Blood Work (26 page)

She picked up the phone and dialled her own work
number. When her assistant answered, she asked if
the blood-work report was in. She listened, making
some notes as she did so. There were high levels of
tranquilliser in the first victim's blood, and she'd bet
her mortgage that the second victim's blood work
would show the same.

She thanked her assistant, told her not to make any
appointments and hung up the phone. She sorted
through the other photos and looked at them,
shuddering to see her own scarf hung about the
throat of the mutilated woman like some kind of
macabre decoration. She looked at the next photo, a
close-up of the victim's right hand which was holding
a small, broken mirror.

She looked at the report again. It was the sort
of compact mirror you might find in a handbag.
And it was broken. Suddenly her synapses started
firing like fireworks on Guy Fawkes Night and she
put the pieces together. She remembered what Jack
had said and she looked at the second photo once
more, the woman laid out, posed for the camera,
with her scarf as a final flourish. And she
remembered.

'Sweet Jesus!'

Delaney was heading towards his office. The newscast
had generated hundreds of calls, people phoning
in claiming to know the identity of one of the dead
women, and each one had to be checked out. It
wasn't what Napier had in mind but maybe some
good had come out of the news piece after all. He had
his hand on the office door when his mobile phone
rang. He looked at the caller ID but didn't recognise
the number. 'Jack Delaney.'

'Jack, it's me.'

Delaney didn't need to ask. He could hear the lazy,
hypnotic lilt to her accent. He remembered it as a
voice filled with mischief, with amusement. But
today, her voice was as serious as a heart attack.'

'What do you want, Stella?'

'I saw you on the television.'

Delaney sighed. 'I'm a little bit busy here.'

'One of those women. I know her. She's in the life,
cowboy. At least, she was.'

Jack didn't even stop to consider the irony of the
expression. 'Who is she, Stella?'

The lightning cracked through the air like a jagged
spear. Moments after the thunder rumbled overhead
and the rain started in earnest, splattering against the
window like a hailstorm. Kate looked at her watch, it
was only five o'clock.

She pushed the print icon on Jack's computer and
watched as the sheets began to spill from his printer.
A couple of desks down Sally looked up from her
computer monitor and saw her expression.

'Something wrong?

'Yeah, Sally. Something's very wrong.'

Delaney pushed the door of the CID room open
with the flat of his hand.

'The second victim's name is Jennifer Cole. She
was an escort. High-class call girl. She had her
own website.' He pulled a chair out and sat next to
Sally. 'Type in London Angel, one word, dot co
dot uk.'

Kate collected the papers she had printed out and
walked over to Delaney, as an image appeared on the
screen. A healthy, sexy, vibrant image of the woman
who had been butchered like a sacrificial cow.

'You better have a look at this, Jack.' Kate handed
Delaney the documents she had printed out.

Delaney skimmed his eyes over as he read the
first page. 'She wasn't missing any teeth. What is
this?'

Kate took the pages off him and read sections
aloud. ' "The left arm across the left breast. The
instrument used at the throat and abdomen was the
same. It must have been a very sharp knife with a thin
narrow blade, and must have been at least six to eight
inches in length, probably longer. He should say that
the injuries could not have been inflicted by a
bayonet or a sword bayonet. They could have been
done by such an instrument as a medical man used
for post-mortem purposes, but the ordinary surgical
cases might not contain such an instrument. Those
used by the slaughtermen, well ground down, might
have caused them. He thought the knives used by
those in the leather trade would not be long enough
in the blade. There were indications of anatomical
knowledge—" '

'What is this?' Delaney interrupted her.

'It's a report, Jack, but not from our murders.'

'Whose then?'

'They didn't come from my office, I just printed
them off the Internet. He's been sending you
messages all along. Start with the man in the mirror,
Jack! It's your namesake.'

'What is?'

'The scarf instead of a handkerchief. The mirror
found with the second body. The guy is dressing the
victims up like Jack the Ripper victims.'

Delaney looked up at her, taking it in. 'He's
copycatting.'

