Sally walked on to the exit and Delaney crossed over to the lifts just as they opened. The man turned round as Delaney approached. 'Do you want to step away from me or do you want me to call security?' he said, a little nervous catch in his voice.

Delaney pushed him into the lift.

'What the h.e.l.l do you think you're doing?'

He tried to force himself past Delaney and back out of the lift, but Delaney blocked his way, pushing the b.u.t.ton for the fifth floor. The doors closed and Delaney turned to face him.

'You and I need to have a little talk.'

Paul Archer crossed his arms across his chest. 'The only person you need to talk to is a lawyer. Because you better believe I am calling the police.'

Delaney pulled out his warrant card. 'Can you hear my knees knocking?'

Archer leaned forward to read it and laughed humourlessly. 'Even better. You'll be out of a job as well.'

'Kate Walker was upset yesterday, I want to know why.'

'What business is it of yours?'

Delaney leaned in. 'Just answer the f.u.c.king question.'

Paul Archer smiled, which Delaney figured was a big mistake. He was moments away from smashing the smug look off his face and spoiling his looks for good.

'Whatever is between Kate and me is our concern and certainly none of yours.'

'You want to tell me now or do you want to be eating your meals through a straw for a couple of weeks?'

'Is that a threat, Inspector?'

Delaney stepped in closer. 'Does it sound like a threat?'

Archer moved back into the corner of the lift. 'Don't touch me.' His hand involuntarily went up to touch his nose. 'She tell you she was f.u.c.king me the night before?'

Delaney was taken aback. 'Last night?'

Archer's eyes flickered as he corrected himself. 'Not last night. The night before. She picked me up in the Holly Bush and took me back to hers. I told her it was just a one-night stand, but she wanted more.'

Delaney didn't say anything, taking it in.

Archer could see his words had hit home. 'Your problems with her are nothing to do with me,' he said as the lift door opened and he hurried past Delaney out of the lift.

Delaney watched him go then stabbed his finger on the ground-floor b.u.t.ton. He couldn't blame Kate, it was exactly the sort of thing he would have done. He remembered that night, he remembered the hot breath of Stella Trant whispering in his ear. He had no moral high horse to ride on. He had no justification for being angry with Kate. But rationalisation was one thing, emotion another. The truth was he was f.u.c.king furious. He slammed his open hand hard against the side of the lift as the doors opened. A couple of nurses stepped back as he stormed past, but if he felt at all apologetic for startling them it certainly didn't show on his face.

Out in the car park Delaney opened the pa.s.senger door to his car, and got in, banging it behind him. Sally tried to fire up the engine as Delaney pulled out his mobile phone and punched in some numbers. The Saab coughed ineffectually a few times but turned over eventually after Sally gave the accelerator a couple of prods with her foot.

'When did you last have this serviced, sir?'

Delaney didn't answer. Instead he looked out of the pa.s.senger window as his call was answered.

'Jimmy, it's Jack. Have you got anything for us?'

'Nothing new,' Skinner answered.

'I'm just leaving South Hampstead Hospital, we've got a lead on the flasher.'

'Right.'

'Norrell hasn't regained consciousness and the other guy is holding to his story.'

'You believe him?'

'I believe they went after Norrell because they thought he was a nonce. But I don't believe that was why they were sicced on to him in the first place.'

'You being careful, Jack?'

'I'm doing what has to be done.'

'Keep me posted.'

Jack closed his phone and gestured at Sally. 'Come on, move it.'

'Chalk Farm, sir?'

'Not just yet.'

'Sir?'

Delaney looked at his watch. 'Pinner Green.'

Sally nodded and pulled the car away as Delaney's phone rang. He looked at who was calling and answered it. 'Hi, Diane.'

'Where are you, Jack?'

'Just following up a lead.'

'The boss wants you in for a press conference.'

'I'll get there when I can.'

'This lead, is it in connection with the South Hampstead Common case, or something else?'

'You wanted me back on the job, didn't you, guv?'

'Just don't let it get in the way. This turns out to be a serial killer and you f.u.c.k up on us, Jack, there's no way I can keep your nuts out of the vice.'

'Nice image.'

'Just don't let me down . . .'

'You got it.'

'And don't call me guv!'

Delaney closed his phone. Trouble was, he was good at that. Letting people down.

