Hard Evidence

'What did you do?'

'I did a deal. He gave me the name of a major player and I covered up his involvement. He wasn't charged.'

'I see.'

'But even though he was a kid, he still put some major names in the frame. I promised Jackie I'd look out for him. She put him on the road with her older brother, a traveller, for a few years. Figured if they couldn't find him they couldn't hurt him.'

Kate looked at him for a moment as they paused at a red traffic light.

'She was your friend?'

Delaney nodded angrily. 'Yeah. She was my friend.'

'And then Andy came back to London?'

'Yeah.'

'Is it safe to leave him with Wendy and Siobhan?'

'She'll take care of him.'

Kate looked at him pointedly. 'I wasn't talking about Andy being safe.'

Delaney shook his head. 'He may be all kinds of stupid, Kate. But he's not that stupid.' He pulled out his pack of cigarettes and took one out. The last one. He looked over at Kate and held it up. 'Do you mind?'

'Did your wife like you smoking?'

Delaney was taken aback. If anybody else had asked that question, he would have snapped back at them that it was none of their goddam business. He didn't talk to anybody about his wife, apart from his daughter and his sister-in-law. Strangely, though, he didn't feel like making a smart defensive remark. He felt like talking to her about it. And he wasn't sure what that meant at all, apart from the fact that Kate reminded him of Sinead. Not just the looks, although the long dark hair was hers, and the intelligence in the eyes. It was more the comfort he felt with Kate now; he could be himself, and what was more surprising to him was that he did want to be himself again.

He smiled. 'She asked me to give up shortly after we became engaged.'

'And did you?'

'She never saw me smoke a cigarette after.'

Kate laughed and said again, 'And did you?'

'No. I never did.' He looked thoughtfully out of the window. 'Right up until the day she died.'

Kate flicked a sympathetic glance sideways at him.

'I don't mind.'

Delaney nodded and opened the passenger window. As it slid electronically down, the heat burst in. Delaney flicked the unlit cigarette out of the window and pushed the button to close it.

'Do you mind Siobhan staying with your sister-in-law?'

'It was the best thing for her at the time.'

'And now?'

'Maybe it still is. I've been looking to buy a place of my own again.'

'You're renting?'

'I sold the house. Pretty much everything in it. At the time it seemed like a good thing to do.'

'You don't feel that way now?'

'You can't just sell your memories.'

Kate nodded, lost in her own thoughts. 'Maybe you shouldn't try.'

Delaney nodded. 'It was Siobhan's house too.'

Kate suddenly looked back at the road. 'Shit!' She flicked her indicator and pulled the car to a squealing stop at the side of the road.

'What are you doing?'

'Why weren't there any police, Jack?'

'What do you mean?'

'At Wendy's. There should have been police. Looking for you. Watching the house. We didn't see any.'

'We wouldn't.'

'They would have left someone somewhere, wouldn't they? Keeping surveillance.'

Delaney nodded darkly. 'Unless they'd been called off.'

He pulled out his mobile phone. 'Turn it round, Kate.'

But Kate was already way ahead of him as Delaney made the call.

Wendy's eyes were wide with terror. She tried to cry out, but the best she could manage was a low whimper. She twisted her neck painfully, her face scraping on the polished oak of her hallway floor, the familiar smell of Mr Sheen clogging her nostrils. She coughed, choking as the gag in her mouth tightened, and tried to breathe deeply through her nose, willing herself not to panic, trying to calm the voice that screamed in her head. Walker looked down at her dispassionately and nodded to the boy with the thin rope in his hands.

'Tie it tighter, Andy.'

Andy tightened the rope that held the gag in place and pulled Wendy's mouth into a rictus grin. Like Billy Martin and Jackie Malone, Wendy's hands and feet had been tied with coat-hanger wire, wound round and twisted hard so that it bit cruelly into her tender flesh.

Walker patted Andy fondly on the head and smiled like a teacher watching a favourite pupil apply a lesson well learned. Andy tied off the knot on the rope, careless of any discomfort he was causing Wendy.

Walker looked around angrily as the shrill ringing of the phone echoed loudly in the hallway. He looked down at the large Sabatier chef's knife he held in his hand. Twelve inches of broad steel with a solid wooden handle.

'Time to put her away, Andy.'

The smile on Andy's face sent a chill through Wendy as her eyes, stark with fear, watched the steel blade rise. Roger had bought a set of them for her birthday one year. Something she had never forgiven him for. There were lots of things to forgive him for, she realised, lots of things over the years: too many golf trips with the boys, too many late business meetings, too many thoughtless comments, too many times she just wasn't noticed, or appreciated, or loved enough. Too many times she didn't feel special in his eyes. She never made her husband's eyes light up the way Delaney's did when he saw her sister, she knew that, but she loved her husband in her way, and in the terror of her situation she realised that even if she wanted to forgive him all those things, there wasn't any time left.

The phone rang again. Echoing off the quarry-stoned floor of the kitchen like an alarm.

Walker slashed down with the knife. Cold. Clinical.

*

Delaney clicked the red button on his mobile and selected another number.

'Sally, it's Delaney. Is Walker in the building?'

'He left a while ago.'

'You know where he was going?'

'He left a message for you, sir, if you phoned in.'

'What message?'

'He said that before you do anything rash, you should think of your daughter. I guess he's concerned about you.'

'Guess again. I think he's going to hurt Siobhan, Sally. Walker's been involved in this all along. He killed Eddie Bonner, or had him killed.'

'What do you want me to do?'

'I'm going to my sister-in-law's house. You know where it is?'

'You want me to get a team down there?'

'No,' he said sharply. 'I don't want anything rattling him. Don't do anything till I tell you to, okay?'

'Of course, sir.'

'I thought I told you not to call me sir.' Delaney snapped the phone shut and looked at Kate. 'Drive faster.'

Kate floored the accelerator and charged up the bus lane, bumping cars aside, regardless of the damage to her paintwork and the outrage of the other drivers. Delaney gazed ahead, his eyes fixed, staring into a future he would not countenance.

*

The young girl waved goodbye to her friend, who returned the wave through the rear window of the departing car. As she stood watching and waiting for the car to disappear from view, she pulled her New York Yankees baseball cap lower on her head and sang 'Clementine' quietly to herself. The cap was a present from her dad and the song was one of his favourites. He was always singing it, at least, so she presumed it was one of his favourites. And if the kids at school thought she was odd because she didn't wear a designer hat or sing the latest teeny pop idol song, she didn't care. All she cared about was making her dad happy again. Happy like he used to be when she was much younger. The memories of those times were blurred now, but she could remember his warm laughter as he hugged her mother. She could remember the smiles and the music, and now and again she saw flashes of it in his eyes when he laughed at one of her jokes or clapped when she sang him one of his favourite songs. She just wished she could put those moments on pause, like on the DVD player, and keep him happy like that for always.