Vance drifted over to the island, exclaiming all the while at the very perfection of his magnificent new kitchen. ‘Is that one of those American fridges that dispense ice and chilled water?’ he asked, knowing Terry would be impelled to demonstrate its powers. As soon as Terry’s back was turned, Vance slid a medium-sized knife from the block, slipping the handle inside his shirt cuff, holding his arm loosely at his side.
As Terry turned back with a brimming glass of water, ice cubes bumping against the sides, Vance raised his prosthetic arm and appeared to draw him into an embrace of delighted gratitude. Then his other hand came up and plunged the knife into Terry’s chest. Up and under, avoiding the ribs, making for the heart.
The glass of water tumbled to the floor, soaking Vance’s shirt. He flinched as the cold water hit his skin, but didn’t stop what he was doing. Terry made a terrible strangled grunting sound, his face a shocked accusation. Vance pulled the knife back and stabbed again. Now there was blood between them, spreading its tell-tale stain across the front of their clothes. It raced across Vance’s shirt, following the path the water had already made. Its progress over Terry’s sweatshirt was slower, the colour more intense.
Vance pulled the knife free and stepped back, letting Terry fall to the floor. His top lip curled in disgust as Terry twitched and moaned, hands clutching his chest, eyes rolling back in his head. Vance took no pleasure in the killing itself; he never had. It had always been secondary to the pleasures of inflicting pain and terror. Death was the unfortunate by-product of the things he really enjoyed. He wished Terry would hurry up and get it over with.
All at once exhaustion hit him like a physical blow. He staggered slightly and had to grip on to the granite worktop. He had been running on adrenaline for hours and now he’d run out of fuel. His legs felt shaky and weak, his mouth dry and sour. But he couldn’t stop now.
Vance crossed to the kitchen sink and opened the cupboard underneath. As he’d expected, Terry had supplied him with a full battery of cleaning equipment. Right at the front was a roll of extra-strong rubbish bags. On the shelf beside them, a bag of plastic ties. Just what he needed. As soon as Terry was done with dying, he could bag him up, truss the bag and dump him in the back of his own van. He’d work out what to do with the van and its owner at some later stage. Right now, he was too tired to think straight.
All he wanted was to clean up then crawl into bed and sleep for twelve hours or so. His anticipated celebration dinner could wait till tomorrow, when the rest of his fun would begin.
He glanced across at Terry, whose breath was now a faint gasp that brought bubbles of pink froth with each exhalation. What the fuck was taking him so long? Some people had absolutely no consideration.
21
Detective Inspector Rob Spencer looked more like a car salesman than a detective. Everything about him was polished, from his teeth to his shoes. Sam, who liked to think of himself as a pretty smooth operator, had to concede to himself that Spencer probably edged it. Still, Sam wasn’t the one who was about to suffer gender reassignment without benefit of anaesthetic at Carol Jordan’s hands.
When he arrived, Carol was hidden behind the phalanx of monitors Stacey used to keep the inconvenient real world at bay. Stacey had been running the limited data they had on the three murders through the algorithms of the geographic-profiling software that she’d tweaked to her own specifications. She was pointing out the hotspots they’d already identified. ‘Chances are he lives or works somewhere in the purple zones,’ Stacey said, outlining them with a neat laser pointer. ‘Skenby. Obviously. We didn’t need the program to tell us that. But more data will narrow it down.’
Spencer peered around the room, looking a little lost. Paula thought he was trying to find a match for himself and, failing that, the next best thing. He fixed on Sam, but as he approached, Sam picked up his phone and pointedly turned away to make a call.
‘Can I help you?’ Paula said, in a tone that promised the opposite.
‘I’m looking for DCI Jordan’s office.’ Spencer sounded gruff, as if he was trying to assert his right to be there.
Paula gestured with her thumb at the closed blinds that marked off Carol’s territory. ‘That’s her office. But she’s not in it.’
‘I’ll wait for her there,’ Spencer said, taking a couple of steps towards the door.
‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible,’ Paula said.
‘I’ll decide what’s possible, Constable,’ Spencer said. Paula had to give him marks for bravado. She’d never have dared to make an incursion on Carol Jordan’s turf and attempt to occupy the high ground.
That was when Carol chose to step out from behind the barrier of screens. ‘Not in my squad room, you won’t,’ she said. ‘My office is occupied right now.’ She came closer, leaving less than half a metre between them. Although she was a good twenty centimetres shorter than him, her presence was by far the more impressive. The look in her eyes would have stripped the gloss off a shinier surface than his. Spencer looked like a man who had come face-to-face with his most embarrassing adolescent memory. ‘Normally, I wouldn’t dream of conducting this conversation in front of junior officers,’ she said, her voice sharp as an icicle. ‘But then I don’t normally have to deal with someone who has managed to insult every one of those officers. In the circumstances, it only seems fair to share.’
‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ Spencer said. ‘Obviously I had no idea my remarks were being broadcast.’
‘I’d say that was the least of your worries,’ Carol said. ‘I’ve been an officer in BMP for the best part of seven years now, and I’ve mostly been proud of that. What I heard from you today made me feel glad for the first time that I’m leaving. These are probably the best detectives you will ever work with. And all you can offer them is ill-informed prejudice.’
Spencer flinched. ‘It was meant to be a joke.’
Carol rolled her eyes, irritation and incredulity sharing the billing. ‘Do I look stupid? Do I strike you as the kind of person who’s going to go, “Oh well, that’s all right then”? How exactly is it a joke to demonstrate ignorance and bigotry in front of junior officers? To make it seem acceptable to denigrate your fellow officers for their skin colour or sexual orientation?’
Spencer fixed his gaze somewhere above her head, as if that would help him escape her disgust. ‘I was wrong, ma’am. I’m sorry.’
‘When this case is over, you’re going to have a lot of time to figure out just how sorry. I’m going to talk to HR and make sure you are sent on every available equal ops and multicultural education course for as long as it takes you to understand why your behaviour is unacceptable anywhere in 2011. And to set the ball rolling, you are going to make a personal apology to every member of this squad before you leave here today.’
Spencer was shocked into meeting her eye. ‘Ma’am—’
‘It’s Detective Chief Inspector Jordan to you, Spencer. I’m not the bloody queen. Now, you’ve got a lot of credibility to recover with my team. You can make your apologies before you leave. But meantime, we’ve got some information that should move things along. We’ve ID’d the third victim.’ She turned on her heel. ‘Stacey?’
Stacey walked her chair out from behind the monitors, a tablet computer in her hand. ‘Leanne Considine. She was arrested in Cannes for soliciting.’