The Retribution (27 page)

‘The blood. If she’d been on her front, the blood couldn’t have sprayed as far as it did outwards and upwards.’

‘Suddenly you’re a blood-spatter specialist as well as a shrink.’ Franklin shook his head.

‘No. But I’ve seen a few crime scenes in my time.’ Tony turned away. ‘Take it or leave it, it’s not about the sex.’

‘So what is it about?’

Tony blinked hard, surprised at the urge towards tears. ‘It’s about payback. Welcome to the wonderful world of Jacko Vance, Chief Inspector.’

Franklin looked uncertain. ‘You seem bloody sure of yourself, doc.’

‘Who found them?’

‘There was an anonymous phone call from a box in a village about fifteen minutes’ drive away. The caller was a male, nothing distinctive about his accent. A local patrol car was dispatched. The door was open, our lads came in.’ The corners of his mouth turned down in sympathy. ‘First time for the pair of them. I doubt they’ll sleep tonight. Does that tell you anything?’

‘It’s Vance. The one murder he did outside his serial murders had the same element of spectacle. What he did then, he’s doing again, now. He’s sending a message. It’s targeted at a specific group of people, just like the last time. And he wants to make sure the message comes through loud and clear. He tipped you off once he was well clear of the crime scene, because he wanted it to be fresh when you got here. He wanted Carol Jordan to see the full horror of what he’d done to the people she loved.’ He felt bitterness like a taste on his tongue. He’d been so slow, so stupid.

‘To the extent where this seems like a reasonable response?’ Tony jerked a thumb upwards.

‘You’re the psychologist. People don’t always deliver… what is it you folk call it? “A proportionate response”? Somebody she should have got off gets sent down … ’ He spread his hands. ‘They order it from inside. Or some toerag on the outside decides topping the brief is a way to earn brownie points.’ He moved towards the tent entrance, reaching for another cigarette. Tony followed him into the open, where a light rain obscured the nearby hills. ‘Alternatively, she got some bastard off – a kiddie fiddler or rapist or something where feelings run high – and some Charles Bronson vigilante weighs in to teach the system a lesson.’ Franklin cupped his hands round the cigarette and lit up, taking in a deep lungful of smoke and exhaling it with a dramatic sigh.

‘In all the years I’ve been doing this job, I’ve never come across the murder of a lawyer because somebody didn’t like the outcome of a case. Not outside TV shows, anyway,’ Tony said. ‘That’s pretty lame as an alternative scenario. And so’s the random psycho. Random psychos tend to be sex killers. And I just explained to you why this wasn’t about sex. Saying it’s about Lucy’s job makes about as much sense as saying it was provoked by the violence in the computer games Michael coded.’

Franklin opened his mouth to say something but he was interrupted by one of the technicians calling from inside the barn. ‘Boss? You need to see this.’

The techie was pointing to where one of the hammer beams of the roof met the wall. A stepladder stood nearby. ‘It’s almost impossible to see it. I saw a tiny flash of light when I was coming down the stairs. You wouldn’t see it in normal lighting, it’s just because we’ve got the crime-scene lamps up.’

‘I still can’t see what you’re on about,’ Franklin said, screwing up his face and peering into the roof.

‘I went up and had a look. It’s a tiny TV camera. We need to do a full electronic sweep. But it looks like somebody’s been spying on them.’

Franklin gave Tony a scornful look over his shoulder. ‘So much for your theory. Vance was banged up until yesterday morning. There’s no way he could be behind this.’

‘You don’t think so? Talk to Sergeant Ambrose at West Mercia about Vance’s contacts with the outside world.’

‘If it makes you any happier, doc, I’ll bear all this in mind,’ Franklin said, condescending. ‘But I’m not putting my next month’s wages on Jacko Vance.’

‘We’ll see whose DNA turns up in the sperm on Lucy’s back.’ Frustrated and fed up, Tony turned away and began to clamber out of his paper suit. There was nothing more for him here. Franklin might pretend to have an open mind, but it was a pretence. He was convinced the answer to this crime lay in Lucy Bannerman’s professional life, and that would be the thrust of his investigation until the undeniable forensics came up with something more than Tony’s conviction based only on experience and instinct.

He was halfway back to the road when he realised Carol had left him stranded.

In spite of the fact that her kitchen was big enough for a dozen stable lads to sit round the table eating breakfast, the men in black seemed to fill all the available space. ‘I don’t understand,’ Micky said. ‘How did he escape?’

‘I don’t have much detail,’ Calman said. ‘Only that he impersonated another prisoner who was due to go out on day release.’

‘And he was in Oakworth? Jesus, that’s no distance from here.’

‘It’s about forty-five miles. Which is one of the reasons why we’re so concerned for your safety.’

‘Oakworth Prison. Which, apparently, is where Jacko has just escaped from.’ Micky flashed a look at Betsy that signalled caution. ‘These officers are here to offer us protection.’

‘Do we need protection?’ Betsy said. ‘Why would Jacko want to hurt us?’

