Franklin rubbed his jaw. ‘You’re an interested party, though. The defence would make hay with that.’
‘Do you have any idea what happened here?’ Tony said abruptly.
Franklin bridled. ‘An intruder walked in on the couple. They were in bed, apparently having sex—’
‘Making love,’ Carol butted in. ‘With those two, it was making love. You have no idea how much they cared about each other.’ Her expression was fierce.
Franklin took a moment to rein himself in. ‘As you say. He attacked them from behind and cut both of their throats.’ He raised his eyes to the hills. Tony reckoned he wanted to look anywhere except at Carol. ‘There’s a huge amount of blood. They pretty much bled out.’
Carol turned to Tony and gripped his arm. ‘It’s him, isn’t it?’
‘I think so,’ he said. ‘I’ve thought so ever since Blake broke the news. I hoped I was wrong.’
‘But you’re not wrong. You’re too bloody late with it, but you’re not wrong.’
Franklin gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Do you mind telling me what the pair of you are talking about?’
‘Jacko Vance,’ Carol said. ‘That’s who you’re looking for.’
Franklin tried to keep his incredulity under control. ‘Jacko Vance? He only busted out of prison down in the Midlands yesterday. How’s he going to be up here? And why would Jacko Vance murder your brother and his girlfriend?’
‘Because he thinks we’re the reason he spent twelve years in jail,’ Tony said. ‘He’s not big on acknowledging responsibility for his crimes. I thought he would take reprisals against the team who put him away, and his ex-wife.’ He gave Carol a pleading look. ‘I didn’t think he would take his revenge like this.’
Franklin pulled out a pack of cigarettes and bought time by firing one up. ‘So you’ve no evidence as such?’
‘Presumably the SOCOs will find something,’ Carol said. ‘Now, will you let me see the scene?’
Franklin shrugged. ‘I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. Likely this is just a horrible coincidence.’ He turned his collar up against a more brutal squall of rain. ‘Come into the tent, we’ll get you suited up.’ He chivvied them ahead of him into the tent, shouting past them, ‘Somebody find suits for the DCI and the profiler.’
As they went through the awkward scramble to get into the white paper suits, Tony tried to speak to Carol. ‘Are you sure you’re up to this?’ he said.
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ She turned her back to him, pulling on a pair of bootees.
‘I really don’t think it’s a good idea. You wouldn’t let a victim’s family see the body of someone they loved actually at the crime scene.’
‘I’m a cop. I’m used to this.’ She snapped the elastic over her foot and stood up, easing her arms into sleeves.
‘You’re not used to seeing someone you love like this. Let me go first, at least.’
‘What – you’re saying you don’t care enough for it to matter to you?’
‘No, of course that’s not what I’m saying. This is going to give you nightmares, Carol.’
She paused and gave him a level stare. ‘And what kind of nightmares do you think it will give me if I don’t see it for myself? It’s precisely because I know what these scenes look like that I have to see it for myself. Otherwise my imagination will fill in the blanks. And how much sleep do you think I’ll get then?’
He had no answer to that. She was ready before him and she didn’t wait, walking straight across the raised metal plates that indicated the route into the crime scene. Tony scrambled to catch up with her, only succeeding in falling over as he struggled with the suit. By the time he made it past the front door, she was already out of sight.
The main area of the barn looked uncannily normal. Lucy’s jacket hung over the balustrade, her shoes kicked off nearby. There was a T-shirt in a crumpled heap near the table and a skirt pooled by the bottom of the stairs. Apart from the metallic and meaty stink of blood, there was no sign of violence down here.
Tony looked up the stairs and gasped at the sight. The ceiling above the gallery was splashed and streaked and puddled with bright scarlet. It looked as if someone had thrown a bucket of red paint at the roof. ‘You slashed the carotids,’ he said softly. He climbed the stairs, careful to stand only on the protective plates.
The scene that met him at the top of the stairs was grotesque. Michael lay on his back on a bed soaked crimson. Lucy was face down next to him, her hair a web of clotted dark red. There was a dried white streak of sperm across her lower back. Blood stained the walls, the floor and the ceiling. Carol stood at the foot of the bed, colour flooding up her neck to her face. He wanted to weep – not for Michael and Lucy, but for Carol.
‘There’s a photograph missing,’ she said bluntly to the SOCO who was working one side of the room. ‘On the wall, there. You can see the outline in the blood. It was a family photo. Michael and Lucy and me. And my mum and dad. It was taken two years ago at my cousin’s wedding. Michael said it was the best photo of all of us that he’d ever seen. He got prints made for me and our parents, and he hung his copy up here where it caught the morning light.’
She turned and looked directly at Tony. Because of the mask she was wearing all he could see were her eyes, their grey-blue sparkling with unshed tears. ‘Now that bastard Vance has my family photo. He’s taken my brother and he’s taken the picture to gloat. Either that or to make targeting my parents easier.’ Her voice was rising, fury taking over from the shock that had cradled her since Blake had broken the news.
‘This is your fault,’ she raged at him. ‘You dragged me into this in the first place. It was your fight, you and your baby profilers. But you dragged me into it, put me on the front line when it came to nailing Jacko Vance.’
The assault was shocking. Carol had never attacked him like this in all the years they’d known each other. They’d argued on occasion, but it had never gone nuclear like this. They’d always drawn back from the brink. Tony had always believed it was because they both understood the power they had to hurt each other. But all those barriers were gone now, torn down in the wake of what Vance had done here. ‘You wanted to be involved,’ he said weakly, knowing as he spoke that truth was no defence here.
‘And you never tried to stop me, did you? You never thought there might be consequences for me. You never have. All the times I’ve ended up risking everything for you. Because you needed me.’ Now the rage had a mocking edge. ‘And now this. You sat there and did your fucking risk assessment yesterday and you never once suggested that Vance might go after the people I love. Why, Tony? Did you not think I would want to know something like that? Or did it just not occur to you?’
He’d known physical pain. He’d been trussed up naked and left for dead on a concrete floor. He’d faced a killer with a pistol. But none of it hurt as much as Carol’s accusations. ‘It didn’t—’
‘Look at you. Finally, you look upset. Is that what’s bothering you now?’ She stepped close to him and pushed him hard in the chest, making him stumble backwards. ‘The fact that you didn’t predict this? Didn’t work it out? That you’re not as smart as you thought you were? The great Tony Hill fucked up and now my brother’s dead?’ She pushed him again and he had to twist away to avoid falling down the stairs. ‘Because that’s what’s happened. You’re supposed to be the one who can figure out what bastards like Vance are going to do next. But you failed.’ She waved an arm at the scene on the bed. ‘Look at it, Tony. Look at it till you can’t close your fucking eyes without seeing it. You did that, Tony. Just as much as Jacko Vance.’ Her hands balled into fists and he flinched.