Blood Work Page 3

  Her double reflection in the windows, hovering over the flashing bricks, was smeared and bleary, a ghostly dull orange from the flickering lights in the tube carriage. She was sure, though, she could still make out the dark-haired man watching her. Good-looking, she supposed, but definitely something creepy about him, the way he stared at her when he thought she wasn't watching. She wouldn't be surprised if he was having a crafty hand shandy under the dark coat he was wearing. If she had a five-euro note for every time some man had accidentally brushed up against her in the crowded tube with a hard-on in his pants and a glassy look to his eyes she could have retired and moved to Spain years ago. She could have papered the road there and back with them.

  The lights in the Northern Line tunnel brightened, and the train shuddered into Camden Town Tube station like a mechanical climax. She stood up and tightened the belt on her shiny, black, mid-thigh-length raincoat. She knew it did little to distract attention away from herself but didn't care. She was a living Betty Boop. People could look all they like. If they wanted to touch, however, that was a whole separate matter. A whole different negotiation.

  She stood on the right of the escalator, some people packed around her and others rushing up the stairs to her left. God only knew what they were in such a hurry for, she thought. At the top of the stairs Janet flashed her Oyster card at the bored-looking Rastafarian who had opened the barrier, which had broken down again, and walked towards the left-hand exit, scowling as the wind blew the rain into her face. She turned back, certain she could feel the eyes of the dark-haired man, now lost in the steady throng of commuters, watching her still. Shaking off the thought she opened up her umbrella and walked out on to the pavement.

  It was half past six and the streets were busy, people hustling to the warmth of pubs and restaurants, or pouring like a stream of wet ants into the shelter of the Underground. Janet walked away from the noise and the bustle of the main high street, and the clack of her sharp-heeled footsteps rang out as she walked along Kentish Town Road, fighting to keep control of her umbrella in the swirling wind. After a couple of hundred metres she was grateful to see the welcoming glow of light spilling from the windows of the Devonshire Arms. She folded her umbrella down, opened the door to the pub and stepped inside.

  Since the closing of the Intrepid Fox in Wardour Street the Devonshire Arms was now regarded as London's Goth Central. Janet's jet-black hair, black skirt, leggings, T-shirt and make-up were about as unusual there as a pair of chinos and a striped shirt in All Bar One. In fact, some nights, if you weren't dressed all in black, you couldn't get in, and quite right too, Janet thought. There were plenty of places for the squares and the geeks and the city slickers to go to, places that would turn people dressed like her away. That was the thing about London: a place for every prejudice.

  The lighting was low, and the pub was already busy. Janet had chosen it for the meet, for just that purpose. It was like a blind date, after all, and it was best to be prepared; in addition to the pack of condoms and the tube of lubricant that she carried in her handbag, she also had a small can of mace. She had smuggled it back illegally from a long weekend trip she had made to New York some months ago. Music was playing, muting the buzz of chatter that filled the air. The Velvet Underground. She ordered a bourbon from a bald-headed woman with multi-coloured tattoos snaking either side of her neck, and sat in the corner of the bar sipping it and watching people as she listened to the music. John Cale's viola screeched discordantly against the slow, hypnotic beat of the drums while Lou Reed sang about a woman not unlike herself. A girlchild dressed in black wearing boots of shiny leather.

  The music stopped and Janet looked up as a dark-haired man approached. Hunger in his brown eyes and an amused smile playing on his soft red lips. She looked down at his snakeskin boots that had Cuban heels almost higher than hers, then looked back up at him and smiled herself, her painted lips opening to reveal white, perfect teeth.

  'Hello, cowboy.'

  Kate finished her second Bloody Mary. The two drinks had done little to lift her dark mood, but she was feeling just a little bit more numb. The edge had been taken off, and she was certainly warmer. She looked over at the rain lashing against the windowpanes and then looked at her watch, debating. It was only a short walk home, but she didn't want to go out in the filthy weather again. She held her glass out to the barman, who went to refill it, and slipped her jacket off, hanging it on a hook in the bar in front of her.

  'You tried Nigella's?'

  She turned round to see that a tall curly dark-haired man in his late thirties with brown eyes was talking to her.

  'I'm sorry?'

  'Nigella Lawson. Her recipe for Bloody Marys. It's very good.'

  The barman handed Kate her drink and went off to add the charge to her tab.

  'No, I don't think I have.' Kate turned back to her drink.

  'Got to love a woman who puts Bloody Marys in the breakfast section of a cookbook.'

  'I guess,' Kate said without looking at the stranger and sipped her drink. She wasn't in the mood for chit-chat.

  Despite her blatant disinterest the man was not put off. He pulled out the recently vacated stool next to hers. 'Do you mind?'

  Kate shrugged indifferently.

  The man chuckled. 'Half a pint glass with half as much vodka as tomato juice. For breakfast! Like I say, you've got to admire the woman.'

