Part 7 (1/2)

'We speak to the press when I say. We clear on that, Inspector?'

'Sir.'

Delaney turned to leave, pausing at the door as the superintendent called him back.

'One more thing, Delaney.'

'Sir?'

'I am well aware what happened between you and my predecessor. Diane Campbell argued very strongly for bringing you back into the fold. I think you should know that I had grave misgivings but allowed myself to be persuaded by her. I hope you are not going to let me down.'

'Just let me do my job, sir. That's all I ask.'

The superintendent stood and picked up the file, nodding a dismissal to Delaney. 'Go and do it then.'

Delaney shut the door behind him. Napier walked across to a filing cabinet and put the folder in the top drawer. He looked at himself in the mirror and smoothed his hair with the flat of his hand. He kept himself in very good condition. A punis.h.i.+ng fitness schedule, good bone structure and clear, ebony skin made him look younger than his fifty-two years, but the white hair above his ears told the true story. As he looked at his temples critically, he considered, yet again, dyeing his hair, but then discounted it, as he always did. Gravitas was far more becoming in a career policeman than vanity. And George Napier was nothing if not ambitious.

He sat back behind his desk and thought about the surly policeman who had just left his office. He wasn't sure there was a place for people like him in the force any more, but time would tell: Jack Delaney could be a help or a hindrance to him. And most of the people who had spoken to the superintendent said Delaney was a first-rate detective with good instincts and a great success rate. If his foot danced a little outside the touchline now and again that was fine by him, as long as he didn't drop the ball. But if he did lose it in the tackle, if he became more of a liability than an a.s.set, then George Napier was going to come down on him like an All Blacks front line. Guaranteed.

Delaney paused at the drinks cooler filling a cup as DI Jimmy Skinner approached. Delaney was still considered tall, at six feet, but Jimmy Skinner had a good few inches on him. He was a lot thinner, though, and pale-faced from too many nights playing Internet poker. His wife had left him the previous January because he had refused to walk away from an online game at midnight to hear Big Ben chime the New Year in and kiss her on the final bong. He had felt quite justified, however, as he was holding two aces with a third on the flop. But his wife didn't see it that way, and now he had even more time on his hands. 'You've simply got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them,' he had told his divorce lawyer, who had told him that it was his b.a.l.l.s his wife was holding, fiscally speaking, and that she was going to cut them off. Which she proceeded to do, leaving Skinner a fiscal soprano.

Skinner helped himself to a cup of water and looked at Delaney. 'You spoke to the new big cheese then?'

Delaney drank his water in a long gulp almost feeling the liquid rehydrating his veins. 'Yup.'

'What do you make of him?'

'Remember the old joke about how to become a policeman?'

'Grow a t.i.t on your head and paint it blue?'

Delaney threw his cup in the bin. 'You're looking into the Norrell thing, I hear.'

'You tag along any time you want to, Jack.'

Delaney nodded. 'Appreciate it, Jimmy.'

'You were due to see him this morning?'

'First thing, yeah.'

'Seems like a h.e.l.l of a coincidence he was taken out before you got there then.'

Delaney grunted. 'I don't believe in coincidences.'

'You think he genuinely knew something about your wife's death?'

'Nothing in it for him if he was making it up.'

'Kevin Norrell was never a gra.s.s.'

'Yeah, well, your perspectives change when you're standing naked in a shower surrounded by hardened criminals. No pun intended.'

'True.'

'Or when there's a contract out on you.'

Skinner looked at him, a little surprised. 'You think that was the case?'

'I think as soon as he started offering to sing like a canary, someone wanted to snap off his beak and clip his wings. Permanently.'

'He was meant to go down hard. That's for certain. But if they thought he was dealing kiddie p.o.r.n . . . ?' He shrugged. 'Could just be that, cowboy.'

'It's too neat. Someone in there wanted him shut up and quickly.'

Delaney and Skinner walked back towards the CID offices. 'You saw one of the guys who attacked him?'

'Martin Quigley. But he isn't saying anything. Norrell smashed him up pretty good with a lavatory bowl. Fractured his jaw in three places.'

'Helpful.'

'But he can write. He claims they took Norrell out as a matter of course, like they would any other kiddie fiddler, given half the chance. No other agenda.'

'You believe him?'

'I don't know. He might have been roped in. He's just as much an ape for hire as Norrell himself. Paid to hurt not to think. And Norrell was involved with Walker who was involved big time in kiddie p.o.r.n. It's a good cover story if you have another reason for wanting him dead.'

Delaney said goodbye to Skinner, stuck his head round the CID office door and beckoned to Sally Cartwright. 'Come on, Constable, you're with me.'

Sally stood up from her desk, a little flushed, quickly closing down the report she had been reading on her computer. She picked up her jacket from the back of her chair and joined Delaney.

He looked back at her computer as her screensaver came on. 'What are you working on?'

'Just catching up with some paperwork.' She avoided his eyes and headed briskly out to the corridor. 'Where are we going?'

'South Hampstead Tube.'

'Sir?'

Delaney walked beside her and held out a photofit picture that the computer artist had generated from Valerie Manners' description of the flasher on the common. 'Our man might have been wearing a suit, she said?'

'Apparently. Under his mac,' Sally confirmed.

'So what does that tell us?'

'That flas.h.i.+ng isn't just a blue-collar crime and he's probably not a student.'

'Exactly, he's up too early in the morning for a start. Maybe he was giving his John Thomas a quick airing before putting in a hard day at the office . . .' He looked at Sally and smiled. 'As it were.'

'Which do you reckon came first, sir? The book or the expression? I've often wondered.'