Mark Pearson - Hard Evidence

Delaney swallowed hard and looked at the man who knelt before him. He looked into his pleading eyes, heard the sore gasp of his laboured breathing and remembered his wife as her support machine was switched off, her mechanical breathing as laboured as that of the man in front of him. He remembered his own unbearable pain as the heart monitor line went flat; he thought of the fear in his daughter's eyes; he remembered the cut and mutilated body of his friend Jackie Malone; and finally he thought about the shots fired into Kate Walker's body. He pictured the closing of her eyes, and her body stilling as it lay on the floor, discarded by the man in front of him as carelessly as someone dropping litter in the street, and he stepped forward, centering the gun on the man's forehead, pressing the cold metal into his sweating skin. And he made his choice.

'Please.' Tears formed in Walker's eyes.

Delaney lowered the gun.

Walker sobbed as his body crumpled with relief. 'Thank you.'

Delaney shook his head coldly. 'Don't thank me. Where you're going, when they found out who and what you are, you'll wish I had killed you.'

Walker collapsed back against the wall and Delaney turned to Andy. 'Thanks.'

Andy looked blankly at Walker. 'He lied.' He turned and smiled at Siobhan, and another cold chill ran through Delaney's heart. 'And I like your daughter.'

Delaney picked up his sobbing child and held her in his arms, unable to stop the tears that stung his eyes and ran down his cheeks as he looked at the still body of Kate Walker.

There was a slight chill in the air, and the young nurse shivered a little as Delaney watched her close the window and angle the slats of the Venetian blind against the still bright rays of the sun.

She hurried out of the private hospital room, leaving Delaney alone with the woman who lay on the bed, tubes coming out of her arms and monitors keeping a constant check on her.

The woman groaned slightly as she opened her eyes and propped herself up on the pillow, focusing on her visitor. She smiled, her voice a soft, croaky whisper.

'Jack.'

Delaney stepped forward and put a basket of fruit on her bedside cabinet. 'Hello, Wendy.'

'You brought flowers last time. You going off me?'

Her voice was undeniably sexy with that husky croak in it, and Delaney laughed. 'Never going to happen.'

'I don't blame you, you know.'

'Maybe you should.'

'We're family, Jack. Never forget that.'

'I know.'

'What's going to happen to the boy?'

Delaney looked at her for a moment. 'Nothing good.' He looked out of the window and saw Wendy's husband walking across the car park with Siobhan.

'I've got to go, Wendy.'

Wendy looked puzzled. 'You just got here.'

'I know. I've got a funeral to go to.'

Delaney walked towards the door.

'Jack.'

He turned back as Wendy flashed him a sympathetic smile.

'I'm sorry about what happened. But you can't stop taking care of yourself. Not now.'

Jack didn't reply; just nodded and left the room.

Two o'clock in the afternoon, north-west of London. Some trees still had a thick coat of green with flashes of gold here and there, while the top branches of others stretched out like skeletal fingers of coral, scratching the sky, all of it heralding change. That fine line between summer and autumn. A season no longer dictated by the calendar since carbon emissions had made global warming a hard reality. The sky leaked a vivid blue here and there, jagged streaks of pale cobalt showing through an off-white cloth of cloud, and below that were thicker clouds, fat and scudding as the cool winds blew, rattling the dry leaves from the tall trees. Cool enough now so that Delaney pulled his overcoat tighter around himself. A black woollen overcoat to match his black suit and his black tie and his dark eyes as he looked down at the open grave at his feet.

The wind lifted a little, picking up some leaves and making them dance across the grass, and bringing the familiarity of a particular perfume. Delaney looked up to find Kate Walker standing beside him.

'You came, then?'

Delaney shrugged. 'Seemed the least I could do. He took a bullet for me.'

Kate stooped down to lay a wreath by the grave.

'He said there would be no one here to put flowers on his grave.'

Some two months after he had disappeared, the body of Bill Hoskins had been discovered in an abandoned well on a run-down farm near Henley. A young child had gone missing after an argument about being allowed to watch an unsuitable film on television, and every nook and cranny in the area had been searched. The missing child turned up safe and sound, hiding out in a Wendy house in a friend's garden.

Bill Hoskins, however, was found in far worse condition. Two months' exposure in the summer's heat had not been kind to his already undernourished body. The autopsy revealed that he had been shot once, in the heart.

Kate stood up and looked at Delaney. 'Why didn't you return any of my calls, Jack?'

'I thought it best.'

'Best for you?'

'Best for you, Kate. When I saw you shot…'

'I was wearing your Kevlar vest, Jack. You made me put it on. If I hadn't, I'd have been dead.'

'I know. And I'm sorry, but it made me realise. I'm bad news, Kate. You don't need me in your life.'

'They told me you've handed in your notice. You're going to move, is that right?'

'Yeah.'

'Move where?'

Delaney shrugged again, the words bitter in his mouth. 'Out of this city.'

'And there's nothing I can say?'

'I'm sorry.'

Kate looked at him angrily, blinking back tears. She nodded to the open grave. 'Why don't you climb in there with him and be done with it?'

She turned on her heel and walked away. She didn't look back.

Delaney watched her go, a painful knot forming in his stomach. He wanted to call out, ask her back, but couldn't bring himself to do it. He'd been a liability to every woman he'd slept with over the past few years. His wife, Jackie Malone, Wendy, now lying in an intensive care hospital bed. He wanted Kate back, but he knew what was causing the knot in his stomach. Fear. And he didn't feel any better about himself for knowing it.

He waited until Kate was gone from sight, then walked thirty yards in the opposite direction and knelt beside another memorial.

He took a single red rose from the inside pocket of his coat and laid it on his wife's grave. 'I'm sorry.' His voice a pained whisper. Then he stood up quickly and walked towards the gates of the cemetery.

Outside, Diane Campbell leaned back against her car, a trademark cigarette hanging from her carmine lips and a lazy blue cloud of smoke floating towards him on the cool breeze. If he was surprised to see her, his face didn't register it. Campbell ground the cigarette under her heel and snapped another out of the packet, flicking it into her mouth and offering the pack towards Delaney. Delaney took one and bent low so Campbell could light it for him before she lit her own.

'I heard you'd be here.'

'You come to wish me luck?'

'I've come to ask you to take back your resignation.'

'That's not going to happen.'

'You're a good detective, Delaney. You know that.'

'Yeah, I do.'

'We need you on the force. I need you on the force.'

Delaney shook his head. 'Made my mind up.'

'I said I was sorry.'

'Doesn't change anything. This isn't about that.'

'You're absolutely certain?'

'Haven't been more sure of anything in my life.'

Campbell took a deep drag on her cigarette, then looked at Delaney sympathetically. 'There's something I need to tell you.'

Delaney saw the look in her eyes. 'What is it, Diane?'

'The forecourt robbery. The guys who shot your wife…'