Death Row - Mark Pearson [51]
Delaney looked at her, amused. ‘Sometimes, constable, I’m not sure I could detect my own nose if I had swine fever and half a pound of pepper up it.’
‘Maybe a while back, sir, when, and you’ll forgive me for saying it, you had that nose permanently jammed in a bottle of Irish whiskey. But not any more.’
Delaney laughed out loud. ‘See? You know people too, and you’re not afraid to show it.’
‘Yeah, well, some people are easier to read than others.’
‘So what’s your take on Rosemary Woods, then?’
Sally frowned thoughtfully. ‘What would be in it for her, if she is involved? That’s what I don’t get. She doesn’t strike me as a foolish person.’
‘Motive, Sally. It’s at the heart of everything.’
‘True.’
‘If we know why then we can maybe get a handle on things.’ Delaney finished his pint. ‘I’m pretty sure the boy’s grandad wasn’t lying to me. That’s about all I know. I’m getting a beer – do you want another one?’
Sally shook her head and Delaney took his glass to the bar. ‘Another delicious pint, please, barman,’ he said without a hint of irony in his voice. The barman grunted and tossed the last photo in the box: a group of quiff-haired men dressed in Teddy-boy suits and brothel creepers by the look of it. The 1950s, Delaney thought – that wasn’t just another country, it was another fecking universe.
*
Jennifer Hickling struggled to breathe but the hand clamped around her mouth was tightening. The woman pushed her back against the wall and leaned in, her voice throbbing with menace.
‘You’re not welcome here, bitch.’
Jennifer struggled but to no avail. ‘Let me go.’
The woman released her and Jenny ran up the road, darting left into Camden High Street.
She took a moment or two to catch her breath but had no intention of going anywhere else. She had a few regulars who were due a little later. Good money for very little work. Just a few hand jobs and one who liked her on her knees down the alleyway she used. But at least he didn’t insist on using a condom – she hated the taste of latex – and was clean and she made damn sure he never finished in her mouth. She knew what she was. She didn’t like it and she intended to change it. Jenny knew what she was, what she’d been made into … but she had her standards.
She looked at her watch and decided to let the foreign bitch have the street for a while while she had a coffee. Wait till the old whore picked up another punter. Any luck it would be a mad bastard who strangled her.
But Jennifer Hickling didn’t believe in luck any more. At least, not the good kind.
*
Delaney leaned on the doorbell again and looked at his watch. He guessed Gloria could be anywhere, and in a city the size of London he had as much chance of finding her without a mobile phone as he had of finding a winning lottery ticket. He hastily scrawled a phone number on a piece of paper with the words There’s a hundred pounds’ credit on it below it. He pushed the mobile phone he had just bought her through her letter box and the note after it. He ran back down the stairs to Sally, who was waiting in the car, turning up his collar against the rain and totally oblivious to the pair of eyes that were watching him from across the street. Angry eyes.
*
Several hours later and Jack Delaney put his hand on the cold glass of the window and looked out of the CID office at the car park beyond. It was dark outside now. The neon lighting overhead in the office was flickering and doing little to alleviate the headache that had been building since early that morning. He opened his desk drawer and brought out a jumbo-sized bottle of Advil that he had brought back from a trip to America. He put a couple of the tablets in his mouth and swallowed them dry. Rattling the few remaining pills in the tub and putting it back in the drawer. The car park was about half full. Some people coming in on shift. Some others leaving. All spare hands had been called to the pump but so far the