The Wire in the Blood

by Val McDermid

  ‘The girl with the crushed arm?’

  ‘That’s the one. The case has cropped up in connection with another investigation. We think we’re looking at a serial killer, and it’s possible that Barbara Fenwick is the only one of his victims where the body’s turned up. Which makes your postmortem pretty significant.’

  ‘Which it will still be on Monday morning,’ the professor said briskly.

  ‘Yeah, but the girl we think he’s holding might not make it that long,’ Chris said.

  ‘Ah. You’d better fire away then, Sergeant.’

  ‘Retired Superintendent Scott told my colleagues that you had thought, but didn’t put in your report, that the arm looked like it might have been crushed deliberately in something like a vice rather than accidentally, is that right?’

  ‘That was my opinion, but it was only speculation. Not the sort of fanciful thing I’d put in a formal postmortem report unless I had considerably stronger grounds for my belief,’ she said repressively.

  ‘But if you were pressed, you’d say that?’

  ‘If I were asked directly if it were possible, yes, I’d have to agree.’

  ‘Was there anything else you didn’t write down because it was “fanciful”?’ Chris asked.

  ‘Not that I can think of.’

  ‘I know you said you didn’t put it in your formal report, but would you have put something in your notes to that effect?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ the professor said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. ‘That way, if it became important later, the prosecution could introduce it more readily.’

  Chris closed her eyes momentarily in a short prayer. ‘And have you still got your notes?’

  ‘Of course. In fact, I’ve got something even better than that.’

  * * *

  The cafe of the motorway services at Hartshead Moor on the M62 had never been anyone’s idea of a good Saturday night out, which made it perfect for their purposes. The ad hoc investigative team was now augmented by Chris Devine, who had slotted in as if she’d always been there. Already, it seemed she and Carol were about to sign up as blood sisters, both because of their common experiences in the Job and because they were the nearest thing the team had to senior officers.

  The group had colonized a distant corner with no prospect of being overheard or disturbed since it was right on the border of the smoking area. Leon, dispirited at drawing a blank, was buoyed up by Kay’s results. But Simon’s face was showing signs of strain inevitable in a man whose name was on the wanted list, turned on by the very group who had given him a sense of community. Tony wondered how long the younger man could stand it without his judgement slipping dangerously.

  Carol cut into his thoughts. ‘I’ve arranged for Kay to meet a friend of my brother who can enhance these pictures for us, to cut the margin of doubt to the bone.’

  ‘You’re not coming along?’ Kay asked, looking slightly worried.

  ‘Carol has responsibilities in East Yorkshire tonight,’ Tony said. ‘Is that a problem, Kay?’

  She looked embarrassed. ‘Not a problem, not as such. It’s just … well, I don’t know this bloke, and he’s doing this as a favour, right?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Carol said. ‘Michael says he owes him.’

  ‘It’s just that … well, if I want to push a bit harder, you know, if I don’t think he’s going to the max because he can’t be bothered, or it’s going to cost too much, I can’t actually lean on him the way Carol could.’

  ‘She’s got a point,’ Chris affirmed from the smoking table she was occupying with Leon. ‘She’s not even the one who’s asked for the favour. And it’s Saturday night. Even computer nerds must have something better to do than a favour for somebody who can’t be bothered to turn up in person. That’ll be how it looks. I think Carol should be there.’

  Carol stirred her sludgy coffee. ‘You’re right. I can’t fault your logic. But I can’t afford to be off my patch tonight.’ She glanced at her watch and made rapid calculations.

  ‘No, Carol,’ Tony said hopelessly, knowing already he was wasting his breath.

  ‘If we left now … we could be there by nine … I could be back in Seaford by one at the latest. And nothing ever happens before then…’ Coming to a decision, Carol grabbed her coat and bag. ‘All right. Come on, Kay, we’re off.’ As they walked towards the door with Kay scrambling to catch up, Carol turned. ‘Chris – good hunting.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’ Leon demanded aggressively, lighting another cigarette from the butt of the one he’d been smoking. ‘I feel like I’ve wasted a whole day fucking about with motorway cameras. I want to be doing something worthwhile, you know?’

