Authors: Mark Pearson
As she knew it would be, even this early, the pub
was busy. She walked up to the right-hand bar where
luckily there was a vacant stool. She pulled it
forward, sat on it and smiled briefly at the young,
Australian barman behind the counter. 'Large one
please, Stuart.'
The barman nodded back at her, lifted up a jug of
ready-made Bloody Mary and poured Kate a glass.
Kate took a long pull, the sharp kick of vodka
mingling with the bite of the pepper and the tang of
the celery salt. She took another sip and sighed. Time
to heal.
Janet Barnes had never had to work hard at soliciting
admiring glances from men; her ex-boyfriend, a
failed stand-up comic, said that she had the kind of
body that pouted if it didn't get attention. Usually she
enjoyed that attention, but tonight there was one
man in particular who was looking at her from across
half the length of the train carriage, and her skin
crawled. She pulled her raincoat tight around her, but
if anything it just accentuated her lush, curvy figure.
She looked out of the window, the featureless rush of
Victorian brick wall flickering past scant inches
away. There was talk of London flooding in the news
again. Steps being made to improve the Thames
Barrier. She remembered the flooding of last year.
Whole areas, families, homes, lives ruined in the
North of England. She couldn't help wondering what
would happen here if the Thames were to ever break
its banks. The Underground system would be
flooded. Thousands of tonnes of water would pour
into the network. Would the passengers all be
drowned or electrocuted? All those electric rails
running everywhere. Another problem for that Eton-educated,
class clown Boris Johnson to sort out. Not
a problem for her, mind. Any luck and she'd be out
of the miserable city long before that happened, if it
ever did. Just a few more quid saved up, a few more
months, get the winter over with and she'd be out of
the capital, out of the country and over the
mountains she'd fly to sunny bloody Spain. Put this
miserable, sodding, rain-drenched country behind her
once and for bloody good. Just because she dressed
like a goth didn't mean she had to live like a bloody
vampire, time for a change of image she reckoned.
Her double reflection in the windows, hovering over
the flashing bricks, was smeared and bleary, a ghostly
dull orange from the flickering lights in the tube
carriage. She was sure, though, she could still make
out the dark-haired man watching her. Good-looking,
she supposed, but definitely something creepy about
him, the way he stared at her when he thought she
wasn't watching. She wouldn't be surprised if he was
having a crafty hand shandy under the dark coat he
was wearing. If she had a five-euro note for every time
some man had accidentally brushed up against her in
the crowded tube with a hard-on in his pants and a
glassy look to his eyes she could have retired and
moved to Spain years ago. She could have papered the
road there and back with them.
The lights in the Northern Line tunnel brightened,
and the train shuddered into Camden Town Tube
station like a mechanical climax. She stood up and
tightened the belt on her shiny, black, mid-thigh-length
raincoat. She knew it did little to distract
attention away from herself but didn't care. She was
a living Betty Boop. People could look all they like. If
they wanted to touch, however, that was a whole
separate matter. A whole different negotiation.
She stood on the right of the escalator, some people
packed around her and others rushing up the stairs to
her left. God only knew what they were in such a
hurry for, she thought. At the top of the stairs Janet
flashed her Oyster card at the bored-looking
Rastafarian who had opened the barrier, which had
broken down again, and walked towards the left-hand
exit, scowling as the wind blew the rain into her
face. She turned back, certain she could feel the eyes
of the dark-haired man, now lost in the steady throng
of commuters, watching her still. Shaking off the
thought she opened up her umbrella and walked out
on to the pavement.
It was half past six and the streets were busy,
people hustling to the warmth of pubs and
restaurants, or pouring like a stream of wet ants into
the shelter of the Underground. Janet walked away
from the noise and the bustle of the main high street,
and the clack of her sharp-heeled footsteps rang out
as she walked along Kentish Town Road, fighting to
keep control of her umbrella in the swirling wind.
After a couple of hundred metres she was grateful to
see the welcoming glow of light spilling from the
windows of the Devonshire Arms. She folded her
umbrella down, opened the door to the pub and
stepped inside.
Since the closing of the Intrepid Fox in Wardour
Street the Devonshire Arms was now regarded as
London's Goth Central. Janet's jet-black hair, black
skirt, leggings, T-shirt and make-up were about as
unusual there as a pair of chinos and a striped shirt
in All Bar One. In fact, some nights, if you weren't
dressed all in black, you couldn't get in, and quite
right too, Janet thought. There were plenty of places
for the squares and the geeks and the city slickers to
go to, places that would turn people dressed like her
away. That was the thing about London: a place for
every prejudice.
The lighting was low, and the pub was already
busy. Janet had chosen it for the meet, for just that
purpose. It was like a blind date, after all, and it was
best to be prepared; in addition to the pack of
condoms and the tube of lubricant that she carried in
her handbag, she also had a small can of mace. She
had smuggled it back illegally from a long weekend
trip she had made to New York some months ago.
