Mark Pearson - Death Row

Delaney stepped into the house, pulling the door half shut behind him.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ said the man, blinking at him.

‘You don’t know?’ asked Delaney.

‘No, I fucking don’t.’

‘Good,’ said Delaney and punched him hard on the bridge of the nose, dropping him like a stun-gunned pig.

Delaney looked down at the motionless man for a satisfied moment. ‘We’ll be back to pick you up later,’ he said.

Delaney closed the door behind him and looked across to see Jennifer Hickling, out of the car now, hugging her little sister. Hugging her as if her life depended on it.

Maybe it did.

He pulled out his phone and punched in some numbers, his breath frosting in the cold air as he waited for it to be answered.

‘Mary,’ he said, ‘it’s Jack. I need your help.’

*

An hour later and Delaney and Kate stood in Dean Anderson’s office, watching through the windows as uniformed police led a handcuffed Malik Hussein across the quad to waiting police cars. Sally Cartwright peeled off from the group, heading towards the office.

‘The Outback is very popular with the gay community,’ Delaney was telling the Dean. ‘I suppose there was a clue in the name.’

‘That copy of The Catcher in the Rye in Jamil’s room. The dedication in the front …?’ Kate asked.

Sheila Anderson smiled sadly. ‘I originally gave it to my son in his first year at university,’ she said. ‘He died last year in Afghanistan. 33 Engineer Regiment. The Royal Engineers.’

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ said Delaney.

‘Thank you, inspector. So much wasted youth.’ She took a breath and smiled. ‘I had lent the book to Matt Henson. It is a book that speaks to the young and Matt had difficulty with reading. I was helping him with that.’

‘And so was Jamil?’

‘It looks that way, yes.’

‘Matt has great potential. The potential to be different.’

‘Different from his brother and father, you mean?’ asked Kate.

‘Yes. And different from what was written down for him. It’s what education is all about.’

‘At least, it used to be,’ said Kate.

‘True,’ conceded the Dean. ‘Money seems to be the driving force for a lot of institutions nowadays. But not all. Not all.’

Sally knocked on the door as a courtesy. ‘He didn’t even deny it,’ she said as she came in. ‘Seemed proud of himself, in fact, said he was disappointed that Jamil was going to live but there was a death sentence waiting for him when he gets home anyway.’

‘They execute homosexuals in Iran, Sally,’ said Delaney.

‘I know, sir,’ the detective constable replied, with a quirked eyebrow. ‘I do read the news!’ She looked pointedly at the paper on the Dean’s desk. It was a copy of the Guardian but it could have been a copy of any of them — they all carried the shot of Delaney coming out of the boat shed on the previous evening, carrying Archie Woods in his arms.

‘He won’t be going home,’ said the Dean. ‘He’ll be staying in England. What will happen to Matt Henson?’

‘He’s already been released.’

‘Released to what, though? His father will disown him.’

‘Strikes me,’ said Kate, ‘that his is one family he would be better off without.’

‘Says something about a country in which a man would rather go to prison for attempted murder than admit his sexuality to his family,’ said the Dean.

‘Don’t get me started on this country!’ said Delaney.

*

Kate yawned as the car moved slowly through the busy traffic, heading back to White City. The sleepless night finally catching up with her. ‘There’s one thing I still don’t get,’ she said.

Delaney looked across at her from the front passenger seat. ‘What’s that, darlin’?’

‘Tony Hamilton was pretty certain that it wasn’t one of those Russian gangsters trying to take you out in Mad Bess Woods?’

‘He was.’

‘So who was the shooter? Who were they after?’

‘Peter Garnier. Like I always said. The shooter slipped as he took the shot. Didn’t get a chance to take another.’

‘We know it wasn’t Alice Peters so who was it trying to kill him, then?’

‘I think it was Garnier himself.’

‘What are you on about, sir?’ asked Sally from the back seat, looking at Delaney as if he were mad.

Delaney reached into his pocket and pulled out the catering glove that he had taken off Roy from the burger van.

‘I think he got Fitzpatrick to send word about where he would be — and when — to Tim Radnor. That’s why he was in the woods that morning: he knew all along that the bodies weren’t there. Because he knew it wasn’t him that had killed one of the children and that the other was still alive.’

‘Tim Radnor was the young one, the catering assistant?’ asked Kate.

‘Yeah. But Harrow School also trains army cadets. They have access to current fully working field-issue combat rifles. They have a rifle club and Radnor was a member.’ He tapped the glove again. ‘We found a minute piece of plastic on the cartridge casing that had the edge of one of these little dimples — see? Can’t prove it now but I’d bet my life that was what happened.’

‘Why, sir?’

‘What’s it all ever about with people like Garnier, Sally. You said it yourself. Power. The power over life and death. Particularly your own. Garnier didn’t much like what was in store for him in his own future. He’d kill himself if he could.’ He smiled coldly. ‘But I’ve had a word with the right people.’

Peter Garnier rolled furiously on his bed. He was in a straitjacket. And the walls and the floor of his room were padded. He looked up and shouted as the window in the door of his special cell was opened, as it was every twenty minutes, and a guard looked in on him. The window closed again and tears ran from Garnier’s eyes. Soon they wouldn’t even need to put him in a straitjacket … and it could take years for him to die.

*

The annexe or The Pig and Whistle pub, a truncheon’s twirl or two from the White City police station, was always popular with uniform and plain clothes alike. That Wednesday night was no exception. It was packed wall to wall with upbeat coppers. The talent nights were always a big draw but the recent closing of the so-called Death Row murders and the safe return of Archie Woods gave them even more excuse for celebration.

Danny Vine held his hand up to quell the noise — shouted comments, catcalls, even some laughter. ‘So I said to him,’ he said, ‘how was I supposed to know she had a wooden leg?’

An audible groan swept around the pub like a Mexican wave.

‘Get off!’ someone in the large and merry crowd shouted.

Danny stood closer to the microphone that was on a small stage set up at one end of the pub

‘As the bard put it,’ he said into the microphone, ‘if my jokes have amused, please raise your glass, and if they haven’t … then kiss my arse!’ He swept a theatrical wave and got the biggest cheer of his set. He jumped down to be handed a pint by one of his colleagues out of uniform and was slapped on the back, none too gently, by a few more.

From the other end of the bar Kate could see Sally Cartwright watching him, amused. ‘What about you and him, then?’ she asked her.

‘What about us?’

Kate waggled her hand horizontally. ‘Are you?’

Sally laughed. ‘Are we what, exactly?’

Kate laughed herself. ‘What is the term you young people use nowadays? Walking out, an item …’ She paused for effect. ‘Are you bonking him?’

Sally shook her head. ‘No, I am not!’

‘Shame. He’s a very attractive young man. Fit too, by the looks of it.’