Mark Pearson - Hard Evidence

Howard Morgan sat alone in his front room. A bottle of cheap rum stood on the low formica-topped table in front of his chair, a glass full of the coarse liquid gripped in his immense fist. He raised the glass and swallowed half of it in one gulp, the amber liquid trickling from one corner of his mouth as it burned its way down his throat, a tear leaking slowly from his scarred eye. He looked at the photo of his young daughter that he had placed on the table and swallowed hard. His broken voice a croak. A valediction.

'I'm sorry.'

He downed the rest of the rum and poured the glass full again.

'I'm so sorry.'

Night-time again on the river. The heat still hung heavy in the air, like a blanket. The moon, covered with a few shreds of clouds, threw a cold, hard light on the ground below and bounced off the water.

In the silt-covered reeds a lap of water swelled, sucking the mud from the banks with a wet gurgle and rolling a head that half floated and banged against the bank. The lifeless eyes seemed devoid of colour, the moon reflected in miniature in each iris, the skin white with the texture of rain-soaked cardboard. The mouth pulled back in a rictus of death, the hands held with twisted-coat hanger wire. Darkness fell across the river as the moon was covered.

A girl's scream hung on the air and was muffled suddenly. A few moments later the moon slid clear of a tangle of clouds and lit the path by the river once more.

'Come on, love, I've got to get the car back. Move your bloody arse.' The words of young love, post-coitus. A man in his early twenties picked his way along the water's edge.

'Hold on a minute. I'm trying to find my knickers.' She was young too, pretty and teetering on heels built more for display than pedestrian use. 'I can't bloody find them.'

'Come on. It's not the first time, is it?'

And then another scream, of terror now, as Billy Martin leered up at the young woman from the water's edge, like a grey voyeur trying to peep up her all-too-flimsy skirt. The tilting, water-soaked head of Billy Martin. Ex of the parish.

She ran, still screaming, into the arms of her impatient boyfriend. Gasping for breath, she tried to describe what she had seen, but words failed her. She dragged him back to show him, but by then Billy Martin had gone again. Dragged under once more by the tidal flow, sucked back into the cold and silent embrace of the water's depths.

Thursday morning. Tempers soared on the Western Avenue as the rush-hour traffic crawled coughing and rasping to a virtual stop, the air thick with fumes and noisy with the angry honk of horns. In the winter the roads were choked badly enough with commuters, but in the summer months, with the added tourist traffic, a journey by car into the capital was made a far from pleasant thing. Ken Livingstone and his congestion charges were as much use in dealing with the problem as a sticking plaster on a dismembered limb.

The heat was already climbing well into the eighties as Delaney came into the office, yawning and scowling at the traffic noise that sounded through the open windows. He threw his jacket over the back of his chair, ran his fingers through his straggly hair and squeezed his knuckles into his bloodshot eyes. Fishing a couple of painkillers from his desk drawer, he swallowed them dry and grimaced as they stuck in his throat. He poured a long dash of cold coffee from the filter pot into a stained mug and groaned as he took a swallow. It had been sitting there since yesterday, and unlike fine wines and handsome women, the ageing process hadn't improved its appeal. He set about making a fresh pot as Bonner sauntered in, fresher than a Swiss daisy. The DS watched amused as Delaney squinted against the bright sunlight splashing in through the windows.

'Heavy night, boss?'

Delaney grunted a monosyllabic reply; truth to tell, he couldn't remember the last time he had woken up without a hangover. He waited for the coffee to percolate through the machine, then poured himself a cup and walked across to Bonner, who was working on Jenny Morgan's laptop computer.

'Anything back from the techies?'

Bonner shook his head. 'Nothing new, but I thought it was worth going through it again.'

'Anything new?'

'Loads of e-mails to her school friends. Nothing very recent. Nothing very useful.'

'Chat rooms?'

'Not that I can see. Certainly nothing from her mails.'

'Check them all out. One of those school friends might not be.'

'Might not be what?

'A school kid, Bonner. Keep with the programme.' Delaney winced, regretting raising his voice.

'You think somebody might have been grooming her?'

'The internet. It's a paedophile's paradise, isn't it?'

'It's every sick fucker's paradise, sir. Tell you what, if porn was petroleum, we'd have engines running on tap water by now.'

But Delaney was distracted, hooding a hand over his eyes and looking out of the window, watching as a familiar thin red-haired figure walked briskly up to the police station entrance.

'What's he want?'

'Who?'

Delaney pointed out of the window. 'The ginger-haired streak of piss. Jenny's English teacher.'

Bonner shrugged. 'Maybe he bonded with you, boss.'

Delaney approached the front desk, nodding at Ellen, the young woman who was manning it that morning, and turned to Terry Collier, who was sitting patiently opposite.

'Mr Collier. Something else you remembered that you neglected to tell us earlier?'

'Yes. There's something you need to know.'

Delaney looked at him for a hard moment. 'You'd better come through then.'

Delaney ushered Collier into the front interview room and shut the door firmly behind him.

'If this is something you should have told us earlier and we find her dead, I am going to come looking for you.'

Collier was flustered. 'You can't speak to me like that. I have rights.'

Delaney's voice was a whisper. 'You don't know anything about me. You don't know what I am capable of doing. But believe me, if you have fucked us around, I will make sure that you do.'

Collier blinked and held up his hands apologetically. 'We're on the same side here. We both just want to find the girl.'

Delaney kept his voice level. 'What do you want to tell me?'

'Jenny Morgan. She was a member of our computer club. At the school.'

'And?'

'And I run the club.'

Delaney couldn't hide his frustration. 'Make your point.'

'She had her own e-mail account that she ran from the school. I found it this morning on the computer she used. I came here straight away.'

'Good.'

Collier fished in his pocket and produced a piece of paper.

'I was able to get her log-in details. I'm what you call a super-user. We need to monitor what sites the kids are on. You wouldn't believe what is available on the internet these days.'

'I think you'll find we know very well.'

Collier's pale skin reddened under Delaney's gaze. 'We're not supposed to access their private e-mail… but under the circumstances…' He handed Delaney the slip of paper. 'I came in straight away.'

Delaney gave him a long, cool look. 'Then you've got nothing to worry about.'

Collier smiled nervously.

'For now.'

Bonner propped the piece of paper on the keyboard in front of him and typed the letters and numbers written on it into the computer. A mailbox appeared and Bonner opened it and clicked on the icon showing the latest e-mail. He scanned a line or two and smiled widely, his advert-bright teeth flashing with pleasure as he read the recent contents of her inbox.

'Come in, number ten!'

Delaney leaned forward to look at the monitor. 'What have you got?'

'Seems like Jenny did make a new friend on the internet.'

'Who?'

'Someone calling himself Angel.' He pointed at the screen. 'And she arranged to meet him at Baker Street tube station on the day she disappeared.'