Mark Pearson - Hard Evidence

The consultant was sympathetic. 'If there was any hope at all, I would advise against it, of course, but the brain stem has suffered too much damage. To all intents and purposes she is already dead.'

Delaney looked at him for a long moment, scared to ask the question but needing to know the answer. 'And the baby?'

The consultant shook his head sadly. 'I'm sorry.'

Delaney's head nodded downward as he gave permission. He couldn't hold back the tears any longer. As the obscenity of the pump ceased and the heart monitor line became still, his world went dark.

The small nurse passed him with a sympathetic look, and he wanted to reach out and hold her. To beg her to do the same for him. To pull his plug, because he couldn't bear it. He couldn't live with his wife's death, and what was more, he didn't want to. But he didn't do anything. He was powerless. Impotent. Wasted. All he could do was stand there and sob.

Delaney lay curled, almost foetus-like, on the sofa, his head twitching as in his dreams he looked down once again on the face of his wife. He could almost hear her heart slowing and stopping, the blood lying still in her veins, her breath sighing to a close, and tears fell from his eyes all over again.

Kate sat gently beside him and put her arms around him, cradling him like a child. Delaney awoke, the memories clinging to him like a physical presence, a thick cobweb of pain. Kate murmured reassurance and Delaney held her as though a hurricane might blow him away if he didn't. Kate looked into his eyes and touched a finger to his lips.

'Come to bed.' She took his hand and stood up, and Jack didn't even hesitate as he let her lead him from the room.

Kate stood under the shower. The pressure was turned to maximum but she didn't have the water as hot as she normally did. In fact there was a lot about her this morning that wasn't normal. For one thing, she was smiling quietly to herself, and for another, as she soaped her body with a sponge it was more of a caress than a scrub. She hummed as she poured shampoo into her hand and worked it through her thick tresses of hair.

She rinsed the soap clear and sang too. It was the first time she had sung in the shower for a long time. She bit her lower lip a little guiltily as flashes of memory came back.

'Tell me, Jack. Talk to me.' Low, breathless, husky.

'Dig your nails in. I want to taste blood.'

'Pleasure and pain, Detective Inspector. Very Catholic.'

Delaney laughed, looking into her eyes, at the mischief sparking within them. 'I want to remember the moment.'

And Kate dug her nails into his buttocks, pulling him deeper into her. 'Oh, you'll remember. I'll make sure of that.'

And she set about keeping her promise.

The water pooled at Kate's feet as she leaned into the jet and caught her breath. Just remembering the night before made her hot and bothered again. Hot and bothered in the nicest possible way, and Kate shook her head at herself. Delaney was on the run. He was a wanted man. Wanted for murder. This was certainly not the time to be getting involved, or the man to be getting involved with.

She wrapped her robe around her as she walked into the kitchen and put the large enamel kettle on the range to boil; then, smiling playfully, she slipped the robe off again and walked into her bedroom.

'Time to go to work, Jack.'

But Delaney already had.

Kate sighed; she should have known better.

DC Sally Cartwright was having a bad Sunday morning. Jack Delaney doing a runner meant no one was getting a day off any time soon. She sat at her desk in the CID room with her head reeling. She couldn't believe that Delaney had been arrested and was now somewhere on the loose. Maybe she hadn't been on the force long enough to develop what Bob Wilkinson called his infallible gut instinct for slags, but she knew one thing for sure, and that was that Jack Delaney was no slag. She drank her coffee thoughtfully as Bob, perched on the edge of her desk, leaned in.

'I'd watch your back if I were you, Sally.'

'Why?'

'Because people reckon you were close to him.'

Sally shook her head, shocked. 'What are you saying?'

'Just rumours. He has got a reputation, you know.'

'For Christ's sake, Bob, he's old enough to be my dad.'

Wilkinson laughed. 'From what I've heard, most of the women on the relief would've been banging him like a drum.'

'Well he wasn't banging me, and this isn't funny, Bob.'

Wilkinson nodded seriously. 'I know.'

'What are we going to do?'

Wilkinson shrugged. 'Who was it said there's something rotten in the state of Denmark?'

'Hans Christian Andersen?'

'Whoever it was. Something in this whole set-up stinks.'Wilkinson looked across as Bonner walked in at the end of the room, his face a picture of bruised pride and even more bruised flesh. 'And that slag's not so squeaky either.'

'You don't trust him?'

'Put it this way, love, You turn your back on him, you'd best be wearing iron knickers, you know what I'm saying?'

'I thought he was quite close to the inspector.'

'Trust me. The only thing that slag is close to is his own right hand.' He looked at Sally pointedly. 'He'd fuck his own grandmother and her postman if he thought there was something in it for him.'

Bob stood up and finished his coffee. 'I'd better get back. Like I said, just watch your back.'

Sally turned back to her paperwork but couldn't concentrate. She went across to open the window; the heat in the office was unbearable. She leant a little into the cool breeze as it blew through the open window, running her hand around her neck, wiping a damp palm on her skirt.

'Hot, isn't it?'

Sally turned back, startled and flustered, to see Bonner standing right next to her.

'Yeah.'

He leaned in and spoke quietly. 'You heard anything from Jack?'

Sally shook her head.

'The damn fool. What's he playing at?'

Sally looked at the bruising spoiling Bonner's normal good looks. 'I'm guessing you're not too happy with him?'

Bonner ran a hand over his face. 'I don't blame him for this.'

'You don't?'

Bonner shrugged. 'Maybe a little. But I would have let him go if he'd asked. He didn't need to kill us both to do it.'

'You'd have let him go?'

Bonner nodded, his face a picture of sincerity. 'Murder. It's not Jack's style, for Christ's sake. He's been fitted up.'

'It's what a lot of us think.'

'We're going to have to stick together, Sally. He needs our help.'

Sally shook her head. 'What can we do?'

Bonner stood up straighter as Diane Campbell walked into the room, her face thunderous. He lowered his voice. 'I'll let you know. But if he gets in touch, tell him I want to see him.'

'Bonner. My office, now,' Campbell barked at him.

Sally watched as Bonner walked across to Campbell's office. As he closed the door she pulled out her mobile phone and looked at a text message. She stood for a moment or two in indecision, then, making her mind up, snatched her jacket off the back of her chair and hurried out of the office.

Kate was sitting at her desk, trying to work but unable to concentrate, when her mobile rang. She snatched it up and frowned angrily at the withheld number, then answered it. 'Kate Walker?'

'Kate, it's Delaney.'

'Jack, where the hell did you go?'

'Sorry.'

'Sorry? For Christ's sake, do you know how I felt?'

'I didn't want you to get involved.'

'And you thought fucking me was the best way to achieve that, did you?'

'It wasn't like that.'

'Then what was it like? I had to check my bedside cabinet to see you hadn't left a couple of twenty-pound notes behind.'

'Kate…'

'My name's not Jackie Malone, you know.'

'I didn't want you getting hurt.'