Hard Evidence Read online

  'Maybe it's your upbringing, sir.'

  'Meaning?'

  'All that Catholicism, confessions and all that.'

  'I wasn't brought up among priests and nuns, Sally.'

  'You weren't?'

  'I was brought up by wolves.'

  He flashed a humourless grin at her as he brought the car to a screeching halt outside Morgan's workshop.

  'Let's go and talk to the liar. See if he's ready to make his confession.'

  Inside his workshop, Morgan watched as Delaney and Sally approached. He wiped the back of his greasy hand across his mouth and a flicker of something shifted in his eyes.

  'Have you found her?'

  Delaney shook his head, and the hope in Morgan's eyes died.

  'Mr Morgan. Is there something you forgot to tell us?'

  'No.' He looked puzzled as Delaney leaned angrily in.

  'You told us earlier that Jenny didn't have any other relatives?'

  'That's right, just Jake and me.'

  Delaney leaned in even closer and held a photo in front of Morgan's face.

  'So who's this then, the sugar plum fucking fairy?'

  Morgan blinked, confused, and took the photo off him, his face filling with blood as he looked at it, his scar pulsing and his eyes darting like cold water on hot coals.

  'Do you know this woman?'

  'No.'

  Delaney turned to Sally. 'Liars, you see, Sally. Every damn fucking one of them.'

  Sally looked at Morgan; you didn't need a detector to tell he was lying. 'She's your sister, isn't she?'

  Morgan shook his head, fear in his eyes.

  'Why the hell didn't you tell us you had a sister?'

  Morgan backed away from Delaney. 'Where did you get this? Why are you asking about her?'

  'You admit you do have a sister then?'

  'Not any more! I haven't seen her in fourteen years.'

  Sally stepped forward. 'What happened between you?'

  Morgan pulled his shirt open to reveal the extent of his scarring, across his chest, up his shoulder, up to his pain-filled eyes and forehead. 'This is what happened. She did this to me with a steam hose. She's not right in the head.'

  'What are you saying?'

  Morgan looked at her for a moment. 'Where did you get this photo? What's it got to do with my Jenny?'

  Delaney held up another photo of the pair of them together. 'We think she's with her.'

  'She can't be.' His eyes were wild now.

  'We think she made contact over the internet.'

  Morgan grabbed Sally by the arm. 'You've got to find her.'

  Delaney would have stepped in but Sally held her hand up. 'Try and stay calm, Mr Morgan. We know Jenny's all right now. She's safe. She's with a relative.'

  'What are you talking about . . . safe? She's not safe. You have to find her.'

  Delaney barely kept his temper in check. 'Then maybe it's about time you started telling us the truth.'

  'I don't know any more. I told you, I haven't seen her in fourteen years.'

  Delaney shared a look with Sally. The trouble was, he believed Morgan. He jerked his head for them to go outside, and Sally followed him out as he put a fag in his mouth and fumbled angrily for his matches.

  Outside in the yard, Delaney blew a short burst of smoke as he watched Jake Morgan operate a jack to lift a minivan off the ground. His back and shoulders were burned by the glaring heat of the sun but if he felt any discomfort he wasn't showing it. His muscles were bunched and straining and Delaney sensed that he could probably have lifted the van up with his bare hands.

  Sally looked back at Delaney. 'Jenny's with a relative. I guess that changes everything.'

  Delaney nodded thoughtfully. 'Maybe.'

  'We can stand down the media circus.'

  'This is a relative she hasn't ever met before, who hasn't been involved with her family for fourteen years if Morgan is telling the truth.'

  'And you think he is?'

  'Yeah. I do. He hasn't got the brains to lie to us.'

  'He lied about his sister.'

  'Not really. As far as he was concerned, she doesn't exist any more.'

  'Can't say I blame him, seeing what she did to him.'

  'If she is as unstable as he claims she is, then it's just as urgent we find Jenny quickly. She's still been abducted, that's what we need to focus on.'

