As far as the head of CID was concerned, Patterson was handling the case. The reality was that Ambrose was fronting it up. Never mind that the prison governor would expect a higher rank than sergeant to be leading the hunt for a dangerous escapee like Vance. Ambrose was just going to have to lump it and rely on his formidable presence to get him through. At least he might be able to call on Carol Jordan’s expertise ahead of her arrival in Worcester. When he’d worked with her before, he’d been impressed. It wasn’t easy to impress Alvin Ambrose.
At last, he was through the checks and through the sally port and trailing down a corridor to an office where a surprisingly young man was sitting behind a cluttered desk. He jumped up, holding his swinging jacket front down with one hand, sticking out the other to greet Ambrose. He was tall and rangy, full of bounce. As Ambrose drew near enough to shake his hand, he could see that his skin was crisscrossed with dozens of fine lines. He was older than he appeared. ‘John Greening,’ he said, his handshake as vigorous as his appearance. ‘Deputy Governor. The boss has gone London, talking to the Home Office.’ He widened his eyes and raised his eyebrows. He reminded Ambrose of David Tennant’s rendition of Doctor Who. The very thought made him tired. Greening gestured towards a seat, but Ambrose remained standing.
‘Hardly surprising,’ Ambrose said. ‘In the circumstances.’
‘Nobody is more embarrassed than us about Jacko Vance’s escape.’
Embarrassed seemed a woefully inadequate word to Ambrose. A serial killer had walked out the front door of this man’s jail. In his shoes, Ambrose would have been paralysed with shame. ‘Yeah. Well, obviously there’ll be an inquiry into a screw-up of this magnitude, but that’s not what I’m here for right now.’
Greening looked peeved. Not angry or ashamed, Ambrose thought. Peeved. Like someone had criticised his tie. Which frankly would have deserved all it got. ‘I can assure you there’s no indication of corruption among our staff,’ he said.
Ambrose snorted. ‘That’s almost worse, don’t you think? Corruption might have got you off the hook with less pain than incompetence. Anyway, I’m here now because I need to talk to Jason Collins.’
Greening nodded stiffly. ‘The interview room’s set up for you. Audio and video streams. We’re all very surprised at Jason’s involvement. He’s been doing so well on the Therapeutic Community Wing.’
Ambrose shook his head in disbelief. ‘A prize student, obviously.’
Greening nodded towards the officer who had escorted him in. ‘Officer Ashmall will show you to the interview room.’
Dismissed, Ambrose followed the officer back into the corridor, through another sally port and further into the labyrinth of the prison. ‘Did you know Vance?’ Ambrose asked.
‘I knew who he was. But I never had direct contact with him.’
That closed down that conversation. Another right-angle turn, then they stopped outside a door. The officer unlocked it with a swipe card and held the door open for him. Ambrose stood just inside the doorway for a long moment, taking in the man sitting at the table that was bolted to the floor. Shaved head, goatee, tattoos. As reported. Collins raised his head to meet Ambrose’s eyes with a flat contemptuous stare. ‘What are you looking at?’ Ambrose had experienced that kind of challenge so often in his years on the force that it bounced off without leaving a mark.
He said nothing. He looked around the room, as if sizing up its grey walls, strip lighting and tiled floor for an estate agent’s brochure. The room smelled of stale bodies and farts. It almost made Ambrose nostalgic for the days of cigarette smoke. Two strides took him to the empty chair opposite Collins and the prison officer left them to it, pointing out the button Ambrose should press when he was done.
‘Jason, I’m Detective Sergeant Alvin Ambrose from West Mercia police and I’m here to talk to you about your involvement in Jacko Vance’s escape.’
‘I know what you’re here for,’ Jason said, his voice sullen and heavy. ‘All I know is that he asked me to swap cells last night.’
Ambrose burst out laughing, a deep hearty roar that filled the room. Collins looked startled and afraid. ‘Do me a favour,’ Ambrose said once he’d recovered himself. ‘Cut the crap and tell me what you know.’
‘I don’t know nothing. Look, it was supposed to be a joke. He reckoned he could pass for me, I reckoned he couldn’t. I never thought it would get as far as it did.’ Collins smirked, as if to say, ‘Prove me a liar.’
‘It must have taken a lot of planning, for a joke,’ Ambrose said sarcastically.
Collins shrugged. ‘That wasn’t my worry. He was the one who reckoned he could get away with it. He was the one had to make it work.’ He gave a thumbs-up sign with both hands. ‘Fucking good on him.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
Collins shrugged again. ‘Believe what you like. I couldn’t give a shit.’
‘You know your days on this wing are over, right? You’re going back to Cat A. No privileges. No comfy duvet or private bathroom. No touchy-feely therapy sessions. No prospect of a cushy day out of jail. Not till you’re an old man. Unless you’ve got some information that can cut you a break.’
Collins’ mouth curled in a sneer. ‘Better than information. I’ve got cancer, fat man. I’ll be on hospital wings. I’ll be going home to die, just like the Lockerbie bomber. Nothing you can threaten me with comes close to that shit. So you might as well piss off.’
He wasn’t wrong, Ambrose thought as he pushed the chair back and walked to the door. As it opened to release him from the interview, he turned back and smiled at Collins. ‘I hope the cancer treats you as kindly as Vance treated his victims.’
Collins sneered. ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet, copper. According to Jacko, he’s got plans that’ll make the past look like Jackanory.’
14
Chris Devine felt a dark flush of anger rise up her neck. She had always considered herself well tough enough for the Job. Emotional fragility had never threatened her equanimity. For a long time she’d thought she was unshockable. Then Shaz Bowman had died at the hands of Jacko Vance and Chris discovered she could be as devastated as anyone else. But she hadn’t fallen apart. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Instead she’d used that pain as an impetus to take the fight to Shaz’s killer and join the impromptu team Tony and Carol had assembled to bring Vance down. Nothing had given her more satisfaction in her entire career.
In the half-dozen years she’d spent on the MIT in Bradfield, Chris had thought about Shaz almost every working day. They’d worked together when Shaz had first made it into CID and they’d been a good team then. At this level, they’d have been unstoppable. This was the kind of work Shaz had dreamed of doing and she’d have been good at it.
Mixed with Chris’s regret was an inescapable element of guilt. Even though she wasn’t Shaz’s boss by then, she still blamed herself for not paying close enough attention to what Shaz had been doing; if she hadn’t been so wrapped up in her own concerns, she might have provided back-up and kept the young detective safe. But she hadn’t and it was a failing she lived with daily. Ironically, it had made her a better colleague, a stronger team player.
Even now there was no shred of forgiveness in her heart for Jacko Vance. His very name still had the power to provoke a surge of anger in her, an anger she suspected would only ever be stilled by direct physical violence. Now, listening to Carol Jordan’s news, Chris could feel that familiar rage burn inside her again. Pointless to engage in recrimination. What mattered was putting Vance back where he belonged and making sure he stayed there. ‘How’s the hunt being organised?’ she said, ramming the lid down on her anger.