Hard Evidence

  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Epigraphs

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Acknowledgements

  ALSO AVAILABLE IN ARROW Flesh and Blood

  The Babes in the Wood

  Triptych

  From Random House

  HARD

  EVIDENCE

  For the last ten years Mark Pearson has worked as a full-time television scriptwriter on a variety of shows for the BBC and ITV, including Doctors, Holby City and The Bill. He lives on the north coast of Norfolk. Hard Evidence is his first novel and he is currently writing Blood Line, the second book in the Jack Delaney series, which will be published by Arrow Books in August 2009.

  HARD

  EVIDENCE

  MARK PEARSON

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  ISBN 9781409035572

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Published by Arrow Books 2008

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  Copyright © Mark Pearson 2008

  Mark Pearson has asserted his right under the Copyright,

  Designs and Patents Act 1998 to be identified as the

  author of this work

  This electronic book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  First published in Great Britain in 2008 by

  Arrow Books

  Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,

  London SW1V 2SA

  www.rbooks.co.uk

  Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm

  The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

  A CIP catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 9781409035572

  Version 1.0

  For Lynn with love

  In 2004/2005 police figures indicated there had been 1,028 child abductions in England and Wales. That's three children a day. Or night. Abducted. Every eight hours a child is stolen in the UK.

  BT press release

  Each year in the UK more than 40,000 children under the age of 16 are reported missing – and after two weeks 1,300 children will still not have returned home.

  BT Media Centre

  1.

  Night-time on the river, twenty-five miles west of London. Kevin Norrell, a foul-breathed and acne-scarred man, hooded and sweating, pulled hard on the oars, really getting into it now. Years of steroid abuse had given him strength, if not wisdom, and his blades flashed across the dark ridges of the windblown river like scalpels slicing through mercury. He grunted as they dipped into the water and pulled the boat upwards and forward. In the cloudless sky above, the moon hung full and fat, the sickly colour of a dying man. The colour of Billy Martin's yellowing face, in fact, as he lay huddled in the corner of the small skiff. His hands were bound with twisted coat-hanger wire, his mouth was pulled into a painful rictus by a gag made from his own shirt. Trembling, he pulled his legs protectively in towards himself.

  'For God's sake keep still!' A hooded man at the other end of the boat, holding a video camera.

  Kevin Norrell pulled unconcerned on the oars, not missing a beat. He didn't know or care who the huddled man was; he was paid for his muscle, not his brains. Billy Martin cared about something, though. You could see it in his rat-like eyes as they flicked from side to side like a warning finger.

  'Never work with bloody amateurs.' The hooded man with the camera again. 'This isn't a steadicam, you know.'

  Billy Martin twisted his face and managed to move the gag a little. 'You think you're scaring me? You're not. Who do you think you're dealing with here?'

  'With you, dear boy. We're dealing with you. We're washing you away. Like a blot, like a stain.'

  'I've got insurance.'

  'You had insurance. I'm afraid the policy has recently been cancelled.' He nodded to Kevin Norrell, who reluctantly laid down his oars and gripped Billy Martin's shoulders. Martin tried to shake loose, but Norrell's muscles bunched and his fingers dug into the struggling man's shoulders like mechanical claws and held him powerless.

  'You can't do this.'

  'But we can,' said the hooded man; he pointed the camera and nodded encouragingly. 'Good. Let's see the fear.'

  Kevin pulled Billy Martin upright; he was screaming with pure terror now, desperately trying to escape the huge man's grip. But Kevin lifted him up, his feet twisting uselessly in the air, then threw him into the river as easily as passing a basketball and with the casual indifference of a refuse collector emptying a dustbin.

  Billy Martin's scream rang in the night air like a steam alarm as he crashed into the cold water, his arms burning as he strained against the wire holding him, desperately trying to stay afloat, and failing.

  The second man nodded again, zooming in for a tight shot as the rocking boat steadied itself, and called out encouragement to Billy Martin.

  'That's it. Wriggle like an eel, splash out with your legs.'

  Billy Martin's screams gurgled and faded as he sank beneath the water. The ripples gradually died away, the boat was still and the river was peaceful once more. The cameraman nodded to the rower, as if to praise a child, but the smile didn't reach his eyes. Eyes which were as cold as the water that had suddenly filled Billy Martin's lungs.

  'Shame we couldn't get crocodiles,' he said after a moment.

  If Kevin Norrell had any idea what the man was talking about, it certainly didn't register on his face.

  2.

  The football. The cricket. The state of English sport in general. The bird off Emmerdale getting her tits out for some lads' magazine. They'd banned smoking, they'd be banning alcohol in pubs next, something else to thank the Californians for, no doubt, like the Atkins diet and low-carb beer, and the bloody Mormons who banged on your door with the sincerity and charm of house-to-house insurance salesmen, or cockroaches.

