Hard Evidence Page 7

  'There was quite severe bruising around both the rectal and vaginal orifices. This would indicate a high level of resistance consistent with rape prior to the murder. And it does fit into the time pattern.'

  'You can't be definite?'

  'Like I said, her job involved a certain amount of specialised activity.'

  Bonner laughed. 'Stick and stones may break my bones, but whips and chains . . .'

  Kate flicked a look at Bonner. 'As you delicately put it, Sergeant, she did work in a . . .' she paused to find the right word, 'niche market. S and M. Sadomasochism. There is scarring and bruising on her body that pre-dates the fatal assault.'

  Kate pointed to areas of bruising still visible on Jackie Malone's body, made more distinct by the cold whiteness of her skin.

  Bonner grimaced. 'She was into being beaten up?'

  'I don't suppose she was into it, Sergeant, although who knows? But I guess that was how she paid the rent and put food on the table.'

  'So the rough sex could have been part of a sexual fantasy enacted by a client prior to her being murdered?'

  Kate gave Delaney an appraising look. 'Some men like that sort of thing, Jack. Don't they?'

  Delaney smiled back, a smile as cold and thin-lipped as Jackie Malone on the mortuary table. 'Why don't you just stick to looking inside her head?'

  Kate broke the look first. She picked up the circular saw again and lowered its screaming blade on to the dead woman's skull. The saw growled as it struggled through bone, the dust flecking Kate's green top and spotting it red with tiny bits of matter.

  Delaney turned away. 'I've got an appointment.'

  Kate watched him as he walked away and turned to Bonner. 'What is it with him?'

  'I don't think he likes your uncle.'

  She looked after Delaney thoughtfully for a second and then turned her attentions back to Jackie Malone.

  *

  Outside in the cool corridor Delaney leant against the wall to stop the earth sliding from his tilting feet, laying both hands against the cool tiles and sucking air into his lungs like a drowning man rescued.

  Gradually the pounding of blood in his ears lessened and the world shifted back on its proper axis. His breathing steadied, and straightening up, he stumbled for the bright sunshine outside. Hot enough to warm a planet but not hot enough to burn the memories clean.

  He looked across the road, through the crowds of walkers and the slow flash of cars, to the kind of modern bar he really disliked, all white wood and chrome behind a big plate of clear glass. A goldfish bowl with alcohol. And visible behind the broad sweep of the counter, shiny steel pipes and amber-coloured bottles that delivered oblivion by the half-pint or shot. He looked at the people standing there drinking, laughing, living in a world removed from pain. And wanted to join them. He wanted to throw down his badge on the dusty tarmac like a sheriff in an old western and leave the suffering and the responsibility behind. He considered it for a long moment, tasting the whiskey on his tongue, feeling the cold Guinness anaesthetising not just his throat but also his mind. The sensation almost willing his legs to step out into the road, but a passing woman stumbled suddenly into him. Slurring an apology, she knocked him back from the road, back from the bar, back to a missing girl and a murdered prostitute. He stood thinking about Jackie Malone for a moment, remembering her laugh. A deep, throaty, entirely infectious laugh. The only woman who ever made him forget his dead wife, if only for a brief while. Then he walked across the road for just one cold beer.

  One and done.

  10.

  Delaney nodded at Dave Patterson as he walked back into police headquarters. 'Slimline.'

  'Cowboy.'

  Patterson looked like he was going to say more, but Delaney quickly tapped in the security code, opened the door and walked up the stairs, not wanting to get caught up in idle chat.

  The CID office was deserted. He hurried across to his desk and sat quickly behind it, looking around to see he wasn't being observed. He reached down and opened the lowest drawer; rummaging under the cluttered paperwork and case files, he found the small black book he was looking for. Jackie Malone's diary. He glanced around again, making sure he was still alone and flicked through the pages, looking for any other mention of his name. He tore out the last ten pages, flicked his cigarette lighter and set light to them, watching the flames lick greedily up the pages, devouring the writing on them. He held them for a second or two and then dropped them into his metal waste bin, watching until nothing was left but feathery ash. Then he put the diary into his pocket and threw some more papers into the bin to cover up the ash.

