by Val McDermid
‘What do you need to find the shelter for?’ she asked. ‘I thought you said there was supposed to be a prowler? They’re not going to be down there.’
Kay dug out her most reassuring smile. ‘When we’re dealing with a celebrity like Mr Vance, we have to be especially careful. A prowler in his house could be a lot more serious than a straightforward burglar. If someone was stalking him, for example, they could be hiding in waiting for him. So we have to take this extremely seriously.’ She covered the woman’s hand with her own. ‘Why don’t we wait outside?’
‘What for?’
‘If there is someone down there, it could be very dangerous.’ Kay’s smile felt strained. If Donna Doyle was trapped in the cellar, discovering her would be a revelation that would give even the stolid Doreen Elliott nightmares for the rest of her life, Kay knew. ‘It’s our job to protect members of the public, you know. How do you think my boss would react if I let you be taken hostage by some nutter with a knife?’
Mrs Elliott let herself be led into the tiny porch with only a single backward glance at Simon and Leon moving round the room snapping switches on and off. ‘You think it’s a stalker, then?’ she asked avidly. ‘Up here?’
‘It wouldn’t necessarily be someone from around here,’ Kay said. ‘These people are obsessive. They’ll follow a celebrity for weeks, months, learning every detail of their life and routine. Have you seen any strangers hanging around?’
‘Well, we get the tourists and the hikers, but mostly they’re only here for the wall. They don’t hang about.’
Before Kay could say more, her phone rang. ‘Will you excuse me? I’ll only be a minute,’ she said, slipping back inside to take the call. ‘Hello?’
‘Kay? It’s Tony. Where are you?’
Oh, shit, she thought. Why me? Why couldn’t he have phoned Leon? ‘Er…we’re inside Jacko Vance’s house in Northumberland,’ she said. Simon glanced across at her, but she waved to him to continue his search.
‘What?’ Tony exclaimed, outraged.
‘I know you said to wait, but we kept thinking about Donna Doyle…’
‘You broke in?’
‘No. We’re perfectly entitled to be here. A local woman has a key. We informed her there had been reports of a prowler and she let us in.’
‘Well, you’d better get out asap.’
‘Tony, she could be here. This place has got a sealed basement. Vance told the builders he wanted a nuclear shelter.’
‘A nuclear shelter?’ His incredulity was palpable.
‘It was a dozen years ago. People still believed Russia was going to nuke us,’ Kay reminded him plaintively. ‘The point is, she could be down there and we wouldn’t hear her, not even standing right above her. We’ve got to find the door.’
‘No. You’ve got to leave it. He’s on his way there. He’s chartered a plane, Kay. He’s probably coming up there to make sure he’s not left any loose ends. Kay, we need to catch him in the act. We need to stake the place out and watch him go down there to an untouched crime scene.’
As he spoke, Kay looked on in amazement as the ground moved only feet away from her. Silently, a single slab tilted and swung open in response to a switch flicked by Simon. As the fetid air escaped, Kay gagged. Recovering herself, she said, ‘It’s too late for that. We’ve found the door.’
Simon was already at the opening in the floor, peering down a set of stone steps. His groping hands found a switch and flooded the area with light. A long moment passed then he turned to Kay, his face the colour of putty. ‘If that’s Tony, you better tell him we’ve found Donna Doyle, as well.’
He drummed his fingers gently against the arm rest, the only movement in a body still as a lion preparing for the pounce. He didn’t even brace himself against the jolts of the pockets of turbulence the small twin-engined plane hit occasionally, but let his body shift with the movement. Once upon a time, he used to bite the nails of his right hand when he was nervous. Losing his arm had been an extreme cure for a bad habit, he was fond of saying wryly in public. Now, he had cultivated stillness, understanding that nervous tics made nothing happen faster or easier. Besides, stillness was much more unsettling for everyone else.
The engine note changed as the pilot prepared to land. Jacko peered out of the window, staring down at the smudge of suburban streetlights through the fine rain. He’d left Tony Hill standing. There was no way he could have beaten the aircraft. And he had no back-up, Jacko knew from his own discreet inquiries, confirmed by what both Micky and Tony himself had admitted.