Music was playing, muting the buzz of chatter that
filled the air. The Velvet Underground. She ordered a
bourbon from a bald-headed woman with multi-coloured
tattoos snaking either side of her neck, and
sat in the corner of the bar sipping it and watching
people as she listened to the music. John Cale's viola
screeched discordantly against the slow, hypnotic
beat of the drums while Lou Reed sang about a
woman not unlike herself. A girlchild dressed in
black wearing boots of shiny leather.
The music stopped and Janet looked up as a dark-haired
man approached. Hunger in his brown eyes
and an amused smile playing on his soft red lips. She
looked down at his snakeskin boots that had Cuban
heels almost higher than hers, then looked back up at
him and smiled herself, her painted lips opening to
reveal white, perfect teeth.
'Hello, cowboy.'
Kate finished her second Bloody Mary. The two drinks
had done little to lift her dark mood, but she was
feeling just a little bit more numb. The edge had been
taken off, and she was certainly warmer. She looked
over at the rain lashing against the windowpanes and
then looked at her watch, debating. It was only a short
walk home, but she didn't want to go out in the filthy
weather again. She held her glass out to the barman,
who went to refill it, and slipped her jacket off,
hanging it on a hook in the bar in front of her.
'You tried Nigella's?'
She turned round to see that a tall curly dark-haired
man in his late thirties with brown eyes was
talking to her.
'I'm sorry?'
'Nigella Lawson. Her recipe for Bloody Marys. It's
very good.'
The barman handed Kate her drink and went off to
add the charge to her tab.
'No, I don't think I have.' Kate turned back to her
drink.
'Got to love a woman who puts Bloody Marys in
the breakfast section of a cookbook.'
'I guess,' Kate said without looking at the stranger
and sipped her drink. She wasn't in the mood for
chit-chat.
Despite her blatant disinterest the man was not put
off. He pulled out the recently vacated stool next to
hers. 'Do you mind?'
Kate shrugged indifferently.
The man chuckled. 'Half a pint glass with half as
much vodka as tomato juice. For breakfast! Like I
say, you've got to admire the woman.'
Kate thought that if the woman cut down on her
breakfasts a little it might not do her any harm. But
maybe that's what men wanted. Meat on the bones.
Well, she wasn't going to put on weight to imitate
some quasi-Italian domestic goddess, however
gorgeous she was. She realised the man had spoken to
her again, but didn't have a clue what he had said.
'I'm sorry?'
'I asked . . . do you know what her secret is?'
Yes, she thought. She knew what her secret was all
right. She looked like a woman of appetite. What was
it you were supposed to be? A lady in the
supermarket and a whore in the bedroom. Well,
Nigella Lawson looked like Sophia Loren with a
voice that oozed sex and sophistication in equally
unfair measures. And could cook to boot. Bitch.
'I don't,' she said simply.
The man smiled. He had quite a nice smile. 'It's to
add a dash of dry sherry.'
Kate nodded. 'They put a drop of red wine in them
here.'
He smiled again. 'My name's Paul. Paul Archer.'
'Nice to meet you, Mr Archer.' Kate's voice was
cordial, but cool.
The man held out his hand. 'Actually, it's Dr
Archer.'
Kate hesitated then shook his hand. He had a firm
confident grip, and his hand was dry and warm. She
smiled and it didn't take much of an effort now. 'Kate
Walker.'
'Well, Kate. Can I buy you a drink?'
Kate looked down at her glass, swirling the drink
for a moment then downing it and placing the glass
firmly back on the bar. Why not? she thought to
herself. Why the bloody hell not?
Janet Barnes felt consciousness returning. Not suddenly,
it was a struggle like crawling through treacle.
Like waking from a long coma. Or nearly waking,
that is. Flashes of memory fought to come through as
she fell back into the nightmare she was struggling to
escape. A train swaying off balance as it rattled along
the spine of ancient rails that lay deep beneath an
even more ancient city. She felt the eyes of men upon
her. Eyes that peeled her clothes from her body.
Sweating eyes. Hot, dry, hungry eyes. The sick yellow
light of the train carriage wrapped itself around her
again as she tried to raise herself to consciousness
once more.
She had no idea where she was or how long she
had been there. She moaned softly, the sigh escaping
her lips like the last breath of a dying man. Her
eyelids fluttered briefly, the orbs beneath darting
back and forth under the fragile pink membrane, as
images flashed through her cerebral cortex like the
sparking of a badly wired circuit, and, as she drifted
towards unconsciousness once more, she thought she
heard snatches of conversation, a voice she almost
recognised. She tried to latch on to the thought, but
it was like a butterfly dancing out of her hands and
high out of reach. Then her eyes stilled and the half-formed
thought, and all others with it, floated away
entirely as she fell back into oblivion.
Six thirty and fog hung in the morning air like lowlying
cloud.
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.
'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.