Hard Evidence by Mark Pearson Read Free Book Online Page A

you reckon to
twinkletoes?
    Bob scowled. 'He'll live. Unfortunately.'
    'He had it coming, I guess. Sooner or later on
that estate he was going to get a kicking when
word got round what he was.'
    'You ask me, he deserves a lot more than he
got.'
    'Just as well our job is just to catch them, then.'
    'Maybe.'
    Bonner gave him a shrewd look. 'Someone
leaked his name to the press.'
    Wilkinson laughed. Short, dismissive. 'Don't look
at me. I'm coming up to my thirty.'
    'You reckon he's involved with this missing
girl?'
    Wilkinson shook his head regretfully. 'His alibi
stands up.'
    'An entire orchestra saying he was in rehearsal
all day and in concert all evening. I'd say that
stands up.'
    'He's probably clean on this, but he's involved
in something. Take it to the bank. It's not just his
wand he's been wagging.'
    'That would be a baton.'
    'Call it what you like. Slags like him don't
change, they never do. You ask me, we should be
leaning on him. And leaning on him hard. Not
tiptoeing around like a pair of fucking ballerinas
so he doesn't press charges.'
    'Times have moved on, Constable.'
    Wilkinson crumpled his plastic coffee cup and
threw it into the bin. 'You might look good in a
tutu, boss, but I'm too old for this crap. We should
be out looking for that little girl, not covering the
suits' blue-nosed arses.'
    'I reckon you and Delaney would make a good
team.'
    'That's because he's a proper cop.'
    'What's that mean?'
    Wilkinson gave him a flat look. 'Someone who
knows that the end always justifies the means,
Sergeant Bonner.'
    Bonner gave a short laugh. 'Jack Delaney. Last
of the midnight cowboys.' He threw his own
coffee cup into the bin and jerked his thumb at
Bob Wilkinson. 'Come on then, Tonto. Time to
see what scum has washed up on the morning
tide.'
    Morgan's Garage was about half a mile from the
Waterhill estate in a run-down stretch of mainly
commercial real estate, a no-man's-land of lockups
and storage facilities within a brick's throw of
the Harrow Road. Wire fences protected weed-polluted
tarmac and graffiti-sprayed warehouses.
At the end of the street stood a few houses that
had been built in the fifties in the hope of an
urban renewal for the area that never came.
Morgan's workshop was an extended garage that
his father had fitted out sometime in the early
sixties and that hadn't been touched since. Red
bricks and a concrete floor. A bare bulb overhead,
a 1972 Ford Escort stripped back beneath it,
yellow, rusting and in need of serious loving
attention.
    Inside the garage Delaney moved a grease-covered
spanner to one side of the cluttered
worktop as Morgan picked up a photo frame and
carefully replaced the original of the photo that
was now pinned to the briefing room wall back at
White City police station. Jenny still looked out at
the camera, her eyes giving nothing away. Sally
took the frame from his callused, stained and
shaking hands.
    'This is definitely the most recent photo you
have of her?'
    'She don't like having her picture taken.'
    Delaney held his gaze. 'Why's that?'
    Morgan shrugged and looked off to the side.
'She just don't.'
    Sally smiled sympathetically. 'What about
boyfriends?'
    'What do you mean?'
    'Does she have a boyfriend?'
    Morgan shook his head angrily. 'Of course she
doesn't.'
    Sally continued gently. 'It's possible. Someone
from school, perhaps?'
    'I would know!'
    'She's a very pretty girl.'
    'She's my girl. I would know!'
    Delaney considered the fury that shone in the
man's eyes with an almost religious fervour. He
listened to the body language and met Morgan's
defiant gaze with a look that held as much anger,
and more, in check.
    'You didn't know she was missing for nineteen
hours, though, did you?'
    Sally flinched, startled at the aggression in his
voice, as Delaney stepped forward, getting into
Morgan's space.
    'What else don't you know?'
    Morgan rubbed his left arm, up and down, as he
stepped back a pace. 'I didn't know she was gone.
I look after her.'
    Delaney snorted. 'You do a