Blood Work

'Sir?'

'England, Sally. That's what it's down to. God's punishing us, each and every one of us. And He's doing it by making us live in this shitehole of a country.'

Sally followed him out the door, not replying. She guessed some people just weren't morning persons.

The window was slightly open and the wind whistling outside knocked the blind against the wooden frame with an inconsistent rhythm. Kate woke slowly. Lifting one eyelid, she winced a little and closed it again. She murmured softly and turned on to her side. She reached out a hand and snaked her fingers through the man's curly hair and smiled. 'Jack, wake up.'

She slid her hand down over his shoulder to tangle her fingers in his chest hair, only his skin was completely smooth. She frowned, puzzled for a moment, then her smile faded, her eyes shot open with realisation and she looked, horrified, at the naked man sleeping beside her in her bed.

'Shit!'

She turned over again and looked at the clock radio on her bedside cabinet. It was half past seven. She cursed again and tried to remember what had happened the night before. And couldn't.

'Shit.'

Quarter to eight and the rain was still falling, although lighter than it had been. Detective Inspector Jack Delaney and Detective Constable Sally Cartwright were stamping their feet as they stood outside 'Bab's Kebabs' burger van round the corner from the police station. Roy, the corpulent owner and chef, was flipping bacon on the hot griddle plate as Delaney and Sally sheltered from the persistent drizzle as much as they could under the awning.

'Point in case . . .' He pointed his egg slice at Delaney. 'What did you reckon of Madonna's "American Pie", Inspector?'

Delaney shrugged. 'I liked it.'

'Yeah, well, you would. My point exactly. Every man and his dog in the rest of the world thinks it's a piece of shit, but you like it.'

'It's a song, not a sacred cow. People should be more tolerant.'

Roy laughed. 'Ever heard of the pot and the kettle?' He fixed Delaney with a puzzled expression. 'I heard you'd quit the job anyway.'

'I did.'

'What happened then?'

'Shit happened, Roy. You ought to know about that. And they needed me to clean it up. Only man for the job.'

Roy winked at Sally. 'And I bet you're right glad to have this little ray of bog-trotting sunshine back.'

Sally laughed. 'We're all glad.'

Roy shook his head. 'Yeah, well, I wouldn't be betting any large change on that.'

Delaney stirred some sugar in his coffee. 'You got that right.'

Sally took a sip of her herbal tea. 'Why?'

'He put down some of your own, Detective Constable. Never very popular thing to do.'

Delaney scowled at Roy. 'I didn't sign up for the police force to win popularity contests.'

Roy handed a bacon sandwich over the counter to him. 'Just watch your back is all I'm saying, cowboy. You put the Pied Piper away, doesn't mean there isn't more of the vermin that were on his payroll still on the job, scratching their feet and sniffing their noses in the air.' He looked pointedly across as a couple of uniforms approached.

Delaney took a bite out of his sandwich. 'I'll bear it in mind.' He turned back to Sally. 'Come on, let's get out of here.'

Roy called after him. 'Madonna? My doughnut more like!'

Delaney walked off, Sally took a couple of gulps of her tea and threw the cup in the black plastic dustbin at the side of the van. 'Cheers, Roy.'

'De nada. And you watch your back too, Detective Constable. That man is a disaster area in size ten brogues.'

Sally winked at him. 'At least you know where you are with him.'

Roy nodded. 'In fucking trouble most like.' Roy turned to the two uniformed constables who had arrived and were watching Sally hurry after Delaney with undisguised appreciation. Roy grunted at them. 'Out of your league, boys. Out of your league.'

'Just give us a couple of bacon rolls, Roy.'

Roy leaned forward confidentially. 'Can I interest you lads in some pirate DVDs?'

The older uniform sighed patiently. 'Go on?'

'I've got Treasure Island, The Black Hawk, and of course Pirates of the Caribbean, the complete boxed set.'

Neither of the uniforms laughed.

Kate stood for a long while in the bathroom. The clothes she had been wearing last night were in a heap in the corner. She pulled the belt tight around the towelling robe she had on and looked at herself in the mirror. Her waterproof mascara had lived up to its name, but her eyeshadow and lipstick were smeared and her face looked pale against the almost black of her tangled and disarrayed curls. Whatever slight tan she might have picked up in the summer months seemed to have disappeared overnight. She walked across to the shower unit and put her hand on the tap. She held it there for a moment or two, the metal chill on her hand. And then she took it away again. She wouldn't shower that morning. She took the towelling robe off and carefully folded it, then picked up her clothing from the night before and dressed herself.

In 1903 Holloway Prison became a purely women-only facility. Coupled with the ending of transportation and the closing of Newgate, it meant a new prison for male offenders had to be built, a place to house those prisoners who were to be evicted to accommodate the fairer sex. The site chosen in the last, dying breaths of the Victorian era was a bit of undeveloped park and scrubland some two miles or so south of Hampstead Heath and a mile or so west of Delaney's new house in Belsize Park. Bayfield Prison was an all-categories facility that held up to six hundred prisoners. As the urban wealth of Hampstead and Belsize Park spread further out, the building was an incongruous intruder, a social blot on an increasingly upmarket landscape. But it lay hidden in its own ten acres of land, tall trees sheltering the place from view on the main road; it was still a lot closer, in many ways, to Kilburn than it was to Hampstead.

Sally pulled up at the iron gates that stood at the end of the long driveway and waited for the uniformed guard to check her identification. She wound her window down, flinching as the rain lashed at her face, and held her warrant card out. The guard grunted, monosyllabically, then waved her forward and signalled to the guard house. Electric motors whirred and the heavy iron gates swung open. Sally slipped the car in first gear and drove down through the gates and along the quarter-mile or so of private road that led up to the prison.

'What's Norrell got to say do you think, guv?'

Sally's question pulled Delaney out of his reverie. He had been thinking along the same lines. 'I've no idea.'

'You reckon he was involved in the petrol station hold-up?'

Delaney shook his head. 'Maybe, but who knows? If he was involved he'll have lived to regret it.'

Bayfield Prison, finished late in 1902, was three storeys high and had four wings on four sides, forming a central exercise area which could be monitored from observation posts on each corner. There were no windows on the exterior walls, which gave the brick building an imposing, severely functional look.

Sally pulled the car up to the parking area and they walked over to the visitors' entrance and, after the usual security checks, were shown through to a waiting area in the front of the prison. Delaney sat on an orange plastic chair bolted to a wall underneath a window, then stood up again and paced impatiently, looking out of the window and wishing he could fire up a cigarette. He kicked his shoe against the wall and looked at his watch. Ten past eight and way past time they should have seen Norrell.

He paced around the room for a minute more and had just decided to go and have a hard word with somebody when he heard the door open and looked across to see the warden walk in. Ron Cornwell was a tall man, six foot five but thin. He had pale blond hair and an apologetic smile on his face. 'Sorry, Inspector, I tried to get hold of you on your mobile earlier. And I've been held up on the telephone.'