Hard Evidence by Mark Pearson Read Free Book Online

week.'
    'And?'
    'And afterwards some people told me he'd been
in the paper. He'd taken some girl and been in the
paper for it. And prison . . .'
    'Go on?'
    'And then . . . and then when my Jenny didn't
come home . . .'
    'You thought it was him?'
    Morgan looked up. 'Wasn't it?'
    'See, what I don't understand is, why . . . If you
knew there was a known child offender in your
area, and your daughter didn't come home from
school, or at any time during the night, why did
you leave it to this morning till you did something
about it?'
    Morgan shook his head. 'I didn't know.'
    'You didn't know what?'
    'I didn't know she was missing. I was working
late on a job. I came in, I assumed she'd put herself
to bed. She takes care of herself.'
    'She's twelve years old, for Christ's sake.'
    Morgan shook his head again, remorsefully,
and Sally gave him a reassuring smile as she
looked up from her note-taking.
    'It's all right, Howard, just tell us what you
know. Anything you tell us could be important.
When did you last see her?'
    Morgan shifted awkwardly in his chair, his eyes
not meeting hers. 'I work late sometimes. Since her
mother died she's been good at taking care of
herself.'
    Sally nodded sympathetically. 'When did her
mother die?'
    'Two years ago.'
    Delaney sat back in his chair, crossing his arms.
'How did she die, Mr Morgan?'
    'Cancer. They couldn't do anything. Too late,
they said. We never did hold with doctors. They
said if we'd been earlier, but we weren't. Too late,
that's what they said.'
    Sally wrote in her notebook. 'So it's just the two
of you?'
    'That's right. Just the two of us. And Jake.'
    Delaney sighed angrily. 'Who's Jake?'
    'He's my brother. My older brother. He works
with me at the garage. There's no one else.'
    'Do you have any other relations? Anyone she
might have gone to see?'
    Morgan shook his head. 'No, it's just us. We've
got each other.'
    'Okay, Mr Morgan. Think carefully: did either
you or your brother see Philip Greville after you
had fixed his car?'
    Morgan's brow furrowed, as if trying to squeeze
some juice of memory from his troubled mind. His
eyes had the look of a hurt and hunted animal as
he tried to remember.
    'I can't see him.'
    Delaney cursed under his breath and fumbled in
his pocket again for his bottle of painkillers.
    St Mary's Hospital is a sprawling Victorian
complex on Praed Street in Paddington. The old
and the modern rose-coloured cheek by pierced
jowl. Where Princess Diana once came to have her
babies, and where the punched and the battered
drunks of a Friday and Saturday night clog up the
rooms and try the patience of the night staff
working A&E as regularly as a Swiss clock.
    Bob Wilkinson was standing at the vending
machine squashing a thin paper cup between his
bony, nicotine-stained fingers, scowling as he
drank the bitter fluid contained within and hoping
to Christ the thing wasn't swimming with the
MRSA bug. He hated hospitals almost as much as
he hated people. He looked further up the corridor
where Bonner was finishing talking to Greville,
who was laid out on a bed; the DS was smiling at
him, treating him like he was a normal human
being, not kiddie-fiddling pond scum. Bonner was
the future of the Met as far as Wilkinson could
tell, just like Superintendent Walker. More spin
doctor than thief-taker; the kind of shiny-suited,
even-teethed bastards who danced around to a
political agenda, letting the paedophiles fiddle
while Rome burned.
    The object of his scrutiny, Bonner, smiled a final
time at Greville and walked back up the corridor
to join Wilkinson at the vending machine, fishing
in his pocket for some change and wrinkling his
nose. 'What is it with the smell in this place?'
    Wilkinson shrugged. 'Hospitals are all the same,
boss. Nothing about them is pleasant.'
    Bonner chunked the coins into the machine.
'Including the coffee.'
    'Especially the coffee.'
    Bonner jerked his head back to the room where
Greville lay on top of the bed, still clothed, his
nose now taped. 'What do