Blood Work (22 page)

'Why don't you get out of here and go and find
him then?'

'Shouldn't I stay here, process the scene?'

'I've got it covered. The super is on his way over,
cowboy. He wants your balls in a chocolate fountain
and served up at the ambassador's party.'

Delaney grimaced. 'The guy from the hospital
made a complaint?'

Campbell shook her head dismissively. 'You can
tell me about it later.' She jerked her thumb back
towards the murder scene. 'For now we have more
important things to worry about than some paediatrician
you've been having a pissing competition
with. Now fuck off before he gets here.'

Delaney gestured to Sally Cartwright and led her
back down the stairs. Campbell watched them leave
for a moment and then put a cigarette in her mouth
and then barked at the uniform standing by the open
door. 'Get me a sodding light!'

Delaney held his warrant card up again for the old
lady at the door to read, but she knew very well who
he was. She backed away resignedly as Delaney and
Sally walked in. Delaney told the two uniforms that
were with them to wait outside and keep an eye out
for Ashley Bradley, and if the little bastard ran they
had better damn well catch him.

Mrs Bradley led Delaney to the back of the flat to
her grandson's bedroom. Delaney didn't consider
him likely for the two killings. It was a very big step
from flashing nurses on the common to murder and
mutilation. It did happen of course. Serial killers were
often profiled as having been cruel to animals in their
youth, going on to sex offences like peeping through
windows and flashing before maturing into full-time
psychopaths. It was pretty bloody rare for it to
happen overnight, mind.

The door to Ashley Bradley's bedroom was locked
and his grandmother didn't have a key. Delaney
didn't even apologise as he used his shoulder to
smash the door open. But what he saw inside made
him rethink the matter entirely and curse himself for
every kind of fool in God's cruel Christendom.

Superintendent George Napier stood at the top of the
stairs at the flats in Camden Town, glaring at Diane
Campbell as she took another satisfying drag on her
cigarette.

'Is that absolutely necessary?'

Diane jerked her cigarette back at the crime scene
where the suited-up SOCOs were now processing
every square inch. 'Have you seen what he did to her
in there?'

'You know damn well I haven't.'

Diane took another drag on her cigarette and
pointedly blew out a long stream of smoke. 'Talk to
me about it when you have then.'

Napier looked far from happy but let it rest.
'Where's Delaney?'

'Following up a lead.'

'I've had a complaint that he assaulted a paediatrician
at South Hampstead Hospital yesterday morning
and then physically threatened him again today.'

'I'm sure he had his reasons.'

'I don't give a damn if he had his reasons or not. I
will not have members of my police force roaming
around assaulting members of the public.'

'I'll have a word, sir.'

'You'll do more than that. I want him suspended
pending a full inquiry.'

'Why don't we get his version of events before we
do anything?'

'The man's a loose cannon, you know that, Diane.
But he's gone too far this time. I want him closed
down.'

'Can't do that, sir.'

'You'll do as you're damn well told. This ain't
Dodge City, Chief Inspector.'

'Why don't you tell that to the press?'

'What are you talking about?'

Diane pointed her cigarette behind the superintendent.
'Melanie Jones seems to think the killer
has some kind of connection with Jack Delaney. She
wants to liaise with him about it.'

George Napier swore under his breath as he turned
round to see Melanie Jones and her cameraman
coming up the stairs towards them.

'How the hell did she know about this?' he hissed.

'Seems the killer has a thing about her too. Likes to
call her up for cosy chit-chats.'

Napier turned his back on the approaching
reporter. 'Jesus Christ, Diane. This kind of thing can
ruin careers.'

'If Jack is suspended, sir, I guess she can deal with
you.'

Napier glared at her. 'You've made your bloody
point, Diane. Let's not push it, eh?'

