Death Row - Mark Pearson [18]
Delaney cursed under his breath. ‘Look, Mary. I’ve got to go. Something’s come up. Tell her that I’ll be round later to see you both.’
He closed the phone and headed back towards the group, his foot sliding a little in the wet mud and leaves beneath so that he stumbled forward and onto one knee. As he did so a shot rang out, cracking through the air like a shin bone being snapped. Ahead of him Delaney could see the cameraman who had been pointing the camera directly at him stagger backwards as though he’d been punched in the chest and then fall over, his camera crashing to the ground, and the only sound left ringing in the air was that of Melanie Jones screaming.
Delaney clambered back to his feet as Diane knelt down to put her hand on the fallen man’s neck.
‘Is he alive?’ Melanie asked in a horrified whisper, her face now as pale as a dead fish as she cowered on the ground, her hands over her head as though they could protect her.
Diane Campbell ignored her. ‘He’s still breathing. You, get an ambulance!’ she called over to a uniformed constable who quickly pulled out his radio.
In the distance the sound of a motorbike firing up and roaring away could be heard as the armed units set off clattering through the trees in pursuit.
Delaney gripped Melanie Jones by the upper arm and swung her around to face him.
‘What the hell are you doing here, Jones?’
She smiled sarcastically. ‘Oh, I can’t get enough of you, Jack. You know that.’
Delaney shook her arm, not gently. ‘I asked you a question!’
Melanie jerked her chin towards Peter Garnier. ‘What do you think I’m doing? My job!’
Diane Campbell glared up at her. ‘Arrest the stupid bitch, Jack.’
‘On what charge?’
‘Just get her out of here!’
Delaney steered Melanie back to the car park just off the Ducks Hill Road as Sally came across to join them.
Melanie angrily shook Delaney’s hand off. ‘You can’t do this. I have the right to be here.’
Sally looked at her incredulously. ‘You want him to take another shot at you?’
Melanie shook her head. ‘Whoever it was out there wasn’t shooting at me, you bloody idiot!’
Delaney glared at her. ‘You want to watch that mouth of yours, lady!’
‘Or what?’
‘Or it’s going to get slapped.’
‘It’s all right, sir.’
‘Strikes me, Delaney, that if you hadn’t stumbled when you did it would have been you face down in the mud.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘He was standing right in front of you. I told him to get some shots of the hero who found the only child who lived.’
‘I didn’t find her.’
‘You got her out of the car. Garnier must hate you for that.’
‘I doubt he thinks about me at all.’
‘Well, someone clearly does.’
Delaney subconsciously put a hand to his shoulder where he had been shot some weeks earlier and then shook the thought away. The man who had tried to kill him then had been killed himself. Shot twice and then blown to high heaven and hell with half a pound of Libyan Semtex. ‘You’ve probably made some powerful enemies yourself. I’ve seen some of the crap you broadcast, Miss Jones.’
‘Rubbish.’
Melanie tried to laugh it off but her gaze darted around nervously and she flinched involuntarily as Peter Garnier, surrounded by a phalanx of gun-wielding officers, was brought across to the heavily armoured police van that was waiting to take him back to Bayfield Prison.
Sally jerked her thumb in his direction. ‘That’s who he was after, you ask me. Vigilante justice.’
Delaney wasn’t so sure. ‘Shame he was such a lousy shot, then. And how did he know Garnier was going to be here?’
‘I don’t know, sir – how did she?’ Sally jerked a thumb at Melanie Jones.
Diane Campbell walked across to them as the armoured door slammed shut, incarcerating the serial child-killer once more. The sound of an ambulance with its sirens wailing could just be heard now, growing louder. Diane fixed a dark, angry