by Val McDermid
By the time she ended her recital, they were both grinning. ‘Anyway, the local lads did me the favour of re-arresting him when they got there.’
‘What about charging him?’
Carol looked depressed. ‘They’re waiting for Vance’s brief to arrive. But they’re running very scared. They’ve seen your dossier and they’ve interviewed Kay and Simon and Leon, but they’re still wary. It’s not over, Tony. Not by a long way. The fat lady hasn’t even arrived yet.’
‘I just wish that they hadn’t opened that cellar. That they’d staked the place out and witnessed him opening it and going down there with Donna’s body.’
Carol sighed. ‘She hadn’t been dead long, did you know?’
‘No.’
‘The police surgeon thought less than twenty-four hours.’ They sat in silence, each wondering what they could have done better or faster, whether more or less orthodoxy could have won them a faster response. Carol broke the uneasy stillness. ‘If we can’t put Vance away, I don’t think I want to be a copper any more.’
‘You feel like that because of what happened to Di Earnshaw,’ Tony said, laying his hand on her arm.
‘I feel like that because Vance is a lethal weapon and if we can’t neutralize the likes of him, we’re nothing more than glorified traffic wardens,’ she said bitterly.
‘And if we can?’
She shrugged. ‘Then maybe we redeem ourselves for the ones we lose.’
They sat in silence, sipping coffee. Then Tony ran a hand through his hair and said, ‘Have they got a good pathologist?’
‘I’ve no idea. Why?’
Before he could answer, the door opened on the worried face of Phil Marshall, the superintendent in charge of the division. ‘Dr Hill? Could I have a word?’
‘Come in, it’s a shop,’ Carol muttered.
Marshall closed the door behind him. ‘Vance wants to talk to you. Alone. He’s happy for the conversation to be taped, but he wants it to be just you and him.’
‘What about his brief?’ Carol asked.
‘He says he just wants Dr Hill and himself. What do you say, Doc? Will you talk to him?’
‘We’ve got nothing to lose, have we?’
Marshall winced. ‘From where I’m standing, we’ve got quite a lot to lose, actually. Frankly, I want evidence to charge Vance with or else I want him out of here within the day. I’m going to no magistrate to ask if I can keep Jacko Vance under lock and key on the basis of what you’ve given me so far.’
Tony took out his notebook and tore out a sheet of paper, scribbling down a name and number. He handed it to Carol. ‘This is who we need to get up here. Can you explain to them while I’m in with Jack the Lad?’
Carol read what he’d written and comprehension lit up her tired eyes. ‘Of course.’ She reached out and squeezed his hand. ‘Good luck.’
Tony nodded, then followed Marshall down the corridor. ‘We’ll be taping it, of course,’ Marshall said. ‘We’ve got to be squeaky clean on this one. He’s already talking about suing DCI Jordan.’ He stopped outside an interview room and opened the door. He nodded to the uniformed officer in the corner and the man left.
Tony stepped into the room and stared at his adversary. He couldn’t believe that there was still no dent in that arrogant exterior, no crack in the charming facade. ‘Dr Hill,’ Vance said, not a tremor in the professionally smooth voice. ‘I wish I could say it was a pleasure, but that would be too much of a lie for anyone to swallow. A bit like your insane accusations.’
‘Dr Hill has agreed to talk to you,’ Marshall interrupted. ‘We will be taping the conversation. I’ll leave you now.’
He backed out and Vance waved Tony to a chair. The psychologist shook his head and leaned against the wall, arms folded. ‘What did you want me for?’ Tony asked. ‘A confession?’
‘If I wanted confession, I’d have asked for a priest. I wanted to see you face to face to tell you that as soon as I get out of here I will be suing you and DCI Jordan for slander.’
Tony laughed. ‘Go ahead. We’re neither of us worth a fraction of your annual earnings. You’ll be the one who ends up shelling out a fortune in legal costs. Me, I’d relish the opportunity to get you on a witness stand under oath.’
