by Val McDermid
‘I’d want to prove you were wrong and I was right.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Tony acknowledged impatiently. ‘That’s a given. But what would you do? How would you go about it?’
Carol sipped her drink and considered. ‘I know what I’d do now. I’d put a small team together—just a sergeant and a couple of DCs—and blitz every one of those cases. I’d go back and talk to friends, family. Check out whether the missing girls were Jacko Vance fans, whether they’d gone to the event he was appearing at. If they did, who they went with. What their companions noticed.’
‘Shaz didn’t have either the time or the team for that kind of operation. Think back to what it was like when you were young and hungry,’ Tony urged.
‘As to what I’d have done then…Given no resources, you have to fall back on your own assets.’
Tony gave her an encouraging nod. ‘Meaning?’
‘Smart mouth, fancy footwork. You know you’re right, that’s the bottom line. You know the truth is out there waiting for the proof to go round it. Me? I’d shake the tree and see what falls out.’
‘So you’d do what, specifically?’
‘These days, I’d probably drop some poison in the ear of a friendly journalist and plant a story that would mean something more to our killer than it would to the casual reader. But I haven’t seen any signs that Shaz had those kind of contacts or, if she did, that she used them. What I’d probably have done in her shoes, if I’d had the bottle, would have been to set up a meeting with the man himself.’
Tony sat back in his chair and took a long swallow of beer. ‘I’m glad you said that. It’s the sort of idea I’m always reluctant to bring out into the open in case your lot starts laughing because no self-respecting police officer would dream of doing something so risky either to life or career.’
‘You think she made contact with Jacko Vance?’
He nodded.
‘And you think that whatever she said to him…’
‘Or to someone around him,’ Tony interrupted. ‘It might not be Vance. It might be his manager or his minder or even his wife. But yes, I think she said something to someone in that group of people and she made a killer afraid.’
‘Whoever it was didn’t waste much time.’
‘He didn’t waste time and he’s clearly got a lot of nerve to kill her in her own living room. To risk a cry, a scream, the noise of furniture being knocked over, anything untoward in a house split into flats.’
Carol sipped her drink, savouring the growing edge of lemon as the frozen fruit thawed completely. ‘And he had to get her there in the first place.’
Tony looked puzzled. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘She’d never have agreed to meet someone she suspected was a serial killer in her own home. Not even with the hubris of youth. That would be like inviting a fox into the henhouse. And if he turned up there later, after the official interview, she’d hit the panic button, not let him in. No, Tony, she was already his prisoner by the time she got home.’
It was such flashes of insight backed with impeccable logic that had made Carol Jordan such a joy to work with before, Tony remembered. ‘You’re right, of course. Thank you.’ He toasted her mutely with his glass. Now he knew where to start. He finished his beer and said, ‘Any chance of another one? Then I think we need to talk about your little problem.’
Carol uncurled herself from the chair and stretched like Nelson. ‘You sure you don’t want to talk some more about Shaz?’ Tony’s expression of distaste told her all she needed to know. She went through to the kitchen for another beer.
‘I’ll save it for your West Yorkshire colleagues tomorrow morning. If you haven’t heard from me by teatime, you’d better make sure I’ve got a decent brief,’ he called after her.
When she was settled again in the armchair, he dragged his brooding eyes away from the fire and pulled a couple of sheets of lined paper from his briefcase. ‘At the tail end of the week, I got the squad to work on their idea of a profile for you. They had a day to work up an individual profile, then on Friday, they collaborated on a joint effort. I’ve got a copy of it with me, I’ll show you later.’
‘Terrific. I didn’t want to say anything before, but I’ve been working on a profile of my own. It’ll be interesting to see how they compare.’ She tried to keep her voice light, but Tony heard the desire for his praise, nevertheless. It made what he had to say all the more awkward. Sometimes he wished he smoked. It would give him something to do with his hands and mouth at times like this.
Instead, he ran a hand over his face. ‘Carol, I have to tell you that I suspect you’ve all been wasting your time.’
