The Retribution thacj-7

by Val McDermid

  Betsy chuckled. ‘Me too. There was a terrible moment when I thought, “That’s it, Betsy. Curtains for you.” And then Johnny came to the rescue.’ Her face grew solemn.

  Micky shivered. ‘Let’s not talk about it.’ As she spoke, they heard voices in the hall. What they were saying was indistinct, but it sounded like a man and a woman.

  The door opened and a woman walked in. She looked familiar – short blonde hair cut thick and textured, medium height, grey-blue eyes, good looks worn down by tiredness and time – but Micky couldn’t quite place her. The clothes were no clue either – navy suit, decent cut but not extravagant, pale blue open-necked shirt, lightweight leather jacket that brushed the top of her thighs. She could have been anything from a lawyer to a journalist. Her mouth tightened as she looked at Micky and Betsy, apparently relaxed in their farmhouse kitchen. ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ she said, giving them both a cold stare.

  ‘I do,’ Betsy said. ‘You’re the police officer who arrested Jacko. I remember you giving evidence at the Old Bailey.’

  ‘Jacko, is it? The man tries to burn down your livelihood and he’s still Jacko to you?’

  Micky looked to Betsy for a lead. Her lover’s expression hardened and a new watchfulness crept into her eyes. ‘He was Jacko to us for years. It’s habit, that’s all.’

  ‘Is it? Is it really all? Or does it betray your real attitude, Ms Thorne?’ The woman’s voice sounded strangled, as if it was a struggle to control herself.

  ‘You have the advantage of us. I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.’

  ‘You should. It’s been in the news enough this week. It’s Jordan. Carol Jordan. Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan. Sister of Michael Jordan.’

  The silence that followed Carol’s words seemed to swell till it filled the space between the three women. Finally, it was Betsy who broke it. ‘I’m very sorry. What happened to your brother and his wife was unforgivable.’

  ‘Partner. Lucy was his partner. Not his wife. They never married. And now, thanks to your ex –’ She tipped a nod to Micky ‘– they never will.’

  ‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am,’ Micky said.

  ‘You could try,’ Carol said, eyes blazing.

  ‘We’re victims too, you know,’ Micky said. ‘Betsy could have died in that burning stable block.’

  ‘But she didn’t, did she? She had a miraculous escape.’ Carol threw her shoulder bag down on the kitchen table. ‘In my line of work, miraculous escapes are suspicious things, not hallelujah, praise the Lord things. You see, often the miraculous escapes are set-ups. They’re set up to divert suspicion.’ She kept her eyes moving between the two of them, watching their reactions, looking for the tells she’d learned to spot after years at Tony Hill’s side.

  ‘That’s a pretty outrageous thing to say. An employee of ours died this evening while saving my life,’ Betsy said, her outward show of calm unruffled. Micky knew better, though. She knew that under the surface, Betsy had a temper that would see off the likes of Carol Jordan.

  ‘Is it really that outrageous? I’m looking at the scale of Vance’s revenge. Tony Hill’s home was burned to the ground. The one place in the world he’s ever felt at home. But all that happens to you is a little fire in a stable block. My brother and his partner were brutally murdered. I’ve never seen so much blood at a crime scene. But all that happens to you is that two horses die. And a stable lad whose name you don’t even bother with. Does that seem proportionate to you?’

  ‘It was meant to be much worse than that,’ Betsy said. ‘The fire brigade said if we hadn’t had the stable block timbers treated with anti-inflammatory chemicals, the whole roof would have come down. Ja— Vance obviously couldn’t have known that.’

  Carol shrugged. ‘Not unless you told him.’ She turned her stare on Micky.

  ‘Why on earth would we do that? Why would we help him? It’s not as if he’s been a great help to us over the years. His actions destroyed Micky’s TV career.’ Betsy was clipping her syllables tight now, clamping down on her anger.

  ‘Which suited you just fine, didn’t it? Let’s face it, Betsy, TV was never your world, was it? This is much more like it. Country tweeds and horses. Pukka accents and polo chukkas. Vance’s disgrace did you a favour, I’d say.’

