So he’d watched and waited, gathering data and evaluating it, figuring out where the possibilities offered the best chance of success. It helped that he didn’t have to rely on his own observations. His support system beyond the walls had provided the intelligence that plugged most of the gaps in his own knowledge. It really hadn’t taken long to find the perfect pressure point.
And now he was ready. Tonight he would make his move. Tomorrow night, he’d be sleeping in a wide, comfortable bed with feather pillows. The perfect end to a perfect evening. A rare steak with a pile of garlic mushrooms and rösti potatoes, perfectly complemented by a bottle of claret that would have only improved in the dozen years he’d been away. A plate of crisp Bath Olivers and a Long Clawson stilton to take away the bad taste of what passed for cheese in prison. Then a long hot bath, a glass of cognac and a Cuban Cohiba. He’d savour every gradation on the spectrum of the senses.
A jagged cacophony of raised voices penetrated his visualisation, a routine argument about football crashing back and forth across the landing. An officer roared at them to keep the noise down and it subsided a little. The distant mutter of a radio filled the gaps between the insults and it occurred to him that even better than the steak, the booze and the cigar would be the freedom from other people’s noise.
That was the one thing people never mentioned when they sounded off about how awful it must be to be in prison. They talked about the discomfort, the lack of freedom, the fear of your fellow inmates, the loss of your personal comforts. But even the most imaginative never commented on the nightmare of losing silence.
Tomorrow, that nightmare would be over. He could be as quiet or as loud as he chose. But it would be his noise.
Well, mostly his. There would be other noises. Ones that he was looking forward to. Ones he liked to imagine when he needed a spur to keep going. Ones he’d been dreaming about even longer than he’d been figuring out his escape route. The screams, the sobs, the stammering pleas for mercy that would never come. The soundtrack of payback.
Jacko Vance, killer of seventeen teenage girls, murderer of a serving police officer and a man once voted the sexiest man on British TV, could hardly wait.
2
The big man put two brimming pints of copper-coloured ale on the table. ‘Piddle in the Hole,’ he said, settling his broad frame on a stool that disappeared from sight beneath his thighs.
Dr Tony Hill raised his eyebrows. ‘A challenge? Or is that what passes for wit in Worcester?’
Detective Sergeant Alvin Ambrose raised his glass in a salute. ‘Neither. The brewery’s in a village called Wyre Piddle, so they think they’re entitled.’
Tony took a long draught of his beer, then gave it a considering look. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘It’s a decent pint.’
Both men gave the beer a moment’s respectful silence, then Ambrose spoke. ‘She’s pissed my guv’nor off royally, your Carol Jordan.’
Even after all these years, Tony still struggled to keep a poker face when Carol Jordan was mentioned. It was a struggle worth maintaining, though. For one thing, he believed in never giving hostages to fortune. But more importantly, he’d always found it impossible to define what Carol meant to him and he wasn’t inclined to give others the chance to jump to mistaken conclusions. ‘She’s not my Carol Jordan,’ he said mildly. ‘She’s not anyone’s Carol Jordan, truth be told.’
‘You said she’d be sharing your house down here, if she got the job,’ Ambrose said, not hiding the reproach in his voice.
A revelation Tony wished now he’d never made. It had slipped out during one of the late-night conversations that had cemented this unlikely friendship between two wary men with little in common. Tony trusted Ambrose, but that still didn’t mean he wanted to admit him into the labyrinth of contradictions and complications of what passed for his emotional life. ‘She already rents my basement flat. It’s not so different. It’s a big house,’ he said, his voice non-committal but his hand rigid on the glass.
Ambrose’s eyes tightened at the corners, the rest of his face impassive. Tony reckoned the instinctive copper in him was wondering whether it was worth pursuing. ‘And she’s a very attractive woman,’ Ambrose said at last.
‘She is.’ Tony tipped his glass towards Ambrose in acknowledgement. ‘So why is DI Patterson so pissed off with her?’
Ambrose raised one beefy shoulder in a shrug that strained the seam of his jacket. His brown eyes lost their watchfulness as he relaxed into safe territory. ‘The usual kind of thing. He’s served all his career in West Mercia, most of it here in Worcester. He thought when the DCI’s job came up, his feet were already tucked under the desk. Then your— then DCI Jordan made it known that she was interested in a move from Bradfield.’ His smile was as twisted as the lemon peel on the rim of a cocktail glass. ‘And how could West Mercia say no to her?’
Tony shook his head. ‘You tell me.’
‘Track record like hers? First the Met, then something mysterious with Europol, then heading up her own major crimes unit in the fourth biggest force in the country and beating the counter-terrorism twats at their own game … There’s only a handful of coppers in the whole country with her experience who still want to be at the sharp end, rather than flying a desk. Patterson knew the minute the grapevine rustled that he was dead in the water.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Tony said. ‘Some bosses might see Carol as a threat. The woman who knew too much. They might see her as the fox in the henhouse.’
Ambrose chuckled, a deep subterranean rumble. ‘Not here. They think they’re the bee’s knees here. They look at those mucky bastards next door in West Midlands and strut like peacocks. They’d see DCI Jordan like a prize pigeon coming home to the loft where she belongs.’
‘Very poetic.’ Tony sipped his beer, savouring the bitter edge of the hops. ‘But that’s not how your DI Patterson sees it?’
Ambrose demolished most of his pint while he worked out his response. Tony was accustomed to waiting. It was a technique that worked equally well at work or at play. He’d never figured out why the people he dealt with were called ‘patients’ when he was the one who had to exert all the patience. Nobody who wanted to be a competent clinical psychologist could afford to show too much eagerness when it came to seeking answers.
‘It’s hard for him,’ Ambrose said at last. ‘It’s harsh, knowing you’ve been passed over because you’re second best. So he has to come up with something that makes him feel better about himself.’
‘And what’s he come up with?’
Ambrose lowered his head. In the dim light of the pub, his dark skin turned him into a pool of shadow. ‘He’s mouthing off about her motives for moving. Like, she doesn’t give a toss about West Mercia. She’s just following you now you’ve inherited your big house and decided to shake the dust of Bradfield from your heels … ’
It wasn’t his place to defend Carol Jordan’s choices, but saying nothing wasn’t an option either. Silence would reinforce Patterson’s bitter analysis. The least Tony could do was to give Ambrose an alternative to put forward in the canteen and the squad room. ‘Maybe. But I’m not the reason she’s leaving Bradfield. That’s office politics, nothing to do with me. She got a new boss and he didn’t think her team was good value for money. She had three months to prove him wrong.’ Tony shook his head, a rueful smile on his face. ‘Hard to see what more she could have done. Nailed a serial killer, cleared up two cold-case murders and busted a people-trafficking operation that was bringing in kids for the sex trade.’
‘I’d call that a serious clear-up rate,’ Ambrose said.