by Val McDermid
‘Looks like Mr Vance is quite into woodwork,’ Simon said, gesturing with his head to Leon.
‘He makes wooden toys for the bairns in the hospital,’ Mrs Elliott said, as proudly as if he were her own son. ‘He cannot do enough for them. Never mind the George Cross, they should give him a medal for the hours he puts in with people at death’s door. You cannot measure the comfort he gives folk.’
Leon had joined Simon at the workbench. ‘Some serious kit here,’ he said. ‘Man, these chisels are sharp as razors.’ His face was sombre and grim. ‘And you want to see this vice, Kay. I’ve never seen anything like it.’
‘He needs that to hold the wood,’ Mrs Elliott said firmly. ‘With his arm the way it is, he cannot manage without it. He calls it his extra pair of hands.’
Tony trudged down Vance’s drive, head down, the sound of the slamming door still ringing in his ears. He raised his eyes and caught Chris’s anxious look. Giving her a broad wink, he maintained his dejected body language until he was through the electronic gates and back on the street, hidden from the house by the high hedge.
‘What the fuck happened in there?’ Chris demanded.
‘What do you mean? I was just getting into my stride when you butted in,’ Tony protested.
‘You went off the air. I didn’t know what the hell was going on.’
‘What do you mean, I went off the air?’
‘It just went dead. He said, “First on the right,” then total silence. For all I knew, he’d topped you.’
Tony frowned, trying to work out what had happened. ‘He must have that room electronically shielded,’ he eventually said. ‘Of course. The last thing he’d want is anyone doing any snooping round him that he didn’t know about. It never crossed my mind.’
Chris cupped her hands against the wind and lit a cigarette. ‘Jesus,’ she exploded softly in a long stream of smoke. ‘Don’t ever give me a fright like that again. So what happened? Did he cough? Don’t tell me he coughed and we didn’t get it on tape?’
Tony shook his head, walking her across the street to where he’d parked his car in full view of Vance’s house. He glanced back and was pleased to see his target standing at a window on the top floor looking down at them. ‘Get in my car for now, I’ll explain,’ he said.
He started the engine and drove round the corner. ‘He poured scorn on the evidence,’ Tony said as he turned into another street, doubling back to get behind where Chris was parked a couple of hundred yards from Vance’s gate, out of the line of sight from the house. ‘He made it plain that he thought we had nothing on him and that if we didn’t call off the dogs he’d come after me.’
‘He threatened to kill you?’
‘No, he threatened to go to the papers and make an idiot of me.’
‘You sound pretty pleased with yourself for somebody that just blew their big showdown,’ Chris said. ‘I thought he was supposed to either roll over and spill his guts or else try to top you?’
Tony shrugged. ‘I didn’t really expect him to confess. And if he was going to kill me, I don’t think he’d have done it on the spot. He might have convinced Wharton and McCormick that there was nothing sinister about Shaz visiting him before she died, but I think even they would have to pay attention if I was killed after I’d just been to Vance’s house. No, what I wanted to do was unsettle him to the point where he starts to worry how well he’s covered his tracks.’
‘And what good does that do?’ She wound the window down an inch to flick her ash clear.
‘With a bit of luck, it sets him off like a clockwork mouse, straight for his killing ground. He needs to make sure there’s nothing that can incriminate him in the unlikely event that I could ever persuade the police to apply for a search warrant.’
‘You think he’ll go now?’
‘I’m banking on it. According to his schedule, he’s got nothing on tomorrow until a meeting at three. After that, the week starts looking horrendous. He’s got to go for it now.’
Chris groaned. ‘Not the M1 again.’
‘You up for it?’
‘I’m up for it,’ she said wearily. ‘What’s the plan?’
‘I go now. He’s seen me drive off with you, so he should think the coast’s clear. I’ll head on up to Northumberland and you try to stay with him when he emerges. We can keep in touch by phone.’
‘At least it’s dark,’ she said. ‘Hopefully he won’t notice the same headlights in his rear-view mirror.’ She opened the door and got out, leaning back in to speak. ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this. All the bloody way down from Northumberland to London just to turn round and go back there again. We must be demented.’
