The Dark Web Murders

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Friday, 17th August. Morning 

Sheehan stopped by Stewart's desk, pulling on his overcoat. "Ready?" 

"Yes, Chief," Stewart replied, shutting down her laptop. She grabbed her anorak from a peg on the wall behind her desk and scurried after Sheehan who was already striding through the door. 

"You get the address?" he asked, when she caught up with him. 

"No problem, although Mr Wilson, Delaney's probation officer, said he needed to know why we wanted the address before he would give it to us." 

"Hummph. What did you tell him?" 

"More or less the truth. I said we needed to talk to Delaney in connection with a violent crime we were investigating." 

"Did he push any further?" 

"No. Funny enough, he just laughed." 

"Laughed?" 

"Yeah. I asked him what was so amusing. He just said, 'the violent bit', and added that I would find out when I talked to the suspect. Then he said he had a client and hung up." 

"Not overly impressed by your dulcet tones, then?" Sheehan said, grinning. 

Stewart chuckled. "Either that or he was genuinely busy. It'll be interesting to see what he meant." 

They had to run to the car through a sudden rain squall, one of many the blustery August day had already inflicted upon the city. Wipers barely keeping the route visible, Stewart finally turned into a narrow street."You have arrived at your destination." The sat. nav's tones were also dulcet. 

Delaney's house was one in a row of small terraced houses in Short Strand, one of the less affluent areas of Belfast. A couple of low sparse hedges, no more than ten feet apart, separated his property from the houses on either side. Sheehan opened a small iron gate and walked up a narrow concrete path to the front door. On the right of the path was a very scraggy patch of ground that by no stretch of the imagination could be called a lawn. 

Just as Sheehan raised his hand to ring the bell, the front door opened and a harassed, stout, grey-haired lady, probably late fifties, exited the door at some speed, almost bumping into Sheehan who, by dint of nifty footwork, prevented what might have been an awkward collision. 

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said breathlessly. "I'm way behind schedule and it's all rush, rush, rush." 

Sheehan grinned and said, "We were looking for a Mr. Gerard Delaney?" 

"Yes, yes," she said hurriedly, pointing with her thumb over her shoulder. "I'm his carer, but I have to rush on to my next charge. You'll find him in the sitting room." And literally running, she headed for a small Fiesta parked at the kerb. 

Neither Sheehan nor Stewart had consciously formed an image of Delaney in their minds but hearing this, both glanced at each other bemused. Sheehan gave the open front door a staccato rap and the two detectives let themselves into the house. Perhaps, in view of Doran's description, they were expecting to meet a dapper, personable, well-dressed individual.Instead they found an emaciated man who sat on an armchair in front of a meagre fire with a rug around his knees—pale, gaunt, straggly grey hair,plastic oxygen tubes attached to his nose.  

Delaney looked up, clearly surprised to find two visitors standing in his minimally furnished sitting room. 

Sheehan said apologetically, "Your carer told us to come on in. She had to rush away." 

Delaney made to speak but was suddenly convulsed with a bout of coughing. Eventually he managed to ask, in a weak, rasping voice, "Who are you?" 

"I'm Chief Inspector Sheehan. My colleague here is Detective Sergeant Stewart."