  Kate thought that if the woman cut down on her breakfasts a little it might not do her any harm. But maybe that's what men wanted. Meat on the bones. Well, she wasn't going to put on weight to imitate some quasi-Italian domestic goddess, however gorgeous she was. She realised the man had spoken to her again, but didn't have a clue what he had said.

  'I'm sorry?'

  'I asked . . . do you know what her secret is?'

  Yes, she thought. She knew what her secret was all right. She looked like a woman of appetite. What was it you were supposed to be? A lady in the supermarket and a whore in the bedroom. Well, Nigella Lawson looked like Sophia Loren with a voice that oozed sex and sophistication in equally unfair measures. And could cook to boot. Bitch.

  'I don't,' she said simply.

  The man smiled. He had quite a nice smile. 'It's to add a dash of dry sherry.'

  Kate nodded. 'They put a drop of red wine in them here.'

  He smiled again. 'My name's Paul. Paul Archer.'

  'Nice to meet you, Mr Archer.' Kate's voice was cordial, but cool.

  The man held out his hand. 'Actually, it's Dr Archer.'

  Kate hesitated then shook his hand. He had a firm confident grip, and his hand was dry and warm. She smiled and it didn't take much of an effort now. 'Kate Walker.'

  'Well, Kate. Can I buy you a drink?'

  Kate looked down at her glass, swirling the drink for a moment then downing it and placing the glass firmly back on the bar. Why not? she thought to herself. Why the bloody hell not?

  Janet Barnes felt consciousness returning. Not suddenly, it was a struggle like crawling through treacle. Like waking from a long coma. Or nearly waking, that is. Flashes of memory fought to come through as she fell back into the nightmare she was struggling to escape. A train swaying off balance as it rattled along the spine of ancient rails that lay deep beneath an even more ancient city. She felt the eyes of men upon her. Eyes that peeled her clothes from her body. Sweating eyes. Hot, dry, hungry eyes. The sick yellow light of the train carriage wrapped itself around her again as she tried to raise herself to consciousness once more.

  She had no idea where she was or how long she had been there. She moaned softly, the sigh escaping her lips like the last breath of a dying man. Her eyelids fluttered briefly, the orbs beneath darting back and forth under the fragile pink membrane, as images flashed through her cerebral cortex like the sparking of a badly wired circuit, and, as she drifted towards unconsciousness once more, she thought she heard snatches of conversation, a voice she almost recognised. She tried to latch on to the thought, but it was like a butte
rfly dancing out of her hands and high out of reach. Then her eyes stilled and the half-formed thought, and all others with it, floated away entirely as she fell back into oblivion.

  DAY ONE

  Six thirty and fog hung in the morning air like lowlying cloud.

  Arnold Fraser shambled through the wet undergrowth on South Hampstead Common. He had spent the previous night huddled in the entrance to the local Tube station. In a different life he once had been a sergeant in the Royal Green Rifles, but he had come back from the first Gulf war with a shattered right femur and a broken mind. In a country that treats its old war heroes with pomp and ceremony every November and its returning soldiers rather less well, he ended up, like many of his comrades lucky enough to make it home, as an alcoholic, mentally ill and living on the cold and comfortless streets of London. Early commuters had disturbed his lager-fuelled sleep and he was setting out across the common to a homeless shelter where he could get a hot cup of tea and a moderately warm bacon sandwich.

  His bladder full, he stopped to relieve himself against a tree, but even as he fumbled with his trouser zipper, hidden deep under many layers of shirts, jumpers and coats, he saw the body lying in the undergrowth near his feet, saw the unnatural pallor of her skin, alabaster against the black shine of her hair, and knew it for what it was. He had seen enough corpses in his days of service. He turned away and shuffled off. He'd learned that in the army as well. Never volunteer. Never get involved. He'd done that once for Queen and Country and what had he got for his troubles? Royally fucked over, that's what. He spat and limped onwards. Let the citizens deal with it.

  Seven o'clock. Kevin Norrell was back in the communal shower room of Bayfield Prison. He took the towel from his waist, put it to one side and twisted the dial set into the wall, standing beneath the jets of water as he let them pummel his massive, chemically enhanced body and groaned in satisfaction. He had spent the last hour lifting weights in the prison gym. Being on remand had not affected his workout routines at all and he intended to leave in better physical condition than he entered. Having an office right across the road from a burger bar had helped put a layer of fat over the hard muscles of his stomach. But that fat was being quickly burned away, and with every bench press he had but a single thought in his mind. Kevin Norrell didn't intend spending much more time inside prison walls and to escape he needed to be moved to another, lower security facility. He grunted as he turned the heat up on the shower. He'd already made a start towards the road to freedom and this morning he'd take another step and it wouldn't be long before he was moved to the prison of his choice. He could practically guarantee it.

