Max Wolfe 02.5 - Fresh Blood Read Online Free PDF

fading old face.
    Maybe this was fresh blood.
    ‘You’ve got to go to the law, Ginger. For your sake and for the sake of your girls. I honestly don’t know how dangerous these guys are.’
    She laughed. ‘I’ll go to Dubai before I go to the law,’ she said. ‘Somewhere the sex industry is appreciated. There are plenty of possibilities in the big hotels there. And I know exactly how dangerous they are, Max.’ She nodded at the unconscious young Somalian with his jaw wired up. ‘Look what they did to Ali just for a laugh.’
    And then Ali’s family arrived, three generations of Somalians squeezing into that tiny space around his bed, an old man and woman and a boy around Scout’s age and a young mother with her head covered holding a baby – Ali’s wife. She began to sob silently at the sight of her husband’s poor battered face. In broken English, the old man thanked Ginger for giving Ali a career opportunity, as though she was Bill Gates rather than the owner of a prostitution ring.
    Finally, a short, sturdy-looking Somalian in his mid-twenties came into the room. He stared with eyes blazing at the broken young man in the bed. And then he looked at me, nodded briefly, and we stepped to the other side of the curtains. He had the blackest eyes I have ever seen.
    ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘For helping my brother.’
    I felt a flood of shame. If I had really been helping his brother, Ali wouldn’t be eating his dinner through a straw.
    Curtis’ mother and brother were in the hospital canteen. I got myself a triple espresso and joined them.
    ‘He’s sleeping,’ the old lady said.
    ‘Or pretending to sleep,’ said Marvin.
    The mother was suddenly furious. I had never seen her angry before. ‘Why would he pretend to be sleeping?’
    Father Marvin Gane shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Mum.’ His mother’s accent was still full of the Caribbean but in Father Marvin’s voice there was nothing but the streets of south London. ‘Perhaps he’s tired of talking about it all. Oh – I don’t know why he would pretend. I’m sure you’re right. I’m sure he’s not pretending.’ He reached across the table and cupped his mother’s hands in his own and she smiled, as if it was the only apology she needed.
    ‘We’re all tired,’ she told me. ‘May I ask you a question, Max?’
    I nodded. ‘Of course.’
    She took a deep breath. Behind her sensible spectacles, her eyes were shining with tears.
    ‘Does my son ever talk to you about dying?’ she said.
    I looked at their faces. I wanted to do the right thing. I wanted to tell them the truth. I wanted them to know everything. But I couldn’t break their hearts.
    ‘No,’ I said.

6
Young Offenders
    Deep in the bowels of the Iain West Forensic Suite in the Westminster Public Mortuary on Horseferry Road, the corpse of Mad Vic Masters lay on its stainless steel bed.
    The blood that had masked his face when I found him in a ditch had all been swabbed away. Somehow that made him look even worse.
    The hideous wounds of his Chelsea smile made Mad Vic look as though he was desperately attempting to see the funny side.
    Four murder detectives in blue scrubs and hairnets gathered around the body but Elsa Olsen, forensic pathologist, was addressing herself to their leader, the large man with the shock of white-blond hair. In his blue scrubs and hairnet, DCI Flashman of New Scotland Yard looked like a rugby player impersonating a dinner lady.
    I pulled on my own scrubs and hairnet, quickly washed my hands and joined them in the chilled air of the viewing room.
    Elsa smiled at me, and two of Flashman’s Detective Inspectors gave me a neutral look, but the Senior Investigating Officer ignored me. I shivered. The room was kept permanently just above freezing to make it possible for the living to stand in such close proximity to the dead. Elsa Olsen indicated the cadaver with a slight lift of her chin.
    ‘No defensive wounds on the hands and arms,’ she said. ‘No