‘Then there’s the victims themselves. There’s common ground, obviously. They were all selling sex. They were all, in effect, street hookers. I know Leanne was working in the lap-dancing club, but her acts of prostitution were not controlled by a pimp or in a brothel. So from that perspective, she was in the same category as the other two. But here’s the thing about his victims. It’s like he’s moving up the social scale of prostitutes. Kylie was as low down the pecking order as you can go. Suze had dragged herself off the bottom of the heap. And Leanne – well, Leanne was as near as you can get to a respectable woman. Now, I know there’s a rule of thumb in this kind of crime that says an offender starts with the most vulnerable of victims and grows in confidence with each kill. But in my experience, that confidence doesn’t generally grow so far or so fast. Leanne is a big jump from Kylie. And that’s odd.’
‘Maybe he’s just more emotionally mature than some of the killers you’ve dealt with.’
Tony shrugged. ‘It’s certainly possible. But my gut reaction would be that, if he’s that emotionally mature, he wouldn’t need to be doing this.’ He spread his hands. ‘But what do I know? I just missed a major trick doing a risk assessment of Vance, so I’m not feeling very bloody infallible today.’
‘So is there anything you can tell me that might point us towards the killer?’
Tony looked disconsolate. ‘The only thing—’ He stopped himself, scowling at the table.
‘The only thing …?’
He tutted. ‘I shouldn’t say this. Because it’s based on nothing more than a feeling.’
‘As I recall, your “feelings” have worked out well for us more than once. Come on, Tony. Don’t hold out on me.’
‘It’s as if he’s throwing down a gauntlet. Like, “None of you are safe. It’s not just the bottom feeders, it’s all of you.” Like nobody’s safe on the streets with him around. Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, he talked about cleansing the streets. It’s as if this one has a similar ambition. He wants to scare them off the streets.’ He absently picked up Paula’s coffee and took a drink. ‘I don’t know. And there’s something else that’s really bugging me and I don’t know what it is. There’s something about the crime scenes, the murders themselves. It’s bothering me and I don’t understand why.’
‘Well, he’s doing something different every time. That’s unusual, isn’t it?’ Paula took her coffee back.
‘Yes, to the degree he’s doing it. But that’s not what’s bugging me. I’m aware of the degree of difference, that’s all filed away under “unusual but explicable”. There’s something else and I can’t put my finger on it and it’s bloody annoying.’
‘Leave it alone. It’ll come to you when you’re in the thick of something else.’
Tony grunted, unconvinced. ‘It’s weird. I’ve almost got déjà vu about it. Like I’ve seen it all before. But I know I haven’t. I can’t even think of a case in the literature where the killer tattoos his victims postmortem. I wish I could shake the feeling, but it’s bugging the hell out of me. Have you made any progress with the investigation?’
Paula told him about Sam’s discovery the night before. ‘Stacey’s working on it. If there’s anything to be got, she’ll get it.’
‘You might want to ask her to see if she can find any courtyard-style motels between the Flyer and Dances With Foxes. This is clearly territory he’s familiar with. And they do like to stick to where they know. Suzanne Black was drowned somewhere he didn’t have to take her past a receptionist. I don’t think he took her home to his place. He doesn’t take chances like that. But one of those motels where you check in at an office and the rooms are like apartments that open off the car park – that would fit the bill.’
‘Good idea. Thanks.’ She drained her coffee and pushed her chair back. ‘I’m going to miss them all. We’re all going to be tossed to the four winds by Blake. I’ll never get another berth like this again. It’s like the end of an era.’
‘Blake’s an idiot,’ Tony said. Just then, his phone beeped. He patted his pockets till he found it. ‘Message from Carol,’ he said. ‘She wants me to come in so Chris can debrief us.’
‘What’s she been up to? I haven’t seen her since yesterday lunchtime.’
‘She’s been tracking down the other three cops who worked with me and Carol on putting Vance away. They needed to be warned personally, not left to hear about it all on the news.’ He stood up. ‘I’d better get over there.’
‘I’ll give you a ten-minute start,’ Paula said. ‘The last time we went behind her back, she made me feel like a toddler on a tear. And not in a good way. Let’s not give her any reason to start paying attention to us.’
As soon as he walked in the door, Tony realised he was the one who should have stayed behind in the coffee shop. Carol was sitting by Chris’s desk and she looked up when he walked in. ‘That was quick,’ she said. ‘I thought you were planning to stay at home all day?’
‘I was,’ he said. ‘But Penny Burgess came knocking so I thought I’d come in here and hide.’ He nearly elaborated, but stopped just in time. The best lies are the ones with the most truth, he reminded himself.
Chris had dark smudges under her eyes and her hair looked like it had been slept on. Her usually jaunty air was subdued, like a dog that’s been walked to exhaustion. She covered a yawn with her hand and barely raised her eyebrows in greeting. ‘What’s up, doc?’ she managed, in a pale reflection of her normal style.
‘We’re all dancing the Jacko Vance tango,’ he said ruefully, pulling up a chair and joining the two women. ‘He must be rubbing his hands in glee at the thought of us all running around chasing our tails, wondering where he is and what he’s doing.’
‘I just spoke to West Mercia,’ Carol said. ‘They’re coordinating the search. They’ve had even more than the usual spate of so-called sightings everywhere from Aberdeen to Plymouth. But not a single confirmed sighting.’
‘One of the problems is we’ve got no idea what he looks like,’ Tony said. ‘We can be certain he doesn’t look like a caricature of an England football supporter any more. He’ll be wearing a wig, he’ll have different facial hair and different-shaped glasses.’
‘He’s still the one-armed man,’ Chris said. ‘He can’t hide that.’
‘The prosthesis he’s got isn’t immediately obvious. After I spoke to my Home Office contact, I checked it out online. The cosmetic covers they have now are amazing. You’d have to look closely to realise they’re not real skin, and most of us don’t look closely at anything much. And what Vance has got is the best that money can buy.’
‘Thanks to the European Court of Human Rights,’ Carol muttered. ‘So what we know is that we don’t know much. Vance could actually be anywhere from Aberdeen to Plymouth. So how did you get on, Chris?’
Chris straightened up in her chair and glanced at her notebook. ‘OK. Leon’s still with the Met. He’s done well for himself. He’s exactly what the brass want – graduate, black, smart and presentable. And demonstrably not corrupt.’ She grinned at Carol. ‘He’s a DCI now, with SO19.’
Tony snorted with laughter. ‘Leon’s in Diplomatic Protection? Leon, who used to be about as diplomatic as me?’
‘According to my old muckers on the Met, he’s learned to keep his mouth shut and play the game. But he’s got respect, up and down. So I got hold of him on the phone and marked his card.’
‘What did he say?’ Tony said, remembering Leon with his sharp suits and swagger. He’d been smart enough to accommodate lazy, getting by on his wits rather than his work. To have climbed so far, he must have learned to buckle down. He’d have liked to have seen that, a Leon honed by work and responsibility.
‘He laughed it off. But then, he would.’