The Retribution

by Val McDermid

  After Ambrose had dragged him away from the fire the night before, he’d made Tony sit down and drink sweet tea in the back of an ambulance. He’d stayed with him while the firefighters subdued the blaze. He’d put an arm round Tony’s shoulders when the roof timbers had collapsed with a rending crash. He hadn’t raised an eyebrow when Tony had laid the crime at Vance’s door. And he’d made notes when Tony finally composed himself enough to run through the thoughts that had occurred to him on the drive down to Worcester.

  When they’d parted on the wrong side of midnight, Ambrose had been heading for the police station to brief his team and put the wheels in motion. But there had been nothing more for Tony to do. At least he still had Steeler, Arthur Blythe’s perfectly groomed narrowboat. It didn’t fill him with peace in the way the house had, but it was better than nothing. And he’d taken some of the photographs from the house back to Bradfield, so there were still some tangible images of the man whose genes he’d inherited. Tony tried to take some comfort from this, but it didn’t work. He still felt hollowed out and violated.

  Then he’d got Paula’s message and understood the full scope of his failure to do his job properly. Vance seemed intent on taking from them everything that mattered. There were two paths he could go down in response to that. He could give in to the pain and the loss, walk away and spend the rest of his life unfulfilled and regretful. Or he could scream, ‘Fuck you!’ at the heavens and get back to stopping men like Vance. Tony reminded himself that there had been years before Carol came into his life, even more years before the house had been part of him. He’d lived well enough in that wilderness. He could do it again.

  Tony drained his mug and got to his feet. Like the man said, when you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.

  40

  A ching with tiredness, raw with anguish, Paula leaned against the car bonnet and lit a cigarette. ‘Can I have one?’ Kevin asked. He was even paler than usual, the skin round his eyes almost greenish in tone. He looked as if he’d slept as little as she had. Sinead had shown up just after midnight and they’d stayed with her for a couple of hours, trying to offer consolation where there was none to be found. Then Paula had gone home and lain in bed staring at the ceiling, one hand cradled between both of Elinor’s.

  ‘I thought you’d stopped,’ she said, handing the packet over.

  ‘I have. But some days … ’ Kevin shivered. Paula knew just what he meant. Some days, the most ardent non-smokers yearned for the nicotine support. He lit up with the practised air of a man who has forgotten none of the pleasures of smoking. He inhaled greedily. His shoulders dropped an inch on the exhale. ‘After yesterday … you think you’ve seen it all. And then you see that.’

  ‘That’ was the contents of a cardboard box left round the back of a freezer food shop near the tower blocks at Skenby. It had been discovered just before dawn by the member of staff detailed to open up the loading bay for an early delivery. The box was about a metre long, half a metre deep and the same wide. It was sitting in the middle of the loading bay and had once held bags of oven chips. That it held something very different now was evident from the dark stains on the cardboard and the leaking pools of reddish brown liquid. The staff member, who wasn’t paid enough to think, opened it up and promptly fainted, hitting his head on the concrete and knocking himself out. The delivery driver had arrived to find him still out cold, next to a box containing a dismembered body. He’d thrown up, putting the finishing touches to the contamination of the crime scene.

  The first cops on the scene had called MIT directly, mostly because the top limb in the box was an arm with the word ‘MINE’ tattooed just above the wrist. Paula and Kevin had arrived just as the doctor was formally pronouncing the bits in the box dead. ‘What have we got?’ Kevin asked.

  ‘You’ll have to wait for the pathologist to give you a definitive answer,’ the doctor recited. Even he looked a little pale and pinched in the grey dawn light. ‘But in the absence of any other indications, I’d say you’re looking at one body that’s been chopped up into its component parts. There’s a torso, a head, two arms, two thighs and two lower legs.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Kevin said, looking away.

  ‘Has it been properly dismembered or just hacked apart?’ Paula couldn’t seem to drag her eyes away from the gruesome sight.

  ‘For all the use that is to us these days,’ Kevin said bitterly. ‘All you have to do is watch that Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall to learn amateur butchery.’

