Blood Work (21 page)

'The petrol station.'

'What about it?'

'It's not here any more.'

Jenny Hickling turned back to the fifteen-year-old
boy who was following her. Nervously flicking his
long and greasy hair like a girl.

'Get a move on for fuck's sake. I ain't got all
fucking day.'

'All right, keep your knickers on.'

'That supposed to be funny?'

The boy shuffled after her. His jeans were hanging
off his scrawny arse gangsta-style, and although he
swaggered as best he could, Jenny reckoned he wasn't
as cocksure as he thought he was. She knew the type,
posh kids bunking off from the grammar school up
the road, dressing like hoodies and trying to talk the
talk. About as convincing as her uncle Gerard who
used to dress up as Marilyn Monroe at every
opportunity, complete with a blonde wig and five
o'clock shadow. She reckoned the boy was cherry.
She'd probably get away with only a couple of
strokes and the scratch of her fingernail across the
business end before he'd shoot his load. She'd agreed
to give him a blow job but she reckoned she wouldn't
have to. She wasn't bothered about giving him a
suck, it was just she weren't going to let him stick it
in her mouth unprotected and she hated the taste of
latex. It reminded her of the washing-up gloves her
bitch of an Irish mother used to wear when she
washed her mouth out for swearing. Before Jenny
grew too big of course. She had believed the threat
that if she tried to do it one more fucking time she'd
wake up with a fucking carving knife in her throat, if
that wasn't what her pervert English teacher, Mr
Gingernut Collier, called a contradiction in fucking
terms. She looked back at the kid who was still
limping along behind. He wanted it, that much was
clear, but he was still nervous as shite. His older
brother was at the University of Middlesex, wherever
the fuck that was, and he had nicked some gear off
him. Primo gear, he had called it, like something he
had heard on late-night TV. But if Jenny guessed
right the prissy boy wouldn't know primo gear from
a knobbly stick up his arse.

She turned the corner into the backyard of a block
of flats. The bottom corridors weren't overlooked,
and if she had a penny for every dick she'd dealt with
back there she'd have a good pound or two and no
fucking mistake.

'Will you get a fecking move on?'

She walked up the step into the covered walkway
where the wheelie bins were kept and stopped dead
in her tracks. The body of Agnes Crabtree lay right in
front of her. One leg trailing up the steps and her
head at an angle God hadn't intended. She was pretty
sure of that.

She turned back to the pimply teenager who had
turned white as a sheet and was running away as fast
as he could move. Which wasn't very fast; she almost
laughed when he tripped over and landed head first
in a puddle, but the smile died as soon as it was born
as she realised the little gobshite had taken the gear,
primo, or otherwise with him.

She pulled out her mobile phone and dialled 999.
'Ambulance. There's an old lady here not looking so
tickety-fucking-boo.'

She gave the woman on the other end of the line
the address, then grimaced when she asked her how
old she was. 'I'm fourteen, so I won't be here when
they get here, all right.' She closed the phone down,
then cursed, they'd be able to trace her from her
phone number. But she reckoned the woodentops, as
her mother called them, would have better things to
do than chase up a bleeding truancy.

She looked down at the body of Agnes Crabtree. 'I
hope they sort you out, missus.' Then she set off in
pursuit of the pimply boy, though she reckoned his
knob must have shrivelled to the size of an acorn at
the sight of the dead woman, if it hadn't retracted up
inside him altogether.

Delaney looked out of the passenger window as they
drove along the Western Avenue, at least the rain
had stopped, but the flyover was clogged fairly
solidly as they moved slowly towards White City. He
looked over to where the old dog-racing track used
to be and realised how much London had changed
over the last twenty years or so. And not for the
better. Delaney had a theory that a city could only
take so many people. Too many rats in a cage meant
that some, already feral, turned psychotic and in his
experience humans were no different. It might not be
against the laws of God for so many millions of
people to be crammed together in one space, but it
was certainly against the laws of nature. We are the
architects of our own destruction sure enough, he
thought drily. He should have got out of London
when he had a chance. If he had listened to his wife
four years ago things would have turned out very
different.

