Blood Work Read Online Free PDF

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.
    A muffled knocking sound brought Delaney groaning
to consciousness. He half opened a gummed-up eye
and cursed as a bright, white light stabbed into his
sore optic nerves. He held an arm across his face and
groaned again. As far he could tell, he was lying, fully
dressed, on a cold concrete floor, but he had
absolutely no idea where. A sharp pain lanced
through the back of his skull as he tried to move, and
he gasped out loud. He crinkled his eyes again to
open them a merest crack. He was in a white room.
Bare white walls, white ceiling and a painted concrete
floor. A light bulb dangled overhead and there was a
low, mechanical, murmuring hum coming from
somewhere close by. Delaney's head felt like he had
been hit by a heavy, blunt object, but he had no
memory of it. He rolled to one side, wincing with
pain, and slowly opened one eye again. As his vision
blurred into near focus he could make out a chest
freezer against the opposite wall from where he was
lying. He realised that was where the humming was
coming from. The knocking resumed and Delaney
suddenly realised where he was. He had made it
home, but only as far as his garage. He rolled over
again, covering his eyes, and tried to ignore the
knocking which was becoming more urgent now,
snatches of memory coming back to him of the night
that had just passed.
    But the knocking persisted. Delaney stood up,
wincing as the blood flowed through the sore and
swollen areas of his brain and lurched to the garage
door. He opened it, shielding his face against the
sudden lash of wind and rain that spiralled in, and
looked angrily over at the attractive young woman,
dressed in a smart black suit, who was standing on
his front doorstep.
    'What the hell are you doing here, Sally?'
    DC Sally Cartwright smiled at him, enthusiasm
and energy radiating from her like a Ready Brek
advert.
    'The chief inspector thought—'
    'She thought what?' Delaney barked. And regretted
it immediately.
    'She thought that you might like someone to drive
you for your meeting with Norrell. She mentioned
dropping you off at the Tube station last night.'
    'Did she?'
    Sally smiled again, innocently. 'She suspected you
might not have gone straight home, sir.'
    Delaney flapped his hand and gestured her in.
'"Meeting", you make it sound like a bloody sales
conference, and for God's sake, come in, Constable.'
    Sally walked into the built-in garage, gratefully
shutting the door on the wind and rain behind her.
    'What the hell happened to summer?'
    'Don't know, sir.'
    'Come through.'
    Delaney led her through the garage up a couple of
small steps and into the kitchen that lay off it. It was
almost as bare as the