‘Not serious enough for James Blake. The three months is up and he’s announced that he’s breaking up the unit at the end of the month and scattering them through the general CID. She’d already decided she didn’t want to be deployed like that. So, she knew she was leaving Bradfield. She just didn’t know where she was headed. Then this West Mercia job came up, and she didn’t even have to change landlords.’
Ambrose gave him an amused look and drained his glass. ‘You ready for another?’
‘I’m still working on this one. But it’s my shout,’ Tony protested as Ambrose headed back to the bar. He caught the glance the young barmaid threw in their direction, a faint frown on her soft features. He imagined they made an odd couple, him and Ambrose. A burly black man with a shaven head and a face like a heavyweight boxer, tie loosened, black suit tight over heavy muscles, Ambrose’s formidable presence would have fitted most people’s idea of a serious bodyguard. Whereas Tony reckoned he didn’t even look capable of guarding his own body, never mind anyone else’s. Medium height; slight of build; wirier than he deserved to be, given that his principal exercise came from playing Rayman’s Raving Rabbids on his Wii; leather jacket, hooded sweatshirt, black jeans. Over the years, he’d learned that the only thing people remembered about him were his eyes, a startling sparkling blue, shocking against the paleness of his skin. Ambrose’s eyes were memorable too, but only because they hinted at a gentleness apparent nowhere else in his demeanour. Most people missed that, Tony thought. Too taken up with the superficial image. He wondered if the barmaid had noticed.
Ambrose returned with a fresh pint. ‘You off your ale tonight?’
Tony shook his head. ‘I’m heading back to Bradfield.’
Ambrose looked at his watch. ‘At this time? It’s already gone ten o’clock.’
‘I know. But there’s no traffic this time of night. I can be home in less than two hours. I’ve got patients tomorrow at Bradfield Moor. Last appointments before I hand them over to someone I hope will treat them like the damaged messes they are. Going at night’s a lot less stressful. Late-night music and empty roads.’
Ambrose chuckled. ‘Sounds like a country music song.’
‘I sometimes feel like my whole life is a country music song,’ Tony grumbled. ‘And not one of the upbeat ones.’ As he spoke, his phone began to ring. He frantically patted his pockets, finally tracking it down in the front pocket of his jeans. He didn’t recognise the mobile number on the screen, but gave it the benefit of the doubt. If the staff at Bradfield Moor were having problems with one of his nutters, they sometimes used their own phones to call him. ‘Hello?’ he said, cautious.
‘Is that Dr Hill? Dr Tony Hill?’ It was a woman’s voice, tickling at the edge of his memory but not quite falling into place.
‘Who is this?’
‘It’s Penny Burgess, Dr Hill. From the Evening Sentinel Times. We’ve spoken before.’
Penny Burgess. He recalled a woman in a trench coat, collar turned up against the rain, face arranged in a tough expression, long dark hair escaping from its confines. He also recalled how he’d been variously transformed in the stories under her byline, from omniscient sage to idiot scapegoat. ‘Rather less than you’d have your readers believe,’ he said.
‘Just doing my job, Dr Hill.’ Her voice was a lot warmer than their history merited. ‘There’s been another woman murdered in Bradfield,’ she continued. She was about as good at small talk as he was, Tony thought, trying to avoid the wider implications of her words. When he failed to respond, she said, ‘A sex worker. Like the two last month.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Tony said, choosing his words like steps in a minefield.
‘Why I’m ringing you … My source tells me this one has the same signature as the previous two. I’m wondering what you make of that?’
‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve currently got no operational involvement with Bradfield CID.’
Penny Burgess made a low sound in her throat, almost a chuckle but not quite. ‘I’m sure your sources are at least as good as mine,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe DCI Jordan is out of the loop on this one, and if she knows, you know.’
‘You’ve got a very strange notion of my world,’ Tony said firmly. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘I’m talking about a serial killer, Dr Hill. And when it comes to serial killers, you’re the man.’
Abruptly, Tony ended the call, shoving his phone back in his pocket. He raised his eyes to meet Ambrose’s assessing gaze. ‘Hack,’ he said. He swallowed a mouthful of beer. ‘Actually, no. She’s better than that. Carol’s crew have left her with egg all over her face more than once, but she just acts like that’s an occupational hazard.’
‘All the same … ’ Ambrose said.
Tony nodded. ‘Right. You can respect them without being willing to give them anything.’
‘What was she after?’
‘She was fishing. We’ve had two street prostitutes killed in Bradfield over the last few weeks. Now there’s a third. As far as I was aware, there was no reason to connect the first two – completely different MO.’ He shrugged. ‘Well, I say that, but I know nothing officially. Not Carol’s cases, and even if they were, she doesn’t share.’
‘But your hack’s saying something different?’
‘She says there’s a signature connection. But it’s still nothing to do with me. Even if they decide they need a profile, it won’t be me they come to.’
‘Stupid bastards. You’re the best there is.’
Tony finished his drink. ‘That may well be true. But as far as James Blake is concerned, staying in-house is cheaper and it means he keeps control.’ A wry smile. ‘I can see his point. If I was him, I probably wouldn’t employ me either. More trouble than it’s worth.’ He pushed back from the table and stood up. ‘And on that cheerful note, I’m off up the motorway.’
‘Is there not a part of you that wishes you were out there at that crime scene?’ Ambrose drained his second pint and got to his feet, deliberately standing back so he didn’t loom over his friend.
Tony considered. ‘I won’t deny that the people who do this kind of thing fascinate me. The more disturbed they are, the more I want to figure out what makes them tick. And how I can help them to make the mechanism function a bit better.’ He sighed. ‘But I am weary of looking at the end results. Tonight, Alvin, I’m going home to bed, and believe me, there’s nowhere I’d rather be.’
3
The safest place to hide anything was in plain sight. People only ever see what they expect to see. Those were some of the truths he’d learned a long time before his life had been shrunk by prison walls. But he was smart and he was determined, so he hadn’t stopped learning just because his physical environment had become constrained.
Some people closed down as soon as they found themselves behind bars. They were seduced by a life less chaotic, consoled by predictability. One of the lesser-known aspects of prison life was the high incidence of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Jails were full of men and women who found a comfort in repetitive behaviour that had never occurred to them on the outside. Right from the start, Jacko Vance had steeled himself against the seduction of routine.
Not that he’d had much routine to start with. There’s nothing prisoners love more than fucking up a celebrity inmate. When George Michael was banged up, the entire wing kept him awake all night roaring tuneless renderings of his greatest hits, altering the words to suit their mood as the night wore on. With Vance, as soon as they were locked in for the night, they’d whistled the theme tune from his TV show, on and on like a track on repeat. Once Vance’s Visits had worn down their patience, they’d started on football-style chants about his wife and her girlfriend. It had been an ugly introduction, but it hadn’t upset him. He’d walked on to the landing in the morning as composed and calm as he’d been the night before.