'It's not all right, Miss Jones. I will not have members of the press treated in such a cavalier fashion in my station. Your cameraman has told me how you were manhandled, Miss Jones.'
'A small misunderstanding.'
Delaney held his boss's gaze. 'No misunderstanding on my part, sir. I don't care if she's press, public or a member of the royal frigging family, she has information on an ongoing murder case then she gets treated just the same by me.'
Napier goggled at him. 'Have you listened to a word I have said, Inspector?'
Delaney smiled sardonically at Melanie Jones. 'I'm just doing my job, sir.'
'Wait outside, Delaney. I'll speak to you later.'
Delaney nodded pointedly at the reporter then walked out, closing the door loudly behind him, and took a moment to compose himself. He'd have liked to have gone back inside and slapped his boss but he knew what the consequences would be, and although in times recently past he wouldn't have much cared, right now he needed his badge and the authority it brought. He still had personal matters to take care of and his warrant card was going to help do just that.
He walked through to public reception area where the long-haired cameraman was watching him with a smug and amused expression on his face as he lounged against the counter. 'Your boss had a word with you, did he?'
Delaney walked up to him, the smile on his lips far from friendly. He grasped the camera out of his hands, slid the broadcast-quality Betacam tape out of it and put it in his jacket pocket.
The cameraman was outraged. 'You can't do that!'
Delaney ignored him and nodded at Dave. 'Napier will probably be looking for me in a minute.'
'Want me to tell him where you'll be?'
'Tell him I got called away. Urgent business.'
Dave smiled knowingly. 'Have one on me.'
Delaney cocked his finger at him, pulled an imaginary trigger and headed towards the entrance.
The cameraman called after him. 'Oi!'
Delaney ignored him, walking outside and closing the door behind him, silencing the cameraman's outraged protests.
He looked up at the sky and thought about what Melanie Jones had told him. The moon was low in the sky, leaking a sulphurous light over the dark car park; a few clouds scudded over it as he watched, throwing a shadow over his face, but his eyes still glittered.
Derek Watters had been a prison officer for twenty-two years and married for twenty-three. He had left school at the age of sixteen and worked in a number of different jobs over the next year or so, never really settling into any of them. But after walking into a recruiting office, he had decided that when he turned eighteen he was going to join the army. His mates threw him a big party at the local pub, the Roebuck, to celebrate his eighteenth and give him a bit of a send-off before he took the Queen's shilling. Derek's mates had all had a whip-round and organised for a strippergram as well. A girl whose real name was Audrey but was calling herself for the purposes of erotic entertainment Sergeant Sally Strict. She was nineteen, dressed in a policewoman's outfit and had breasts like coconuts, the young Derek Watters had thought. Heavy, full, magnificent. Exotic fruit indeed.
Derek had always been more of a headlamps than a bumper man, still was. And Audrey's headlamps on that night dazzled him. Literally. She'd made him walk around the pub on all fours barking like a dog and then given him eighteen lashes with a soft suede whip. One for each of his years. Then given him his birthday treat. She hadn't done a full strip, she was just a fun telegram girl she'd said. But she had gone topless and let him cradle his face in her ample bosom. It was the best night of Derek's life thus far.