  The doctor shook his head. ‘This isn’t even that good. At a guess – and this is just a guess, mind, and don’t tell Grisha Shatalov I said so – I’d say he used something like a circular saw. The way it’s gone through the bone, you can see the cutting marks.’ He pointed with his pen at the top of a femur. ‘That’s mechanical.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Kevin said again. ‘Any idea how long she’s been dead?’

  The doctor shrugged. ‘Not long. The blood’s not oozing, hypostasis is just under way. Given the temperature … I’d say probably not much more than a couple of hours. But don’t quote me, it’s not my job.’

  ‘Any ideas on cause of death?’ The doctor was moving away now and Paula followed him.

  ‘You really will have to wait for Grisha for that,’ he said, making for his car.

  And so she’d ended up smoking with Kevin while the crime-scene operatives did their thing with cameras and sticky tape and chemicals and the local cops went door-to-door in a bid to find a witness. It wasn’t likely round here. The single-storey arcade of shops stood alone, an island in a sea of cheap housing and people struggling to keep their heads above water. Nobody would have seen anything. Not even the ones who had.

  ‘He’s ringing the changes, this one,’ Kevin said.

  ‘I was hoping Tony would come up with something helpful. But obviously he’s got more pressing things on his mind.’

  ‘Have you spoken to the DCI again?’ Kevin asked.

  ‘Nope. I hope I don’t have to either. It’s always hard to keep stuff from her. I’ll just have to talk about the cat being safe round at ours, curled under a radiator.’

  ‘Is that true?’

  ‘Yes. One of the team at the scene found him in his carrier in Chris’s car. Elinor came and got him.’

  ‘I tell you, I wouldn’t like to be Vance if she gets to him ahead of the pack.’

  ‘She won’t do anything to compromise the legal process,’ Paula said, convinced she understood Carol far better than Kevin. ‘She’s all about justice. You know that.’

  ‘Yeah, but this is her brother,’ Kevin protested. ‘You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t want to make him suffer.’

  ‘Think about it, Kevin. Vance did this because she’s the one who put him away. He hated being in jail so much that he’s killed two people to get back at the person he thinks is responsible for that. And set that hideous booby trap that was designed to get her. The terrible irony is that it got Chris, who was one of the people who helped put him away before. So don’t you think sending him back to jail is the best suffering she could dish out? And don’t you think the chief’s smart enough to have worked that out for herself?’

  He finished the cigarette and ground it out under his heel. Then he turned up the collar of his jacket. ‘I suppose,’ he said. ‘So, have you got any bright ideas about how we’re going to ID this one if her prints don’t come up on the database? I don’t suppose we can ask one of the uniforms to take the head round with them … ’ He winked at Paula. Gallows humour was what kept them sane out on the streets. You could never explain it to an outsider.

  ‘If I thought it would speed things up, I’d do it myself.’ Paula tossed her cigarette end in the gutter and took out her phone. ‘So, what do you want for breakfast? I’ll get Sam to pick up some filled rolls on his way over. Bacon? Sausage? Egg?’

  Kevin grinned. ‘Bacon for me. And plenty of tomato sauce. I love it when it oozes out the sides … ’

  ‘Sick fuck,’ Paula said
, turning away just in time to see Penny Burgess bearing down on them. ‘And here comes another one.’

  They exchanged looks and bolted for the crime-scene margins, where the uniformed officers would effectively manage the borders. They made it just in time, leaving Penny plaintively calling their names. Paula looked back at the furious journalist and nudged Kevin in the ribs. ‘No morning’s a complete bust if you get to piss off the press, is it?’

  Her comment somehow broke the logjam of pain they’d been stuck in since the night before. They were so busy giggling like children they completely missed Penny’s shouted question about Tony Hill’s house being burned to the ground.

  Ambrose was briefing his boss when Carol Jordan walked into his squad room stony-faced and blank-eyed. DI Stuart Patterson barely moved his head in greeting. Carol looked like she’d be hard pressed to care less. She ignored the other officers who all paused and turned to look at the new arrival. ‘Alvin,’ she said, pulling out a chair by his desk. ‘Vance: what’s happening?’

