Mark Pearson - Blood Work

Jack Delaney shrugged. 'So he's not happy where he is. Why should we give a monkey's toss?'

'He claims he knew nothing about Walker's paedophile activities. He fears for his safety at Bayfield.'

'The sooner that shite is put down like a rabid dog the better, you ask me.'

'Not too soon. Norrell claims to know something about your wife's death. That's his bargaining chip. He says he'll only speak to you.'

'And you'll let me do it?'

'I will if you're back on the force.' Diane dug into her pocket and pulled out an unopened letter. 'I never processed your resignation, Jack. Far as anyone knows you've been on extended leave these last weeks.' She smiled once more. 'Emotional problems.'

'You must have been pretty sure about me.'

Diane held the smile like a sniper cradles a rifle. 'Men might not be to my taste, Jack. Doesn't stop me understanding them pretty damn well.'

Delaney finished his pint and stood up.

'Where are you going?'

'I'm going to talk to him.'

Campbell shook her head. 'Not today. I've arranged the interview for tomorrow morning. Come on, cowboy. Sit down, I'll get you another pint.'

Diane Campbell picked up his empty glass and headed for the bar, threading her way through the group of young men who had now started singing, 'Get 'em down you Zulu warrior, get 'em down you Zulu chief.' She had never understood what the song was about, and the prospect of seeing a naked man, however young and fit, held as much attraction for her as a Cherry Cola held for Jack Delaney. She waited at the bar for the drinks and looked back at him. She had put her career on the line keeping him in his job. Bringing down Superintendent Walker, however guilty he might have been, had not enamoured Delaney to the senior brass. In fact she had to outright lie to the powers that be to keep him out of jail, let alone keep his warrant card. Possession of an unlicensed firearm was not looked upon with favour, not to mention the little matter of nearly killing one of her sergeants. That the sergeant in question, Eddie Bonner, helped to cover up Walker's activities was neither here nor there. Sergeant Bonner was dead and, whatever forensic pathologist Kate Walker might think, the dead did not make good witnesses. Diane handed the barmaid the correct change, flashed her a flirty smile then walked back to Delaney carrying the drinks carefully through the packed bar. It might very well come back and bite her on her bony arse, but she reckoned she had done the right thing. Delaney was a good man to have in her camp, she knew that much about him if little else.

Diane handed the Irishman his pint, spying the barely contained violence in brown eyes and figured Norrell better not be yanking on the cowboy's lariat.

Kevin lay on the top bunk in his cell squeezing an exercise ball, the tendons of his hand standing out like ropes of wire as he contracted it. The man below him fidgeted nervously. Norrell didn't blame him. Like the man in the shower, he wouldn't meet his eyes. Something was in the air. He could almost taste the tension. Norrell smiled humorously as he squeezed the ball again. Whatever it was he would be ready to meet it, or die trying. One way or another he was getting out of prison.

Diane Campbell glanced across at the pub windows, noticing that the rain had eased up a little. She sipped on her third glass of mineral water and looked across at Delaney. There was a glassy look in his eyes now, less anger and a softer focus. Not surprising since had moved on to drinking Scotch with his Guinness, for some reason insisting on Glenmorangie rather than his favoured Bushmills, and had had six or seven doubles. She wasn't sure that he hadn't slipped in a quick one or two when she had gone to the Ladies. Never mind about the ban on smoking in pubs, what about putting enough cubicles in and banning women from using the place like a lounge for gossip? She didn't envy a man his penis, that was for sure, but she did admire its functional practicality. She swallowed her drink. She was desperate for a cigarette. Diane looked at Delaney pointedly. 'Come on, cowboy, drink up. I'm taking you home.

Delaney looked at her steadily, the very faintest of slurs in his voice. 'I've got my car outside.'

'Yeah, and that's where it's staying. You're not causing anyone else's death this month. Not on my watch.'

Delaney laughed. 'Did you really just say "not on my watch", Diane?'

'You heard it, partner. The mule is staying parked right where you left it, and I'm taking you back to the High Chaparral.'

Delaney shook his head as he stood up. 'Just drop me off at a Tube station.'

'Which one?'

'Northern Line.' He drained his pint of Guinness, coaxed the last drop of whisky from his glass into his mouth and walked with her to the door. He was almost balanced.

Kate Walker didn't normally take the Tube. It wasn't so much that she was a snob, she just didn't like the crammed-in, close proximity of people. It wasn't just the look of them or the smell of them – which was bad enough with their wet, rain-sodden clothes – but she knew what people were capable of, the extent of their random cruelties. As a forensic pathologist she knew that far better than most. If she had learned the hard way that you couldn't trust the people you were related to or worked with… then you sure as hell couldn't trust strangers. She wouldn't be taking the Tube at all, in fact, but her car was booked in at the garage for a service and an MOT, and her mechanic wouldn't be dropping it back at her house until the early evening. So she had gone by train and taxi to the cemetery for the funeral earlier that afternoon of the caretaker who had been murdered in the course of Delaney's last case. She was pleased she had been able to take flowers for the grave, but in all other ways the journey had been wasted. She had hoped to be able to speak to Jack, discuss what happened with them, but she might as well have been speaking to the dead caretaker for the amount of emotional response she got from Delaney. The prospect of going straight home to an empty house had depressed her even more and so she had spent the rest of the afternoon shopping and buying nothing. Nothing fitted. Nothing was right. Nothing shifted the black cloud of her mood. And so here she was now, stuck on the Tube with a bunch of people she neither knew nor felt any inclination to know.

She looked down at her court shoes. Expensive, chic, sexy, she thought. Black suited her colouring. The shoes were now spattered with mud and rain and the shine had come off them, just like the shine had come off her day.

The train juddered to a halt, mid-tunnel, and the lights in the carriage flickered and dimmed before coming back up. She positioned her heel in one of the grooves that ran along the floor and swivelled her foot, wondering when they were going to update the trains. It took just over a couple of hours to get from Paris to St Pancras on the Eurostar fast link nowadays, but it could take an age just to go a few stops on this damned service. The lights dimmed again; low and yellow. Kate looked along the length of the carriage. There was something curiously Gothic about the Northern Line, she thought. Other lines, other stations had a late-Victorian sensibility to them, she knew that, but the Northern Line in places had a quintessentially spooky feel to it. Wood and brass and strange lamps, transportation by Hammer House of Horror.

The train shuddered and clanked as the wheels started turning again. She looked out of the window as the train flashed noisily through the tunnel once more and pulled her coat tight about her. It was early evening and the train was full, its motion, as it rocked from side to side, throwing the overweight man next to her against her body every time the train rounded a corner. He didn't seem too keen to move away, either, perfectly happy to invade her personal space. She sighed and gritted her teeth.