  ‘That’s not how it was,’ Micky said, her expression pleading. ‘We were pariahs, it’s taken years to rebuild our lives.’

  ‘You were his enabler, his mask. Practically his accomplice. He hid behind you for years while he kidnapped and tortured teenage girls. You must have known there was something he was hiding all that time. Why should I believe you’re not still facilitating him? Somebody’s helped him set all this up. Why not you? You cared about him once.’

  ‘This is outrageous,’ Betsy said, her tone a blade that cut through Carol’s tirade.

  ‘Is it? How does it work, Betsy? I don’t have a big house or a string of horses to care about so I have to lose my brother?’ All at once, Carol sank into the nearest chair. ‘My brother.’ The words came out as a sob. She buried her face in her hands and for the first time since Blake had broken the news, she cried properly. She cried as if she had never cried before in her life and was determined to run through every available variation on the theme. Her whole body convulsed in sobs.

  Micky gave Betsy a ‘what do we do now?’ look, but she was too late. Already Betsy was halfway across the room. She pulled up another chair and held Carol close, as if she was her child. Betsy stroked her head and made inarticulate sounds of comfort as Carol cried herself out. At a loss, Micky went to the cupboard and poured three large whiskies. She put them on the table then fetched the kitchen roll.

  At last, Carol stopped weeping. She raised her head, gave a hiccuping gulp and swiped her face with the back of her hand. Micky tore off a few sheets of kitchen roll and handed them to her. Carol sniffed and blew and wiped then spotted the whisky. She emptied one of the glasses in a single shuddering swallow then took a deep breath. She looked wrecked, Micky thought. Literally and figuratively. ‘I’m not sorry for what I said,’ she said.

  Betsy gave her an admiring smile. ‘Of course you’re not. I rather think you’re a woman after my own heart, Chief Inspector Jordan. But please believe me. It might not look like it from where you’re standing, but we’re Jacko Vance’s victims too. The only difference between us is that you’ve only just joined the club.’

  48

  After Carol’s whirlwind departure from the barge, Alvin had gone back to HQ. Usually, Tony was glad when people left him to his own devices. Even the people he liked. But right now, every time Carol walked out on him, he was gripped with a fear that it might be for the last time. Her visit to the barge had not been a reconciliation, he knew that. She’d come because she needed something from him and that need had transcended her desire not to have him in her sight. What would happen when all of this was over? The prospect filled him with gloom.

  When he hated his own company like this, the only cure he knew was work. And so he turned back to his laptop and tried to put Carol Jordan from his mind. But it wasn’t that easy. He kept coming back to his awareness of her pain. He hated to see her suffer, especially when that suffering could be laid, at least in part, at his door. Worst of all, she’d stormed off. He didn’t know where she was or how to help her.

  Tony tried to concentrate, but it wasn’t working. It didn’t help that the saloon smelled of the remains of the fish and chips he hadn’t managed to eat. He pulled the bag out of the bin under the sink and tied it in a knot. Then he climbed out on to the stern and walked up the pontoon to the nearest bin, leaving the doors open so the cool evening air could freshen the interior of the boat. ‘If this was a thriller,’ he said aloud, ‘the bad guy would be sneaking aboard right now and hiding in the cabin.’ He turned back, noting that the boat was motionless. ‘No such luck.’

  Back at the boat, he leaned against the stern rail and looked out across the marina. The roofs of the boats lo
oked like black beetles, lined up in rows. A few boats were lit up, their soft yellow light spilling in pools on the black water. In the distance a man was walking a pair of Westies. The voices of a group of young men leaving the pub carried across the marina in a jumble of sound. In the old warehouses, now converted to apartments with views of the canal basin, squares and oblongs of light split up the dark facades in random patterns.

  ‘Motive,’ he said to a passing mallard. ‘That’s what separates psychologists and police officers. We can’t do without it. But they’re really not that bothered. Just the facts, ma’am. That’s what they want. Forensic evidence, witnesses, stuff they think you can’t fake. But I’m really not all that bothered about the facts. Because facts are like views. They all depend on where you’re standing.’

