Death Row - Mark Pearson [17]
Later they would find the bodies of six children aged between six and ten buried in the ground underneath his garden shed. None of them would prove to be either Samuel Ramirez or Alice Peters.
When Garnier awoke in prison the next day after being assaulted on the common he was arrested and moved to a secure unit. He would never enjoy life as a free man again.
The same day that Peter Garnier was arrested Police Constable Jack Delaney put in his application to join CID.
In the thirteen years since his arrest Peter Garnier had refused ever to disclose where the missing children were or where the girl in the boot had come from.
Five months ago he had converted to Catholicism.
Three months ago he had been diagnosed with progressive supernuclear palsy. A disease which over time could rob a person of the ability to walk, talk, feed themselves or communicate with the world around them. And yet their brain would remain alert.
Fourteen days ago he had agreed to tell the police where the children’s bodies were buried.
*
Delaney scratched another match to light a cigarette and watched as a team of forensic anthropologists excavated the ground that Garnier, after twenty minutes of deliberation, had indicated to be the place where the bodies of the murdered children were buried. Garnier himself was sitting on a fallen tree trunk some twenty yards away. His fishlike eyes watching dispassionately, glancing across occasionally at Delaney and Sally Cartwright. But no emotion showed on his face.
‘Does he know who you are?’
Delaney shrugged. ‘I doubt it.’
‘What happened to the girl you found alive?’
Delaney took a long drag on his cigarette. ‘We never found her mother or father. No relatives at all ever came forward and that degenerate slime refused to say where he had taken her from.’
‘Poor thing.’
‘She didn’t speak for six months and when she did it was in halting English.’
‘Where was she from?’
‘Eastern Europe somewhere. Originally, anyway.’
‘And where is she now?’
Delaney smiled at her. ‘Safe.’
Sally raised an eyebrow. ‘Wherever that may be nowadays.’
Delaney ground the half-smoked cigarette under his heel. ‘True.’
Diane Campbell came storming up, her eyes glittering with anger. ‘Give us one of those, Jack!’
Delaney fished out his cigarette packet again and handed her one. Then he stuck another in his mouth, smiling wryly. ‘I guess I picked the wrong day to give up smoking.’
Diane flicked her Zippo lighter under his cigarette. ‘Jack, you picked the wrong fucking life!’
Delaney nodded towards Garnier. ‘Anything?’
Diane Campbell shook her head derisively. ‘He’s just pulling on our chain. The sick bastard. He’s jerking us around – depend on it.’
‘Why now, though?’ Sally asked. ‘After all this time.’
Diane shot her a look. ‘The guy rapes and strangles young children. You want to try climbing in his shit-soup of a brain and make sense of what motivates him?’
Sally shrugged, conceding the point. ‘I guess not.’
Diane blew out another angry breath of smoke. ‘Who the fuck knows? Maybe he’s developed a conscience.’
‘Yeah, and maybe you’ve grown a pair of balls, Diane,’ said Delaney.
Diane looked back at him coolly. ‘Remember I’m still your boss, cowboy.’
Delaney considered it for a moment. ‘That’s right … you’ve always had balls.’
His mobile phone rang, muffled in his jacket pocket. Delaney took it out, looked at the caller ID and walked away to answer it, his voice barely more than a whisper.
‘Hi, Mary. How is she?’
He nodded, listening. ‘Has she remembered anything else …?’ Delaney put his other arm out and leaned against a tree. ‘No, there’s nothing here. I think he’s just playing mind games with us.’
A loud commotion sounded behind him and he looked across as a couple of uniforms started shouting and running over with their