The Retribution thacj-7

by Val McDermid

  ‘Fucking copper.’ She spat at him but he was fast enough to avoid the gob of spit.

  ‘You lied to me, bitch,’ he said. ‘I could really hurt you, and nobody would believe you. But that’s not what I want. I just want the truth. I don’t want the bastard who killed Leanne to do the same thing to another woman. I’ve just shown you how easy it is. How very, very vulnerable you are. So what happened on Tuesday night?’

  ‘You wouldn’t dare lay a finger on me,’ she said. ‘I’ll have you for assault, attempted rape, the lot.’

  Sam laughed. ‘Like anyone would believe a slag like you.’ He shifted his weight, straightened his fingers and jabbed his stiff hand under her ribs. She gasped with pain and shock. Sam remembered the secret thrill of being bad and tried not to let it ride him too hard. ‘I don’t want to hurt you – but I will. Tell me about Tuesday night.’

  ‘It was just like any night. Leanne came on about nine and did a few dances. She left around midnight. That’s all I know.’

  ‘Not good enough.’ Sam jabbed under the ribs again. ‘There’s more than that. What about the CCTV? You’ve got cameras on the car park. You’ve got cameras all over the club.’

  She gave a triumphant sneer. ‘They’re wiped. One of the barmen came in this morning and said the filth were showing photos of Leanne all over town, that she’d been murdered. The owner was in and he told me to wipe the tapes. He didn’t want a murdered tart connected to his nice clean business.’ It sounded like her contempt for her boss was on a par with her contempt for the police.

  ‘Did you look at the tapes before you wiped them?’

  She looked away. A guilty look, Sam thought.

  ‘What your barman didn’t know, because we haven’t told anybody yet, is that the bastard who killed Leanne wasn’t a beginner. He’s done this before. More than once. And if we don’t get him, you can bet he’ll do it again. And since you’re showing him what easy pickings he can get around here, chances are it’ll be one of your girls.’ Sam gave a jeering smile. ‘Or maybe even you.’

  The look she gave him was loaded with hate. ‘I took a quick look at the car park tapes around the time she left. I was curious. If one of our clients had anything to do with it, I wanted to know who it was. For safety’s sake. Whatever you might think, I don’t want my girls hurt.’

  Sam eased the pressure on her. ‘And what did you see?’

  ‘I saw Leanne walk out the back door and across the car park to the far corner. She got into a car and the car drove off.’

  Sam wanted to punch the air. Or failing that, punch this bitch for the casual way she’d fucked over the investigation into Leanne’s death. ‘What kind of car? What colour was it?’

  ‘How the fuck do I know what kind of car? Do I look like Jeremy fucking Clarkson? And the CCTV’s black-and-white. So all I can tell you about the colour is that it wasn’t black and it wasn’t white.’

  Now he really wanted to go to town on her. ‘I don’t suppose you saw the driver either?’

  ‘A white blob. That’s all I saw.’

  ‘Fucking great.’ Sam didn’t bother hiding his disgust. ‘I don’t suppose you took a note of the number either?’ He stepped away. ‘Thanks for your help. I’ll have a uniform swing by for your statement tomorrow.’

  Now for the first time she looked genuinely worried. ‘No way,’ she said. ‘Look, I’ve told you what I know. Don’t fuck it up for me with my boss.’

  Sam gave her a considering look. ‘You’re the licensee, right?’

  ‘Right. So you’ve got my name and address. It’s not like I can do one.’

  ‘Come in under your own steam tomorrow. BMP HQ, not Northern Division. Ask for MIT. Have you got that?’

  She nodded. ‘MIT.’

  ‘If you’re a no-show, I’ll be here tomorrow night, mob-handed. Whether you’re here or not, your boss will know all about how helpful you’ve been to the police. Are we clear on that?’

  She glared at him, eyes sparkling with frustration. ‘I’ll stick to my end, you stick to yours.’

  He heard her swear at him as he walked back to the car, but he didn’t care. She might have wiped the tapes in the club, but her boss didn’t control all the road cameras. Sam was pretty sure that, whatever direction Leanne’s killer had taken, he would be picked up. This killer’s days were numbered and it was all thanks to Sam Evans. Jordan would have to acknowledge this piece of work. She might be on her way out, but Sam was on his way up.