  The duck stopped paddling away from him and came back for more. ‘I need a motive for these murders,’ Tony said. ‘People don’t just kill for the hell of it, no matter what some of them say. In their heads, what they’re doing makes sense. So we’ve got a killer who’s murdering sex workers but it’s not about having sex with them. And it’s not about being turned on by the killing because he’s doing that differently every time. People who are turned on by murder have very specific triggers. What pushes my hot button does not push yours.’ He sighed and the duck lost interest. ‘I don’t blame you, mate. I bore myself sometimes.’

  He stood up and jumped back on to the pontoon. Finally he’d found a place to pace. Head down, he walked to the end then turned back and walked the full length again, his limp easing a little as his limbs loosened up along with his brain. ‘So if you’re not doing it for the gratification of the killing, what are you getting out of it? What are you trying to achieve? I don’t believe it’s notoriety. When you want notoriety and you don’t get it, you start sending emails to the likes of Penny Burgess. If there’s someone you want to impress, they’re already in a position to get the message.’ He turned back and walked down the pontoon again, more slowly this time.

  ‘Let’s think about the victims. One way or another, it’s about the victims. Sex workers. You’re not a religious nutter trying to cleanse the streets. A man with a mission, he’s not going to bother with all this elaborate TV series stuff. It’s the cleansing that matters, not some arcane message.

  ‘What’s the effect of what you’re doing? What does it achieve?’ He stopped abruptly, possible light dawning. ‘You’re trying to scare them off the streets? Is that it?’ He felt very close to something revelatory, something that would make sense of the information he’d been studying. ‘Not them. Her,’ he said slowly. ‘You need her to stop. You need her to come off the streets. To come home.’

  He spun round on the balls of his feet and ran back to Steeler. It felt like he was in pursuit of an idea that might slip away if he didn’t share it. Back on board, he grabbed his phone and speed-dialled Paula. As soon as she answered, he said, ‘He’s trying to scare someone.’

  ‘Is that you, Tony?’

  ‘It’s me, Paula. Your killer – he’s trying to scare someone.’

  ‘He’s scaring a lot of people, Tony.’ She sounded exasperated. He imagined it had been a long day without Carol at the helm to steer them straight.

  ‘I realise that. But there’s one person in particular he’s trying to scare. He’s trying to make her too frightened to work the streets. He wants her to come home. You can see it in the escalation. He started with the lowest of the low then he worked his way upwards. He’s saying, “It doesn’t matter what rung of the ladder you stand on, the bad thing can still get you.” He wants her to understand that, whatever she’s running from, it’s better than what she’s run to.’

  ‘Makes sense.’ Paula sighed. ‘But how does that help me?’

  ‘I don’t know. What about Vice? Do they keep track of the new girls on the block? At least they’d know where to go to ask around. You’re looking for someone who’s not been on the streets for long. She’ll probably have showed up in the weeks before the first murder. See what you can find out. Names, background details, as much as you can nail down. Once you find her, you’ll find him. The man who wants her back.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he just take her back? He’s been taking these other women off the streets.’

  ‘He needs to kid himself that she’s come back of her own free will. Remember, Paula, he doesn’t look at the world the way we do. Imagine normal motives, then give them a twist. I think this is all about scaring her home so he can tell himself he’s the one she wants to be with.’

  ‘I worry about you sometimes, you know,’ Paula said. ‘The way you figure out the twists and turns inside their heads.’

  ‘I worry myself. Did Stacey get anywhere with the Maze Man website, by the way?’

  ‘Sort of. There’s no regular frequenter of the site from the UK, but she found an email from a bloke trying to contact anyone in the UK with a full set of videos. He’s using a hotmail address, so it’s hard to get any reliable data. But Stacey’s done one of her magic tricks and established that most of the emails sent from that address have been sent from the Bradfield area. She’s also been running the number plate recognition data and she’s narrowed down his base of operations to an area in Skenby. The high flats and a few surrounding streets.’

  ‘That’s another step in the right direction. Good luck with it all. Let me know how you get on with the Vice.’

  ‘Will do. Have you been in touch with the chief?’

  Tony closed his eyes momentarily. ‘I saw her earlier. She turned up out of the blue and found me working on your case.’

