Death Row - Mark Pearson [46]
‘I think we can safely say he didn’t go to Johnny’s,’ he said, taking the evidence bag out of his pocket and handing it over to Duncton.
‘The ground here, sir …’ said Sally Cartwright, pointing to the slope down to the railway tracks.
‘What about it?’
‘Looks like it’s been freshly dug over.’
‘We’ll have the place sealed.’ Duncton reached into his jacket to pull out his mobile phone. ‘Everybody step back. Let’s keep the scene preserved for SOCO.’
He looked across critically at Delaney, who was toeing the grass to clean his shoe.
Delaney ignored him and looked back instead at Graham Harper, his head held in his hands between his knees as he sat on the small porch of his shed, his back rounded, his posture almost foetal as he rocked back and forward, his ragged breath still audible across the distance as he dry-sobbed and choked back tears.
Guilt.
Jack Delaney knew all about that.
*
Archie Woods kept his back tight against the wall of the cold room. As tight as he could, given that his hands were tied behind his back. Not cruelly constricting, not so that the rope cut into his flesh, but taut enough so that he could not free himself. The other end of the rope had been tied to an old-fashioned metal radiator beside him. There was no heat coming from the radiator but he had his warm coat on and his jumper with the picture of a giraffe on it underneath and although he was cold he wasn’t shivering because of that.
He was shivering with fear.
The man sitting in the chair across the room and watching him had flat black lifeless eyes. A small amount of saliva trickled from the corner of his mouth and he slowly raised a hand to wipe it away, the thick veins standing proud from the liver-spotted skin like worms.
The boy would have screamed had he been able to, but a silk scarf had been tied around his head and mouth, forcing his lips and teeth apart and rendering him mute.
He looked down at his feet, one of them still clad in a black and white trainer, the other in a sock that had once been bright red but was now damp with rainwater and spattered with mud. He made a small whimpering sound and closed his eyes as if to dream what was happening away.
The man watched him for a moment longer and then the corners of his mouth moved upwards slightly. It might have been a smile.
The small boy kept his eyes shut, humming in his head to drown out the sound of approaching footsteps.
‘The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round. The wheels on the bus go round and round. All day long.’
*
Delaney stood by the doorway, watching as DI Duncton held up the plastic evidence bag with the single trainer in it. Rosemary Woods already had very pale skin but what colour she had leached from her face as she looked at the bag, her green eyes widening with the horror of what it signified.
‘Is it his, Mrs Woods?’ asked Detective Inspector Duncton.
The woman swallowed and nodded, barely able to speak.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Oh my God.’
She teetered on her heels and Sally Cartwright quickly crossed to take the tall woman’s arm.
‘Oh my God,’ she said again, stumbling backwards to sit back on the sofa.
Her father came in and stood beside Delaney, turning the flat cap in his hands like a guilty schoolboy, his eyes downcast.
His daughter looked up at him, spots of colour returning to her cheeks now. ‘What the hell have you done, Dad?’
Graham Harper looked at her for a moment or two, his eyes wet with grief. He mumbled something inaudible and left the room.
Rosemary Woods looked over at Delaney. ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’
Delaney shook his head. ‘It’s still very early yet. We’re only talking a matter of hours.’
‘He was on the television this morning.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Delaney asked, puzzled.
‘Peter Garnier.’ She pointed to the television set in the corner. ‘He was on there this morning. I made him change channels. Archie wanted the cartoons and I couldn’t bear to look at that man’s face.’
Delaney nodded sympathetically.
‘He’s taken my son, hasn’t he? That man has got my son.’
‘Peter Garnier is locked up