  'She wasn't abducted. She went voluntarily.'

  'She's twelve years old, Sally. She was taken without her father's consent; he didn't even know she was missing till the next day.'

  'Exactly. Maybe she's better off with her aunt.'

  Sally looked across at Delaney, biting her lips but the words were out.

  'Sorry.'

  'Don't apologise. My daughter's definitely better off with her aunt.'

  Delaney pulled out his mobile and punched in a quick sequence of numbers, listening impatiently as the phone rang. 'Bonner, where have you been?'

  'Doing what I was told. Looking into Howard Morgan's sister, Candy Morgan.'

  'You've found her?'

  'No. Just found out about her.'

  'And . . . ?'

  'And it's not good news.'

  'Go on.'

  'She's been in the system.'

  'Prison?'

  'Off and on. She's twenty-eight now and has spent a lot of her life behind bars of one kind or another.'

  'Go on.'

  'She turned a steam hose on her older brother for a joke when she was fourteen years old.'

  'Some joke. We've seen what it did to him.'

  'She's not a nice person.'

  'What else?'

  'You name it. She was taken into care after putting her brother in hospital. Three months later she burned the house down.'

  'She's got a thing with heat, obviously.'

  'And knives. We've got paper on her for most things you can think of. Theft. Aggravated assault, mainly on women. Drug-dealing. Prostitution. She just got out of Holloway five days ago after serving eight years.'

  'Eight years! What did she do, murder someone?'

  'Seems like some girl came down from Birmingham and started working her patch. She cut one of her ears off and fed it to her.'

  Delaney flicked another cigarette into his mouth and, crooking his phone on his shoulder, managed to flare a match and light it. 'Nice.'

  'This woman is very far from nice. She served her full term because she took a razor blade set in a toothbrush and sliced a female guard's cheek open.'

  'You think she's got issues?'

  Bonner laughed drily. 'Yeah. Like Myra Hindley had issues.'

  'I meant mental health issues.'

  'She was never hospitalised, if that's what you mean. But this woman obviously gets off on violence. Particularly against other women. Not only that, but she attempted suicide twice whilst in custody. This is far from a healthy bunny here. I'd say we'd best find her quickly, because she ain't where she's supposed to be. Picked up, moved out, no forwarding address.'

  Delaney went to hang up but a thought occurred. 'Any word on Billy Martin or Jackie Malone's boy?'

  'Nothing yet, boss. This case has taken priority.'

  'I want you to keep going on Jackie Malone. And you report anything you find directly back to me. We clear on that?'

  'You got it.'

  'Just to me.' Delaney clicked his phone shut and ground out his cigarette with a sharp twist of his ankle. He looked over to where Jake was lifting off the nearside front wheel of the van, complete with tyre. He tossed it to one side as though it weighed as much as an empty carton of milk.

  Sally saw the concern in Delaney's face. 'Not good news from Sergeant Bonner, then?'

  'Seems like Morgan was right about not seeing his sister for fourteen years. And he was right about something else too: she's a very nasty piece of work by all accounts.'

  'Maybe some girls aren't better off with their aunts.'

  Delaney gave her a flat look. 'Time will tell. Always
does.' He walked across to where Jake was working. 'Jake.'

  The mechanic stood up, squinting in the bright sunlight and shielding his eyes with his hand.

  'Yes, sir.'

  'You don't have to call me sir.'

  'I haven't done anything wrong.' His eyes flicked nervously.

  Sally held her hand up reassuringly. 'Nobody is saying you have.'

  'Have you found her then?'

  'Not yet. Apparently she's with your younger sister.'

  Jake blinked. On a face not normally articulate with comprehension, he looked even more confused.

  'I don't understand.'

  'Candy.'

  Jake backed away. 'She's not coming here. I don't want her here.'

  Sally held her hands out. 'We don't know where she is. We need to speak to her.'

  'I don't want her coming here. She hurts people.'

  'Have you spoken to her recently?'

  Jake shook his head, terrified.

