Blood Work Part 19

'On our fifth wedding anniversary I bought him a watch.' The bitterness sharp in her voice. 'A Rolex. An eighteen-carat white-gold Rolex Oyster Perpetual Cosmograph Daytona. Seventeen thousand pounds' worth.'

Kate nodded, not sure what to say.

'A big manly watch for a big manly man. He had his arm over my throat and around my head, pinning me down, so that the watch scratched my cheek and was pushed against my ear. And he was grunting with each thrust like an animal, like I was some kind of mechanical toy.' Her nostrils flared wide as she breathed deeply. 'And I could hear the tick-tock of the clock before each thrust. Tick, thrust. Tock, thrust. Tick . . .'

She took in another gulp of air and looked at Kate with eyes filled with sadness.

'I bought that watch as a symbol of my love for him.'

Delaney drummed his fingers impatiently on the dashboard of his car as Sally drove them away from Roger Yates's office.

'Back to White City, sir?' Sally asked.

'Not just yet. Take us back to Bradley's flat. I want to look at those photos again.'

'Sir.'

'If they let us that is. This will have been b.u.mped over our heads.'

'What do you mean?'

'If he's a serial killer now the glory boys from Paddington Green will be all over this like a rash.'

He pulled out his phone and pushed a speed-dial b.u.t.ton, putting it on loudspeaker as he rummaged in his pockets. 'Slimline, it's Jack Delaney.'

'Shoot.'

'I need a favour.'

'This the kind of favour that might cost someone his job?'

'Probably not.'

Delaney could hear him sighing on the other end of the line.

'Go on then.'

'I want you to get one of the guys to triangulate a number, locate a mobile phone for me. But keep it off the books.'

'Whose phone is it?'

'Just get me the location, Dave.'

'Give me the number then.'

Delaney pulled out a piece of paper and read the number to him, then closed the phone. Sally looked across at him but didn't say anything.

The SOCO team was leaving as Sally and Delaney walked up the steps to Bradley's flat. His grandmother was watching them go, less than pleased.

She recognised Delaney and grabbed his arm.

'Here. Can't you do anything about them? You should see the mess they're making.'

'Sorry. Nothing I can do.'

'They won't let me back in my own house. And I've got Murder She Wrote to watch in a minute.'

'Sorry.'

Delaney gently took her hand off his arm as a uniformed female officer came across.

'They say I've got to go down the police station, Detective Inspector. What's he done now then?'

'They'll tell you all about it there.'

'I told them they should never have got that dog. Twelve years old he was when he bit him. Right in the privates.' She shivered and shook her head. 'Made a terrible mess it did.'

'Come on, Mrs Bradley. I'll make sure they get you a nice cup of tea,' the uniformed officer said as she led the old woman away.

Delaney looked at the photos in Ashley Bradley's room. They'd all be taken down, sent to the command centre that would now be running the case. Everything Delaney wanted to do would have to go through them, which made him practically redundant. Only Delaney didn't want to be off the case. The killer had made it personal, dressing the last victim in a scarf like Kate's. Or maybe it was Kate's. The idea that the b.a.s.t.a.r.d might have her somewhere and be taunting him with the knowledge turned his stomach. He had called her office and had been told that Kate had called in, saying she wouldn't be in until later that day, but that could have been done under duress. The d.a.m.n woman wasn't answering her phone and Delaney had no way of knowing if it was deliberate or not.

He brought his mind back to the subject in hand and tapped a few of the photos. 'A lot of these interior pictures are taken in the same place. He obviously has his favoured hunting grounds like South Hampstead Heath and the common.' He tapped another photo, an interior shot this time. 'And I reckon I know where this is.'

Sally looked at where he was pointing. 'Where, sir?'

'That shopping arcade at the bottom of Bayswater.'

'Whiteleys?'

'That's the one.' Delaney tapped on another photo. 'Look at him, he's hanging around the entrance to the ladies' toilet there.'

'Why?'

