Mark Pearson - Hard Evidence

The hall was narrow and stifling; the heat trapped inside radiated off the walls like an oven. There were no carpets on the floor, although the two-toned wood showed where carpet had once been, and it looked like the wallpaper hadn't been changed since the mid-seventies. A half-eaten McDonald's meal was thrown in one corner, and the air was rich with the scent of cheap perfume and even cheaper air freshener.

Kate picked her way delicately as she followed Delaney up the narrow staircase to the second floor. Delaney pushed the button next to a colour-ful yellow card that had the name Aisleyne written on it, with the legend 'Blonde and Busty' below.

Muffled footsteps were heard behind the door, and then a voice.

'I'm busy. Come back in twenty minutes.'

The footsteps receded again and Delaney leaned on the buzzer, letting it ring. The footsteps came back, as did the voice, angrier this time.

'I said I was busy.'

The door opened to reveal a woman in her early thirties, surgically enhanced to prove one part of her advertising slogan, with a straw-coloured wig on her head to prove the other.

'Hello, Karen.'

Karen sighed, recognising Delaney. 'Fuck.'

She tried to close the door, but Delaney slammed his foot in the gap, shouldered the door open and pushed her back inside with the palm of his hand. Kate followed them in and shut the door behind her.

Delaney glared at Karen. 'We can do this the easy way, but one way or the other you are going to talk to me.'

Karen sighed. 'All right, Delaney. You win. Not here; come through to the kitchen.'

They turned down the corridor, passing a bedroom door on the right, and into a kitchen area where a small television was showing some daytime reality show. A door led off it. The room was sparsely decorated with faded, torn wallpaper and some small, functional units; a hot plate for a kettle, a fridge for some cans of beer. Not a kitchen for a chef, but perfect for a forty-pound-a-blow-job tart, thought Delaney.

A long-haired man in his forties with two days' worth of stubble and a Motorhead T-shirt sat at the table rolling a joint. His face had the kind of pale sickliness found in grubs that live under rocks; it was wrinkled and spotted with blackheads. He looked up, outraged, as Delaney turned off the television.

'The fuck you think you're doing? I'm watching that.'

Delaney glared at him. 'Take a break.'

'You what?'

Karen nodded towards the door. 'Do what he says, Daniel.'

'I'm not having some Irish prick tell me what to do.'

'It's me that's telling you. Go on, give us ten minutes.'

The man stood up and glared belligerently at Delaney. 'You got ten minutes.' Delaney held his stare until Daniel turned away and headed out of the kitchen. 'He give you any grief over this and you tell me. Okay, Karen?'

'He won't do anything.'

'Either way.'

Karen turned back to Delaney as the man left. 'What are you doing here, Inspector?'

'You know why I'm here.'

'No I don't.' She looked over at Kate as if seeing her for the first time. 'And who's the bint?'

'Be nice, Karen.'

Karen was about to respond when a small man in spectacles, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and a neatly knotted tie, came into the kitchen.

'What's going on?'

Karen nodded at him angrily. 'Get back in the room, I'll be through shortly.'

The small man shook his head angrily. 'That's not good enough. I've paid my money.'

Delaney stepped towards him. 'Why don't you take a hint and leave?'

The man shook his head. 'I paid my money. I want my service.'

Delaney pulled out his warrant card. 'Maybe you'd like to be serviced down at White City.'

The man bristled, his red eyes tightening behind the steel frame of his spectacles.

'You can't do that. The nature of my business transaction with Aisleyne here is perfectly legal and you know it. I'm going to take your name and report you.' He looked across at Kate and smiled. 'Unless of course this other one is available.'

Delaney would have moved towards him but Karen stepped forward, reaching into her pocket, and stuffed some notes into his hand.

'Come back later, Reginald. Give me half an hour.'

'I can't come back later. I've got work to do.'

'Do you want me to tell Marjorie?'

The small man paled and seemed to deflate somehow.

'There's no need to be nasty.'

Karen smiled. 'I'll make it up to you.'

'How?'

'I'll do the egg custard, no surcharge.'

The small man nodded, pleased, and made his way out into the corridor.

Delaney gestured towards Kate as the front door shut. 'This is Kate Walker. She's a colleague.'

Karen shrugged. 'So why are you here?'

'Don't be stupid. You know what we're here for.'

'She don't look the type.'

'Don't fuck me around, Karen. I can make your life a whole lot more miserable than that loser pimp of yours.'

'He's not my pimp.'

Kate uncrossed her arms. 'You phoned him, Karen. You obviously want to help.'

Karen shook her head.

'I don't want to get involved, Delaney. People are getting hurt all around you. I don't want to end up like Jackie Malone or her lowlife brother.'

'That's not going to happen.'

Karen shook her head, conflicted.

Delaney leaned in. 'It's your choice. You tell me everything you know and I put a stop to this. If you don't, you could be next on their list.'

'They don't know about me.'

'I found out about you. You willing to take a chance they won't?' He reached into his pocket and pulled out a six-by-four photo of Jackie Malone's mutilated body. 'You want to end up like this.'

'For Christ's sake, Delaney, you've made your point. Put that away.'

'Start talking then.'

Karen sighed and picked up the cigarette papers from the table and a small bag of grass. 'Jackie's boy, Andy.'

'Go on?'

'It's all to do with him.' Karen started rolling a joint. 'He was supposed to be with his uncle. Only he wasn't. They had a falling-out. He came back to London.'

'But he didn't go back to his mum?'

'No. You know what Andy's like.'

'Yeah, he's thirteen years old.'

'Anyway, he had mates. A whole bunch of them living in a squat up Finchley Road. All ages.'

'And?'

'And he used to work the begging game. On the streets, down on the tubes. Billy used to organise it. Homeless sign, skinny dog, borrowed baby. You know the kind of thing.'

'I know the kind of thing. So Andy used to beg in the streets?'

'But one day he got picked up by a social centre.'

Kate looked over at her. 'What social centre?'

Karen shrugged. 'Looked after stray kids. Not your usual wagman, though.'

'Wagman?' Kate asked.

Delaney waved Karen on.

'So Andy got taken to a home. Residential. Out in the country, though.'

'Where in the country?'

'Somewhere near Marlow.'

'Henley?'

Karen shrugged again, then lit up the joint and took a long drag on it. She held it out to Delaney, who shook his head, and then to Kate, who smiled politely.

'No thank you.'

'So what was this place called?'

Karen shrugged at Delaney. 'I don't know. Just a big house, somewhere betweenMarlow and, like you say, Henley. But the thing is. It was a set-up. A group of them, all with short eyes. They made films there.'

'Short eyes?'

Karen nodded to Kate. 'They liked children. Pae-dophiles. Nonces.'

'And what happened to Andy?'

'He got away, didn't he? He's smart, that kid. Not a proper runaway like the rest of them. Christ, he's lived his whole life on the move.'

'I know he's a smart kid, Karen. Are you telling me he did something stupid?'

'Yeah, he did. His uncle Billy found him and made him tell him all about it.'

'And Billy thought he'd earn out of it?'

'Yeah. Blackmail. The cocksucker. But the point is, Andy knew who one of the men was. The one who did the filming. Alexander Moffett. His mum and I were in a porn film he made.'