by Sarah Hilary
‘She’s on her way from Cloverton now,’ Noah said.
‘Good. I’ll see the pair of you in my office as soon as she gets here. Anything else?’ Glancing around the incident room. ‘No? Let’s crack on in that case.’
Marnie texted when she was within striking distance of the station. Noah went down to the car park, wanting to intercept her before Ferguson could launch an attack. Not that their new DCS had been doing much attacking of late, but Noah trusted Lorna Ferguson about as far as she could sprint in her daggered heels. Louboutins with red soles, as if she’d walked to work through an abattoir. He’d made his peace with her appointment, having little choice since Commander Tim Welland was on extended sick leave, but it was an uneasy peace, partly because Ferguson didn’t want anyone to get comfortable on her watch. She gave the clear impression she didn’t trust Marnie, Noah or anyone else to get the job done without her. The team had regrouped under her command, but no one was quite used to its new configuration and Ferguson’s impatient pugnacity did little to help.
‘Anything?’ Marnie pushed her red curls from her eyes, keeping one hand on the open car door. She’d parked in the only available space, between two pool vehicles.
‘Ferguson thinks the faces are a blind alley,’ Noah said. ‘We need to focus on finding Vokey. She agrees with Ron that the grave means he’s working his way up to killing. But still no leads, and no trail. No sightings, just the press heavy-breathing down the phones. How about at Cloverton? Did Aidan have anything for you?’
‘He knew Vokey had photos in his cell.’ Marnie reached into the car and pulled on her jacket, hiding the seat-belt creases in her white shirt. ‘Fan mail, he thought. Vokey bought charcoals from Aidan to draw pictures of the women who were writing to him. I quizzed one of the officers, but he was pretending he knew nothing about photos or letters.’
‘We cleared out the cell.’ Noah frowned. ‘There was nothing like that.’
‘Nothing we found.’ She took her bag from the passenger seat before locking the car and pocketing the keys. ‘Possibly because he took it all with him when he ran. But he couldn’t take these.’ She held up an evidence bag. ‘These only arrived in the prison post room three days ago.’
Noah took the bag from her. Five envelopes, letter-sized, postmarked, the prison’s address typed or handwritten under Vokey’s name and number. ‘More fan mail?’ he asked.
‘More mess.’ Marnie slung the messenger bag across her body, leaving her hands free. She was wearing a black suit that washed out what little colour she had.
As they crossed the car park and climbed the steps to the station, Noah watched her with a vigilance that was new but had felt necessary ever since the sequence of events seven weeks ago, which had put first Noah and then DS Harry Kennedy into hospital, victims of a vigilante who hadn’t known when or how to stop, until Marnie cracked the case. Like Harry, Noah had recovered from the physical assault. Marnie hadn’t been a victim in the same sense but she’d been psychologically damaged by the case, the sort of damage that goes deep. Little things like the time she took before she spoke, especially to DCS Ferguson, and the careful way she held herself as if anticipating pain. It reminded Noah of the way his mother was with Sol, back when his brother was a baby. She’d spend hours rocking Sol to sleep. When he finally cried himself out she’d hold him as if he were a live grenade and any small movement on her part might trigger an explosion. Marnie had been holding herself that way for weeks now, even before the vigilante case had closed. Noah had asked her, more than once, whether she was okay. The closest she’d come to an answer was, ‘Give me time.’ He was doing as she asked but it didn’t stop him from staying close, watching out for her the way she’d done for him during those first days after Sol’s arrest.
‘Any word from the hospital,’ Marnie was asking, ‘about Ted Elms?’
They climbed the final flight of stairs to the incident room.
‘Nothing new. And nothing on the other . . . victims.’
Noah nearly stumbled on the word. The men hospitalised by Vokey had been in Cloverton for good reason. Each had victims of his own, men, women and children injured by his actions. Stephen Keele was guilty of double murder.
‘Have you been to see him?’ He held the door open for Marnie.
‘Elms? Not since we last visited.’
‘Stephen, I meant. Sorry.’
She dropped her head, checking her phone for messages. ‘No visitors allowed.’
‘Still?’
‘Still.’ Her voice was steady, unemotional.