'Not exactly, no. But . . .' she shrugged.

'How many were there?'

'At least five,' said Sally. 'All prostitutes. Some
reckon as many as eleven.'

'Jesus!'

The lightning flashed again. The thunder was
almost simultaneous now; they were right under the
storm. Delaney looked across at the pane of glass and
back at Kate. 'You can't be fucking serious.'

'There's another thing,' said Sally.

'Go on.'

'As you know they never found the identity of Jack
the Ripper.'

'Yeah, of course I know that.'

'One of the suspects, not one of the main ones but
one of them nonetheless . . .'

'Go on.'

'Walter Sickert.'

'The artist.'

'Some people claimed he was the Ripper himself. A
lot of people thought he might just have been an
accessory. An accomplice to the real killer.'

'And?'

'And, Jack . . . He had several operations on his
penis,' Kate interjected.

'That's right,' said Sally. 'He had what Jimmy
Skinner would call a deformed wing-wang.'

He leaned his forehead against the pane of glass. He
hated the rain, but the cool glass seemed to ease the
heat in his forehead. He looked at his watch, five
o'clock, but it was already as dark as if it was midwinter.
He didn't mind the dark. He rubbed his
hand over the handle of the gun he was holding, the
wood as warm beneath his touch as the glass was
cold. The phone rang, jangling him out of his reverie.
He had been expecting the call. It was time to go to
work again. There were names on a list. Names that
had to be crossed out. He cupped one hand
instinctively on his crotch and felt his cock stiffen as
he put down the gun and answered the phone with
the other.

'It's me.'

Delaney watched as Sally flashed the blinking cursor
around the website. She clicked on a hyperlink titled
'Double Dates' and read aloud.

'"For some of the more adventurous, or just plain
greedy, amongst you I also offer a double-date service
with one of my gorgeous girlfriends. Click on the
links left to see just how gorgeous. Double the honey
and double the fun."'

Sally did as she was told, moving the cursor to a
list of four names on the left-hand side of the screen.
Crystal, Amber, Melody
and
Rose
.

Crystal was a blonde, Amber was a brunette and
Melody had black hair. Black skirt, top, and black
make-up. Goth-style.

Bingo.

James Collins opened his locker door in the changing
room and yawned as he changed out of his surgical
scrubs. It had been a long and difficult day. He had
had to perform an emergency C section on an illegal
immigrant. A failed asylum seeker from some godforsaken
country the government was keen to return
her to. Back to poverty, malnutrition, all manner of
abuse and, most likely, an early death. With a baby
born in the UK, however, her status would be
reconsidered. They had delivered the baby, but it was
premature and struggling from the start. Two hours
later and the baby died. The mother came through
surgery fine, but he could see in her eyes, as she came
round from the anaesthetic, that something else had
died that afternoon for her. Hope.

James reached into the back of the locker and
picked up a small teddy bear, dressed in surgical
scrubs. His daughter, Amy, had given it to him as a
good-luck gesture when he moved to the hospital,
from the North Norfolk and Norwich, eighteen
months ago. The surgical cap on the teddy bear's
head was in Norwich City colours. He jiggled it in
his hand.

'Come on, let's be having you!'

He smiled sadly and put it back in his locker. Took
out his bright yellow duffel coat and closed the locker
door. It was Amy's birthday in three days' time. Her
twenty-first, and he had taken the rest of the week off
to visit her. It'd give him a chance to get out to the
shops and buy her something spectacular for it too.
James Collins was a strict believer that special
occasions should be marked appropriately. He had
already made the call to his favourite jeweller in
Piccadilly and he would visit there first thing in the
morning before catching the train from Liverpool
Street to Thorpe station in Norwich. The Canaries
were playing at home at the weekend too, so he had,
he sincerely hoped, double cause for celebration.

