The Retribution (31 page)
Of course, money had never been a problem. Vance’s wealth had been accumulated by legal means, so the authorities were powerless to prevent his team of financial wonder boys from playing musical chairs with his fortune. By the time the civil
lawsuits against Vance had worked their way through the courts, the bulk of his fortune was safely stashed away in some offshore haven. His only remaining asset in the UK had been the converted chapel in Northumberland where he’d held his victims hostage before leaving them to die. Eventually it had been sold to a Canadian with a taste for the ghoulish and who didn’t mind its macabre history. The proceeds had gone to the relatives of the dead, but it had been a fleabite compared to the wealth Vance had salted away.
So when he’d wanted money for bribes or sweeteners, there would have been channels to get that to where it needed to be. That was the obvious solution to the question of how Vance had stayed safe in jail, how he’d bought himself time and space to play the role of the perfect prisoner. Which in turn had put him in a position where he could manipulate a psychologist into putting him on a Therapeutic Community Wing.
Tony wished somebody had taken a moment to keep him posted on Vance’s adventures in jail. He’d have moved heaven and earth to have him put back in the general prison population. It was an article of faith for Tony that everyone deserved a shot at redemption. But the terms of that redemption weren’t constant. They shifted according to the nature of the individual; men like Vance were simply too dangerous to be allowed to take their second chances at large.
So while all this planning had been going on inside, Vance had been making his arrangements on the outside. Maybe the way to figure out how to stop him was to work out what he would have needed to put in place ahead of his escape. As he’d discussed with Ambrose, the obvious conduit for those arrangements was Terry Gates.
For a start, Vance would need a place to stay. Terry couldn’t shelter him at home or anywhere connected to his business; that would be far too obvious. So there had to be somewhere
else. A house, not a flat, because Vance needed to be able to come and go with as little observation as possible. Not in a city street, because there were still too many people who watched and wondered in cities, people clued into the zeitgeist who might recognise him from his TV days. Not in a village either, where his every departure and arrival would be public property. Some suburban estate, perhaps. A dormitory community where nobody knew their neighbours or cared what was going on behind closed doors. Terry would have been the straw man who did the viewing and the buying, the front for Vance’s money. So they needed to dig into Terry’s activities on that front.
The next question was which part of the country Vance would opt for. His prime targets were Tony, Carol and Micky, his ex-wife. Bradfield or Herefordshire. The other cops would be the second-tier targets – Bradfield again, London, Glasgow, Winchester. Tony thought Vance would avoid London, precisely because the cops might assume he’d head for somewhere he knew well. On balance, he thought Vance would hole up in the north. Somewhere near Bradfield, but not in the city itself. Somewhere close to an airport so that when the time came to get out of the country, it would be straightforward.
Tony was in no doubt that Vance planned to get out of the country. He wasn’t going to attempt to build a new life on this small crowded island where most of the population had a strong memory of what he looked like. So he’d also have at least one new identity in place. He made a mental note to Ambrose to have all airports alerted to pay special attention to anyone with a prosthetic arm. With all the electronics in his state-of-the-art prosthesis, he’d drive the metal detector crazy. Vance had gone to jail before 9/11; he would have no experience of contemporary airport security, and that might just be his Achilles heel.
Or he might have a separate artificial arm with no metal components. Something that looked good enough to bypass casual inspection even if it didn’t actually work. Tony groaned. There were so many possibilities when you were dealing with a smart opponent.
Maybe he should leave the practicalities to Ambrose and his colleagues and focus on what he supposedly did best. Finding a way through the labyrinth of a twisted mind was his speciality. Even if he felt he’d lost the knack, he had to try. ‘What’s your next target, Jacko?’ he asked out loud as he moved into the middle lane of the motorway, out of the line of trucks he’d been mindlessly inhabiting for the past twenty miles.
