Hard Evidence (12 page)

Delaney pulled his seatbelt with an angry tug
around his shoulder and snapped it into place.

'Guv. About what she was saying?'

'Just leave it, Sally.'

'I was just going to say, if Jackie Malone was
a friend of yours then I'm sorry. And if I can
help . . .'

Delaney looked at her and sighed, shaking his
head.

'I just want you to know I've got your back.'

'I appreciate it.' Delaney flipped the radio on. A
group of teenage boys were singing close harmony
in a language Delaney didn't understand even
though it was English. He pushed the tuning
button and Johnny Cash came on the air; he was
going to walk the line apparently. Something
Delaney had stopped doing a long time ago.

Kate sat back down at her desk. Collecting
together the glossy photos of Jackie Malone pre-and
post-post-mortem. In two dimensions the
wounds looked worse somehow. Kate knew that
they were inflicted after she had died, but laid out
like that on her desk they seemed too graphic, too
manufactured. Somebody turning mutilation into
an art form, making a statement out of the slashes
and cuts in Jackie Malone's naked body like the
symbols of a grotesque new language. What was it
they were trying to say? she wondered.

Her job was to deconstruct the manner of death,
not the meaning of it, and yet as she looked at the
black-and-white photos she found herself thinking
that she could identify the killer's signature if only
she could understand the language he was
speaking. She could almost hear Delaney's mocking
voice in her head. Could she do her bloody job
or not?

She shivered, despite the heat, and scooped the
photos up, sliding them into a large white
envelope and put them into her desk drawer,
slamming it shut.
Damn the man
.
Damn him
straight to Irish hell!

She ran the back of her hand across her forehead,
swallowing; her throat had gone suddenly
dry. She looked at her watch and decided to break
for lunch. Something she rarely did, usually just
grabbing a sandwich at her desk. But she needed
some air. She needed to get out.

She left the building, stopping to draw in a
lungful of the hot, dry air, and then walked away,
leaving the morgue behind. She felt a slight
prickling in her back and looked over her
shoulder; no one was there, but as she continued
to walk she couldn't quite throw away the feeling
of disquiet. She shook the thoughts away again.
Whoever had done what they did to Jackie
Malone hadn't done it to leave Kate Walker a
personal message, and thinking that they had was
plainly ridiculous. So why did the skin on her back
still crawl?

Delaney looked at his watch, running his sleeve
over his sweating forehead. It had been a long day
but it was still only two o'clock. The sun riding
high in the sky burned hotter than ever. Bonner
carried two large Styrofoam cups of coffee up to
Delaney as he leaned back against his car talking
on his mobile phone.

Sally Cartwright was still waiting at the serving
hatch of Bab's Kebabs, a burger van that to her
knowledge had never sold kebabs, and that was
permanently stationed conveniently close to the
White City nick, in a little industrial park. Roy,
the man who owned and ran the van, was a big
fan of science fiction, apparently, but if there was
a connection Sally wasn't a good enough detective
to find it. Roy was unimpressed as he dangled the
herbal tea bag that Sally had provided into a cup
of hot water.

'You drink this shit and you're never going to
make detective inspector. Black coffee and doughnuts,
that's what you should be having.'

'And you watch too much American television.'

Roy scowled. 'What television should I be
watching? British?'

Sally considered. He had a point.

'Best shows in recent years.
Battlestar Galactica
,
Heroes
,
A Town Called Eureka
. All American.'

'Right,' said Sally, not really listening; she
hadn't seen any of them.

'And look at the garbage we put out.
Cape
Wrath
? Do me a favour.' Roy flipped the bacon
sizzling on his grill, warming to his theme. 'And
don't get me started on
Doctor Who
.' He glared
back at her with the impassioned eyes of a zealot.
'Should have stopped with Tom Baker.'

'Not my thing.'

'Yeah, well.' Roy flicked the herbal tea bag into
the bin. 'What would you know anyway? You're
only just out of school uniform yourself. But if
Doctor Who was supposed to be a grinning idiot
then he would have been written that way from the
start. He's not a bloody
Blue Peter
presenter, is he?'

'I think he's quite sexy.'

'Sexy! He's Scottish!'

