Page with bad backlinks - would it hurt to delete page?

Big mistake (I assume).

I hired (yes I did - wish I hadn't listened to some experts in other areas) someone that appeared popular and respectable and used to be suggested for backlinks, "safe" and all (and apparently everything should have been to current panda/penguin standards...)

However, I stopped after 3-4 months thinking that wouldn't be good. It didn't sit right with me. Long story short, what do you experts think about deleting the page? It's unpublished, and has been for a bit over a month, but can I delete it to help the site in general?

The site has vanished from rankings but is still indexed. It seems like blogs, experts, etc say it should bounce back in time, although it could be a while. It may very well be that stopping the service led to the quick drop. Tons of links...then none.

Either way, I don't want anything to do with unnatural crap. I don't want to manipulate anything. So would deleting the page make things better? Worse? What do you think?

The backlinks to that page would cease to do anything to affect the (rest of) site? Or do I just have to wait very, very patiently.

Edit: I should add that at least at this point there aren't any messages from Google about suspicous links, or anything else, so as of the last month or so, it may just be algorithmic. However, I have considered the re-inclusion request for poor rankings detailing the poor choices, and resolving them. But don't know if I need to go there yet. Plus, I'd need to start working on the links -- unless deleting the page helps.