The Wire in the Blood

by Val McDermid

  ‘He hasn’t got time to take a personal interest. A busy man. Dozens of people, no, hundreds of people want him to sign an autograph, exchange a few words, pose for a picture.’

  The words hung in the air like the afterimage of sparklers. ‘Pose for a picture?’ Kay said faintly. ‘Did Stacey have her picture taken with him?’

  They nodded in sync. ‘Kerry’s mum took it.’

  ‘Could I see it?’ Kay’s heart was suddenly thudding like a drum, her palms sweating in the stuffy room.

  Kenny pulled an embossed album from under a coffee table stained a colour unknown in nature. With practised hand, he turned swiftly to the last page. There, blown up to ten by eight was a fuzzy snapshot of a cluster of people surrounding Jacko Vance. The angle was skewed, the faces blurred, as if seen through a heat haze. But the girl standing next to Jacko Vance, the one he was unquestionably talking to, his hand on her shoulder, his head inclined towards her, the girl looking up with the adoring look of a new puppy was without a shadow of a doubt Stacey Burton.

  * * *

  It had been harder than Wharton had expected to talk to Detective Sergeant Chris Devine. When he’d rung her office, he’d discovered she’d signed up for a couple of days’ compassionate leave following her initial telephone statement to the murder inquiry. It was the first time Wharton had encountered anyone who seemed to be genuinely grieving for Shaz Bowman; he’d not been the officer charged with breaking the news to her devastated parents.

  By the time Chris had returned the message on her answering machine, Wharton was already in London interviewing Vance and his wife. It had been easy to arrange to meet at her flat afterwards.

  The hard-nosed copper in him had warmed to Chris Devine immediately she’d opened her door and greeted them with, ‘I sincerely hope you’re going to nail the bastard who did this.’ He wasn’t bothered by the array of artistic photographs of beautiful women that covered the walls of her flat. He’d worked with dykes before and on balance he thought they were a damn sight less disruptive than most of the straight women on the force. His sidekick was less sanguine, carefully choosing to sit facing the wall of glass that looked out from the modern block of flats to the ancient church left incongruously standing at the heart of the Barbican complex.

  ‘I hope so, too,’ he’d said, perching on the lumpy futon sofa and wondering fleetingly how people ever slept on the things.

  ‘You’ve been to see Jacko Vance?’ Chris said almost before she was settled in the big wing chair opposite him.

  ‘We interviewed him and his wife yesterday. He confirmed what you’d already told us about the appointment DC Bowman kept with him on the day she died.’

  She nodded, pushing her thick chestnut hair away from her face. ‘I had Vance down as the type that would keep a note of everything.’

  ‘So what was all that about?’ Wharton asked. ‘Why were you helping DC Bowman maintain the illusion that she was a Met officer?’

  The frown line between her eyes deepened. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Your direct line in the CID office was left as a contact number for DC Bowman. The impression it gave was that she was still a Met officer.’

  ‘She was still a Met officer,’ Chris pointed out. ‘But there was nothing sinister in giving my number as a contact. During their training period, the profiling squad officers can’t take phone calls in working hours. Shaz asked if I’d sort it, that’s all.’

  ‘Why you, Sergeant? Why not the desk officer where she was stationed? Why not leave her home number and ask him to call in the evening?’ There was nothing hostile in Wharton’s manner; he was genuinely interested in the answer.

  ‘I suppose because we were already in contact over the case,’ Chris said, feeling irritation rise inside her but giving no outward sign. Her years in the police had left her with the tendency to see innuendo in everything and the ability not to show her reaction.

  ‘You were? In what respect?’

  Chris turned her head and her dark eyes looked over Wharton’s shoulder to the sky beyond. ‘She’d already asked for my help. She needed some newspapers photocopied and I went out to Colindale to do it for her.’

  ‘You were responsible for that parcel?’

  ‘I was, yes.’

  ‘I’ve heard about that. Must have been hundreds of pages, box that size and weight. That’s a lot of work for an officer as busy as you must be,’ Wharton said, starting to lean a little now he suspected there might be more going on here than met the eye.

  ‘I did it in my own time. OK, Inspector?’

  ‘That’s a lot of time to give up for a junior officer,’ Wharton suggested.