  Startled, Ambrose looked at Patterson for guidance. The DI carefully avoided his sergeant’s eyes, taking out a packet of chewing gum and unwrapping a stick. ‘This is my operation, DCI Jordan.’

  ‘Really?’ Carol’s voice walked the line between politeness and insult. ‘So, DI Patterson, what’s happening?’

  ‘Sergeant? Perhaps you could bring DCI Jordan up to speed, as a courtesy to a member of another force?’

  Ambrose gave him a look he normally reserved for naughty children. ‘We were all appalled by what happened to your brother and his girlfriend,’ Ambrose said. ‘I couldn’t be more sorry.’

  ‘That goes for me too,’ Patterson said, momentarily shamed out of his surliness by the reminder of what Carol had lost. ‘I thought you were on compassionate leave, supporting your parents.’

  ‘The best support I can give my family is to work the case. I know DCI Franklin is keeping all his options open, but I’m convinced Vance is behind this. Which is why I’m here.’

  Ambrose could only imagine the effort it was taking for Carol to hold herself together. Some people might have condemned her for not being with her family at a time like this, but he understood the irresistible drive to be doing something. He also realised that it had its price. ‘We’ve still no positive leads on where he might be,’ Ambrose said.

  Patterson snorted. ‘We know where he bloody was last night,’ he said.

  Carol’s eyes brightened. ‘You do? Where was he?’

  ‘Smack bang in the middle of Worcester. Right under our noses.’ Patterson looked disgusted, as if a bad smell were literally under his nose.

  Carol leaned forward. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘We don’t know for certain,’ Ambrose said, a cautionary note in his dark rumble.

  Patterson rolled his eyes. ‘How many other people have got that big a grudge against Tony Hill?’

  Her eyes widened in shock. ‘Tony? Has something happened to Tony?’

  ‘He’s OK,’ Ambrose said, wishing his boss would show Carol some of the sensitivity he prided himself on. ‘Well, physically OK. He’s pretty upset, though. Last night, somebody burned his house to the ground.’

  Carol started as if she’d been slapped. ‘His house? His beautiful house? Burned down?’

  Patterson nodded. ‘Arson. No question about it. Petrol as accelerant. The fire started at the back of the house where it’s not overlooked. By the time anyone noticed it, the fire had properly taken hold. The fire brigade had no chance of saving it.’

  ‘That house was full of beautiful things that would go up like a Roman candle,’ Carol said. She ran her hands through her hair. ‘Didn’t you have anyone watching it? Christ, this has got Vance written all over it.’

  ‘That’s what we thought,’ Ambrose said. ‘I’ve got a team going through the traffic cameras now, to see if we can spot what he’s driving. But if he’s got any sense, he’ll have dumped that car and moved on to another by now.’

  ‘And he’ll have changed his appearance,’ Carol said. ‘We’ve got no idea what he looks like.’

  The door was shouldered open at that point by a uniformed PC cradling a computer tower in his arms. Another followed him with a similar burden. ‘Where d’you want these, guv?’ he called to Patterson.

  Patterson looked bemused. ‘What are they?’

  The uniform hid his impatience badly. ‘Computers. Towers for desktop machines, complete with hard drives.’

  Patterson was in no mood to take cheek from a uniform. ‘I can see what they are. But what are they doing here?’

  ‘They’re from Northumbria. Urgent overnight delivery. So where do you want them?’

  ‘They’re Terry Gates’s computers,’ Ambrose said. ‘I asked for them. Tony thinks Gates isn’t smart enough to have cleaned them up properly.’ He pointed to a table against the wall. ‘Stick them down there, would you?’

  Patterson’s air of discontent deepened. ‘Nobody told me about this. I suppose you’ll be wanting to spend a fortune on Gary Harcup now?’

  Ambrose looked mutinous. ‘I will when I can get hold of him. He’s the expert. And we need an expert for this.’