  Jack Delaney let the conversation wash over him as he downed a shot of whiskey with a quick, practised flick of his wrist.

  He was sitting on a cracked leather stool at the wooden counter of the Roebuck, a scruffy north London pub.
A big mirror behind the bar, with thirty-odd bottles of spirit in front, bouncing different-coloured lights off it like a Christmas tree for alcoholics.

  Delaney picked up his pint glass and let a sip of creamy Guinness soothe his throat if not his soul; even the door-to-door Mormons couldn't sell him that, even if he had been in the market. No new soul for Jack Delaney today; just the old, sin-spotted black thing at the heart of him. Forgive him, Father, for he had sinned. If women looked at him, which they did often, they'd try to guess his age and reckon it to be around the late thirties. He had dark hair, dark eyes, and if they got to know him they would get to see that dark soul. Mostly he didn't let them get to know him.

  Delaney held his whiskey glass out and nodded with a wink at the barmaid. 'Evaporation.'

  The barmaid took his glass, smiling but with no real hope behind it. She poured a generous shot of Bushmills and placed it in front of him.

  'Cheers, Tricia.'

  'Any chance of getting a drink here!' A large man, a few inches over Delaney's six one, but carrying weight, and drunk. Delaney gave him a glance, dismissed him and returned to the solace of his Guinness.

  'The fuck you looking at?'

  'Minding my own business here.'

  'You seem to be minding my fucking business. And you' – to the barmaid – 'get me a fucking lager.'

  Delaney sighed and flashed her a sympathetic smile.

  'Sorry about this.'

  The big man's eyes widened; he shook his head, disbelieving.

  'You got a problem or something, you fucking Irish fucker?'

  Delaney debated discussing the delicate beauty of the English language, but instead stood up from his stool, picked up an empty bottle and smashed it against the bar. Then kicked hard, very hard, with the side of his foot into the larger man's knee. The man grunted with surprise and blinked. He swayed back, and Delaney flashed his left hand on to his throat, grabbing his windpipe and holding him rigid. Then he moved the jagged edge of the broken bottle towards the drunken man's now terrified eyes.

  'If you wanted to dance, you should have asked nicer.'

  'Please.'

  'Too late for please.'

  Delaney's hand tightened on the bottle, his hard eyes telling the fat man the really horrible nature of his mistake.

  A hand tapped Delaney's shoulder and he turned round to see a smiling man in his thirties. Dirty-blond hair, brown eyes, five ten. He clearly worked out, the muscles tensing in his arms as he balanced on the balls of his feet like a boxer, ready to move.

  'Let him go.'

  The man dipped a hand into his smart leather jacket and fished out his warrant card, which he showed round the room like a warning. Nobody paid him much attention; a fight in the Roebuck was as unusual a sight as a G string in a pole-dancing club.

  'Police. Detective Sergeant Bonner. Why don't we all calm it down?'

  Those who had been watching turned back to their beers, losing interest.

  Delaney stepped back and put the broken bottle on the bar. Bonner leaned in to the shell-shocked drunk, who had fallen to his knees and wet himself.

  'I'd fuck off if I were you.'

  The man needed no second telling and limped as quickly as he could to the door. Bonner nodded at Delaney.

  'Cowboy.'

  'Sergeant.'

  Bonner spun the broken bottle on the counter.

  'Irish party games?'

  'Something like that.'

  'You're going to have to come with me, I'm afraid.'

  'Ah, Jesus. Come off it, Eddie.'

  'Out of my hands.'

  'Don't tell me it's that prick Hadden again. What are you doing, Sergeant Bonner, kissing arse and running errands for that slag now?'

  'It's not about the missing cocaine.'

  What the fuck is it about then?'

  'Jackie Malone.'

  Delaney was genuinely puzzled. 'What are you on about?'

  'She's been making a nuisance of herself asking for you.'

  'So? Since when do the wants of a brass like her send the Met's finest out on errands?'

  Bonner gave him a flat look. 'Since the brass got rubbed.'

  Delaney sighed, picked up his jacket and walked with Bonner to the door, Tricia giving him a grateful but nervous smile as he passed. Bonner opened the door.

  'Would you have used the bottle?'

  'Who knows? I try to live in the present.'

  Bonner shook his head. 'You know your trouble, Delaney?'

  'Yeah.'

  And he did.

  3.

  Bonner shifted gear and his fifteen-year-old Porsche Carrera growled slowly through the traffic. Camden Town on a hot and busy Monday night was not where he wanted to be, not on any night in fact, but getting out of there quickly was a different matter. The streets were clogged with drunken people lurching from pub to pub to the kebab shop and burger bars. The heat wave London was in the middle of was showing no signs of abating, and the world and his wife seemed to be taking their pleasures al fresco.

