Mark Pearson - Hard Evidence

'And look at the garbage we put out. Cape Wrath ? Do me a favour.' Roy flipped the bacon sizzling on his grill, warming to his theme. 'And don't get me started on Doctor Who .' He glared back at her with the impassioned eyes of a zealot. 'Should have stopped with Tom Baker.'

'Not my thing.'

'Yeah, well.' Roy flicked the herbal tea bag into the bin. 'What would you know anyway? You're only just out of school uniform yourself. But if Doctor Who was supposed to be a grinning idiot then he would have been written that way from the start. He's not a bloody Blue Peter presenter, is he?'

'I think he's quite sexy.'

'Sexy! He's Scottish!'

Sally didn't have an answer for that so stayed silent as she watched Roy spear the bacon from the griddle and lay it across some thick slices of white bread.

'I suppose next you'll be telling me you want red sauce with these.'

Sally jerked her thumb backwards at Delaney and Bonner. 'They're for them. I don't eat bacon sandwiches.'

'Maybe you should.'

'Why?'

'What is it they say? You are what you eat. And this is pig, isn't it?'

'Good one, Roy. Tell it to Delaney.'

Roy shrugged. 'Nah. He's a miserable fucker. Am I right?'

Sally laughed, despite herself. 'You're not wrong.'

'Never am, me.'

Sally collected the sandwiches and walked away before he could get started on Red Dwarf .

Across at the car, Delaney was finishing his call. 'He can't have just vanished off the face of the planet. Look harder.'

He folded his phone as Bonner handed him one of the coffees. 'Billy Martin?'

'Nobody's seen him. Nobody's heard anything about him. For days now.'

Bonner shrugged. 'He'll turn up, boss. He's a regular turd. Flush the cistern round the sewer a few times and he's bound to come floating up sooner or later, smelling of shit and talking the same.'

'Later might be too late.' Delaney saw Sally approaching and changed the subject. 'What have you got for me on Candy Morgan?'

Bonner looked puzzled. 'Nothing. You told me to-'

Delaney held up his hand to cut him off as Sally joined them, holding out the sandwiches.

'Didn't know if you wanted sauce but he put it on anyway.'

Delaney took a sandwich and nodded at Bonner. 'You hear anything, call me first.' He turned back to Sally as he opened the passenger side of the car. 'You can drive.'

'Where are we going?'

'Candy Morgan's counsellor. She poked around in her head for long enough, apparently; let's see if she found anything useful in there.'

'Guv.'

Sally got into the car as Delaney took a bite of his sandwich and chewed happily. In his opinion Roy, the science-fiction-obsessed burger boy, was an irritating feck. But he could cook a bacon sandwich.

He swallowed the mouthful, but as he thought about where Billy Martin might be, his hunger was suddenly gone. He thought about Jackie Malone lying on the morgue table, and then guiltily he thought about Kate Walker too. Thought about her long, shapely legs. Thought about her dark, luxuriant hair, the way she tossed it angrily back, the flash of her eyes and the soft curve of her bloodred lips. And despite himself he smiled.

Kate felt rather than saw the movement. She spun around, her arm flying up, palm forward, instinctively defensive. The blow glanced off her forearm, sliding painfully across her elbow. She gasped but didn't let the pain stop her from completing her spin, taking her out of harm's way. She centred herself and lashed out with her right foot, the kick reaching high to slam into her assailant's head.

The other woman was tall – at five ten she had a good couple of inches on Kate – but years of yoga had made Kate more than flexible, and there was anger behind the kick. The taller woman grunted, taken unawares, and dropped to her knees. Kate pulled back her hand, making an upside-down fist, her other hand held palm down to the side of her waist, and stepped up as her opponent fought to catch her breath. Their eyes locked as Kate readied herself.

'Enough.' The woman held up a hand. 'For Christ's sake, Kate, that felt like you meant it.'

Kate grimaced apologetically and held out a hand to help her up. 'Sorry, Jane. Didn't mean to knock you over.'

Jane laughed, wincing with pain. 'I'd hate to be here when you did.'

'Want to call it a draw?'

'I want to call it a day. This body is getting too old for this kind of abuse.'

Kate slapped her on the back. 'Rubbish.' At forty-five, Dr Jane Harrington still had the kind of body a lot of twenty-two-year-olds would envy. And as they walked off the exercise mats across the gym towards the showers, Kate could see that they were both getting a fair number of admiring glances. Some of them almost welcome.

In the shower block, Kate turned the dial medium high and stood under the fierce jets of steaming water. Her body ached all over, but it was a pleasant ache, the kind that only came from hard exercise, exercise that took her off into a different space and flooded her body with endorphins. She had always been sporty, even as a girl, but in martial arts she had really found her element. The discipline, the focus, the toughness of mind and body. And she was good at it. That was important to Kate; she didn't like to be second best at anything. And the confidence the training gave her was more than just a bonus. She liked to be in control of her life, and if somebody meant to hurt her, then they would find out just how in control she was. The hot water hammered her skin and she felt glowing, vibrant. She didn't know why she let that arrogant prick Delaney get under her skin, but he did, he always had. She smiled, a little guiltily, remembering how hard she had kicked her friend. She was sure that subconsciously it was Jack Delaney she wanted to be kicking. It was certainly him who had made her call Jane and suggest a workout. Sometimes you just had to burn the negative energy away, and the dojo was the best place Kate knew to do that. As a doctor she could see comic irony in violence as therapy, but it was controlled violence and Kate was all for it.

Jane held out a glass of orange juice as Kate walked up to join her at the sports club bar, dropping her holdall to the floor and taking the drink gratefully.

'I was beginning to think you'd drowned in that shower.'

'Was I long?'

'Kate, you are always long. But today I think you set a new record.'

'Sorry.' Kate clinked her glass against Jane's and took a long swallow, finishing half of it.

'So what's going on?'

Kate sat on the tall stool beside her and put her glass on the marble bar counter. 'What do you mean?'

'You seemed a bit distracted earlier.'

'Distracted?'

'Tense. Preoccupied. You don't usually knock seven bells out of me. Six maybe; not usually seven.'

'Just work.'

'Oh?'

Kate shook her head dismissively. 'Nothing specific, just a couple of cases.'

'Not like you to bring your work away from the office.'

'It's pretty nasty. A prostitute. She was cut up really badly.'

Jane looked at her closely as she took a deep swallow of her own drink.

'You know what I think you should do?'

Kate laughed. 'Come and work with you, I suppose?'

'I know your job isn't doing you any good.'

'I make a difference, Jane.'

'You took a Hippocratic oath to save lives. How is cutting up dead people doing that?'

'Because when I help catch a murderer and put them away, it stops them from killing again.'

Jane was unconvinced. 'Killing again? How many victims that you deal with are murdered by a serial killer?'

Kate didn't answer and Jane nodded smugly. 'Exactly. You know as well as I do that ninety-nine-point-something of all murders are committed by family members or friends or criminal associates. The serial killer is a myth for all practical purposes outside of American films and novels.'