by Val McDermid
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.
Keep reading for an excerpt from Val McDermid’s
THE TORMENT OF OTHERS
A TONY HILL NOVEL
Now available from St. Martin’s/Minotaur Paperbacks
Just because you hear voices, it doesn’t mean you’re mad. You don’t have to be well bright to know that. And nobody has ever accused you of being anything other than thick as pigshit. But you’re bright enough to know you’re not a nutter. All sorts of people have other voices in their heads, you know that. It’s how they make a living. People that write books, they’re always making up conversations. Faking it. The same with the telly. Even though you can believe it when you’re watching it, everybody knows it’s not real. And somebody’s got to have dreamed it up in the first place, all that nattering, without them ending up where you have. Stands to reason.
So you’re not worried. Well, not very worried. OK, they said you were insane. The judge said your name, Derek Tyler, and he tagged you with the mad label. But even though he’s supposed to be a smart bastard, that judge didn’t know he was following the plan. The way to avoid the life sentence that they always hand down when somebody does what you did. If you make them believe you were off your head when you did it, then it isn’t you that did the crime, it’s the madness in you. And if you’re mad, not bad, it stands to reason you can be cured. Which is why they lock you up in the nuthouse instead of the nick. That way the doctors can poke around in your head and have a crack at fixing what’s broke.
Of course, if nothing’s broke in the first place, the best thing you can do is keep your mouth zipped. Not let on you’re as sane as them. Then when the time is right, you can start talking. Make it look like they’ve somehow worked their magic and turned you into somebody they can let out on the street again.
It sounded really easy when the Voice explained it to you. You’re pretty sure you got it right, because the Voice went over it so many times you can replay the whole spiel just by closing your eyes and mouthing the opening words. ‘I am the Voice. I am your master. Whatever I tell you to do is for the best. I am the Voice. This is the plan. Listen very carefully.’ That’s the trigger. The words you recite to make everything go away. That’s all it takes. The intro that makes the whole tape play in your head. The seductive message is still there, implanted deep inside your brain. And it still makes sense. Or at least, you think it does.
Only, it’s been a long time now. It’s not easy, staying on the wrong side of silence day after day, week after week, month after month. But you’re pretty proud of the way you’ve hung on to it. Because there’s all the other stuff interfering with the Voice. Therapy sessions where you have to struggle to blot out what the real nutters are going on about. Counselling sessions where the doctors try to trick you into words. Not to mention the screaming and shouting when somebody goes off on one. Which happens a lot more than you think is right. They should do something about it, they really should. Then there’s all the background noise of the day room, the TV and the music rumbling round your head like interference.
All you have to fight back with is the Voice and the promise that the word will come when the time is right. And then you’ll be back out there, doing what you’ve discovered you do best.
Killing women.
It’s amazing how little we actually need to survive, I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. We’re constantly bombarded by messages from the media with their litany of spurious necessities. If a Martian arrived here and spent a week watching TV and reading magazines and lifestyle supplements, he’d end up believing that human beings had a list of absolute requirements that include Manolo Blahniks; a bunch of kooky friends; several restaurant meals, a trip to the cinema, a dose of culture at an exhibition or museum, a night’s clubbing, a live gig and a dozen bottles of supermarket plonk every week; oh, and regular sex, preferably with someone who isn’t your partner.
But they’d be wrong. I’ve learned these past three months how far back you can strip your life and still be glad to be here. And I’ve got history on my side. Look at Alexander Selkirk. Look at Shackleton. We’re survivors, if we allow ourselves to be.
I’ve done all the things the counsellors would shudder at. I’ve cut myself off from my former friends. I’ve refused to use work as a panacea. I’ve resolutely avoided talking about what splintered my certainties and shattered my illusions about my impregnability. And you know what? I’m still standing. I’m still myself.
Carol Jordan’s mouse pointer hovered over the
The accumulated text files were the nearest thing to a diary she had ever maintained. On the bad days, she would go back and reread some of the earlier entries. They offered balm to her bruised heart. They were incontrovertible evidence that she was capable of forward movement. They were the promise that she had a future that was not conditional on anyone but herself.
Carol ran her fingers through her hair. One of the first things she’d done when she’d returned to London after the worst week of her life had been to visit the hairdresser and demand a new cut that would alter the shape of her face. Oliver, her stylist, had cropped it short at the sides and back, then swept the thick blonde fringe away from her forehead. Even now it felt unnatural to her touch. But when she looked in the mirror every morning, Carol still experienced a moment of surprised gratitude when she saw how little she resembled the woman she’d been. Apart from the familiar grey eyes, there was almost nothing to anchor this face to her past. That face had belonged to a different Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan. That face had been the catalyst for the chain of events that had nearly destroyed her. A chance, uncanny resemblance spotted by someone whose ambition and ruthlessness obliterated any concern for her well-being had sent her abroad on an undercover mission that had cast her adrift from all her resources. It had ended up almost costing her life.