  Bonner cranked the window handle on his door to let a bit of breeze in, and looked over at Delaney, whose dark eyes glittered with the yellow flash of the passing street lights. Christ, he looks like a wolf, he thought, and shuddered it away.

  'Where you been, Cowboy?'

  'Here and there. You know . . .'

  'No.'

  'What happened to Jackie Malone?'

  Bonner shrugged. 'Just got the call.'

  Delaney nodded and looked away. Bonner kept his eyes on him. 'It wasn't just her. Wendy was looking for you too. And Siobhan.'

  'I had things on my mind.'

  Bonner nodded sympathetically. 'She told me it was your anniversary.'

  Delaney flashed him an angry look. 'Would have been. It would have been our anniversary. Four years and they're still walking around somewhere with blood pumping in their hearts while she rots to bones in her grave.'

  'You can't blame yourself.'

  'If I wanted to talk about it I would have gone to confession, Sergeant.'

  'Yeah. You'd go to confession and I'd cut my penis off and call myself Madeline.'

  'Could get yourself promoted that way.'

  Bonner slammed the palm of his hand hard on the horn as a couple of women stumbled in front of the car. A blonde and a brunette, pissed. The women peered through the windscreen and cracked their lipstick in seductive appreciation, the blonde raising a bottle of strong cider in a toast.

  'You boys want to party?' Irish accent.

  'One of yours, Cowboy. From the land of Sodom and Begorrah. Want to stop and play with the colleens?'

  Delaney looked across at him without answering.

  'That's right, you're wanted in a murder investigation. Murder, another thing your countrymen specialise in.' He edged the car forward, spilling the blonde to a laughing heap on the pavement. The brunette helped her up and, slack-kneed and laughing like donkeys, they linked arms and headed into the nearest pub.

  'Murder and prostitution. The Emerald Isle's most popular exports . . . short of the black stuff, of course.'

  'One of these days, Sergeant Bonner, someone is going to shut your mouth permanently.'

  Bonner laughed, genuinely amused. 'I know plenty of people would like to, and frankly I can't say I blame them, but if you don't have a sense of humour, how are you going to survive in this wicked world?'

  'Maybe you aren't going to.'

  'Oh, I'm a born survivor, me. The original cat with nine lives.'

  'Jackie Malone thought she was indestructible too.'

  Bonner looked at him shrewdly. 'She tell you that, did she? In an intimate moment.'

  Delaney ignored him, yawned and looked out of the window as the Porsche picked up speed and headed west. Bonner flicked another sideways glance at him, trying to read him. Failing. He carried on anyway.

  'Of course death can be an intimate moment, can't it, Cowboy? She breathes out, you breathe in. But she doesn't. Again. Ever. And that last breath of
hers . . . you can almost taste the departing life. The smell of her. The heat leaving her body. Her muscles relaxing.'

  He shook his head and looked across again with a dry smile.

  'What do you reckon, Cowboy? Almost better than sex?'

  4.

  Ladbroke Grove. West London. Parts of it were pleasant; upmarket professionals who couldn't quite make Holland Park lived there. Tall Victorian townhouses stocked with Jennifers and Nigels. Vivaldi and Bruckner floating through the still air on hot summer nights, with talk of options and opera and immigration laws. Parts of it weren't so pleasant. Flats and houses stocked with students, drug-dealers, prostitutes, and script editors who worked at the BBC's Television Centre up the road in Shepherd's Bush. Delaney got out of the car and wondered which of them was worse.

  Across the road the entrance to a large townhouse converted to a block of flats was sealed with yellow tape and guarded by uniformed police. A young female constable with honey-blonde hair stood more upright, flexing her spine with an almost feline sensuality, and smiled as Delaney approached. Her last day in uniform; she was due to transfer to CID soon as part of her graduate fast-tracking and was keen to impress.

  'Good evening, Inspector.'

  'Sally.' Delaney gave her a nod and a quick smile. Time was he'd have stopped and chatted with her. She was an attractive young woman and he'd have flirted with her, as sure as sin, even as a married man. Harmlessly of course; he'd loved his wife. Before he was married, however, it would have been an entirely different matter. A lot of people on the force thought it a bad idea to dip the pen in company ink. Delaney hadn't been one of them. His pen had written far, far more than custody reports over the years. But that was then. Delaney was now in a world that had no joy in flirting. He walked up to the front door, letting out a long breath.

  Time to go to work.

  He put his hands in his pockets and walked into the hallway, barely registering the curious gazes and nods from the uniformed police who guarded the crime scene.