‘Do you know who’s coordinating the search?’
‘I thought you’d be up to speed on that. Oakworth’s on West Mercia’s patch, after all.’
‘I’ll make some calls,’ Carol said, leaving him to it and returning to her team to check on their progress. Paula was on the phone at the nearest desk, so Carol pulled up a chair to wait for her to finish.
Paula covered the mouthpiece and said quietly, ‘I’m just talking to my contact at Northern – Franny Riley. I’ll put him on speakerphone so you can listen in.’
Paula pressed a button and a deep Mancunian growl emerged from the tinny speaker. ‘… and that’s why we’re so short-handed.’
‘All the same, Sarge, I’m going to need more bodies than that to do a proper door-to-door and get the photos out on the street.’
‘Paula, I know. Tell me about it.’ In the background, Carol could hear another voice. ‘Hang on a minute, let me put you on hold, my DI’s just come over.’
Whatever Franny had intended, what he actually did was to put his phone on speaker too. Carol immediately recognised the other voice. DI Spencer, the SIO from Northern that she’d replaced as head of the investigation.
‘Are you tied up, Franny?’ Spencer asked. ‘Only, I need you to take a look at the witness statements on that aggravated burglary.’
‘I’m on to MIT, trying to get the door-to-door sorted,’ Riley said.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Spencer said, disgusted. ‘I thought bringing them in was supposed to take the load off us? Ever since they came on board, it’s been do this, sort that, check the other. MIT, what does that stand for again?’ Before Franny could respond, Spencer gave his own answer. ‘I’ll tell you what it stands for: Minorities Integration Team,’ he said, guffawing at his own wit. ‘A pair of lezzas, a jungle bunny, a Chink and a ginger. All led by a gash.’
Carol recoiled in shock. It had been a long time since she’d heard that kind of abuse from a colleague. It was the language of prejudice that was supposed to be history in modern policing. She’d always suspected the canteen cowboys were still riding the range, but they were generally too savvy to show their true colours in front of anybody who might disagree. Apparently it wasn’t just media hype that the old sexist and racist conditioning still existed beneath the surface.
Paula reached for the phone to cut off the call, her face revealing that Carol wasn’t the only one who was horrified. But Carol pushed her hand away and leaned forward. ‘DI Spencer. This is Detective Chief Inspector Jordan. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, your offensive attitudes have been broadcast to my entire team. My office, now.’
There was a long silence. Then the high-pitched tone of a line gone dead. Carol sat back, feeling faintly queasy. She looked around at her team, who had all stopped what they were doing when Spencer’s words had sunk in. ‘DI Spencer will be here shortly to apologise. If any of you experience any obstruction whatsoever from Northern, I want to know about it. No covering anybody’s backs. We’re not going to be stopped from doing our jobs. Now let’s get cracking. We’ve got three murders to solve.’
Stacey delivered one of her rare smiles. ‘And I’ve got something here that might just help.’
19
There was added urgency to Tony’s risk assessment now. As if it wasn’t enough to have Vance on the loose, he needed to free himself up so he could approach his new undercover project with a clear head. And he was going to have to find somewhere else to work. It would be hard to keep his progress secret from the person whose office he had taken over, especially when that person was as acute as Carol Jordan.
I believe Vance suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. The key to any understanding of Vance is his need to be in control. He wants an environment where he is in charge. It’s always all about him. He needs to manipulate the individuals around him and to be in charge of the way events unfold. Some controlling personalities use threats and fear to keep people in line; Vance uses charisma to blind them to what he is really about. That’s not just because it’s easier to maintain – it’s also because he needs their adoration. He needs to have people look up to him. It’s what his whole life was about before he went to prison and I imagine it shaped his life behind bars.
He has enormous self-discipline, which dates back to his adolescence. He was desperate to carve a niche for himself where people would respect and admire him. His mother largely ignored him and his father treated him with contempt. He didn’t like the way they made him feel and he was determined to make the world take notice of him. Probably the only thing that kept him from violent criminality in his teenage years was the discovery of his athletic talent. Once that had been identified, it offered him an avenue to the sort of adulation he wanted to experience.
But to realise that goal, he had to acquire self-discipline. He had to train and he had to find a way to organise himself mentally as well as physically. That he had such a phenomenally successful athletic career is testament to how well he succeeded. He was only months away from an almost certain Olympic gold in javelin when he had the accident that cost him the lower half of his throwing arm. At least one psychologist who has interviewed Vance has identified the accident and its aftermath as being a transformative moment, as if Vance had been a mentally healthy individual up to that point. The evidence cited in support of this position is that the destruction of his arm came about as a result of a heroic act.
It’s my contention that Vance has always been mentally disordered. The amputation was a stress point in his life that tipped him over the edge. We have anecdotal evidence of sadistic sexual behaviour before the accident and also of violent cruelty to animals. The level of sadistic torture he exhibited towards his victims demonstrated no learning curve – he was already at a place mentally where this was what he wanted.
Vance has always been very good at hiding his deviant behaviour behind the appearance of candour and charm. That he is physically attractive has always been a significant factor in his ability to convince others that he is not the problem. In the years when he was a leading TV personality, it was often said that women wanted to sleep with him and men wanted to be him. I do not imagine he has lost the power to command that sort of response. I recommend a review of his time in prison and a reassessment of any questionable incidents in his contact circle, particularly any violent or suspicious deaths.
I don’t know the details of his escape from Oakworth, but I would be very surprised if they did not involve collaboration from inside and outside the prison. Although it is more than twelve years since he was sent to prison, he still has a cohort of the faithful on the outside. There is a Facebook group called Jacko Vance is Innocent. As of this morning, 3,754 people ‘like’ this. One of those people – and I use the number advisedly, because Vance doesn’t take chances and having more than one person knowingly involved is taking a chance – has helped him. I recommend checking the logs of his visitors. It would be helpful to know who he has spoken to on the phone, but he will almost certainly have had a contraband mobile for any crucial communications.
Do not rule out any of the professionals with whom he has had contact in prison. Remember Myra Hindley and the prison officer who became her lover. They hatched an escape plan that never got off the ground. Vance is undoubtedly a smarter operator than Hindley ever was. We know that he managed to persuade a prison psychologist that he was a fit and proper person to occupy a place on a Therapeutic Community Wing. Personally, if the only way to keep Jacko Vance off a TCW was to burn down the prison, I’d be there with a can of petrol.