Mark Pearson - Hard Evidence

Sally sighed. 'Just tell us about your relationship with Candy Morgan.'

'I didn't swing that way. Besides, I wasn't her type.'

'Are you saying she's a lesbian?'

'I'm not saying anything. She was in there for eight years. She slept with women.' She shrugged. 'If that makes her a dyke and not a lonely, scared woman looking out for some comfort, then yeah… I guess you could call her that.'

'She was scared?'

'Not in that sense. Candy could take care of herself.'

'That much we gather.'

Stella looked at him. 'You can believe it too.'

'So what was she scared of?'

Stella shrugged. 'Maybe of the things she might do.'

Delaney smiled. 'Bit of a philosopher on the side, are you, Stella?'

'I'm all kinds of things on the side.'

'See, from what we hear about Candy Morgan, there's not a lot that would have scared her.'

'I'd say you heard right again.'

'And you definitely haven't spoken to her since she got out?'

Stella shook her head and looked to the side.

'I told you.'

Sally walked around to face her. 'It's all right if you're scared, though, Stella. We know what she's capable of.'

'I doubt that you do.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Who ever really knows what other people are capable of, given the right circumstances?'

Delaney smiled coldly. 'We do, Stella. We get to clean up afterwards.'

'My heart bleeds.'

'Only this time there's a little girl involved. So we don't want to be doing any cleaning up. You see what I'm saying to you here?'

'You think she might hurt the girl?'

'What do you think?'

Stella shook her head angrily. 'I don't know. I told you I don't know, all right?'

'No, Stella, it's not all right!'

Sally uncrossed her arms. 'We can protect you, Stella.'

Stella snorted with laughter. 'What? You two? You're going to be my bodyguards?'

'The police. The police can protect you if you help us.'

Stella suddenly gave Delaney a hard, flat look as the penny of memory dropped. 'Like you protected Jackie Malone.'

Delaney stood up angrily and crossed to her, grabbing her wrist. 'What's this got to do with her?'

Stella flinched backwards, out of his grasp, taken aback by the anger in his voice. She rubbed her wrist, passively dismissive. 'It's got nothing to do with her as far as I know.'

'So why mention her?'

'Because she's dead, Inspector Delaney. She was supposed to be your friend. And now she's dead.'

The anger in Delaney's eyes was replaced momentarily with something else, something guarded. 'What did she tell you about me?'

'Come off it, Inspector. You think we don't talk to each other? You think I don't know what was going on?'

'I looked out for her, that's all.'

Stella let his statement hang for a moment, then smiled at him. 'And you did a real good job.'

Sally looked over at Delaney, puzzled. 'Guv?'

Delaney shook his head. 'It's got nothing to do with this.'

Stella nodded. 'Like I say, the police's assurances of protection don't exactly count for a great deal. You've worked the streets as long as I have, you learn that pretty fast.'

'If you know something about where Candy Morgan is, Stella, you damn well better tell me what it is.'

Stella met his gaze, almost sympathetic. 'I know she was planning to get back at her family.'

'Get back how?'

'I don't know. She didn't tell me everything. It was something she was going to do. That's all she said. She was going to get back at them big time. Hurt them in the worst way possible.'

Delaney looked hard into her eyes; she didn't flinch or look away. 'She gets in touch with you, you call me, okay?'

Stella gave the slightest of nods, and Delaney gestured to Sally to join him. He looked back at Stella as they walked to the door. 'You'd do well to remember it's not just losing your parole that you've got to be scared of.'

Delaney pulled his seatbelt with an angry tug around his shoulder and snapped it into place.

'Guv. About what she was saying?'

'Just leave it, Sally.'

'I was just going to say, if Jackie Malone was a friend of yours then I'm sorry. And if I can help…'

Delaney looked at her and sighed, shaking his head.

'I just want you to know I've got your back.'

'I appreciate it.' Delaney flipped the radio on. A group of teenage boys were singing close harmony in a language Delaney didn't understand even though it was English. He pushed the tuning button and Johnny Cash came on the air; he was going to walk the line apparently. Something Delaney had stopped doing a long time ago.

Kate sat back down at her desk. Collecting together the glossy photos of Jackie Malone pre-and post-post-mortem. In two dimensions the wounds looked worse somehow. Kate knew that they were inflicted after she had died, but laid out like that on her desk they seemed too graphic, too manufactured. Somebody turning mutilation into an art form, making a statement out of the slashes and cuts in Jackie Malone's naked body like the symbols of a grotesque new language. What was it they were trying to say? she wondered.

Her job was to deconstruct the manner of death, not the meaning of it, and yet as she looked at the black-and-white photos she found herself thinking that she could identify the killer's signature if only she could understand the language he was speaking. She could almost hear Delaney's mocking voice in her head. Could she do her bloody job or not?

She shivered, despite the heat, and scooped the photos up, sliding them into a large white envelope and put them into her desk drawer, slamming it shut. Damn the man . Damn him straight to Irish hell!

She ran the back of her hand across her forehead, swallowing; her throat had gone suddenly dry. She looked at her watch and decided to break for lunch. Something she rarely did, usually just grabbing a sandwich at her desk. But she needed some air. She needed to get out.

She left the building, stopping to draw in a lungful of the hot, dry air, and then walked away, leaving the morgue behind. She felt a slight prickling in her back and looked over her shoulder; no one was there, but as she continued to walk she couldn't quite throw away the feeling of disquiet. She shook the thoughts away again. Whoever had done what they did to Jackie Malone hadn't done it to leave Kate Walker a personal message, and thinking that they had was plainly ridiculous. So why did the skin on her back still crawl?

Delaney looked at his watch, running his sleeve over his sweating forehead. It had been a long day but it was still only two o'clock. The sun riding high in the sky burned hotter than ever. Bonner carried two large Styrofoam cups of coffee up to Delaney as he leaned back against his car talking on his mobile phone.

Sally Cartwright was still waiting at the serving hatch of Bab's Kebabs, a burger van that to her knowledge had never sold kebabs, and that was permanently stationed conveniently close to the White City nick, in a little industrial park. Roy, the man who owned and ran the van, was a big fan of science fiction, apparently, but if there was a connection Sally wasn't a good enough detective to find it. Roy was unimpressed as he dangled the herbal tea bag that Sally had provided into a cup of hot water.

'You drink this shit and you're never going to make detective inspector. Black coffee and doughnuts, that's what you should be having.'

'And you watch too much American television.'

Roy scowled. 'What television should I be watching? British?'

Sally considered. He had a point.

'Best shows in recent years. Battlestar Galactica , Heroes , A Town Called Eureka . All American.'

'Right,' said Sally, not really listening; she hadn't seen any of them.