by Val McDermid
‘Me too. Come back on Monday, we’ll have something for you then.’
‘Great.’
‘Drive safely,’ he said as she turned to go.
She half-turned. ‘I will. And you take care.’
Then she was gone. Tony sat for a while staring into his empty glass considering why someone might set fires without the pay-off of a sexual thrill. When the glimmer of an idea crept into his mind, he got up and walked alone through the echoing streets.
* * *
It wasn’t the laughter of Shaz’s colleagues that smarted like shampoo in her eyes. It wasn’t even Carol Jordan’s metaphorical pat on the head. It was Tony’s sympathy. Instead of being bowled over by the quality of her work and the incisiveness of her insights, Tony had been kind. She hadn’t wanted to hear that it took courage to stick her neck out, that she’d shown real initiative but that she’d fallen into the trap of getting carried away by coincidence. It would have been easier if he’d been dismissive or even patronizing, but the fellow-feeling in his compassion was too obvious for her to hide her crushing disappointment in anger. He’d even told a couple of stories against himself about mistaken conclusions he’d leapt to in his early efforts at profiling.
It was a generosity of spirit that Shaz had no equipment to deal with. The only, and accidental, child of a couple so devoted to each other that the emotional needs of their daughter barely impinged, she had learned to get by without expectations of tenderness or indulgence. She’d been told off for misbehaving, praised absentmindedly for success, but mostly, she’d been ignored. Her driven ambition had its roots in a childhood where she’d worked desperately hard to win the recognition from her parents that she craved. Instead, her teachers had offered approval, and their off-handed professional assessments had been the only generosity she’d learned to feel at ease with. Now, genuine personal kindness left her baffled and uncomfortable. She could handle Carol Jordan’s businesslike appreciation of her work, but Tony’s sympathy unsettled her and fired her to do something that would render it redundant.
The morning after the debacle, she endured the chaffing of her colleagues, even managing to join in their banter rather than fixing them with her chill blue stare and stripping their self-confidence to the bone. Underneath the affable surface, though, her mind was churning, thoughts revolving in an attempt to find a way forward that would show she was right.
Trawling the missing persons records in a bid to find other cases that fit the pattern was out of the question. Shaz knew from her days on the beat that somewhere in the region of a quarter of a million people went missing every year, nearly a hundred thousand of them under eighteen. Many of them simply walked away from the pressures of jobs they hated and families who offered them nothing. Others ran from lives grown intolerable. Some were seduced by promises of streets paved with gold. And a few were snatched unwilling from their familiar worlds and plunged into hell. But it was almost impossible to tell which category individuals fell into by a swift scrutiny of the report summary. Even if she could have persuaded her doubting colleagues to join the search, to unearth other possible victims of Shaz’s serial killer would take far more resources than they had available.
When Tony announced that the afternoon would be devoted to private study, Shaz felt the itch of her impatience ease. Now she could at least do something. Rejecting Simon’s suggestion of a pub lunch, she made straight for the city’s biggest bookshop. Minutes later, she was standing by the till with a copy of Jack on the Box: the Unauthorized Version by Tosh Barnes, a Fleet Street columnist known for his vitriolic pen, and Lionheart: the True Story of a Hero by Micky Morgan, an updated version of the account she’d first written shortly after their marriage. Tony had suggested that even if Shaz was right about the link, the killer would be more likely to be one of Vance’s entourage than the man himself. The books might help either to eliminate him or to provide corroborative support for her theory.
A short bus ride and she was home. Popping the top on a can of Diet Coke, she sat down at her desk and plunged straight into his wife’s adoring take on Jacko Vance’s brilliant career. Great athlete, selfless hero, indomitable fighter, peerless broadcaster, tireless charity worker and sublime husband. As she forced herself through the hagiography, Shaz started to think it might actually be a pleasure to demolish so revoltingly perfect a figure. If her first assumption was right, he didn’t so much have feet of clay as an entirely false facade.