‘That’s something you’ll never achieve.’ Vance leaned back in his chair. His eyes were cold, his smile reptilian. ‘These trumped-up accusations won’t stand up in the cold light of day. What have you got? This dossier of yours with its doctored photographs and circumstantial coincidences. “Here’s Jacko Vance on the M1 at Leeds the night Shaz Bowman died.” Well, yes, that’s because my second home is in Northumberland and that’s the best way to get there.’ His sonorous voice dripped sarcasm.
‘What about, “Here’s Jacko Vance with a body in the cellar”? Or, “Here’s a photo of Jacko Vance with the dead girl from his cellar when she was still living, breathing and laughing”?’ Tony asked, keeping his voice level and mild. Let Vance get worked up, let him be the one to strain at the leash of his self-control.
Vance’s response was a sardonic smile. ‘It was your officers who provided the answer to that,’ he said. ‘They were the ones who raised the possibility of a stalker. It’s not so unlikely. Stalkers become obsessed with their targets. I don’t find it too hard to imagine a stalker tracking me back to Northumberland. Everybody locally knows Doreen Elliott keeps a set of my keys and, like most of the people round here, she never locks her door if she’s only popping next door for a cup of tea, or down to her vegetable garden to dig some potatoes. Child’s play to borrow the keys and have a set made.’
As he warmed to his theme, his smile broadened and his body language grew more relaxed. ‘It’s also common knowledge that I had a nuclear shelter built in the chapel crypt. Slightly embarrassing in these days of détente, but I can live with that,’ Vance continued, leaning forward now, his prosthesis resting on the table, his other arm hooked over the back of the chair. ‘And let’s not forget the very public vendetta with my ex-fiancée who, as you rightly pointed out, bears a strong resemblance to these poor missing girls. I mean, wouldn’t you think you were doing me a favour by killing her image if you were obsessed with me?’ His grin was positively triumphal.
‘And you are, aren’t you, Dr Hill? Or rather, as I will take great pleasure in explaining to the world’s press, you’re obsessed with my wife, I believe. Shaz Bowman’s tragic death gave you the opportunity to force your way into our lives and when dear, sweet Micky agreed to have dinner with you, you formed the view that without me, she’d fall into your arms. And your sad delusion has brought us to this point.’ He shook his confident head pityingly.
Tony lifted his head and stared into a pair of eyes that could have come from Mars for all the humanity they contained. ‘You killed Shaz Bowman. You killed Donna Doyle.’
‘You’ll never prove that. Since it’s a complete fabrication, you’ll never prove it,’ Vance said with an air of nonchalance. Then he raised one arm and covered first his eyes, then his mouth and finally, stroked his ear. To a casual observer, it was merely the gesture of a tired man. Tony read it instantly as the taunt it was.
He pushed off from the wall and took two long steps across the room. Leaning on his fists, he thrust his face into Vance’s personal space. In spite of himself, the TV star craned his head back like a tortoise retreating into its shell. ‘You may be right,’ Tony said. ‘It is entirely possible that we will never nail you for Shaz Bowman or Donna Doyle. But I’ll tell you something, Jacko. You weren’t always this good. We’ll get you for Barbara Fenwick.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Vance said contemptuously.
Tony stood up and slowly began to stroll around the confined space as leisurely as if it were the local park. ‘Twelve years ago when you killed Barbara Fenwick there were a lot of things forensic science couldn’t do. Take toolmarks, for example. Pretty crude, the comparisons they made back then. But these days, they’ve got scanning electron
microscopes and back-scatter electron microscopes. Don’t ask me how they work, but they can compare an injury to an implement and say whether the two match up. Within the next few days, they’ll be matching the bones in Donna Doyle’s damaged arm to the vice in your house.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘With a bit of luck, the pathologist will be on her way now. Professor Elizabeth Stewart. I don’t know if you’ve heard of her, but she has a terrific reputation in forensic anthropology as well as pathology. If anyone can find the match between your vice and Donna’s injuries, it’s Liz Stewart. Now, I realize that doesn’t implicate you if we accept the fantasy you’ve been spinning here.’