Carol shivered at the recollection, willing the flashbacks to close down. She closed down the email program and pushed back from her desk. Her visitor was due in ten minutes and she didn’t expect him to be late. She regarded it as a major victory that she’d been able to arrange the meeting in her flat. The only man she’d been alone with inside these four walls since her return had been her brother, and even that had felt threatening enough to dry her mouth and set her heart galloping. Even when she’d spent time with the one person she could still trust, that had been on neutral ground, and that at his suggestion. One corner of Carol’s mouth twitched in a wry smile. How very like him to have understood without being told.
But then, everyone who knew what had happened was treating her with an unaccustomed sensitivity. Though of course they never spelled out why. They were embarrassed by what had happened to her. They didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t like asking how someone’s pregnancy or cancer treatment was going. There was no neat social formula that allowed for, “So, how are you recovering from being hung out to dry by your bosses? How’s the post-traumatic stress today? Think you’ll ever have sex again?”
Today’s appointment, for example. The email he’d sent suggesting they meet had had none of the casual assumption of authority he had every right to make. John Brandon had been the last boss she’d trusted, first in Bradfield then in Seaford. She’d done the best work of her career under his guidance. They’d become not quite friends but more than colleagues. She’d eaten dinner with his family, been on first-name terms with his wife. But even he had sidest
epped the “r” word. She knew his words by heart. “Dear Carol, I understand you’re still on leave. I don’t mean to intrude, but I’m going to be in London next week, and I’d very much like to see you. I have a proposition that might interest you, but I’d rather discuss it face to face. You’ve been in our thoughts lately—Maggie sends her best, as do I. Let me know if we can meet. Yours, John Brandon.”
Tactful, sympathetic without being unctuous or voyeuristic. And oddly, in spite of pussyfooting round the realities, he’d hit the perfect note and the perfect moment. Any sooner and she’d have refused. She’d felt so comprehensively betrayed by the people who were supposed to be on her side that it had poisoned her against the job that had been her world since she’d left university. But in the last couple of weeks, her inactivity had started to feel like a kind of prison. And Carol wasn’t a woman who found constraint a relief from the difficulties of making her own choices. She might not be able to contemplate working again with the elite cohort she’d finally managed to attain. But that wasn’t the only option. There were other ways to carry out the job she loved. She’d done it before, and with distinction. She could do it again.
John Brandon’s email had reminded her of that. She had no idea what he had in mind for her, but it had to be worth listening to. A fresh start was what she needed. Somewhere her history wasn’t common currency, a constant reproach to those who had failed in their duty of care. Somewhere she could replace the nightmares with dreams.
The entryphone buzzed, firing the adrenaline like a live wire in the blood. Fight or flight? There was still an option. She could pretend not to be home, send Brandon back north with the taste of failure in his mouth. Or she could give her courage the chance to fail further down the line. Carol clenched her hands into fists and stared at the handset. Was she really ready for this?
* * *
Dr. Tony Hill balanced a bundle of files on the arm carrying his battered briefcase and pushed open the door of the faculty office. He had enough time before his seminar group to collect his mail and deal with whatever couldn’t be ignored. The psychology department secretary stuck her head round the door of her inner office at the sound of the door closing. “Dr. Hill,” she said, sounding unreasonably pleased with herself.
“Morning, Mrs. Stirrat,” Tony mumbled, dropping files and briefcase to the floor while he reached for the contents of his pigeonhole. Never, he thought, was a woman more aptly named. He wondered if that was why she’d chosen the husband she had.
“The Dean’s not very pleased with you,” Janine Stirrat said, leaning against the door jamb and folding her arms across her ample chest.
“Oh? And why might that be?” Tony asked.
“The cocktail party with SJP yesterday evening? You were supposed to be there.”
With his back to her, Tony rolled his eyes. “I was engrossed in some work. The time just ran away from me.”
“They’re a major donor to the behavioural psychology research programme,” Mrs. Stirrat scolded. “They wanted to meet you.”
Tony grabbed his mail in an unruly pile and stuffed it into the front pocket of his briefcase. “I’m sure they had a wonderful time without me,” he said, grabbing his files and backing towards the door.
“The Dean expects all academic staff to support fundraising, Dr. Hill. It’s not much to ask, that you give up a couple of hours of your time…”
“To satisfy the prurient curiosity of the executives of a pharmaceutical company?” Tony snapped. “To be honest, Mrs. Stirrat, I’d rather set my hair on fire and beat the flames out with a hammer.” Using his elbow to manipulate the door handle, he escaped into the corridor without waiting to check out the affronted look he knew would be plastered across her face.
Temporarily safe in the haven of his own office, Tony slumped in the chair behind his computer. What the hell was he doing here? He’d managed to bury his unease about the academic life for long enough to accept the Reader’s job at St. Andrews, but ever since his brief and traumatic excursion back into the field in Germany, he’d been unable to settle. The growing realisation that the university had hired him principally because his was a sexy name on the prospectus hadn’t helped. Students enrolled to be close to the man whose profiles had nailed some of the country’s most notorious serial killers. And donors wanted the vicarious, voyeuristic thrill of the war stories they tried to cajole from him. If he’d learned nothing else from his sojourn in the university, he’d come to understand that he wasn’t cut out to be a performing seal. Whatever talents he possessed, pointless diplomacy had never been among them.
