Mark Pearson - Hard Evidence

Delaney nodded, picturing her in a black wig and industrial levels of make-up. 'Melody Masters. Sin Sisters . Right?'

Karen nodded. 'That's right. She'd taken Andy to the set once, kept him in the car, and he saw Alex Moffett. So he knew where he was based.'

She took another nervous drag on her joint. 'Jackie didn't want anything to do with it, though, Jack. And neither do I. These people…'

'Where is he, Karen?'

'Who?

'Andy. Where is he?'

'He doesn't want anything to do with you.' She glanced over at Kate. 'With any of you.'

'You saw what they did to his mother.'

Karen nodded, scared. 'You reckon you can help him?'

'Yes, Karen. I can.'

Karen looked over her shoulder at the closed door by the cooker, opposite the one they had walked in through. She took another long drag on her joint, her eyes glazing slightly but not so much as to mask the fear that lurked in them.

Delaney walked over to the door and opened it. Behind it was a bathroom, and standing in it was a boy with dark curly hair. Delaney immediately recognised him, just as he had when he had seen the film he had been sent. The dark-haired boy abusing a much younger girl. Jackie's son. Andy Malone.

Andy glared at Delaney as he walked into the kitchen, his head held high. 'I ain't coming in with you.'

'What's going on, Andy?'

'Why don't you ask your boss?'

'Who?'

Andy looked at him for a moment. 'Don't tell me you don't know. That pervert Moffett's partner. One of yours, Delaney. Captain Scarface. Why don't you ask him?'

Delaney nodded, his face suddenly darkening like a front of bad weather. He looked across to Kate, who, despite the humid, sweltering heat in the squalid kitchen, had lost all the colour in her own face, and Delaney remembered what Bonner had said about someone on his team having loose lips.

Delaney pulled his seatbelt around himself, jerking angrily as it stuck in its mechanism, and looked across at Kate.

'What did you tell Walker, Kate?'

'Just that I'd spoken to the caretaker. That he could give you an alibi for the…' she looked back at Andy as he glared at her from the back seat of the car, 'for the day of the incident.'

Andy squirmed uncomfortably and leaned forward between her and Delaney, his dirty face scrunched into a frown.

'Where you taking me?'

Delaney looked back at him. 'We've got a visit to make first, and then we'll take you somewhere you'll be safe for a while. Now sit back and put your seatbelt on.'

The boy snorted. 'Fuck off.' He sat back on the seat. 'What are you going to do, arrest me?'

Kate smiled soothingly in the rear-view mirror. 'It's going to be all right, Andy.'

Andy snorted again. 'Get real, Lady fucking Diana. You don't know the guy.'

Kate looked out the window, wishing it were true.

Delaney finally gave up on his seatbelt, turned the key and gunned the engine.

The traffic was bumper to bumper once they hit the main road. It was peak rush hour; cars were overheating and being abandoned, clogging up the roads and slowing movement down to an infuriating crawl. Delaney slammed his hand angrily on the horn, joining in with a pointless chorus of honking that had absolutely no effect. He knew that the cemetery was open in the evenings for people to visit outside of work hours, but it closed at seven and there was only twenty minutes to go.

The sound of a siren joined in with the horns as an ambulance approached, heading the other way. Delaney looked out of the window, watching it pass, and then mentally slapped himself on the forehead.

'You're a doctor. You got one of those green lights, Kate?'

'Yeah, I have.' She reached over to her glove box and took out her flashing green light. She opened her window and put it on the roof, and then flicked the siren on.

Delaney pulled out of the traffic, moving over to the right, and smiled approvingly as the cars ahead moved left to let them pass.

They arrived at the cemetery five minutes before locking-up time, but there was no sign of Bill Hoskins near the gates or in the parkland. They hurried down the path to the caretaker's hut, calling out his name as they approached. But there was no answer, and no sign of him. As Delaney reached the hut, he could see the door was open.

He turned back to Kate, who had a tight grip on Andy's arm. 'Keep hold of him.' Then he put his hand under his jacket, curling his fingers round the grip of his pistol, and walked into the hut.

There was nobody there. The armchair was empty. A book was lying face down on the floor. He looked around the hut, his professional eye sweeping round and taking it in. It was sparse but cosy. A battered upholstered wing chair. A small desk. A gas ring with an old aluminium kettle on it. A bookshelf with a number of well-read paperbacks. All mysteries, by the looks of them. Andy came into the hut, followed by Kate.

'What a dump. What are we doing here?'

'Shut it.' Delaney opened the desk drawer. Inside were a number of work-related letters from the council, an address book and a home electricity bill. Delaney put the other items back in the drawer and kept the bill. It had Hoskins' address on it.

He turned round to see Kate looking closely at the armchair.

'What have you got?'

'A stain, Jack. It's small and it could be gravy or coffee…'

'But?'

'But I think it's blood.'

Back in the car, Delaney handed the electricity bill to Kate and told her to look Bill Hoskins' road up in the A to Z. Kate flicked through the pages until she found the right one.

'It's about five minutes from here.'

'Good.' Delaney fired the engine up.

'What are you going to do if…'

'If he's still alive?'

'Yeah.'

'I'm going to get him and laughing boy here somewhere safe, and then I'm going to go in.'

He crunched into first gear and spun away, the gravel kicking up from his back tyres like shotgun pellets.

About fifty yards behind them, a grey Volvo pulled out of its parking space, a lot more smoothly, and headed in the same direction.

Bill Hoskins lived in a mid-terrace house built somewhere in the late Victorian era. A lot of the houses in the row were showing signs of disrepair, shabby paintwork, overgrown gardens. But Bill's was neat and orderly. His small front garden as manicured as the cemetery where he worked. Kate watched as Delaney took his finger off the bell button that he had just pushed for the fifth time, and knew with a cold certainty that Bill was never coming home. Delaney shouldered the door open and ran inside, but Kate knew there was no one waiting for him. There was going to be no one to miss Bill Hoskins. He had spent his life looking after the dead, and now his own body had been dumped somewhere, she knew it. Dumped with no ceremony, no respect. Suddenly Kate wasn't scared any more. She was angry. People were going to pay, her uncle most of all.

Wendy was a little flustered as she ushered Delaney, Kate and the boy into her kitchen. 'It's a shame you missed Siobhan. She's at a friend's for her tea, but she shouldn't be too long.' She lifted the lid on her large range cooker and put a kettle identical to Kate Walker's on the hob. Her hand was shaking a little so that the kettle rattled heavily.

Kate watched her. 'I keep meaning to switch mine off. It's been so hot, and I could quite happily survive on salads.'

Wendy looked over at her and smiled. 'I know, it's been unbearable. Seems crazy to keep them on just for cups of tea.' Seemed pretty crazy talking about the weather and range cookers to a strange woman in her kitchen, who had arrived with her fugitive brother-in-law and a filthy-looking child in tow too. She shook the thought away as she set out some cups and saucers and smiled reassuringly at the wild-haired youth standing next to her. The boy didn't smile back. Judging by the look in his slightly feral eyes, he probably hadn't smiled in a long, long time.