He turned slowly to face Vance. ‘But it would if the vice matched Barbara Fenwick’s bone injuries, wouldn’t it? Serial killers often like to use the same weapon for all their murders. But it’s hard to imagine a stalker who’s followed you around on a killing spree for twelve years and never put a foot wrong, don’t you think?’
This time, he saw a flicker of uncertainty in Vance’s confident mask. ‘What utter rubbish. Just for the sake of argument, even if you got an exhumation order, no Crown Prosecutor is going to push a case that depends on a mark on a piece of bone that’s been in the ground for twelve years.’
‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Tony said. ‘But you see, the pathologist who did the postmortem on Barbara Fenwick had never seen injuries quite like that. They intrigued her. And she is a university professor. Professor Elizabeth Stewart, actually. She applied to the Home Office to retain Barbara Fenwick’s arm so she could use it as a teaching aid. To illustrate the effect on bone and flesh of blunt trauma from compression. Funnily enough, she noticed that there was a slight imperfection on the bottom edge of the implement that inflicted the injuries. A tiny projection of metal that made a mark in bone as distinctive as a fingerprint.’ He let the words hang in the air. Vance’s eyes never left his face.
‘When Professor Stewart moved to London, she left the arm behind. For the last twelve years, Barbara Fenwick’s arm has been perfectly preserved in the anatomy department of Manchester University.’ Tony smiled gently. ‘One solid piece of irrefutable evidence tying you to a weapon used on a murder victim, and suddenly the circumstantial looks very different, don’t you think?’
He walked to the door and opened it. ‘And by the way—I don’t fancy your wife in the slightest. I’ve never been so inadequate that I had to hide behind a lesbian.’
In the corridor, Tony signalled to the uniformed officer by the door that he should go back into the interview room. Then, exhausted by the effort of confronting Vance, he leaned against the wall, sliding down into a squat, elbows on knees and hands over his face.
He was still there ten minutes later when Carol Jordan emerged from the viewing room where she and Marshall had watched the encounter between the hunter and the killer. She crouched in front of him and took his head between her hands. He looked into her face. ‘What do you think?’ he said anxiously.
‘You convinced Phil Marshall,’ she said. ‘He’s spoken to Professor Stewart. She wasn’t too thrilled at being woken in the middle of the night, but when Marshall explained what was what, she got really excited. There’s a train gets in from London around nine. She’ll be on it, with her famous slides of the injury. Marshall’s organized someone to go over and collect Barbara Fenwick’s arm from Manchester University first thing. If it looks like a match, they’ll charge him.’
Tony closed his eyes. ‘I just hope he’s still using the same vice.’
‘Oh, I think you’ll find he is,’ Carol said eagerly. ‘We were watching. You couldn’t see from where you were, but when you hit him with Professor Stewart and her preserved arm, his right leg started jittering up and down. He couldn’t control it. He’s still got the same vice. I’d stake my life on it.’
Tony felt a smile gather the corners of his mouth. ‘I think the fat lady just landed.’ He put his arms round Carol and stood up, bringing her with him. He held her at arm’s length and grinned down at her.
‘You did a great job in there. I’m really proud to be on your team.’ Her face was solemn, her eyes grave.
Tony dropped his arms and took a deep breath. ‘Carol, I’ve been running away from you for a long time,’ he said.
Carol nodded. ‘I think I understand why.’ She looked down, reluctant to meet his eyes now they were finally having this conversation.
‘Oh?’
The muscles along her jaw tightened, then she looked up at him. ‘I didn’t have blood on my hands. So I could never understand what it feels like to be you. Di Earnshaw’s death changed that. And the fact that neither of us could save Donna…’
Tony nodded bleakly. ‘It’s not a comfortable thing to have in common.’
Carol had often visualized a moment like this between them. She had thought she knew what she wanted to happen. Now, she was taken aback to find her responses so different from what she had imagined. She put a hand on his forearm and said, ‘It’s easier for friends to share than lovers, Tony.’
He gazed at her for a long moment, frowning. He thought of the bodies Jacko Vance had incinerated in the hospital where he gave his time to sit with the dying. He thought of the loss of what Shaz Bowman could have achieved. He thought of all the other deaths that still lay ahead of them both. And he thought of redemption, not through work, but through friendship. His face cleared and he smiled. ‘You know, I think you could be right.’