Delaney stood in the centre of the small room. A bed
in the corner, a wardrobe, a desk with a laptop
computer on it and a digital camera beside it. A stack
of pornographic magazines at the base of the bed
with a waste-paper basket beside it full of old tissues.
He picked up a couple of the magazines and flicked
through the titles, voyeuristic stuff mainly, peeping
Tom-type shots. Posed for the camera as though the
subject was unaware the camera was there. And
every spare inch of every wall of the room covered
with photographs. Photographs of women genuinely
unaware they were being photographed. A lot of
them from South Hampstead Heath. A lot of them in
nurse's uniform.

Sally waved a hand under her nose. The odour in
the room was overpowering and distinctly unpleasant.
The smell of stale sex. Solitary, self-administered
sex. She crossed to the curtains, opened them and
after struggling with the catch managed to release the
window, letting a little fresh air into the room. She
glanced at the waste-paper basket and grimaced at
Delaney. 'The greatest love of all.'

But Delaney wasn't listening, he was staring at the
photos on the wall.

'Have a look here, Sally.' He was pointing at a
photo on the wall near to the desk. It was of a dark-haired
woman dressed goth-style and walking on the
South Hampstead common.

Sally looked at the picture. 'It's hard to tell, sir. The
make-up makes them all look alike. Goths, I mean.'

Delaney tapped at the picture. 'Blow this up and
I'll bet you we'll see a belt buckle with two green men
on it.'

'It does look like her.'

'Check all the others.'

Sally and Delaney methodically worked their way
along the photos. After five minutes Sally stopped
and looked at a picture.

'I think this is the second one, sir. She's got blonde
hair, but I think it's her.'

Delaney walked across and looked. The hair
colouring was different but the face was the same, she
was dressed in a nurse's uniform from South
Hampstead Hospital. It felt like someone had
punched him in the stomach. He deserved it. 'Shit!'
he said.

'Sir?'

'We let the sick fuck get away.'

There is a connection between life and death.
Delaney believed in that, if he didn't believe in much
else. When he was four years old and living in
Ballydehob, he had been bundled out of the house
one day during the summer holidays. His two older,
twin cousins, Mary and Clare, had taken him down
to the old railway viaduct over the river. It was a
scorching hot day and he had been given ice cream
and lemonade in the village, then taken down to the
river and up on the viaduct where they allowed him
to pick up pebbles and throw them into the water
cascading far below.

A crow had landed on the spur of green land under
the entrance to the viaduct where they were standing,
high overhead and just by the lamp post. The girls,
older than him by some eight years, looked on Jack
as their own little walking, talking doll. They told
him that the crow was actually a raven. When Jack
threw a pebble and it took off squawking in the air,
the girls had said that it was a bad omen. The raven
was an omen of death. And Jack, as susceptible to
superstition as an Irishman from Cork is wont to be,
believed them. But when they returned home late that
afternoon, with the sound of laughter and bustle
coming from the house like it was almost Christmas,
Jack, swinging between them, dangling from their
longer arms like a curly-haired monkey, picked up on
the atmosphere and smiled even more broadly for no
reason at all. But as soon as they entered the chaos of
the house it became clear why Jack was being treated
to a trip out with his beautiful cousins. His mother
had given birth to a daughter. A young sister for
Jack. And although he didn't really understand what
was going on he knew it was a special day.

Before the day was spent, however, eleven o'clock
at night with the moon hanging low and enormous in
the summer sky like a swollen exotic fruit, his silver-haired
grandfather, eighty-three years old, had died.
And Delaney would never see a crow or a rook again
without shivering slightly, although in his heart, deep
down, he knew the raven had not been meant for his
grandfather. But there was a cycle to life, and death
was part of that. Jack grasped that from a very early
age.

How that connection worked, though, in the case
of the murdered and mutilated woman that had been
obscenely decorated with a scarf just like Kate
Walker's, Delaney wasn't quite so sure. But he knew
evil wasn't an abstract concept.

He was far from hungry. After what he had
witnessed a short while ago he felt as if he might
never eat again. But his energy levels were low and
his brain told him he needed nourishment, so he was
standing outside the burger van chain-smoking and
trying to wash the memory of what he had witnessed
from his mind. He held his cigarette to his lips and
realised his hands were still shaking. He couldn't
keep the images away and he knew what would be
written in the pathologist's clinical report.

