Part 5 (1/2)

Archer was still whimpering, incredulous. 'You broke my f.u.c.king nose.'

Delaney ignored him, 'Come on, Sally.' He walked across the car park to their car.

DC Cartwright looked down at Archer who was staring at the blood on his hands in shock and utter disbelief. 'I'd get a plaster for that if I were you. They should have one in there.'

She jerked her thumb towards the hospital entrance and walked after Delaney.

Sally Cartwright adjusted the rear-view mirror watching the man Delaney had decked as he hobbled, clearly in pain, to the hospital entrance, a b.l.o.o.d.y handkerchief held to his nose. She turned the ignition key and looked across at Delaney, a slight frown creasing her neatly shaped eyebrows. 'Seat belt, sir.'

Delaney rolled his eyes and pulled his seat belt across, snapping it into place. 'Just drive, will you, Constable?'

'Sir.'

She slipped the clutch out and pulled the car smoothly out of the exit; no gravel flew behind them as she indicated left and headed towards the south part of Hampstead Heath.

After driving in silence for a couple of minutes she flicked a glance at her boss. 'What was all that about, do you reckon, sir?'

'I have absolutely no idea, Sally.'

'She seemed pretty upset.'

'Yup.'

'Do you think he'll make a complaint against you?'

'He doesn't know who I am.' Delaney shrugged and went back to staring out the window. Sally raised an eyebrow again and concentrated on the road ahead.

When he was sure the detective constable wasn't looking, Delaney rubbed his left hand over his right knuckles and winced. He had no idea what was going on with the man he had punched, or what he had to do with Kate. He had probably broken the man's nose who, after all, was right, it had been none of his business. It had felt good though, for all the wrong reasons. It had been a morning of frustrations, getting so close to discovering the ident.i.ty of his wife's killers, only to be thwarted at the final hurdle. And he wasn't so unaware as to not realise he still had issues with Kate Walker. He had punched the man half out of anger, half out of a desire to impress her. He had told Kate that he didn't have room in his life for her, and it was true. He had too many unresolved matters to set straight. But if he had no room in his life for her, then why was there such a great hole in it?

Kate Walker's hands were still shaking as she slipped the gear into fourth and stepped on the accelerator pedal. Shaking, she realised, with shock and anger. Of all the people in the world she didn't want knowing about last night and what had happened to her, it was Jack Delaney. What on earth was the man doing there, for G.o.d's sake? It was bad enough that he had humiliated her yesterday, broke her heart and made her so depressed that she went to chase her blues away with vodka. If it hadn't been for him she would never have gone to the Holly Bush, would never have let a complete stranger chat her up at the bar. She wasn't a student, she wasn't a silly young girl who didn't know any better and didn't realise the dangers. In fact, she knew the dangers better than most, but had still let the man under her guard. Just like she had let Delaney under her guard, and look what had happened there. And, of course, he just had to be there when she confronted Paul Archer, making a fool of herself. She slammed the palm of her hand down hard on her horn, the hooter blaring out loudly and causing the cyclist she was overtaking to wobble dangerously to the side of the road.

She fought to calm her anger, steady the adrenalin coursing through her veins. But the truth was she was getting angrier by the minute. She had seen it in Paul Archer's eyes. He was amused. He was mocking her. There was a cold chill in those eyes. He had raped her. She absolutely believed it now. Believed it with a cold certainty in the heart of her soul. But she had absolutely no idea what she was going to do about it.

Paul Archer held a water-soaked handkerchief to his throbbing nose and wiped away the last vestiges of blood. The pain was like a thin spike driven into his forehead. He looked at his face in the mirror and turned left and right to look at each profile. As far as he could tell, and he was pretty qualified to tell, his nose wasn't broken. He put his hands under the cold water, watching as the deep red blood became thinner and paler as it swirled away. He scooped some of the cold water into the palm of his hand and held it against his forehead for a moment or two, waiting for the pain to ease.

Stepping away he s.n.a.t.c.hed a paper towel and rubbed his hands dry as he walked across to the window, fumbling open a pack of Demerol and swallowing a couple. He looked out at the car park below and beyond. Puddles of rainwater, like irregular-shaped, murky mirrors, reflected the dark clouds, scudding in the skies above. There was nothing reflected in Paul Archer's eyes though. They stared ahead with a blank, cold certainty.