  He put the bin back in place and looked up at the clock on the wall. Eight thirty in the evening, and not a single response to Morgan's televised appeal. Not one that checked out, anyway. He despaired for the sad lives of people sick enough to prey on other people's misery by making bogus confessions and giving false sightings. As he looked at the second hand of the clock sweep around the dial, he knew that as every hour passed the chances of finding Jenny Morgan alive diminished. It had already been far too long, and Delaney couldn't help wondering if she was soon to be another candidate for Kate Walker's clinical attention. And that was another mystery. Why a woman like Kate Walker should be doing the job she was. She'd had a privileged education, old money behind her; she could have done anything she wanted to do. What made a woman like her choose to dissect people for a living? He stood up and shrugged into his jacket. People like her came from a different place to the likes of him. He'd never understand them and he wasn't going to waste any time trying to change that. Not valuable drinking time anyway.

  Howard Morgan sat alone in his front room. A bottle of cheap rum stood on the low formica-topped table in front of his chair, a glass full of the coarse liquid gripped in his immense fist. He raised the glass and swallowed half of it in one gulp, the amber liquid trickling from one corner of his mouth as it burned its way down his throat, a tear leaking slowly from his scarred eye. He looked at the photo of his young daughter that he had placed on the table and swallowed hard. His broken voice a croak. A valediction.

  'I'm sorry.'

  He downed the rest of the rum and poured the glass full again.

  'I'm so sorry.'

  Night-time again on the river. The heat still hung heavy in the air, like a blanket. The moon, covered with a few shreds of clouds, threw a cold, hard light on the ground below and bounced off the water.

  In the silt-covered reeds a lap of water swelled, sucking the mud from the banks with a wet gurgle and rolling a head that half floated and banged against the bank. The lifeless eyes seemed devoid of colour, the moon reflected in miniature in each iris, the skin white with the texture of rain-soaked cardboard. The mouth pulled back in a rictus of death, the hands held with twisted-coat hanger wire. Darkness fell across the river as the moon was covered.

  A girl's scream hung on the air and was muffled suddenly. A few moments later the moon slid clear of a tangle of clouds and lit the path by the river once more.

  'Come on, love, I've got to get the car back. Move your bloody arse.' The words of young love, post-coitus. A man in his early twenties picked his way along the water's edge.

  'Hold on a minute. I'm trying to find my knickers.' She was young too, pretty and teetering on heels built more for display than pedestrian use. 'I can't bloody find them.'

  'Come on. It's not the first time, is it?'

  And then another scream, of terror now, as Billy Martin leered up at the young woman from the water's edge, like a grey voyeur trying to peep up her all-too-flimsy skirt. The tilting, water-soaked head of Billy Martin. Ex of the parish.

  She ran, still screaming, into the arms of her impatient boyfriend. Gasping for breath, she tried to describe what she had seen, but words failed her. She dragged him back to show him, but by then Billy Martin had gone again. Dragged under once more by the tidal flow, sucked back into the cold and silent embrace of the water's depths.

  11.
>
  Thursday morning. Tempers soared on the Western Avenue as the rush-hour traffic crawled coughing and rasping to a virtual stop, the air thick with fumes and noisy with the angry honk of horns. In the winter the roads were choked badly enough with commuters, but in the summer months, with the added tourist traffic, a journey by car into the capital was made a far from pleasant thing. Ken Livingstone and his congestion charges were as much use in dealing with the problem as a sticking plaster on a dismembered limb.

  The heat was already climbing well into the eighties as Delaney came into the office, yawning and scowling at the traffic noise that sounded through the open windows. He threw his jacket over the back of his chair, ran his fingers through his straggly hair and squeezed his knuckles into his bloodshot eyes. Fishing a couple of painkillers from his desk drawer, he swallowed them dry and grimaced as they stuck in his throat. He poured a long dash of cold coffee from the filter pot into a stained mug and groaned as he took a swallow. It had been sitting there since yesterday, and unlike fine wines and handsome women, the ageing process hadn't improved its appeal. He set about making a fresh pot as Bonner sauntered in, fresher than a Swiss daisy. The DS watched amused as Delaney squinted against the bright sunlight splashing in through the windows.

