Blood Work

by Mark Pearson

  She looked back down at the gravestones of his wife and son and realised she could never tell Jack the terrible truth about the boy. That when the baby had been born it had needed blood; the surgical team had checked automatically but Jack Delaney was not a match.

  He wasn't a match because he hadn't been the father.

  Jack knelt down on one knee, laid some flowers on his wife's grave, stayed there for a moment, then stood up and put his arm around Kate's waist. 'Let's go.'

  They walked back towards the cemetery gates. Jack had told her that the man responsible for his wife's death was dead. He didn't provide any more details, nor yet did she ask for them. What she knew was that Jack Delaney was a new man. There was still a darkness at the heart of him but he had closed a chapter on his life and was ready to start a new one. A new one with her.

  For the first time in her life she truly felt protected and she truly felt loved, the barriers she had fought so long to build were coming down.

  That night they made love for the first time. It seemed.

  It was three o'clock in the morning. Kate murmured drowsily, half awake, half asleep. She settled into her pillow and put her arm around Delaney's waist and then started, flashing to the morning she woke up with Paul Archer in her bed. But as she lay back on her pillow she remembered more; lowering her barriers had let Delaney truly into her life, but it also brought back memories, as though it was only now that she was strong enough to deal with them.

  She was quite drunk. Goodness knows how many vodkas she had had. She was dancing to another female singer now. She sang along and wobbled a bit. She sat down on the sofa.

  'Ooops.'

  Paul Archer stood up and reached for his jacket. 'I'd better be getting home.'

  'Where do you live?'

  'Finchley. I used to live down the road. My soon-to-be ex-wife has the house.' He shrugged with a smile. 'The bitch.'

  She looked at her watch. 'It's too late. You'll never catch a taxi. Not at this time of night.'

  'Then I'll walk.'

  'To Finchley?! No!' She wagged a finger and was aware her words were slurred. And the more she tried to concentrate, the more slurred they seemed to become. 'You'll stay here. No funny business. But you might as well stay.'

  Paul Archer smiled. He was a good-looking man, and she reckoned that smile had charmed the pants off plenty of women in the past. But all she wanted to do was go to bed and sleep for a week. She stood up and stumbled her way to the hall closet where she pulled out a duvet and handed it to him. 'The sofa is large enough to sleep on.' She knew that, because the last man she had given the duvet to was Jack bloody Delaney. 'You sleep here and I'll see you in the morning.'

  She went to her own bedroom, left her pile of clothes on the floor and climbed into bed. She looked at the ceiling for a moment or two, at least the room wasn't spinning. She turned off the light and a short while later she heard Paul Archer come into the room.

  'It's cold out there. Can't I sleep with you? Like you say, no funny business, I promise.'

  She couldn't remember speaking but she remembered shaking her head. And she remembered the sound of him taking off his clothes and climbing into bed and thinking what the hell, as long as he just went to sleep.

  'You try anything,' she said, 'and you're out the door.' She remembered him leaning over her. Showing his left wrist which had a Celtic tattoo of a chain. He turned it around so she could see the chain was broken. 'See this. I had it done the day after my wife made me leave my house. It's a symbol of freedom. I used to have a watch on this wrist which she bought me. I sold that the same day as well. Ten thousand pounds. She was a passive bitch as well, but she warmed up when I taught her how.'

  Kate's eyelids drooped. 'What are you saying?'

  His voice was hard now. 'I'm saying it would be no fun fucking you like this. Like a drunken slut. But I want you to know that when I am ready . . . I will fuck you. And what you want will have nothing to do with it.'

  She struggled, trying to tell him to get out, but she couldn't seem to speak and his voice became soft and soothing like melted molasses as he stroked her forehead.

  He spoke some more but she couldn't remember the words, she couldn't make them out. It was like nonsense he was speaking. And she couldn't keep her eyes open. She felt herself falling as if into a deep chasm of sleep and then she remembered no more.

  Kate sat bolt upright in bed and reached for the telephone on the bedside cabinet, hurriedly dialling a number.

  Delaney stirred and rubbed his eyes. 'What's going on?'

  'Shush.'

  The phone rang a few times and was picked up. The voice on the other end of the line far from pleased.

  'This had better be good. Have you any idea what bloody time it is?'

  'Jane, it's Kate.'