It was a relief to reach the end, even though that meant facing the question she’d been pushing to the back of her mind. It was the classic misgiving of serial killer inquiries: how could the wife not know? Even leading such busy lives independent of each other, how could Micky Morgan share her bed and her existence with an abductor and murderer of adolescent girls and not sense something in his head was twisted out of true? And if she knew, or even suspected, how could she sit in front of the cameras day after day interviewing life’s victims and victors without a flicker of anything other than professional compassion and composure?
It was a question that had no answer. Unless Tony had been right and it wasn’t Jacko himself but a fan or a team member. Suppressing these misgivings, Shaz turned to Jack on the Box which proved to be merely an irreverent version of the same myth. Only the anecdotes were different, revealing nothing more sinister than that when he was wearing his professional hat, Jacko Vance was a perfectionist with a corrosive line in invective that could strip even TV’s hardest cases of their protective armour. It was hardly a signpost to a homicidal maniac.
But for someone searching for elements that would fit the identikit notion of a serial killer, there were hints and clues that suggested she might not be completely deluded. There were certainly more factors than the average person would exhibit and, in her book, that kept Jacko Vance in the prime suspect slot thus far. It might well be someone else around him, but so far the research she had done had provided nothing to contradict her original theory.
Shaz had made notes as she worked her way through both books. At the end of her initial research, she booted up the laptop and opened a file she’d developed earlier in the profiling course. Headed Organized Offender Checklist, it was exactly what it said: a list of potential indicators to reveal to an investigator whether a suspect was a serious contender. She made a copy of the file; then, using her notes for guidance, occasionally referring back to the books, Shaz worked her way down the inventory. When she’d finished, she almost purred with satisfaction. She wasn’t crazy after all. This was something Tony Hill wouldn’t be able to ignore when it formed Part One of the new dossier she planned to present him with. She printed it out and smiled in satisfaction as she double-checked it.
Shaz was particularly pleased with the concluding paragraph. Concise, to the point, but telling the readers who knew what to look for all they needed to know, she thought. She wished she could get her hands on the newspaper cuttings about Vance and Micky Morgan, particularly the tabloids and the gossip columns. But to put in a formal request to any of the newspaper libraries would set too many alarm bells ringing. On a story this big, she couldn’t even dare trust a personal contact.
She considered whether to present Tony with this fresh analysis. In her heart, she knew there wasn’t enough to change his mind. But someone was killing young girls and on the balance of probabilities, given how long it had been going on and how many indicators lurked in his background, she reckoned Jacko Vance was her man. Somewhere, there was something that would expose his weakness, and she was going to find it.
The desk sergeant tipped the second spoonful of sugar into his mug of black tea and stirred it languidly, staring at the sluggish whirlpool it produced as if willing it to do something interesting enough to divert him from the pile of paperwork stacked beside him on the desk. The swirling slowed then stilled. Nothing else happened. With a sigh that started in the pit of his stomach, he picked up the first file and opened it.
The reprieve came two pages into the report.
His hand shot out to the phone as if it was attached by elastic suddenly released. ‘Glossop Police, Sergeant Stone,’ he said cheerfully.
The voice on the phone was staccato with nerves, control barely in place. It was a woman, not young, not old, Peter Stone registered automatically as he pulled a pile of scrap paper towards him. ‘It’s my daughter,’ the woman said. ‘Donna. She’s not come home. She’s only fourteen. She never went to her friend’s. I don’t know where she is. Help me! You’ve got to help me!’ The pitch rose to a frightened squeak.
‘I understand how upsetting this is for you,’ Stone said stolidly. Himself a father of daughters, he refused to allow his imagination to run riot over the possible disasters that could befall them. Otherwise he’d never have slept again. ‘I’ll need a few details so we can set about being of some assistance.’ His formality was deliberate, a calculated attempt to slow things down and instil calmness in his frantic caller. ‘Your name is…?’