Jack Delaney and his wife had been eating dinner that Sat.u.r.day night four years ago in a restaurant at the top of Pinner High Street. Just down from the church they had been married in, a Norman-style edifice that stood on top of the hill like a small, suburban castle. The restaurant served a pan-Asian menu, or Pacificrim fusion as the owner liked to call it. Whatever it was called, though, it wasn't to Jack's taste, he'd never really liked Chinese food. But it was his wife's favourite restaurant. It was their anniversary that evening and the truth was that Jack had a lot of making up to do to her. They had been arguing too much of late. Mainly about his job and the hours he worked. The risks he took. The danger on the streets, the growing proliferation of guns and knives in the hands of teenagers who, with no future ahead of them, valued others' lives as cheaply as their own were valued in turn. It was the same arguments that policemen and policewomen had with their spouses up and down the country and all around the world. But that wasn't all there was to it. Behind it all Jack knew the real reason for the growing tensions between them.

Sinead wanted to go back home. To leave England behind and return to her native Dublin, or move even further out into the country. Even as far as to the heathen, blighted, wind-blown and rain-soaked fields of Cork, whence Delaney had dragged his own sorry Irish a.r.s.e. Jack had pointed out to her many times that he was ten years old when his parents had moved to England. Although he would hate to admit it to his colleagues, Jack felt that England was more of a home to him now than Ireland. His memories of it were fond enough, but mainly he remembered the lack of work, the lack of money, the struggles his parents had to put food on the table and leather on their feet. The opportunities London offered in the seventies for a man such as his father and a woman like his mother, G.o.d rest her soul, who were prepared to put in a long day's work were too good to refuse. And so the family had moved, like many before, across the waters to the mainland. His mother had died when he was eleven years old, run over in the early hours on her way to work by a hit-and-run driver whom the police never found and whose soul, Jack still hoped, was rotting in h.e.l.l. And so it was his father who had pushed Jack into joining the police. A man needed a profession or a trade, Jack's dad reckoned, and as the boy had maybe the brains but not the inclination for a university degree he should look at the army, the navy or the police force. The idea of serving in Northern Ireland put any notions of joining the armed forces out of Jack's head. He couldn't see himself pointing a rifle at his Northern brothers, Catholic or Protestant, and he certainly couldn't envisage pulling the trigger. But the thought of joining the police had some appeal to him. Maybe it was the spectre of his mother's death, maybe it was just the knowledge that if he didn't join the police he'd go the way of his cousins who lived in Kilburn and made their money on the other side of the legal fence. And so he worked hard enough at school to get the right kind of grades to apply to the Met. Which he did when he was eighteen and hadn't regretted it since.

But lately Sinead had been, subtly at first, and then not so subtly, pushing him to take early retirement. Plenty of people left early, took up another profession. Something safer, something with regular hours. A job that meant she wouldn't be looking at the clock with dread, but with pleasure at the certainty of his arrival home at the given hour. The sound of a phone ringing wouldn't set her heart racing and her mouth dry every time she answered it, terrified that this call would be the one bringing the news she lived her life in fear of. And, moreover, their young girl, Siobhan, was three years old now. A walking, talking miniature human being with her future all before her. And she reminded him, time after time, although the bulge in her belly made it plain, that she was pregnant again and she wanted a secure future for all of them.

The trouble was that Jack Delaney didn't know what he would do back in Ireland. He was too young to retire. Too old to start a new career. And in truth he didn't want to. Jack loved his job. He loved the freedom of it, and although he might work long hours, they weren't hours spent behind a desk or in a neon-lit office, not for most of the time anyway. He got results and at the end of the day that was what really mattered. It's what mattered if you had a decent boss, that is. Someone who was more interested in banging up criminals than brown-nosing their way into senior management. And Jack's boss, Diane Campbell, was diamond.

So Jack didn't know what he was supposed to do. He loved his wife, really loved her. But the tensions over the last few months had put a strain on them both. And Jack had made a mistake. He'd had an affair. Not even an affair really, just a one-night stand, but the guilt of it ate away at him on a daily basis like a virus. Like a flesh-eating disease. And, because he felt guilty, he got angry, and covered it up by arguing with his wife. It was a vicious circle and Jack wasn't at all sure how to get out of it. But he had made an effort tonight and was grateful that he had had. They had had a lovely meal and a lovely evening. For the first time in ages they hadn't argued. They'd enjoyed each other's company, they'd made each other laugh and Jack couldn't for the life of him understand why he had strayed. And especially with whom.