The wheels hit the runway and jolted him against his seatbelt. A slight swerve, a correction, then they were heading for the flying club hangars at a gentle taxi. They had barely come to a standstill when Jacko had the door open. He jumped to the Tarmac and looked around, his eyes searching for the familiar shape of his Land Rover. Sam Foxwell and his brother were always glad to earn the twenty quid he paid them whenever he needed the Land Rover brought to the airport and when he’d spoken to them from the car phone, they’d promised to have it there for him.
When he couldn’t spot it, he felt a shiver of panic. They couldn’t have let him down, not tonight of all nights. The pilot interrupted his thoughts, pointing to the side of the hangar in deep shadow. ‘If you’re looking for your Land Rover, I think it’s tucked round there. I noticed it when I was taxi-ing.’
‘Cheers.’ Jacko dug into his pocket and took a twenty-pound note from his money clip. ‘Have a beer on me. See you soon, Keith.’
As he thundered along the narrow Northumberland side roads that were the quickest route to the place he considered his real home, he reviewed what he had to do in the couple of hours’ grace he had before Tony Hill could possibly arrive. First, check if the bitch was still alive and if she was, see she didn’t stay that way. Then, take the chain saw to her, get her bagged and into the Land Rover. Clean the basement with the high-pressure hose and set off for the hospital. Would he have time? Or should he simply disable the motor that opened the door on its swivel? After all, Hill had no way of knowing about the basement shelter and the local police were not going to mount a search on his say-so, not when it would offend an upstanding local taxpayer like Jacko Vance. And there was no guarantee that Tony Hill would even show up.
Maybe he should just settle for making sure she was dead and leave the clearing up for later. There would be a certain delight in entertaining Tony Hill only feet away from his latest victim. His mouth twisted in an ugly snarl. Donna Doyle would have to be his last victim for a while. Damn the man. Tony Hill should have let sleeping bitches lie. Jacko had plans for Tony Hill, though. One day, when it had all gone quiet and Tony Hill had resigned himself to the fact that he’d failed, that plan would go into action and he’d wish he’d never stuck his nose into someone else’s business.
The headlights sliced through the deep darkness of the countryside, breasting the hill that rolled down to his sanctuary. Where there should have been nothing but blackness, light spilled out over the cropped moorland grass and the grey gravel of his drive. Jacko stamped on the brakes and the Land Rover screamed to a jittering halt. What the fuck?
As he sat there, mind racing, adrenaline pumping, a pair of headlights on full beam crept up behind him, angling across the narrow road so there was no possibility of going backwards. Slowly, Vance took his foot off the brake and let the Land Rover cruise down the hill towards his home. The lights shifted and fell into convoy behind him. As he grew closer, he saw a second car parked diagonally just beyond his gateway, effectively blocking the road beyond.
Vance drove on to his property, the cold grip of fear in his stomach focusing his mind. When he rolled to a halt he jumped out of his vehicle, every inch the outraged householder, and confronted the young black man standing in his doorway. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ he demanded.
‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to wait outside, sir,’ Leon said deferentially.
‘What do you mean? This is my house
. Has there been a burglary or what? What’s going on? And who the hell are you?’
‘I’m Detective Constable Leon Jackson of the Metropolitan Police.’ He held out his warrant card for inspection.
Vance switched the charm on. ‘You’re a long way from home.’
‘Pursuing an investigation, sir. It’s amazing where a line of inquiry can take us in these days of electronic communications and efficient travel networks.’ Leon’s voice was impassive, but his eyes never left Vance.
‘Look, you know who I am, obviously. You know this is my place. Can’t you at least tell me what the hell is going on?’
A horn beeped and Vance turned to see the car that had followed him down the hill stop just outside the gate, blocking the road in the opposite direction. He was hemmed in completely. Jesus, he hoped the bitch was dead. Another young man got out of the car and walked across the gravel. ‘Are you from the Metropolitan Police as well?’ Vance asked, forcing himself to maintain his professionally beguiling mode.
