldn’t have time to reach it before she pulled the trigger.

‘George,’ she said. ‘My name is George. And I know who you are. You’re the disappointment.’ Her voice was still unnervingly deep.

‘And is Alice there, is she with you?’ asked Sally.

‘Alice is safe, but she doesn’t want to talk to you right now.’

Delaney was sure it was his imagination but it seemed that the ends of the young woman’s hair were sticking out now too, as if they’d been brushed with static electricity. ‘What happened then, George? How did you get free?’ he asked.

The woman shuddered and her eyes closed. When she opened them again, they were different once more. ‘George doesn’t like you, Inspector Delaney,’ she said in the voice of the young woman they had first met.

‘Why is that?’

‘Because you disappointed little Alice.’ She pointed at Gloria. ‘You were in the papers for rescuing her. She was supposed to be Alice’s replacement. Little Alice was too old for him at eleven. But Gloria never came and so he kept her. And as she grew older he drugged her and beat her and made her work. And used her. And every couple of years he made her speak to other children and get them to play. And after a while he killed them. Like Peter Garnier killed the little boy all those years ago.’

‘And he kept him in the deep freezer.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘He used hot water so the ice froze clear. So he could show the children, you understand.’

‘No,’ said Delaney, his head spinning.

‘He’d show the children the little boy’s body so that they could see what would happen to them if they didn’t do what he said. And then he made them do things.’

‘And why didn’t he kill you , Alice?’

Alice closed her eyes and then opened them again, her voice once more that of a little girl’s. ‘Because I was special. I could play with the children. I could bring them to the party. And I always had ice cream.’ She shuddered again, her eyes widening, her nostrils flaring, her adult woman’s voice thick with anger. ‘Gloria never came and you never rescued me.’

Delaney nodded, keeping his voice calm. He could hear police sirens in the distance and wondered who had called them. He needed to keep her talking. ‘It wasn’t her fault. And if Garnier had brought Gloria down here he would have killed little Alice too.’

The woman’s face crumpled. ‘But you could have rescued me too,’ she said in the frightened whisper of a little girl. ‘But nobody ever came. Never.’

She squeezed her eyes shut as tears poured out and Delaney dived for the taser, rolling up to his feet and pointing it at her.

Only her eyes were wide open now and this time they were furious.

‘Nobody hurts Alice any more!’ she screamed at him.

And Delaney pulled the trigger, sending fifty thousand volts into the woman’s body. She staggered back and her body convulsed but she stayed standing and her mouth pulled wide in a rictus grin as she levelled the shotgun at Delaney.

‘You’ll have to do better than that,’ she said.

‘No!’ screamed Gloria as she threw herself at Delaney.

And Alice Peters pulled the trigger.

*

The scream seemed to hang in the air as if time were suspended. Delaney rolled over and looked around. Alice was lying on the floor with Tony Bennett holding her down. Kate was standing behind him. She rushed across as Delaney and Gloria stood up.