‘No. Just determined.’
He was that, all right, Chris thought as she walked to her car and watched Tony do a three-point turn and return the way he’d come. God, she thought. It was already seven. Five, six hours back to Northumberland. She hoped there wasn’t going to be too much action at the other end of the trip because she would be dead on her feet.
She tuned the radio to a golden oldies station and settled down to sing along with the sixties. She didn’t have long to harmonize before the gates of Vance’s house slid back and the long silver nose of his Mercedes appeared. ‘You fucking beauty,’ she said, turning on her ignition and rolling forward to keep him in her sights. Holland Park Avenue, then up to join the A40. As they headed out through Acton and Ealing, Chris felt a vague sense of uneasiness. This wasn’t just the pretty way to Northumberland. It was perverse. She couldn’t believe he was going to drive all the way out west to the orbital M25 just to circle round to the northbound M1.
She stayed close enough not to lose him at the lights, always managing to keep a single car between them. It was hard driving, but at least the streetlights helped. Eventually, the signs for the M25 appeared and Chris prepared to take the slip road even though Vance showed no signs of leaving the carriageway. Probably do a last-minute lane change, she thought, if he thinks he might have a tail.
But he didn’t move and it was she who had to do the last-minute rescue, stamping on the accelerator to keep in touch with his tail lights. She only made it because he was driving a scant handful of miles above the limit, like a man who absolutely doesn’t want to be stopped for speeding. She grabbed her phone and hit the recall button for Tony’s number.
‘Tony? It’s Chris. Listen, I’m on the M40 heading west tight on Jack the Lad’s tail. Wherever he’s going, it’s not Northumberland.’
The discovery of the vice injected a new urgency into the search. Acutely aware of how bizarre this must seem to Doreen Elliott, Kay desperately tried to distract her with conversation. ‘They made a lovely job of converting this place,’ she said brightly.
It was clearly the right thing. Mrs Elliott turned to the kitchen and ran a hand along the polished smoothness of the solid wood. ‘Our Derek did the kitchen. He wanted no expense spared, like. Everything you could possibly want, all the latest stuff.’ She pointed to the cupboard fronts. ‘Washer-dryer, dishwasher, fridge, freezer, all tucked away.’
‘I’d have thought he’d have brought his wife up with him more often,’ Kay tried.
It was clearly the wrong thing. Mrs Elliott frowned. ‘Well, he told us they’d be using it as a weekend place. But in the end, she never came. He said she was too much of a city girl. She doesn’t like the country, you see. Well, you only have to look at her on that TV programme to see she’d not fit in with the likes of us. Not like Mr Vance.’
‘What, she’s never been here at all?’ Kay tried to sound as if this was news to her. She had half her attention on Simon and Leon, but she was still keeping watch on Mrs Elliott’s reactions. ‘We’re just trying to work out who else might have a key. For security reasons,’ she added hastily as the older woman’s face grew more slab-like.
‘Never seen hide nor hair of her.’ Then a smirk. ‘That’s not to say there’s never been a woman’s hand on the place. Well, a man’s entitled to his compensations
if his wife cannot bring herself to share his interests.’
‘You’ve seen him here with other women, then?’ Kay asked, aiming for casual.
‘Not actually seen him, no, but I come in once a fortnight to give the place a clean, and there’s been a couple of times I’ve unloaded the dishwasher and there’s been glasses with lipstick traces. It doesn’t always come off in the machine, you see. So putting two and two together, I suppose he’s got a girlfriend. But he knows he can rely on us to keep our mouths shut.’
Only because no one’s ever asked you, Kay thought cynically. ‘As you say, if his wife won’t come to a place like this…’
‘It’s a palace,’ Mrs Elliott said, doubtless comparing it to the dark kitchen of her own cottage. ‘I tell you something: I bet it’s the only house in Northumberland with its own private nuclear shelter.’
The words fell into the conversation like a bomb.
‘A nuclear shelter?’ Kay asked faintly. Simon and Leon froze where they stood like gun dogs on point.