Unconsciously, her chin jutted forward. ‘Meaning what?’ The words were more aggressive than the tone.
‘Meaning that I don’t think your fires fit into any known category.’
‘You mean they’re not arson?’
Before he could answer, a heavy knock reverberated through the cottage. Startled, Carol spilled a few drops of her drink. ‘Are you expecting visitors?’ Tony asked, turning to the dark window behind him to see if anything penetrated the darkness outside.
‘No,’ she said, jumping to her feet and moving across the room to the heavy wooden door that opened into the small stone porch. As she unlatched the door, a chill gust of wind filled the room with a cold waft of estuary silt. Carol looked surprised. Beyond her, Tony glimpsed the outline of a large male shape. ‘Jim,’ she exclaimed. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’
‘I tried to ring you this afternoon and I kept getting the runaround from Sergeant Taylor. So I thought I might as well head on up here and see if I could run you to earth.’ As Carol stepped back, Pendlebury followed her in. ‘Oh, I’m sorry—you’ve got company.’
‘No, your timing couldn’t be better,’ she said, waving him towards the fire. ‘This is Dr Tony Hill from the Home Office. We’re just talking about the arson case. Tony, this is Jim Pendlebury, the fire chief in Seaford.’
Tony ceded his hand into the bone-grinding grip of a competitive handshake. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said mildly, refusing the invitation to joust.
‘Tony is in charge of the new National Offender Profiling Task Force in Leeds,’ Carol said.
‘Tough job.’ Pendlebury thrust his hands into the deep pockets of the fashionably oversized mac he was wearing. They emerged with a bottle of Australian Shiraz on the end of each. ‘Housewarming present. Now we can all discuss our firebug with a bit of lubrication.’
Carol fetched glasses and corkscrew and poured wine for herself and Pendlebury, Tony waving his glass to indicate he’d stick with the beer. ‘So, Tony, what have your baby boffins got to tell us?’ Pendlebury asked, stretching his long legs out in front of him, forcing Nelson to move to one side. The cat gave him a malevolent glare and curled into a ball beside Carol’s chair.
‘Nothing Carol couldn’t work out for herself, I imagine. The problem is that I suspect what they’ve done is irrelevant.’
Pendlebury’s laugh sounded too loud in the confines of the cottage. ‘Am I hearing things?’ he said. ‘A profiler admitting it’s all a load of bollocks? Carol, have you got the tape running?’
Wondering how many more times he would have to smile politely while his life’s work was denigrated, Tony let Pendlebury wind down before he spoke. ‘Would you use a screwdriver to drive a fence post into the ground?’
Pendlebury cocked his head to one side. ‘You’re saying profiling is the wrong tool for the job?’
‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. Profiling works on certain crimes where the motivation is psychopathic to some degree.’
‘Meaning?’ Pendlebury asked, drawing his legs up and leaning forward, his interest wholly engaged, his face sceptical.
‘Do you want the thirty-second version or the full lecture?’
‘You’d better give me the idiot’s guide, me being a mere fireman.’
Tony ran a hand through his thick dark hair, a reflex that alway
s left him looking like a cartoon mad scientist. ’OK. Most crimes in this country are committed either for gain or in the heat of the moment, or under the influence of drink or drugs. Or a combination of all of the above. The crime is a means to an end—acquiring cash or drugs, gaining revenge, putting a halt to unacceptable behaviour.
’A handful of crimes have their roots in stranger soil. They grow from an inner psychological compulsion on the part of the criminal. Something drives him—and it’s almost always a him—to perform certain acts that are an end in themselves. The criminal act can be as petty as stealing women’s underwear from washing lines. It can be as serious as serial murder. Serial arson is one such crime.
‘And if what we were dealing with here was serial arson, I’d be the first to defend the value of a psychological profile. But as I was saying to Carol just before you arrived, I don’t think you’ve got your common or garden thrill-seeking firebug in Seaford. It’s not a torch for hire either. What you’ve got here is a beast of a different colour altogether. More of a hybrid.’
