There was still nothing on the radio about his earlier exploits, which surprised Vance. He’d thought that in a world of 24/7 rolling news, someone would have leaked the double murder to a media contact. He hoped they’d taken him seriously when he’d reported it from a public phone outside the pub where he’d had lunch. It would be ironic if it had been dismissed as a crank call.
Obviously, he hadn’t hung around to see for himself. He had work to do and even though he was convinced of the effectiveness of his disguise, he wasn’t about to take silly chances.
After he’d finished with lovely Lucy, Vance had bundled his bloody clothes into a plastic sack. He’d taken a long hot shower, getting rid of all the traces of his victims. He’d removed the family photo from the wall as a final act intended to freak out Carol Jordan, then dressed downstairs in the clothes he’d brought with him – the trousers of a pinstripe suit and a formal shirt. He swapped the wig he’d arrived with for one that was shorter and differently styled. A better match for Patrick Gordon’s ID. He walked back along the path to his car, taking care not to appear hurried or to show any signs of the elation that was pumping through him. Live with that, Carol Jordan, for the rest of your miserable life. The way he’d had to live every day with what she’d done to him, shut up in a prison where he didn’t belong, surrounded by ugliness and stupidity. Let her discover what it was like to suffer. Only she wouldn’t be able to break out of the prison he’d made for her.
He’d dumped the bloody clothes in an industrial skip behind a hotel near Leeds-Bradford airport before parking the Mercedes in the long-stay car park. Like so many things, the system here had changed since he’d gone inside. Now, you had to take a ticket and hang on to it, paying at some machine somewhere else. He wondered how many dim-witted parking attendants had been made redundant, and how much it had added to the sum of human happiness not to have to deal with the surly bastards.
Vance put on the suit jacket and picked up a briefcase. Then took a bus to the terminal, but instead of making for the checkin desks, he headed towards the car-rental counters. The Mercedes could have been spotted, or picked up on traffic cameras, and he wasn’t taking any chances. Using the Patrick Gordon ID, he hired an anonymous Ford saloon complete with GPS and charged it to an account that ultimately wound its way back to Grand Cayman. The ease of the transaction was something else that had changed for the better. He flirted mildly with the woman behind the counter, but not so much that she’d remember him.
Within twenty minutes, he was on his way, the necessities of vengeance transferred from one vehicle to another. If everything went according to plan, he’d have completed his second act of vengeance within hours. Maybe even his third, if he had a fair wind at his back. The only question in his mind was whether he should book into a motel later, or drive all the way back to Vinton Woods. What luxury, to have such options, he thought. For too long, he’d been trapped without anything but the most basic choices, confined within someone else’s rules. He had so much lost time to make up for, thanks to Carol Jordan and Tony Hill and his bitch of an ex-wife. Still, they were all going to be condemned to a lifetime of suffering. Suffering from which there could be no escape.
Vance smiled at the thought as he pulled into a petrol station. There was true satisfaction in what he was doing. When he was safely installed in his Caribbean villa or his Arabian mansion, he’d be able to look back on this and feed off the sheer pleasure of it for the rest of his life. Knowing his victims still felt the pain would just be the icing on the cake.
33
There was no question of following Carol. Tony stood helpless at the top of the stairs, flayed and gouged by her savagery. It felt as if the bond between them had been ruthlessly severed. He was cast adrift, not least because Carol of all people knew exactly how to cause him maximum damage. She was right, too. She’d given him all her trust, taken wild risks for him, put her life on the line for him. And he’d failed.
He should have considered the bigger picture. But he’d been so sure that he remembered all that was important about Vance. He hadn’t talked to the prison psychologist because he’d dismissed her professional value on the grounds that she’d let herself be seduced by his charm. That didn’t mean she didn’t have something valid to say. He hadn’t talked to the prisoner whose place Vance had taken on the temporary release. He’d been too cocksure to think Vance’s dupe would have any useful insights. He’d left it to Ambrose to do the interviews he should have sat in on, at the very least. It wasn’t arrogance to believe that he’d have got more from them, just cold hard fact. And he’d let himself be distracted by Paula’s desire to have Carol walk out the door in a blaze of glory. It had been a desire he shared. He’d always wanted only the best for Carol. He suspected he’d failed more often than he’d succeeded.
He stood by the stairs, gazing at the macabre spectacle, trying to make sense of what he was looking at. It had to be Vance. Tony had never had any difficulty with the notion of coincidence, but sometimes what your brain told you was happening was exactly the way it was. For this to be random was beyond the bounds of credibility.
There was, of course, another possibility. There usually was.
‘Dr Hill?’ Franklin was shouting his name, calling him back to the here and now.
He turned away from the scene and went downstairs. ‘This wasn’t about sex,’ he said to Franklin, who looked incredulous.
‘What do you mean, it wasn’t about sex? According to the preliminary reports, he killed them when they were having sex and then, after he’d slit her throat, he fucked a dying woman.’ Franklin sounded like a man who couldn’t decide between anger and sarcasm. ‘Can you tell me in what sense that’s not about sex?’
Tony rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘Let me put it this way. Michael and Lucy have been together for ten years or so. If you were trying to catch them having sex so you could get off on killing them while they were in the act, would you choose a Friday after lunch?’ Now it was Tony’s turn for sarcasm. ‘Would you reckon that was the best time to find them fucking each other’s brains out, Chief Inspector? Is that the way it works round here?’
Franklin scowled. ‘When you put it like that … ’
Tony shrugged. ‘I think he just got lucky. He came here to kill them and it turned out much easier than he expected. As for the sex – he’s been banged up for a dozen years. Lucy was an attractive woman. Even in death. And he turned her over, so he wouldn’t have to look at her face.’ He looked at the floor. ‘At what he’d done to her.’
‘How do you know he turned her over? She could have been on her stomach all along.’
‘The blood. If she’d been on her front, the blood couldn’t have sprayed as far as it did outwards and upwards.’
‘Suddenly you’re a blood-spatter specialist as well as a shrink.’ Franklin shook his head.
‘No. But I’ve seen a few crime scenes in my time.’ Tony turned away. ‘Take it or leave it, it’s not about the sex.’
‘So what is it about?’
Tony blinked hard, surprised at the urge towards tears. ‘It’s about payback. Welcome to the wonderful world of Jacko Vance, Chief Inspector.’
Franklin looked uncertain. ‘You seem bloody sure of yourself, doc.’
‘Who found them?’
‘There was an anonymous phone call from a box in a village about fifteen minutes’ drive away. The caller was a male, nothing distinctive about his accent. A local patrol car was dispatched. The door was open, our lads came in.’ The corners of his mouth turned down in sympathy. ‘First time for the pair of them. I doubt they’ll sleep tonight. Does that tell you anything?’