‘You’ve been doing your research. You’ve given somebody a list of names. You sent them out there to pry into our lives, to find who we love so you know who to destroy for maximum impact. You got them to plant cameras so you could keep watch on your targets and pick the best moment. That’s how you killed Michael and Lucy. You didn’t just chance upon them making love. You were watching and waiting for an opportunity. And that was the perfect one. You could get in without them knowing, you could creep up on them and slash their throats before they knew what was happening. Having sex with Lucy as she lay dying was just the icing on the cake. It wasn’t part of the plan. You just couldn’t help yourself, could you, Jacko?’
The car behind him flashed its headlights and he realised his speed had dropped back to fifty. Tony tutted and put his foot
down till he was back at seventy-five. ‘So your spy told you Carol loved Michael and Lucy. That she spent some of her time off walking in the Dales with them. That if you wanted to make Carol suffer, that was the best way to do it. So somebody’s been poking round Michael and Lucy’s lives and somebody’s been in that barn planting cameras.’ Another area for Ambrose to look into. Maybe he’d have more luck persuading Franklin to follow a line of inquiry that included Vance. ‘Bastard,’ Tony muttered.
‘So then we come to me,’ he said. ‘Who do I love? Who have I ever loved?’ His face twisted in a painful grimace. ‘There’s only you, isn’t there, Carol?’ He sighed. ‘I’m not much of a success when it comes to the human stuff. I love you and I’m completely crap at doing anything about it. He’s not going to kill you, though. Your job is to suffer. And maybe he means Michael and Lucy to be a double whammy. You’ll suffer every day, and I’ll suffer because it’s hurting you. And if Vance really gets lucky, it’ll be too much for us and you’ll drive me away. That would do it for me. That would reduce my life to a shell.’ Unexpected tears welled up in his eyes and he had to swipe the back of his hand across his face. ‘If your man’s done his homework, Jacko, you’ll know how to hurt me. Through Carol, that’s the way to go.’
That left Micky. Deep in Herefordshire with the faithful Betsy, keeping her head down and breeding racehorses. That would have been Betsy’s doing, he’d have put money on it. Betsy came from thoroughbred stock herself, that English county stock where women still wore tweed and cashmere and had Labradors at their heels and wondered, really wondered what the world was coming to. Tony smiled at the memory of Betsy, brown hair with strands of silver caught back in an Alice band, cheeks like Cox’s Pippins, running a TV show in exactly the same way as her mother probably ran the local village. He suspected she ran Micky Morgan too. That
when Micky’s world had fallen apart, when TV turned its back on employing a magazine-show host whose husband was on trial for murdering teenage girls, when her millions of fans recoiled in shock, it had been Betsy who had ignored the wreckage and moved them on to the next successful thing.
The next successful thing had been the racing stud. Tony had known nothing about it till he’d seen the stories in the media that morning. But it made perfect sense. Racing circles were a law unto themselves and they were still a haven for posh girls like Betsy. Micky would have fitted right in. Good looking enough to improve the scenery, but not inclined to be a problem with the husbands. Well-mannered, personable and good company. Let’s face it, Tony thought, there were plenty of people in the racing community with chequered pasts that seemed to pass without notice. Betsy had got it right again.
All of which made Betsy the obvious target for Vance’s rage. Never mind that she was the one whose clever plan had facilitated his sadistic campaign of murder all those years before. It hadn’t been her intention, obviously, but the
mariage blanc
she’d concocted between her own lover and a man who wanted cover had been the perfect mask for Vance. While Micky and Betsy had blithely thought the lie was for their benefit, it had instead provided a hellish alibi for a serial killer. But Vance had gone to jail and they were still together. Tony couldn’t imagine that was a state of affairs Vance would be happy about.
To his surprise, the exit for Worcester was almost upon him. He left the motorway, making a note to impress on Ambrose the importance of protecting Betsy. Her death would be satisfying in itself, but it would also destroy Micky. Double whammy again, just like the last one.