He'd never have met Kate, and once again
Delaney's stomach gripped with the guilt of it all.
London might be a mess but he himself was a walking
fucking disaster area. And he knew it. Maybe this
was it though. Maybe he had a chance to rewrite
history, almost. A second chance. Maybe Kate was
his salvation.

The traffic cleared and Sally was able to floor the
accelerator and they drove past the White City police
station and soon they were at Chalk Farm.

He had to live on the third floor Delaney thought
as they trudged up the steps, out of breath and
figuring, yet again, it was time for a new fitness
regime. A man clattered by in army fatigues and a
woollen hat. Delaney stood aside to let him pass. The
man was probably carrying, which was why he was
so keen to get past, but Delaney had other fish to fry.
He carried on to the third floor where Sally
Cartwright was already waiting for him, not a hair
out of place nor the slightest evidence of any exertion
on her part.

'What are you waiting for, Sally? Bang on the
door!' he snapped.

Sally smiled thinly and rapped hard on the door.
After a short while with no response Delaney stepped
forward and banged harder, and they heard the
sound of a chain being lifted and the face of a small,
white-haired, elderly woman peered out.

'I'm not interested in Jehovah or shoe brushes.'

Delaney knew how she felt. He held out his
warrant card. 'Detective Inspector Jack Delaney, and
this is Constable Sally Cartwright.'

'He hasn't done anything wrong.' She tried to
shut the door but Delaney held it open with his
hand.

'Who hasn't done anything wrong?'

The elderly woman shook her head. 'I should
speak to a lawyer first. That's right, isn't it?'

Sally smiled at her reassuringly. 'What are you
talking about?'

The woman shook her head again. 'I don't know
anything about it, and he was with me the whole
time.'

'Is Ashley Bradley your son?' Sally asked.

The woman shook her disarrayed white hair. 'He's
my grandson. I told them never to get that dog, I
knew it would end in tears.'

'Where is he, Mrs Bradley?'

The woman shook her head. 'You just missed him.'

Delaney cursed himself. 'Army-type clothes and a
woolly hat?'

'That's right. He's gone. But he's been with me all
the other times.'

'Can we come in, Mrs Bradley?'

'The woman shook her head nervously. 'I'm
having my Weetabix.'

Delaney would have responded but his phone rang,
startling him out of his introspection, and he snapped
it open. 'Delaney.'

'Jack, it's Diane.'

'I'm on it.'

'Never mind that. Where are you?'

'Chalk Farm, why?'

'Good. I need you to get to Camden Town.'

'What's going on?'

'We think there might be another one. And it's
bad, Jack. Really bad.'

'Give me the address.' He listened as Diane gave
him the details and closed the phone. 'Come on,
Sally, we're out of here.' He turned back to the old
lady. 'We'll be back.'

They hurried back down the stairs and Delaney
pulled out his phone again, hitting the speed dial. It
rang for a few times, again, and then cut into Kate's
voice message again. He snapped the phone angrily
shut. 'Where the bloody hell is she?'

'Sir?'

Delaney hadn't realised he had spoken aloud.
'Don't worry about it, Sally, just get us to Camden.'

Just as a human face is a map, in most cases, of the
kind of life a person has had – sad, happy, hopeful,
despairing – so a building has a personality every bit
as decipherable. Grosvenor Court in Camden Town
was built in an era that had more hope than it
deserved. Hope that experience soon wiped off its
facade, just as the bright green paint was now faded,
scabby and sore.

The apartments were built on three sides of a
square, with a car park in the middle. A single police
car blocked the back entrance. Sally pulled Delaney's
Saab to a groaning stop alongside the police car and
they both got out.

It wasn't even lunchtime yet but Delaney was
yawning expansively. He had hardly slept the night
before. After Kate had left him in the Holly Bush and
wouldn't answer her door to him he had gone home,
where, for the first time in four years, he didn't even
contemplate drinking himself into his usual oblivion.
But the night had brought no relief in sleep, as he
knew it wouldn't. It was part of the price he had to
pay.