  'Did she hurt you in the past?'

  'She set light to Susie.'

  'Who's Susie?'

  'She was our dog. She set light to her tail and then she burned my brother with the steam hose. She likes to break things. Hurt people.'

  'Have you any idea where she might be?'

  'I haven't seen her since she burned Howard with the steam.'

  'You haven't spoken to her on the telephone?'

  'I don't use the telephone.'

  'It's important if you know anything to tell us.'

  Jake nodded, his worried eyes darting to left and right. 'I do know something.'

  'What's that, Jake?' Delaney gave him a supportive smile.

  'I know she's bad, I know she likes to hear people screaming. You've got to save Jenny.'

  Delaney nodded. 'We're going to do the best we can.'

  Jake grabbed his arm and Delaney was all too aware of the power in his grip. 'Don't let her hurt her.'

  Delaney nodded again and Jake released his hold. Delaney gestured to Sally, and as they walked back towards the car, he had to make a conscious effort not to rub his arm.

  'You think she's going to hurt the girl?' asked Sally as they moved out of earshot.

  Delaney opened the car door without answering.

  'What are we going to do, sir?'

  Delaney could hear the frustration and concern in her voice, and understood it all too well. 'We're going to go to prison.'

  'Sir?'

  'Holloway. The university of hurting people. Find out why she got a distinction.'

  Holloway prison lies north of King's Cross. If you were a hooker working the area round the station, you could probably walk there. If the crack cocaine hadn't rendered you unfit for the journey, of course. The only way a crack whore could make that journey, Delaney thought as he crunched through the gears, was in the back of a police wagon. Knickknack, paddy whack, give a dog a bone.

  Sally was chatting away next to him but Delaney was only partly paying attention. He had made the mistake of asking her what she knew about Holloway, unaware that as part of her degree in criminology she had written a thesis on the role of the prison as a force for the social control of women, particularly as it had notably been used to house the suffragettes. Now she was practically repeating it verbatim.

  Sally had got up to about 1903, talking about when the prison was solely designated for the housing of female offenders, when Delaney thankfully pulled up to the imposing-looking modern building and parked the car.

  As they got out once more into the glaring heat of the sun, Delaney looked up at the blank-faced walls. It was a far cry from the gothic beauty of the original building. This could have been anywhere, Los Angeles, Sydney, Bradford. But behind the modern facade there still lingered a sense of its past. It wasn't hard to imagine ghosts walking at night, and the screams sounding in the darkness, he was sure, would be real enough.

  Sally looked down at the plaque that had been laid in the original Holloway prison in 1852. It read: 'May God preserve the city of London and make this place a terror to evil doers.' Delaney followed her gaze. 'Sometimes the terror in here is better than what waits for them outside.'

  The doors were opened and closed behind them. Nothing much had changed with that over the years. The doors might not be thick studded oak any more, and there might not have been electronic seals and cameras following their movements from every angle in years gone by, but the principle was the same. Once you were inside the prison you only got out when those inside said so. If it was an hour later, or sixteen years later, once the doors had closed behind you, you had no control over the matter.

  Delaney and Sally waited at the reception area until a uniformed guard came to take them to the governor's office. He had kept them waiting for over fifteen minutes but Delaney didn't let it anger him. He knew the governor's job was all about keeping control. Exerting authority and keeping control. They may well have worked in associated jobs, but once that first gate had closed behind them they were in the governor's world now, and if he wanted to make a point then Delaney wasn't bothered. Besides, it was far, far, cooler inside the prison than in the blistering heat outside.

  It was certainly cool in the governor's office. Air-conditioning saw to that, and it was as far removed from its Edwardian counterpart as a century of thinking allowed. The glass in the windows might have been toughened to withstand serious assault but the light they threw into the room was warm and pleasant. The whole room was pleasant, in fact: bright colours in prints and original paintings, a comfortable rug on the floor, modern books lining the shelves that made up one wall of the office.

