Table of Contents
About the Author
By the Same Author
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Prologue
DAY ONE
DAY TWO
DAY THREE
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Also Available in Arrow
Men From Boys
Triptych
Live Flesh
The Skin Gods
Cold Light
From Random House
BLOOD
WORK
For the last ten years Mark Pearson has worked as a full-time television scriptwriter on a variety of shows for the BBC and ITV, including Doctors, Holby City and The Bill. He lives on the north coast of Norfolk. His first Jack Delaney novel, Hard Evidence, is also available from Arrow Books.
Also available by Mark Pearson
Hard Evidence
BLOOD
WORK
MARK
PEARSON
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
ISBN 9781409035787
Version 1.0
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Published by Arrow Books 2009
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Copyright © Mark Pearson 2009
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First published in Great Britain in 2009 by
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London SW1V 2SA
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is available from the British Library
ISBN: 9781409035787
Version 1.0
For Mum and Dad
The woman's muscles spasmed and as she floated towards consciousness she heard a man's voice, and what she heard made her want to scream and kick and thrash her arms. But she couldn't move. She had been drugged, she knew that. And the drugs held her paralysed. She could barely open her eyes a millimetre but it was enough to see what the man held in his hand and if she had been able to scream she would have ripped her lungs apart doing so.
The blade in the man's hands dipped and she could feel the flesh and muscles of her stomach parting. No pain. But she could feel it. She could see his head bending lower, his other hand reaching forth, reaching into her. Violating her. Then he stood back, holding a mass of tissue in his hand, blood dripping from it as if he was squeezing what he held. And she closed her eyes, willing it to stop. Suddenly she could feel the cool air, feel it lift the heat from her skin. As she sank deeper inside herself, she could picture that heat like a fine cloud of particles swirling up into the black inkiness of the night sky, separating, dissolving and lost to the universe.
And then she didn't feel anything at all.
PROLOGUE
A group of noisy, enthusiastic young men gathered around one corner of the bar of the Unicorn, a mock- Tudor pub. A large-screen TV was commanding their attention. England was playing South Africa in a friendly and the atmosphere in the pub was rowdy, but not aggressive.
Detective Inspector Jack Delaney stood at the other end of the bar and waited patiently for the young man, with short cropped hair and arms like strings of rope and the word 'WRATH' tattooed in big, black letters along the length of one forearm, to get around to serving him. Any other day he would have been simmering with barely contained fury as the barman flirted with a couple of South African girls with hair as yellow as corn and strong, bright teeth. But Jack Delaney had other things to occupy his mind that night.
All things coalesce somewhere. All things come together in a pattern. He couldn't see it yet, but he knew it was there. Finding patterns was his job, after all, seeking what linked seemingly disassociated events. What Delaney did know just then, as he waited at the bar, with dark images flashing through his memory, was that he had a focus again. Something to help concentrate all the hurt and pain and anger he had lived with for four years into a single point of energy and use that to move forward out of the wreckage of his past, annihilating anything that got in his way. Jack Delaney didn't do standing still very well.
The barman's casual smile died as he approached Delaney.
'Help you?'
'Pint of Guinness and a pint of lager.'
Delaney threaded his way back through the crowd, smiling almost imperceptibly at the pair of blonde women, who were straining quite noticeably the yellow and green fabric of their 'Boks' rugby shirts, happy to draw attention to themselves. He put the drinks down on the table in front of his erstwhile boss who held a cigarette, as ever, in one hand and a lighter in the other.
Chief Inspector Diane Campbell looked up at him, a devil-may-care smile dancing in her puppy-brown eyes. 'Fifty-pound fine, it's almost worth lighting the bastard up.'
She held the cigarette aloft as if there may have been some doubt as to the identity of the illegitimate object.
Delaney pulled out a chair and sat down. 'True.'
'Meanwhile the fat cats of Westminster can smoke in their bar at the Houses of Parliament. Never mind their bleeding expenses, that's the real problem.'
'Not going political on me, are you, Diane?'
Campbell whipped her neck, flicking her bobbed hair left and right. 'Not in this lifetime.'
'Good to hear.'
Campbell looked at him for a moment, the mischief still in her eyes. 'I saw Kate Walker talking with you at the cemetery.'
'And?'
'Anything you want to tell me about that?'
Delaney took a long pull on his pint of Guinness and thought about it. Thought about Kate and her dark hair, her haunted eyes, her beauty. Her fragility. Remembering the hurt in her eyes as he had stood beneath the naked sky of a west London cemetery and told her that they had no future. He knew the damage that had been done to her as a child by her uncle, his ex-boss Superintendent Walker, knew that damage had scarred her as an adult, knew that that same uncle had tried to kill her because she was helping Delaney rescue his own child, Siobhan, from his clutches. Kate Walker had suffered enough, but he had made her suffer more. He'd already buried one wife, had carried the guilt of it for four years, and when it came to making a choice between the living and the dead . . .
He had chosen the dead.
He took another swallow of Guinness before putting the glass down and looking Campbell in the eye. 'Not a thing.'
'Wouldn't blame you if there was. She's got a fine figure on her for a brunette.'