Blood Work

Delaney laughed drily, amused at the shocked look on the young detective constable's face. 'You start going out with uniform, it's best you know where it is.' He smiled again as Sally's face reddened and walked towards the stairs. 'Come on, it's on the third floor.'

Sally called after him and hurried to catch him up. 'I hope you know that from reading the poster, sir.'

Delaney walked up the first flight of stairs and looked at the signs pointing off to the maternity clinic and back to A&E and felt a fluttering in his heart. He stopped by the window and pulled out his mobile phone. 'You go on, Sally. I'll meet you at the top.'

'Sir?'

'I need to make a call.'

Sally continued up the stairs and he waited before she was out of sight before he hit the redial button on the phone. After Kate's answerphone message kicked in again he closed the phone, the blood draining from his face as he gazed down the familiar corridor.

The nurse was a small dark-haired woman in her early twenties with delicate, almost oriental, features. Her hands were small too, but precise. She moved a pillow under the woman's head. The woman's eyes were closed, her breathing operated by an artificial respirator. The mechanical pumps making an obscene sound. Her body was invaded with tubes and wires, and the beat of the heart monitor sent out a contrapuntal and discordant rhythm to the respirator. She was living in form only.

Delaney stood at the foot of the bed as the nurse finished adjusting the pillow so that the woman's dark hair fanned neatly on it. There was no twitch beneath her eyelids, no smile tugging at the corner of her lips, and there never would be again. She was dead. All it needed was for Delaney to let them turn the machine off.

The consultant was sympathetic. 'If there was any hope at all I would advise against it. Of course I would, but the brain stem has suffered too much damage. For all intents and purposes she is already dead.'

Delaney looked at him for a long moment, scared to ask the question but needing to know the answer. 'And the baby?'

The consultant shook his head sadly. 'I'm sorry.'

Delaney's head nodded downward as he gave permission. He couldn't hold back the tears any longer. His world went dark as the obscenity of the pump ceased and the heart-monitor line became still.

Delaney looked out of the window, his hand still clutching the phone like a rosary. He'd lost his wife and his baby in a matter of heartbeats four years ago and it had all but destroyed him. Now, though, he was being given a second chance. The woman he had come to love was carrying his child. His stupidity had almost lost her, but he'd be damned if he'd let anything or anyone come between them now. He opened the phone and hit speed dial. The phone rang at the other end and on the fifth ring cut into Kate's voice.

'This is Kate Walker. I am unavailable right now but leave me a message and I promise I will get back to you as soon as possible.'

'Kate. This is Jack. I'm sorry.' He sighed. 'I'm sorry about everything. Call me.'

He closed the phone and nodded to himself. He wasn't going to let history repeat itself. It was time to do the right thing. Finally.

Agnes Crabtree was sixty-eight years old and her knee joints were feeling every year of them that morning. The damp weather didn't help and Agnes's mood was even more depressed than usual. Six bloody months of winter nowadays. It would be April at least till there was a bit of warmth again and her aching bones might get some respite. Some doctor had been banging on about seasonal disorder on morning television earlier. SAD or something. And it was bloody sad. She made it up the flight of stairs