Mark Pearson - Hard Evidence

Delaney finished his whisky and Kate picked up the bottle to pour him another.

'And what makes you so sure?'

'You told me you'd spent the day at your wife's grave.'

'I did.'

'Did anyone see you?'

Delaney shrugged. 'Not that I'm aware of.'

'Other mourners? Someone who runs the place?'

'I don't know, Kate. I wasn't really in a state to notice much.'

'So you have no alibi?'

'No.'

'And no clue as to who really murdered Jackie Malone or Billy Martin, or Alexander Moffett?'

'None at all.'

Kate took a sip of her drink and looked at him sympathetically. 'Then you really are in the shit, Jack.'

Delaney finished his second glass. 'Neck high.'

Chief Inspector Diane Campbell leaned forward to look at the film that was playing in miniature on her laptop computer. A Victorian front room. Thick curtains drawn over lace nets, a small gap throwing a golden shaft of diffuse sunlight into the room. A piano with old photos in silver frames on top of it, the floor plain dark wood but polished so it shone, with a single faded rug. Dark furniture in the background, a display case on thin sculpted legs, a sideboard with broad gothic doors. A jardinière stand with a white ceramic pot on it, but no flowers.

And music playing. 'Pie Jesu'. Campbell licked her dry lips as a young girl walked into shot. She was around nine years old and you could see she was nervous. She walked slowly towards the camera wearing a simple white dress with ribbons in her long dark hair. She stopped and knelt down like a supplicant, opening her mouth into an oval. A dark-suited figure moved in front of her and then gestured off camera. A young boy, only just in his teens if that, walked into shot. A pretty boy, with long dark curly hair, dark eyes and red lips.

The girl and the boy looked at each other as the man held his arms out like a Louisiana missionary and spoke with a dead man's voice.

'It's time to make some beautiful music, children.' The voice of Alexander Moffett.

There was a knock on the door and Campbell's heart leapt in her chest. She quickly closed her laptop and called out, 'Come in.'

Bonner came through the door. Campbell looked at him angrily. 'Do you have any good news for me, Sergeant Bonner?'

'I don't, ma'am.'

Campbell's temper rose as she shouted back at him. 'Then find him, for Christ's sake. Bring him in, Eddie. I don't care how and I don't care in what condition. We clear on that?'

'Ma'am.'

Campbell fixed him with a long, cold look. 'I'm not going down on this alone, Sergeant. If I go, you go with me. This is your fuck-up, you sort it. You hear me?'

'Loud and clear.'

'Get the fuck out of my office then.'

Bonner left, pulling the door hard behind him. Campbell looked at her laptop and folded her hand into a tight fist.

Kate poured a splash more whisky into Delaney's glass and a last measure into her own. She looked at Delaney, her voice slurring a little now, a smile tugging the corners of her lips and mischief definitely dancing in her eyes.

'What made you think you could trust me? Coming here?'

Delaney smiled, the strain showing in his tired eyes, but enjoying her company.

'Woman's intuition.'

Kate laughed, a musical laugh. 'Oh yeah. Yours?'

'Yours.'

'Pretty sure of yourself.'

'And they're not going to look for me here, are they?'

'Why not?'

Delaney leaned forward. 'Because everyone knows we can't stand the sight of each other.'

'People change.'

'Like hell they do.'

And the smile was in his eyes too. He leaned forward and Kate tilted her chin upwards, her lips warm and parted. And they kissed.

Delaney lost himself in the warmth, the taste of whisky on her, the openness in her wide, beautiful eyes. Eyes he could drown in. Then he caught himself and pulled back.

'Sorry.'

Kate shook her head. 'You've got nothing to be sorry about.' She held his head and pulled him back in to her, her teeth nipping his lower lip, hungry now. Passionate.

They stood up, Delaney shrugging out of his jacket and wrapping his strong arms around her pliant body. Holding her, needing her. Kate stood back, catching her breath, her ivory face flushed with desire. She held her hand out and Delaney took it, and she led him from the kitchen, to the stairs towards her bedroom. And Delaney almost made it.

'No. This isn't right, Kate.'

'Jack…'

But Delaney put a hand to her lips so that she couldn't speak.

'Don't, Kate. This isn't the right time.'

'It feels like it to me.'

He shook his head. 'With everything that's going on. I've already involved you in too much already.'

Kate looked at him for a moment. 'I haven't done anything that I haven't wanted to do.'

Delaney nodded, conflicted. 'I'm sorry.'

Kate looked away, embarrassed suddenly. 'There's a big sofa you can sleep on.'

She led him through to the lounge and Delaney sat gratefully on a wide red leather sofa.

'What are you going to do, Jack?'

'I don't know. Someone's very scared. I have to find out why.'

'It all comes back to Jackie Malone?'

Delaney nodded. 'Yeah, I think it does.'

'Somebody murdered her. And whoever it was, someone on the force is protecting him. Setting you up for the fall.'

'Looks that way.'

'I hope you find the bastards.'

Delaney's eyes hardened. 'Oh, I'll find them, Kate.' He was lost in his own thoughts for a moment and then smiled apologetically at her. 'I'll be out of your hair in the morning.'

Kate looked at him and then nodded, finally, with a small smile of her own and left.

Delaney lay back on the sofa, his mind dancing with thoughts he wasn't sure he wanted to be having. This wasn't a time to be getting emotionally involved with someone. And he knew that that was exactly what it was. It wasn't about sex. If it was, he'd already have been in Kate's bed. He'd lied to her earlier about Jackie Malone. They were more than just friends; he had slept with her. Not often, but every now and again, when enough Guinness and whiskey had chased the guilty thoughts of his wife out of his turbulent and troubled brain, he had visited her and they had slept together. And she had written about it in her diary. But they were just friends, there was no emotional context at all apart from that. They could talk, they could relate to each other and they could have sex without it meaning a damn thing. Until the next morning, of course, when Delaney would wake with more than a hangover. He'd wake with the guilt returning tenfold. Guilt that made his stomach cramp and his throat gag drily. That made him hate himself all over again.

Kate coughed quietly, and Delaney snapped out of his reverie. She had returned with a duvet under her arm and a new bottle of whisky in her hand. She put the whisky on a small table and handed Delaney the duvet.

'Are you sure this is what you want?'

Delaney nodded, not meeting her eye. 'Thanks.'

Kate paused, then smiled and ran her fingers gently through his hair. 'If you need anything, you know where I am.'

She walked back to the door and Delaney called after her. 'Kate.'

She turned back, surprised. 'Yes.'

'Thanks.'

'Sure.'

And she left.

The nurse was a small, dark-haired woman in her early twenties with delicate, almost Oriental features. Her hands were small too, delicate again, but precise. She moved a pillow under the woman's head. The woman's eyes were closed, her breathing operated by an artificial respirator. The mechanical pumps making an obscene sound. Her body was invaded by tubes and wires, and the beat of the heart monitor sent out a contrapuntal and discordant rhythm to the respirator. She was living in form only.

Delaney stood at the bottom of the bed as the nurse finished adjusting the pillow so that the woman's dark hair fanned out neatly on it. There was no twitch beneath her eyelids, no smile tugging at the corner of her lips, and there never would be again. She was dead. All it needed was for Delaney to let them turn the machine off.