  He poured some shower gel in his hand, his eyes flicking back and forth watchfully as he did so. It was a reflex you needed to develop in prison, if you wanted to survive, and if Kevin Norrell had learned one thing in all his time over the years in institutions and prisons it was that you never dropped your guard. Put it in the bank. You dropped your guard and you'd be fucked ten ways by Sunday. Especially in the shower. He continued soaping his body and let the powerful jets pummel the suds away, but he kept the shampoo from his hair, keeping his eyes clear. As he reached up to turn the shower off he felt, rather than saw, the three men who approached, moving on him fast now. He flailed out instinctively, slamming his ham-like fist sideways, crushing one man's throat and knocking him down before the others held his arm and two more came into the shower room. He felt himself being pushed to the floor, and charging foward he fell; landing on one knee in a toilet stall, he reached out, putting his arms around the stainless-steel base of the lidless toilet and gripping hard. One of the men pummelled his head with a heavy fist as the other kicked him viciously in the ribs, trying to dislodge him. He felt a rib crack. Norrell grunted with pain and anger and wrenched upward, tearing the bowl clear from the floor as his steroid-enhanced, brute strength ripped the screws free. He roared up, red-faced, furious with effort and smashed the bowl full into the face of the first man, the second slipping on the water that was now gushing from the exposed plumbing. He smashed the bowl again, turning the fallen man's head into a shapeless mass of blood and hair, and swung the bowl at the head of another man who was trying to escape, the man screamed like a frightened pig as the lavatory bowl smashed into his jaw, pulverising it. There were just two of his attackers left now but they backed off as he turned and snarled at them, holding the steel toilet bowl like the weapon of a demented, lavatorial gladiator. Norrell moved towards them but his right foot slipped on the wet floor and he dropped to his knee again, wincing with pain as his cracked rib flexed. One of the men jumped forward at him, a blade flashing in the brightness of the overhead lights, and a thin shaft of steel was punched hard into his ribcage. His other knee buckled and he dropped to the floor barely registering the shouts and cries of uniformed guards running into the room. His vision blurred and he struggled to draw air, his breath a painful, wet wheeze. He tried to raise himself up but those muscles that defined him in more senses than one, those muscles that had been built over years of dedicated and painful exercise, failed him at last. He slumped back on to the cold tiles like an exhausted walrus and as the blood pumped from his body, the room seemed to darken and the light, very slowly, faded from his eyes.

  A muffled knocking sound brought Delaney groaning to consciousness. He half opened a gummed-up eye and cursed as a bright, white light stabbed into his sore optic nerves. He held an arm across his face and groaned again. As far he could tell, he was lying, fully dressed, on a cold concrete floor, but he had absolutely no idea where. A sharp pain lanced through the back of his skull as he tried to move, and he gasped out loud. He crinkled his eyes again to open them a merest crack. He was in a white room. Bare white walls, white ceiling and a painted concrete floor. A light bulb dangled overhead and there was a low, mechanical, murmuring hum coming from somewhere close by. Delaney's head felt like he had been hit by a heavy, blunt object, but he had no memory of it. He rolled to one side, wincing with pain, and slowly opened one eye again. As his vision blurred into near focus he could make out a chest freezer against the opposite wall from where he was lying. He realised that was where the humming was coming from. The knocking resumed and Delaney suddenly realised where he was. He had made it home, but only as far as his garage. He rolled over again, covering his eyes, and tried to ignore the knocking which was becoming more urgent now, snatches of memory coming back to him of the night that had just passed.

  But the knocking persisted. Delaney stood up, wincing as the blood flowed through the sore and swollen areas of his brain and lurched to the garage door. He opened it, shielding his face against the sudden lash of wind and rain that spiralled in, and looked angrily over at the attractive young woman, dressed in a smart black suit, who was standing on his front doorstep.

  'What the hell are you doing here, Sally?'

  DC Sally Cartwright smiled at him, enthusiasm and energy radiating from her like a Ready Brek advert.

  'The chief inspector thought—'

  'She thought what?' Delaney barked. And regretted it immediately.

  'She thought that you might like someone to drive you for your meeting with Norrell. She mentioned dropping you off at the Tube station last night.'

  'Did she?'

  Sally smiled again, innocently. 'She suspected you might not have gone straight home, sir.'

  Delaney flapped his hand and gestured her in. '"Meeting", you make it sound like a bloody sales conference, and for God's sake, come in, Constable.'

  Sally walked into the built-in garage, gratefully shutting the door on the wind and rain behind her.

  'What the hell happened to summer?'

  'Don't know, sir.'

  'Come through.'

  Delaney led her through the garage up a couple of small steps and into the kitchen that lay off it. It was almost as bare as the garage. White modern units, but nothing personal, no pictures or furniture. A kettle on the countertop. A couple of mugs. A whisky tumbler. Delaney opened some cupboards,
scowled and shut them again. 'Have you got any Nurofen on you, Sally?'

  She shook her head. 'Sorry, sir.'

  'Co-codamol? Paracetamol? Aspirin? Anadin? Ibuprofen? Panadol?'

  'Don't use them, sir.'

  Delaney slammed a drawer shut, frustrated, and again regretted it. 'You'll learn,' he said, wincing.