  Chris’s mouth tightened momentarily. With her snub nose, she had more than a passing resemblance to Grumpy from the Seven Dwarves. ‘Shaz and I were partners on the night shift for a long time. We were friends as well as colleagues. She was probably the most talented young officer I’ve ever worked with and frankly, Mr Wharton, I don’t see how questioning why I was happy to give up my day off to help her is going to help you put her killer away.’

  Wharton shrugged. ‘Background. You never know.’

  ‘I know, believe me. You should be asking about Jacko Vance.’

  In spite of himself, Wharton couldn’t help an ironic grin. ‘Don’t tell me you fell for that as well?’

  ‘If you mean, do I go along with Shaz’s theory that Jacko Vance was killing teenage girls, the answer is, I don’t know. I’ve not had the chance to review her evidence. But what I do know is that Vance arranged with me that she should come to his house early on Saturday and she was dead by the next morning. Now, the way we work things down here is we get very interested in the last known person to see a murder victim alive, and according to Shaz’s mum, you don’t seem to have any record of anyone seeing her after she left Vance’s house. That would make me very interested in Jacko Vance. What are the profiling squad saying about it?’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll appreciate that until we can conclusively rule out her immediate colleagues from our inquiries, we can’t use them to investigate the case.’

  Chris’s mouth fell open. ‘You’re not using Tony Hill?’

  ‘We think she may have known her killer, and the only people she knew in Leeds were the ones she was working with. You’re an experienced detective. You must see that we can’t risk contaminating the inquiry by taking any of them into our confidence.’

  ‘You’ve got the most talented profiler in the country in the palm of your hand, a man who actually knew the victim and knew what she was working on, and you’re ignoring him? Is there some reason you don’t want to catch Shaz’s killer? I bet Tony Hill doesn’t think you should be letting Jacko Vance off the hook.’

  Wharton smiled indulgently. ‘I can understand you getting a bit emotional about this case.’ Chris seethed inside but said nothing as he continued. ‘But I can assure you, I’ve spoken to Mr Vance and there’s nothing to suggest that he had anything to do with the murder. According to him, all DC Bowman was interested in was whether he’d spotted any of her so-called cluster of missing girls in the company of any regular attenders at his events. He said he hadn’t and that was that.’

  ‘And you take his word for it? Just like that?’

  Wharton shrugged. ‘Like I said, why wouldn’t we? Where’s the evidence to suggest anything suspicious?’

  Chris stood up abruptly and picked up a packet of cigarettes from a corner table. She lit up and turned back to face Wharton. ‘He is the last person that we know who saw her,’ she said, her voice harsh.

  Wharton’s smile was meant to placate but only enraged. ‘We don’t know that, with respect. She’d written the letter “T” in her diary beneath the appointment with Vance. As if she was going on somewhere else. You wouldn’t know who “T” is, would you, Sergeant?’

  A deep inhalation of smoke, a long exhalation, then Chris said, ‘I can’t think of anyone. Sorry.’

  ‘You don’t think it might refer to Tony Hill?’r />
  She shrugged. ‘It could, I suppose. It could mean almost anything. She could have been going to the Trocadero to play laser games, for all I know. She never said anything about any other plans to me.’

  ‘She didn’t come here?’

  Chris frowned. ‘Why would she?’

  ‘You said you were friends. She was in London. I’d have thought she’d have popped in, especially with you being so helpful and all.’ There was a tougher element in Wharton’s voice and his jaw thrust outward.

  ‘She didn’t come here.’ Chris’s mouth clamped shut.

  Sensing a weak spot, Wharton pushed harder. ‘Why was that, Sergeant? Did she prefer to keep a bit of distance between you? Especially now she’d got herself a boyfriend?’

  Chris walked briskly to the door and opened it. ‘Goodbye, Inspector Wharton.’

  ‘That’s a very interesting response, Sergeant Devine,’ Wharton said, taking his time getting to his feet and checking that his junior officer was still taking notes.