  'Kate.' The sleepy voice on the other end of the line became more alert. 'What the hell's going on? Are you all right?'

  'I'm fine. Just tell me . . . Paul Archer. He worked with children, you said?'

  'Yes.'

  'What specialty?'

  'Paediatric psychology. Mainly in the area of trauma counselling.'

  'Does he use hypnosis?'

  'Yes, I think he does.'

  'Son of a bitch.'

  'Has something happened?'

  Kate smiled. 'No. Nothing happened. That's exactly the point. I'll speak to you later.' She hung up the phone and smiled broadly at Jack. Then she realised something else.

  'Oh, shit.' She almost whispered it.

  Helen Archer looked up a little startled as Kate came into one of the rooms for witnesses at the courthouse. Her hand flew involuntarily to her mouth like a wounded bird as she bit on a fingernail. She willed her hand down. 'Sorry, I'm a bundle of nerves today.'

  'I can understand,' said Kate.

  'I nearly felt like not turning up. I'm not sure, when I see him, how I'm going to react. I'm not sure I can do it.'

  'He's a forceful man. I don't blame you, Helen.'

  'But he deserves to pay for what he's done, doesn't he?'

  Kate looked at the woman, could see the nerves running through her body like electricity, making her twitch and fidget. 'When we talked earlier this week, you said he was wearing a watch. That night, when he attacked you . . . you said he was wearing the watch you bought him as an anniversary present?'

  Helen Archer nodded, a little puzzled by the question. 'That's right. He always wore it. He didn't care about scratching me. About hurting me.'

  'That was the same night?'

  'What same night?'

  'As the rape?'

  Helen stood up and gestured with her trembling hands, agitated now. 'Yes, of course it was the same night! Why are you asking me that?'

  'He told me he sold the watch, Helen.'

  'When?'

  'The day after he moved out of the house.'

  'He's a liar. He's always been a liar. When did he tell you this?'

  'The night he stayed at my place. I am getting some of the memory back. Flashes of it.'

  'Are you saying you don't believe me?'

  'What about his wrist, Helen? What can you tell me about his wrist?'

  'There's nothing to tell. He had his watch on.' She shook her head angrily. 'I don't understand why you are talking like this.'

  'Because he had his wrist tattooed, Helen. The day after he moved out of the house.'

  'He's lying.'

  'To me? At that time, why would he? You made no mention about his watch in your police statement. It was only to me you mentioned it and that was after he told me about the watch. Only I didn't remember at the time.'

  Helen Archer seemed to slump, she sat back on the chair and looked up at Kate, pleading with her sad eyes. 'What if it didn't happen that night? Not that one time. But what if it happened a lot before, when we were married? Does that make him any less guilty?'

  Kate sighed. 'I don't know, Helen.'

  'What if he made my life a living hell?' Her voice was more strid
ent now and she stood up again. 'What if he phoned every day after he moved out? What if he kept leaving messages on the answerphone? Not threatening messages. Not anything you could take to the police. But I understood what he meant. I understood the subtext. With Paul it was his way, always. You didn't tell him it was over.'

  Kate remembered the whispered words Paul Archer had said to her.

  'So you set him up, you invited him over and let him have sex with you?' she asked.

  Helen tore at her thumbnail. Her voice on the edge of manic. 'What are you going to do?'

  'That was why there was no evidence of drugs,' said Kate. 'There never were any, were there?'

  Helen looked at her, the desperation naked in her eyes. 'What are you going to do?' she said again.

  But Kate couldn't answer her.

  Back in the entrance foyer of the courthouse, Delaney stood up gratefully from the long wooden bench he had been sitting on as Kate approached. He could see how tense she was.

  'What did she say?'

  'She lied to me, Jack. She lied to everyone.'

  'What are you going to do?'

  'I have to do what's right. I'm going to have to testify. I'm an officer of the court.'

  Kate Walker felt a tickle in the back of her throat. She coughed into her hand a little and realised she was sweating. She had been in court many times before, but this time felt different. She looked across, reassured to see Jack sitting in the public gallery. He gave her a smile. But she couldn't get the muscles in her face to smile back. She placed her hand on the Bible and promised to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

  'Can you tell us in your own words what happened that night?'

  Kate blinked, she had been lost in thought and had missed most of what the barrister had been asking her.

