The Retribution (40 page)
He stood up and jumped back on to the pontoon. Finally
he’d found a place to pace. Head down, he walked to the end then turned back and walked the full length again, his limp easing a little as his limbs loosened up along with his brain. ‘So if you’re not doing it for the gratification of the killing, what are you getting out of it? What are you trying to achieve? I don’t believe it’s notoriety. When you want notoriety and you don’t get it, you start sending emails to the likes of Penny Burgess. If there’s someone you want to impress, they’re already in a position to get the message.’ He turned back and walked down the pontoon again, more slowly this time.
‘Let’s think about the victims. One way or another, it’s about the victims. Sex workers. You’re not a religious nutter trying to cleanse the streets. A man with a mission, he’s not going to bother with all this elaborate TV series stuff. It’s the cleansing that matters, not some arcane message.
‘What’s the effect of what you’re doing? What does it achieve?’ He stopped abruptly, possible light dawning. ‘You’re trying to scare them off the streets? Is that it?’ He felt very close to something revelatory, something that would make sense of the information he’d been studying. ‘Not them. Her,’ he said slowly. ‘You need her to stop. You need her to come off the streets. To come home.’
He spun round on the balls of his feet and ran back to
Steeler
. It felt like he was in pursuit of an idea that might slip away if he didn’t share it. Back on board, he grabbed his phone and speed-dialled Paula. As soon as she answered, he said, ‘He’s trying to scare someone.’
‘Is that you, Tony?’
‘It’s me, Paula. Your killer – he’s trying to scare someone.’
‘He’s scaring a lot of people, Tony.’ She sounded exasperated. He imagined it had been a long day without Carol at the helm to steer them straight.
‘I realise that. But there’s one person in particular he’s trying to scare. He’s trying to make her too frightened to work
the streets. He wants her to come home. You can see it in the escalation. He started with the lowest of the low then he worked his way upwards. He’s saying, “It doesn’t matter what rung of the ladder you stand on, the bad thing can still get you.” He wants her to understand that, whatever she’s running from, it’s better than what she’s run to.’
‘Makes sense.’ Paula sighed. ‘But how does that help me?’
‘I don’t know. What about Vice? Do they keep track of the new girls on the block? At least they’d know where to go to ask around. You’re looking for someone who’s not been on the streets for long. She’ll probably have showed up in the weeks before the first murder. See what you can find out. Names, background details, as much as you can nail down. Once you find her, you’ll find him. The man who wants her back.’
‘Why doesn’t he just take her back? He’s been taking these other women off the streets.’
‘He needs to kid himself that she’s come back of her own free will. Remember, Paula, he doesn’t look at the world the way we do. Imagine normal motives, then give them a twist. I think this is all about scaring her home so he can tell himself he’s the one she wants to be with.’
‘I worry about you sometimes, you know,’ Paula said. ‘The way you figure out the twists and turns inside their heads.’
‘I worry myself. Did Stacey get anywhere with the
Maze Man
website, by the way?’
‘Sort of. There’s no regular frequenter of the site from the UK, but she found an email from a bloke trying to contact anyone in the UK with a full set of videos. He’s using a hotmail address, so it’s hard to get any reliable data. But Stacey’s done one of her magic tricks and established that most of the emails sent from that address have been sent from the Bradfield area. She’s also been running the number plate recognition data and she’s narrowed down his base of operations to an area in Skenby. The high flats and a few surrounding streets.’
‘Will do. Have you been in touch with the chief?’
Tony closed his eyes momentarily. ‘I saw her earlier. She turned up out of the blue and found me working on your case.’
‘Oh shit,’ Paula said.
‘She’s got bigger things to worry about right now. She’s running away from her emotions. When they finally catch up with her, it’s not going to be pretty.’
‘At least she’s got you in her corner.’
Tony felt the prickle of tears in his throat. ‘Yeah. For what it’s worth. Anyway, you need to get on. Keep me posted.’
He ended the call and turned back to the computer. When all else fails, talk to the machine.
Stacey stared intently at her monitor, occasionally tapping a few keys or clicking her mouse. Ambrose, whose desk was behind hers, looked over from his screen and watched her covertly, admiring the absolute focus she brought to her task. He wished they had an officer like her on their team instead of having to rely on the unreliable Gary Harcup. Gary was good enough, but he wasn’t always around when he was needed, and he certainly couldn’t pull off stuff like this woman could. He wasn’t sure whether all her burrowing was entirely legal, but he didn’t care as long as she came up with the goods and a cover story that would satisfy the CPS and the courts.
As he watched, she pushed back from the screen and turned round, catching him in the act. ‘Result,’ she said, showing none of the triumphalism that normally went with that claim.
‘Really?’ Ambrose got up and went across, peering into her screen. ‘Vinton Woods? What’s that?’
‘An exclusive community within ideal commuting range of Bradfield and Leeds,’ Stacey said. ‘It’s in West Yorkshire, so I
guess it’s either part of DCI Franklin’s patch or close to it. I got a fragment of the name from the partially deleted material on Terry Gates’s hard drive and did a universal search of properties that have changed owner at the Land Registry in the past six months. There were a couple of matches, but this is the only one that fits the profile of what would suit Vance.’ She clicked and typed and estate agent’s details of a substantial mock-Victorian house appeared on the screen. ‘This was bought by a company registered in Kazakhstan. The payment came from a Liechtenstein trust who bank in the Cayman Islands. Unravelling all that will take weeks. But it’s exactly the sort of set-up Vance would use to hide behind.’
‘If you say so,’ Ambrose said. ‘It makes my head hurt just thinking about it.’