  25

  A watery sun infiltrated Tony’s kitchen, giving everything a slightly surreal cast. While the coffee brewed, he browsed the news online. Vance’s escape was the headline everywhere, an excuse for a rehash of his crimes and trials. Tony featured in most of the stories, Carol in a few. The media had tried to get to Micky Morgan, Vance’s ex-wife, but they’d arrived at the stud where she and her partner bred racehorses to find a horsebox across the drive and hard-faced stable lads patrolling the perimeter. Nobody had even seen Micky, never mind managed to get a quote. Instead they’d settled for interviewing an assortment of nobodies who had once worked alongside Vance. The prison authorities hadn’t come out of it well either, which was as predictable as morning following night.

  There wasn’t much coverage of Leanne Considine’s murder, mostly because as far as the media was concerned she was still identity unknown. Once they discovered who she was and that she had a secret double life, there would be a feeding frenzy. Her housemates would be under siege till they cracked and revealed – or invented – her lurid life. If they had any sense, they’d screw enough money out of the media to pay their university fees.

  But for now, she was just a down-page filler for the nationals. Even Penny Burgess had to be content with eight paragraphs. Carol had told him about the press conference, but Penny hadn’t had the nerve to go against what Reekie had said. She’d be furious when she found out the truth, he thought, picking up his espresso and going through to his study. He glanced out of the window, gratified to see the surveillance van still parked on the other side of the street.

  The downside of Carol’s refusal to have her own protection was that he was stuck in Bradfield until Vance was either behind bars or deemed not to be a risk. If he went down to the house he’d fallen in love with in Worcester, his protection would come with him. Which would mean leaving Carol exposed and vulnerable here at night. And that was definitely thinking the unthinkable.

  The other great unthinkable was what was going to happen between him and Carol. For years, they’d danced a strange quadrille, drawing closer, then being driven apart by events and their own histories. They were like those bar magnets kids used in experiments at school; one moment, the attraction was irresistible, then you switched poles and the force between them made it impossible for them to get close. In the few months since her acceptance of his offer of a home in the house he’d inherited, they’d typically managed to avoid any real discussion of what that might mean beyond the fact. The only thing that was clear was that she would have her own space – a bedroom, a bathroom and a room that would double as a sitting room and home office. Whether this change in geographical circumstance would mean a different kind of change was something neither of them seemed able to broach.

  Tony was almost convinced he was ready to try to move forward. Well, moving forward was what pop psychology would call it. He was well aware that what passed for forward motion was often a way of heralding a different kind of change. He didn’t want to damage the quality of his connection with Carol and part of him was still concerned that climbing into bed together would do just that. He’d never had much success with the business of sex. Mostly, he’d been impotent. He could become aroused, though probably a lot less than most men seemed to. But as soon as he got naked with a woman, his penis clocked off. He’d tried Viagra, which had cured the physical symptoms but messed with his head. On the other hand, maybe that had been more to do with the fact that the woman he’d been with was not Carol. Tony let out a deep, heartf
elt sigh. It was all so complicated. Maybe they should just leave things be. OK, it wasn’t perfect. But what was?

  Meanwhile, the best he could do for Carol was to work behind the scenes to help her team ensure that their last hurrah ended in glory. But before he got stuck into that, he needed to find out what was happening in the hunt for Vance.

  He didn’t want to put Ambrose in an awkward spot with his boss, so rather than call him, he sent a text. Tony felt quite proud of himself as he hit the ‘send’ button. When it came to passing for human, he knew he still had plenty to learn. But maybe he was finally picking up a few pointers in the tact-and-diplomacy department.

  He’d barely begun to download the files Stacey had left in the Cloud for him when Ambrose called back. ‘Hiya, mate,’ Ambrose said in his low rumble. No names; he was always careful not to compromise himself.

  ‘Thanks for getting back to me.’ That was one he’d learned by heart; apparently, unless you were a teenage boy, you didn’t just grunt when somebody returned a call. ‘Any news on Vance?’