  ‘Oh shit,’ Paula said.

  ‘She’s got bigger things to worry about right now. She’s running away from her emotions. When they finally catch up with her, it’s not going to be pretty.’

  ‘At least she’s got you in her corner.’

  Tony felt the prickle of tears in his throat. ‘Yeah. For what it’s worth. Anyway, you need to get on. Keep me posted.’

  He ended the call and turned back to the computer. When all else fails, talk to the machine.

  Stacey stared intently at her monitor, occasionally tapping a few keys or clicking her mouse. Ambrose, whose desk was behind hers, looked over from his screen and watched her covertly, admiring the absolute focus she brought to her task. He wished they had an officer like her on their team instead of having to rely on the unreliable Gary Harcup. Gary was good enough, but he wasn’t always around when he was needed, and he certainly couldn’t pull off stuff like this woman could. He wasn’t sure whether all her burrowing was entirely legal, but he didn’t care as long as she came up with the goods and a cover story that would satisfy the CPS and the courts.

  As he watched, she pushed back from the screen and turned round, catching him in the act. ‘Result,’ she said, showing none of the triumphalism that normally went with that claim.

  ‘Really?’ Ambrose got up and went across, peering into her screen. ‘Vinton Woods? What’s that?’

  ‘An exclusive community within ideal commuting range of Bradfield and Leeds,’ Stacey said. ‘It’s in West Yorkshire, so I guess it’s either part of DCI Franklin’s patch or close to it. I got a fragment of the name from the partially deleted material on Terry Gates’s hard drive and did a universal search of properties that have changed owner at the Land Registry in the past six months. There were a couple of matches, but this is the only one that fits the profile of what would suit Vance.’ She clicked and typed and estate agent’s details of a substantial mock-Victorian house appeared on the screen. ‘This was bought by a company registered in Kazakhstan. The payment came from a Liechtenstein trust who bank in the Cayman Islands. Unravelling all that will take weeks. But it’s exactly the sort of set-up Vance would use to hide behind.’

  ‘If you say so,’ Ambrose said. ‘It makes my head hurt just thinking about it.’

  Stacey shrugged. ‘Well, we know that Vance shipped all his cash offshore after he was arrested, and that there was a lot of it. A h
ouse like this would be the perfect base. Even if he’s only here for a matter of weeks, he’s got total control of his bolthole and he’s got an asset he can dispose of when he doesn’t need it any more.’

  ‘Oh, I believe you,’ Ambrose said. ‘I just can’t get my head round the mind of someone who can be arsed to go to these lengths just for revenge.’

  Stacey turned and gave him an indulgent smile. ‘That’s probably quite healthy, skip.’

  ‘I need to get up there,’ he said.

  ‘Shouldn’t we get the local lads to keep a discreet eye on it? It’s going to take you at least two hours to get there, even blues-and-twos.’

  Ambrose shook his head. ‘This is our pursuit. From what your guv’nor said about Franklin, I don’t trust him not to go in mob-handed like a glory-hunter. This needs careful handling and I think we’ve earned the right to lead it. I’m going up there with a hand-picked team. We’ll call on local support once we know what we’re dealing with.’ He patted her on the shoulder. ‘You’ve done a great job. I’ll make sure my boss knows who’s responsible for this breakthrough. Just don’t speak to Franklin about this. Or any other West Yorkshire detectives.’

  Paula hoped someone would be on duty in the Vice squad’s office this late on a Saturday. She expected most of them would be doing whatever it was that off-duty cops got up to on a Saturday night. Anybody working would probably be out on the street on the busiest night of the week for the sex trade. But her luck was in, even if the cop who answered the phone sounded as if he was down to his last shredded nerve. ‘DC Bryant. What do you want?’

  Paula identified herself and her unit. ‘I need some info,’ she finished up.

  ‘Paula McIntyre? You’re the one who got nailed in that undercover that went tits-up a while back, aren’t you?’ His tone was accusing, as if it was somehow her fault that her colleagues’ cock-up had nearly cost her her life. Even thinking about it made the back of her neck sweat.