Hard Evidence

They arrived at the cemetery five minutes before locking-up time, but there was no sign of Bill Hoskins near the gates or in the parkland. They hurried down the path to the caretaker's hut, calling out his name as they approached. But there was no answer, and no sign of him. As Delaney reached the hut, he could see the door was open.

He turned back to Kate, who had a tight grip on Andy's arm. 'Keep hold of him.' Then he put his hand under his jacket, curling his fingers round the grip of his pistol, and walked into the hut.

There was nobody there. The armchair was empty. A book was lying face down on the floor. He looked around the hut, his professional eye sweeping round and taking it in. It was sparse but cosy. A battered upholstered wing chair. A small desk. A gas ring with an old aluminium kettle on it. A bookshelf with a number of well-read paperbacks. All mysteries, by the looks of them. Andy came into the hut, followed by Kate.

'What a dump. What are we doing here?'

'Shut it.' Delaney opened the desk drawer. Inside were a number of work-related letters from the council, an address book and a home electricity bill. Delaney put the other items back in the drawer and kept the bill. It had Hoskins' address on it.

He turned round to see Kate looking closely at the armchair.

'What have you got?'

'A stain, Jack. It's small and it could be gravy or coffee…'

'But?'

'But I think it's blood.'

Back in the car, Delaney handed the electricity bill to Kate and told her to look Bill Hoskins' road up in the A to Z. Kate flicked through the pages until she found the right one.

'It's about five minutes from here.'

'Good.' Delaney fired the engine up.

'What are you going to do if…'

'If he's still alive?'

'Yeah.'

'I'm going to get him and laughing boy here somewhere safe, and then I'm going to go in.'

He crunched into first gear and spun away, the gravel kicking up from his back tyres like shotgun pellets.

About fifty yards behind them, a grey Volvo pulled out of its parking space, a lot more smoothly, and headed in the same direction.

Bill Hoskins lived in a mid-terrace house built somewhere in the late Victorian era. A lot of the houses in the row were showing signs of disrepair, shabby paintwork, overgrown gardens. But Bill's was neat and orderly. His small front garden as manicured as the cemetery where he worked. Kate watched as Delaney took his finger off the bell button that he had just pushed for the fifth time, and knew with a cold certainty that Bill was never coming home. Delaney shouldered the door open and ran inside, but Kate knew there was no one waiting for him. There was going to be no one to miss Bill Hoskins. He had spent his life looking after the dead, and now his own body had been dumped somewhere, she knew it. Dumped with no ceremony, no respect. Suddenly Kate wasn't scared any more. She was angry. People were going to pay, her uncle most of all.

Wendy was a little flustered as she ushered Delaney, Kate and the boy into her kitchen. 'It's a shame you missed Siobhan. She's at a friend's for her tea, but she shouldn't be too long.' She lifted the lid on her large range cooker and put a kettle identical to Kate Walker's on the hob. Her hand was shaking a little so that the kettle rattled heavily.

Kate watched her. 'I keep meaning to switch mine off. It's been so hot, and I could quite happily survive on salads.'

Wendy looked over at her and smiled. 'I know, it's been unbearable. Seems crazy to keep them on just for cups of tea.' Seemed pretty crazy talking about the weather and range cookers to a strange woman in her kitchen, who had arrived with her fugitive brother-in-law and a filthy-looking child in tow too. She shook the thought away as she set out some cups and saucers and smiled reassuringly at the wild-haired youth standing next to her. The boy didn't smile back. Judging by the look in his slightly feral eyes, he probably hadn't smiled in a long, long time.

'Would you like a tea, Andy?'

'You got any lager?'

'Behave yourself,' said Delaney sharply.

'Or what?'

Delaney gave him a flat look. Andy stared back at him for a moment or two and then looked away.

'Whatever.'

Wendy smiled again, feeling the corners of her mouth as she forced the muscles to work.

'I've got a Coke.'

Andy nodded sullenly. Wendy got a can of Coke from the fridge and handed it to Andy, who took it and sat at the kitchen table.

Delaney took his sister-in-law by the arm and led her into the hallway.

'Thanks for this, Wendy.'

Wendy nodded. 'It's okay.'

'We'll be back for him in a couple of hours.'

'What's it all about, Jack?'

'I want you to look after something for me.' He pulled a letter from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed it to her.

Wendy looked at it, scanning the words quickly. 'What's this? Thirty thousand pounds?'

'It's with my solicitors. It's part of a deposit for a flat. I listened to what you said the other day, and you were right. I need to have somewhere that Siobhan can stay.'

'You could have kept it in the bank. You don't need cash.'

'It's off the record. Keeps the amount under the next level of stamp duty.'

'Isn't that illegal?'

Delaney looked at her without answering.

She nodded. 'Right.'

'Just keep it safe, should anything happen.'

'Don't say that, Jack.'

Delaney kissed her on the cheek. 'It's going to be all right, Wendy.'

Kate started the car and looked across at Delaney. 'You sure we're doing the right thing?'

'We need to go to his house, Kate. We need proof. Something that will stand up in court. The word of that kid isn't enough. He's a thirteen-year-old child but he's already a career criminal, and a jury will see that. We need something tangible to tie your uncle in. We need hard evidence.'

Kate pulled out into the road, flipping the visor down. Even at eight o'clock the sun was bright and dazzling as it dropped lower in the sky.

As their car turned left at the end of the road, out of sight, the man in the Volvo that had followed them from the cemetery earlier took off his sunglasses. The scar on his cheek throbbed a little in the heat, the white flesh becoming more and more prominent as his face grew more and more tanned. It was like scar tissue from a burn, and Superintendent Walker ran a finger subconsciously along it, stroking almost tenderly as he looked across at Wendy's house and smiled.

Kate leant on her horn as a slow-moving Range Rover blocked her path ahead. 'Bloody Chelsea tractors. They should have been banned by now.'

'I'd have thought they were just your thing.'

'You'd have thought wrong.'

'Not for the first time.'

'And you a detective, too. You should know you don't judge a book by its cover.'

Delaney turned amused eyes on her. 'No. You've got to get between the sheets.'

Kate laughed, and then her smile faded. 'We're just going to break into his house?'

'Unless you've got any better ideas?'

'We should go in. Put it in the proper hands.'

'I go anywhere near a police station and I'll be in a cell faster than you know it. And by the time anyone listens to you, if they ever do, your uncle will have covered all his tracks. You can be sure of that. There's no one left to testify against him except the boy.'

'And Kevin Norrell.'

'If he makes it.'

Kate looked out of the window guiltily. It would be ironic if she had killed the one man who could have put her uncle away for good.

'Why you, Jack?'

'Why me what?'

'Why you? Why send you the tape? Why was Jackie Malone looking for you? Why are you in the middle of all this?'

'A couple of years ago, little Andy was involved in drug-dealing. Ten years old and working as a delivery man. Deals on wheels. Not uncommon nowadays.'

'What kind of world are we living in?'

Delaney shrugged. 'London.'

Kate shifted gear, crunching the gearbox angrily.

'I was involved in his arrest. He was a kid, so there wasn't much we could do to him. They hadn't yet brought the age of criminal responsibility down to ten, but given his mother's record, he would have been taken into custody.'