  ‘The Super will blow a gasket when you blow the budget on fat Gary,’ Patterson said. ‘It’s not like he’s that fast either. Vance will be on the other side of the world before Gary gets anything off those hard drives.’

  Carol cleared her throat. ‘Who is Gary Harcup?’

  ‘He’s our forensic computer specialist. He costs a fucking fortune, he looks like a bear and he’s about as easy to deal with as a bear,’ Patterson said.

  ‘I can do better than that,’ Carol said.

  ‘You’re a computer expert? Forgive me, DCI Jordan, but you don’t look much like a geek to me.’ Patterson could be so bloody annoying, Ambrose thought wearily.

  Carol ignored him. ‘My computer specialist, Stacey Chen, is a genius. She can do stuff that makes other geeks weep.’

  ‘That’s all very well, but she’s a BMP officer, not a West Mercian.’

  ‘She’s a cop. And an expert witness. That’s all that matters,’ Carol said, taking out her phone. ‘I can second her to you.’ Her questioning look was directed at Ambrose. ‘She’s the best.’

  ‘I’m not going to say no,’ Ambrose said. Patterson turned away in apparent annoyance.

  Carol summoned up Stacey’s mobile number. ‘I’ll get her on the road right now.’

  ‘Doesn’t she have other stuff on? I thought you guys were looking at a serial?’ Ambrose asked.

  ‘It’s a question of priorities,’ Carol said. ‘And right now, my team knows exactly where their priorities lie.’

  41

  Putting Humpty Dumpty together again required starting somewhere. So Tony turned on his computer and made himself another brew while he waited for the latest files from Bradfield to download. He sat down and opened the latest email from Paula, sent from her phone less than an hour previously. The news of a fourth victim saddened him and fed his own sense of failure, but there was no room for his personal feelings in his work. His empathy, yes, but his emotions, no.

  The presentation of the body sounded even more bizarre than the last. Dismemberment wasn’t as common as people thought. Professional killers did it to hinder identification. But according to Paula, all the pieces were present and intact, so that wasn’t what was going on here. If Tony had been presented with this case in isolation, he could have usefully speculated about the significance of the dismemberment. It might be about exerting the ultimate literal control over a victim. ‘She can’t walk away if she’s got no legs,’ he said. Or it might be about punishment. ‘She’s so evil she needs to be taken apart and put together again from scratch.’

  He rubbed his scalp with his fingertips. ‘But that’s not what’s happening here,’ he said. ‘What he’s shown us before is totally different. Of course it’s about control. Serial murder is always about control. But that’s not the point of this.’ He threw his hands
in the air. He wanted to pace but the boat was too small. ‘Face it, Tony, the dismemberment could be completely meaningless. Random. The first thing that popped into his head.’

  Except that was ridiculously wrong. You didn’t make careful plans to go out and kill, plans that included fake number plates and baseball caps to confound the cameras, then choose a completely arbitrary murder method on the night. There was something structured going on here, even if he couldn’t work out what it was. And the harder he tried to pin it down, the further out of reach it seemed.

  Tony drank his tea and stared out of the porthole at the glassy water beyond, letting his thoughts drift. Whatever had been niggling at the back of his mind since the previous murder was squirming harder now, but he still couldn’t nail it. Maybe the crime-scene photographs would help.

  He went back to the computer and opened the file. And was reminded that sometimes the world worked the way you wanted it to. When Tony looked at the photographs in sequence, first murder to latest, the images fell into place like a jigsaw. All at once, he understood what he was looking at. It made sense and it made no sense at one and the same time.

  ‘Maze Man,’ he said softly. It had been an American import back in the nineties. Late-night Channel 5, watched by Tony Hill and three other people, if the ratings were anything to go by. It was a low-budget TV series about a psychological profiler who constantly referred to ‘the maze of the mind’ and wittered on about criminals being lost in the maze, taking wrong turnings, giving in to the soul of the Minotaur. Tony had only watched it because if he’d had a Facebook page, insomnia would be one of the hobbies he listed. That, and because the consequent rise in his blood pressure from watching something so ludicrous reminded him he was alive.