  ‘If you want to insult Shaz’s memory and my intelligence, you’re not doing it in my home. Next time, make it formal. Sir.’ She leaned against the door, watching them walk down the hall to the lifts. ‘Arsehole,’ she muttered under her breath. Then she let the heavy door swing shut and crossed to the phone where she rang an old flame in the Home Office. ‘Dee? It’s Chris. Hey, doll, I need a favour. You’ve got a psychologist on the payroll, geezer called Tony Hill. I need a personal number…’

  * * *

  Jimmy Linden had noticed the young black man even before he’d reached his seat in the sixth row of the empty stand. Years of working with promising young athletes had developed his instinct for spotting strangers. It wasn’t only sex perverts you had to be on the lookout for. The drug pushers were just as dangerous with their promises of steroid magic. And Jimmy’s youngsters were the very ones most prone to falling for their promises. Anyone who wanted to be the best at javelin, hammer, shot or discus needed the kind of muscle that anabolic steroids could provide a lot more easily than training.

  No, it never hurt to keep a weather eye out for strangers, especially here at Meadowbank Stadium where he coached the Scottish junior squad, the pick of the bunch, all of them desperate for that edge that would make them a champion. Jimmy looked up again at the stranger. He looked in pretty good shape, though if he’d ever had dreams of being a contender, he should have knocked those fags on the head a long time ago.

  As the session drew to a close and the young athletes climbed into their tracksuits, Jimmy spotted the stranger getting up and disappearing down the stairway. When he emerged trackside moments later, demonstrating he had some official reason for being there, Jimmy felt the muscles in the back of his neck relax slightly, the first sign he’d had that they’d been tense. Old age was creeping up at a gallop, he thought wryly. Used to be he was that close to his body that not a nerve fluttered without him knowing about it.

  Before he could follow the sweating bodies into the changing rooms, the stranger stepped in front of him and flashed a warrant card. It was too fast for Jimmy to suss which force he belonged to, but he knew what the card was. ‘Detective Constable Jackson,’ the man said. ‘I’m sorry to bother you at work, but I could use half an hour of your time.’

  Jimmy tutted, his whippet face narrowing in displeasure. ‘You’ll not find any drugs with this lot,’ he said. ‘I run a clean team, and they all know it.’

  Leon shook his head and smiled. ‘It’s nothing to do with your squad. I just need to pick your brains about some ancient history, that’s all.’ There was no trace of the smart-mouthed jive talk he used on his fellow profilers.

  ‘What kind of ancient history?’

  Leon noticed Jimmy’s eyes flickering after his disciples and realized the trainer still had things he wanted to say to them. Hastily, he said, ‘It’s nothing to worry about, honestly. Look, I noticed a half-decent café just down the road. Why don’t you meet me there when you’re done here and we can have a chat?’

  ‘Aye, OK,’ Jimmy said grudgingly. Half an hour later he was facing Leon over a mug of tea and a plate piled with the sort of bakery products that earned Scotland its nickname of the Land O’Cakes. He must be one hell of a coach, Leon thought as the little man wolfed down a coconut-covered snowball. All the successful throwing jocks Leon had ever known were big blokes, broad in the shoulder and heavy through the thighs. But Jimmy Linden resembled a medieval ascetic, the classic long-distance runner, one of those creatures of bone and sinew who stride easily across the finishing line at marathons, eyes on the middle distance, looking as if the only thing they could want was the next twenty-six miles.

  ‘So what’s this all about?’ Jimmy said, wiping his mouth with surprising daintiness on a proper monogrammed cotton handkerchief pulled from the sleeve of his sweatshirt.

  ‘For reasons that will become obvious, I can’t go into too much detail. We’re investigating a case that may have its roots deep in the past. I thought you might be able to give me some pointers.’

  ‘About what? All I know anything about is athletics, son.’

  Leon nodded and watched a meringue disappear. ‘I’m going back now a dozen or more years ago.’

  ‘When I was based down south? Before I came back up here?’

  ‘That’s right. You coached Jacko Vance,’ Leon said.

  A shadow passed across Jimmy’s face. Then he cocked his head to one side and said, ‘You’re not telling me somebody’s putting the black on Jacko and thinking they’ll get away with it?’ Amusement lit up his watery blue eyes.

  Leon winked. ‘You didn’t hear that from me, Mr Linden.’

  ‘It’s Jimmy, son, everybody calls me Jimmy. So, Jacko Vance, eh? What can I tell you about the boy wonder?’

  ‘Anything you can remember.’

  ‘How long have you got?’