Stacey shrugged. ‘Well, we know that Vance shipped all his cash offshore after he was arrested, and that there was a lot of it. A house like this would be the perfect base. Even if he’s only here for a matter of weeks, he’s got total control of his bolthole and he’s got an asset he can dispose of when he doesn’t need it any more.’
‘Oh, I believe you,’ Ambrose said. ‘I just can’t get my head round the mind of someone who can be arsed to go to these lengths just for revenge.’
Stacey turned and gave him an indulgent smile. ‘That’s probably quite healthy, skip.’
‘I need to get up there,’ he said.
‘Shouldn’t we get the local lads to keep a discreet eye on it? It’s going to take you at least two hours to get there, even blues-and-twos.’
Ambrose shook his head. ‘This is our pursuit. From what your guv’nor said about Franklin, I don’t trust him not to go in mob-handed like a glory-hunter. This needs careful handling and I think we’ve earned the right to lead it. I’m going up there with a hand-picked team. We’ll call on local support
once we know what we’re dealing with.’ He patted her on the shoulder. ‘You’ve done a great job. I’ll make sure my boss knows who’s responsible for this breakthrough. Just don’t speak to Franklin about this. Or any other West Yorkshire detectives.’
Paula hoped someone would be on duty in the Vice squad’s office this late on a Saturday. She expected most of them would be doing whatever it was that off-duty cops got up to on a Saturday night. Anybody working would probably be out on the street on the busiest night of the week for the sex trade. But her luck was in, even if the cop who answered the phone sounded as if he was down to his last shredded nerve. ‘DC Bryant. What do you want?’
Paula identified herself and her unit. ‘I need some info,’ she finished up.
‘Paula McIntyre? You’re the one who got nailed in that undercover that went tits-up a while back, aren’t you?’ His tone was accusing, as if it was somehow her fault that her colleagues’ cock-up had nearly cost her her life. Even thinking about it made the back of her neck sweat.
‘And you’re the division who supplied the detective who caused the problem, but I’m not going to hold that against you,’ she snapped back at him.
‘There’s no need to be like that,’ he grumbled. ‘So what do you need to know?’
‘Does anybody keep intel on new girls on the street?’ she asked.
‘What kind of intel?’
‘Names. Background, that sort of thing. How long they’ve been on the game. Or at least, how long you’ve known about them.’
He sniffed loudly. ‘We’re not fucking social workers, you know.’
‘Believe me, that never crossed my mind. Do you have any intel like that or not?’
‘The sarge keeps a file. But she’s off duty tonight.’ There was an air of finality in his voice.
‘Can you get hold of her? It’s really important.’
‘It always is, with you MIT lot.’
‘It’s four fucking murders so far, DC Bryant. I really can’t be arsed bothering my chief with your snotty attitude, but if that’s what it takes to get a bit of action going round here, I will do it. Now, do you want to phone your sergeant and ask her, or do you want my guv’nor to do it?’
‘You need to take a chill pill, detective,’ he said. She could hear the laugh under his voice. ‘I’ll call her. But don’t hold your breath.’ The phone clattered down at his end.
‘Bastard,’ said Paula. She wondered if there was a way to circumvent Vice, but she couldn’t think of one. Not on a Saturday night with all her social services contacts tucked up in front of the telly with a takeaway curry and
Casualty.
She’d just have to wait for DC Bryant to get his finger out. Bastard, right enough.
Stacey watched Ambrose get into a huddle with DI Patterson. She was uneasy about his proposed angle of attack on Vance’s putative bolthole. She understood his desire to be the one to recapture Vance. They’d done all the groundwork, after all. It was only fair that they should get to front up the news reports, let their kids see them on the telly and be proud. What wouldn’t be so good would be if their way meant Vance slipped through the net. If that happened, Stacey had a funny feeling it might end up being her fault.
She picked up her phone and called her boss’s number. Even in her present state of mind, Carol was a better judge of operational matters than these very nice men who, with the best will in the world, hardly ever dealt with the level of stuff
Bradfield’s MIT handled all the time. When Carol answered the phone, her voice sounded odd. Like she had a cold or something.
‘Hi, Stacey. Any news?’
Stacey reported her discovery of the Vinton Woods address, and what Ambrose was proposing. Carol listened without interrupting, then said, ‘I don’t trust Franklin either. He was completely sceptical about the idea that it might be our friend in the first place. Rather than have him go at it half-hearted, I think we should leave him right out of the loop for now.’ She paused for a moment. ‘I’m going up there. If I leave right now, I should make it ahead of the posse. I can figure out the lie of the land and see what the options are. Thanks for letting me know, Stacey.’
And she was gone. Stacey stared at the phone, not feeling in the least reassured. This was starting to feel like something that was headed full-speed ahead for disaster. And with Jacko Vance in the driving seat, the only guarantee was that there would be nothing half-hearted in what happened next.
She’d stood up and stepped away from Betsy to speak to Stacey. So she’d already begun the process of separating herself from the two women. One thing she knew for sure was that she didn’t want them to know her plans just in case she’d been right about their loyalties. Carol ended the call and said, ‘I have to go.’
‘I don’t think you’re in a fit state to go anywhere,’ Betsy said, kindly rather than bossily.
‘I appreciate your concern,’ Carol said. ‘But I’m needed elsewhere. I have a team in Bradfield who need their commander. Your ex-husband isn’t the only person intent on destruction right now.’ She picked up her bag and ran a hand through her hair, feeling sweat on her forehead. She supposed she was feverish. It was hardly surprising after that outburst. ‘I can see myself out.’