The Retribution

by Val McDermid

  Some things never change, Paula thought. Driving to a murder scene accompanied by the rising burn of adrenaline. Every time, she felt the thrill in her blood.

  ‘Sorry to drag you out,’ Carol said.

  She didn’t really mean it, Paula thought. But Carol had always been good at making sure her team never felt taken for granted. Paula’s eyes didn’t leave the road. She drove well over the speed limit, but within her capabilities. Nobody wanted to be remembered as one of those cops who mowed down an innocent member of the public in their haste to reach the dead. ‘Not a problem, chief,’ she said. ‘Elinor’s on call, so we were just having a quiet night in. A game of Scrabble and a takeaway.’ Carol wasn’t the only one who wanted to keep everybody sweet.

  ‘All the same … ’

  Paula grinned. ‘I was losing anyway. What have we got?’

  ‘Reekie was on an open line, so we didn’t talk detail. All I know is that he thinks it’s right up our street.’

  ‘Not for much longer,’ Paula said, aware of the bitterness and regret in her voice.

  ‘It was happening regardless of whether I stayed or not.’

  Paula was startled. ‘I wasn’t blaming you, chief. I know whose fault it is.’ She flashed a quick glance at Carol. ‘I was wondering … ’

  ‘Of course I’ll put in a good word for you.’

  ‘Actually, I was hoping for a bit more than that.’ Paula took a deep breath. She’d been trying to find the right moment for days, but there had always been something in the way. If she didn’t take advantage of having Carol to herself now, who knew when the opportunity would arise again? ‘If I was to apply, would there be a job for me in West Mercia?’

  Carol was caught on the back foot. ‘I don’t know. It never occurred to me that anybody would … ’ She shifted in her seat, the better to study Paula. ‘It won’t be like it is here, you know. Their homicide rate’s negligible compared with Bradfield. It’ll be much more like routine CID work.’

  Paula quirked a smile. ‘I could live with that. I think I’ve done my fair share at the sharp end of fucked-up.’

  ‘Can’t argue with that. If it’s what you want, I’d do my best to make it happen,’ Carol said. ‘But I thought you were pretty settled here. With Elinor?’

  ‘Elinor’s not the issue. Well, not like you’re suggesting. The thing is, she needs to climb up the next step on her medical career. She heard there’s a good job coming up in Birmingham. And Bradfield to Birmingham is not a commute any sane person would want to do. So … ’ Paula slowed for a junction, scanning the road in both directions before she whipped through. ‘If she’s going to go for that, I need to consider my options. And if you’re going to West Mercia, I thought I might as well trade on my connections.’ She glanced at Carol and grinned.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Carol said. ‘There’s nobody I’d rather have on my team,’ she added, meaning it.

  ‘I got on really well with that sergeant we worked with on the RigMarole killings,’ Paula said, pressing her point. ‘Alvin Ambrose. I’d be happy to work with him again.’

  Carol groaned. ‘I hear you, Paula. There’s no need to push it. And it may not be down to me, in the end. You know how it is right now, the way the cuts are biting into front-line officers.’

  ‘I know. Sorry, chief.’ She frowned at the satnav then made a tentative left turn into a small industrial estate, prefabricated warehouses with their shallow-pitched roofs lining the curving road. They rounded the final bend and Paula knew she was in the right place. A scatter of police and crime-scene vehicles clustered round the last warehouse on the site, flashing blue lights turned off in a bid to avoid attention. But there was no mistaking the fluttering festoons of crime-scene tape staking out the building. Paula pulled up, turned off the engine and squared her shoulders. ‘This’ll be us, then.’

  These were the occasions when Carol understood that, no matter how good a cop she was, it would never be enough. Always arriving after the fact grew harder to bear the longer she did this job. She wished Tony was with her, and not just because he would read the scene differently from her. He understood her desire to prevent episodes like this, events that shredded people’s lives and left them with gaping holes in the fabric of the day-to-day. Justice was what Carol craved, but these days she felt it seldom showed up.

  DS Reekie hadn’t said much and she was glad of that. Some things went beyond words, and too many cops tried to keep the horror at bay with chatter. But nothing could keep a sight like this at arm’s length.

  The woman was naked. Carol could see several thin superficial cuts on her skin and wondered if the killer had cut her clothes off her. She’d ask the CSI photographer to make a point of getting them in his shots so they could make comparisons if the clothes turned up.

  The woman’s body had been fixed to a cross with sturdy six-inch nails through her wrists and ankles. Carol tried not to wince at the thought of what that must have sounded like; the crack of hammer on nails, the crunch of bones, the cry of agony echoing off the metal walls. Then the cross had been propped up against the wall upside down so that her dyed blonde hair skimmed the gritty cement floor, her roots a dark line across her forehead.

  It hadn’t been crucifixion that had killed her, though. Carol supposed you’d have to classify the savage slash to the throat as a kind of mercy, but it was a kind she hoped she’d never need. The cut had been deep enough to sever major blood vessels. Under arterial pressure, the blood had travelled an impressive distance, the spray visible on the floor all around except for one patch. ‘He was standing there,’ she said, half to herself. ‘He must have been saturated.’