Sally didn't have an answer for that so stayed
silent as she watched Roy spear the bacon from
the griddle and lay it across some thick slices of
white bread.

'I suppose next you'll be telling me you want red
sauce with these.'

Sally jerked her thumb backwards at Delaney
and Bonner. 'They're for them. I don't eat bacon
sandwiches.'

'Maybe you should.'

'Why?'

'What is it they say? You are what you eat. And
this is pig, isn't it?'

'Good one, Roy. Tell it to Delaney.'

Roy shrugged. 'Nah. He's a miserable fucker.
Am I right?'

Sally laughed, despite herself. 'You're not
wrong.'

'Never am, me.'

Sally collected the sandwiches and walked away
before he could get started on
Red Dwarf
.

Across at the car, Delaney was finishing his call.
'He can't have just vanished off the face of the
planet. Look harder.'

He folded his phone as Bonner handed him one
of the coffees. 'Billy Martin?'

'Nobody's seen him. Nobody's heard anything
about him. For days now.'

Bonner shrugged. 'He'll turn up, boss. He's a
regular turd. Flush the cistern round the sewer a
few times and he's bound to come floating up
sooner or later, smelling of shit and talking the
same.'

'Later might be too late.' Delaney saw Sally
approaching and changed the subject. 'What have
you got for me on Candy Morgan?'

Bonner looked puzzled. 'Nothing. You told me
to—'

Delaney held up his hand to cut him off as Sally
joined them, holding out the sandwiches.

'Didn't know if you wanted sauce but he put it
on anyway.'

Delaney took a sandwich and nodded at
Bonner. 'You hear anything, call me first.' He
turned back to Sally as he opened the passenger
side of the car. 'You can drive.'

'Where are we going?'

'Candy Morgan's counsellor. She poked around
in her head for long enough, apparently; let's see
if she found anything useful in there.'

'Guv.'

Sally got into the car as Delaney took a bite of
his sandwich and chewed happily. In his opinion
Roy, the science-fiction-obsessed burger boy, was
an irritating feck. But he could cook a bacon
sandwich.

He swallowed the mouthful, but as he thought
about where Billy Martin might be, his hunger was
suddenly gone. He thought about Jackie Malone
lying on the morgue table, and then guiltily he
thought about Kate Walker too. Thought about her
long, shapely legs. Thought about her dark,
luxuriant hair, the way she tossed it angrily back,
the flash of her eyes and the soft curve of her bloodred
lips. And despite himself he smiled.

Kate felt rather than saw the movement. She spun
around, her arm flying up, palm forward, instinctively
defensive. The blow glanced off her
forearm, sliding painfully across her elbow. She
gasped but didn't let the pain stop her from
completing her spin, taking her out of harm's way.
She centred herself and lashed out with her right
foot, the kick reaching high to slam into her
assailant's head.

The other woman was tall – at five ten she had
a good couple of inches on Kate – but years of
yoga had made Kate more than flexible, and there
was anger behind the kick. The taller woman
grunted, taken unawares, and dropped to her
knees. Kate pulled back her hand, making an
upside-down fist, her other hand held palm down
to the side of her waist, and stepped up as her
opponent fought to catch her breath. Their eyes
locked as Kate readied herself.

'Enough.' The woman held up a hand. 'For
Christ's sake, Kate, that felt like you meant it.'

Kate grimaced apologetically and held out a
hand to help her up. 'Sorry, Jane. Didn't mean to
knock you over.'

Jane laughed, wincing with pain. 'I'd hate to be
here when you did.'

'Want to call it a draw?'

'I want to call it a day. This body is getting too
old for this kind of abuse.'

Kate slapped her on the back. 'Rubbish.' At
forty-five, Dr Jane Harrington still had the kind of
body a lot of twenty-two-year-olds would envy.
And as they walked off the exercise mats across
the gym towards the showers, Kate could see that
they were both getting a fair number of admiring
glances. Some of them almost welcome.

