Mark Pearson - Blood Work

Arnold Fraser shambled through the wet undergrowth on South Hampstead Common. He had spent the previous night huddled in the entrance to the local Tube station. In a different life he once had been a sergeant in the Royal Green Rifles, but he had come back from the first Gulf war with a shattered right femur and a broken mind. In a country that treats its old war heroes with pomp and ceremony every November and its returning soldiers rather less well, he ended up, like many of his comrades lucky enough to make it home, as an alcoholic, mentally ill and living on the cold and comfortless streets of London. Early commuters had disturbed his lager-fuelled sleep and he was setting out across the common to a homeless shelter where he could get a hot cup of tea and a moderately warm bacon sandwich.

His bladder full, he stopped to relieve himself against a tree, but even as he fumbled with his trouser zipper, hidden deep under many layers of shirts, jumpers and coats, he saw the body lying in the undergrowth near his feet, saw the unnatural pallor of her skin, alabaster against the black shine of her hair, and knew it for what it was. He had seen enough corpses in his days of service. He turned away and shuffled off. He'd learned that in the army as well. Never volunteer. Never get involved. He'd done that once for Queen and Country and what had he got for his troubles? Royally fucked over, that's what. He spat and limped onwards. Let the citizens deal with it.

Seven o'clock. Kevin Norrell was back in the communal shower room of Bayfield Prison. He took the towel from his waist, put it to one side and twisted the dial set into the wall, standing beneath the jets of water as he let them pummel his massive, chemically enhanced body and groaned in satisfaction. He had spent the last hour lifting weights in the prison gym. Being on remand had not affected his workout routines at all and he intended to leave in better physical condition than he entered. Having an office right across the road from a burger bar had helped put a layer of fat over the hard muscles of his stomach. But that fat was being quickly burned away, and with every bench press he had but a single thought in his mind. Kevin Norrell didn't intend spending much more time inside prison walls and to escape he needed to be moved to another, lower security facility. He grunted as he turned the heat up on the shower. He'd already made a start towards the road to freedom and this morning he'd take another step and it wouldn't be long before he was moved to the prison of his choice. He could practically guarantee it.

He poured some shower gel in his hand, his eyes flicking back and forth watchfully as he did so. It was a reflex you needed to develop in prison, if you wanted to survive, and if Kevin Norrell had learned one thing in all his time over the years in institutions and prisons it was that you never dropped your guard. Put it in the bank. You dropped your guard and you'd be fucked ten ways by Sunday. Especially in the shower. He continued soaping his body and let the powerful jets pummel the suds away, but he kept the shampoo from his hair, keeping his eyes clear. As he reached up to turn the shower off he felt, rather than saw, the three men who approached, moving on him fast now. He flailed out instinctively, slamming his ham-like fist sideways, crushing one man's throat and knocking him down before the others held his arm and two more came into the shower room. He felt himself being pushed to the floor, and charging foward he fell; landing on one knee in a toilet stall, he reached out, putting his arms around the stainless-steel base of the lidless toilet and gripping hard. One of the men pummelled his head with a heavy fist as the other kicked him viciously in the ribs, trying to dislodge him. He felt a rib crack. Norrell grunted with pain and anger and wrenched upward, tearing the bowl clear from the floor as his steroid-enhanced, brute strength ripped the screws free. He roared up, red-faced, furious with effort and smashed the bowl full into the face of the first man, the second slipping on the water that was now gushing from the exposed plumbing. He smashed the bowl again, turning the fallen man's head into a shapeless mass of blood and hair, and swung the bowl at the head of another man who was trying to escape, the man screamed like a frightened pig as the lavatory bowl smashed into his jaw, pulverising it. There were just two of his attackers left now but they backed off as he turned and snarled at them, holding the steel toilet bowl like the weapon of a demented, lavatorial gladiator. Norrell moved towards them but his right foot slipped on the wet floor and he dropped to his knee again, wincing with pain as his cracked rib flexed. One of the men jumped forward at him, a blade flashing in the brightness of the overhead lights, and a thin shaft of steel was punched hard into his ribcage. His other knee buckled and he dropped to the floor barely registering the shouts and cries of uniformed guards running into the room. His vision blurred and he struggled to draw air, his breath a painful, wet wheeze. He tried to raise himself up but those muscles that defined him in more senses than one, those muscles that had been built over years of dedicated and painful exercise, failed him at last. He slumped back on to the cold tiles like an exhausted walrus and as the blood pumped from his body, the room seemed to darken and the light, very slowly, faded from his eyes.

A muffled knocking sound brought Delaney groaning to consciousness. He half opened a gummed-up eye and cursed as a bright, white light stabbed into his sore optic nerves. He held an arm across his face and groaned again. As far he could tell, he was lying, fully dressed, on a cold concrete floor, but he had absolutely no idea where. A sharp pain lanced through the back of his skull as he tried to move, and he gasped out loud. He crinkled his eyes again to open them a merest crack. He was in a white room. Bare white walls, white ceiling and a painted concrete floor. A light bulb dangled overhead and there was a low, mechanical, murmuring hum coming from somewhere close by. Delaney's head felt like he had been hit by a heavy, blunt object, but he had no memory of it. He rolled to one side, wincing with pain, and slowly opened one eye again. As his vision blurred into near focus he could make out a chest freezer against the opposite wall from where he was lying. He realised that was where the humming was coming from. The knocking resumed and Delaney suddenly realised where he was. He had made it home, but only as far as his garage. He rolled over again, covering his eyes, and tried to ignore the knocking which was becoming more urgent now, snatches of memory coming back to him of the night that had just passed.

But the knocking persisted. Delaney stood up, wincing as the blood flowed through the sore and swollen areas of his brain and lurched to the garage door. He opened it, shielding his face against the sudden lash of wind and rain that spiralled in, and looked angrily over at the attractive young woman, dressed in a smart black suit, who was standing on his front doorstep.

'What the hell are you doing here, Sally?'

DC Sally Cartwright smiled at him, enthusiasm and energy radiating from her like a Ready Brek advert.

'The chief inspector thought-'

'She thought what?' Delaney barked. And regretted it immediately.

'She thought that you might like someone to drive you for your meeting with Norrell. She mentioned dropping you off at the Tube station last night.'

'Did she?'

Sally smiled again, innocently. 'She suspected you might not have gone straight home, sir.'

Delaney flapped his hand and gestured her in. '"Meeting", you make it sound like a bloody sales conference, and for God's sake, come in, Constable.'

Sally walked into the built-in garage, gratefully shutting the door on the wind and rain behind her.