Blood Work (30 page)

Inside the maisonette the smell was pretty bad.
The cat obviously hadn't been let out for a couple of
days. He walked into the lounge and opened the
windows. On the mantelpiece there was a photo of a
woman. He picked it up and looked at it closely, he
could see a slight resemblance to the woman he had
seen on the website but he would have never recognised
her. The woman in the photo had mousy hair
and wore little make-up. She smiled shyly at the
camera. No wonder nobody had phoned in after
their televised appeals for information about her. In
the kitchen the cat's litter tray needed to be cleaned
out. Skinner crinkled his nose, picked up a black
leather Filofax from the kitchen table and took it
back into the lounge.

He flicked through the pages and turned to the
diary section. She had kept a list of appointments
with clients. One of the names, Paul Archer, jumped
out at him, but he couldn't put his finger on why.
Seemed he liked rough games and she had refused to
see him any more, blacklisted him with her contacts
too. He filed the name away. Somebody had a grudge
with her, that much was obvious. Another part of the
Filofax was day-to-day diary stuff. After half an hour
he flicked back to the contacts section; he sighed and
closed the Filofax and walked over to a table that had
a collection of framed photographs on it and picked
one up. It showed two women, one in her twenties
and one in her thirties. Hands around each other's
waists and smiling at the camera, as if they knew
their profession was to be judged now by the quality
of that smile as much as it was by the service and care
they provided.

And he realised as he looked at the photograph
that they had all got it completely wrong.

Delaney felt like someone had taken a heavy hammer
and struck him on the head. It was definitely time for
a new job, he thought. Somewhere warm.
Somewhere quiet. But, as he cracked open his
bloodshot eyes, he realised that new employment
prospects were the least of his problems. His hands
had been tied behind his back and he was sitting in a
lock-up garage somewhere, propped uncomfortably
on a wooden chair. The door opened and Mickey
Ryan walked in, followed by his cubic minder and his
traitorous fucking cousin. If Delaney could have
worked up the saliva he would have spat at him.

There was a metallic clang. Delaney looked across
to see the gorilla of a henchman putting a toolbox on
the workbench that ran along the whole left-hand
side of the garage. The man made Kevin Norrell look
human, he realised with a shudder.

'You might wonder why you are still alive,
Delaney.'

'Must be my guardian angel.'

Ryan laughed, his blue eyes sparkling with amusement.
'I wonder if you'll still be laughing when my
man here goes to work on you with a pair of needle-tooth
pliers.

Liam stepped forward. 'Nobody said anything
about that.'

'Nobody points a gun at me and gets away with it.
You're going to learn that, Delaney. And that
grassing tub of lard Norrell is going to be next.' He
turned to Liam. 'Put one in his gut, give him
something to think about.'

Liam raised the pistol he had been holding in his
right hand, a semi-automatic with a silencer. Delaney
could see no mercy, no compassion in his eyes as he
pulled the trigger.

The minder made a sound like a dog swallowing a
fly and dropped to the floor, a hand fluttering
towards his heart but not making it. Liam pointed the
gun at Mickey Ryan.

'The fuck you think you're doing?'

'The fuck you think I'm doing?' Liam retorted.

Ryan shook his head. 'We had a deal.'

'I don't make deals with scum. Gut shot, wasn't it?'
He pulled the trigger again, and Mickey Ryan
dropped to his knees, squealing and holding his
stomach. 'Hurts, doesn't it?'

Ryan's face had gone purple and he hissed between
his teeth, but if they were words they were not
intelligible.

Liam grabbed a Stanley knife from the toolbox and
slashed the ropes binding his cousin.

Delaney stood up and wobbled on his legs. He had
to hold on to his cousin's arm before he could steady
himself. 'What's going on?'

Liam smiled. 'I made some calls after you left.
Figured out what was what and realised you'd be
way out of your depth.'

'I had it covered.'

'Sure you did, cousin. But you weren't going to kill
him, were you?'

Delaney didn't answer.

'Which means that one way or another he would
have ended up killing you.'

'Maybe.'

'No maybe about it.'

'What did you have to hit me for, then?'