‘My orders, Ms Thorne,’ Calman said.

He knows exactly what the set-up is here,
Micky thought.
He’s been briefed. Someone told him about the subterfuge of marriage we concocted between Jacko and me to save my TV career from the homo-phobic tantrums of the tabloids. Is he here to protect us or to keep an eye on us?
‘I agree with Betsy,’ Micky said.

But that had been before Calman had broken the news of a double murder in Yorkshire that his bosses believe might be Vance’s handiwork. This time, the officer by his side in the kitchen had a gun, a big black affair the like of which she’d never seen outside a TV screen. It screamed incongruity. H&K just didn’t go with Aga. ‘I don’t believe Jacko would do that,’ Micky said. ‘Surely there are other possibilities?’

‘Possibilities?’ Calman said, sounding as if he’d never heard the word spoken before. ‘We like to concentrate on the likely answers. Experience shows that’s usually where the truth lies. We’re going to be giving you blanket coverage. Both driveways will have officers on duty and we’ll have other armed officers patrolling. I know you’ve got your lads out walking the fields. I’ll be talking to them, making sure they know what the parameters for action are. I don’t want you to worry, ladies. I just want you to take care.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Micky said. ‘He wouldn’t be so crazy. And if he was, you think I wouldn’t tell you?’

Betsy’s smile was strained. ‘Funny old thing, loyalty.’

Micky jumped up and rounded the end of the table. She hugged Betsy close and said, ‘You are the only loyalty I have. I only married him because I wanted to be with you.’

Betsy reached up and stroked Micky’s hair. ‘I know. But we both knew there was something off-kilter with Jacko and we chose to look the other way. I was afraid he might expect that of us again.’

‘You heard Calman. They think he’s coming after us, not coming for tea.’ She kissed Betsy’s forehead. ‘They’ll keep us safe.’

She couldn’t see the expression on Betsy’s face, which was probably just as well. ‘Officer Calman and his merry men? If you say so, sweetheart. If you say so.’

The suburban street was quiet at this time of day, parking spaces easy to come by because so many were out at work. Vance drew up a couple of doors down from his target and turned off the engine. He didn’t have camera feeds on this house. He’d decided it was too risky. Carol Jordan was a worthy opponent; he wasn’t going to take chances with her. But his investigator had come up with invaluable information that would make Vance’s next act so much easier.

He took out the tablet computer and checked the camera feeds back at the barn. As he’d expected, Jordan and Hill were there. She was climbing down the ladder from the bed gallery, leaving him behind. It was tempting to watch, but all he needed to know was that they were far enough away for him to have time for his task. He snapped a pair of nitrile gloves over his hands and smiled.

At the back of the house, he carefully put down the bag then moved to a small rockery in the corner. One of the stones was fake, its hollow interior containing a key to the back door. The investigator’s notes had read, ‘Hill is a classic absentminded professor. He forgot his house keys on two of the five days I observed him.’
Happy days
, Vance thought as he let himself in.

He prowled through the ground floor, allowing himself a few minutes’ grace to get a feel for Tony Hill, the weird little bastard who had thought he could get one over on Vance. Billy No Mates, according to the investigator. Carol Jordan seemed to be the only friend in his life. So the more he hurt Carol Jordan, the more he would hurt both of them.

Under the stairs was the door that had to lead to the basement. There were bolts on the door, but they were undone. So too was the mortice lock. The door opened to the touch. So much for the fiction that theirs was the formal relationship of landlord and tenant. These two were in and out of each other’s space, as unterritorial as a flock of sparrows.

The converse never occurred to him: that here were two people who each respected the other’s privacy so much they had no need for locks to enforce it.

Vance ran lightly down the stairs to Carol’s domain, almost tripping over an elderly black cat who still got up to greet new arrivals in his world. ‘Fuck,’ Vance yelped, staggering, desperate not to drop his burden. He managed to right himself, giving his shoulders a shake.

He brought the holdall through and unzipped it, closing the door behind him to keep the cat out. First he emptied the cat-food into a carrier bag. He took out a powerful coiled metal spring, held together by a plastic clip. He placed that in the bottom of the bin, attaching the clip to a sensitive mechanism connected to its rim. He took out a pair of acid-proof gauntlets and pulled them over his gloves. Then with infinite delicacy, he opened the polystyrene container in the holdall and lifted out a glass vessel. Clear oily liquid sloshed gently against the sides as he lowered it on to the spring. He removed the lid, exposing the sulphuric acid to the air. Finally, he fixed a photoelectric cell to the mechanism inside the bin and closed the lid.

The next time Carol Jordan opened the cat-food bin, the spring-loaded container of acid would be catapulted upwards into her face. It probably wouldn’t kill her. But the acid would burn into her skin, destroying her features, leaving her disfigured and scarred. She would almost certainly be blinded and in hideous pain. Just the thought of it made Vance feel excited. She would suffer. God, how she would suffer.

But Tony Hill would suffer more, knowing this time he’d failed to stop Vance in his tracks. The perfect double whammy, really.