  'Heavy night, boss?'

  Delaney grunted a monosyllabic reply; truth to tell, he couldn't remember the last time he had woken up without a hangover. He waited for the coffee to percolate through the machine, then poured himself a cup and walked across to Bonner, who was working on Jenny Morgan's laptop computer.

  'Anything back from the techies?'

  Bonner shook his head. 'Nothing new, but I thought it was worth going through it again.'

  'Anything new?'

  'Loads of e-mails to her school friends. Nothing very recent. Nothing very useful.'

  'Chat rooms?'

  'Not that I can see. Certainly nothing from her mails.'

  'Check them all out. One of those school friends might not be.'

  'Might not be what?

  'A school kid, Bonner. Keep with the programme.' Delaney winced, regretting raising his voice.

  'You think somebody might have been grooming her?'

  'The internet. It's a paedophile's paradise, isn't it?'

  'It's every sick fucker's paradise, sir. Tell you what, if porn was petroleum, we'd have engines running on tap water by now.'

  But Delaney was distracted, hooding a hand over his eyes and looking out of the window, watching as a familiar thin red-haired figure walked briskly up to the police station entrance.

  'What's he want?'

  'Who?'

  Delaney pointed out of the window. 'The ginger-haired streak of piss. Jenny's English teacher.'

  Bonner shrugged. 'Maybe he bonded with you, boss.'

  Delaney approached the front desk, nodding at Ellen, the young woman who was manning it that morning, and turned to Terry Collier, who was sitting patiently opposite.

  'Mr Collier. Something else you remembered that you neglected to tell us earlier?'

  'Yes. There's something you need to know.'

  Delaney looked at him for a hard moment. 'You'd better come through then.'

  Delaney ushered Collier into the front interview room and shut the door firmly behind him.

  'If this is something you should have told us earlier and we find her dead, I am going to come looking for you.'

  Collier was flustered. 'You can't speak to me like that. I have rights.'

  Delaney's voice was a whisper. 'You don't know anything about me. You don't know what I am capable of doing. But believe me, if you have fucked us around, I will make sure that you do.'

  Collier blinked and held up his hands apologetically. 'We're on the same side here. We both just want to find the girl.'

  Delaney kept his voice level. 'What do you want to tell me?'

  'Jenny Morgan. She was a member of our computer club. At the school.'

  'And?'

  'And I run the club.'

  Delaney couldn't hide his frustration. 'Make your point.'

  'She had her own e-mail account that she ran from the school. I found it this morning on the computer she used. I came here straight away.'

  'Good.'

  Collier fished in his pocket and produced a piece of paper.

  'I was able to get her log-in details. I'm what you call a super-user. We need to monitor what sites the kids are on. You wouldn't believe what is available on the internet these days.'

  'I think you'll find we know very well.'

  Collier's pale skin reddened under Delaney's gaze. 'We're not supposed to access their private e-mail . . . but under the circumstances . . .' He handed Delaney the slip of paper. 'I came in straight away.'

  Delaney gave him a long, cool look. 'Then you've got nothing to worry about.'

  Collier smiled nervously.

  'For now.'

  Bonner propped the piece of paper on the keyboard in front of him and typed the letters and numbers written on it into the computer. A mailbox appeared and Bonner opened it and clicked on the icon showing the latest e-mail. He scanned a line or two and smiled widely, his advert-bright teeth flashing with pleasure as he read the recent contents of her inbox.

  'Come in, number ten!'

  Delaney leaned forward to look at the monitor. 'What have you got?'

  'Seems like Jenny did make a new friend on the internet.'

  'Who?'

