Death Row - Mark Pearson [19]
‘It’s no secret that Peter Garnier had agreed to help you find the missing bodies. It’s been all over the news, twenty-four seven.’
‘It should have been a secret!’
‘But it wasn’t, was it? It was leaked.’
Diane fought the urge to slap her. ‘So who leaked that, and who told you where we’d be this morning?’
Melanie Jones shrugged. Insouciant. She could have been deliberating over a cappuccino or a latte in a Hampstead boutique café. ‘He was arrested further down the road near the Ruislip Lido. There’s acres of woodland all around. I took an educated guess.’
‘Bollocks!’
Melanie was taken aback by Diane Campbell’s response, but only for a second. ‘I don’t have to talk to you. My sources are confidential.’
Diane nodded to DI Jimmy Skinner and PC Danny Vine who had joined the group. ‘Bring her down the nick.’
Skinner smiled. ‘Be a pleasure.’
Melanie glared across at Diane. ‘You can’t do this.’
The DSI smiled. ‘Watch me.’
As Skinner and Wilkinson led her towards a squad car she called back over her shoulder. ‘You’ll be hearing from our lawyers.’
Delaney threw his boss a quizzical look. ‘Good idea taking her in? She’s right – if she doesn’t want to disclose her source there’s not a lot we can do about it.’
‘We have a right to question her.’
‘Yeah, we have that right.’
‘Meanwhile, while she is helping us with those inquiries we can examine the footage her cameraman shot before he was.’
Delaney nodded. ‘Good thinking.’
‘It’s what I’m good at.’
Sally gestured, not quite holding her hand up. ‘Maybe check if Garnier had any visitors over the last few days, too?’
‘Good idea. See you back at the factory.’
An ambulance came into the car park at speed and stopped abruptly, spraying gravel behind it. Delaney turned to Sally.
‘Come on, constable.’
‘Where to?’
‘See if the sniper left any clues.’ He flashed her a sardonic smile. ‘Get out your magnifying glass.’
They stepped aside as the paramedics rushed past with a stretcher. Delaney and Sally walked back into the woods, past the clearing where Peter Garnier had falsely claimed to have buried the bodies of the dead children and further into the trees beyond.
A few steps into the darkened woodland and the numerous primeval ferns seemed to crowd together in a natural screen, the hubbub behind them fading away slightly. Delaney looked back to check his bearing and walked forward, trying to keep in a straight line. Sally followed behind. Mindful of the tumble Delaney had taken earlier, she picked her way carefully through the bracken and over fallen branches that littered the uneven ground.
‘How far away did that motorbike sound to you, Sally?’
The detective constable shrugged. ‘Close. Maybe a few hundred yards.’
‘And the shot? What kind of rifle do you think?’
‘I wouldn’t have a clue, sir. Why? Do you?’
‘Me? Fuck, no! I grew up in Southern Ireland, Sally. Not Belfast. Sounded like a car backfiring to me.’
‘Lucky you slipped when you did.’
Delaney looked back at her. ‘Don’t go paying any attention to what that bubbleheaded news monkey was saying.’
‘She might have had a point.’
Delaney snorted dismissively. ‘If that woman was any more full of shite she’d be a Portaloo at the fucking Glastonbury Festival, Sally.’
‘I didn’t know you were a Glastonbury fan, sir.’
‘There’s a lot about me you don’t know, Sally.’
Sally nodded quietly in agreement to herself. Probably best keep it that way, too.
Delaney walked further into the woods, stopping every now and then to look upwards. After a couple of hundred yards or so he stopped under a group of trees – thick oaks, the boughs gnarled and knotted. He looked upward, shielding his eyes with the flat of his hand, and then down at the ground. Sound was all around them. The sound of sirens in the distance and the clatter and shouts of police, uniformed and plain-clothes alike, as they searched for the shooter. But the sound of the motorcycle had faded away long enough ago for Delaney to believe they wouldn’t trace him. The area