‘And you’re okay?’
She smiled at him, tucking the phone away. ‘I’m guessing Ferguson wants us in her office?’
Noah nodded. ‘Good guess.’
‘Let’s see what she makes of this fan mail.’ Marnie nodded at the handful of envelopes. ‘If nothing else, we have two addresses worth visiting.’
‘These women gave him their addresses?’
‘Addresses, photographs and their undivided attention.’ Marnie stopped to straighten the collar of her shirt, knotting her curls away from her face. ‘Everything a man like Michael Vokey could want, especially now he’s looking for a place to lie low.’
Noah could see the bones in her wrists, and at the nape of her neck. He wanted to let her know how much he was on her side. The loss of his mother’s trust had made him more vulnerable to other people’s pain, and Marnie was in pain, he was sure of it. Because of Stephen? Her parents’ murderer was lying in a hospital bed with smoke-damaged lungs and she couldn’t visit him, even assuming she wanted to.
‘Ted hadn’t any letters,’ Marnie was saying. ‘Just a seed catalogue.’
‘That ties with no next-of-kin. We’re his only visitors at the hospital.’ Noah stopped short of saying, ‘Poor sod,’ but he thought of Ted wired to the machinery and felt pity for the man who’d been Vokey’s cellmate, caught up in the madness which had prefaced Vokey’s escape.
‘One other thing,’ Marnie said. ‘Vokey’s mugshots. The official ones, and the Facebook ones.’
‘What did Aidan say?’
‘The same as everyone else. Nothing we have looks anything like him. Aidan couldn’t give me a clear description of what’s missing, says Vokey passed under his radar. He made the man sound like smoke, always shifting, never in focus.’ She reached to scratch at her ankle. ‘Not terribly helpful.’
‘Sol’s like that,’ Noah said. ‘Or he used to be. Has this talent for altering his appearance at will, depending who he’s with. The first time the police brought him home, I didn’t recognise him. Then Mum came into the room, and he was just Sol again.’
Marnie touched a hand to his elbow as she straightened. They smiled at one another, in solidarity. Pain could do this, Noah was learning. No matter how distinct or personal, how private it was, the pain brought you closer. Like prisoners tapping out messages on the wall that divides them, turning the separation into a connection.
‘It’s going to make him harder to find. If Vokey’s a shape-shifter.’
‘Infinitely harder,’ Marnie agreed. ‘Let’s see what Ferguson thinks about the fan mail.’ She glanced at Noah. ‘What sort of mood’s she in?’
‘Oh, the usual.’ He leavened it with a smile. ‘Impatient for results, but not yet explosive. I’d say we have six minutes to reach minimum safe distance.’
‘Too bad we’re headed in the opposite direction.’
6
‘Ask me where I draw the line.’ Lorna Ferguson was drinking tea from an insulated cup. ‘Go on.’ She pointed the brushed steel beaker, lollipop pink, at Noah. ‘Don’t be shy.’
‘Where do you draw the line, Ma’am?’
‘PMQs. DI Rome knows what I’m on about.’
‘Prime Minister’s Questions.’ Marnie drew out a chair and sat facing Ferguson. ‘Has it come to that?’
‘Some pimply-faced parasite from the arse end of the country needing to know what we’re doing to protect his yokels from our metropolitan
menace.’ Ferguson set the cup down next to her in-tray. ‘Why he reckons Michael Vokey would want to set foot in his constituency is anyone’s guess. I’ve had veggie curries with more meat in them.’ She thinned her lips. ‘As for Cloverton, don’t get me started. CCTV not doing its job, no one prepared to give evidence, eye witnesses all in hospital, a couple of them without any eyes, and they had him as a Cat-B prisoner?’
‘We have a theory about the silence,’ Noah said. ‘All the men inside Cloverton, including the officers, have wives or children. People they’re afraid for now that Vokey’s out.’
‘Well, it’s the thin end of a thick wedge and it gets right on my wires. We’re feeding the press too many headlines as it is.’