Pendlebury looked unconvinced. ‘Want to tell us what you mean by that?’
‘I’d be happy to,’ Tony said, leaning back and cradling his glass in his linked fingers. ‘Let’s eliminate the hired arsonist for a start. While it’s true that a handful of the fires have probably been an answer to the building owner’s prayers, in the vast majority of cases, there seems to be no financial gain. Mostly, we’re looking at massive inconvenience and, in a few cases, positive damage to the businesses or sections of the community affected. They’re not grudge fires either—different insurance companies, no reason why anyone would have it in for such a wide spectrum of buildings. There’s no common link at all, except that the fires were all set at night and up until the last one, they took place in deserted premises. So, no reason to think there is a professional torch for hire behind the blazes. Agreed?’
Carol bent over to pick up the wine and refill her glass. ‘You’ll get no argument from me.’
‘What if there was a mixture of motives behind the hiring? What if he was hired sometimes for gain, sometimes for grudge?’ Pendlebury stubbornly asked.
‘Still leaves too many unaccounted for,’ Carol said. ‘My team ruled out a torch for hire almost from the start. So, Tony, why isn’t it some emotional retard doing it for kicks?’
‘I could be wrong,’ he said.
‘Oh, yeah. Your track record is littered with mistakes,’ Carol said ironically.
‘Thank you. Here’s why I don’t think it’s some nutter. All these fires have been carefully set. In most cases, there have been almost no forensic traces, just the identification of the seat of the fire and some indication of lighter fuel and ignition trails. Mostly there’s no sign of forced entry either. If there hadn’t been such a spate of these fires over a relatively short period of time, chances are most of them would have been written off as accidents or carelessness. That would point to a professional torch, except that we’ve already written that off for other reasons.’ He picked up the papers he’d dropped by his chair earlier and gave his notes a quick glance.
’So we’ve got someone who’s controlled and organized, which firebugs almost never are. He brings stuff with him and also uses available materials. He knows what he’s doing, yet there’s no sign of him having graduated to this from small-scale fires in rubbish tips, garden sheds, building sites.
‘Then you’ve got to consider that most firebugs are sexually motivated. When they set fires, they often masturbate or urinate or defecate at the sites. There have been no traces of that, nor of any pornographic materials. If he doesn’t wank at the fire site, he probably does it at the vantage point where he watches the fire from. Again, there are no reports from outraged members of the public of anyone exposing themselves in the vicinities of the fires. So, another negative.’
‘What about timing?’ Carol interrupted. ‘He’s doing it more often than he was when he started out. Isn’t that typical of a serial offender?’
‘Yeah, it’s in all the books about serial killers,’ Pendlebury added.
‘It’s less true of firebugs,’ Tony said. ‘Especially the ones who go in for the more serious arson attacks like this. The gaps are unpredictable. They can go weeks, months or even years without a big blaze. But within the series, you do get sprees, so yes, the timing of these fires might support the idea that you’re looking at a serial offender. But I’m not trying to suggest that these fires are the work of several individuals. I think it’s one person. I just don’t believe he’s a thrill seeker.’
‘So what are you saying?’ Carol said.
‘Whoever is setting these fires is not a psychopath. I believe he has a conventional criminal motive for what he’s doing.’
‘So what is this so-called motive?’ Pendlebury asked suspiciously.
‘That’s what we don’t know yet.’
Pendlebury snorted. ‘Minor detail.’
‘Actually, in a sense it is, Jim,’ Carol chipped in. ‘Because once we’ve established that it’s not a psychopath operating on unique and personal logic, we should be able to apply reasoning to uncover what’s behind the fires. And once we’ve done that…well, it’s just a matter of solid coppering.’
A look of disgruntled annoyance had settled over Jim Pendlebury’s face like an occluded cold front on the weather map. ‘Well, I can’t think of any reason for setting these fires unless you get a kick out of them.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Tony said casually, starting almost to enjoy himself.