As they had left the restaurant and started up the car engine, Sinead had insisted they get more petrol. Jack would have argued, he was well aware that they had enough in the tank to get home three times over, but it was one of his wife's pet foibles, she never let the petrol gauge drop below a quarter of a tank. And so they had turned right at the bottom of the hill and drove out of Pinner up to Pinner Green, where there was a petrol station that would be open at that time of day. It was a hot summer night, the heat still cooking the air and only the faintest breaths of wind. Venus was bright in the night sky and Delaney took it to be an omen. He pointed at the star. 'If men are from Mars and women are from Venus. And if men like bars, what do women like?'

Sinead laughed and slapped him on the arm. It was a musical laugh, like the sound of trickling mountain water over cool slate.

Delaney spun the wheel, turning into the forecourt of the petrol station. The adverts finished and the Cowboy Junkies started to play. 'Blue Moon'. One of Delaney's favourites. 'Now you can't tell me that isn't proper music.'

His wife laughed again. 'I can't tell you anything, Jack. I've learned that much by now.'

Delaney had got out of the car and popped open the petrol tank; he was reaching for the fuel nozzle when the plate-gla.s.s window of the shop exploded. Delaney instinctively raised his arm to protect his eyes from the storm of flying gla.s.s. His wife's scream carried over the sound of the shotgun blast and two men came out of the shop. Thickset men dressed in black with balaclavas covering their heads, shotguns held waist level, sweeping the forecourt in front of them.

They shouted at Delaney, but he couldn't hear them; their shotguns trained on him and he watched them frozen for a moment, until his wife screamed at him and her words finally registered.

'For Christ's sake, Jack, get in the car.'

And he did, watching as a Transit van drove through the forecourt with its back doors open. One of the men jumped in and the other ran to catch up. Delaney turned the key in the ignition and gunned the engine, not listening as his wife shouted at him, putting the car in gear and screeching after them, swerving to avoid an incoming car.

The second man jumped into the van, half falling back with the motion and landed with a bone-jarring crash on his knees, but a hand to the inside wall of the van steadied him and he brought his shotgun round to bear on the pursuing car. Delaney's wife screamed and the sound ripped into Delaney's consciousness like ice-cold water as he realised what he was doing. Too late. The shotgun fired again and Delaney's windscreen exploded, the car spinning out of control as the screaming blended with the screeching of brakes and the crumpling of metal . . .

Delaney shook his head to clear the thought and frowned as he pulled the car to a stop outside a block of upscale apartment buildings on the left-hand side of Pinner Green heading towards Northwood Hills.

'What's up, boss?'

'The petrol station.'

'What about it?'

'It's not here any more.'

Jenny Hickling turned back to the fifteen-year-old boy who was following her. Nervously flicking his long and greasy hair like a girl.

'Get a move on for f.u.c.k's sake. I ain't got all f.u.c.king day.'

'All right, keep your knickers on.'

'That supposed to be funny?'

The boy shuffled after her. His jeans were hanging off his scrawny a.r.s.e gangsta-style, and although he swaggered as best he could, Jenny reckoned he wasn't as c.o.c.ksure as he thought he was. She knew the type, posh kids bunking off from the grammar school up the road, dressing like hoodies and trying to talk the talk. About as convincing as her uncle Gerard who used to dress up as Marilyn Monroe at every opportunity, complete with a blonde wig and five o'clock shadow. She reckoned the boy was cherry. She'd probably get away with only a couple of strokes and the scratch of her fingernail across the business end before he'd shoot his load. She'd agreed to give him a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b but she reckoned she wouldn't have to. She wasn't bothered about giving him a suck, it was just she weren't going to let him stick it in her mouth unprotected and she hated the taste of latex. It reminded her of the washing-up gloves her b.i.t.c.h of an Irish mother used to wear when she washed her mouth out for swearing. Before Jenny grew too big of course. She had believed the threat that if she tried to do it one more f.u.c.king time she'd wake up with a f.u.c.king carving knife in her throat, if that wasn't what her pervert English teacher, Mr Gingernut Collier, called a contradiction in f.u.c.king terms. She looked back at the kid who was still limping along behind. He wanted it, that much was clear, but he was still nervous as s.h.i.te. His older brother was at the University of Middles.e.x, wherever the f.u.c.k that was, and he had nicked some gear off him. Primo gear, he had called it, like something he had heard on late-night TV. But if Jenny guessed right the prissy boy wouldn't know primo gear from a k.n.o.bbly stick up his a.r.s.e.

