The Torment of Others (51 page)

Dazed, he unlocked the car and they piled in. ‘Stacey, call the station and get a home address for Jan Shields,’ Carol said over her shoulder. ‘Fuck, I should have listened to Tony.’

‘What? He said it was Jan Shields?’ Kevin sounded incredulous.

‘He said there was a cop behind this. I wouldn’t believe him.’

‘Where am I going?’ Kevin said as Carol slammed the noddy light back on the roof.

From the back seat, Stacey shouted the address. ‘It’s on the Micklefield estate,’ she said.

‘We’ve still only got one hooker’s word for it,’ Kevin said as he carved a line through the traffic. ‘And it makes no sense.’

Carol sighed as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. ‘Oh, it makes sense all right. It’s the first thing that’s made sense since this whole fucking business began.’

Tony clicked another button, hoping it might provide some indication of where the webcam feed was coming from. He’d left the screen itself, unable to bear the sight of Paula’s vulnerability. At least she was still alive. It was, he knew, time to call Carol. Stacey Chen was far better equipped for this task than he was.

He reached for his mobile. He’d barely got his hand out of his pocket when he heard a low voice behind him that chilled him to the bone.

‘You’re a burglar. I’m quite within my rights.’

He froze and slowly turned. Jan Shields was inches from him, her weight balanced perfectly, a glittering blade held almost carelessly in her hand. Her eyes were cold and steady, her whole attitude one of carefully contained violence. ‘Drop the phone on the floor,’ she added.

He did as he was told. He didn’t doubt for a moment that she would have had no hesitation in cutting him if he hadn’t complied. ‘Might be a bit hard to argue reasonable force. I mean, everybody knows I’m a weed.’

Her lip curled in contempt. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever have to make the argument. Because nobody knows you’re here, do they?’

‘Carol knows.’ He said it casually, trying to make it convincing.

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. She does things by the book, does the lovely Carol. She would never let you come out to play by yourself. I rather think you’re all mine, Dr Hill.’

She was so accustomed to dominating, he thought. The only way under her guard was to take the power from her. Which was fine in theory. His problem was that he was woefully short on leverage. This isn’t your style, Jan,’ he tried for starters.

For some reason, his words had amused her. ‘You think not?’

‘It’s way too hands-on. You like somebody else to do the dirty work.’

She raised one eyebrow. ‘Are you suggesting I’ve got something to do with these murders?’ she said, her cherub’s face assuming a look of injured innocence.

‘They’re your murders, Jan. You should be proud of them. They’re interesting pieces of work.’

That’s as maybe. But they’re nothing to do with me, Dr Hill. Derek Tyler killed four women. And a retard called Carl Mackenzie did three more copycat murders before he topped himself in remorse only this afternoon. That’s what the evidence shows.’

Oh Christ, she’s killed with her own hands.
The knowledge hit Tony with the force of a lightning strike. He felt his own chances shrivel to ash. But still, he had to try. ‘Come on, Jan. There’s no point in lying now. Carl Mackenzie hasn’t done three murders. Paula McIntyre is still very much alive.’

‘You obviously know more about it than I do. Maybe you’re the person behind it all. Maybe you’ve set me up. Maybe you’re the person who’s been sending me all this sick stuff.’

He shook his head, aiming for an air of disappointment. That dog won’t hunt. Carol Jordan knows me too well to fall for that.’

‘I can make it look that way. With you dead and the ends all tied up, who’s going to listen to your favourite blonde? Everybody knows she’s lost it. Face it, Dr Hill, you’re a busted flush.’

Kevin turned into the Micklefield estate and slowed to a halt at the end of the street where Jan Shields lived. ‘What now?’ he said. ‘It’s a cul-de-sac. If she’s looking out for us, she’s going to see us the minute we turn into it.’

‘Your car’s pretty nondescript. We could drive up and just turn into somebody’s drive near her house. There’s not much light, and it’s not like we’d be doing anything suspicious.’

Kevin drove slowly up the cul-de-sac. Almost at once, he spotted Jan’s distinctive car. ‘Looks like she’s at home,’ he said.

‘Stick to the plan,’ Carol replied. ‘There, that one on the right a couple of doors down from hers. The house will shield us from her line of sight if we pull right up the drive.’

‘What now?’ Kevin asked. ‘We could just front her up. Arrest her on suspicion and do a search.’

Something was niggling at the corner of Carol’s mind. ‘Does anyone know where Tony is?’

‘He said he was going home to write his profile,’ Stacey reminded her.

Carol took out her phone and speed-dialled Tony’s home number. It rang a few times then the machine kicked in. She waited for the beep, then said, ‘Tony, it’s Carol. If you’re there, pick up. It’s urgent.’ She waited for half a minute, then cut off the call. She tried his mobile, but it rang out interminably without an answer. ‘Oh shit,’ she said, a terrible apprehension hitting her.

There’s no reason to suppose he’s in there,’ Kevin said anxiously.

‘Apart from that little pantomime with Jan’s lost keys earlier.’ Carol felt the pieces sliding into place, the picture forming in her mind’s eye.

‘What little pantomime?’

‘Jan mislaid her keys. And Tony stepped out of absent-minded professor role long enough to remind her she hadn’t locked her car. How likely is that, on both counts? But I just didn’t see it at the time.’ She swallowed hard. ‘He’s in there, Kevin. In there with her.’

