Mark Pearson - Blood Work

'What the hell happened to summer?'

'Don't know, sir.'

'Come through.'

Delaney led her through the garage up a couple of small steps and into the kitchen that lay off it. It was almost as bare as the garage. White modern units, but nothing personal, no pictures or furniture. A kettle on the countertop. A couple of mugs. A whisky tumbler. Delaney opened some cupboards, scowled and shut them again. 'Have you got any Nurofen on you, Sally?'

She shook her head. 'Sorry, sir.'

'Co-codamol? Paracetamol? Aspirin? Anadin? Ibuprofen? Panadol?'

'Don't use them, sir.'

Delaney slammed a drawer shut, frustrated, and again regretted it. 'You'll learn,' he said, wincing.

'I've got a line of coke.'

Delaney looked across at her, half hopeful, and Sally laughed. 'Joking, sir.'

Delaney nodded. 'Not funny, Constable.' There was a time when Delaney had used the stuff, and not that long ago. Only a little dab now and again, mind, a wet tip of a finger's worth, to keep him sharp. But the business with Walker and Bonner had made him more circumspect. He'd never been a user. Whiskey was his drug of choice, even using the Scottish variety lately. And cigarettes of course. The day they made them illegal was the day he resigned for good. He fumbled in his pockets and pulled out a packet. 'You got a lighter, Sally?'

'You shouldn't smoke in the house, sir.'

'It's my goddamn house.'

'Exactly. And you want to keep it nice, sir.' She smiled, taking the edge of her words. 'For your daughter's sake.'

Delaney cursed and stuffed the packet back in his jacket pocket then sketched a hand in the air. 'What do you think of it?'

Sally smiled politely. 'Very minimalist.'

Delaney opened another cupboard and found a jar of coffee. 'Not got round to sorting it out yet.'

'How long have you been here?'

'A week.'

'Just a suggestion, but maybe some furniture.'

'You any idea what this cost?'

Sally shrugged. 'Three-bedroomed house, integral garage, Belsize Park? Way out of my league.'

'An arm and a fucking leg that's what it cost me. You want to investigate serious fraud, look into the price of property.'

'You don't have to tell me.'

Delaney found a couple of mugs and poured some coffee into them. 'Karl Marx had the right of the matter, I reckon.' He opened the integrated fridge and cursed. 'No frigging milk.'

Sally smiled. 'I'm all right anyway, sir.'

'Well, you bloody would be. We'll get one on the way. Just have a seat and look shiny. I won't be a minute.'

Delaney opened the door to the lounge. Sally went through to the lounge as Delaney headed upstairs. It was a large room with French windows leading on to a small courtyard garden. Like the kitchen the lounge was noticeably devoid of furniture, but there were some packing cases, one of which had a small television sitting on top of it. The walls were bare. The house, unlike its owner, was a blank canvas.

Sally sat on one of the packing cases and felt a spark of jealousy. A three-bedroomed house spitting distance from the station. Like she had said it was far more than her salary could afford, could ever afford looking at the way house prices had gone, never mind the recent fall. Ten per cent or twenty per cent off bleeding expensive was still way out of her league. She hoped Delaney got round to buying some furniture and making it a proper home soon, though. Criminal waste otherwise. Delaney had only bought the house, she knew, so that his young daughter, Siobhan, could visit him sometimes. After the death of his wife, Delaney's life had been such a train wreck that he didn't even have to think about it when his sister-in-law, Wendy, offered to look after his young girl. That was four years ago, though, his daughter was now seven years old, and the fact that Delaney had wanted to make a home for her with him, at least for some of the time, was a mark of how much he had changed, even in the little time she had known him. The poor girl had been through a lot recently, her aunt stabbed in her own home while Siobhan was held captive upstairs by his deranged ex-boss Superintendent Walker. Delaney and Kate Walker had arrived just in time to save them both; she shuddered at the thought of what might have happened if they hadn't. But Wendy had survived, though she had needed several weeks' recuperation in a private hospital and would be discharged soon. Perhaps Siobhan could get some stability back in her young life. Sally decided she would do her bit, she'd get Delaney to furnish his house properly if she had to drag him down to Ikea herself!

A short while later and Delaney was back downstairs. He'd had a shave, changed his shirt and put some eye drops in. He didn't look a million dollars she thought, but it was a vast improvement to the raw-eyed man who had greeted her at the garage door. A couple of hundred euros maybe.

'Come on, then.' Delaney led her back through the garage and out into the rain. He scowled up at the sky. 'What's the deal? We don't get autumn any more, it just goes straight from summer to winter.'

'Global warming, sir.'

'Global warming my arse. In the seventies they reckoned it was the Russians fucking about with the weather. But do you know what it's really down to, Detective Constable?'

'Sir?'

'England, Sally. That's what it's down to. God's punishing us, each and every one of us. And He's doing it by making us live in this shitehole of a country.'

Sally followed him out the door, not replying. She guessed some people just weren't morning persons.

The window was slightly open and the wind whistling outside knocked the blind against the wooden frame with an inconsistent rhythm. Kate woke slowly. Lifting one eyelid, she winced a little and closed it again. She murmured softly and turned on to her side. She reached out a hand and snaked her fingers through the man's curly hair and smiled. 'Jack, wake up.'

She slid her hand down over his shoulder to tangle her fingers in his chest hair, only his skin was completely smooth. She frowned, puzzled for a moment, then her smile faded, her eyes shot open with realisation and she looked, horrified, at the naked man sleeping beside her in her bed.

'Shit!'

She turned over again and looked at the clock radio on her bedside cabinet. It was half past seven. She cursed again and tried to remember what had happened the night before. And couldn't.

'Shit.'

Quarter to eight and the rain was still falling, although lighter than it had been. Detective Inspector Jack Delaney and Detective Constable Sally Cartwright were stamping their feet as they stood outside 'Bab's Kebabs' burger van round the corner from the police station. Roy, the corpulent owner and chef, was flipping bacon on the hot griddle plate as Delaney and Sally sheltered from the persistent drizzle as much as they could under the awning.

'Point in case…' He pointed his egg slice at Delaney. 'What did you reckon of Madonna's "American Pie", Inspector?'

Delaney shrugged. 'I liked it.'

'Yeah, well, you would. My point exactly. Every man and his dog in the rest of the world thinks it's a piece of shit, but you like it.'

'It's a song, not a sacred cow. People should be more tolerant.'

Roy laughed. 'Ever heard of the pot and the kettle?' He fixed Delaney with a puzzled expression. 'I heard you'd quit the job anyway.'

'I did.'

'What happened then?'

'Shit happened, Roy. You ought to know about that. And they needed me to clean it up. Only man for the job.'

Roy winked at Sally. 'And I bet you're right glad to have this little ray of bog-trotting sunshine back.'

Sally laughed. 'We're all glad.'

Roy shook his head. 'Yeah, well, I wouldn't be betting any large change on that.'

Delaney stirred some sugar in his coffee. 'You got that right.'