Mark Pearson - Hard Evidence

If an Englishman's home was his castle, what was an Irishman's? Delaney's was no castle, that was for sure. A scruffy studio flat in Tufnell Park. A small kitchen and sitting room with a bedroom to one side. The place hadn't been decorated for twenty years. A brown sofa, a G-Plan sideboard, a dusty carpet of faded red and green swirls. In the corner a TV and DVD player. A shelf with a few old, well-thumbed paperbacks. He closed the door behind him, contemplating the difference between where he lived and where Jackie Malone had died. Not a great deal. Jackie Malone had a different house somewhere, of course; she had a whole other life. She came home from her two-room working flat to a life. At least she used to. Delaney looked around at what he came home to and almost envied her her cold shelf in the morgue. A flashing light on his answering machine caught his attention. He looked at it for a moment or two and crossed to the sideboard.

He flipped over a glass, picked up a bottle of whiskey and poured himself a shot. Desperate measures. Desperate times. He toasted himself mentally and slid the burning shot down his throat. Then took another.

Some people drink to forget. Some people drink to be funnier, to be more confident, to socialise. Delaney drank to kill the fluttering butterflies of thought that exploded into his brain every morning when he woke up. Every day for the last four years. Since he cradled his wife's head in his useless arms and watched the light die in her eyes. The light die in his whole world.

He poured himself another measure and looked again at the flashing light on his answering machine.

He pushed the button and listened as the machine rewound to the voice of the dead.

'Delaney, it's Jackie Malone. I need to speak to you. Call me. You've got my number.'

Click. Swallow.

'Delaney, it's Jackie again. I really need to speak to you. Just call me.'

Click.

'It's me. Where are you, Delaney?'

Delaney took another swallow as he listened to the desperation in her voice. Not a question he was sure he could have answered. What have you done, Jackie? What have you let them do?

Click.

Delaney was reaching forward to turn the machine off when another voice spoke and he held his hand back. The voice of a seven-year-old girl with just a hint of Irish in it, enough of a familiar hint to break his heart all over again.

'Daddy, it's Siobhan. When are you going to come round? We miss you. Bye.'

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed as the machine clicked again. 'It's Jackie again, Cowboy. Don't tell me you've gone all bashful on me? We need to speak. This concerns you. I'll be in all day. Call me or come round. You know where.'

Click. Click. Click.

The machine clunked to a stop. It was an antique now and he knew he should have replaced it, but it had his wife's voice on it and Delaney called himself daily just to hear it. He pushed the message button and another dead woman's voice filled the room, filled his life all over again, but it would never fill the hole right in the middle of him.

'This is Sinead. Jack and I aren't here right now. This is an answerphone and I'm sure you know by now what to do when you hear the beep, so go ahead and do it.'

Delaney sat back on the sofa and shook his head gently. She was wrong. He had absolutely no idea what to do. He tipped the bottle and poured himself half a tumbler. Some memories he wanted to keep, no matter how much whiskey he drank, and some he wanted to destroy. These images he used alcohol to try and kill, but it only helped fuel his nightmares. A petrol station at night, the cold striplights spilling across the forecourt. The transit van, its back doors open like the maw of an evil creature. A man running, dressed in black, leaping in as the van pulled away. The faint smoke leaking from the barrels of the shotgun, sulphurous and yellow.

Delaney stood up and lurched to the sink in the corner of the room and threw up, the sour whiskey burning his throat as he gasped for breath. He ran cold water, cupping it in his hand and splashing it over his head. He filled a glass and drained it, then picked up a mouthwash bottle from the shelf above the sink and gargled. He looked up into the mirror but couldn't meet his own gaze; he walked to the cabinet by the door and picked up the keys to his old Saab.

The night was still warm and Delaney kept his window open as he drove, the thick air blowing his hair flat to his head and slapping him awake. The white lines in the middle of the road and the fat, jaundiced street lights flashed past him as in a dream, and Delaney had to shake his head now and again to clear his thoughts, to focus on the road. The wail of a horn and the screech of brakes barely registered as he swerved to avoid an oncoming taxi and continued to drive.

He pulled the car to an untidy stop in a pleasant suburban street north of Hampstead station. A few miles from Delaney's impersonal little flat and a million light years from his own world.

He looked at his eyes in the rear-view mirror and ran the back of his hand over them, as though to squeeze the hurt from them. He shook his head sharply and combed his fingers through his tangled hair, took a swallow from a bottle of water tossed earlier on to the passenger seat and opened the car door.

He looked up at the house for a long moment. A bay-fronted Victorian terrace, set back from the road, with a neat front lawn and a gravel path leading up to the oak door with stained-glass panels. Thin tendrils of honeyed light spilled from the gaps in the curtains.

Delaney closed the slightly creaking wooden gate behind him and walked along the path, stepped into the narrow porch and rang the bell. Musical chimes filled the warm air, and from somewhere Delaney dug up a smile as the door was opened. The light spilled out and caught his eyes, revealing a warmth beyond the door that lay hidden like bluebells under a foot of snow.

'Hello, Wendy.'

'Jack. Have you any idea what the time is?'

'None at all.'

'It's gone midnight! We've been worried about you. Come on, come in.' Delaney nodded gratefully and followed her through the door. Following like Alice down a rabbit hole into a whole different world.

Wendy closed the door behind him. Thirty-seven, six inches shorter than Delaney. Attractive, polished, dirty-blonde hair and pale blue eyes. Worried eyes. She moved forward and stood on tiptoe to kiss Delaney on the cheek and then held her palm to where her lips had been.

'You need a shave.'

Delaney nodded, and Wendy took her hand away, suddenly self-conscious. 'Come through to the lounge.'

Delaney followed her, his heavy feet soundless on the plush carpeting. It was a family home. Pictures on the wall, a faint smell of polish in the air, photographs, a cluttered piano, thick, comfortable furniture, a worn but expensive rug on the floor. Delaney sat on the edge of a fashionably battered leather sofa and smiled apologetically. 'I didn't want to be a nuisance…'

'It's all right, Jack. Really it is. Especially today, your wedding anniversary. We've been really worried about you.'

'I meant to call, you know.'

Wendy looked at him, the sympathy a physical presence in her eyes. 'Where've you been?'

Delaney considered the question, not sure he had an answer, and just shrugged.

'God, you look terrible. Can I get you a drink?'

'Not for me. Where's Roger?'

A moment's pause and a flicker of something replacing the sympathy in her eyes.

'He's gone to Dublin for the weekend. Golf trip with the lads.'

'Is Siobhan in bed?'

'And where else would she be at this time of night?' Wendy laughed suddenly. A silky laugh, rich, a purr in there somewhere. 'God, Jack, what are we going to do with you?'