'You might be ten kinds of death-wish on legs,
Jack, but I still enjoy my life. I did what I had to do.
And you should be grateful, so take a Panadol and
shut the fuck up with the whining already.'

Ryan gurgled again, hissing through wet lips, his
face contorted with pain.

Liam turned to Delaney and held the gun out. 'Do
you want to do it?'

Delaney made no move to take the pistol. Liam
nodded then fired two bullets into the kneeling man's
head. He slumped sideways and the gurgling stopped.

Delaney looked at the dead body. He wasn't sure
what to think any more. 'What now?'

'Now, cousin, we walk away from here.'

Delaney shook his head. 'We can't. There's DNA
all over the place. You go. Leave me the gun.'

Liam reached into his overcoat and pulled out a
large brown packet. 'Did you know Mickey Ryan
was in big with the old IRA? Back in the seventies?'

'No.'

Liam nodded. 'Back in the day he made a fair few
bob out of it. Pissed a fair few people off too. People
who didn't take the laying down of arms at all
happily. Formed new groups.'

'The Real IRA?'

Liam shrugged. 'Amongst others. Either way, he's
on a list. And this . . .' he tossed the packet on the
workbench, 'is the boys' old friend.'

'Semtex?'

'There won't be enough left of Mickey Ryan, his
sidekick, or this garage to fill a teaspoon.'

Delaney nodded. It didn't feel like closure. He just
felt empty.

'I guess that makes us even, Liam.'

'Hardly.' He handed back his mobile phone.
'Thought you might like this back.'

'Thanks.' Delaney flipped it open and pushed the
speed dial for Kate Walker.

'Jack, where the hell have you been?'

Liam smiled, he could hear every word. 'What is it
with you and feisty women?'

'Are you still at the station?' Delaney asked
Kate.

'Yes, I'm still here.'

'Good, stay there. I'm on my way in.'

*

Sally Cartwright looked at her watch for the fifth
time.

'Has he stood you up, Sally?'

'Yeah, funny, Danny.' Sally flashed a none too
amused smile at her colleague at the other end of the
table. There were a few of them there, having a drink
or two and, as yet, Michael Hill hadn't shown up.
Danny, jealous that she was going out for a curry
with him, had been making snide little remarks,
doing himself no favours in her book at all. But she
wasn't worried about Michael, she'd seen the eagerness
in his puppy-dog eyes. He was probably
nervous. No, it wasn't Michael Hill who had her
looking at her watch, it was Jack Delaney she was
concerned about. There was a darkness is his eyes
when he had left her on Shaftesbury Avenue.
Something darker than she had ever seen before.

A cheer went up from Danny and a couple of his
mates as Michael Hill eventually came in and walked
over to join them. Sally thought he looked nice. Black
jeans, a nicely ironed white shirt and a black jacket.

'It's Rhydian!' Danny called out. 'Go on, sing us a
song.'

'Ignore him,' Sally said. 'He's an idiot.'

'I will.'

He sat down beside her.

'Actually, I'm glad you're here,' said Sally.

'Of course. We're going for a curry, aren't we?'

'Yes. Later. But I meant I'm glad you're here
because I want to talk to you. About work. About the
crime-scene photos of the second victim that were
posted on the Net. There's something a little wrong
with them.'

Michael Hill stood up. 'Well, if we're going to talk
shop, there's a little bar I found. I thought we could
go there for a drink first, before the ruby? Bit quieter
than here.'

Sally looked down at his feet as she stood up. 'New
boots?'

Michael Hill looked down at his snakeskin cowboy
boots, polished to a gleam, and smiled as he admired
them, stroking his black shoestring tie as he did so.
'Fairly new, yes.'

Sally looked at her watch again and then shrugged;
if anybody could take care of himself, Jack Delaney
certainly could. Besides, she had earned herself a bit
of fun.

She stood up and gave Michael a quick kiss on the
cheek. 'Come on then. Let's leave the peanut gallery
to it.'

Sally headed for the door, Michael Hill put his
hand to his cheek where Sally had brushed her lips,
and then followed her, desire dancing in his eyes and
the faintest of smiles quirking the corners of his
mouth.