In the shower block, Kate turned the dial
medium high and stood under the fierce jets of
steaming water. Her body ached all over, but it
was a pleasant ache, the kind that only came from
hard exercise, exercise that took her off into a
different space and flooded her body with
endorphins. She had always been sporty, even as a
girl, but in martial arts she had really found her
element. The discipline, the focus, the toughness
of mind and body. And she was good at it. That
was important to Kate; she didn't like to be second
best at anything. And the confidence the training
gave her was more than just a bonus. She liked to
be in control of her life, and if somebody meant to
hurt her, then they would find out just how in
control she was. The hot water hammered her skin
and she felt glowing, vibrant. She didn't know
why she let that arrogant prick Delaney get under
her skin, but he did, he always had. She smiled, a
little guiltily, remembering how hard she had
kicked her friend. She was sure that subconsciously
it was Jack Delaney she wanted to be
kicking. It was certainly him who had made her
call Jane and suggest a workout. Sometimes you
just had to burn the negative energy away, and the
dojo was the best place Kate knew to do that. As
a doctor she could see comic irony in violence as
therapy, but it was controlled violence and Kate
was all for it.

Jane held out a glass of orange juice as Kate
walked up to join her at the sports club bar,
dropping her holdall to the floor and taking the
drink gratefully.

'I was beginning to think you'd drowned in that
shower.'

'Was I long?'

'Kate, you are always long. But today I think
you set a new record.'

'Sorry.' Kate clinked her glass against Jane's and
took a long swallow, finishing half of it.

'So what's going on?'

Kate sat on the tall stool beside her and put her
glass on the marble bar counter. 'What do you
mean?'

'You seemed a bit distracted earlier.'

'Distracted?'

'Tense. Preoccupied. You don't usually knock
seven bells out of me. Six maybe; not usually
seven.'

'Just work.'

'Oh?'

Kate shook her head dismissively. 'Nothing
specific, just a couple of cases.'

'Not like you to bring your work away from the
office.'

'It's pretty nasty. A prostitute. She was cut up
really badly.'

Jane looked at her closely as she took a deep
swallow of her own drink.

'You know what I think you should do?'

Kate laughed. 'Come and work with you, I
suppose?'

'I know your job isn't doing you any good.'

'I make a difference, Jane.'

'You took a Hippocratic oath to save lives. How
is cutting up dead people doing that?'

'Because when I help catch a murderer and put
them away, it stops them from killing again.'

Jane was unconvinced. 'Killing again? How
many victims that you deal with are murdered by
a serial killer?'

Kate didn't answer and Jane nodded smugly.
'Exactly. You know as well as I do that ninety-nine-point-something
of all murders are committed
by family members or friends or criminal associates.
The serial killer is a myth for all practical
purposes outside of American films and novels.'

'Not true. Serial killing has increased enormously
in America. And what they have in
America always ends up here a few years later.'

'Yeah. McDonald's maybe. And indoor bowling
alleys and nude beach volleyball. But the Fred
Wests and the Nilsens and the Shipmans, they're
rare. They're nothing to do with some fashion
from America. They make up a tiny fraction of
your work and you know it.'

Kate laughed and shook her head. 'It's the same
old story, Jane. I'm not going to change. I love
what I do. The dead deserve justice just as much as
the living.'

'Justice? You're a doctor, Kate, not a lawyer.'

'Either way, I'm not going to change my job. I
love what I do.'

Jane laughed ironically. 'I hope you make a
better forensic pathologist than you do an actress.'

'Why don't we change the subject?'

Jane fixed her with a look. 'Okay. How's the
love life?'

'What love life?'

'Something has got you coiled up like a jungle
cat stuck in a bathtub of soapy water, and if it
isn't work . . . it's got to be a man.'

Kate shook her head. 'What is it they say? A
woman needs a man like a fish needs a deep fat
fryer.'

Jane leaned in and looked her in the eye. 'Yeah.
Definitely a man. You going to tell me about
it?'

Kate stood up and finished her drink. 'I have to
get back to work.'

Jane called after her. 'Just tell me it's not one of
your clients.'

Elaine Simmons was in her early fifties. Dressed
conservatively in a thick woollen skirt and jacket,
despite the heat. Delaney was used to judging
people by appearances, and he knew Ms Simmons
was aware of it. After all, they both played the
same kind of game. Delaney was used to reading
people so he could help put them behind bars. Ms
Simmons was used to reading people to keep them
out. If asked for his views on the role counsellors
played in keeping crime statistics down, he wasn't
usually complimentary.