‘No,’ Simon said. ‘I’m from Strathclyde.’
‘Strathclyde?’ Vance was momentarily confused. He’d taken someone from London a few years ago, but he’d never brought anyone down from Scotland. He hated the accent. It reminded him of Jimmy Linden and all that meant to him. So if there was a cop here from Scotland, they couldn’t be tracking the girls. It was going to be fine, he told himself. He could walk away from this.
‘That’s right, sir. DC Jackson and myself have been working on different aspects of the same case. We were in the area and we had a report from a passing motorist of a prowler here. So we thought we’d better check it out.’
‘That’s very commendable, officers. Perhaps I could go inside and check to see if anything’s missing or broken?’ He moved to edge around Leon, but the policeman was too fast for him. He extended his arm, blocking Vance, and shook his head.
‘I’m afraid not, sir. It’s a crime scene, you see. We need to make sure nothing interferes with it.’
‘A crime scene? What on earth has happened?’ Concerned, try to sound concerned, he warned himself. This is your house, you’re an innocent man and you want to know what’s happened on your property.
‘I’m afraid there’s been a suspicious death,’ Simon said coldly.
Jacko made himself take what looked like an involuntary step backwards, covering his face with his hands to make sure no sign of the relief that flooded him was visible to the police. She was dead, hallelujah. A dead woman could never testify. He pasted an expression of worried anxiety on his face and looked up. ‘But that’s terrible. A death? Here? But who…How? This is my home. Nobody comes here except me. How can there be someone dead here?’
‘That’s what we’re trying to establish, sir,’ Leon said.
‘But who is it? A burglar? What?’
‘We don’t think it was a burglar,’ Simon said, trying to keep the lid on the rage he felt face to face with the man who had killed Shaz and who was trying to pretend he had nothing to do with the putrefying mess in his cellar.
‘But…the only person who has keys is Mrs Elliott. Doreen Elliott at Dene Cottage. It’s not…It’s not her?’
‘No, sir. Mrs Elliott is in excellent health. It was Mrs Elliott who let us in to the property and gave us permission to search. One of our colleagues has taken her home.’ There was something in the way the black cop held his stare when he said this that sent a tremor of fear skittering round Vance’s nerves. The message coming through loud and clear between the spoken words was the unspoken warning that his first line of defence had crumbled. This was not an illegal entry and search.
‘Thank God for that. So who is it?’
‘We can’t speculate at this point, sir.’
‘But you must be able to tell me if it’s a man or a woman, surely?’
Simon’s lip curled. He could hold back no longer. ‘As if you didn’t know,’ he said, his voice thick with angry contempt. ‘You think our heads button up the back?’ He turned away, his hands balling into fists.
‘What is he talking about?’ Vance demanded, moving into the angry mode of the innocent bystander who senses they’re about to become snagged up in someone else’s trouble.
Leon shrugged and lit a cigarette. ‘You tell me,’ he said negligently. ‘Oh good,’ he said, looking over Vance’s shoulder. ‘Looks like the cavalry.’
The woman emerging from the car that had drawn up behind Simon’s didn’t look much like the cavalry to Vance. She couldn’t have been more than thirty. Even shrugged into an oversized mac, she was clearly slim and pretty, with short blonde hair cut thick and shaggy. ‘Good evening, gentlemen,’ she said briskly. ‘Mr Vance, I’m Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan. Would you excuse me for a moment, while I confer with one of my colleagues. Leon, can you keep Mr Vance company for a minute? I want to take a look inside. Simon, a word, please?’
Before he had the chance to say anything, she’d swept Simon inside, managing to open the door so narrowly that Vance had no chance to see within. ‘I don’t understand what’s going on,’ Vance said. ‘Shouldn’t there be scene-of-crimes people here? And uniformed officers?’
Again, Leon shrugged. ‘It’s not very like the telly, life.’ He continued smoking down to the tip then threw his cigarette on the porch step and ground it out.
‘Do you mind?’ Vance said, pointing. ‘This is my house. My doorstep. Just because somebody got themselves killed inside doesn’t mean the police can vandalize the place, too.’