‘We don’t know that,’ he said.

‘We need to find out. Stay there,’ Carol ordered, opening the car door, ignoring the looks of dismay on her colleagues’ faces. She walked to the corner of the building and sneaked a look round it. She was at a tangent to Jan’s house. She could see part of the living room, which was empty. The front window upstairs was also brightly lit. Anyone watching from in there would be visible from where Carol was standing. Time to take a chance.

She sprinted along the front of the house, jumping a low hedge and crossing the garden of the house next door. That brought her to the edge of Jan’s drive, alongside her car. A big window towards the rear of the gable end spilled light on to the paved blocks of the drive and splashed it up the side of the garage. She calculated that if she could make it to the far end of the window undetected, she could use the shelter of the garage to look into the window from far enough away not to be obvious to anyone inside.

She crouched down and circled behind the car, making it to the gable end and flattening herself against the wall. She edged up until she was almost level with the window, then crouched down and crept along below the sill for a few feet before straightening up. She was just outside the oblong of light. Taking a deep breath, she covered the distance to the rear of the garage in seconds.

Relying on the pool of shadow to obscure her, Carol turned and stood up. She had a clear line of angled vision into the dining room. She could see Jan from the waist up. And, slightly to one side of her, she could see the back of Tony’s head. Her chest tightened.
Why the fuck didn’t you call me?
As she watched, Jan’s right hand came up into view in what looked from that distance to be a casual gesture.

But there was nothing casual about the knife that refracted light in a gleaming line that seemed to cut to Carol’s very heart.

The insistent chirrup of Tony’s mobile stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Jan nodded. ‘Good boy. You didn’t even try to answer it.’

‘This is what you like, isn’t it? The moment of power. Control. The world bent to your will.’

She cocked her head. ‘If you say so.’

‘I know so. It was a beautiful idea. Working on mentally susceptible men, making them your tools. A double dose of power. You control them and they control the victim according to your script. I take my hat off to you. It can’t have been easy, getting them word perfect.’

She smiled. ‘I know what you’re trying to do. And it isn’t going to work. There’s no point in playing for time when the cavalry don’t know where you are.’

He stood up. ‘I’m not playing for time.’

‘Sit down,’ she ordered him.

‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘You know there’s no way out for you.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘I told you. I can make it look like you tried to set me up. I caught you in the act, we struggled, you died.’

‘Underestimating the opposition. It’s the one mistake that brings people down more than any other.’

She gave a derisory snort. ‘What’s to underestimate? We both know where the power resides. I’m a cop. You? You’re just a very strange little man who weirds people out.’

‘No, no, you misunderstand me. I’m not your problem. I don’t actually mind dying, you see. No, your problem is Carol Jordan. I told her what I suspected. OK, she laughed at me. But if anything happens to me, she’ll come after you.’

She looked scornful. ‘Carol Jordan doesn’t scare me.’

‘That’s what I mean about underestimating the opposition. She should scare you. Because, contrary to what you think about her, she’s not afraid of getting her hands dirty. She won’t be hiding behind some poor inadequate sod like Derek Tyler or Carl Mackenzie. She’ll take you down, and she’ll do it in the worst way.’

‘I’ll take my chances.’

He turned away. ‘I don’t think so. You’re too accustomed to making other people take them for you.’

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ she yelled, her control suddenly slipping.

He glanced back at her. ‘I’m tired of talking. You’re history and I’m going home.’

Galvanized into action, she lunged forward and grabbed his arm, spinning him towards her. Then the knife was in the air, gleaming between them, searching for flesh.

As soon as she saw the knife, Carol knew there was no time for anything other than action. She raced to the back door of the house, making a lunge for the door handle. To her surprise, it gave under her hand and she half-tumbled, half-ran into the kitchen. She saw a freeze-frame of Jan bearing down on Tony, the weapon hidden from her by their bodies. His mouth opened in a scream of pain. ‘Drop the knife,’ Carol yelled desperately at the top of her voice as she crossed the kitchen in a handful of strides.

At the sound of her cry, Jan hesitated long enough for Tony to stagger out of the arc of her knife. She glanced back at Carol, turned to flash a look of hatred at him before Carol launched herself across the last few feet between them.

Carol’s momentum drove them both crashing to the floor in a struggling tangle of limbs. At first, Carol had no idea where the knife was and she scrabbled for purchase so she could pin down Jan’s wrist.

‘Let me go,’ Jan shouted. ‘You’re hurting me.’

‘Drop the knife,’ Carol yelled back, her face inches from the other woman’s.

‘I dropped it already.’ The words came out almost as a scream. ‘Get off me.’ Her body bucked under Carol. Then suddenly Tony was on the floor beside them, pinning Jan’s shoulders to the floor with his knees. Blood was streaming from one of his hands, and he clutched it to his chest.

The knife’s on the floor, Carol,’ he said.

Carol eased back, panting, her weight keeping Jan’s lower body immobilized. ‘You’re making a big mistake,’ Jan gasped.

‘I don’t think so,’ Carol said. ‘Jan Shields, I am arresting you on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder…’

‘You don’t get it, do you?’ Jan howled.

‘Save it for the interview room. You do not have to say anything…’

‘Carol, listen to me,’ Jan said, dragging all her resources together to give her voice the note of assured command. ‘I’m the victim here. You need to listen to me.’