Blood Work (23 page)

The door had opened and it had been like standing
in front of an open fire after a winter storm.

'For God's sake, Kate! How long have you been
out there? You look like a drowned rat.'

Kate had stumbled in and Jane had put her strong
arms around her, stroking her wet hair as the tears
poured down Kate's cheeks and she sobbed like a
hurt child.

The next morning, back in Hampstead village at
another front door, Kate took a deep breath and
willed her finger forward, knowing if she pushed the
bell the world might change for ever.

The chimes played a tune Kate felt sure she should
recognise but couldn't quite place. The door opened
and Helen Archer looked out at her. She was a
beautiful woman somewhere in her thirties, Kate
guessed, with long blonde hair the colour of antique
pine with threads of amber gold. Her eyes were
startling, wide and doll-like. But Kate could see
behind those painted eyes an innocence that had been
betrayed long ago. A hurt that was beyond
restoration. She had seen it before, in her own eyes.

'You must be Dr Walker.'

'It's Kate, please.'

The woman stepped back and gestured with her
arm. 'Come in, Kate.'

Across the road Paul Archer rolled down his
window and stared at the door as it closed behind the
pair of them. He put a hand subconsciously to his
nose.

There was nothing kind in his eyes.

Roger Yates was sitting behind his desk in a plush
office. It was a partner's desk, green leather on the
top with a rich patina on the wood which only comes
after a few hundred years. There was nothing repro
about the office. The paintings on the wall were
originals and insured for many thousands of pounds.
Roger believed that the outward expression of wealth
was one of the main pleasures in life. What would be
the point of being as rich as Croesus if poorer people
weren't made aware of it? It would be like having a
supermodel figure and wearing a burka, if you asked
him. Sackcloth and ashes were all very well for the
Jesuits and the Presbyterians but his shirts were made
in Jermyn Street of silk, not hair, and he always
turned left when boarding an aeroplane. Not that he
wasn't a generous man. He gave more than most
people's salaries to charity each year, and he always
made a point of buying the
Big Issue
. And he was
popular. For some reason his opulent lifestyle and big
gestures didn't engender envy in people. He bought
himself a new jag every year and had never had it
keyed once. The
Big Issue
seller always smiled when
he saw him, not at all resentful that his watch alone
could have housed him in fine style for a year.

Maybe it was down to his good looks. He had
always been a handsome man, six foot tall, a
generous head of hair. Naturally perfect teeth housed
in an effortless smile, and blue, honest eyes that held
your gaze and commanded trust.

Roger was an accountant. He'd been to Harrow
and Oxford and somehow felt he should have done
something more glamorous as a career. But he came
from old money, and the Yateses had been in finance
in one way or another since the Great Fire of
London; Roger's career had been mapped out for him
long before his name had even gone down for prep
school. In truth, he was secretly glad of the
arrangement, not that he'd ever really admit it to
himself, because Roger liked order in his life. He
liked to know what the next day would bring, what
the next week would bring, what the next year would
bring. He liked to be in control. He liked discipline.
Which is why the morning, which had started badly
– he had had to cancel a golf tournament, something
he had been looking forward to all year – had gone
from bad to worse, and the reason for it, the one
main thing in his life that Roger wasn't content with
and seemed powerless to do anything about, was
now standing, larger than life and twice as ugly, in
front of his desk.

'Roger,' Delaney said.

'Jack, what the hell are you doing here?'

'I've been great thanks. How about yourself?'

Roger leaned back in his chair, his scowl
deepening. 'Let me think about that for a moment.
How have I been? Well, I'll tell you.' He held his
hand out to count off on his fingers. 'Firstly I had to
cancel a golf tournament this weekend. And that's
because . . . Secondly my wife is coming out of
hospital. My wife who was stabbed by a homicidal
nut job that you brought round to my house.'

'I didn't bring him round.'

'And thirdly,' Roger Yates continued, pointing his
fingers at Delaney, 'I have to take care of your
daughter, because her father is a drink-sodden car
crash of a man with the social responsibility of a
mentally damaged animal.'