Leon raised an eyebrow. ‘Frankly, sir, I think that’s the least of your worries right now.’
‘This is outrageous,’ Vance said.
‘Me, I find suspicious death enough outrage for one night.’
The door inched open and Simon and Carol re-emerged. The woman looked sombre, the man faintly sick, Vance thought. Good. She didn’t deserve to die pretty, the bitch. ‘Chief Inspector, when is someone going to tell me what is going on here?’
He’d been so busy watching her, he hadn’t noticed the two men had moved to either side of him in a flanking movement. Carol locked eyes with him, her cold blue stare a match for his. ‘Jacko Vance, I am arresting you on suspicion of murder. You do not need to say anything, but I must warn you that it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely upon in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
Disbelief blazed across his face as Simon and Leon closed in on him. Before it had really sunk in that not only was this woman arresting him but these idiots were laying hands on him, a cuff of steel clamped hard over his left wrist. He recovered himself as they tried to manhandle him back towards the Land Rover, convulsing beneath their hands in a desperate attempt to free himself by sheer superiority of strength. But he was off balance, and his feet went from under him on the gravel.
‘Don’t let him fall,’ Carol yelled, and somehow, Leon managed to get under Vance as he hit the ground. Simon hung on grimly to the other end of the handcuffs, yanking Vance’s arm back, making him squeal.
‘Make my day, shithead,’ Simon shouted. ‘Give me a reason to give you a taste of what you gave Shaz.’ He hauled upwards on Vance’s arm, forcing him to struggle to his feet.
Leon scrambled back upright and pushed Vance in the chest. ‘You know what would really make me happy? You trying to leg it, that would make me fucking delirious, because then I’d have an excuse for kicking seven colours of shit out of your scumbag body.’ He pushed him in the chest again. ‘Go on, go for it. Go on, do one.’
Vance stumbled back, as much to escape the venom in Leon’s voice as to ease the pain on his arm. He hit the Land Rover with a thud. Simon yanked his arm down and fastened the other end of the handcuffs to the bull bar. He took a deep breath then spat in Vance’s face. When he turned to face Carol, there were tears in his eyes. ‘He’ll not be going anywhere in a hurry,’ he croaked.
‘You are going to regret this night,’ Vance said, his voice low and danger
ous.
Carol stepped forward and put a hand on Simon’s arm. ‘You did well, Simon. Now, unless anybody’s got any better ideas, I think it’s about time we called the police.’
There was something generic about police stations, Tony thought. The canteens never served salad, the waiting areas always smelled of stale cigarettes in spite of smoking having been banned for years, and the decor never varied. Looking round the interview room in Hexham police station at three in the morning, he realized he could be anywhere from Penzance to Perth. On that gloomy thought, the door opened and Carol came in with two mugs of coffee. ‘Strong, black and brewed some time in the last week,’ she said, dropping into the chair opposite him.
‘What’s happening?’
She snorted. ‘He’s still screaming about wrongful arrest and false imprisonment. I’ve just given a statement of explanation.’
He stirred his coffee and took in the signs of strain round her eyes. ‘Which was?’
‘In the area on inquiries, the lads got a report of a possible prowler. They thought it would be quicker to check it out themselves—being into inter-force co-operation—so they found a keyholder who was happy to let them in and gave permission to search,’ Carol recited, leaning back and staring sightlessly at the ceiling. ’Concerned about the possibility of a hidden stalker, they opened the basement where they found the dead body of a young white female who answered the description of Donna Doyle, whom they knew to be on the missing list. Since Mr Vance is the only person known to frequent the house, it was clear he must be a suspect in what was obviously a suspicious death. I considered he was a fugitive risk. He was at the scene with a vehicle capable of leaving the road and avoiding pursuit.
‘Although my authority does not extend into the force area of Northumbria Police, I am empowered to effect a citizen’s arrest. Placing Mr Vance in restraints which caused him minimal discomfort seemed a better alternative than leaving him at large where any movement towards his vehicle might have led to an over-reaction on the part of the officers I was working with. Cuffing him to the Land Rover was, in effect, for his own protection.’