Marnie didn’t point out that it was Ferguson’s love of a press briefing that had sparked the red-top campaign to hold the Met accountable for its failure to find Vokey and return him to a prison cell. Even so, it was frightening how fast the spotlight had swung from Cloverton’s shortcomings to their own. ‘We have new leads.’ She shared the fan mail between Noah and Ferguson. ‘Two women who’ve been in contact with Vokey, possibly for some time. Ruth Hull, and Lara Chorley. They shared intimate details, including their home addresses.’
‘These letters were handed to Vokey with those sorts of details in them?’ Ferguson looked up sharply. ‘Cloverton allowed that to happen?’
‘Not officially. The post room’s insisting they’d have redacted information of that kind. They don’t routinely read letters, however. And Lara’s been using stationery from a solicitor’s office which means her letters are allowed through unread, as official correspondence.’
‘Funny sort of solicitor.’ Ferguson turned Lara’s letter over in her hand. ‘Unless we’re talking about the law of attraction, or diminishing returns.’ She reached for one of the other letters, reading it with her eyebrows raised. ‘Don’t these two know what he did to Julie Seton?’
‘They know exactly what he did,’ Noah said grimly. ‘This letter refers to Julie by name.’
‘Right,’ Ferguson decided. ‘I want a team at each of these addresses. If Vokey’s hiding out with one of these women, we’d better be prepared for that. If he’s not, I want them brought in here and interviewed. Either one of them could be hiding him, or helping him.’
‘Or they could be victims,’ Marnie said.
‘If the press get hold of these?’ Ferguson tossed the pages down, tapping them with a finger. ‘They’ll say these two were asking for it. Begging for it. And they’ll have a point.’
‘They believed he was safely behind bars.’ Marnie paused, picking her words with care. ‘We have to assume that. They can’t have known he’d escape and there’s nothing to suggest they encouraged or assisted him in any way. These letters were posted on or after the day of the riot, which makes me think they had no prior knowledge of his plans. They wrote these letters not knowing he’d be in a position to act on any of the information they disclosed.’
‘Back up.’ Ferguson chose a page at random and read out loud: ‘“Julie doesn’t know how lucky she is. If it were me, I’d let you do all that and more. I wouldn’t ever want you to stop. Don’t ever stop, darling. I’m here for you when you’re ready.” Excuse me if I say that doesn’t sound like someone I’m falling over myself to protect and serve.’
‘Even so,’ Marnie said quietly. ‘Unless we find evidence they’re assisting him, perhaps even if we find evidence of that, we need to treat these women as potential victims. Targets.’
‘Oh, they’re targets all right. Each one of them’s drawn a ruddy great sign on her chest. DS Jake.’ Ferguson swivelled her chair in Noah’s direction. ‘You’re unusually quiet. Don’t tell me this’s a pathology too far for you.’
Noah shook his head. ‘I agree with DI Rome. I’d be surprised if these women wanted anything other than letters back from Vokey, and possibly not even that.’
‘So it’s just the dubious thrill of writing to a convicted felon, is it? Well, let’s say that’s true. People get their kicks in funny ways and happen these two are bored rigid with daytime telly and want a rise out of someone safely under lock and key. Why hand over your address, why send dirty pictures? The post room didn’t have any photos? Ruth’s letter says she’s enclosing a new batch.’
‘This is everything they had,’ Marnie replied. ‘Or so I was told.’
‘In other words someone at Cloverton’s got a stash of Polaroids they’re not letting us see. Did you get to the bottom of that?’
Noah had never suffered from workplace irritation before DCS Ferguson pitched up here.
Marnie, on the other hand, appeared to be made of patience. ‘The post room removes and destroys explicit images, that’s the official line. Otherwise, as long as Vokey isn’t in any of the photographs, he’s allowed to keep them.’
‘No photos were found in his cell,’ Noah reminded them. ‘And no drawings. Aidan said he was drawing pictures of the women.’
‘How is Aidan?’ Ferguson put in. ‘As enchanting as ever?’
She’d had a run-in with Aidan Duffy seven weeks ago. Marnie was with her when it happened and from the little she’d told Noah, he wasn’t surprised Ferguson was having a hard time getting over the encounter. Aidan had a knack for finding the chink in your armour, and a passion for button pressing. If he’d played his usual games around Michael Vokey, he’d be in the hospital right now, in the bed next to Ted Elms.