When he was nine years old, a couple of older boys at school, brothers, had bullied him. Making him drop his packed lunch of cheese and piccalilli sandwiches on to the rain-soaked tarmac of the playground. Kids didn't like other kids who were different and these two reckoned Paul Archer fancied himself as better than them because he didn't have to eat school lunches. As Paul watched his sandwiches soak up the muddy rain he didn't fight back, he didn't say a word, just picked up his Tupperware box and walked away, not even hearing the laughs and insults that were shouted after him. Paul was too intent listening to the cool voice of reason inside his head. The one that said no slight should go unpunished. And if he wasn't big enough or strong enough or old enough to make them suffer then he would hurt the thing they loved. He waited three weeks and then very early one Sat.u.r.day morning he climbed over the fence of their back garden, rolled a lawn-mower against the door of the kennel where their pet dog, a Staffords.h.i.+re bull terrier, slept, poured petrol he had taken from his dad's shed all over it and set it alight.

The adult Paul Archer held a hand to his throbbing nose again; there were many things he knew now that he hadn't as a child, but one thing that hadn't changed was that certain knowledge of the joy of retribution. He knew it as surely as night follows day. As death follows life. As pleasure follows pain.

Someone was going to pay.

In the front part of the head, in the roof of each nostril, lies a group of mucous-covered sacs. The olfactory epithelium. About five square centimetres in size and containing about ten million receptor cells. Using these receptors the human nose can differentiate, it has been claimed, between four thousand and ten thousand different odours. Odour is at the very genesis and denouement of human existence. A smell receptor has been identified in human sperm a the sperm literally smells its way to the egg. And death, as any policeman or mortician knows, is certainly no friend of the olfactory organ. However, the unmistakable smell of a deceased and decaying body had had no time to develop that morning and PC Bob Wilkinson reckoned his young colleague was as glad of that fact as anyone.

PC Danny Vine had already thrown up twice within the s.p.a.ce of half an hour and Wilkinson, taking pity on him, had sent him to the front of the path to prevent anyone from disturbing the crime scene. Move along please. Nothing to see here. Only, of course, there was. There was plenty to see. But none of it pleasant.

The mechanics of investigation had already been set in motion. A large section of the surrounding area had been cordoned off with yellow tape stretching from tree to tree in a rough diamond shape, covering about a quarter of an acre. The yellow tape with 'police do not cross' written upon it, the yellow tape that unfailingly attracted the prurient attention of the scandal-hungry public, just as the scent of another dog's waste always attracted canine interest. The sort of thrill-seeking interest the public had in other people's misfortune and pain, feeding off it like some kind of sick parasites. Road crash syndrome.

Police vans had been parked outside the cordoned area and uniformed police and white-suited scene-of-crime officers, SOCOs, went about containing the integrity of the site. Aluminium telescopic poles had been snapped open and joined together to form a skeletal framework which was positioned over the area immediately surrounding the body. Plastic sheets had been run over the frame so that the structure took on the appearance of a wedding marquee. Only within the frame, there was no cheery fiddle music, there was no three-tiered cake on a stand, no punchbowl, no laughing guests, no nervous best man and certainly no blus.h.i.+ng bride with a blue garter on her stocking and a hungry husband by her side. Inside was the dead body of a woman in her mid-twenties, with black hair, black lipstick and black blood crusting the edges of the deep slash wounds to her chest, throat and abdomen.

Delaney and Sally Cartwright nodded at PC Danny Vine as they ducked under the tape and headed towards the murder scene. Danny responded with a half-hearted smile.

'You all right, Danny?' Sally asked.

The constable nodded again, unconvincingly. 'Something I ate.'

'You still on for tonight?'

The constable smiled again, more warmly this time. 'Yeah, I'll be there. Bells on.'

Sally flashed him a quick smile and hurried to join Delaney.

'Something I should know about?' he asked.

'Sir?'

'Poster boy back there. You and he sharing handcuffs?'

Sally coloured lightly but laughed out loud. 'A few of us are meeting up for drinks, that's all.'

Delaney nodded, not entirely convinced. 'Right.'

'You're welcome to join us.'

Delaney nodded again. 'If you say so.'

'Anyway. It wouldn't be a crime, would it?'

'Not in my world.' Delaney's brief moment of good humour curled up and died as he walked forward and saw the dark-haired woman standing outside the scene-of-crime tent.

'Dr Walker. Nice scarf.'

Kate turned and looked at him, and cursed inwardly, as she took her scarf off and pulled the protective coverings over the work boots she had changed into. She should have known Delaney would turn up. He was, after all, less than a mile away, just like her, when the call had come in.

'Inspector.' She was surprised at how calm her voice sounded, how cool.

'Have you got anything for us?'

'Like you I've only just arrived. From what I've seen from here, a young woman, I'm guessing mid-twenties.'

'No ID?'

PC Wilkinson stepped forward. 'Nothing yet, sir. We're going to finger-search the area but there was nothing on her person. She had a handbag but it was empty apart from some condoms and a tube of KY jelly.'

'Nothing else?'

'She had a Tube ticket.'