  She looked across at Paul Archer. He was sat with his arms folded, looking at her with a calm, self-assured expression.

  'We had been drinking. I had been drinking quite a lot, in fact. It was late. It was cold and I thought it unlikely Dr Archer would flag down a cab easily.'

  'And so?'

  'And so I offered him the use of my sofa.'

  'Your sofa?'

  'Yes. Nothing else. Dr Archer took advantage of my hospitality by coming unbidden to my bedroom and climbing naked into my bed.'

  'Are you saying he assaulted you?'

  'He assaulted my hospitality. He assaulted all acceptable norms of behaviour.'

  'But did he touch you?'

  'Not then, but he made it very clear that he intended to . . .' she gestured apologetically to the jury, '. . . in his own words "fuck me" at a later stage and what I wanted would have nothing to do with it.'

  She looked at the jury and back at Paul Archer before he had a chance to wipe that smug smile off his lips and she knew the jury had seen it too. 'He made it clear he liked his women to resist him, Your Honour. He left me in no doubt as to his intentions towards me.'

  Archer's brief stood up. 'My client is not on trial for things he may be imagined to do in the future.'

  Kate pointed at Helen Archer. 'He raped that poor woman.' She turned again to the jury. 'And he should be made to pay.'

  Archer's barrister leapt to his feet again, summoning some outrage. 'I object, Your Honour.'

  'Sustained,' said the judge. 'The jury will disregard that last remark.

  Which was like telling a drowning man not to breathe in.

  Delaney leaned against a lamp post. He lit a cigarette and wondered how long it would be before smoking was banned in all outdoor public places too. As it was you could be fined fifty pounds for flicking a fag end into a drain. But the law was the law, you had to respect it.

  The sky overhead for once had a remarkable amount of blue in it, the soft white clouds that dotted here and there were motionless and the sun was actually shining. It was a bright, crisp, chill autumn day. An autumn day like it should be. As it was in his childhood, when the seasons knew how to behave themselves.

  It was a day for new beginnings.

  Kate came out of the courthouse, her smile, the epicentre now of Delaney's solar system, as bright as the sun itself.

  'What happened?'

  'He got seven years and four months.'

  'You don't feel guilty?'

  'Not a bit of it.'

  Delaney nodded. 'A certain degree of moral flexibility allows us to do what we do.' He grinned and flicked his cigarette into the drain at his feet watching it spark as it hit the grating below.

  'I didn't perjure myself, Jack, I just didn't tell them I knew Helen Archer was lying.'

  At that moment the woman in question came out of the courthouse, she was surrounded by friends and family. She looked across at Kate and gave her a small, quick smile.

  Delaney pointed at the statue adorning the roof of the court building. 'Audrey Hill told me that there is no God and we all know that Justice is blind, so we just have to look out for each other, don't we?'

  Kate linked her arm in his as they walked away. 'Seems to me that looking after you is going to be a full-time job.'

  Delaney dropped his voice to the rich burr of his childhood tongue. 'That's because I'm all man, sweetheart.'

  Kate laughed. 'All ego maybe.'

  Delaney's phone trilled in his pocket and he flicked it out to answer it. 'Delaney.'

  The voice on the other end of the line took him straight back to that childhood, almost as if he had summoned it. Took him back to a day of sunshine and wonders and joy at the world.

  'Jack, it's Mary, your cousin Mary. I need your help,' she said.

  And at that moment a crow took off from the roof of the court building behind them, its dusty wings flapping like shook canvas in the bright, still air, and its caw like the mockery of God.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This is a work of fiction and although all of the characters are indeed fictional some of the places mentioned within are real – so firstly a big apology to London! One of the most diverse, exhilarating and dynamic cities on the planet, and yet in these pages it comes across as rather a bleak place, to say the least; but all cities are viewed through different eyes and Jack Delaney's are a little more bloodshot and jaundiced than most. Some of the places mentioned in the book, however, are not real. Delaney works out of an entirely fictional police station and The Pig and Whistle is a pub that, sadly, does not exist; likewise a curious tourist would struggle to find South Hampstead Common or South Hampstead Tube or the Royal South Hampstead Hospital, but they would be well rewarded indeed, however, if they decided to check if the Holly Bush pub really did add a dash of wine to their Bloody Marys!