Delaney fought the urge to punch him. 'I do feel
responsible.'

'You bloody well should do.'

'And I am grateful.'

'As I told you before, Jack. Many times. You can
show that gratitude by keeping out of my sight.'

'I need a favour.'

Roger sat back in his chair, genuinely astonished.
'You are bloody joking?'

Delaney pulled out a piece of paper with an
address written on it and put it on the desk in front
of him.

'I want to know who owns this building, who built
it and who sold it. I want the financial trail.'

'And you can't do this through your own
department, why?'

'Because it's linked to Sinead's death. The people
responsible for your sister-in-law's murder.'

Roger looked at the paper but made no move to
pick it up. 'I don't think so.'

Delaney looked at him for a moment. 'You want
me to tell Wendy you refused to help?'

Roger glared at him for a moment before snatching
the paper up. 'Get the hell out of my office.'

Delaney glared back at him for a moment then
nodded, turned his back and walked out the room,
closing the door loudly behind him. Roger Yates
simmered with fury for a moment then picked a golf
ball off his desk and hurled it against the opposite
wall, narrowly missing a Chagall which was worth
more than Delaney's annual salary. He looked at the
address written on the piece of paper then snatched
up his telephone and punched a button.

'Sarah, I've got a job for you.' He sighed angrily.
'Well, cancel it. This is urgent. My office, now.'

He slammed the phone down. 'Fucking Irishman!'

Helen Archer sat down in a chair which she had
carefully placed opposite the sofa where Kate was
sitting, took a sip of her tea and looked at her visitor
with puzzled eyes. 'I don't see why we need to talk
about him. The court case is in a couple of days.'

'I know.'

'And you're with the police, you say?'

Kate shook her head. 'I work with the police. I'm a
doctor.'

'You're a police surgeon?'

'I used to be. Not any more. I'm a forensic
pathologist.'

The frown on Helen's forehead deepened. 'I don't
understand. Has somebody died?'

Kate took a deep breath. 'I think your husband
might have raped me.'

Helen looked at her, shocked. 'What do you mean
you think
he might have raped you?'

Kate shrugged, blinking back tears. 'I think there
were drugs involved.' She wiped the back of her hand
across her eyes. 'A date-rape drug. Rohypnol,
something like that . . .' She paused for a moment.
'Like he used with you.'

Helen flinched. 'How do you know that?'

'Like I said, I work with the police,' Kate said. 'I
looked at documents. I shouldn't have done, but
I needed to know about him. I needed to know if it
was true.'

Helen stiffened, lifting her chin, challenging. 'Is
that why you came here? To see if I was telling the
truth.'

'Not that. To see if it really happened with me.
I want to know about him.'

'You want to know about Paul?'

'I'm sorry.'

Helen Archer sighed, her fingers clutching her ring,
the knuckles white. She took a deep breath. 'Don't be
sorry,' she said finally. 'None of this is your fault.'

'I'm still sorry. You have enough to deal with.'

'I know what it's like to not be believed. To have a
man rape you and others believe him when he denies
it. I know what it's like to be attacked. To be
attacked by a man you trusted, who you once loved.'
Helen blinked back tears now. 'I know what it's like
to be hurt.'

Kate bit her lower lip, not noticing the pain, and
said again, 'I'm sorry.'

Helen came across and sat beside her on the sofa.
'It's not your fault,' she said, taking Kate's small, cold
hand in her own. And Kate cried now, the tears
running down her cheeks.

The curly-haired man leaned back against the wall
and looked with disdain across the road where a
group of office workers had gathered for a cigarette.
The smokers' room was now al fresco by law after
all. He had never been a smoker. He had tried it once,
buying a pack of ten Camels off a boy at school when
he was twelve years old. He had only smoked one of
them and hadn't cared for it at all, never felt the urge
to smoke again. In his book it was a sign of weakness.
He looked at his watch. One o'clock. He slipped
headphone buds into his ears, turned on his portable
radio and listened to the headlines he had been
waiting for.

