The wind lifted a little, picking up some leaves and making them dance across the grass, and bringing the familiarity of a particular perfume. Delaney looked up to find Kate Walker standing beside him.
'You came, then?'
Delaney shrugged. 'Seemed the least I could do. He took a bullet for me.'
Kate stooped down to lay a wreath by the grave.
'He said there would be no one here to put flowers on his grave.'
Some two months after he had disappeared, the body of Bill Hoskins had been discovered in an abandoned well on a run-down farm near Henley. A young child had gone missing after an argument about being allowed to watch an unsuitable film on television, and every nook and cranny in the area had been searched. The missing child turned up safe and sound, hiding out in a Wendy house in a friend's garden.
Bill Hoskins, however, was found in far worse condition. Two months' exposure in the summer's heat had not been kind to his already undernourished body. The autopsy revealed that he had been shot once, in the heart.
Kate stood up and looked at Delaney. 'Why didn't you return any of my calls, Jack?'
'I thought it best.'
'Best for you?'
'Best for you, Kate. When I saw you shot…'
'I was wearing your Kevlar vest, Jack. You made me put it on. If I hadn't, I'd have been dead.'
'I know. And I'm sorry, but it made me realise. I'm bad news, Kate. You don't need me in your life.'
'They told me you've handed in your notice. You're going to move, is that right?'
'Yeah.'
'Move where?'
Delaney shrugged again, the words bitter in his mouth. 'Out of this city.'
'And there's nothing I can say?'
'I'm sorry.'
Kate looked at him angrily, blinking back tears. She nodded to the open grave. 'Why don't you climb in there with him and be done with it?'
She turned on her heel and walked away. She didn't look back.
Delaney watched her go, a painful knot forming in his stomach. He wanted to call out, ask her back, but couldn't bring himself to do it. He'd been a liability to every woman he'd slept with over the past few years. His wife, Jackie Malone, Wendy, now lying in an intensive care hospital bed. He wanted Kate back, but he knew what was causing the knot in his stomach. Fear. And he didn't feel any better about himself for knowing it.
He waited until Kate was gone from sight, then walked thirty yards in the opposite direction and knelt beside another memorial.
He took a single red rose from the inside pocket of his coat and laid it on his wife's grave. 'I'm sorry.' His voice a pained whisper. Then he stood up quickly and walked towards the gates of the cemetery.
Outside, Diane Campbell leaned back against her car, a trademark cigarette hanging from her carmine lips and a lazy blue cloud of smoke floating towards him on the cool breeze. If he was surprised to see her, his face didn't register it. Campbell ground the cigarette under her heel and snapped another out of the packet, flicking it into her mouth and offering the pack towards Delaney. Delaney took one and bent low so Campbell could light it for him before she lit her own.
'I heard you'd be here.'
'You come to wish me luck?'
'I've come to ask you to take back your resignation.'
'That's not going to happen.'
'You're a good detective, Delaney. You know that.'
'Yeah, I do.'
'We need you on the force. I need you on the force.'
Delaney shook his head. 'Made my mind up.'
'I said I was sorry.'
'Doesn't change anything. This isn't about that.'
'You're absolutely certain?'
'Haven't been more sure of anything in my life.'
Campbell took a deep drag on her cigarette, then looked at Delaney sympathetically. 'There's something I need to tell you.'
Delaney saw the look in her eyes. 'What is it, Diane?'
'The forecourt robbery. The guys who shot your wife…'
Delaney could feel the wind roaring, the blood pounding in his ears as he gripped her arm, tight enough for her to wince. 'Tell me?'
'We've got a lead, Jack.'
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Ancient Mariner, it is told, could fix people with his beady eye in a room and, to a man and woman, they'd listen spellbound to his tale. If I fix people with my beady eye in a room they scatter like the thirteen tribes of Israel. So thanks are firstly due to you, reader, for letting me take you on this journey into Delaney's world. Not, it has to be said, a pleasant world, but made richer by your presence.
Louise Tam ordered me to write this book in the first place, Robert Caskie, the Lancelot of the publishing world, championed its completion and cause, James Nightingale made it far better than it was and Jane Selley polished it up like a shiny apple. Thanks to Caroline Gascoigne, Kate Elton and all the wonderful people at Random House for not booting me out of their door in the first place. And thanks, of course, to Mum and Dad without whom nothing much, least and most of all this, would have been possible.
Lastly, the careful reader may have noted that DI Jack Delaney is partial to an occasional drop of the fortifying spirit, and in this regard I must acknowledge the Wheatsheaf and Lobster public houses, of West Beckham and Sheringham respectively, for the invaluable assistance their excellent staff provided in this most vital area of research.
As for the city, Delaney's London is like a terminally infected, sick man crying out for medical attention. Delaney is certainly no surgeon, but, as Bernard Cromwell might well put it, he will don his gown and march, scalpel in hand, once more.
MP
