Mark Pearson - Hard Evidence

Across the park, a tall man in a dark raincoat sat on a bench and watched as her aunt swung the little girl higher and higher. The man took a long, thin cigar from a case and lit it, the flame from his silver lighter flaring his pupils to pinpricks and flashing the blue of his eyes. He watched Siobhan as she swung higher, her excited, terrified screams loud in the hot evening air. And he smiled.

Delaney looked out of the side window at the traffic speeding past. People hurrying home to their Saturday tea. Hundreds of different lives locked in the bubbles of their own cars. Their own worlds. He thought of the tens of thousands of faces he must have seen through the lens of a car windscreen over the years. Commuters returning home. Sales executives knocking off early. Office workers keen to make happy hour at their local. Nurses, teachers, civil servants, account clerks and shop assistants, bank managers and chemists. People who could work nine to five and switch off with the clock. People who could go home to normal families and normal lives. Something that Delaney couldn't do. He sometimes wondered what his life would have been like if he had become an accountant or a solicitor instead of a policeman. His wife would probably still be alive, he knew that. They'd be living in a nice house in a suburb somewhere outside of London, sitting on the green belt with the country on his doorstep. A wife at home with him and their children, kicking a football in the garden and getting told off for spoiling the vegetable patch. But Delaney wasn't a solicitor, and his wife wasn't alive and complaining about broken tomato plants. She was dead. Delaney looked away from the window and a cold calm came over him.

Bonner swung the wheel, turning the car off the main street into a suburban cut-through, and as he did so, Delaney leaned forward, held his hands out and quickly looped them over Bonner's head, pulling the chain of the cuffs tightly into his neck.

Bonner swerved and fought to keep control of the car. His voice a painful rasp. 'Jesus, Jack. What are you doing? You want to get us killed? Jack?'

But Delaney didn't answer. He flexed the powerful muscles in his forearms and pulled harder. Bonner started choking, unable to speak. He held his hands to his throat, trying to prise Delaney's fingers loose, and as his legs jerked uncontrollably, his foot stamped down on the accelerator and the car swerved off the road, mounted the pavement and smashed headlong into a lamppost. Bonner flew forward, Delaney dragged behind as the airbag exploded in the sergeant's face and the gurgling stopped.

Delaney unhooked his cuffed hands from Bonner's neck and whispered in his ear, 'Nothing personal.'

He awkwardly manoeuvred his hands into Bonner's jacket pocket and pulled out the key for the cuffs. He had just slipped them off his wrists when the wrecked front passenger door was wrenched open and a large, muscular man in a tracksuit leaned in.

'Are you guys all right?'

Delaney nodded, catching his breath. 'I think so, but if you've got a mobile, could you call an ambulance?'

Delaney opened the back door and climbed out.

The large man gave him a puzzled look as he fumbled in his pocket for his phone. 'Jesus. What happened here? You drove straight into that lamppost.'

Delaney held out his warrant card. 'It was an accident, the steering went.'

The man nodded towards Bonner. 'Is he okay?'

'He'll be fine. The airbag knocked him out.'

'You're both lucky to be alive.'

'Tell me about it.'

The jogger pulled out his mobile phone and punched in the call. 'Ambulance, please. There's been an accident.'

He described what had happened and their location, but when he turned back to speak to Delaney, he was gone.

Bonner groaned and opened his eyes, and looked around him. As his memory came painfully back, he blinked up at the large man, who finished his call and smiled down at him reassuringly.

'You're going to be all right. I've called an ambulance.'

'The guy who was with me?'

The man shrugged. 'He was here a moment ago. He's probably gone to get help.'

Bonner groaned again and shifted in his seat, releasing the seatbelt and wincing at the pain that ran from his shoulder to his waist and exploded in his head with each movement.

'You'd probably best try not to move. Wait for the ambulance.'

Bonner slumped back, resigned, surveying the wreckage and damning Delaney to all kinds of Irish hell.

Bill Hoskins sat back in his battered wing-backed armchair, which was almost as old as he was. He stirred some sugar into his tea, the spoon clinking as it hit the sides of his enamel mug. He picked up a remote control and turned the volume up on the television set. The news was on and the public were being warned that a serving detective in the Metropolitan Police had violently resisted arrest and was on the run. The reporter went on to report that Jack Delaney was wanted for questioning in a series of murders including that of Jackie Malone, a prostitute who was found slain and mutilated in her flat last Monday.

The picture of Jack Delaney flashed on the screen and Bill shook his head. Something about the murder and the time and the date didn't seem right. He put down his mug of tea, then levered himself out of his chair, his old knees creaking almost as loudly as the wooden floor as he walked across to the door.

Sergeant Bonner came back into interview room one, pulled out a chair and sat down awkwardly, wincing with pain. His face looked like he'd just gone nine rounds with Mike Tyson and his ribs hurt like hell. He put a file on the long wooden table and then leaned back, looking into the eyes of the man sitting opposite him. Bill Hoskins was in his late sixties and had a crumpled, colourless face that matched the creases in his shirt and his faded grey jacket. He scowled at Bonner.

'I thought you were getting me a cup of tea.'

'They ran out.'

Hoskins sniffed, unimpressed. 'Right.'

'Let's go over it again.'

'Do we have to?'

Bonner glared at him and Hoskins nodded, resigned.

'You were there in your capacity as caretaker all day long. You could swear to that?'

'I don't have to swear. I told you, didn't I? I don't lie.'

'We never get any liars in here, Mr Hoskins. Funny thing, that. A police station and we get all sorts in. Rapists, burglars, murderers, arsonists, racists… No liars, though.'

'I am none of those things, and I was there all day.'

Bonner glanced down at a sheet of paper in his hand. 'Ten o'clock in the morning to seven o'clock at night.'

'That's what I said. And-'

Bonner held up a hand to stop him. 'Yeah, yeah, I know. I want you to look at a photograph for me now.'

'All right.'

Bonner slid a photo across the table.

Hoskins picked it up and nodded. 'That's him. Regular visitor he was. Sometimes he was carrying flowers, sometimes a bottle, you know what I mean?'

'I can imagine. And you're prepared to swear in court you saw him on the day in question?'

'He came in just before twelve o'clock.'

'What time did he leave?'

'About six o'clock that same evening.'

'You're sure about that. That's a very long time for this kind of visit.'

'Not for him it wasn't. He was a regular.'

'I want you to think very carefully. You could definitely swear to it in court?'

'I'd swear to it on my life.'

Bonner's eyes glinted as he nodded pointedly. 'So he didn't leave any time between twelve and three o'clock?'

'I told you. He came in and he didn't leave. I was there all day.'

Bonner closed the file. 'Thank you, Mr Hoskins. You've been very helpful.'

'I can go now?'

Bonner nodded. 'We'll be in touch.'

'And about bleeding time.' He stood up awkwardly and walked to the door.