We’re done here.’
As Delaney put his hand on the door handle Garnier called after him.
‘Look after your girls, Jack. They’re a precious gift … But you know that, don’t you?’
Delaney could hear the catch in the man’s voice. He looked back at him, could see Garnier’s wet-eyed stare fixed on him now, one hundred per cent focused.
He shook his head. ‘You’re not worth the spit.’
And Garnier sat back in his chair and smiled. ‘You don’t know, do you? You really don’t know.’
Delaney went through the door and closed it behind him. The guard threw him a questioning look, checking if everything was okay, as he turned the key in the door. Delaney nodded but as the guard locked the door Delaney felt a shivering unease run through his nervous system, like the ghost of a malarial sickness long ago cured. He took a couple of deep breaths and ran his hand across his forehead, damp now with perspiration. He put a hand against the wall and took in some breaths.
The other guard looked him. ‘Everything okay?’
‘Yeah. Just need a cigarette. Some fresh air.’
‘I know what you mean. I had my way, Peter Garnier would have been flushed a long time since.’
The first guard tested that the door was secure and turned to Delaney. ‘He tell you where the bodies were buried?’
‘No.’
‘What did he want, then?’
‘To give me his views on God, the universe and family life.’
‘Funny how they all find God when it comes near their turn to meet him.’
‘He could have years ahead of him but his kind have always found God long before that sort of need.’
The guard looked at him quizzically.
‘Not any kind of God you and I would recognise. The kind that lives in their heads and puts rat poison in their veins.’
Delaney looked at his own arm, his own veins proud on his hand and forearm, a slight tremor still visible. He fished in his pocket for a packet of cigarettes and gestured to the guard.
‘Take me outside. I think I’m going to throw up.’
*
Kate Walker was standing by the water-cooler in the corridor just down from the CID briefing rooms, taking a long swig from a clear plastic cup, draining it. She was about to throw it in the bin when a medium-height man in his thirties, with short brown hair and amused brown eyes, approached her. He favoured his right leg, the hint of a limp in his left. An accent she couldn’t quite place.
‘Any chance of you pouring me one of those, darling?’
Kate looked up at him, feeling her face tighten as her eyebrows raised. ‘Come again?’ she said, her voice like a taut wire.
‘Thirsty work, being a detective.’ He winked.
Kate shook her head, shrugged and pulled out a cup for him, filling it with cold water. ‘Let me guess. You work in the political-correctness division?’
‘CID, for my sins.’
Kate still couldn’t quite place his accent. A hint of northern in there somewhere. ‘Transferred down from Doncaster, I take it?’
‘My fame precedes me, Doctor Walker.’
Kate blinked again, not managing to hide her surprise.
‘I was told to look out for a strikingly attractive dark-haired woman with come-to-bed eyes and a ready temper.’
‘Is that a fact?’
The detective laughed. ‘Well, no, not really. Bob Wilkinson told me you’d just gone to get a drink of water. Master detective that I am, I worked the rest out.’
Kate laughed despite herself. ‘So you’d be the famous Tony Bennett.’ She pointed at his leg. ‘Invalided out of the horse division, were you?’
‘I took a tumble, all right. But not from a horse.’ Kate tilted her head and sighed. ‘Go on, then?’ She couldn’t bet on it but she thought he coloured slightly.
‘I fell off my pushbike, if you must know.’
Kate laughed and the DI held his hand out.
‘I’ll be all right in a day or two. And I might not be the famous Tony Bennett. But I am one. I blame my dad.’
‘Your dad?’
‘For not telling my mum it was a ridiculous idea. She’s a huge fan.’
