‘I am strong in dust. In essence.’
Delaney shook his head. Whatever he had hoped to get from the man, it was clearly a fool’s errand. The sickness had entered his brain. Literally and metaphorically. He stood up.
‘Take me back to the woods, Delaney. I’ll show you where the final body is buried. The last of the children – and I’ll tell you everything you need to know.’
Garnier smiled again, his thin slips sliding over the yellow bone of his teeth.
Delaney shook his head. ‘You have nothing to deal with, Garnier. We’re done here.’
‘Then the killing will continue.’
Delaney looked at him for a long moment. His hands surprisingly still. He stood up, walked to the door and opened it.
‘Come back here!’ Garnier screamed.
Delaney closed the door behind him.
*
An hour or so later and Delaney stood in front of the display boards in the CID briefing room. The morning meeting was over. Nothing new had been added. Delaney admitted he had learned nothing new from his visit back at Bayfield. Paddington Green had the ball after all, the superintendent had pointed out. White City was just backup, dogsbody work.
The trouble was, Jack Delaney had never been anybody’s dog and he wasn’t going to start now.
He was alone in the room save for Bob Wilkinson, who was collecting the briefing notes that hadn’t already been removed.
Delaney pointed at one of the boards: a blown-up map of Carlton Row and the surrounding areas. A number of coloured markers indicated where the boy had been abducted, the body found in the allotment, the severed head placed on the altar of Saint Botolph’s. The addresses of the murdered children from Carlton Row who’d been taken by Peter Garnier fifteen years before. ‘What are we missing, Bob?’ he asked. ‘What’s at the heart of it?’ He tapped on the board.
Bob Wilkinson joined him at the board, looking at the map that Delaney had indicated, staring at it as if it were some ancient symbol that, if they could only translate it, would solve the mystery for them. In some ways it was.
He pointed to the yellow pin. ‘Used to be that the church was at the heart of the community.’
‘Not any more,’ said Delaney.
‘Why the allotment? The boy was taken from there, Maureen Gallagher’s body was placed there as a marker for the body of Samuel Ramirez.’
‘Maybe it’s not the allotment, sir.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Maybe it’s whose allotment it is. Maybe Archie Woods wasn’t a random victim at all. Maybe he was targeted.’
‘Because of his grandfather?’
Wilkinson shrugged. ‘Maybe. Paddington Green have been all over him, though, and he’s sticking to his story.’
‘He seemed genuinely upset enough to me.’
Sally Cartwright came into the room at that moment, carrying two cups of coffee.
Delaney looked across at her. ‘Do you want to take a rain check on those?’
‘What’s up?’
‘I’m going to have another word with Graham Harper.’
‘I thought Paddington Green was running all this now?’
‘They are. I’ll catch you later, Bob.’
He steered Sally towards the door as Wilkinson nodded at them and picked up the cups of coffee with the look of a man who has lost a penny and found a sixpence.
‘Have you seen Detective Inspector Bennett this morning, sir?’ Sally asked Delaney as they hurried down the stairs towards the exit.
Delaney shook his head. ‘No, and he wasn’t here for this morning’s briefing either. What’s going on?’
‘Nobody can get hold of him. And he was supposed to be interviewing Matt Henson this morning about the Jamil Azeez stabbing.’
‘Matt Henson?’ said Delaney, half surprised.
‘Yeah – didn’t you know?’
‘No, I didn’t. I suppose it was only a matter of time before he graduated to his brother’s league.’
‘His lawyer is demanding that he be bounced.’
‘Someone else can cover for Bennett.’
‘I guess.’