  ‘He’s still in the wind. And we’re under siege from the world’s media,’ Ambrose said. ‘We found the taxi he nicked. He left it round the back of the northbound services on the M42. But no sign of the man himself. We’ve got officers going through the CCTV cameras as we speak, but don’t hold your breath. The best definition pictures are from inside the services building. If Vance didn’t go in there, we’re probably fucked.’

  ‘I suppose it was too much to hope for.’

  ‘I’m only just beginning to realise what a clever bastard he is. I never paid much attention to the case at the time, I had too much going on in my own neck of the woods. Have you got any tips?’

  ‘He’s not on your patch any more. I’d put money on it. Whatever his plans are, I’m pretty sure they don’t involve hanging around Oakworth. And he will have plans,’ Tony said heavily.

  ‘Obviously. You don’t go to those lengths to get out and not be sorted on the outside. Does the name Terry Gates mean anything to you, by the way?’

  ‘Oh shit,’ Tony groaned. ‘Sometimes I am too stupid to live.’ Even as he spoke, he hoped that wouldn’t turn out to be a prediction.

  A humourless laugh came down the phone. ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’

  ‘Fuck. Ambrose, I’m sorry. I should have remembered Terry Gates.’ As he spoke, Tony could see Gates in his mind’s eye. Arms with cables of muscle under the skin, big brown eyes like a trusting animal, an open face that broke into a grin whenever he looked at Vance. Tony recalled watching Gates work his market stall. He knew when to be technical with the blokes, when to jolly the women along to buy tools they’d never known they needed. He was shrewd with the public and yet he was completely blind where Vance was concerned. ‘Why are you asking?’

  ‘He was Vance’s only regular visitor. He showed up every month, never missed, according to the records. We asked the local lads to give him a knock. And guess what? He’s not where he should be. Nobody’s seen hide nor hair of him since the morning before Vance broke out. So what’s the score there, Tony?’

  Tony closed his eyes and rested his forehead on his hand. ‘Terry had a twin sister, Phyllis, who developed terminal cancer. Back in the day, Vance used to do these hospital visits. It was supposedly his big charity work. At the time, people bought the line that he was giving comfort to the sick. The real reason was a lot creepier. He liked watching the dying. It was as if he fed off the notion that they had no control over anything any more. But like most of the relatives of the patients Vance sat with, Terry never believed there was anything sinister going on. He saw Vance as an angel of mercy who had eased his sister’s passing.’ He straightened up, the flow of his story energising him.

  ‘He was so locked into that conviction, it was impossible for him to believe Vance was guilty of the crimes he stood accused of. One of the murder charges hinged on a tool-mark. Vance had a bench-mounted vice in his secret hideaway that had a very distinctive defect on one face. And the prosecution had an arm preserved from a murder victim fourteen years before – it had the matching tool-mark in the bone. The obvious inference, taken with all the other circumstantial evidence, was that Vance was the killer. And then along came Terry Gates, who went into the witness box and swore he had sold the vice second-hand to Vance less than five years before. That whoever had owned that vice previously was the killer, not Vance. That undermined the case against Vance on that earlier murder, which made proving he was a serial killer almost impossible, given how little evidence we had.’

  ‘So Gates actually perjured himself for Vance?’

  ‘It’s hard to put any other interpretation on it,’ Tony said.

  ‘He must have really loved his sister.’

  ‘Too much, I suspect. And after she died, Vance became a kind of surrogate. If he didn’t keep Vance safe, he was letting his sister down.’

  Ambrose made a dark, grumbling sound. ‘I don’t get that. The guy’s a serial killer and you perjure yourself to keep him out of jail because he was nice to your sister? People make my head hurt, doc.’

  ‘Mine too, Alvin.’ He knocked back his espresso in one, blinking and shuddering as the caffeine hit. ‘So Gates still thinks he owes Vance.’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘You need to get a warrant for Gates’s house and go through everything. If he’s been Vance’s eyes and ears and hands and legs on the outside, there must be a trail. Vance is smart, but Gates isn’t. He’ll have left tracks. Vance will have told him to destroy everything, but he won’t have. That’s the only place you’ll find a clue.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan. Thanks,’ Ambrose said. ‘You don’t think Gates will turn up?’

