Mark Pearson - Hard Evidence

'If I was a horse you could probably shoot me.' He smiled up at her. 'You're a good woman, Wendy.'

'Why don't you go up and see her?'

'She'll be asleep.'

Wendy shook her head. 'She'll have heard the car. She's been just as worried about you as I have. More. She's been waiting all day to see you, desperate to show you her First Holy Communion dress.'

'God, her First Communion. When is that?'

'Saturday. It's a lovely dress.'

'I bet she looks a picture in it.'

'A princess.'

'I'll go up and see her then.' He stood up and Wendy put her palm against his cheek again.

'We all miss her.'

He nodded and looked at a silver-framed photo that stood on the mantelpiece. His wife's eyes smiling at a future she couldn't see.

Delaney pushed his daughter's bedroom door open. It was another world again to him, a different universe. A world of pastel lights and pastel colours. A kingdom of teddy bears and soft dolls. The world of his dark-haired, bright-eyed seven-year-old daughter. She had her mother's blue eyes, like parts of her soul gifted. She smiled up at him as he came into the room.

'Hello, Cowboy.'

'Hello, Partner. Give me a kiss.' He swooped her up in his arms as she launched herself from the trampoline of her bed.

'I want a story.'

Delaney put her back on the bed with another kiss. 'It's very late, poppet.'

'Please.'

He couldn't resist those eyes. 'All right. Just a quick one.'

'With guns and drugs and murdered women.'

'Not tonight.'

'All right then. One of your fairy stories.' Siobhan smiled grudgingly, pretending to be disappointed.

Delaney laughed for the first time in that terrible day and sat down beside her on the bed as she snuggled into the warmth of its cartooned covers.

'Once upon a very long time ago, in the year of our lunch of green cabbage and bacon, lived a humble woodcutter's son. He lived deep, deep in the ancient forest and had been born with a curse. He was a great artist. That is, he would have been if it hadn't been for his hands. His mind was filled with many beautiful pictures that he longed to paint, but whenever he put his simple brush to canvas his hand twitched and went out of control.'

'Why?'

'Why indeed? That's the question of all questions, and if we can answer that then we can answer everything.'

'But why did his hands twitch?'

'Ah, you see, a wicked witch had cursed him at birth. So whenever he tried to paint a picture, the result was quite diabolical and everyone laughed at him. One day he became so despondent that he decided to set out and find a cure for his problem. Now everybody in the ancient forest knew that the only person able to solve such a problem for him was the old hermit who lived on top of the hill in a cave. And so the humble woodcutter's son went to visit him.'

'What did he say?'

'Well, the old hermit was very sympathetic. Which made a pleasant change and soon gave him hope. In fact he gave him a strange mushroom, telling him to eat it and gaze into his pond. This the woodcutter's son did, and as he looked, the vision of a beautiful girl appeared to him. The hermit told him that all he had to do was make the girl fall in love with him and the curse would be lifted.'

'What was her name? The beautiful girl?'

'Her name was Estrella, the Princess Estrella, and she was quite the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.'

'And did he marry her?'

'Well, he set off to the castle singing with joy and expectation. When he arrived and was shown in to the princess, he could hardly contain his happiness. The princess, though, when she heard of his mission, well, she burst into silver peals of laughter, and waved her hands as she cast a spell and shrank him to the dimensions of a frog. She then placed him in his own little glass jar on a shelf next to all the other young men who had had similar ideas and were similarly contained.'

Siobhan blinked her eyes sleepily.

'Why did she do that?'

'Well you see, the princess was really the wicked witch's daughter all along. The humble woodcutter's son still loved her, though, and wasn't altogether too unhappy because he could still look at her through the jar.'

Siobhan couldn't keep her eyes open and mumbled as she turned her head on the pillow, 'What a nasty thing to do.'

Delaney stroked a soothing hand on her hair. His other hand holding her tiny one, gripping tight.

'And anyway, that wasn't a very good story. What about the happy ending? What about his pictures?'

'They can't all have happy endings.'

'Why not?'

'It's time you went to sleep, young lady. We can't have princesses with bags under their eyes, can we?'

'I'm not sure I want to be a princess any more.'

'We don't get to choose who we are, darling.'

He kissed her gently on the forehead as she closed her eyes and drifted into sleep. He watched her for a moment or two longer, for as long as he could bear, and then closed her bedroom door behind him and went downstairs.

'How is she?'

Delaney smiled sadly at Wendy. 'She's fine. She looks more like her mother every day.'

'Is she asleep?'

'Dropped off like a log.'

'I'm glad you came by. She'd have been really disappointed if you hadn't.'

'It's the job, Wendy. You know how it is.'

'I know how you are. You don't have to do it all on your own, Jack.'

'I guess we all do what we can.'

'She misses you.'

'I'll get the flat soon and she can come and live with me when I do. You know that.'

'It's not a house she needs. It's a home.'

'I know.'

'It's time to move on.'

'Don't, Wendy. Please… just don't.'

'It's been four years.'

'So people keep telling me.' It was true, but it was just numbers, it didn't mean anything to him.

'It's what she would have wanted.'

Delaney shook his head.

'You've got to put it behind you, Jack. For her sake. For Siobhan's sake. For your sake.'

Delaney stood up. 'It's late, Wendy. I'd better get home.'

'Why don't you stay over?'

Delaney looked at the slight flush that had crept over her cheek like she'd just been softly kissed, and the wetness in her eyes that came from more than grief.

'I can't.'

'Siobhan would love to see you in the morning.'

'I've got things I need to do.'

'You're welcome any time, you know that?' He met her gaze, and she could not hold it, her eyes sliding away.

'It means a lot to me, Wendy.'

She looked up and smiled, the moment passed, shaking her head at him. 'Jack, you look like shit. Get some sleep. Get some decent food. Take care of yourself, for Christ's sake.'

Delaney laughed again. The blasphemy sat as prettily on her lips as a robin perched on a statue of the Pope.

'You're a good woman, Wendy.'

'Not always.'

And Delaney pulled her into a hug. The kind of hug that a man gives his wife's sister.

Tuesday morning. The sun was still low in the sky but it was hot. Hot enough to put a shimmer in the air and raise tempers to boiling point.

The Waterhill estate was less of a carbuncle and more of an open sore on the architectural face of north London. Urban decay as installation art writ large. A breeding ground for fear, for degradation and for violence. Where hope was a word that had no meaning whatsoever and murder was as familiar as the rain, the graffiti and the burnt-out wrecks of cars that dotted the estate like the statuary of stately homes. It was not an attractive place.

Howard Morgan had never been mistaken for attractive either, even before the burn scar running from neck to eye and forehead that had so disfigured one side of his face. He was in his forties, heavily built and heavily muscled. His dark hair was greasy and long to his collar, his jeans were oil-stained and filthy from working in his garage. There was a brute, animal intelligence in his eyes, eyes that flickered like sparking coals in a kicked-over fire, and there was intent also. Murderous intent.