Her left arm was placed across the left breast.
The body was terribly mutilated
. . .
the throat
was severed deeply, the incision through the skin
jagged, and reaching right round the neck. The
body had lost a great quantity of blood. There
was no evidence of a struggle having taken place.
The scarf was draped around her savaged neck.
There were two distinct, clean cuts on the left
side of the spine. They were parallel with each
other and separated by about half an inch. The
muscular structures appeared as though an
attempt had made to separate the bones of the
neck.

The abdomen had been entirely laid open: the
intestines, severed from their attachments, had
been lifted out of the body and placed on the
shoulder of the corpse; while from the pelvis, the
uterus and its appendages with the upper
portion of the vagina and the posterior two-thirds
of the bladder, had been entirely removed.

'Inspector?'

Delaney, startled out of his reverie, looked up at
the florid face of the short-order chef.

'You want onions with this?'

Roy held up the burger and Delaney shook his
head, not sure he had the stomach for it right then.

'You all right, sir?' Sally asked.

Delaney didn't reply, pulling out his mobile phone
and tapping in some numbers. After a while the call
was answered. The familiar voice purring with self-content.

'Melanie Jones.'

'Melanie. It's Jack Delaney.'

'I was just about to call you,'

'Why?'

'Because he just called me again.'

'And . . .'

'He said to give you another message.'

'What was it?'

'He said for you to start with the man in the
mirror.'

'What's that mean?'

'I don't know, Jack. That's all he said. Then he
hung up.'

Delaney clenched his fist. 'Do you have any idea
what he did to that woman?'

'They haven't given me any details, no.'

'I find out you're jerking me around and I am
going to visit vengeance on you like a biblical fucking
angel.'

'Great line. Can I use that?'

Delaney spoke quietly but furiously. 'Do you
believe me, when I say it?'

'All right, yes. I believe you. You're the arch-fucking-angel
of death and justice. I'm telling you
what he's told me. What more do you want me to
do?'

'I'll let you know.' Delaney cut the call off. He
quickly scrolled to Kate's number once more and
snapped the phone angrily shut when it cut into her
answerphone yet again. Where the bloody hell was
she?

Sally walked over to him, holding out his burger.
Delaney snatched it off her, took one look at it and
threw it in the bin.

'Oi!' Roy shouted out.

Delaney glared up at him. 'Not now, all right?' He
turned to Sally. 'Come on.'

'Where are we going?'

If Sally was hoping for further enlightenment, it
wasn't forthcoming as Delaney was already striding
quickly away.

Roy leaned over the counter and called after him.
'Jack Delaney. International man of misery!' He
grinned, pleased with himself, then went back to
reading his Peter F. Hamilton.

In Hampstead village itself, a light drizzle had
started. And the wind made the air far colder than it
should have been for the time of year. Kate locked
her car door then pulled her coat tighter to herself,
hugging her arms around her body as she walked,
head down, across the road.

She walked up to the front door but hesitated
before knocking on it. She had taken the morning off
to meet with this woman, but now that it came to it,
she wasn't sure she could go through with it.

After she had left Delaney the previous night, she
had stood outside the Holly Bush for a moment or
two, furious and hurt. Really hurt and hating herself
for it. She couldn't face being alone that night so she
had flagged down a passing cab and told the driver to
take her out of Hampstead. When he had asked her
where to go she honestly had no idea, but then told
him to take her to Highgate. She needed a friend. But
at her friend's front door she had hesitated, wanting
to ring the bell but fearing conversation. Knowing
that if she articulated her thoughts she would break
down in tears. The rain had started falling in earnest
when Kate finally pushed the doorbell. The chimes
sounded as though from a different world. A world
of comfort and security. A world that Kate felt as
though she had been ripped away from and was not
sure she would ever find her way back to.