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.
DAY ONE
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.