Epilogue
Murder was like magic, he thought. The quickness of his hand had always deceived the eye, and that was how it was going to stay. They thought they had him trapped, sewn into a bag and wrapped with chains of guilt. They thought they were lowering him into a tank of proof that would drown him. But he was Houdini. He would burst free when they least expected it.
Jacko Vance lay on the narrow police cell bed, the real arm tucked behind his head. He stared at the ceiling, remembering how he had felt in hospital, the only other place where he’d had no choice about staying put. There had been pockets of despair and impotent anger and he knew those would probably afflict him again before he was free of this place and others like it. But when he’d been in hospital, he’d known he would be free of it all one day and he’d focused all his powerful intelligence on shaping that moment.
True, he’d had Micky’s help then. He wondered if he could still rely on her. He thought that as long as he could cast credible doubt, she would stand by him. As soon as it looked like he was going under, she’d be gone. Since he had no intention of letting that happen, he thought he could probably be sure of her.
The evidence was flimsy. But he couldn’t deny that Tony Hill was impressive in his command of it. He would be hard to discredit in a courtroom, even if Vance succeeded in planting advance press stories accusing the psychologist of being obsessed with Micky. And there was a risk there. Hill had somehow discovered that Micky was a lesbian. If he leaked that in response to an accusation against him, it would do serious damage both to Micky’s credibility and his own image as a man who needed no other woman but his adorable wife.
No, if it came to a court battle, even with a jury of telly addicts, Vance would be at risk. He had to make certain it never went past a preliminary hearing. He had to destroy the evidence against him, to demonstrate there was no case to answer.
The greatest threat came from the pathologist and her reading of the toolmarks. If he could discredit that, there were only circumstantial details. Together, they weighed heavy, but individually, they could be undermined. The vice was too solid a piece of substantiation to submit to that.
The first step was to cast doubt on whether the arm from the university really belonged to Barbara Fenwick. In a university pathology department, it could not be held under the sort of security of a police evidence room. Anyone could have had access to it over the years. It could even have been replaced with another arm deliberately crushed in his vice by, say, a police officer determined to frame him. Or students could have swapped it in
some macabre prank. Yes, a little work there could force a few cracks into the reliability of the preserved arm.
The second step was to prove the vice had not belonged to him when Barbara Fenwick had died. He lay on the hard mattress and racked his brains to find an answer. ‘Phyllis,’ he eventually murmured, a sly smile creeping across his face. ‘Phyllis Gates.’
She’d had terminal cancer. It had started in her left breast then worked its way through her lymphatic system and finally, agonizingly, into her spine. He’d spent several nights by her bedside, sometimes talking, sometimes simply holding her hand in silence. He loved the sense of power that working with the virtual dead gave him. They’d be gone, and he would still be here, on top of the world. Phyllis Gates was long gone, but her twin brother Terry was alive and well. Presumably he was still running his market stall.
Terry sold tools. New and second-hand. Terry credited Vance with the only happiness his sister had known in the last weeks of her life. Terry would walk on hot coals for Vance. Terry would think telling a jury he’d sold the vice to Vance only a couple of years previously was the least he could do to repay the debt.
Vance sat upright, stretching out his arms like a hero accepting the adulation of the crowd. He’d worked it out. He was as good as a free man. Murder was indeed like magic. And one day soon, Tony Hill would find that out for himself. Vance could hardly wait.
Acknowledgements
It’s hard to imagine how I could have written this book without a lot of help from several key people. For their specialist knowledge and willingness to give so freely of their expertise, I’d like to thank Sheila Radford, Dr Mike Berry, Jai Penna, Paula Tyler and Dr Sue Black. I owe an apology to Edwina and Lesley, who ran around like headless chickens researching something that was cut in the rewrites. Without Jim and Simon at Thornton Electronics, Mac and Manda, I would almost certainly have had a complete nervous breakdown when the hard disk crashed. But the perseverance and perspicacity of three women in particular got me through to the end. For that reason, this book is for: