Death Row

‘It certainly is.’

‘Thanks, Dave.’

*

Delaney flicked through the CDs lined up in an old three-tiered pine shelf that stood above a mahogany bookcase in his lounge. The bookcase was half empty. It held some cookbooks – the ubiquitous Delia Smith’s Summer Cookbook, Nigella Lawson’s Feast – and the rest was mainly fiction, some crime, some classics. He picked up the best of Dolly Parton and put it back again, finally selecting Gorecki’s Symphony Number Three Opus 36 also known as the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. He walked over to his CD player and slipped the disc in, using the button to skip to the second movement. Some songs were too sorrowful. They seemed somehow relevant, though, all dealing with motherhood and the separation from a child through war. As the hauntingly beautiful second movement started Delaney poured a couple of fingers of whiskey into a tumbler and added a couple of ice cubes from a crystal bucket with a silver- plated lid and matching tongs that Kate had bought him. He took a sip and let the warmth of the spirit work its way through his body. He felt some of the tension of the day lift as the soprano hit impossibly pure notes. Motherhood and loss. The separation from a child – he couldn’t help thinking of Archie Hall and his devastated mother. He couldn’t help thinking of the promise he had made to Gloria. That he would find the boy and save him. But he couldn’t see any sense in what was happening. There was a pattern forming. There always was. But Delaney couldn’t see it. Everything seemed so random. So disparate. Peter Garnier, the only man who might know what was going on, certainly wasn’t saying anything. Apart from the killer, of course: he knew what he was doing.

*

Bennett was sitting opposite Matt Henson with a uniformed female officer beside him and the recording device already running. Bennett had noted who was present and announced that he was commencing an interview with Matt Henson.

The man in question had his arms crossed and a neutral expression on his face. This wasn’t the first police station interview room he had ever been in. Not by a long chalk.

‘I’ll ask you again. Where were you last Friday night just before midnight?’

The young man grinned arrogantly. ‘And I’ll answer you again: no comment.’

Bennett slid a photograph of Jamil Azeez across the table. ‘Do you know this man?’

Henson hardly flicked his eyes downward and kept his arms crossed.

‘Never seen him before in my life.’

‘Really?

‘What I said.’

Bennett slid the still photo from the CCTV footage of Henson arguing with Jamil Azeez on Camden High Street across to him.

‘How come you’re seen here getting in his face on Friday night, then?’

Henson didn’t even look at the photo. ‘It’s not me.’

Bennett nodded. ‘You have been doing some community work, I’m led to believe?’

Henson glared back at him. ‘So?’

‘So you’ve been doing it at the university where the young man here is a student. Just a coincidence, is it?’

‘Must be.’

‘And someone else who looks just like you also has a tattoo with the B-negative blood-group sign tattooed on the back of his head as well, I suppose?’

Henson shrugged.

Bennett opened the file next to him and made a show of flicking through some papers. ‘Only I see from your records that B-negative isn’t your blood group, is it?’

Henson shrugged again.

‘When did you get the tattoo done?’

‘It was a birthday present from my dad.’

‘Nice.’

Henson didn’t reply.

‘You sure you don’t want a lawyer here?

‘You charging me with anything?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Don’t need a lawyer, then, do I?’

Bennett smiled patiently. ‘Do you know what the significance of the tattoo on the back of your head is?’

Henson shrugged again.

‘The SS used to have them. B-negative was thought to be the best blood group for the Aryan super-race. Only they got it wrong. The Saxons, the Nordics, type A – that’s the Holy Grail when it comes to blood types. Himmler got that wrong, apparently. Type A – just like you, Matt.’

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’