Delaney looked back at her. 'Why? Because he's a sick f.u.c.king pervert. Come on.'

They were heading for the front door when Delaney's phone rang. He s.n.a.t.c.hed it out of his pocket and looked at the caller ID. 'What have you got for me?'

He grabbed a pen out of his pocket and wrote an address on the back of his hand. 'One other thing, Dave. Get Bob Wilkinson and some backup to get down Whiteleys in Bayswater. It looks like a favourite hangout for our boy. Second floor near the ladies' toilets.' He closed his phone and reached into his pocket.

'Give me the car keys, Sally.'

'Sir?'

'Just give me the keys.' He took the keys from her and thrust a ten-pound note in her hand. 'I'll see you back at the factory.'

Sally would have responded but Delaney was already flying down the steps taking them two at a time.

Kate held Helen Archer's hand for a moment as she stood on her doorstep. 'I'll be there at the trial.'

Helen squeezed her hand back. 'Thanks, Kate. Don't worry. He's going to pay for what he's done to us. He's going to pay big time.'

Kate stood for a moment or two on the step after the door had been closed. Troubled. Little flashes of memory were coming unbidden into her consciousness. It was something Helen had said. 'He's going to pay big time.' She was in her lounge, drunk. There was music playing. Some country folk record. Alison Krauss maybe. She'd bought it because she thought Jack Delaney might like it. But she had never gotten the chance to play it to him.

'Here you are, you. Alison b.l.o.o.d.y Krauss and the . . .' Her words slurred slightly and she took a moment to steady herself. 'Alison Krauss and the Union Station. You ever heard of them?' She turned round to the man in her living room. A tall man with dark curly hair who she had only just met. She must have invited him back, but she couldn't remember doing it.

'Can't say I have,' Paul Archer said.

'Well, here she is.' She pushed play on her CD player and music filled the room. Fiddles and guitars. She walked over to the sideboard and poured herself a large gla.s.s of Scotch. 'Join me.'

The man shook his head. 'Mixing vodka and whisky?'

Kate beamed and took a big swallow of it. 'Ish a c.o.c.ktail.'

Archer smiled back at her. 'You're going to pay for that in the morning. Pay for it big time.'

Kate put her hand on Helen Archer's door to steady herself. She must have invited him back. What else was there that she couldn't remember? She turned around and almost fell back against the door with shock.

'What the h.e.l.l are you doing?'

'I need to speak to you.'

'No.' She shook her head and tried to push past. 'I've got nothing to say to you.'

But he held her arm, and she had to look up at him again. At the dark curly hair and the dark brown eyes. But in those eyes she didn't see scorn or hate or self-importance. She saw hurt, pain and concern. Enough to break her heart. She stopped struggling, all resistance gone, the bones in her body like soft fabric.

'What do you want, Jack?'

'We need to talk.'

Heavy drops of rain splashed onto the windscreen of his car and Delaney turned the ignition a notch and flicked his wipers on, but made no move to start his engine.

Next to him, Kate sighed and pulled her coat tighter to herself, as if cashmere and wool could protect her from her emotions. 'What do you want to say, Jack? I haven't got the energy for an argument.'

'I know. And I'm sorry. I've been trying to get hold of you all morning.'

'How did you know where I was?'

'I got the boys to triangulate your mobile.'

'Is that legal?'

'I needed to speak to you.'

'And it couldn't have waited?'

'I thought you were dead, Kate.'

Kate looked over at him, shocked. 'What are you talking about?'

'There was another murder. Another bad one. Mutilation . . .' He shook his head at the memory. 'We think it's the same man.'

'What's that got to do with me? I've given my notice in, you know.'

Delaney took her gloved hands and held them tight. 'No, I didn't know. But she was wearing your scarf, Kate. The victim. It was either yours or one exactly the same. It was deliberate.'

'And you thought it was me, you thought the victim was me?'

Delaney nodded. 'For a moment. And what he did to her . . .'

Kate sat there for a moment, letting him hold her hands as she took it all in.