‘Share it then, Sherlock,’ Carol urged him.
‘Could be a security firm coming round in the wake of the fires offering cut-rate night watchmen. Could be a fire-alarm or sprinkler-system company facing hard times. Or…’ his voice tailed off and he cast a look of speculation at the fire chief.
‘What?’
‘Jim, do you employ any part-time firemen?’
Pendlebury looked horrified. Then he took in the half-smile twitching the corner of Tony’s mouth and misread it completely. The fire chief visibly relaxed and grinned. ‘You’re at the wind-up,’ he said, wagging a finger at Tony.
‘If you say so,’ Tony said. ‘But do you? Just as a matter of curiosity?’
The fireman’s eyes showed uncertainty and suspicion. ‘We do, yes.’
‘Maybe tomorrow you could let me have their names?’ Carol asked.
Pendlebury’s head thrust forward and he stared intently into Carol’s closed face. His broad shoulders seemed to expand as he clenched his fists. ‘My God,’ he said wonderingly. ‘You really mean it, don’t you, Carol?’
‘We can’t afford to ignore any possibilities,’ she said calmly. ‘This is not personal, Jim. But Tony has opened up a valid line of inquiry. I’d be derelict in my duty if I didn’t follow it through.’
‘Derelict in your duty?’ Pendlebury got to his feet. ‘If my fire crews were derelict in their duty, there wouldn’t be a building in this city left standing. My people put their lives on the line every time this nutter has a night on the town. And you sit there and suggest one of them might be behind it?’
Carol stood up and faced him. ‘I’d feel just the same if it was a question of a bent copper. No one’s accusing anyone at this stage. I’ve worked with Tony before, and I’d stake my career that he doesn’t make mischievous or ill-considered suggestions. Why don’t you sit down and have another glass of wine?’ She put a hand on his arm and smiled. ‘Come on, there’s no need for us to fall out.’
Slowly Pendlebury relaxed and gingerly lowered himself back into his chair. He allowed Carol to top up his glass and even managed a half-smile at Tony. ‘I’m very protective of my officers,’ he said.
Tony, impressed at Carol’s smooth handling of a potentially explosive situation, had shrugged. ‘They’re lucky to have you,’ was all he said.
Somehow, the three of them managed to shift the conversation on to the more neutral territory of how Carol was settling in at East Yorks
hire. The fire chief slipped into professional Yorkshireman mode, keeping everyone happy with a series of anecdotes. For Tony, it was a blessed rescue from thoughts of Shaz Bowman’s last hours.
Later, in the small hours and the loneliness of Carol’s spare room, there was no distraction to damp down the flames of imagination. As he pushed away the nightmare vision of her distorted and devastated face, he promised Shaz Bowman that he would expose the man who had done this to her. No matter what the price.
And Tony Hill was a man who knew all about paying the ferryman.
Jacko Vance sat in his soundproofed and electronically shielded projection room at the top of the house, behind locked doors. Obsessively, he replayed the tape he’d spliced together from his recordings of the late evening news bulletins on a variety of channels, terrestrial and satellite. What they all had in common was the news of Shaz Bowman’s death. Her blue eyes blazed at him again from the screen time after time, an exciting contrast to his last memory of her.
They wouldn’t be showing pictures of her like that. Not even after the watershed. Not even with an X-certificate.
He wondered how Donna Doyle was feeling. There had been nothing on TV about her. They all thought they had star quality, but the truth was none of them raised the faintest flicker of interest in anyone except him. For him, they were perfect, the ultimate representation of his ideal woman. He loved their pliancy, their willingness to believe exactly what he wanted them to believe. And the perfection of the moment when they realized this encounter was not about sex and fame but pain and death. He loved that look in their eyes.
When he saw that translation from adoration to alarm, their faces seemed to lose all individuality. They no longer merely resembled Jillie, they became her. It made the punishment so easy and so perfectly right.