Marnie replied, ‘Aidan says Michael passed under his radar.’
‘Oh really?’ Ferguson curled her lip. ‘Either his radar’s playing up, or he was making too much money slipping Michael whatever he wanted.’
‘Charcoals,’ Marnie said. ‘For drawing the women from the photos they sent.’
‘Where are these drawings?’
‘Officer Quayle said the fire destroyed everything we didn’t recover from the cell.’ Marnie paused. ‘But he was cagey about the whole idea of photos, and letters.’
‘He’s caught onto the size of the fan needed to deal with the shit they’re trying to deflect our way.’ Ferguson tapped a glossy fingernail on the desk. ‘I spoke with the arresting officer up in Leeds. He can’t believe Cloverton let Vokey pass himself off as Cat-B, said it was clear from one look in his eyes what sort of man he is. Stone-cold psycho.’
Marnie was aware of her silence in response to this. Aware too that Noah had her back, ready to lend his weight to whatever resistance she might offer to Ferguson’s theory.
Was Michael Vokey a psychopath? They knew he was a sadist with a vicious temper and enough animal cunning to evade capture in the days immediately after he’d attacked Julie Seton in her home, in front of her daughter. A strange assault, bloodless, leaving little physical evidence other than a traumatised mother and child. By all accounts he didn’t start the riot at Cloverton, certainly not single-handedly, but he’d been quick to escalate it. And he’d started the fire and escaped under cover of its smoke, knowing where the weak points were in the prison’s perimeter security. He’d done all this as a Cat-B prisoner with no recent record of bad behaviour to warrant isolation or special measures. That suggested an instinct for self-preservation. Marnie thought of the images on her phone, Vokey’s native camouflage. The arresting officer in Leeds might be right. They couldn’t in any case afford wishful thinking.
‘We’ll start putting together the teams for the house searches.’ She stood and collected the letters from Ferguson’s desk, knocking them into a neat pile in her hand. ‘I’ll let you know how we get on.’
In the corridor outside Ferguson’s office, Marnie turned to Noah. ‘Show me the pictures of the house in Ealing?’
He took her to the office on the second floor which he was using as an unofficial incident room. It was an odd shape, arrow-headed by the emergency installation of a new heating system behind a partition wall. Winter had put its boots through the old system: months of freezing pipes and icy windows. Confronted by a blue-lipped workforce wearing enough jum
pers to shame a Scandinavian crime drama, the budget holders had relented. The new heating system was a huge hit, until the temperature outside climbed above freezing. On those days, they swapped Scandinavia for Spain, with Ron threatening hourly to strip down to his boxers and a knotted handkerchief. One of the unexpected upsides of the new boiler was this extra space on the second floor. Too small to be useful as a regular office, it was invaluable as an overflow incident room. In here, Noah had recreated the room of faces from Marion Vokey’s house, using photos of the walls, floor and ceiling as it had looked before they took it all apart.
‘I keep thinking I’ll find patterns here,’ he told Marnie. ‘But perhaps it’s about the detail, the differences. There’s no order to the way he’s pinned the images. None that I’ve found, anyway.’
The colours created a kind of camouflage, pale splotches from faces, greens and browns and blues from eyes, mouths adding pinks and reds, yellows from the oil paints in the photos they’d unpinned from the floor. If you stared too long you started to see pixels, broken details in a map which might suddenly make sense seen from a sufficient distance.
‘Let’s find out whether Lara Chorley’s face is here,’ Marnie said. ‘And Ruth Hull’s. We need profiles for these women. We need to know if they were in direct contact with Vokey before Cloverton, or in the week since he ran.’ She nursed her neck with the curve of her hand. ‘And we need a better photograph of him. The ones we have . . . Everyone says he doesn’t look like that. No matter which picture we show them, it’s the same answer. He doesn’t look like that.’
Noah nodded, but he didn’t speak. It was important to let her look. Ron hadn’t wanted to see this room – ‘Being in that house was enough, thanks,’ – but Noah couldn’t shake the sense that this—
This was where they would find Michael Vokey.