He pushed against the top and bottom of the door to test whether there were any bolts, but apparently Hill hadn’t invited his good friend DCI Jordan round to sort out his mother’s security. It seemed that the door was only secured by the mortice lock and the door catch.
Vance pushed the point of the crowbar into the spot where the door met the jamb. It was a tight fit, but he was strong enough to force it in, denting the soft wood of the door-frame in the process. He pushed harder, trying to put more stress on the lock before he began the serious business of forcing it.
Once he was satisfied he had the leverage right, Vance leaned into the crowbar, using his weight as well as his strength against the wood and metal holding the door closed. At first, his only reward was a faint creak of wood. He put more effort into it, grunting softly like a pianissimo tennis player on the serve. This time, he felt something give. He paused to realign the crowbar’s bite and put everything into shifting the lock body out of the box keep. This time, there was a scream of metal and a splintering of wood as the door burst open.
Vance stood panting on the threshold, feeling very pleased with himself. He shifted the crowbar into his prosthetic hand, checking his grip was secure. It was amazing how well this worked. He could actually ‘feel’ that he was holding something and he could judge how much pressure he needed to apply to keep hold of it. And those bastards had wanted to deny him access to this technology. He shook his head, smiling at the memory of his delight at their defeat in the European Court. But this was no time for basking in past victories. He had work to do. Vance reached for the knife with the seven-inch blade that he’d left on the window sill and stepped inside the kitchen.
To his surprise, there was no sign of Vanessa Hill. He hadn’t made a lot of noise, it was true, but most people were attuned to the sounds of their home at an unconscious level, particularly when they were home alone. Anything out of the ordinary would bring them to their feet to investigate. Apparently Vanessa Hill was either hard of hearing or so engrossed in whatever crap she was watching on TV that she hadn’t heard him break in. Admittedly, the door into the hallway was closed, which might have made the difference between hearing and not.
Vance moved across the kitchen as quietly as he could, lifting his feet high to avoid the shuffle of his bootees on the tiled floor. He inched the door open and wasn’t surprised to hear American voices talking and laughing. He walked down the hall, his movements loose and relaxed now he was so close to accomplishing his goal. First he’d taken Tony Hill’s home from him. Now he was going to rob him of his only relative, his beloved mother. Vance’s one regret was that he wouldn’t be sticking around to see the suffering at first hand.
Two steps away from the threshold of the living room he paused, straightening his spine and squaring his shoulders. The flickering TV light reflected on the shining steel of his blade.
Then he was through the door and round the sofa and brandishing his weapons at the woman sitting upright among the cushions. Her response was not what he expected. Instead of screaming panic, Vanessa Hill was simply looking at him with mild curiosity.
‘Hello, Jacko,’ she said. ‘What kept you?’
55
Tony assumed the blue flashing lights that were gaining on him all the way up the main drag belonged to Ambrose. He turned into the side street leading to his mother’s road just ahead of them and managed to stop them overtaking him before they all took a hard left into her street.
Tony abandoned his car in the road, making no attempt at parking. He ran for the front door, but before he got there, a young Asian man grabbed him in a bear hug and slammed him into the side of the house. ‘No, you don’t,’ he said. Then Ambrose was in front of him, struggling into a stab vest the size of a car door.
‘Take it easy, Tony,’ he said softly. ‘You don’t go in first. Have you got a key?’
Tony snorted. ‘No. And no, I don’t know if any of the neighbours has one. I’d doubt it, though. She’s a very private person, my mother.’
A couple of other officers were hanging back near the gate. ‘We could just ring the bell,’ one of them said.
‘We don’t want a hostage situation,’ Ambrose said.
‘You’re not going to get a hostage situation,’ Tony said. ‘He’s here for a reason. He’ll kill then leave. If he’s still in there, it’s only because he’s in the process of leaving.’ He gestured with his head towards the narrow passage by the garage. ‘You might want to send one of your lads down there in case Vance is going out the back door.’
Ambrose pointed to one of the officers then stabbed his thumb at the gap. ‘Take a look.’ He gave Tony a perplexed look. ‘Let’s ring the bell, then.’ He pointed a finger at Tony. ‘But you stay behind us. Whatever happens, you stay behind us.’
They walked up to the door, surprisingly quietly for such big men. Tony found enough space between Singh and Ambrose to see what was going on. Ambrose rang the bell then stepped back so he was out of reach of anyone swinging a punch from the doorway.
Tony felt his stomach clench. He was convinced he was closer to Vance than he’d been at any time in the past twelve years. Whether the killer was in the house already or on his way here, this was the place where they’d find him. What the cost of that confrontation might be, Tony didn’t want to consider right now. What he wanted was to see Vance caged again and caged for good. No question about it, he was one of the ones who should never have any kind of freedom. It went against the grain of Tony’s heartfelt conviction that rehabilitation should always be the goal of the judicial process, but every now and again, he was forced to accept that someone was beyond help. Unredeemable. Vance was a walking exemplar whose very existence felt like a rebuke. He and his kind reminded Tony that the system’s failures generally created more fallout than its successes.
A light snapped on behind the glass and they could hear a key turning in the lock. The door inched open and Vanessa’s face appeared in the gap, her hair disarranged as if she’d been roused from a nap. Ambrose and Singh held out their ID and garbled their names and ranks. Tony gave a thin smile and waved at her. ‘Hello, Mum,’ he said, sounding as weary as he suddenly felt.
‘That was fast,’ Vanessa said, opening the door wider to reveal a scarlet stain spreading across her kaftan from chest to mid-thigh. ‘I’ve only just rung 999. You’d better come in.’
Ambrose turned and looked at Tony, wide-eyed with shock. Feeling light-headed, Tony pushed past the cops and stepped inside as Vanessa pulled the door back and invited them in.
She pointed to the barely ajar living-room door and said in a matter-of-fact way, ‘You won’t want to go in there. It’s what you lot call a crime scene. But we can go into the dining room. He didn’t go in there at all, so there’s nothing to contaminate.’ She led the way down the hall to another door and swung it open. ‘Don’t just stand there, come through.’
Ambrose took a step forward and nudged the living-room door further open. Tony edged round so he could see past him. A man was sprawled on the floor like a marionette, legs askew, arms out to the side, a blonde wig adrift above his head. ‘It’s Vance,’ Tony said. ‘I recognise him.’ Vance’s overall was ripped open. His abdomen was bright red and blood had flowed on to the carpet around him. His chest was motionless. Tony didn’t know much about emergency medicine, but he reckoned the paramedics would be wasted on Jacko Vance.
‘She killed him?’ Ambrose said, incredulous.
‘Looks that way,’ Tony said.
‘You don’t seem surprised.’
Tony felt as if he might burst into tears. ‘Nothing about Vanessa has ever surprised me. Let’s go and see what she has to say for herself before the local plods arrive.’