  ‘He must be bloody strong,’ Paula said. ‘To shift a wooden cross with a body on it, that’s hard work. I don’t think I could do it.’

  The white-suited figure working closest to the body turned to face them. His words were slightly muffled by his mask, but Carol could hear them clearly enough. She recognised the Canadian accent of the Home Office pathologist, Grisha Shatalov. ‘The wood’s only two by six. And there’s nothing of her. I’d say classic addict physiology, except there’s no sign that she was injecting. I bet you could lift and drag her into place without too much effort, DC McIntyre.’

  ‘How long has she been dead, Grisha?’ Carol said.

  ‘You never ask the questions I can answer,’ he said, weary humour in his tone. ‘My best guess at this point is that she’s been dead for around twenty-four hours.’

  ‘The unit’s been empty for about four months,’ Reekie said. ‘The security guard didn’t notice the back door had been forced.’ There was no mistaking his contempt.

  ‘So how did we find her?’ Carol asked.

  ‘The usual. Man walking his dog last thing. The dog made a beeline for the back door. It must have smelled the blood.’ Reekie wrinkled his nose. ‘Hardly surprising. According to the owner, the dog charged the door, the door swung open, the dog vanished inside and wouldn’t come when called. So he went in, torch on. Took one look and called us.’ He gave a mirthless laugh. ‘At least he had the good sense to grab the dog before it completely fucked up the crime scene.’

  ‘But Dr Shatalov reckons she was killed last night. How come the dog didn’t find her then?’

  Reekie looked over his shoulder, where his DI was riding point. He’d been silent and still up to that point but knew what was expected of him. ‘They didn’t go that way last night, according to the owner. Obviously, we’ll be checking that out.’

  ‘Never trust the body finder,’ Reekie said.

  Like we didn’t know that. Carol stared at the body, clocking every detail, wondering about the sequence of events that had led this young woman here. ‘Any ID?’ she said.

  ‘Not so far,’ Spencer said. ‘We’ve got a bit of a street prostitution problem out towards the airport. Eastern Europeans, mostly. She’ll likely be from there.’

  ‘Unless he brought her out from the city. From Temple Fields,’ Paula said.

&nb
sp; ‘The first two were local,’ Reekie said.

  ‘Well, let’s hope Grisha can get her looking human enough to ID via a photo,’ Carol said. ‘You said, “the first two”, sir. You’re sure this is a series?’

  Reekie turned back to the body. ‘Show her, doc.’

  Grisha pointed to what looked like a tattoo on the inside of the woman’s wrist. It was partially covered with blood, but Carol could still make out the letters. MINE. A message that was repulsive, sick and insolent. And yet, in the back of Carol’s head, a devil whispered, ‘Make the most of this. If you go to West Mercia, you’ll never see a crime scene as interesting as this again.’

  6

  Against all odds, years of apparently model behaviour had earned Vance a place in the Therapeutic Community Wing at HMP Oakworth in the depths of the Worcestershire countryside. There was no set lights-out time on this wing, separated as it was from the rest of the prison; inmates could turn the light off when they wanted to. And the tiny en suite bathroom gave him a degree of privacy he’d almost forgotten existed. Vance turned out the light, leaving the TV on so he wasn’t working in complete darkness. He spread a newspaper out on the table then painstakingly chopped off his hair with a razor blade. Once it was short enough, he ran the electric razor back and forth till his skull was as smooth as he could get it. Thanks to his prison pallor, there would be no difference in skin colour between the newly shaven skin and his face. Next, he shaved off the full beard he’d been cultivating over the past few weeks, leaving only a goatee and moustache behind. Over the past couple of years, he’d been varying his facial hair dramatically – from full beard to clean-shaven, from chin strap to Zapata moustache – so that nobody would pay attention when he cultivated the look that counted.

  The key part of the transformation still lay ahead of him. He reached up to the bookshelf above the table and took down a large-format book, a limited edition collection of lithographs by modern Russian artists. Neither Vance nor the usual inmate of the cell had any interest in the art; what made this book valuable was the heavy paper stock it was printed on, paper so heavy the pages could be slit open and used to hide thin plastic sheets of tattoo transfers.

  The transfers had been painstakingly created from photographs Vance had taken on his contraband smartphone. They replicated in exact detail the elaborate and garish body art that covered the arms and neck of Jason Collins, the man who was currently sleeping in Vance’s bed. For Vance was not in his own cell tonight. The distraction he’d created had worked perfectly.

  A photograph of Damon Todd’s wife leaning into Cash Costello’s brother at some nightclub bar had been all the currency he’d needed. Vance had casually dropped it on the ping-pong table as he’d walked past during the association period that evening. Inevitably, just as he had planned, someone had picked it up and homed in on its significance straight away. Catcalling and taunts followed and, inevitably, Todd had lost his temper and thrown himself on Costello. That would be the end of their spell on the Therapeutic Community Wing, all good behaviour undone in one uncontrollable flash of temper. Not that Vance cared. He’d never been bothered by collateral damage.

