Now it was daylight, Vance could see much more clearly. The area that had been blacked out in the night was revealed as a separate unit within the barn – a sort of self-contained guest flat with a tiny kitchen and bathroom of its own. A door led outside and, on the opposite wall, another presumably led into the main living area of the barn. At any rate, there was a door in a corresponding position there.
But that wasn’t the most interesting element in the quadrant. So close to the camera that it was only possible to see the top of his tousled grey-blond head and one shoulder, a man sat at a long desk. The camera angle wasn’t very helpful, but Vance could just make out the corner of a keyboard and the top edge of a computer monitor. Further along the desk was another keyboard, set in front of a pair of large monitors. It was impossible to make out any detail on the screens, but Vance thought it was probably computer program code. The man wasn’t moving much; in all likelihood he was doing something on the computer.
There was no sign of life anywhere else in the barn. The duvet had been thrown untidily over the bed, and the linen basket was overflowing, a T-shirt hanging over the edge. So the woman wasn’t around. Never mind, Vance thought. He had plenty of time. He closed the window as his food arrived and put the tablet to one side while he tucked in. After years of prison food, any meal would have seemed a treat, but this was a genuine delight. He took his time, then indulged himself with a bowl of apple crumble and thick custard.
By the time he left, the pub had filled with customers. Nobody looked twice at him as he weaved through the throng at the bar and back out to the car park. About half of the men looked like they belonged to the same sartorial club as him. He relaxed into the car, admitting to himself that he had been a little tense on this first public outing. But it had all gone perfectly.
Twenty minutes later, he drove past the converted barn that was the focus of his interest. About half a mile beyond it, he parked on a grass verge rutted with tyre tracks. He took out the tablet and waited for the page to load and refresh. In the short time since he’d left the pub, everything had changed. The man was standing by the kitchen range stirring a pan on the stove, moving rhythmically as if to music. Vance wished he had a sound feed. By the time it had occurred to him, it had been too late to set it up.
Then the bathroom door opened and the woman emerged, dressed in the black and white of a barrister who’s just spent the morning in court. She ran a hand over her head, pulling off some sort of clip and letting her hair tumble over her shoulders. She shrugged out of her jacket and threw it over the banister. She kicked off her low heels and sashayed over to the man, keeping the same beat in her movements. She came up behind him and put her arms round his waist, snuggling into his back. He reached up over his shoulder with his free hand and rumpled her hair.
The woman stepped away and took a loaf out of the bread bin. Knife from the block, wooden board from a recess, basket from a deep drawer. A few strokes of the blade and she placed a basket of bread on the table as the man fetched bowls from a cupboard and ladled a chunky soup into them. They sat down and set about their lunch.
Vance reclined the car seat a little. He needed to wait for the right moment, and that might take a while. But that was OK. He’d waited years for this. He was good at waiting.
Carol took her time reading the Bradfield Evening Sentinel Times’ splash. Sometimes when a story leaked, it staggered into the paper with the wobbly support of rumour and innuendo. This had marched on to the front page with all guns blazing. Penny Burgess had the key elements for a strong story, and she hadn’t put a foot wrong. Well, not unless you counted exploiting the deaths of three women to sell newspapers. But why would it matter, this final exploitation of women whose lives had, in their different ways, been exemplars of the way lives could be so cheaply used? Carol tried not to give in to a familiar disgust and failed.
‘Someone’s leaked,’ Carol said. ‘Comprehensively.’
‘Yeah, and we all know who,’ Paula said bitterly. ‘First they slag us off, then when you call them on it, some resentful little shit decides to try and shaft us like this.’ She stabbed a finger at the paper. ‘Never mind that we wanted it kept close for solid operational reasons. Getting a dig in at the Minorities Integration Team obviously matters more than catching a serial killer.’
Tony took the paper from her and read carefully. ‘She doesn’t even make the assumption that these are sexual homicides,’ he said. ‘That’s interesting. Looks like she was satisfied with what she got from her source without implying there’s more to it.’
‘Fucking Penny Burgess,’ Chris said.
‘Isn’t that what Kevin used to do?’ Sam asked of nobody in particular.
‘Shut up,’ Paula snapped.
‘Yes, Sam. If you can’t be helpful, be silent,’ Carol said. ‘This means that we can’t actually trust Northern with any leads we’re developing. We can still get their uniforms to do the grunt work – door-to-door, showing photos around, that sort of thing. But anything else, we play very close to our chests.’
Stacey emerged from behind her screens with a glossy print in her hands. ‘Does that mean we keep stuff off the whiteboards?’ she said.
‘What sort of stuff are we talking about here?’ Carol could feel the dull beat of a headache starting behind her eyes. Too many decisions, too much pressure, too many balls to juggle; West Mercia was acquiring more of a gloss with every passing day. She did not expect to crave a stiff drink before noon in her office in Worcester. That was not the least of her reasons for moving.
Stacey turned the print round so they could all see it. ‘Traffic-light camera two hundred metres from Dances With Foxes,’ she said. ‘Heading away from town.’ The colour print showed a Toyota that could have been red or maroon, the number plate clear enough to read. The passenger looked like a woman, long hair evident. The driver’s face was half-hidden beneath a baseball cap; what was visible wasn’t clear enough for ID.
‘Is this our guy?’
‘It’s the right time frame. This particular car does not feature on the traffic cam before Dances With Foxes, but it pops up here. So it either came from the club, the carpet superstore next door, or the sunbed-and-nail salon beyond that. I don’t think either of them is open at that time of night. So it’s almost certain that this car came from Dances With Foxes. Two other cars have the same movement pattern in the time window, but neither of them has a passenger. I would say the weight of probability is that this is the car of the man who drove Leanne Considine from the lap-dancing club.’
Stacey always delivered her reports as if she was in the witness box. Carol loved the clarity, though she would sometimes have preferred more adamantine certainty. ‘Great job, Stacey,’ she said. ‘Anything from the plates?’
‘They’re fakes,’ Stacey said succinctly. ‘They belong to a Nissan that was scrapped six months ago.’
‘What about enhancing the driver’s face?’
‘I don’t think there’s enough visible to make it worthwhile. Certainly not for something we could release and hope to get a result from.’