  Tony was glad Chris Devine had come to join them; he had a feeling he was going to have to rely on her experience now the others were starting to fray round the edges. ‘Nobody’s been wasting their time, Leon. We’ve come a long way today,’ he said calmly. ‘We need to build on that. The information Chris has got from the pathologist is a big step forward. But on its own, it’s still not worth a whole lot. He profiles right. Everything we learn about him puts another tick in the box. But we’re still in the realms of supposition.’

  ‘Even with a victim with a crushed right arm?’ Simon asked incredulously. ‘Come on, that’s got to be a clincher. What more do we need, for God’s sake?’

  ‘Given the kind of lawyers Jack the Lad is going to be able to afford, we’d be laughed out of court – always supposing we got that far,’ Tony said. ‘I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.’

  ‘The crushed arm is good stuff,’ Chris said. ‘But it’s not a lot of use as an isolated case. What we need is something to compare it with. Only so far there haven’t been any bodies, right?’ The others nodded. ‘But you reckon he’d got another one just before Shaz fronted him up? Well then, chances are he’d started on her but he hadn’t finished. So we find her, we tie her to him, and we’ve got him. Anything wrong with that?’

  ‘No, except we don’t know where he keeps them before he kills them,’ Tony said.

  ‘Course we don’t. Or do we?’

  If they’d been dogs, their ears would have pricked up. ‘Go on,’ Tony encouraged her.

  ‘The great thing about being a dyke my age is that when I was getting into the scene, everyone who had a job was in the closet. Now, half the women I used to drink with are bosses all over the shop. One of them just happens be a partner in the agency that handles Jacko’s publicity.’ She pulled out a sheaf of fax paper from inside her jacket. ‘Jacko’s schedule for the last six weeks. Now, unless he’s Superman or his wife is in on this, there’s only one area of the country he could possibly be keeping this kid.’ She leaned back and watched them cotton on to what had leapt out at her.

  Tony ran his hand through his hair. ‘I know he’s got a cottage up there. But it’s a huge area. How can we narrow it down?’

  ‘He could be using his own place,’ Leon said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Simon butted in eagerly. ‘Let’s get up there, take a look at this hideaway.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Chris said. ‘He’s been so careful about everything else, I can’t believe he’d do something so risky.’

  ‘Where’s the risk?’ Tony demanded. ‘He brings the girls there under cover of darkness, they’re never seen or heard from again. There’s never a trace of the bodies. But Jack the Lad does volunteer work at the hospital in Newcastle. They must have an incinerator. He’s always pushing the image of himself as being a man with the common touch. I’d guess he regularly pops down to the boiler room, having a natter with the lads. And if he helps them load the incinerator from time to time, well, who’s going to notice the extra bag of body parts?’

  A chilled silence fell over the group. Tony scratched the stubble on his chin. ‘I should have worked this out before now. He’s a control freak. The only killing ground he’d trust would be one he had total control over.’

  ‘So let’s go.’ Simon said, pushing his cup away an
d reaching for his jacket.

  ‘No,’ Tony said firmly. ‘Simon, this is not the time for Action Man tactics. We need to plan carefully here. We can’t just go charging in mob-handed and hope what we find justifies the action. His lawyers would make mincemeat of us. We need to have a strategy.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say, man,’ Leon said. ‘You’re not the one the cops are looking to arrest. You can sleep in your own bed at night. Simon needs this to be sorted.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ Chris said mildly. ‘It wouldn’t hurt to do a trawl locally with pictures of Donna Doyle. Looking at his timetable, she must have got there under her own steam. I bet he sends them up on the train or the coach. We need to blitz the bus terminal and the train station, talk to the staff. And the locals. If there’s a small local station near to Jack the Lad’s hideaway, somebody might have seen her getting off the train.’

  Simon stood up, dark eyes burning. ‘So what are we waiting for?’

  ‘No point in hitting it before morning,’ Chris said.

  ‘It’s a two and a half hour drive from here. We’re not doing anything better, are we? Let’s go now, find a cheap hotel and get cracking first thing in the morning. You up for it, Leon?’