He sketched a wave at the receptionist as he strode
through reception. The thunderstorm that had been
raging only minutes before had stopped as suddenly
as it began. He paused outside in the sheltered
entrance and shivered suddenly, looking behind him.
He thought he sensed someone watching him but
there was no one there. Someone must have walked
on his grave, he thought with a half-amused smile.
He fastened the buttons of his coat and was glad to
leave the hood of the duffel down as he strode across
the car park. The cold air and the brisk walk would
do him good, wake him up a bit.

Five minutes later and he was walking across the
heath. Cutting through some trees on a little short cut
that took a few minutes off his journey. He stopped
abruptly. There was a sharp pain in his neck and he
raised his hand to brush the stabbing branch away.
But no branch was there and the muscles in his arm
suddenly didn't seem to work. His knees buckled,
toppling him to fall face up on the wet and muddy
ground. A face he recognised was looking down at
him.

A look of confusion passed momentarily across
his face. If he could have articulated a question
he would have done so. But the paralysis had
spread to his face now. His eyes closed and the
pump under his ribcage, made of tissue and muscle,
spasmed.

A low sound of thunder rumbled overhead again
and, as the wind picked up whistling wet leaves over
his motionless form, the rain fell. Sending splashes of
mud into the air and forming a channel of artificial
tears from the surgeon's closed eyes.

Delaney pulled his jacket off the back of his chair and
shrugged into it.

'Did you get that address?' he asked Sally
Cartwright.

She picked up a piece of paper from her desk and
handed it to him.

'Thanks.' He stuffed the paper into his jacket
pocket. 'Get on to records. I want to know if any
other crimes were reported in the neighbouring
properties around the same time.'

'Sir.'

Kate stood up also and put on her coat, looking for
her scarf for a moment and then grimacing as she
remembered why she no longer had it.

'Where are you going, Kate?'

Kate turned round to Delaney, ready to say
something flip, but when she saw the concern in his
eyes the temptation vanished. 'I need to go home.'

'You're not staying at that house. You can stay
with me.'

Kate hesitated for a moment and then nodded,
relief coursing through her blood. 'I still need to go
home, get some things.'

Delaney picked up his car keys off his desk.

'And one other thing, Jack.'

Delaney looked at her quizzically.

'We'll take my car.'

'We have to make a slight detour first.' Delaney
turned back to Sally as they walked to the door.
'Keep me in touch.'

'Sir.'

She stuck her thumb up in the air without looking
at her boss, her attention focused on her computer
screen, looking at the reports Kate Walker had
printed out and the crime-scene photographs. She
wondered whether she'd ever be able to look at
photos like them and not feel physically sick. She
fervently hoped not.

Sanjeev Singh was tall but as thin as a Lowry stick
man. He wore large, black-framed glasses and was
never dressed in anything other than a two-piece
brown suit. He had always been of a nervous disposition
and so why he had put a jangling bell over
the entrance to his shop was a mystery to anyone
who knew him.

He flinched as the door creaked open and the brass
bell above it danced on its coiled brass spring,
jangling his nerves once more.

'We're about to close,' he called over his shoulder
as he placed an art deco sugar sifter, conical-shaped
and decorated in Spring Crocus pattern, carefully
back in a display cabinet. He put the price page next
to it: four hundred and fifty pounds.

'Nice piece.'

He turned round and smiled at Kate, but his smile
faded as Delaney stepped forward.

'We're not here for antiques.'

Sanjeev Singh lifted his arms and made an
expansive gesture with his shoulders, a gesture he had
used many times to good effect in the amateur pantomimes
he had appeared in. 'I am sorry, but antiques
is all I deal in.'

Delaney showed him his warrant card. 'It's
information we need.'

Singh frowned. 'I don't understand.'

'Four years ago you sold your petrol station in
Pinner Green. We want to know why, and we want
to know who to.'

The antique dealer's shoulders slumped, and any
pretence at good humour disappeared. 'My lawyers
handled the sale. It was to a development company. I
wanted to get out of the trade. Buy an antiques shop.
The timing was right. Now I am sorry, but I really
have to close.'

'It wasn't good timing for my wife, Mr Singh.'