Diane Campbell was leaning against Jack Delaney's
desk. Looking through the Filofax that Jimmy
Skinner had just brought back from the flat in
Mornington Crescent. Kate Walker, meanwhile, was
working at Sally's computer going over the forensics
reports on both the dead women. 'So Jennifer Cole's
real name is Katherine Wingrove.'

Jimmy Skinner nodded, a gesture on his tall thin
body somewhat akin to an albatross dipping for
food. 'She was a midwife at the South Hampstead
Hospital, and did escorting work on the side. The
first victim, Maureen Casey but calling herself Janet
Barnes, was a student nurse, also at the South
Hampstead, about eighteen months ago. According
to Katherine Wingrove's diary, she had been
working in prostitution since she was fifteen years
old and had come to London as a runaway from
domestic abuse. She wanted to qualify as a nurse,
put that life behind her, but found she couldn't.
Student bills to pay, debt mounting up. Katherine
Wingrove helped her out, showed her the classier
end of the trade. She gave up the nursing and took
up escorting full-time.'

'Why did nobody recognise them at the hospital?'

'They look completely different, with the make-up
and clothes on. Katherine Wingrove was on
scheduled holiday this week so no one was expecting
to see her anyway. And Maureen's own mother took
some time to come forward she looked so different.'

'Either way it's not about prostitution, it's about
the hospital. All three of his victims have worked
there at some time.'

Kate typed in the address that Melanie Jones had
given the police, truecrimeways.com. It opened on to
a general site detailing true crimes, murders of a
particularly brutal and violent nature. On the sixth
page was a picture of a gravestone, at the bottom of
a long article about Fred West. Following the
instructions they had been given, Kate clicked on the
cross at the top of the gravestone. A box appeared
requesting a password.

Skinner watched what she was doing. 'It's just a
like the paedophiles, hiding hyperlinks within a
seemingly legal site. You need to know where it is
and a password to get into the specialised area.' He
said the word 'specialised' with a definite curl to his
lip.

'And people actually pay money to look at these
pictures?' Kate asked the room in general as crime-scene
photos of the mutilated women appeared on
the computer screen.

Diane shrugged. 'Kate, people pay a licence fee to
watch
Holby City
at dinner time.'

Kate nodded, she had a good point. How close-ups
of heart surgery, ribcages being cracked open and
worse, had become evening family viewing on the
BBC she had absolutely no idea.

'Can they be traced, whoever's putting up these
pictures?'

Diane shrugged again. 'Paddington Green has their
best technical people on it but they don't hold out
much hope. Not of finding the guy who posted these
pictures. Anyone can set up a bogus account, from an
Internet cafe or a library. Hack into our systems,
download the photos and put them up where they
like. It can be impossible to trace.'

'Why lead us to it then?'

Diane rummaged in her handbag. 'Because we
hadn't mentioned it to the press. These sad fucks
need an audience, Kate. Pardon my fucking French.'

Kate sensed that Diane Campbell was hanging out
for a cigarette. She was proved right as Diane found
what she was looking for in her handbag, opened the
window in front of Delaney's desk and lit one up.

Kate looked at the photos on the screen, pausing at
one and then flicking through her files to look at the
same photo in hard copy. She leaned in and peered at
the computer screen when a voice behind her made
her heart leap into her throat.

'You better have one of those for me, Diane.'

Kate spun round and jumped out of her chair. She
didn't know whether to kiss him or slap him.

'Where have you been, Jack?'

'Christ, Delaney. You look like you've been run
over by a combine harvester,' Diane Campbell added.

Delaney ran a hand over the rough stubble of his
chin and nodded. 'I've had better days.'

Diane Campbell threw him a cigarette which he just
about managed to catch with one hand. He leaned in
for her to light it for him. 'Jimmy has identified the
first two victims,' she told him. 'They both worked at
the South Hampstead as did the third. The escorting
isn't the link, it's the hospital itself.'

Kate pointed at the computer monitor. 'And
there's something else. Look at this picture that was
posted on the web. Sally Cartwright left me a note,
something she'd picked up on. Asking me to check
our forensic records.'

Diane walked round. 'What is it?'

'Look closely at this picture of the second victim.
You can just about see the foot of the photographer
reflected in the bit of mirror that the killer left.'