A few minutes later he turned it off again. The
fools still hadn't made the connection. A small
mention of a woman found dead. Being treated as
murder but that was it. No mention of the one on
Hampstead Heath. No mention of what they signified.
He laughed out loud, quite careless of the
curious looks he was getting from across the street.
Idiots the lot of them. Delaney smoked, didn't he?
Another idiot. He couldn't see a clue if it was served
up on a silver plate for him.

He looked at his watch once more, started
whistling a Michael Jackson song and wandered back
towards his office. In a couple of hours he'd be off
rota. Then the fun could begin again.

Helen's eyes were like cold flint as she remembered.
'There was no evidence of any date-rape drug that
they could find. I got away whilst he was dressing.
Locked myself in my bedroom and called the police
from there. But he had plenty of time before they
arrived to rinse out the decanter. Replace the brandy.
Clean the carpet where it had spilled.'

'Yes.'

'They took me down the police station. It was
horrible, Kate. You could see it in the eyes of the
men. They didn't believe me. My voice was slurred,
I'd drunk a lot of brandy, laced or otherwise.'

Kate looked at her sympathetically. She knew what
it was like, she'd drunk far too many vodkas to have
any control, to have any defences that night. Helen
was blaming herself for that much at least, and Kate
could well understand how she felt. The
if only
that
changed lives for ever.

'The police surgeon on call was different. She
believed me. She treated me like the victim I was in
all this.' Her voice hardened. 'But I'm not going to be
a victim any more, Kate. I'll see that bastard in court
and make him pay.'

'I know.'

'And do you know what the worse thing was,
Kate?'

'Go on.'

'On our fifth wedding anniversary I bought him a
watch.' The bitterness sharp in her voice. 'A Rolex.
An eighteen-carat white-gold Rolex Oyster Perpetual
Cosmograph Daytona. Seventeen thousand pounds'
worth.'

Kate nodded, not sure what to say.

'A big manly watch for a big manly man. He had
his arm over my throat and around my head, pinning
me down, so that the watch scratched my cheek and
was pushed against my ear. And he was grunting
with each thrust like an animal, like I was some kind
of mechanical toy.' Her nostrils flared wide as she
breathed deeply. 'And I could hear the tick-tock of
the clock before each thrust. Tick, thrust. Tock,
thrust. Tick . . .'

She took in another gulp of air and looked at Kate
with eyes filled with sadness.

'I bought that watch as a symbol of my love for
him.'

Delaney drummed his fingers impatiently on the
dashboard of his car as Sally drove them away from
Roger Yates's office.

'Back to White City, sir?' Sally asked.

'Not just yet. Take us back to Bradley's flat. I want
to look at those photos again.'

'Sir.'

'If they let us that is. This will have been bumped
over our heads.'

'What do you mean?'

'If he's a serial killer now the glory boys from
Paddington Green will be all over this like a rash.'

He pulled out his phone and pushed a speed-dial
button, putting it on loudspeaker as he rummaged in
his pockets. 'Slimline, it's Jack Delaney.'

'Shoot.'

'I need a favour.'

'This the kind of favour that might cost someone
his job?'

'Probably not.'

Delaney could hear him sighing on the other end of
the line.

'Go on then.'

'I want you to get one of the guys to triangulate a
number, locate a mobile phone for me. But keep it off
the books.'

'Whose phone is it?'

'Just get me the location, Dave.'

'Give me the number then.'

Delaney pulled out a piece of paper and read the
number to him, then closed the phone. Sally looked
across at him but didn't say anything.

The SOCO team was leaving as Sally and Delaney
walked up the steps to Bradley's flat. His grandmother
was watching them go, less than pleased.

She recognised Delaney and grabbed his arm.

'Here. Can't you do anything about them? You
should see the mess they're making.'

'Sorry. Nothing I can do.'

'They won't let me back in my own house. And I've
got
Murder She Wrote
to watch in a minute.'

'Sorry.'

Delaney gently took her hand off his arm as a
uniformed female officer came across.

'They say I've got to go down the police station,
Detective Inspector. What's he done now then?'