Mark Pearson - Hard Evidence

This Wednesday morning, while the sun shone bright, she had five cold bodies on the slate, including Jackie Malone, and one young child jumping to the head of the queue. Another statistic on the slab. Another job to do.

Kate snapped the latex gloves tight to her fingers and looked down at the mortuary table. The young girl's body lay ready for her examination. Kate put her at about eleven… maybe twelve, maybe ten. Life hadn't been kind to her in that short span. That was evidenced by the scars on her lifeless skin and the fractures that were revealed in the X-rays hanging on light-boxes at the back of the room. Kate wished she could shine a light into the dead girl's brain and see what had happened in her life. But nothing was ever that simple. Certainly nothing in Kate's life. She picked up a scalpel, knowing that the little girl had already been through a world of hurt, but taking comfort in the knowledge that she was beyond pain now. She flicked the switch on the recording machine and began dictating as she went to work.

Delaney hurried along the corridors and into interview room one. If anything, it was hotter than it had been yesterday, but he made no move to open the windows. He took off his jacket and hung it on the back of a chair next to Bonner, who was sitting across the table from Terry Collier, a slight ginger-haired man in his late twenties. Collier was about five-foot-nine tall and as thin as a fishing rod; dressed in an avocado-green moleskin suit, he held a pair of round rimless glasses which he was polishing nervously.

Delaney smiled at him, but it didn't reach anywhere near his eyes. 'Sorry to keep you waiting.'

Collier put his glasses back on and ran a finger under his shirt collar and loosened his tie. 'I don't understand why I am still here.'

'You're still here, Mr Collier, because I want to talk to you.'

'You can't hold me here. This is England, not Iran. I can leave any time I want to.'

Delaney stared at him, letting the words hang in the air until Collier looked away.

'You came in earlier to amend your statement, I believe,' Delaney prompted him.

'That's right.'

'We need to talk about that.'

Collier hunched defensively and looked pointedly at his watch. 'Yes, I came in first thing. I told the woman at your front desk everything. She has all the details.'

'People say God is in the details, Mr Collier. But I don't believe them. See, in our line of work the Devil is in the details. We get all the details and we always ferret the bastard out.'

'I don't understand what you're talking about.'

'You're an English teacher, aren't you?'

'Yes.'

'So I am sure you know what a metaphor is.' Delaney pulled the chair from under the table, the legs scratching loudly on the floor. He banged it into position and sat down heavily. Collier flinched instinctively back as Delaney leaned forward.

'Tell us again, for my benefit.'

'Tell you what?'

Bonner smiled encouragingly, 'You were on playground duty at end of school Monday?'

'It's all in my statement.'

'Nobody's accusing you of anything, we just need to know all the facts.'

'You could have fooled me.'

The petulance in Collier's voice made Delaney want to reach across the table and slap him hard in the face, but he clenched and unclenched his fist under the table and let the moment pass.

'You could have been the last person to see Jenny Morgan alive, you do understand that, Mr Collier?'

Collier looked shocked. 'Are you saying she's dead?'

'I didn't say that. Do you think she's dead?'

'How would I know that? What are you implying?'

Delaney let the words hang again, and looked down at Collier's statement. 'You were on your own. No other teachers were with you?'

'Just me.'

'And earlier you told our uniformed officers that you didn't see Jenny Morgan leaving?'

'That's right.'

'But now you remember that you did?' Delaney kept his anger in check. Either the man was a liar and worse, or he was a bloody idiot.

'It came to me later. She left with a friend. Carol Parks.'

'And you've only just remembered that!' Delaney couldn't stop his voice rising or his hand slapping hard on the table again.

Collier jumped back in his chair. 'There are hundreds of children at that school. Am I supposed to remember every one?'

Delaney pushed a picture of Jenny Morgan across the table to him. 'Just her.'

'I know what you're trying to do here.'

'We're trying to find a little girl who's missing, that's what we're trying to do.'

'You're saying that I was the last person to see her alive. I know what that means. You've got me down as your prime suspect. You think I did it!'

'Did what, exactly?' Bonner leaned forward, any friendliness long since drained from his eyes.

'I just meant…' Collier shook his head, flustered, and Delaney brought his cold eyes to bear on him.

Collier swallowed nervously, running his finger under his collar once again.

Delaney stood up and pulled his jacket off the chair. He looked at Bonner. 'I'm going to see the girl.'

Collier stood up. 'What about me?'

'We haven't finished with you yet. Sit down and the sergeant will organise you a cup of tea.'

'You don't want me with you, guv?'

'I'll take Cartwright,' said Delaney. 'The feminine touch.'

Kate Walker pulled off her blood-stained latex gloves and dropped them in the stainless-steel swing bin. She nodded to her assistant, who wheeled the remains of the young girl away. In life the child had suffered all sorts of indignities, and in death she had fared no better. Sharp steel was no friend to human skin or internal organs, and although in most cases Kate managed to do her job in a professional manner, in a disconnected way, to work on someone so young and so fragile and who had been so obviously in pain was hard. She ran a hand through her hair and composed herself. The morgue was no place for emotions, and for Kate that was a good thing. She picked up her schedule for the day and tried to put the image of the pretty, dark-haired, little girl out of her mind. They didn't even have a name for her yet.

Primrose Avenue was the kind of name, Delaney thought, that belonged in Surbiton or Chelsea, or else some suburb that wasn't dominated by the high-rise reality of a Waterhill estate casting a shadow all over it. But Primrose Avenue was where Carol Parks' family lived, and if there was a smell hanging on the hot still air, it wasn't the sweet smell of spring.

Abigail Parks, a modestly if smartly dressed woman, had been startled at first to find two detectives on the front doorstep of her small but immaculately kept home. She regained her composure quickly, though, and took them both through to the back garden, where her daughter, brought home from school to be interviewed, was waiting.

Out in the sunshine Delaney smiled reassuringly at Carol Parks, who took hold of her mother's hand like a lifeline. She was a quiet, brown-eyed girl of twelve, with mousy blonde hair and crooked teeth being set straight with National Health metal braces. Delaney had brought Sally Cartwright with him, but her youthful, cheerful presence had done little to calm the young girl's obvious nerves.

'You're not in any trouble.'

'I haven't done anything.'

'We know that. We just need to talk to you about Jenny. Your friend Jenny Morgan.'

Carol shook her head, leaning into her mother. 'I don't know anything.'

Her mother squeezed her hand. 'It's all right, nobody is accusing you of anything.'

Sally crouched down a little, bringing herself to Carol's level. 'She's your special friend, isn't she?'

Carol nodded.

'What do you remember of the day before yesterday, when you left school?'

'I didn't see her after school.'

'Mr Collier said he saw you two together, leaving.'