Mark Pearson - Hard Evidence

Candy looked at Delaney for a moment. 'You're part of this now, Inspector. You don't want to let me down.' She gave Jake a last cold look and went back to the car.

Delaney bit back a sigh of relief and turned to Sally. 'Take this place apart. There's got to be something here.'

He strode over to the workbench and angrily opened the drawers, scattering their contents, his rage barely contained. He tipped the last drawer over the floor: pencils, screwdrivers, nails, screws, an oil can, a chisel. Nothing that said anything about where Morgan could have gone.

Sally took Jake by the arm and led him over to a couple of chairs that stood against the oilstained brick wall.

'Sit down, Jake.'

His eyes flicked nervously to the doorway.

'She's not going to hurt you. I promise.'

'She burned Howard. She burned him with the hose.'

'She did, but she isn't going to hurt you. She was ill, but she's better now. Do you understand that?'

Jake shook his head slowly. Nothing made sense to him at the moment.

Sally kept her voice soft. 'When she burned Howard it was because she was sick. But she's better now. She's not going to hurt anyone. Not you, and certainly not Jenny. She wants to help Jenny. You can understand that, can't you?'

Jake nodded. 'Jenny's a good girl.'

'She is, and we need to find her.' Sally looked across at Delaney, who was angrily reading through bills and receipts, throwing them aside.

'I don't know where she is.'

Sally sat beside Jake and patted him reassuringly on the leg. 'I know you want to find her as much as we do. So think. Was there anywhere you used to like to visit together? You, Howard and Jenny?'

'We used to go to lots of places.'

'Like where?'

'The countryside.'

'Anywhere in particular?'

'To see the cows. Horses sometimes.'

'Can you remember where that was, Jake?'

Jake nodded enthusiastically and smiled. 'It was the fields.'

'London Fields?'

Delaney looked across as Jake shrugged. 'Just fields, with cows in them and horses.'

Delaney raised an eyebrow at Sally and went back to looking through the paperwork. Sally smiled reassuringly at Jake again. 'You can't remember any of the names?'

Jake shook his head. 'Just countryside. Jenny would say let's go to the countryside and Howard would drive us all.'

'To the fields with the cows and the horses?'

Jake nodded enthusiastically. 'And the river.'

'The river?'

'Yeah, we'd go all over on it. Long journeys.'

'On the river?'

'Yeah, on the big river in his barge.'

Delaney came over now. 'He's got a barge?'

Jake smiled broadly. 'He's got a Dutch barge.'

Delaney swore under his breath and looked at Sally pointedly. 'A Dutch barge is sea-going.'

The gentle swell of the Thames splashed lyrically, rocking the barge slightly from side to side. It was a soothing motion that at any other time, in the hot, still, thick air of the summer's evening, would have lulled Jenny into a gentle sleep. But she wasn't sleeping, she was huddled against the interior side of the boat, her legs wedged under the table that stood against one wall. Her eyes fixed on the still bright sunlight sparkling like a million broken stars on the water outside the window.

The barge seemed to rock deeper in the water and she heard the sound of heavy work boots walking across the wooden floor. She looked up at the scarred face of her father and seemed to shrink back a little into the cracked and faded leather of the bench she was sitting on.

Howard Morgan's face creased in a smile, but his worried darting eyes held no humour in them, and Jenny was not reassured. She was confused, and she was frightened.

'Where are we going?'

'I told you that when you were old enough I'd take you away, didn't I?'

Jenny nodded her head. 'Yes.'

'Well you're old enough now.'

'Am I?'

'You're a big girl now. So I'm going to take you away like I promised.'

He laid his hand over Jenny's small, fragile fingers and she tightened them into a curl, the hot, sweaty feel of her father's hand making her uncomfortable.

'What about Aunty Candy?'

Morgan drew his hand away, the anger flashing across his face like the turn of a fast tide. 'Don't talk about her.'

'Can't she come with us?'

'No.'

'Why?'

Morgan slammed his meaty fist on the table. 'Because I said so.' As Jenny flinched, Morgan caught himself and smiled at his daughter. 'I'm sorry, I shouldn't have shouted, sweetheart. I was angry. But not at you. At her.'

'Why are you angry with her?'

'Because she took you away from us. Without asking. She took you away and you could have been hurt.'

'But I wasn't hurt. She said she was going to protect me.'

'Protect you against what?'

Jenny huddled up against the window again. 'She just said she'd look after me.'

'Well I'm here now. And Daddy looks after you the best, doesn't he?'

Jenny didn't reply for a moment, and then nodded as she saw the darkness gathering in the corners of her father's eyes.

'Good girl.'

Delaney pulled a piece of paper loose from a pile of bulldog-clipped receipts and waved it at Sally Cartwright.

'What have you got?'

He pulled out his mobile and hit a speed-dial button as he flashed a small grin at her. 'It's a bill. Mooring charges.'

'Way to go, boss.'

'Unless we've already missed him.' Delaney turned his attention back to his phone. 'Bonner. It's Delaney.'

Downriver, where the large houses on the banks were home to the rich, the famous and the criminally wealthy, the tide swelled, sending eddies and currents that lifted silt from the river bed and gently tugged at the reeds and weeds that lined the banks. Reeds and weeds that held all kinds of wildlife. Fishes that had been sheltering from the hard, relentless beat of the summer sun came closer to the surface, drawn by the insects that crawled and danced and darted in the air. And below, his hair snaking loose in greasy tendrils and his eyes as milky as a dead cod's, the head of Billy Martin was tangled in the deep roots of the bulrushes and clinging weed that held him close. As the surging rise of the tidal water tried to suck him from their tight embrace, the weeds pulled him back as though his bloated body was a treasure that they were loath to lose, and the fish and the crawling things feasted on the rotting parts of his exposed flesh.

Delaney got out of his car, Candy and Sally beside him as he walked down the riverside path to where Bonner and a horde of uniformed police were gathered.

Bonner nodded to him. 'Guv.'

'What's happening?'

Bonner nodded at the barge, which was rising higher in the water as the tide poured water back from the North Sea and into the Thames estuary. 'Still here. Another twenty minutes he'd have had the tide and been gone.'

'We'd have got him on the water.'

'Maybe. Just as well you found that mooring receipt.'

Delaney waved a dismissive hand. 'That's all down to DC Cartwright here. She managed to get Jake to speak where we failed.'

Bonner flashed a smile at Sally. 'The gentle touch. Is that what they call it?'

Sally wasn't amused. 'The human touch, I believe, Sergeant.'

Delaney looked across at the barge, his hand on his brow shielding his eyes from the low glare of the sun as it flashed off the silver water of the Thames. 'Why haven't we moved on him?'

'Making sure he's not armed first. We didn't want to risk anything with the girl in there.'

'So where are SO19?'

'On their way. And the coast guard and river patrol.'

Delaney could see movement on the barge and took Bonner's binoculars from him.

'It's Morgan.'

Through the lenses he could see Morgan clearly. Could see the tension written in his face like a clenched fist and saw what he was doing. He cursed under his breath and gave the binoculars back to Bonner.