The Retribution (39 page)

Yes, she thought this was Jacko’s handiwork. No, she hadn’t heard from him since he’d escaped. She hadn’t actually heard from him in years, which suited her just fine. No, she didn’t know where he might be. No, she didn’t know who might be helping him. He’d never been big on friends. Just on using people. No, she hadn’t seen or heard anything out of the ordinary that evening. She and Betsy had been playing bridge with a couple of friends from a nearby village when the alarm had gone up.

Micky shuddered at the memory. Betsy had been first to her feet, throwing her cards to the table and running for the door. The police protection officers had tried to keep them from leaving. They clearly hadn’t expected to be straight-armed out of the way by a middle-aged woman who was stronger than either of them. Micky had run after her, but one of the officers had been a bit more together and he’d grabbed her round the waist and manhandled her indoors. ‘It could be a tactic, the fire,’ he’d shouted at her. ‘He could be trying to draw you out so he can take a potshot at you.’

‘He doesn’t do shooting,’ Micky had shouted back at him. ‘You need two arms to target shoot well. And he doesn’t do anything he can’t do well.’

If not for Betsy and the horses, she would have run. Daphne, one of the friends they’d been playing bridge with, had counselled her to go. ‘Darling, he’s a brute. You mustn’t let yourself be a target for his spite. Betsy, tell her. She should take herself off somewhere he won’t find her.’

But it wasn’t an option. She couldn’t leave Betsy behind. And besides, how long was she supposed to stay gone? If they caught him in a day or two, fine. She could come back. But Jacko was resourceful. He would have planned his escape and its aftermath in detail and with precision. He could be on the lam for months. For ever. And what was she to do then? No, running wasn’t an option.

The policeman asked something and Micky roused herself enough to ask him to repeat it. ‘I asked if you could give us a list of the people who are turning up to take your horses away.’

‘I can do that,’ Betsy said, coming into the room. The first thing she’d done after the paramedics had given her the all-clear was to get on the phone to anyone in the surrounding area who might have spare stalls in their stables so she could provide shelter for her beloved horses. ‘I’m sorry, I should have given you the details. I was just so desperate to get the smell of smoke off me.’

‘I understand,’ he said.

Betsy was already scribbling names down on a sheet of scrap paper in her small precise script. She passed it to the policeman and put a reassuring hand on Micky’s shoulder. ‘Now, if that’s all, we’d appreciate a little peace and quiet,’ she said, charming but firm. When they were alone, she cradled Micky’s head against her breasts, loose inside her eminently respectable tartan dressing gown. ‘I don’t want another evening like this in a hurry,’ she said.

‘It’s about hurting us, I think,’ Betsy said sensibly. She let Micky go and went to pour herself a Scotch. ‘Do you want one?’

Micky shook her head. ‘If that’s the case, I’m glad he chose the horses to go after rather than you.’

‘Oh, honey, don’t say that. It cost Johnny his life, don’t forget. And those poor horses. They must have died in utter fear and total agony. It makes me furious. Poor old Midnight Dancer and Trotters Bar. Innocent animals. There’s not much I would have put past Jacko, but harming those glorious, innocent animals is lower than I thought he could sink.’

Micky shook her head. ‘There’s nothing Jacko wouldn’t do if it served his ambitions. We should have realised that before we tied our lives to his.’

Betsy curled up on the chair opposite Micky. ‘We had no way of knowing what his secret life was.’

‘Maybe not. But we always knew he had one.’ Micky fiddled with her hair, winding a strand round her finger. ‘I’m so glad you’re safe.’

Betsy chuckled. ‘Me too. There was a terrible moment when I thought, “That’s it, Betsy. Curtains for you.” And then Johnny came to the rescue.’ Her face grew solemn.

Micky shivered. ‘Let’s not talk about it.’ As she spoke, they heard voices in the hall. What they were saying was indistinct, but it sounded like a man and a woman.

‘I do,’ Betsy said. ‘You’re the police officer who arrested Jacko. I remember you giving evidence at the Old Bailey.’

‘Jacko, is it? The man tries to burn down your livelihood and he’s still Jacko to you?’

Micky looked to Betsy for a lead. Her lover’s expression hardened and a new watchfulness crept into her eyes. ‘He was Jacko to us for years. It’s habit, that’s all.’

‘Is it? Is it really all? Or does it betray your real attitude, Ms Thorne?’ The woman’s voice sounded strangled, as if it was a struggle to control herself.

‘You have the advantage of us. I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.’

‘You should. It’s been in the news enough this week. It’s Jordan. Carol Jordan. Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan. Sister of Michael Jordan.’

The silence that followed Carol’s words seemed to swell till it filled the space between the three women. Finally, it was Betsy who broke it. ‘I’m very sorry. What happened to your brother and his wife was unforgivable.’

