Blood Symmetry by Kate Rhodes Page B

relationship?’
    â€˜Three weeks.’
    â€˜You don’t scare me, Alice.’ His expression had changed: more understanding than desire, his frustration mellowing.
    â€˜I feel safe with you, but it’s no guarantee.’
    â€˜Maybe your pattern’s changing.’ He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. ‘Come and meet my boys tomorrow night. They’re staying at mine.’
    â€˜I’ll be at the safe house.’
    His face darkened. ‘You’re obsessed by that kid.’
    â€˜I’m just doing my job. Everyone’s let him down except his mum, and now she’s gone too.’
    Burns stayed silent, probably because he knew how I’d react to professional advice. At midnight we split the bill then he walked me home. He declined my offer of coffee, whichsurprised me. Maybe it angered him that Mikey’s welfare was my top priority, or he couldn’t face the solitary walk home after making love. When I closed the curtains he was still standing on the pavement, huge and immovable, gazing up at my window. His stillness seemed to prove that he’d finally understood the challenge that lay ahead.

12
    A t midnight the couple stand outside the lab, holding hands, the woman’s head resting on the man’s shoulder, at peace for once.
    â€˜I wish we could stay like this,’ the man says.
    â€˜Me too, but we can’t rest properly until it’s done.’
    The man’s exhaustion resonates in his sigh when she unlocks the door and flicks on the lights. Clare Riordan is still bound to the chair, gag clamped between her teeth. The woman ignores her, turning on the radio and setting to work, swabbing the laboratory floor with bleach. When she glances over, the man is sitting on the step, head bowed. The room has an abattoir smell, fetid and dirty. Ammonia can’t remove its taste from the air. The woman focuses on the song playing on the radio; a girl singing something trite about love and money. Her muscles tense when the news bulletin starts.
    â€˜Here it comes,’ she murmurs, turning up the volume.
    The announcer explains that more troops are being sent to the Middle East, unemployment figures falling again.
    â€˜Clare Riordan, a consultant from London’s Royal Free Hospital, is still missing. This afternoon hundreds of volunteers conducted another search of Clapham Common. The police want to hear from anyone who has seen Dr Riordan since she went missing on the eleventh of October. They have described her abduction as a senseless act of violence against an innocent victim.’
    â€˜Innocent?’ The woman silences the radio with a jab of her finger. ‘She’s hurt every blood patient in the land.’
    â€˜Anger won’t get us anywhere,’ the man says quietly.
    â€˜It brought us here.’ She stares back at him. ‘How will you cope with all the rest?’
    â€˜I’m stronger than I look.’
    â€˜That’s not true. I’ll finish this, then we can leave.’ She turns to Riordan. ‘Did you hear that, Clare? Another night in the dark. Want me to hang you from the ceiling again?’
    The doctor’s body writhes like a line-caught fish, a dull moan spilling through her gag.
    â€˜Give us a name. Then you can sleep in peace.’
    Clare shakes her head violently, but when the pulley tightens she lets out a long whimper and the woman loosens the rag that stifles her.
    â€˜Jordan Adebayo,’ she whispers, screwing her eyes shut.
    The woman jerks the material back into place, then picks up a scalpel. ‘Now I can finish her, can’t I?’
    â€˜She may be lying; we need her alive until we’ve checked him out.’
    â€˜Always forward-planning, aren’t you?’
    She drops the blade back into the drawer with a sense of disappointment, but breaking Riordan’s will has restored her good mood. She swabs the last patch of blood from the floor, humming as the