Hard Evidence

Delaney would have moved towards him but Karen stepped forward, reaching into her pocket, and stuffed some notes into his hand.

'Come back later, Reginald. Give me half an hour.'

'I can't come back later. I've got work to do.'

'Do you want me to tell Marjorie?'

The small man paled and seemed to deflate somehow.

'There's no need to be nasty.'

Karen smiled. 'I'll make it up to you.'

'How?'

'I'll do the egg custard, no surcharge.'

The small man nodded, pleased, and made his way out into the corridor.

Delaney gestured towards Kate as the front door shut. 'This is Kate Walker. She's a colleague.'

Karen shrugged. 'So why are you here?'

'Don't be stupid. You know what we're here for.'

'She don't look the type.'

'Don't fuck me around, Karen. I can make your life a whole lot more miserable than that loser pimp of yours.'

'He's not my pimp.'

Kate uncrossed her arms. 'You phoned him, Karen. You obviously want to help.'

Karen shook her head.

'I don't want to get involved, Delaney. People are getting hurt all around you. I don't want to end up like Jackie Malone or her lowlife brother.'

'That's not going to happen.'

Karen shook her head, conflicted.

Delaney leaned in. 'It's your choice. You tell me everything you know and I put a stop to this. If you don't, you could be next on their list.'

'They don't know about me.'

'I found out about you. You willing to take a chance they won't?' He reached into his pocket and pulled out a six-by-four photo of Jackie Malone's mutilated body. 'You want to end up like this.'

'For Christ's sake, Delaney, you've made your point. Put that away.'

'Start talking then.'

Karen sighed and picked up the cigarette papers from the table and a small bag of grass. 'Jackie's boy, Andy.'

'Go on?'

'It's all to do with him.' Karen started rolling a joint. 'He was supposed to be with his uncle. Only he wasn't. They had a falling-out. He came back to London.'

'But he didn't go back to his mum?'

'No. You know what Andy's like.'

'Yeah, he's thirteen years old.'

'Anyway, he had mates. A whole bunch of them living in a squat up Finchley Road. All ages.'

'And?'

'And he used to work the begging game. On the streets, down on the tubes. Billy used to organise it. Homeless sign, skinny dog, borrowed baby. You know the kind of thing.'

'I know the kind of thing. So Andy used to beg in the streets?'

'But one day he got picked up by a social centre.'

Kate looked over at her. 'What social centre?'

Karen shrugged. 'Looked after stray kids. Not your usual wagman, though.'

'Wagman?' Kate asked.

Delaney waved Karen on.

'So Andy got taken to a home. Residential. Out in the country, though.'

'Where in the country?'

'Somewhere near Marlow.'

'Henley?'

Karen shrugged again, then lit up the joint and took a long drag on it. She held it out to Delaney, who shook his head, and then to Kate, who smiled politely.

'No thank you.'

'So what was this place called?'

Karen shrugged at Delaney. 'I don't know. Just a big house, somewhere betweenMarlow and, like you say, Henley. But the thing is. It was a set-up. A group of them, all with short eyes. They made films there.'

'Short eyes?'

Karen nodded to Kate. 'They liked children. Pae-dophiles. Nonces.'

'And what happened to Andy?'

'He got away, didn't he? He's smart, that kid. Not a proper runaway like the rest of them. Christ, he's lived his whole life on the move.'

'I know he's a smart kid, Karen. Are you telling me he did something stupid?'

'Yeah, he did. His uncle Billy found him and made him tell him all about it.'

'And Billy thought he'd earn out of it?'

'Yeah. Blackmail. The cocksucker. But the point is, Andy knew who one of the men was. The one who did the filming. Alexander Moffett. His mum and I were in a porn film he made.'

Delaney nodded, picturing her in a black wig and industrial levels of make-up. 'Melody Masters. Sin Sisters. Right?'

Karen nodded. 'That's right. She'd taken Andy to the set once, kept him in the car, and he saw Alex Moffett. So he knew where he was based.'

She took another nervous drag on her joint. 'Jackie didn't want anything to do with it, though, Jack. And neither do I. These people…'

'Where is he, Karen?'

'Who?

'Andy. Where is he?'

'He doesn't want anything to do with you.' She glanced over at Kate. 'With any of you.'

'You saw what they did to his mother.'

Karen nodded, scared. 'You reckon you can help him?'

'Yes, Karen. I can.'

Karen looked over her shoulder at the closed door by the cooker, opposite the one they had walked in through. She took another long drag on her joint, her eyes glazing slightly but not so much as to mask the fear that lurked in them.

Delaney walked over to the door and opened it. Behind it was a bathroom, and standing in it was a boy with dark curly hair. Delaney immediately recognised him, just as he had when he had seen the film he had been sent. The dark-haired boy abusing a much younger girl. Jackie's son. Andy Malone.

Andy glared at Delaney as he walked into the kitchen, his head held high. 'I ain't coming in with you.'

'What's going on, Andy?'

'Why don't you ask your boss?'

'Who?'

Andy looked at him for a moment. 'Don't tell me you don't know. That pervert Moffett's partner. One of yours, Delaney. Captain Scarface. Why don't you ask him?'

Delaney nodded, his face suddenly darkening like a front of bad weather. He looked across to Kate, who, despite the humid, sweltering heat in the squalid kitchen, had lost all the colour in her own face, and Delaney remembered what Bonner had said about someone on his team having loose lips.

32.

Delaney pulled his seatbelt around himself, jerking angrily as it stuck in its mechanism, and looked across at Kate.

'What did you tell Walker, Kate?'

'Just that I'd spoken to the caretaker. That he could give you an alibi for the…' she looked back at Andy as he glared at her from the back seat of the car, 'for the day of the incident.'

Andy squirmed uncomfortably and leaned forward between her and Delaney, his dirty face scrunched into a frown.

'Where you taking me?'

Delaney looked back at him. 'We've got a visit to make first, and then we'll take you somewhere you'll be safe for a while. Now sit back and put your seatbelt on.'

The boy snorted. 'Fuck off.' He sat back on the seat. 'What are you going to do, arrest me?'

Kate smiled soothingly in the rear-view mirror. 'It's going to be all right, Andy.'

Andy snorted again. 'Get real, Lady fucking Diana. You don't know the guy.'

Kate looked out the window, wishing it were true.

Delaney finally gave up on his seatbelt, turned the key and gunned the engine.

The traffic was bumper to bumper once they hit the main road. It was peak rush hour; cars were overheating and being abandoned, clogging up the roads and slowing movement down to an infuriating crawl. Delaney slammed his hand angrily on the horn, joining in with a pointless chorus of honking that had absolutely no effect. He knew that the cemetery was open in the evenings for people to visit outside of work hours, but it closed at seven and there was only twenty minutes to go.

The sound of a siren joined in with the horns as an ambulance approached, heading the other way. Delaney looked out of the window, watching it pass, and then mentally slapped himself on the forehead.

'You're a doctor. You got one of those green lights, Kate?'

'Yeah, I have.' She reached over to her glove box and took out her flashing green light. She opened her window and put it on the roof, and then flicked the siren on.

Delaney pulled out of the traffic, moving over to the right, and smiled approvingly as the cars ahead moved left to let them pass.