Tony yawned. It had been a long and stressful day. All he wanted was to fall into bed now, but he knew he’d have to talk to Ambrose first. Never mind. He could at least make the
call from a comfortable armchair with a glass of Arthur Blythe’s excellent Armagnac in his hand. He turned into his street, shocked to see a trio of fire engines blocking the road ahead. Police cars were jammed around the fire engines, making it impossible to drive further. The pavements were dotted with bystanders, craning their necks for a better view of somebody else’s disaster.
With a terrible sense of foreboding, Tony got out of the car. The smell and taste of smoke hit him, acrid and dense. He walked up the middle of the road, breaking into a run as he rounded the curve and saw flames spearing the sky, jets of water rising against them. The smoke was making his eyes water, but he could still make out where the fire was. He broke into a run, tears streaming down his cheeks, yelling wordlessly.
A bulky body stepped into his path, grabbing him close and tight. ‘Tony,’ Ambrose said. ‘I’m sorry.’
Tony bared his teeth in a primitive snarl. ‘Never crossed my fucking mind,’ he forced out between sobs. ‘Never crossed my fucking mind.’ He smashed his head into Ambrose’s shoulder. ‘Useless bastard,’ he cried. ‘No use to Carol, no use to myself, no fucking use to anyone.’
‘No, it should have been Carol,’ Kevin said, his voice low and rough. ‘That’s who it was meant for. Her cat, her flat. Jacko Vance strikes again. Jesus Christ.’
‘I know it was meant for Carol. But it was me that should have taken the bullet for her, not Chris.’
‘You think she’d have been any happier about that?’ Kevin said. ‘She cares about you both. She cares about all of us. Just like we care about her. The only person who’s got guilt on this one is Vance.’
‘We don’t tell Carol, OK?’
‘We can’t keep something like this from her. She’s bound to find out. It’ll be all over the media.’
‘Blake said they were putting it out as an accident right now. No mention of Vance. Carol’s got enough on her plate, dealing with what happened to Michael and Lucy. She can learn about this later.’
Kevin looked doubtful. ‘I don’t know … ’
‘Look, we’ll tell Tony. See what he says. He knows her better than anyone else. He’ll know whether we should tell her or not. OK?’
‘OK,’ Kevin conceded.
They subsided again, each lost in their own painful thoughts. After a while, Kevin said, ‘Where did you say Sinead was?’
‘Brussels. She’ll be on the first flight she can get. It might not be till morning, though. You should go home, Kevin. One of us needs to get some sleep.’
Before he could speak, the door opened and a tall man in scrubs walked in. His skin was the colour of a manila envelope and his eyes looked as if they’d seen even more than the two cops. ‘You’re Christine Devine’s family?’ He sounded suspicious.
‘Kind of,’ Kevin said, scrambling to his feet to meet the doctor on his own terms. ‘We’re cops. We work in the same elite unit. We’re like family.’
‘I shouldn’t talk to anyone other than immediate family or next of kin.’
‘Her partner is flying back from Brussels. We’re here in her place,’ Paula said bleakly. ‘Please, tell us how Chris is doing.’
‘Her condition is very serious,’ the doctor said. ‘She’s had sulphuric acid thrown in her face. It’s a corrosive, so she has extensive burning to the skin. What makes acid burns worse than fire burns is the degree of dehydration the acid causes. Your friend’s face is very badly burned. She will be extensively and permanently scarred. She has lost the sight of both eyes.’
Paula cried out, covering her mouth with her hand. Kevin reached over and gripped her shoulder tightly.
‘None of that is life-threatening,’ the doctor continued. ‘But she has swallowed and inhaled droplets of acid and that’s a much greater cause for concern. There’s a risk of fluid building
up in the lungs. We’ll be watching very carefully over the coming days and hours. For now, we’ve put her in a medically induced coma. It gives her body a chance to start the recovery process. And it keeps her from having to endure the pain.’