‘Doyle. Pauline Doyle. My daughter’s Donna. Donna Theresa Doyle. We live up Corunna Street. Number 15 Corunna Street. Just the two of us. Her dad’s dead, see? He took a brain haemorrhage three years ago, dropped down dead, just like that. What’s happened to my Donna?’ Tears shook her voice. Stone could hear sniffs and sobs despite her best efforts to stay coherent.
‘What I’m going to do, Mrs Doyle, I’m going to send somebody round to take a statement from you. Meantime, can you just tell me how long Donna’s been missing?’
‘I don’t know,’ Pauline Doyle wailed. ‘She left the house this morning to go to school and said she was going for her tea to her pal Dawn’s house. They had some science project they were working on together. When she wasn’t home by ten, I rang Dawn’s mum and she told me Donna hadn’t been there and Dawn said she wasn’t in school all day.’
Stone glanced at the clock. Quarter past eleven. That meant the girl had been somewhere other than where she was supposed to be for the best part of fifteen hours. Not officially time to worry yet, but a dozen years in the Job had given him an instinct for the significant. ‘You hadn’t had words, had you?’ he asked gently.
‘No-o-o-o,’ Mrs Doyle wept. She hiccupped and Stone could hear her breathe deeply to calm her voice. ‘She’s all I’ve got,’ she said, her voice soft and piteous.
‘There could be a simple explanation. It’s not uncommon with young girls, going missing overnight. Now, I want you to put the kettle on and brew a pot of tea, because there’ll be a couple of officers with you within ten minutes, OK?’
‘Thank you.’ Forlorn, Pauline Doyle replaced the phone and stared bleakly at the photograph on top of the television set. Donna smiled back at her, a flirtatious, knowing smile that said she was nudging the borderline between child and woman. Her mother stuffed her hand between her teeth to avoid crying out, then stumbled to her feet and went through to the fluorescent brilliance of the kitchen.
At that point, Donna Doyle had been alive and well and slightly drunk.
Once the decision had been taken, all that remained were details. First, the official proposal, arranged for maximum effect during the annual fund-raising telethon that garnered millions for children’s charities. Jacko went down on one knee in front of eight million viewers and asked Micky to marry him. She looked suitably stunned, then moved. With tears in her eyes, she said yes. Like every other aspect of their marriage, there was nothing about the whole process that couldn’t be screened before the watershed.
The wedding took place in a register office, of course, but that was no reason not to splurge on a party that would keep the gossip column inches flowing for days. Jacko’s agent and Betsy were the witnesses, each acting as a kind of unofficial minder to make sure neither member of the wedding drank champagne to the destruction of discretion. Then, afterwards, the honeymoon. A private island in the Seychelles, Betsy and Micky in one cottage, Jacko in the other. On several occasions they spotted him on the beach, with a different woman each time, but no one apart from Jacko himself ever joined them for a meal and they were never introduced to any of his partners.
On the last night, the three had dinner together under the Indian Ocean moon. ‘Your friends gone, then?’ Betsy had asked, emboldened by the fifth glass of champagne.
‘Not friends,’ Jacko said carefully. His mouth twisted in a strange smile. ‘Not even personal assistants, I’m afraid. I don’t sleep with friends. Sex is something I keep in the realm of transactions. After the accident, after Jillie, I told myself I was never ever going to put myself in a position where anybody could take anything that mattered from me again.’
‘That’s sad,’ Micky said. ‘You lose a lot by not being prepared to take risks.’
His eyes seemed to glaze over, like a tinted-glass limo window rising to obscure its inhabitant. It was a look she was certain was never seen by his public, nor even the terminally ill and permanently damaged that he gave his time and energy to reassure so potently. If the powers that be had ever seen that darkness behind his eyes, they’d have made sure he never came within a hundred miles of the sick and dying. All the world got was the charm. Come to that, it was mostly all she ever got. But either he willingly let her see more, or else he wasn’t aware that she knew him so well. Even Betsy told her she was exaggerating when she spoke of the darkness battened down inside her husband. Only Micky knew she wasn’t.
