Blood Work Page 4

  'I've got a line of coke.'

  Delaney looked across at her, half hopeful, and Sally laughed. 'Joking, sir.'

  Delaney nodded. 'Not funny, Constable.' There was a time when Delaney had used the stuff, and not that long ago. Only a little dab now and again, mind, a wet tip of a finger's worth, to keep him sharp. But the business with Walker and Bonner had made him more circumspect. He'd never been a user. Whiskey was his drug of choice, even using the Scottish variety lately. And cigarettes of course. The day they made them illegal was the day he resigned for good. He fumbled in his pockets and pulled out a packet. 'You got a lighter, Sally?'

  'You shouldn't smoke in the house, sir.'

  'It's my goddamn house.'

  'Exactly. And you want to keep it nice, sir.' She smiled, taking the edge of her words. 'For your daughter's sake.'

  Delaney cursed and stuffed the packet back in his jacket pocket then sketched a hand in the air. 'What do you think of it?'

  Sally smiled politely. 'Very minimalist.'

  Delaney opened another cupboard and found a jar of coffee. 'Not got round to sorting it out yet.'

  'How long have you been here?'

  'A week.'

  'Just a suggestion, but maybe some furniture.'

  'You any idea what this cost?'

  Sally shrugged. 'Three-bedroomed house, integral garage, Belsize Park? Way out of my league.'

  'An arm and a fucking leg that's what it cost me. You want to investigate serious fraud, look into the price of property.'

  'You don't have to tell me.'

  Delaney found a couple of mugs and poured some coffee into them. 'Karl Marx had the right of the matter, I reckon.' He opened the integrated fridge and cursed. 'No frigging milk.'

  Sally smiled. 'I'm all right anyway, sir.'

  'Well, you bloody would be. We'll get one on the way. Just have a seat and look shiny. I won't be a minute.'

  Delaney opened the door to the lounge. Sally went through to the lounge as Delaney headed upstairs. It was a large room with French windows leading on to a small courtyard garden. Like the kitchen the lounge was noticeably devoid of furniture, but there were some packing cases, one of which had a small television sitting on top of it. The walls were bare. The house, unlike its owner, was a blank canvas.

  Sally sat on one of the packing cases and felt a spark of jealousy. A three-bedroomed house spitting distance from the station. Like she had said it was far more than her salary could afford, could ever afford looking at the way house prices had gone, never mind the recent fall. Ten per cent or twenty per cent off bleeding expensive was still way out of her league. She hoped Delaney got round to buying some furniture and making it a proper home soon, though. Criminal waste otherwise. Delaney had only bought the house, she knew, so that his young daughter, Siobhan, could visit him sometimes. After the death of his wife, Delaney's life had been such a train wreck that he didn't even have to think about it when his sister-in-law, Wendy, offered to look after his young girl. That was four years ago, though, his daughter was now seven years old, and the fact that Delaney had wanted to make a home for her with him, at least for some of the time, was a mark of how much he had changed, even in the little time she had known him. The poor girl had been through a lot recently, her aunt stabbed in her own home while Siobhan was held captive upstairs by his deranged ex-boss Superintendent Walker. Delaney and Kate Walker had arrived just in time to save them both; she shuddered at the thought of what might have happened if they hadn't. But Wendy had survived, though she had needed several weeks' recuperation in a private hospital and would be discharged soon. Perhaps Siobhan could get some stability back in her young life. Sally decided she would do her bit, she'd get Delaney to furnish his house properly if she had to drag him down to Ikea herself!

  A short while later and Delaney was back downstairs. He'd had a shave, changed his shirt and put some eye drops in. He didn't look a million dollars she thought, but it was a vast improvement to the raw-eyed man who had greeted her at the garage door. A couple of hundred euros maybe.

  'Come on, then.' Delaney led her back through the garage and out into the rain. He scowled up at the sky. 'What's the deal? We don't get autumn any more, it just goes straight from summer to winter.'

  'Global warming, sir.'

  'Global warming my arse. In the seventies they reckoned it was the Russians fucking about with the weather. But do you know what it's really down to, Detective Constable?'

  'Sir?'

  'England, Sally. That's what it's down to. God's punishing us, each and every one of us. And He's doing it by making us live in this shitehole of a country.'

  Sally followed him out the door, not replying. She guessed some people just weren't morning persons.

  The window was slightly open and the wind whistling outside knocked the blind against the wooden frame with an inconsistent rhythm. Kate woke slowly. Lifting one eyelid, she winced a little and closed it again. She murmured softly and turned on to her side. She reached out a hand and snaked her fingers through the man's curly hair and smiled. 'Jack, wake up.'

