Blood Work

'You could always call in. You have had a traumatic day.'

The nurse shook her head angrily. 'You see, that's what's wrong with this generation. The slightest thing and people can just call in. Where would we be if the RAF had just called in in 1940?'

'I don't know, ma'am.'

'Well, I tell you where we'd be. We'd be right here,' she said, realising that wasn't quite what she meant. 'Only we wouldn't be speaking English, would we? We'd be speaking German.'

'I've got an A level in German.'

Valerie glared at him. 'Is that supposed to be funny?'

'No. I was just saying.'

'And that's another wrong. People are always "just saying". In my day, young man, people did. They didn't say. They got on with it. They got the job done.'

Danny Vine sighed inwardly with relief as the handle on the door turned and DI Jack Delaney and DC Sally Cartwright came into the room.

'Sorry to keep you waiting, Ms Manners.'

Valerie smiled sweetly at Delaney. 'That's quite all right, Detective Inspector. As I was just explaining to the young officer . . .' she gestured unimpressed at Danny Vine, 'I am only too happy to do my civic duty. Only too happy.'

'We're very grateful.'

The nurse held her hand up. 'No gratitude necessary. I am from a generation that steps up to the line when the call comes.'

Delaney pulled out a chair and sat opposite her. He opened a folder and put the photographs of the men they had pulled from the security footage from South Hampstead Tube station.

'I'd like you to look at these photos, Ms Manners. See if you recognise any of the men as the gentleman you encountered this morning.'

'The pervert, you mean. He was certainly no gentleman.'

She pulled out a pair of glasses from her handbag and perched them on the end of her nose as she looked at the photographs Delaney had handed her across the table. She studied each one for a long time before looking up and taking her glasses off. 'They all look possible.'

'But you can't be sure.'

The nurse shrugged apologetically. 'Well, if I'm honest my eyes weren't exactly drawn to his face, if you see what I mean.'

Sally Cartwright stepped forward. 'Could you look again, Ms Manners?'

Valerie Manners picked up the photos and looked at them again, then shook her head and handed the photos back to Sally. 'Sorry, but any one of them could be him. Is it possible to see photos of the area of exposure, as it were?'

Sally blinked, not quite sure she had heard correctly. 'I beg your pardon?'

'I am a nurse after all. And it might help.'

Danny Vine couldn't hold back a short laugh and Delaney glared at him. 'Wait outside, Constable.'

'Sir.' Danny hurried out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

Delaney turned back to Valerie Manners. 'I'm sorry, ma'am. But that won't be possible. It would be a procedural irregularity, I'm afraid.'

'It's just the injury. Very unlikely two people would have the same.'

Delaney took the photos off Sally and flicked through them quickly. 'What do you mean, the injury?'

'To his penis. Quite extensive scarring, and some deformation I would say.'

'What?' Delaney couldn't believe what he was hearing.

'It was quite noticeable.' She looked up at Delaney's surprised expression. 'I'm sorry. Didn't I mention that?'

'No, ma'am. You didn't.'

'Do you think it might be important?'

DI Jimmy Skinner was well aware that the chatter beneath him had stopped as soon as the clang of his hard leather shoes on the metal walkway echoed around the large building. He looked over the railing, down at the many prisoners who were scattered about the recreation area, their faces turned up to his momentarily and then back to what they had been doing. Noise filled the building again. The sound of caged men resigned to their fate. The truth was Jimmy Skinner felt a lot of empathy for them. They were all gamblers in the main, much like him. Jimmy recognised that, just like he had been in the past many, many times, these men had been fucked on the river. Deliverance they called it. The odds had been in his favour, it was science after all, but the cards had turned up and defied the odds and he had taken a bad beat. He himself had taken a lot of bad beats over the years, just like the men below. Someone had lost their nerve or a car had failed to start, or a family that should have been on holiday had cancelled at the last minute and were at home when they shouldn't have been. Bad beats all. Or the baddest beat of the lot: being born in the wrong part of London in the wrong kind of family. The kind of family that had no hope outside of crime. No hope because the system had fucked them on the river before they'd even been born, and now the only way out was by the gun or knife, or with a flame and a spike and a packet of temporary oblivion to trade. So he felt a kind of sympathy for them. Not for the rapists, mind, or the child abusers or the soulless killers. For them he'd have a rope waiting, see how the cards fell on the ultimate gamble of all.

The prison guard coughed and Jimmy Skinner turned back to him and carried on walking towards the open cell doors and put the men below out of his mind. One thing you learned playing poker was that you put the past behind you and moved on to your next game. Chasing losses was a sure way to destruction and Jimmy Skinner wasn't that kind of gambler. He didn't play to lose, he played to stay even, so he could play again.

The officer, a wide-set man in his forties with steel-grey hair and eyes as bereft of humour as a warehouse guard dog, stood by the open door of one of the cells and jerked with his thumb to show Jimmy the man inside.

Neil Riley was a scrawny, long-haired man in his early thirties, with skin the colour of church candles and tattoos covering both his arms. Tattoos that hadn't been modelled on any works of the great Renaissance artists as far as Jimmy Skinner could see. He was sat on his bed rolling a cigarette and looked up dispassionately as the policeman entered the cell.

Jimmy fished a new packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and threw it on the bed besides him. The man looked at it, a sneer quirking the corner of his thin-lipped mouth. 'You better do better than fucking that.'

Jimmy nodded then picked up the packet of cigarettes from the bed, put them in his pocket and slapped the man back-handed, hard across his face.

'The fuck you think you're doing? I got rights, you know.'

A snort of laugher came from the guard outside and Jimmy clicked his fingers to get the man's attention. 'First rule. You don't swear in my presence.'

'Fuck that.'

Jimmy hit him hard again, the other side of his face this time, open-palmed.

'Jesus Christ!'

Skinner hit him back-handed again. 'Or blaspheme.'

Neil Riley scrambled up on the bed, putting his back to the wall and held his hand up at Skinner. 'All right, you made your f—' He caught himself. 'You made your point.'

Skinner nodded. 'Good.'

'And I don't know what you want to see me for. I don't know anything about anything.'

'You know Kevin Norrell, don't you?'

'I knew him.'

Skinner leaned in pointedly. 'He isn't dead yet, Riley.'

The sallow-faced man looked surprised. 'I thought—'

'What did you think?'

'I heard he was dead, that's all.'

'And where did you hear that from?'

Riley shrugged. 'Word gets round. What do you think, this place is a Carmelite nunnery? You think nobody talks?'

Skinner was a little surprised, and ignoring his own rules, said, 'What do you know about the fucking Carmelites?'

'I went to a convent primary school.'

'I thought that was just for girls?'

'No. Some are mixed up to a certain age.'

Skinner caught himself. 'Can we get back to the fucking point here?'

'I was just saying.'

'Never mind all that bollocks, just tell me who told you Norrell was dead.'