'I don't want to lose you again, Kate.'

She felt the tiny pinp.r.i.c.ks in her eyes again. G.o.d, but the man's timing was b.l.o.o.d.y excellent. She finally collected her thoughts and squeezed his hands back.

'You're right. We do need to talk. But not here. Not now. There are things we need to take care of first. Things I need to do.'

'I've been all kinds of fool, Kate. I won't deny that. But it stops here for me, it stops right now.'

Kate nodded, unable to meet his eyes. She knew if she did kiss him, then all control on the train wreck of her life would be lost for ever. She took her hands out of his clasp. 'Take me home first, Jack.'

'It might not be safe.'

'I need to see if my scarf is there.'

Delaney hesitated for a moment and then fired the engine up and pulled the car away from the kerb. Kate stole a sideways glance at him and saw something she wasn't sure she had seen before in his eyes. She couldn't be certain, but it looked something like hope.

The busker, in tie-dyed jeans and a floral shirt, sitting near the bottom of the stairs had a small, portable amplifier to boost his voice and the sound of his guitar to echo around the mall. He flicked his long, braided hair and started singing. A John Lennon song. Ashley Bradley scowled as the music started up, he was never a fan of the Beatles. Any of them. Smug b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in stupid suits, you asked him.

He flexed his knees a little bit more and held the bag he was carrying a little lower. At the bottom of the bag was a hole, and through the hole, pointing upwards, protruded the lens of a video camcorder. Just a little hole, which was great, because camcorders could be really small now and it made his job a lot easier. The one thing in the world that Ashley Bradley was truly grateful for, apart from stretch fabric, was technology. Technology was a marvellous thing. It gave him the Internet and it gave him the camcorder, with the built-in hard drive, which he was now positioning under the skirt of the young lady in front of him on the escalator. He liked to imagine what colour panties she was wearing, not that he really minded. Others did, of course, some of the guys he swapped files with on the web were very specific. Had to be white and cotton or no deal. Or leather. Or a thong. But for Ashley, the colour of them didn't matter at all, because it meant he had lucked out. Ashley Bradley was a commando hunter. But they were rare. And part of the thrill for him was the antic.i.p.ation. He wouldn't know if he had bagged one until he got home and downloaded what he had shot so he could see it on the computer screen. And it had been some weeks since he had a result. He had a real good feeling about the woman in front of him. She looked like b.u.t.ter wouldn't melt, and in his experience they were the worst. He'd have loved to have had a rummage through her drawers, he reckoned he'd find all kind of toys.

He could feel the escalator begin to flatten out which snapped him out of his reverie; he moved the bag back towards him, looked up and saw two uniformed policemen at the top of the stairs staring straight at him. He turned around and began running down the stairs, pushing people out of the way but not getting very far. He leapt over the side of the escalator on to the steps travelling downwards and began running down them as the two policemen above him gave chase. At the bottom he clattered into a group of foreign-looking nuns, and after he had pushed them aside, the young black copper was nearly on him. He darted left and was putting his foot down but hadn't seen the busker who was sitting on the floor, tripped right over him, smashing his guitar into the ground and splintering the wood. The busker's shocked, amplified voice filled the shopping centre.

'You broke my f.u.c.king guitar!'

Danny Vine and Bob Wilkinson, who arrived a little later, had to drag Bradley bodily away to save him from being strangled by the outraged New Age hippy. 'f.u.c.king muppet! I'll f.u.c.king kill you!'

Kate sensed as soon as she entered her house that something was wrong. She walked down the hallway to the kitchen. She looked at the hooks hanging on the back of the kitchen door and shook her head. 'It's not here, Jack. What the h.e.l.l's going on?'

Delaney shrugged. 'I don't know. But I'm going to find out.'

Kate shook her head. 'No, we're going to find out. Who was attending at the scene from my office?'

'Patrick Neally.'

Delaney's phone rang, echoing loudly in the stone-flagged kitchen as he pulled it from his pocket. 'Delaney.'