Hard Evidence

Andy bared his crooked teeth. 'You told me you weren't there when my mum was killed. You lied to me.'

Walker slowly lifted the gun again, but before he could point it, Delaney reached for his own gun and fired, shattering Walker's right elbow. Walker fell back against the wall, grunting with pain like a wounded animal as his gun fell harmlessly to the floor.

Delaney looked back at Kate, who lay motionless on the floor, her arms outspread and her hair fanned out in a monstrous echo of his dead wife. A monstrous echo of his own fault, his own culpability. People who got close to Jack Delaney got hurt. Wasn't that what Karen Richardson had said? He swallowed hard and turned his pistol back to Walker, who was on his knees now, gasping with agony. He levelled his gaze into Walker's pleading eyes.

'Don't do it, Delaney. Please don't do it.'

Delaney brought the gun up and pointed it at Walker's face.

'Jack?'

Jack looked up at Father O'Connell. 'Was your mind wandering, boy?'

'No, Father.'

Father Connell walked back from the cabinet he had just crossed to and held up what was in his hands. 'Do you know what this is, boy?'

'Yes, Father.'

'This is the communion wine, is it not?'

'So it is, Father.'

Father O'Connell nodded. 'So it is. And would it be a sin, do you think, to be drinking it?'

Jack nodded, his face flushed as he realised that Father O'Connell was getting down to the serious business now, and squirmed a little in his chair.

'Yes, Father, I suppose it would be.'

Father O'Connell looked at Jack for a while, making Jack squirm even more under the relentless gaze. Then he raised the bottle to his lips and took a long swallow.

'Does that make me a sinner then, Jack?'

Jack was confused; he didn't know what to say. Father O'Connell put the bottle of wine on the table and sat opposite him again.

'Are you familiar with the story in the Bible of the wedding at Cana?'

Jack considered for a moment; he was sure he ought to be, it did sound kind of familiar, but he didn't want to be caught in a lie.

'I'm not sure, Father.'

'The one about Jesus at a wedding feast, when they run out of wine and Jesus turns the water into wine. Do you remember that one?'

Jack smiled. 'Yes, Father. Dad's always saying it would be a handy trick to have, especially round Christmas.'

'So you mind the facts? Jesus took a pitcher of water and turned it into wine for the guests and himself to drink.'

'Yes, Father.'

Father O'Connell leaned in again, all good humour leaking from his face. 'So was Jesus a sinner too?'

Jack was thoroughly confused now; he shook his head, not trusting himself to say anything, but he had to try.

'But that wasn't the communion wine.'

Father O'Connell pointed to the bottle on the table. 'That's just a bottle of wine; it hasn't been consecrated. It was a sin for you to drink it, because you stole that drink. But in the main scheme of things it's not such a big sin, is it?'

Jack shook his head, confused. 'No, Father.'

'So what's the importance of the wine, do you think, Jack.'

'I don't know.'

'The point of it is that we all have choices to make, Jack.'

'Choices?'

'Between good and evil.'

'Do you mean like between the Devil and Jesus, Father?'

'It comes back to the wine, you see. When this wine has been consecrated, it becomes the blood of Christ, and you know what that means?'

'Yes, Father.' It had not been so long since his First Holy Communion, after all.

'I don't suppose you do. But I'll tell you. What it means is eternal life, boy. Jesus is the best wine saved till last. By embracing him in the holy communion, he becomes part of you and you become part of him.'

'Yes, Father.'

'It is your choice to make. Throughout life, you are going to have all kinds of choices. Because just like you can choose to be part of Jesus, you can choose the other too. Because when I said that the Devil walks and breathes and lives amongst us, I meant that the Devil is human. He's not a mythical beast with horns and a red tail who lives in the pit of hell.'

'He isn't?'

'No, son. He lives in Ballydehob or Luton. In New York or Bombay or Islamabad. He's us. He's you or me, if you let him be. Do you understand?'

'I think so, Father.'

'So you have a choice to make now. You can go on stealing wine and getting into fights and trouble and bit by bit letting the Devil into you. Or you can choose not to.' The old man leaned in and looked him in the eye. 'Because in the end, choices are the only thing we've got. They make us.'

Delaney swallowed hard and looked at the man who knelt before him. He looked into his pleading eyes, heard the sore gasp of his laboured breathing and remembered his wife as her support machine was switched off, her mechanical breathing as laboured as that of the man in front of him. He remembered his own unbearable pain as the heart monitor line went flat; he thought of the fear in his daughter's eyes; he remembered the cut and mutilated body of his friend Jackie Malone; and finally he thought about the shots fired into Kate Walker's body. He pictured the closing of her eyes, and her body stilling as it lay on the floor, discarded by the man in front of him as carelessly as someone dropping litter in the street, and he stepped forward, centering the gun on the man's forehead, pressing the cold metal into his sweating skin. And he made his choice.

'Please.' Tears formed in Walker's eyes.

Delaney lowered the gun.

Walker sobbed as his body crumpled with relief. 'Thank you.'

Delaney shook his head coldly. 'Don't thank me. Where you're going, when they found out who and what you are, you'll wish I had killed you.'

Walker collapsed back against the wall and Delaney turned to Andy. 'Thanks.'

Andy looked blankly at Walker. 'He lied.' He turned and smiled at Siobhan, and another cold chill ran through Delaney's heart. 'And I like your daughter.'

Delaney picked up his sobbing child and held her in his arms, unable to stop the tears that stung his eyes and ran down his cheeks as he looked at the still body of Kate Walker.

33.

There was a slight chill in the air, and the young nurse shivered a little as Delaney watched her close the window and angle the slats of the Venetian blind against the still bright rays of the sun.

She hurried out of the private hospital room, leaving Delaney alone with the woman who lay on the bed, tubes coming out of her arms and monitors keeping a constant check on her.

The woman groaned slightly as she opened her eyes and propped herself up on the pillow, focusing on her visitor. She smiled, her voice a soft, croaky whisper.

'Jack.'

Delaney stepped forward and put a basket of fruit on her bedside cabinet. 'Hello, Wendy.'

'You brought flowers last time. You going off me?'

Her voice was undeniably sexy with that husky croak in it, and Delaney laughed. 'Never going to happen.'

'I don't blame you, you know.'

'Maybe you should.'

'We're family, Jack. Never forget that.'

'I know.'

'What's going to happen to the boy?'

Delaney looked at her for a moment. 'Nothing good.' He looked out of the window and saw Wendy's husband walking across the car park with Siobhan.

'I've got to go, Wendy.'

Wendy looked puzzled. 'You just got here.'

'I know. I've got a funeral to go to.'

Delaney walked towards the door.

'Jack.'

He turned back as Wendy flashed him a sympathetic smile.

'I'm sorry about what happened. But you can't stop taking care of yourself. Not now.'

Jack didn't reply; just nodded and left the room.

Two o'clock in the afternoon, north-west of London. Some trees still had a thick coat of green with flashes of gold here and there, while the top branches of others stretched out like skeletal fingers of coral, scratching the sky, all of it heralding change. That fine line between summer and autumn. A season no longer dictated by the calendar since carbon emissions had made global warming a hard reality. The sky leaked a vivid blue here and there, jagged streaks of pale cobalt showing through an off-white cloth of cloud, and below that were thicker clouds, fat and scudding as the cool winds blew, rattling the dry leaves from the tall trees. Cool enough now so that Delaney pulled his overcoat tighter around himself. A black woollen overcoat to match his black suit and his black tie and his dark eyes as he looked down at the open grave at his feet.