  Delaney swept his eyes around the furnishings as he sat in the comfortably cushioned chair that the governor had gestured him towards. Alan Bannister was a thin man of six foot four, with receding grey hair and rimless spectacles. Delaney put him in his mid-fifties and figured that he'd struggle to stay upright in a stiff breeze.

  'Are you sure I can't order you some coffee? It really is no trouble.'

  His voice was soft, educated. Delaney couldn't imagine him coping too well if an inmate got violent, but he guessed that was what his staff were for. And some of the lady officers he had seen on the way up here could have scared most of the inmates at Parkhurst.

  'We don't want to take up too much of your time, Mr Bannister.'

  'What can I do for you specifically, Inspector?'

  'Anything you can tell us about Candy Morgan will be useful. What state of mind was she in?'

  'State of mind?' He shrugged. 'She was glad to be leaving. That's for sure.'

  'After eight years, I imagine she would be.'

  'It's not always the case. A lot of our inmates don't want to be released, even if they won't admit as such to themselves.'

  'Institutionalised?'

  'Partly.'

  Sally nodded. 'And partly the friendships, relationships they have built? It's like a family for some of them in here.'

  Alan Bannister shrugged. 'Sometimes it's that. Or it's just because what waits for them outside is a lot worse than the life they have in here.'

  'Sounds like you think it's a good thing for them to be incarcerated?'

  Bannister shook his head, the passion ringing in his voice. 'I don't think that. The fact that they are here, however, is an indication that society has failed them, and by releasing them back to that society we are more often than not sending them into a vicious cycle of abuse and neglect.'

  Delaney held up his hand dismissively. 'Yeah, all the women here are Girl Guides and society has let them down. Which brings us back to the biggest cookie-baker of them all. Candy Morgan.'

  'So you said on the phone.'

  'Was she one of those likely to reoffend? Insti-tutionalised? She was here a long time.'

  'Like I said earlier, the women in here all have issues,' said the governor. 'But Candy Morgan was a particularly troubled soul.'

  'I'd say that was an understatement.'

  'But I had the sense she was hopeful
about her future.'

  'Hopeful?'

  'Like she was looking forward to it. Not just because she would be getting out of prison, but because she had a sense of purpose. That's not often the case.'

  'What kind of purpose?'

  'Nothing specific. Nothing she spoke to me or my staff about anyway. But there was a new sense of excitement about what lay ahead for her in her closing days here. That much was clear. She wasn't looking backwards literally or figuratively when she walked out the door.'

  'Did she ever mention her niece?'

  'Not to me.'

  Delaney was disappointed, but it was not entirely unexpected. 'I understand she had counselling?'

  'It was part of her parole conditions. She served her full, original sentence, but she would have been here a lot longer had she refused it.'

  'Because of the attack on the prison officer?'

  'As you can well understand, we take that kind of thing very seriously.'

  'What provoked the assault?'

  'According to Ella Stafford, the officer involved, there was no provocation at all.'

  'Can we speak to Ella Stafford?'

  'I fail to see how that can help you find the missing girl.'

  'I don't know either, if I'm honest. That's what police work is.' Delaney shrugged. 'Turning over stones. You turn over enough . . .'

  'And soon enough something unpleasant will come crawling forth.'

  'About the size of it. So can we speak to her?'

  'She retired shortly after the incident and moved to New Zealand.'

  'Can you get me her contact details there?'

  'I'm sure we'll have a record. For her pension if nothing else.'

  'We'd be grateful. What about Candy Morgan's counsellor?'

  'What about her?'

  'Can we speak to her? I presume she still works here.'

  'She does, but she won't be able to tell you anything. The women who speak to counsellors have to know that whatever they say is entirely confidential. You can understand that?'

  Delaney let a little anger slip into his voice. 'I understand that a little girl is missing from her family, is in the care of a very dangerous and disturbed woman and we all have very serious fears for her safety.'

  The governor considered for a moment and then nodded, conceding. 'I'll see what I can do.'