She turned the corner into the backyard of a block of flats. The bottom corridors weren't overlooked, and if she had a penny for every d.i.c.k she'd dealt with back there she'd have a good pound or two and no f.u.c.king mistake.

'Will you get a f.e.c.king move on?'

She walked up the step into the covered walkway where the wheelie bins were kept and stopped dead in her tracks. The body of Agnes Crabtree lay right in front of her. One leg trailing up the steps and her head at an angle G.o.d hadn't intended. She was pretty sure of that.

She turned back to the pimply teenager who had turned white as a sheet and was running away as fast as he could move. Which wasn't very fast; she almost laughed when he tripped over and landed head first in a puddle, but the smile died as soon as it was born as she realised the little gobs.h.i.te had taken the gear, primo, or otherwise with him.

She pulled out her mobile phone and dialled 999. 'Ambulance. There's an old lady here not looking so tickety-f.u.c.king-boo.'

She gave the woman on the other end of the line the address, then grimaced when she asked her how old she was. 'I'm fourteen, so I won't be here when they get here, all right.' She closed the phone down, then cursed, they'd be able to trace her from her phone number. But she reckoned the woodentops, as her mother called them, would have better things to do than chase up a bleeding truancy.

She looked down at the body of Agnes Crabtree. 'I hope they sort you out, missus.' Then she set off in pursuit of the pimply boy, though she reckoned his k.n.o.b must have shrivelled to the size of an acorn at the sight of the dead woman, if it hadn't retracted up inside him altogether.

Delaney looked out of the pa.s.senger window as they drove along the Western Avenue, at least the rain had stopped, but the flyover was clogged fairly solidly as they moved slowly towards White City. He looked over to where the old dog-racing track used to be and realised how much London had changed over the last twenty years or so. And not for the better. Delaney had a theory that a city could only take so many people. Too many rats in a cage meant that some, already feral, turned psychotic and in his experience humans were no different. It might not be against the laws of G.o.d for so many millions of people to be crammed together in one s.p.a.ce, but it was certainly against the laws of nature. We are the architects of our own destruction sure enough, he thought drily. He should have got out of London when he had a chance. If he had listened to his wife four years ago things would have turned out very different.

He'd never have met Kate, and once again Delaney's stomach gripped with the guilt of it all. London might be a mess but he himself was a walking f.u.c.king disaster area. And he knew it. Maybe this was it though. Maybe he had a chance to rewrite history, almost. A second chance. Maybe Kate was his salvation.

The traffic cleared and Sally was able to floor the accelerator and they drove past the White City police station and soon they were at Chalk Farm.

He had to live on the third floor Delaney thought as they trudged up the steps, out of breath and figuring, yet again, it was time for a new fitness regime. A man clattered by in army fatigues and a woollen hat. Delaney stood aside to let him pa.s.s. The man was probably carrying, which was why he was so keen to get past, but Delaney had other fish to fry. He carried on to the third floor where Sally Cartwright was already waiting for him, not a hair out of place nor the slightest evidence of any exertion on her part.

'What are you waiting for, Sally? Bang on the door!' he snapped.

Sally smiled thinly and rapped hard on the door. After a short while with no response Delaney stepped forward and banged harder, and they heard the sound of a chain being lifted and the face of a small, white-haired, elderly woman peered out.

'I'm not interested in Jehovah or shoe brushes.'

Delaney knew how she felt. He held out his warrant card. 'Detective Inspector Jack Delaney, and this is Constable Sally Cartwright.'

'He hasn't done anything wrong.' She tried to shut the door but Delaney held it open with his hand.

'Who hasn't done anything wrong?'

The elderly woman shook her head. 'I should speak to a lawyer first. That's right, isn't it?'

Sally smiled at her rea.s.suringly. 'What are you talking about?'

The woman shook her head again. 'I don't know anything about it, and he was with me the whole time.'

'Is Ashley Bradley your son?' Sally asked.

The woman shook her disarrayed white hair. 'He's my grandson. I told them never to get that dog, I knew it would end in tears.'

'Where is he, Mrs Bradley?'