  She slid her hand down over his shoulder to tangle her fingers in his chest hair, only his skin was completely smooth. She frowned, puzzled for a moment, then her smile faded, her eyes shot open with realisation and she looked, horrified, at the naked man sleeping beside her in her bed.

  'Shit!'

  She turned over again and looked at the clock radio on her bedside cabinet. It was half past seven. She cursed again and tried to remember what had happened the night before. And couldn't.

  'Shit.'

  Quarter to eight and the rain was still falling, although lighter than it had been. Detective Inspector Jack Delaney and Detective Constable Sally Cartwright were stamping their feet as they stood outside 'Bab's Kebabs' burger van round the corner from the police station. Roy, the corpulent owner and chef, was flipping bacon on the hot griddle plate as Delaney and Sally sheltered from the persistent drizzle as much as they could under the awning.

  'Point in case . . .' He pointed his egg slice at Delaney. 'What did you reckon of Madonna's "American Pie", Inspector?'

  Delaney shrugged. 'I liked it.'

  'Yeah, well, you would. My point exactly. Every man and his dog in the rest of the world thinks it's a piece of shit, but you like it.'

  'It's a song, not a sacred cow. People should be more tolerant.'

  Roy laughed. 'Ever heard of the pot and the kettle?' He fixed Delaney with a puzzled expression. 'I heard you'd quit the job anyway.'

  'I did.'

  'What happened then?'

  'Shit happened, Roy. You ought to know about that. And they needed me to clean it up. Only man for the job.'

  Roy winked at Sally. 'And I bet you're right glad to have this little ray of bog-trotting sunshine back.'

  Sally laughed. 'We're all glad.'

  Roy shook his head. 'Yeah, well, I wouldn't be betting any large change on that.'

  Delaney stirred some sugar in his coffee. 'You got that right.'

  Sally took a sip of her herbal tea. 'Why?'

  'He put down some of your own, Detective Constable. Never very popular thing to do.'

  Delaney scowled at Roy. 'I didn't sign up for the police force to win popularity contests.'

  Roy handed a bacon sandwich over the counter to him. 'Just watch your back is all I'm saying, cowboy. You put the Pied Piper away, doesn't mean there isn't more of the vermin that were on his payroll still on the job, scratching their feet and sniffing their noses in the air.' He looked pointedly across as a couple of uniforms approached.

  Delaney took a bite out of his sandwich. 'I'll bear it in mind.' He turned back to Sally. 'Come on, let's get out of here.'

  Roy called after him. 'Madonna? My doughnut more like!'

  Delaney walked off, Sally took a couple of gulps of her tea and threw the cup in the black plastic dustbin at the side of the van. 'Cheers, Roy.'

  'De nada. And you watch your back too, Detective Constable. Tha
t man is a disaster area in size ten brogues.'

  Sally winked at him. 'At least you know where you are with him.'

  Roy nodded. 'In fucking trouble most like.' Roy turned to the two uniformed constables who had arrived and were watching Sally hurry after Delaney with undisguised appreciation. Roy grunted at them. 'Out of your league, boys. Out of your league.'

  'Just give us a couple of bacon rolls, Roy.'

  Roy leaned forward confidentially. 'Can I interest you lads in some pirate DVDs?'

  The older uniform sighed patiently. 'Go on?'

  'I've got Treasure Island, The Black Hawk, and of course Pirates of the Caribbean, the complete boxed set.'

  Neither of the uniforms laughed.

  Kate stood for a long while in the bathroom. The clothes she had been wearing last night were in a heap in the corner. She pulled the belt tight around the towelling robe she had on and looked at herself in the mirror. Her waterproof mascara had lived up to its name, but her eyeshadow and lipstick were smeared and her face looked pale against the almost black of her tangled and disarrayed curls. Whatever slight tan she might have picked up in the summer months seemed to have disappeared overnight. She walked across to the shower unit and put her hand on the tap. She held it there for a moment or two, the metal chill on her hand. And then she took it away again. She wouldn't shower that morning. She took the towelling robe off and carefully folded it, then picked up her clothing from the night before and dressed herself.