  Leon’s smile was tinged with grimness. He hadn’t forgotten why he was in Edinburgh. ‘As long as it takes, Jimmy.’

  ‘Let me see. He won the British under-fifteen title when he was only thirteen. I was coaching the national squad at the time and I said as soon as I saw him throw that he was the best chance of an Olympic gold that we’d had in a generation.’ He shook his head. ‘I wasn’t wrong. Poor bugger. Nobody deserves to watch the event they should be winning when they’re trying to learn how to use an artificial limb.’ Leon understood the implied but unspoken, ‘not even Jacko Vance’.

  ‘He never considered doing the disabled games?’ Leon asked.

  Jimmy snorted derisively. ‘Jacko? That would have meant admitting he was disabled.’

  ‘So you became his coach when he was thirteen?’

  ‘That’s right. He was a worker, I’ll say that for him. He was lucky, living in London, because he had good access to me and to the facilities, and by Christ, he made the most of it. I used to ask him, did he not have a home to go to?’

  ‘And what did he say to that?’

  ‘Ach, he’d just shrug. I got the impression that his mother wasn’t bothered what he was doing as long as he was out from under her feet. She was away from his father by then, of course. Separated, divorced, whatever.’

  ‘Did his parents not come along, then?’

  Jimmy shook his head. ‘Never saw the mother. Not a once. His dad came to one meeting. I think it was the time he was going for the British junior record, but he blew it. I mind his dad took the piss out of him good style. I took him to one side and told him if he couldn’t back his boy up, he wasn’t welcome.’

  ‘How did he take that?’

  Jimmy took a gulp of tea and said, ‘Ach, stupid bastard called me a bum boy. I just told him to fuck right off, and that was the last we saw of him.’

  Leon made a mental note. He knew Tony would be interested in this. As he saw it, the young Jacko had been desperate for attention. His mother was indifferent, his father absent and his whole being was focused on his sporting achievement in the hope that somehow that would win him approval.
‘So, was he lonely, Jacko?’ He lit a cigarette, ignoring the disapproving look on the coach’s narrow face.

  Jimmy considered the question. ‘He could mess about with the best of them, but he wasn’t really one of the lads, know what I mean? He was too dedicated. He couldn’t loosen up enough. Not that he was a loner. No, he always had Jillie in tow, hanging around him, telling him he was wonderful.’

  ‘So they were devoted to each other?’

  ‘She was devoted to him. He was devoted to himself, but he liked the adoration. Unconditional, like you get from a collie dog. Mind you, even Jillie got the hump sometimes. I moved heaven and earth to keep that pair together. Whenever she got fed up with taking the back seat to his training or competitions, I used to bolster her up with how great she’d feel when he stood there on the Olympic rostrum picking up the gold. I’d say, most girls, the only gold they ever got was a poxy wedding ring, but she was going to get a gold medal.’

  ‘And that was enough, was it?’

  Jimmy shrugged, wafting Leon’s smoke away with one hand. ‘To be honest, it got so that was the only thing that kept her going. When he started competing on the senior circuit, and Jillie was that wee bit older, she started taking notice of the way the other lads treated their girls. And Jacko didn’t stand up too well to the comparison. If he hadn’t have lost his arm, she might just have put up with it for the acclaim and the cash that went with it, because athletes were just about starting to make megabucks around then and the writing was on the wall for more to come. But as soon as she decided he wasn’t going to be a cash machine or a household name, she got shot of him.’

  Leon was on full alert. ‘I thought he dumped her? Didn’t I read at the time that he broke off the engagement because he wasn’t the man she’d signed up for and it wasn’t fair to tie her down? Something like that?’

  Jimmy’s mouth curled into a contemptuous smile. ‘So you fell for that load of toffee? That was just the story Jacko leaked to the press, to make him look like the big man instead of the sad bastard who’d been dumped.’

  So Shaz might well have been right, Leon thought. Circumstance had piled two traumatic stressors right on top of each other. First Vance had lost his arm and his future. Then he had lost the one person who had believed in him as a human being rather than as a throwing machine. It would take a strong man to survive that unscathed; a warped one would need to take revenge against a world that had done this to him. Leon stubbed out his cigarette and said, ‘Did he tell you the truth?’