She mistook the stillness of their surprise for doubt. ‘Right under our feet,’ Mrs Elliott said. ‘I’m not making this up, pet.’
Chris had barely finished the call to Tony when she saw the tail lights ahead of her wink to indicate that Vance was about to take the next slip road. Chris followed, leaving her move to the last possible moment. They turned north then, a couple of miles from the motorway, Vance signalled a left turn. At the junction, Chris slowed down and saw something that made her swear like a football supporter.
She switched off her main lights and drove cautiously down the narrow lane on sidelights only. She rounded a bend and there on her left was Jacko Vance’s destination.
The private airfield was floodlit. Parked on a strip of Tarmac, Chris saw a dozen small planes standing in front of four hangars. She watched Vance’s headlamps cut twin cones through the darkness round the perimeter then be swallowed up in the greater brightness as he drew up behind one of the planes. A man jumped out of the cockpit and waved. Vance got out of his car and walked to the plane, greeting the pilot with a clap on the shoulder.
‘Oh, fuck,’ Chris said. For the second time in the space of an hour, she had no idea what to do. Vance could have chartered the plane to get him to Northumberland ahead of any possible pursuit. Or he could have chartered it to get him out of the country. A quick flight across the Channel into the open borders of Europe and he could be anywhere by morning. Should she opt for dramatic intervention or leave him to take off?
It was a gamble, and one she didn’t want to take responsibility for. Her eyes scanned the airfield, settling on the small control tower that jutted out beyond the furthest hangar. Then she saw Vance and the pilot disappear aboard. Seconds later, the propellers stuttered into life. ‘Fuck it,’ Chris said and put the car in gear. She raced round the airport perimeter fence and reached the control tower just as the small plane taxied out on to the runway.
She raced inside, startling the man who sat at a plotting desk beside a computer. Chris thrust her warrant card in his face. ‘That plane on the runway. Has it filed a flight plan?’
‘Yeah, yeah, he has,’ the man stammered. ‘He’s going to Newcastle. Is there some sort of a problem? I mean, I can tell him to abort his take-off if there’s a problem. We’re always keen to help the police…’
‘No problem,’ Chris said grimly. ‘Just forget you ever saw me, OK? No little radio messages saying anybody was interested, OK?’
‘No, I mean yes, whatever you say, officer. No messages.’
‘And just to make sure,’ Chris said, pulling up a chair and giving him the predatory smile that sucked confessions from hard men, ‘I’m staying right here.’ She pulled out her phone and called Tony. ‘Sergeant Devine,’ she said. ‘Subject is aboard private plane, destination Newcastle. You’re going to have to deal with it from here on in. Suggest you organize a reception committee with the troops on the ground at his ultimate destination. OK?’
A bemused Tony stared at the shifting lights ahead of him on the motorway and said, ‘Oh, shit, a plane? I take it you can’t speak freely?’
‘Correct. I’m staying here to make sure subject isn’t given a warning by the control tower.’
‘Ask him how long it’ll take to Newcastle.’
There was a muffled conversation, then Chris came back on the line. ‘He says they’re flying an Aztec, which should do it in about two and a half to three hours. No chance you can beat the clock.’
‘I’ll do what I can. And, Chris—thanks.’ He ended the call and carried on driving on automatic pilot. So, somewhere between two and a half and three hours? Then he’d have to find his way to Five Walls Halt, either by taxi or by hiring a car, which wouldn’t be easy at ten o’clock on a Sunday night. Even so, Tony realized Chris was right. There was no way he could possibly arrive at Vance’s bolt hole ahead of him.
‘Which is why he did it, of course,’ he said aloud. Vance was no fool. He would expect Tony to know about his other home and to make for there once he’d stirred things up. What Vance hadn’t known was that Tony already had three police profilers in Northumberland. At least, he presumed they were still making inquiries up there, since he’d heard nothing to the contrary. Come to that, he’d heard nothing since mid-afternoon, when he’d checked in with Simon to discover that they were going door-to-door in a bid to trace any sightings of Donna Doyle.