  In 1903 Holloway Prison became a purely women-only facility. Coupled with the ending of transportation and the closing of Newgate, it meant a new prison for male offenders had to be built, a place to house those prisoners who were to be evicted to accommodate the fairer sex. The site chosen in the last, dying breaths of the Victorian era was a bit of undeveloped park and scrubland some two miles or so south of Hampstead Heath and a mile or so west of Delaney's new house in Belsize Park. Bayfield Prison was an all-categories facility that held up to six hundred prisoners. As the urban wealth of Hampstead and Belsize Park spread further out, the building was an incongruous intruder, a social blot on an increasingly upmarket landscape. But it lay hidden in its own ten acres of land, tall trees sheltering the place from view on the main road; it was still a lot closer, in many ways, to Kilburn than it was to Hampstead.

  Sally pulled up at the iron gates that stood at the end of the long driveway and waited for the uniformed guard to check her identification. She wound her window down, flinching as the rain lashed at her face, and held her warrant card out. The guard grunted, monosyllabically, then waved her forward and signalled to the guard house. Electric motors whirred and the heavy iron gates swung open. Sally slipped the car in first gear and drove down through the gates and along the quarter-mile or so of private road that led up to the prison.

  'What's Norrell got to say do you think, guv?'

  Sally's question pulled Delaney out of his reverie. He had been thinking along the same lines. 'I've no idea.'

  'You reckon he was involved in the petrol station hold-up?'

  Delaney shook his head. 'Maybe, but who knows? If he was involved he'll have lived to regret it.'

  Bayfield Prison, finished late in 1902, was three storeys high and had four wings on four sides, forming a central exercise area which could be monitored from observation posts on each corner. There were no windows on the exterior walls, which gave the brick building an imposing, severely functional look.

  Sally pulled the car up to the parking area and they walked over to the visitors' entrance and, after the usual security checks, were shown through to a waiting area in the front of the prison. Delaney sat on an orange plastic chair bolted to a wall underneath a window, then stood up again and paced impatiently, looking out of the window and wishing he could fire up a cigarette. He kicked his shoe against the wall and looked at his watch. Ten past eight and way past time they should have seen Norrell.

  He paced around the room for a minute more and had just decided to go and have a hard word with somebody when he heard the door open and looked across to see the warden walk in. Ron Cornwell was a tall man, six foot five but thin. He had pale blond hair and an apologetic smile on his face. 'Sorry, Inspector, I tried to get hold of you on your mobile earlier. And I've been held up on the telephone.'

  Delaney walked over to him. 'What's going on?'

  'You've had a wasted journey, I'm afraid.'

  'What are you talking about?'

  'Kevin Norrell was assaulted this morning. By some of his fellow prisoners. It was a very serious incident.'

  'He's dead?'

  The warden shook his head slightly. 'He's in intensive care in the South Hampstead up the road. He hasn't recovered consciousness.'

  Sally joined Delaney. 'Comatose?'

  The warden shrugged. 'Unconscious is all I know.'

  'What's the prognosis?'

  The warden spread his hands. 'I don't know; you'll have to talk to the hospital but it's probably too early to say.'

  Delaney nodded. 'Who did it?'

  'We're not exactly sure.'

  Delaney glared at him. 'What the hell do you mean, you're not exactly sure?'

  'All right, Inspector. Just calm it down, will you? Five men attacked him in the showers early this morning. He was knifed, hit his head badly. He lost a lot of blood.'

  'Who were they?'

  'We don't know who all of them were. Two of them got away.'

  'How?' Delaney couldn't believe what he was hearing. 'This is supposed to be a secure prison for God's sake.'

  'Three of the men were badly hurt by Norrell. Two of them are dead, the other is in intensive care.'

  'And you've got no security footage?'

  'The camera was taken out. That's why the two officers were dispatched. If they hadn't got there in time, Norrell would definitely be dead.'

  'And they just let two of them walk away from it?'

  'They were prioritised on dealing with the injured people.'

  'Convenient.' Delaney couldn't keep the sarcasm from his voice.

  'What exactly are you implying, Inspector?'

  'What motivated the assault?'

  'You know as well as I do, there could be any number of reasons. I have it on good authority that Norrell was involved in the manufacture and distribution of child pornography. Particularly nasty child pornography at that. You know what happens to people like that in prison if they're not in a segregated unit.'

  'And why wasn't he in a segregated unit?'

  'Because he wasn't charged with paedophile activities, Inspector, as you very well know. He was charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder. He was a category-A prisoner and treated as such.'

  'I want to talk to the guards who broke up the fight.'

  'I'm afraid that won't be possible right away.'

  'Why not? There's been a death, a serious assault. This is a police matter now.'

  'And an investigation is under way. Your involvement will need to be officially sanctioned.' He shrugged, apologetically. 'At this moment it is out of both our hands.'

  Delaney looked at him steadily. 'You know why I was due to speak to him?'