This morning’s encounter with Janine Stirrat had been the last straw. Tony pulled his keyboard closer and began to compose a letter of resignation.
Three hours later, he was struggling to recover his breath. He’d set off far too fast and now he was paying the price. He crouched down and felt the rough grass at his feet. Dry enough to sit on, he decided. He sank to the ground and lay spreadeagled till the thumping in his chest eased off. Then he wriggled into a sitting position and savoured the view. From the top of Largo Law, the Firth of Forth lay before him, glittering in the late spring sunshine. He could see right across to Berwick Law, its volcanic cone the prehistoric twin to his own vantage point, separated now by miles of petrol blue sea. He checked off the landmarks; the blunt thumb of the Bass Rock, the May Island like a basking humpback whale, the distant blur of Edinburgh. They had a saying in this corner of Fife. “If you can see the May Island, it’s going to rain. If you can’t see the May Island, it’s already raining.” It didn’t look like rain today. Only the odd smudge of cloud broke the blue, like soft streamers of aerated dough pulled from the middle of a morning roll. He was going to miss this when he moved on.
But spectacular views were no justification for turning his back on the true north of his talent. He wasn’t an academic. He was a clinician first and foremost, then a profiler. His resignation would take effect at the end of term, which gave him a couple of months to figure out what he was going to do next.
He wasn’t short of offers. Although his past exploits hadn’t always endeared him to the Home Office establishment, the recent case he’d worked on in Germany and Holland had helped him leapfrog the British bureaucracy. Now the Germans, the Dutch and the Austrians wanted him to work for them as a consultant. Not just on serial murder, but on other criminal activity that treated international frontiers as if they didn’t exist. It was a tempting offer, with a guaranteed minimum that would be just about enough to live on. And it would give him the chance to return to clinical practice, even if it was only part-time.
But had had another offer on the table. He’d also been approached by Europol to spearhead a new initiative on cross-border intelligence profiling. It was, he thought, the ultimate irony. Carol Jordan had aspired to such a role, but the very people who should have grabbed her gifts with both hands had shattered her dream with an operation of calculated duplicity that had come perilously close to destroying them both. And now they wanted him to spread his wares before their officers, to train them to do what Carol could have done with her eyes closed. The most tormenting aspect of their proposal was that it tempted him in a way that almost nothing else could have done.
However, there was Carol to consider. As always when she came into his thoughts, his mind veered away from direct confrontation. His natural instinct was to reach out to her, to give her all the support he could. But he couldn’t escape the knowledge that the reason she was so damaged now was because his pathetic efforts to take care of her previously had backfired. He’d been so eager to rush to her side in Germany, so arrogantly convinced that he could give her the support she needed to get her through her isolated undercover operation. But he wasn’t a cop. He didn’t think like a cop. And his carelessness had been responsible for Carol making the crucial mistake that had exposed her to the violence that had almost destroyed her. He didn’t think she saw it like that, but he couldn’t escape the guilt. Somehow, he had to fi
nd a way to atone for what had happened to her, without her ever knowing that was what he was trying to do.
And so far, he had no idea how he could achieve that.
* * *
John Brandon climbed the steps up from the Barbican station. The dirty yellow bricks seemed to sweat and even the concrete underfoot felt hot and sticky. The air was stuffy with the thick, mingled smells of humanity. The tube had been stifling and Brandon had silently chided himself for his paradoxically proud assumption of humility. He could have come to London in an official car, a driver bringing him to Carol’s door in air-conditioned splendor. He couldn’t even remember now why he’d thought it would be such a good idea to travel like a civilian. Something about keeping in touch with ordinary people, that was it. Experiencing the world as they saw it, not cocooned behind smoked glass or a uniform.
Maybe he should have saved that for another day, when he had something less demanding to face than an interview with Carol Jordan. No matter how much he’d tried to prepare himself for their meeting, he knew he didn’t really have a clue what he’d find. He was certain of only two things: he had no idea how she felt about what had happened to her; and work would be her salvation.
He’d been appalled when he’d heard about the botched mission that had ended with the violent assault on Carol. His informant had tried to stress the significance of what she’d achieved, as if that were somehow a counterbalance to what had been done to her. But Brandon had cut impatiently across the rationale. He understood the demands of command. He’d given his adult life to the police service and he’d reached the top of the tree with most of his principles intact. One of those was that no officer should ever be exposed to unnecessary risk. Of course danger was part of the job, particularly these days, with guns as much a fashion accessory in some social groups as iPods were in others. But there was acceptable risk and unacceptable risk. And in Brandon’s view, Carol Jordan had been placed in a position of intolerable, improper risk. He simply did not believe there was any end that could have justified such means.