Jacko looked unsmiling into his wife’s eyes and said, ‘I take plenty of risks, Micky. I just minimize the possibility of damage. Take this marriage. It’s a risk, but I wouldn’t have taken it unless I’d been certain it was safer for me because you have a lot more to lose than I do if it’s ever exposed as a sham.’
‘Maybe so,’ Micky acknowledged with a tip of her glass. ‘But I think it’s sad to cut yourself off from the possibility of love, which is what you’ve done ever since you split with Jillie and started playing games with me.’
‘This isn’t a game,’ Jacko said, his face closed and intense. ‘But if you’re worried about me lacking nourishment, don’t be. I take responsibility for my own needs. And I promise my solutions will never embarrass you. I am the king of deniability.’ He put his left hand over his heart and smiled solemnly.
The words had always haunted Micky, though he had never given her reason to throw them in his face. But sometimes, when she saw expressions cross his eyes that reminded her of the first time she’d seen his contained fury in that sterile hospital room, she wondered what exactly there might be lurking in Jacko’s secret world that would require denial. Murder, however, would never have made it to the list.
* * *
The trouble with working alone was that you just couldn’t cover the ground, Shaz had realized after a fitful night’s sleep. There weren’t enough hours in the day, she didn’t have the authority to make full background inquiries, she had no access to the information network of the bobbies who worked the patches where Jacko Vance had grown up or lived since. There was no one to gossip with. If she was going to make any progress worth speaking of, there was only one possible route to go.
She’d have to stir things up. And that meant calling in more favours. She picked up the phone and rang Chris Devine’s number. The answering machine picked up on the third ring. It was a relief not to have to explain the whole seemingly insane enterprise to Chris. When she heard the beep, she said, ‘Chris? It’s Shaz. Thanks for your help the other day. It was so useful, I need another favour. Any chance you could get me a home number for Jacko Vance? I’ll be at home all evening. You’re a star, thanks.’
‘Hang on,’ Chris’s voice cut across hers. Shaz jumped and almost knocked her coffee cup to the floor. ‘Hello?’ she said. ‘Chris?’
‘I was in the shower. What are you up to?’ Chris’s voice was more affectionate than Shaz reckoned she deserved.
‘I want to set up an interview with Jacko Vance, and I haven’t got a number for him.’
‘Is there some problem with official channels, doll?’
Shaz cleared her throat
. ‘It’s not exactly an official inquiry.’
‘You’re going to have to do better than that. Has this got something to do with the half-dozen trees I had to murder to do the last favour you asked for?’
‘Sort of. The exercise I told you about? Well, it’s thrown up what looks like a genuine cluster. I think there’s a real serial killer out there doing teenage girls. And it’s connected to Jacko Vance.’
‘Jacko Vance? The Jacko Vance? Vance’s Visits Jacko Vance? What’s he got to do with a serial killer?’
‘That’s what I’m trying to find out. Only we’re not supposed to be doing this for real yet, so nobody’s prepared to take any action unless I can come up with something more concrete.’
‘Hang on a minute, doll. Back up a bit, to where you said it’s connected to Jacko. How d’you mean, “connected”?’ Chris was starting to sound worried, Shaz thought. Time for a bit of back-pedalling. Time also to adopt the less dramatic suggestion of her colleagues.
‘It could be something and nothing. Only, this cluster I spotted: he was doing a personal appearance in each of the girls’ home towns a couple of days before they went walkabout. It’s an odd coincidence, and I’m thinking maybe it’s someone in his entourage or some psycho fan of his who has it in for girls who maybe come on too strong to Jacko or something.’
‘So, let me get this right. You want to front up Jacko Vance to see if he’s noticed any revolving-eyed maniacs hanging around his gigs? And you want to do this unofficial?’ Chris’s voice mixed incredulity and concern.
‘That’s about the síze of it, yeah.’
‘You’re off your head, Bowman.’
‘I thought that was part of my charm.’
‘’King hell, doll, charm won’t get you out of the shit if you put a foot wrong on this one.’
‘Tell me something I don’t know. Are you going to help me or not?’