  Leon stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Long as I don’t have to go in your car. What’re you driving, Chris?’

  ‘You wouldn’t like my music. We’ll take all the cars. OK, Tony?’

  ‘OK. Provided you stay well away from his house. I have your word on that, Chris?’

  ‘You got my word, Tony.’

  ‘That go for you two? Bearing in mind Chris is technically your senior officer?’

  Leon scowled but gave a grudging nod. Simon, too, conceded. ‘OK. I probably shouldn’t be making the decisions anyway.’

  ‘What’ve you got planned, Tony?’ Chris asked.

  ‘I’m going home to draw up a full profile based on all we know now. I can’t say I blame you for wanting to hare off up the A1, but if Carol and Kay come back with the goods, I’m proposing we go to West Yorkshire first thing in the morning and persuade them to make this official. So, nothing except local inquiries until we’ve spoken. OK?’

  Chris nodded sombrely. ‘Trust me, Tony. Shaz meant too much to me to risk fucking this up.’

  If she’d been trying to take the gung-ho madness out of the two male officers’ eyes, she succeeded. Even Leon stopped bouncing on the balls of his feet. ‘I hadn’t forgotten that,’ Tony said. ‘Or how much she wanted to catch Jack the Lad.’

  ‘I know,’ Chris said. ‘Fucking mad bitch, she’d have loved this.’

  * * *

  Once upon a time she’d understood most of what there was to know about computers, Carol thought wistfully. Back around 1989, she was almost as much of a whizz with CP/M and DOS as her brother. But she’d gone into the police force and it had eaten up her life. While she’d been getting to grips with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, Michael had been assimilating software and hardware that often moved forward on a daily basis. Now she was the one-eyed woman in the kingdom of 20/20 vision. She knew enough to crunch numbers and process words, to retrieve lost files from limbo and to rewrite boot files so that a reluctant machine could be persuaded to talk to its user. But ten minutes with her brother and his mate Donny and she knew that, these days, this was the culinary equivalent of being able to boil a kettle. From the look on Kay’s face, it wasn’t any better for her. It was just as well she’d come along, Carol thought. At least she had enough knowledge to know when the boys were spinning off into a world of their own and the authority to drag them back to the job in hand.

  The two men sitting in front of a computer screen the size of a pub TV muttered to each other incomprehensibly about video drivers, local buses and smart caches. Carol knew what the words meant, but she couldn’t connect them to anything they were doing with keyboard and mouse. Donny, Michael had told her, was the best man in the north when it came to computer-enhancing photographs or video stills. And he just happened to work in the same building where Michael’s software company had its suite of offices. And, in spite of Chris’s convictions, he was so devoid of a life that he was thrilled to be dragged away from The X Files and a microwave dinner to show off his toys.

  Carol and Kay looked over their shoulders at the screen. Donny had already done everything he could with the number plate, yielding confirmation of the last two letters and a strong probability of a match with the third. Now he was working on the driver. He’d already tweaked and twiddled with some full-length shots of the man, pronouncing himself finally satisfied with one and printing out a couple of colour copies for the two women to pore over. The more Carol looked, the more convinced she was that under the Nike baseball cap and behind the aviator glasses, Jacko Vance was peeking out at her. ‘What do you think?’ she asked Kay.

  ‘I don’t know if you’d pick him out of a line-up, but if you know who you’re looking for, I think you can tell it’s him.’

  Now, without any prompting from them, Donny was working on a head and shoulders of the man who’d filled the Golf with petrol at lunchtime on the Saturday Shaz Bowman died. It was hard to find a good shot to work with because the peak of the cap shaded his face most of the time when he wasn’t actually bending over the fuel tank. Only by advancing one frame at a time did Donny finally come up with a single shot where the man in the cap glanced swiftly up at the pump to check how much petrol he’d taken.

