They followed Singh and the other officer into the dining room, where Vanessa had settled herself at the head of the table. When they came in, she said, ‘Tony, fetch me a brandy. There’s a bottle and glasses in the sideboard.’
‘I don’t think you should drink,’ Ambrose said. ‘You’re in shock.’
Vanessa gave him the contemptuous look her staff had learned to fear. ‘In shock, be blowed,’ she said, sounding eerily like Patricia Routledge channelling Hyacinth Bouquet. ‘This is my house and my brandy and I won’t be bossed around by the likes of you.’
‘Believe me, it’s easier to go with the flow,’ Tony said, opening the sideboard and fixing his mother a drink. He took it to her and said, ‘What happened?’
‘He came in through the back door armed with a crowbar and a knife and walked into my living room, bold as brass. Of course, I recognised him.’ She took a sip of brandy and pursed her lips. For the first time since they’d arrived, the mask slipped, revealing age and tiredness normally held at bay by cosmetics and willpower. ‘I’d been expecting him, truth be told.’
‘Expecting him?’ Ambrose sounded as gobsmacked as Tony felt.
‘I do watch the news, Sergeant. And aren’t you a little bit low down the totem pole to be dealing with a murder?’
‘Sergeant Ambrose isn’t here in response to your phone call. He’s here because we have been trying to catch Vance.’
Vanessa gave a dry little laugh. ‘Should have been here earlier then, shouldn’t you.’ She shook her head in exasperation. ‘I saw the news and I recognised that house Eddie left you down in Worcester. I’d already heard about your girlfriend’s brother.’
Ambrose gave Tony a startled glance.
Tony sighed. ‘She is not my girlfriend. How many times?’
Vanessa waved a dismissive hand at him and drank more brandy. ‘Then his attack on the ex-wife. I thought to myself, he started on a high with murder, now he’s on a downward spiral and he’s not going to be impressed with himself over two racehorses and a stable lad who didn’t even merit a name check. So I reckoned he might be daft enough to think that killing me would cause that one some grief.’ She tipped her head towards Tony. ‘Stupid bugger.’ It wasn’t at all clear whether she meant Tony or Vance. ‘So I thought, better safe than sorry. I got a knife out of the kitchen drawer and tucked it down the side of the sofa. I didn’t hear him break in at all. The first I knew about it, he was standing in my living room like he owned the place.’ She gave a shiver. Tony thought it was entirely calculated.
‘He came at me with the knife. I grabbed my own weapon and struck out at him. I took him by surprise. He fell on top of me and it took all my strength to push him away. That’s when I got covered.’ She swept her hand from her chin to her knees. ‘It was him or me.’
‘I understand,’ Ambrose said.
‘Shouldn’t somebody caution her?’ Tony couldn’t quite believe that Ambrose seemed to be falling under his mother’s monstrous spell.
‘Caution me? When all I’ve done is defend myself against a convicted murderer attacking me in my own home?’ Vanessa went for pitiful rather than outraged.
‘It’s for your own protection,’ Ambrose said. ‘And Tony’s right. We should say that you do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention now something you later rely on in court. Anything you say may be given in evidence.’
Vanessa gave Tony one of her indefinable looks. He’d learned the hard way that it meant he would pay for it later. It was one of the pleasures of having her out of his life that these days there could be no later. ‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ she said, giving him a frail smile.
Before anyone could say anything more, there were voices in the hall. Ambrose went out and returned moments later with a couple of local uniformed officers. ‘I’ve told these officers they need to contact DCI Franklin in the first instance,’ he said to Tony. ‘They’ll need a statement from you at some point. But right now, I think you need to get off.’
Tony looked puzzled for a moment. ‘You don’t need me to stay?’
Ambrose gave him the hard stare of a man trying to communicate a meaning beyond his words. ‘The colleague we spoke to earlier? At the marina? I think you need to liaise.’
Now Tony understood. He turned to Vanessa. ‘You’ll be all right?’
‘Of course. These lovely men will take care of me.’ Vanessa stood and walked into the hall behind him.
When they were out of earshot, he said bitterly, ‘You’ve always been handy with a knife, Mother.’
‘You must have realised I was a target. You should have warned me,’ Vanessa fired straight back at him. With her back to everyone, she could show her true face: vindictive, hateful and unforgiving.
Tony looked her up and down, appalled at the thought sneaking around in the darkness at the back of his mind. He believed this really might be the last time he would ever willingly be in the same room with her. ‘Why?’ he said as he walked away.
56
It was midnight when Tony drove wearily on to the Vinton Woods estate. There were few lights visible as he tried to find his way round the development. He made a couple of wrong turns before he finally found himself on the right street. He crawled along, looking from side to side, trying to spot Carol’s car.
Then he saw her, tucked away in someone’s driveway, opposite the mouth of a cul-de-sac. He parked on the street and laid his head on the steering wheel for a moment. He’d reached that point of exhaustion where his very bones seemed to hurt. He dragged himself out of the driver’s seat and walked back towards Carol’s car, barely capable of maintaining a straight line.
Tony reached the gate and stood there, occupying the middle of the drive. The way things were, he didn’t feel he could presume to open the passenger door and get in beside her. It felt too much like invading her space.
A long time seemed to pass but finally the driver’s door opened and Carol emerged. She looked haggard, wired, beyond his reach. ‘You’ll scare him off, standing there,’ she hissed at him. ‘For Christ’s sake. Get in the car.’
Tony shook his head. ‘He’s not coming, Carol.’
A flare of hope livened her eyes. ‘He’s been taken?’
‘He’s been killed.’
She stared wordlessly at him for what felt like minutes, the small muscles in her face shifting between joy and pain. ‘What happened?’ she said at last, her lips barely moving.
Tony stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and shrugged like an awkward teenager. ‘It’s ridiculous.’
‘Tell me what happened.’
‘Vanessa … she stabbed him.’
‘Vanessa? Your mother, Vanessa?’
Incredulity, Tony thought. He was going to have to get used to that. Yes, it was my mother who killed the notorious serial killer Jacko Vance. That was going to provoke a lot of very odd looks. For now, he had to get through the only explanation that counted. ‘He broke into her house. To kill her. But she’d figured it out. Can you believe that? The woman with the empathy bypass figured out what none of us with all our training could work out. That she was on his list.’ He could hear the bitterness and anger in his voice, but he didn’t care. ‘So she had a knife tucked down the side of the bloody sofa.’
‘She went for him?’
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘She says he went for her and she caught him unawares. Whatever happened, that’ll be the official version.’
Carol giggled, a strangled hysterical sound. ‘Vanessa killed him? She stabbed him?’
‘She’s got better at it since the last time.’
‘How do you feel about that, Doctor Hill?’ There was a harsh sarcastic edge to Carol’s question.