  What mattered was that the ruckus had diverted the attention of the wing officers just long enough for Vance and Collins to make their way back to the wrong cells. By the time things had settled down and the screws were making the final round of the cells, both men had their lights out, pretending to be fast asleep. No reason to doubt each was where he was supposed to be.

  Vance got up and ran cold water into the basin. He tore out the first prearranged page and peeled the two sheets of paper away from the plastic. He immersed the thin plastic film in the basin, then, when the tattoo transfer began to shift, he applied it meticulously to his prosthesis. It was a slow process, but nothing like as awkward as applying it to his other arm. Yes, the new artificial limb was remarkable. But what it could do was still a distance away from the fine motor control of a living arm. And everything depended on getting the details right.

  By the time he’d finished, his head was sweating and fine trickles of perspiration ran down his back and sides. He’d done the best he could manage. Put him side by side with Collins and it would be easy to tell the real tatts from the fake, but unless things went horribly wrong, that wasn’t going to happen. Vance picked up the copies his helper on the outside had had made of Collins’ glasses and slipped them on. The world tilted and blurred, but not too much for him to cope with. The lenses were far less powerful than Collins’ own ones, but a cursory check would demonstrate that they weren’t plain glass. Details, it all came down to details.

  He closed his eyes and summoned up the sound of Collins’ nasal Midlands accent. For Vance, that was the hardest part of the impersonation. He’d never had much of a gift for imitation. He’d always found himself sufficient. But for once, he was going to have to lose himself in someone else’s voice. He’d try to keep the chat to a minimum, but he had to be ready to avoid a response in his own warm generic tones. He recalled the scene in The Great Escape where Gordon Jackson’s character gives himself away with an automatic response when he’s addressed in English. Vance would have to be better than that. He couldn’t afford to relax, not for a moment. Not until he was free and clear.

  It had taken years to get this far. First, to be admitted to the Therapeutic Community at all. Then to find someone roughly the same height and build who also had a powerful need for what Vance could provide. Jason Collins had been in his crosshairs from the first day the creepy little firebug had walked into group therapy. Collins had been a hired gun, firing businesses for cash. But Vance didn’t need the psychologist to tell him that Collins’ motives had been darker and deeper than that. That he was in the group at all was the proof.

  Vance had befriended Collins, uncovered his chagrin at losing his family life, and started to sow the seeds of possibility. What Vance’s money could do for Collins’ three kids, for his wife. For a long time, Vance had felt he was treading water. The crucial stumbling block was that assisting Vance would pile more years on top of Collins’ existing sentence.

  Then Collins got a different kind of sentence. Leukaemia. The kind where you have only a forty per cent chance of still being alive five years after the initial diagnosis. Meaning he’d probably never have a second chance to provide a future for his kids or his wife. Even if he got maximum time off his sentence, Collins felt like he’d only be going home to die. ‘They’d let you go home anyway if you were that close to dying,’ Vance had pointed out. ‘Look what happened to the Lockerbie bomber.’ It seemed like a perverse version of having your cake and eating it. Collins could help Vance escape and it wouldn’t matter – they’d still let him out when he was sick enough. Either way, he’d be spending the end of his life with his family. And if they did it Vance’s way, his wife and kids would never have to worry about money again.

  It had taken all Vance’s powers of persuasion and more patience than he knew he possessed to draw Collins round to his way of thinking. ‘You all grow unaccustomed to nice,’ his psychologist had once remarked. That had given Vance a powerful tool, and finally he’d cracked it. Collins’ elder son was about to become a pupil at the best independent school in Warwickshire and Jacko Vance was about to walk out of jail.

  Vance tidied up, tearing the soggy paper into fragments and flushing it, along with hair wrapped in thin wads of toilet paper. He scrunched the plastic film into little balls and squeezed it between the table and the wall. When he could think of nothing more, he finally lay down on the narrow bed. The air chilled the sweat on his body and, shivering, he pulled the duvet over him.

  It was all going to be all right. Tomorrow, the screw would come for Jason Collins to take him for his first day of Release on Temporary Licence. ROTL was what every prisoner in the Therapeutic Community dreamed of – the day they would emerge from the prison gates and spend a day in a factory or an office. How bloody pitiful, Vance thought. Therapy that so reduced a man’s horizons t
hat a day of mundane drudgery was something to aspire to. It had taken every ounce of his skills in dissimulation to hide his contempt for the regime. But he’d managed it because he knew this was the key to his return to a life outside walls.

  Because not everyone in the Therapeutic Community would be allowed outside. For Vance and a handful of others, there would always be too high a risk involved in that. No matter that he’d convinced that stupid bitch of a psychologist that he was a different man from the one who’d committed the deeply disturbing murder he’d been convicted of. Not to mention all those other teenage girls that he was technically innocent of killing, since he’d never been found guilty of their murders. Still, no Home Secretary wanted to be branded the person who released Jacko Vance. It didn’t matter what his tariff from the judge said. Vance knew there would never be an official return to society for him. He had to admit, if he was in charge, he wouldn’t let him out either. But then, he knew exactly what he was capable of. The authorities could only guess.