  Watching Donny painstakingly improve the quality of the picture was agonizing. Carol couldn’t keep her eyes off her watch, gripped with the knowledge that she should be elsewhere and if anything happened in Seaford she’d be in deep shit. The minutes crawled by while the powerful processor drove a search through the computer’s massive memory for the next best alternative to the pixels on the screen. Although it was making more calculations per second than the human brain could comfortably comprehend, the computer seemed to Carol to take forever. At last, Donny turned away from the screen and pushed his own baseball cap back on his head. ‘Best you’re going to get,’ he said. ‘Funny, he looks familiar. Is he supposed to?’

  ‘Can you print me off half a dozen copies?’ Carol said. She felt mean ignoring his good-natured question, but it wasn’t the time or place to tell Donny that, apart from cheeks that were undeniably too chubby, the face he’d recreated was that of the nation’s favourite TV personality.

  Michael was either quicker on the uptake or more familiar with the medium. ‘He looks like Jacko Vance, that’s what’s got you confused, Donny,’ he said innocently.

  ‘Yeah, right, that dickhead,’ Donny said, swinging round in his chair and blinking at the women. ‘Fucking hell, shame it’s not him you’re going to arrest. You’d be doing the world a favour, getting that shit he does off the box. Sorry I couldn’t get a better head shot, but there wasn’t a lot to go on. Where did you say you got the tape from?’

  ‘M1 services. Watford Gap,’ Kay said.

  ‘Yeah, right. Pity you weren’t looking for your man in Leeds.’

  ‘Leeds?’ Carol leapt on the word. ‘Why Leeds?’

  ‘Cos that’s where the state-of-the-art CCTV development company is. Seesee Visions. They are the total business. They think civil liberties is that posh but polite department store in London.’ He laughed at his own bad joke. ‘Double wicked fuckers, they are. You can’t miss them. That sodding great smoked glass monolith just after the end of the motorway. You want somebody coming off the M1 at Leeds, they’ve got it taped.’

  ‘What do you mean, somebody coming off at Leeds?’ Carol’s fingers were twitching with the desire to grab Donny by the shirt and make him get to the point.

  Donny cast his eyes upwards as if he were tired of dealing with mental defectives. ‘Right. History lesson. Nineteenth-century Britain. Little pockets of mains water supply, gas providers, railway companies. Gradually, they all linked up to make national utilities. With me so far?’

  ‘And there’s me thinking nerds knew nothin
g about the Victorian era apart from Charles Babbage,’ Carol snapped. ‘OK, Donny, we did the Industrial Revolution at school. Can we get to CCTV?’

  ‘OK, OK, be chill. CCTV is kind of like the baby utilities were then. But soon it won’t be. Soon we’re going to have all these inner-city systems linking up with private security systems and motorway cameras and we’re going to have a national network of CCTV. And these systems will be so finely tuned that they can recognize you or your wheels and if you’re not supposed to be some place, then the big fuck-off security guards are gonna remove you. Like if you’re a convicted shoplifter and Marks and Sparks don’t want you hanging out in their food hall, or you’re a known perv and your local launderette doesn’t want you in there ogling the knickers –’ He made a throat-cutting gesture.

  ‘So what exactly has all this got to do with the M1?’

  ‘Seesee Vision are the masters of the universe when it comes to leading-edge techno. And they test all their new gear on the traffic flow off the M1. Their stuff is so well developed they can give you a high-res picture of the drivers and the front-seat passengers, never mind baby stuff like number plates.’ Donny shook his head in wonder. ‘I went for a job there, but I didn’t like it. You could tell it was seagull city.’

  ‘Seagull city?’ Carol asked faintly.

  ‘The bosses fly in, do a lot of screaming, grab everything worth having, crap over everybody and fly out again. Not my scene.’

  ‘Do you think they’d co-operate with me?’

  ‘They’d wet their pants. They’re desperate to make a big impression on your lot. When this national network finally creaks into being, they want to be in the driving seat. The company of choice.’

  Carol looked at her watch. It was after ten. She should be heading back to Seaford, on the spot if her team had to swing into action. Besides, no one in authority would be at Seesee Vision at this time of night.

  Donny spotted her glance and read her mind. ‘There’ll be somebody there this time of night, if that’s what you’re wondering. Give them a bell. You got nothing to lose.’