It wasn’t enough, though. Three junior CID officers, none from the local force, none with any experience of command. They’d be uncertain, not knowing when or whether to challenge Vance. They wouldn’t know when to hang back and when to move. It needed more than any of them had to give. There was only one person who could get there in time and keep Leon, Simon and Kay in check.
She answered on the second ring. ‘DCI Jordan.’
‘Carol? It’s me. How are you doing?’
‘Not good. To be honest, I’m grateful for the human contact. I’ve been feeling like a leper. I’m an outcast from the infantry because they think I’m partly responsible for Di Earnshaw’s death. I’m isolated from John Brandon because there will have to be an inquiry which he can’t be seen to influence. And I’m out of the loop when it comes to questioning Alan Brinkley in case I compromise the interrogation for personal reasons. And I have to tell you that breaking the news to her parents left me feeling that the Ancient Greeks’ method of dealing with bad news must sometimes have been a relief to the messenger.’
‘I’m sorry. You must wish now I hadn’t dragged you into this Vance business,’ he said.
‘I don’t,’ she said firmly. ‘Somebody’s got to put a stop to Vance, and nobody else would listen to you. I don’t blame you for what went wrong in Seaford. That’s my responsibility. I shouldn’t have tried to do surveillance on a shoestring. I knew you were right and I should have carried that conviction through and demanded the bodies to do the job properly instead of settling for a skeleton crew. If I had, Di Earnshaw would still be alive.’
‘You can’t know that for sure,’ Tony protested. ‘Anything could have happened. Her partner could have gone for a piss at the crucial moment, they could have separated to circle the building. If anyone’s to blame, it’s the sergeant. Not only were they supposed to look out for each other, he was her immediate boss. He owed her a duty of care and he failed her.’
‘And what about my duty of care?’
Tony shook his head. ‘Oh, Carol, ease up on yourself.’
‘I can’t. But enough of that. Where are you? And what’s happening with Vance?’
‘I’m on the M1. It’s been a complicated day.’ As he hammered on in the outside lane oblivious to anything but the traffic and the woman on the end of the phone, he brought Carol up to speed.
‘So now he’s somewhere between London and Newcastle?’ Carol asked.
‘That’s right.’
‘You’re not going to make it in time, are you?’
‘No.’
‘But I could?’
/>
‘Possibly. Probably, if you stuck the blue light on. I can’t ask you to, but I…’
‘There’s nothing for me to do here. I’m off duty, and nobody’s going to call out the CID leper tonight. I’m better off doing this than sitting here feeling sorry for myself. Get me some directions. I’ll call you when I get near Newcastle.’ Her voice was stronger and firmer than it had been at the start of the call. Even if he’d wanted to argue, he realized it would have been pointless. She was the woman he’d taken her for, and she wouldn’t walk away from a challenge.
‘Thanks,’ he said simply.
‘We’re wasting time talking.’ Abruptly, the line went dead.
The price of Tony’s skill was the empathy he brought to situations like this. He understood precisely what Carol was going through. Very few people ever experienced a justified sense of responsibility for the death of another human being. Everything Carol had been certain of had suddenly shifted on to shaky ground and no one who had not shared a similar experience could help her back to terra firma. But he understood and he cared enough to try. He suspected that his phone call had, serendipitously, been the first step in the right direction. Hoping he was correct, Tony stared into the narrowing tunnel of red lights and carried on driving north.
On the exact location of the entrance to the basement shelter, Mrs Elliott was rather more vague. ‘It’s under the flags somewhere. He had a couple of lads from Newcastle over to install it so that you cannot see it just by looking.’
The three police officers glared in frustration at the metre-square stone slabs that made up the floor. Then Simon said, ‘If you can’t see it, how do you get down there?’
‘Our Derek said they’d installed an electric motor,’ Mrs Elliott said.
‘Well, if there’s a motor, there’s gotta be a switch,’ Leon muttered. ‘Si, you start on the right-hand side of the door. Kay, you start on the left. I’ll go up to the sleeping gallery.’ The two men moved away and started flicking switches, but Kay was held back by Mrs Elliott’s hand on her sleeve.