Danny Vine was waiting at the bottom of the stairs
with Bob Wilkinson and the police photographer,
Delaney couldn't remember his name, and a couple
of SOCOs. They were waiting for Delaney to see the
scene before recording every detail. Bob nodded at
Sally and Delaney as they approached. 'I hope you
haven't had breakfast.' He wasn't joking.

Delaney didn't reply. He hadn't eaten since the
bacon sandwich he had had for lunch yesterday, but
sensed this wasn't the time for small talk. He could
see it in the pale faces of the three men watching him.

'Who called it in?'

'The cleaner. She walked in on it. Staggered back
and fell down the stairs. Nearly broke her neck. She
came round in the ambulance and the paramedics
alerted us.'

Delaney walked up the stairs and two uniformed
policemen at the top stood aside. Their faces were
drained, one was shaking visibly. Delaney pushed
open the door and stepped into the darkness of the
room, Sally following closely behind.

Delaney's eyes didn't need time to adjust to see
what lay on the floor. What had once been a human
being was now rendered into a thing of slaughter and
his world tilted on its axis once more. Delaney's heart
felt like it had been gripped by a hand made of frozen
steel and he gasped out loud. He fought to catch his
breath. He wanted to tear his eyes away from what
he was looking at but couldn't. Among all the blood
and ripped flesh, among the blood sprayed on the
walls and the tissue splayed over the floor and the
guts strewn like the wet, grey tubing of a squid's
tentacles, was what was left of a once beautiful
woman; she had hair the colour of blue midnight, lips
as sweet as an Elgar cello concerto and a scarf trailed
around her naked body soaked in her blood. A long,
thick and multicoloured scarf, just like Doctor Who
used to wear.

'Kate . . .' Delaney's voice was a tortured whisper.

And the roaring in his ears was like an ocean now.

Delaney gagged, again, and turned and stumbled
from the room. Outside he turned and half ran, half
fell to the end of the walkway, where he bent over
and retched, sank to his knees, coughed and retched
again, gagged until there was nothing left in him to
throw up.

Superintendent George Napier looked at his wristwatch
and took a sip of coffee. One of the first
things he had done when taking over the office was
to bring in his own espresso coffee maker. A hand-pumped
La Pavoni machine, a design classic in shiny
chrome. He ground his own beans, a particular
coffee he ordered over the Internet called Jumbo
Maragogype – the elephant bean. He swallowed and
sighed. One cup of real coffee and ten minutes to
himself, if he could organise it, was a small luxury he
could rarely afford.

The telephone on his desk rang and he deliberated
for a moment or two before answering but finally
snatched it up.

'Napier.'

He listened for a moment, the frown on his
forehead deepening. He nodded finally. 'I'll take care
of it.' He replaced the phone in its cradle and sighed
as he looked at his cup of coffee. The moment was
ruined. 'Bloody Irishman!' he said and slammed his
hand on his desk, causing his phone to rattle and his
precious coffee to spill out on the perfect order of his
highly polished desk. But Napier didn't even register
it. 'Damn them all,' he said and slammed his hand
down again.

'It's not her, sir.'

Delaney could barely hear the words. He wiped the
sleeve of his jacket across his mouth and looked up to
see Sally standing above him. 'What?'

'It's not her, sir. It's not Dr Walker. It's her scarf,
by the looks of it, but it's not her. That woman. She's
wearing a wig.' She could barely get the words out.
'She was wearing a wig.' She corrected herself.

Sally took a step towards him and then had to put
her hand on the wall. She looked down to the car park
below. Taking a few deep breaths herself. Her face
was the colour of a white lily pressed in an old hymnal.

Delaney took a long swig of water from the bottle
that Sally had just given him and wiped his mouth as
Diane Campbell came up the steps and walked over
to join them.

'You got anything for me?'

Delaney shook his head. 'Just got here, Diane.'

'Is it the same guy?

Delaney shrugged. 'It's the same kind of butchery.
Worse than the first.'

'Is he escalating?'

Delaney gestured helplessly. 'Seems to be, but
honestly, I don't know, boss. We're pretty much in
the dark here.'

'What about the suspect? The flasher?'

'We've tracked him down but he wasn't at home.'