Death Row - Mark Pearson [92]
She hung up the phone and looked across at the bruised face of Jack’s sister-in-law.
‘Your husband has just been admitted to the Royal Hampstead, Wendy,’ she said.
Wendy’s hand flew involuntarily to her mouth. ‘Dear God, no.’
Kate nodded sympathetically. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘And Jack?’
‘He’s been arrested. They’ve just taken him down to Paddington Green.’
The colour had drained from Wendy’s face. ‘What has he done, Kate?’
‘I don’t know, I’m sorry. But Roger has been very badly beaten up.’
Wendy ran her fingers through her hair. ‘I’d better go to him.’
‘I’ll stay here with Siobhan.’
‘What about Jack?’
Suddenly there was an arctic frost in Kate’s voice. ‘He can wait,’ she said.
MONDAY
DI Tony Bennett was looking down at Roger Yates as he lay wheezing painfully on his hospital bed. A thick bandage ran across his nose, above which two bloodshot eyes blinked painfully from a panda-like face. His lips were cut and scabbed. To Bennett’s mind he looked like he’d walked into a threshing machine. Maybe he had.
The man mumbled something again, a wet bubbling sound that could have been words. Bennett nodded and put his hand inside his jacket. Then he froze and looked across the small ward as DI Jimmy Skinner and Sergeant Bob Wilkinson came in and walked towards them. Bennett turned away from the battered man on the bed and walked towards the door.
‘What are you doing here, Tony?’ asked Skinner, affably enough.
‘Checking up on my own squeal across the way – thought I’d look in on Delaney’s brother-in-law while I was here. Seems like our Jack’s not a man to cross.’
Skinner gave him a considered look. ‘No,’ he said. ‘He definitely isn’t that. But fellow-me-lad on the bed over there is none of Jack Delaney’s doing.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Trust me, Tony. If the Irishman wanted to kill a man … he’d have got the job done.’
Bennett’s smile was devoid of humour. ‘To protect and serve, isn’t that what they say?’
‘They do in America.’
‘Yeah, well, whatever starts off in America … it gets to England eventually, doesn’t it?’
Bob Wilkinson pointed over to Roger Yates. ‘Like Detective Skinner said, Delaney’s not in the frame for this.’
Bennett smiled almost imperceptibly. ‘Is that right?’
‘That’s exactly right. We have a witness seeing Delaney leave and then another man entering the house, with Roger Yates very much alive if not kicking.’
‘Well, this is your case, not mine. I’m sure you’re on top of things.’ Bennett nodded and walked out of the room.
Bob Wilkinson turned to Skinner. ‘What’s that all about, you reckon? Things starting in America.’
‘I don’t know, but I reckon he wasn’t talking about McDonald’s.’
‘Something is not quite right about him, you ask me.’
‘In what way?’
Wilkinson shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He says he’s from Doncaster, for a start.’
‘And?’
‘I’ve got a friend from Doncaster makes glass – for the military, stuff like that …’
Skinner raised an eyebrow as they looked down at Roger Yates, whose eyes were now closed but who was still making a faint bubbling sound with his battered lips. ‘And your point would be?’
‘Bennett doesn’t sound like him. That doesn’t sound like a Doncaster accent.’
‘People move about, Bob. Look at our own Jack Delaney – he ain’t exactly North London born and bred, is he?’
‘And that’s another thing.’
Skinner simply looked at Wilkinson this time and waited.
‘The other day he said he was off for some lunch.’
‘Yeah, not exactly the crime of the century, you know, Bob.’
‘Yeah, but in Doncaster – that’s South Yorkshire, that is – they don’t go for lunch, see?’
Jimmy Skinner nodded. ‘That’s right, it’s part of their religion,’ he said sarcastically. ‘That’s why they are the slimmest people in the country. The whippet people of England.’
‘You’re missing my point. They go for lunch all right, but they call it dinner. Do you see what I’m saying?’
‘Not really, Bob. Let’s see if we can get some more sense out of Roger Yates here, shall we?’
Jimmy Skinner listened to the burbling sound coming from the assaulted accountants lip’s and very much doubted that