Death Row - Mark Pearson [50]
‘I suppose all the scum have moved off to their next story anyway,’ he said. ‘Shame, could have done with the business.’
‘Nice to see care in the community at work,’ said Delaney, taking his pint.
‘That’s just it,’ said the red-haired barman as he handed Sally her glass. ‘I don’t care.’
Later – but not much – Delaney picked up Sally’s roll. She had eaten one bite and declared it unfit for human consumption: the bread was pulp and the cheese was plastic. Delaney didn’t care, he was hungry. He demolished it in a couple of bites and washed it down with a swig of beer.
He smiled across at the barman, who was watching them from the bar. The man turned around and went back down to the cellar again.
‘Little ray of sunshine,’ said Sally.
Delaney nodded. ‘He surely is that.’
‘So the person who took the little boy—’
‘Or persons.’
‘Yeah, or persons. How would they know where he was going to be?’
Delaney shrugged. ‘Could just have been opportunistic. You know how predators operate. A boy alone. A matter of moments to bundle him in the car and drive away.’
Sally shook her head. ‘It’s too much of a coincidence – that a boy goes missing from Carlton Row the very morning Peter Garnier is supposed to be leading us to the graves of his missing victims.’
‘Archie Woods isn’t from Carlton Row, though, is he? He was just staying with his grandfather this morning.’
‘Exactly.’
‘So what’s your point, Sally?’ Delaney asked as he watched the red-haired barman coming back up the stairs again, carrying an empty cardboard box.
Sally considered for a moment and then shrugged. ‘I don’t know, sir. But there is a connection here, there has to be.’
‘I guess so.’
The barman started taking down the photos that were on the wall and putting them in the empty box. Another proper pub gone, Delaney thought bitterly. They should have binned the banks instead. The government was quite happy to save all the fat cats and their fat-cat institutions while letting the honest working man suffer. Banning smoking was bad enough, now they were taking the pubs away altogether. The legacy of Gordon Brown and his puritanical Calvinist attitude, no doubt, X Factor fan or not.
He realised that Sally was talking to him and snapped out of his reverie again. ‘I’m sorry, what?’
‘I was saying, do you remember that missing child, a year or so back? Turned out the mother and her uncle had her all along.’
‘Yes. Of course I remember.’
‘Maybe something similar is going on. Maybe the mother was involved. She’d taken the old fella’s fags. She knew he would have some stashed in the shed …’
‘Waited for him to leave and then followed him?’
‘Maybe. It makes sense. Only her and her father could have known where he’d be with the boy.’
Delaney frowned. ‘I’m pretty sure the old man wasn’t lying about not realising the boy had been taken. He was pretty eaten up with guilt.’
‘I know, and the mother was absolutely distraught.’ Sally shook her head. ‘You’re right, she couldn’t be that good an actress.’
Delaney sighed. ‘You clock up as many miles on the old shoe leather as me, detective constable, and you’ll realise that people are capable of doing the most inhumane things, the cruellest things imaginable, and lying about them straight to your face whilst crying bucketloads of crocodile tears.’
‘I guess.’
‘That woman you mentioned. How many weeks was she on television looking absolutely distraught and pleading for her daughter’s return?’
‘True.’
‘It’s a sick, sad world, Sally. No known cure.’
‘What’s the point, then?’
‘To ease the suffering. Where we can. When we can. It’s all we can do, the likes of us.’
Sally shook her head again. ‘I don’t believe that, sir. And neither do you.’
‘That a fact?’
Sally nodded. ‘You could take it to the CPS.’
Delaney smiled and took another pull on his pint. ‘You sure I shouldn’t have a word with my cousin about you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I reckon you’d make a better psychologist than a policewoman, Sally.’
‘Rubbish,’ said Sally, quite animated. ‘It’s you who know people, sir. That’s why you are so much better than the