  'Someone calling himself Angel.' He pointed at the screen. 'And she arranged to meet him at Baker Street tube station on the day she disappeared.'

  'What time?'

  'Three forty-five.'

  'Right after school.'

  'Looks that way.'

  'If that's where she actually went, we should be able to get CCTV footage.'

  'Definitely.' Bonner cracked a smile. 'One thing we can thank the terrorists for. So the streak of ginger is off the hook?'

  'Maybe, for now. But he's still wriggling. And that worries me.'

  'Always late remembering things. Telling us stuff bit by bit. Parcelling it out like a soap opera.'

  'More than just that. Seems our English teacher has a bit of history. This isn't his first time in the frame with a young girl. Four years ago he was accused of molesting one of his female pupils. Thirteen years old.'

  'And he's still teaching?'

  'The charges were dropped. The parents' call apparently. But he changed schools anyway. Moved right out of the area.'

  'You think this internet stuff he brought in might be some kind of cover-up?'

  'It's all a bit convenient, isn't it? He tells us he didn't see her leave and then later he remembers he did. And later still he brings us this.'

  'True.'

  'I don't want to let him go just yet. I want you to have a gentle word with him. Keep the pressure on.'

  'Boss.'

  I'll get down to Baker Street, see what the cameras tell us.'

  *

  Baker Street station was one of the first underground stations built in the capital. Beautiful Victorian architecture that served to lift the spirits of the travellers using it. Delaney walked into the main concourse and looked around, the building tugging nostalgically at his memories. Some things had changed, of course; most memorably and most sadly, a fast-food sandwich and fizzy-drink store now inhabited the space that was once taken up by a pub. Many a time Delaney had grabbed a quick pint or two, a pie and a takeaway can before catching the last Metropolitan train heading west.

  'See that, Sally?' He pointed out the brightly lit shop at the end of the concourse.

  'Sir?'

  'Used to be one of the finest boozers in London.'

  'Before my time, sir.'

  Delaney nodded sadly. 'Yeah.' A long way before her time, and the truth was, it was a dive of a bar, but there was no better way to wait for a train on a cold winter's night, or a hot summer's one come to that. He wasn't even going to bother mentioning Ward's Irish tavern that once used to be un
der Piccadilly Circus, in the tunnels that originally housed lavatories. Even more of a dive than the Baker Street bar, the name of which he couldn't remember, but it served a half-decent pint of Guinness and Delaney used to feel right at home there; a whole other world hidden beneath one of the most famous locations in England. A working-class, beer-drinker's haven amidst the horror of Regent Street.

  Delaney snapped out of his reverie. 'Get us a couple of large coffees, Sally, and I'll meet you inside.'

  DC Cartwright nodded and headed off to a coffee shop at the base of the steps leading down into the station.

  Opposite the ticket offices were large, dark mirrored windows with a bench in front of them and behind them a British Transport Police station. Delaney was expected. At one time there might have been some, not always friendly, rivalry between the two police forces, but the terrorists had put an end to any of that.

  He was shown through to a viewing room where a computer and monitor had been set up so he could watch the digital footage from the CCTV cameras.

  A short while later Sally joined him and handed across a large cup of coffee. She sat beside him as he selected the footage from one of the cameras. Baker Street, like all major underground stations, had CCTV cameras recording every square inch of it. They started with the main entrance on Marylebone Road and watched Monday's foot traffic from half three onwards. Delaney stretched the muscles in his back and sat back uncomfortably in the plastic chair, all too aware that they could be there for some time.

  *

  Terry Collier also shifted in his chair, as uncomfortable as Delaney but for very different reasons.

  'For God's sake, you're treating me like I'm a suspect here. I've been helpful. I've done my civic duty.'

  'Civic duty. Do you think that's what this is all about?'

  'Isn't it?'

  'It's about a twelve-year-old girl who's missing from home.'

  'I know that. That's why I came in. I'm her teacher, for Christ's sake. Don't you think I care?'

  'I'm sure you do, Mr Collier.'

  'Of course I bloody do.'