  All of his professional instincts told Tony with absolute certainty that Terry Gates would never walk through his front door again. ‘Gates is dead, Alvin. Or as good as. He knows too much.’

  ‘But why would Vance turn on him when Gates has always been the one on his side?’ Ambrose’s voice was reasonable, not critical.

  ‘Gates managed to stay in Vance’s corner because he could always convince himself Vance was the persecuted innocent. But whatever Vance has up his sleeve, it’s not going to be pretty. And Gates won’t be able to avoid understanding his involvement. I think when he’s confronted with incontrovertible proof that his hero is a villain, Gates will turn. And Vance is acute enough to get that.’ Tony opened the top desk drawer and poked around the detritus inside, looking for something to crunch. ‘He’ll kill him rather than take the risk. I know it might not look that way, but he’s not a risk-taker. Everything is calculated.’

  ‘Have you got a team on you?’

  Tony glanced out of the window again. ‘There’s a surveillance van outside the house. I’m not planning on going anywhere complicated today. If I go out at all, it will be to Bradfield Moor, which is a bloody sight more secure than Oakworth turned out to be.’ Right at the back, he found an old packet of cinnamon-flavoured Lifesavers. He hadn’t been across the Atlantic for at least two years, but he didn’t think boiled sweets could go off. One-handed, he ripped the packet open and popped one in his mouth. The outside had gone a bit soft, but the heart of the sweet was hard, resistant to his teeth. Tony crunched down on it, letting sugar and spice fill his mouth, making him feel inexplicably calmer.

  ‘Are you eating something?’ Ambrose said.

  ‘Will you keep me posted?’

  ‘I’ll do what I can. Look after yourself.’

  The line went dead and Tony stared at a list of files on his screen, taking nothing in. How could he not have taken Terry Gates into account? The oversight shook his faith in himself, making him wonder what else he might have missed. Had he let his concern for Carol interfere with the process of analysis that he so depended on? Without that clarity, he was no use to an investigation. No, scratch that. Without that clarity, he was a liability.

  Tony pinched the bridge of his nose, screwing his eyes tightly closed. He visualised a white cub
e and placed himself at the heart of it. He breathed deeply and regularly, forcing everything else from the front of his mind. When all he was conscious of was white space, he opened his eyes and placed his hands flat on the desk on either side of the keyboard. ‘You kill women who sell sex,’ he said to the empty room. He reached for his glasses and began the long process of crawling into the labyrinth of a killer’s damaged mind.

  26

  Carol was working her way through the overnight reports when she came upon Sam’s write-up of his interview with Natasha Jones, manager and licensee of Dances With Foxes. The information was useful – a witness to Leanne leaving the club in someone else’s car could be a crucial brick in the wall of evidence that would put a killer away. And the action Sam had suggested was spot-on: ‘Recommend requisition of traffic-camera data on Brackley Road in both directions from club. Time frame 11 p.m. – 1 a.m. on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Aim: ID car carrying Leanne Considine away from Dances With Foxes lap-dancing club at 673 Brackley Road.’ But there was something off-kilter about the interview report. For one thing, Sam had been out with Kevin but there was no mention of Sam’s sergeant. All in all, it felt evasive and Carol knew Sam well enough to realise that when he was being evasive, there was usually something to evade.

  She looked out into the squad room, where Kevin and Paula were on the phone. There was no sign of Sam, so she scribbled a note. ‘My office when you’re done.’ She left it in front of Kevin, who gave her a look of pained resignation. He was in her visitor’s chair inside two minutes.

  ‘Nice work last night,’ Carol said, leaning back in her chair and resting her feet on her open bottom drawer.

  ‘Thanks,’ Kevin said cautiously.

  ‘I’ve seen Sam’s report. You seem strangely absent.’

  Kevin crossed his legs, propping his left ankle on his right knee. He drummed his fingers on his left knee. He was as relaxed as an exam candidate. ‘It was Sam’s show. The manager tried to blag us into believing Leanne never worked there. When we were leaving, Sam spotted Leanne’s bike. So he went back to confront the manager.’