‘Partner. Lucy was his partner. Not his wife. They never married. And now, thanks to your ex –’ She tipped a nod to Micky ‘– they never will.’

‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am,’ Micky said.

‘You could try,’ Carol said, eyes blazing.

‘We’re victims too, you know,’ Micky said. ‘Betsy could have died in that burning stable block.’

‘That’s a pretty outrageous thing to say. An employee of ours died this evening while saving my life,’ Betsy said, her outward show of calm unruffled. Micky knew better, though. She knew that under the surface, Betsy had a temper that would see off the likes of Carol Jordan.

‘Is it really that outrageous? I’m looking at the scale of Vance’s revenge. Tony Hill’s home was burned to the ground. The one place in the world he’s ever felt at home. But all that happens to you is a little fire in a stable block. My brother and his partner were brutally murdered. I’ve never seen so much blood at a crime scene. But all that happens to you is that two horses die. And a stable lad whose name you don’t even bother with. Does that seem proportionate to you?’

‘It was meant to be much worse than that,’ Betsy said. ‘The fire brigade said if we hadn’t had the stable block timbers treated with anti-inflammatory chemicals, the whole roof would have come down. Ja— Vance obviously couldn’t have known that.’

Carol shrugged. ‘Not unless you told him.’ She turned her stare on Micky.

‘Why on earth would we do that? Why would we help him? It’s not as if he’s been a great help to us over the years. His actions destroyed Micky’s TV career.’ Betsy was clipping her syllables tight now, clamping down on her anger.

‘Which suited you just fine, didn’t it? Let’s face it, Betsy, TV was never your world, was it? This is much more like it. Country tweeds and horses. Pukka accents and polo chukkas. Vance’s disgrace did you a favour, I’d say.’

‘That’s not how it was,’ Micky said, her expression pleading. ‘We were pariahs, it’s taken years to rebuild our lives.’

‘This is outrageous,’ Betsy said, her tone a blade that cut through Carol’s tirade.

‘Is it? How does it work, Betsy? I don’t have a big house or a string of horses to care about so I have to lose my brother?’ All at once, Carol sank into the nearest chair. ‘My brother.’ The words came out as a sob. She buried her face in her hands and for the first time since Blake had broken the news, she cried properly. She cried as if she had never cried before in her life and was determined to run through every available variation on the theme. Her whole body convulsed in sobs.

Micky gave Betsy a ‘what do we do now?’ look, but she was too late. Already Betsy was halfway across the room. She pulled up another chair and held Carol close, as if she was her child. Betsy stroked her head and made inarticulate sounds of comfort as Carol cried herself out. At a loss, Micky went to the cupboard and poured three large whiskies. She put them on the table then fetched the kitchen roll.

At last, Carol stopped weeping. She raised her head, gave a hiccuping gulp and swiped her face with the back of her hand. Micky tore off a few sheets of kitchen roll and handed them to her. Carol sniffed and blew and wiped then spotted the whisky. She emptied one of the glasses in a single shuddering swallow then took a deep breath. She looked wrecked, Micky thought. Literally and figuratively. ‘I’m not sorry for what I said,’ she said.

When he hated his own company like this, the only cure he knew was work. And so he turned back to his laptop and tried to put Carol Jordan from his mind. But it wasn’t that easy. He kept coming back to his awareness of her pain. He hated to see her suffer, especially when that suffering could be laid, at least in part, at his door. Worst of all, she’d stormed off. He didn’t know where she was or how to help her.

Back at the boat, he leaned against the stern rail and looked out across the marina. The roofs of the boats looked like black beetles, lined up in rows. A few boats were lit up, their soft yellow light spilling in pools on the black water. In the distance a man was walking a pair of Westies. The voices of a group of young men leaving the pub carried across the marina in a jumble of sound. In the old warehouses, now converted to apartments with views of the canal basin, squares and oblongs of light split up the dark facades in random patterns.

‘Motive,’ he said to a passing mallard. ‘That’s what separates psychologists and police officers. We can’t do without it. But they’re really not that bothered. Just the facts, ma’am. That’s what they want. Forensic evidence, witnesses, stuff they think you can’t fake. But I’m really not all that bothered about the facts. Because facts are like views. They all depend on where you’re standing.’

The duck stopped paddling away from him and came back for more. ‘I need a motive for these murders,’ Tony said. ‘People don’t just kill for the hell of it, no matter what some of them say. In their heads, what they’re doing makes sense. So we’ve got a killer who’s murdering sex workers but it’s not about having sex with them. And it’s not about being turned on by the killing because he’s doing that differently every time. People who are turned on by murder have very specific triggers. What pushes my hot button does not push yours.’ He sighed and the duck lost interest. ‘I don’t blame you, mate. I bore myself sometimes.’