The Wire in the Blood (16 page)

Chapter 7

Tony walked down Briggate, hands thrust deep into his jacket pockets against the cold, swerving to avoid the last straggles of shoppers and the weary-footed sales assistants making for the bus stops. He deserved a drink. It had been a difficult afternoon. For a time it had looked as if the group spirit nurtured from day one was about to become a memory as differences of opinion escalated into argument then teetered on the edge of hurling abuse.

The first response to Shaz’s dramatic hypothesis had been stunned silence. Then Leon had slapped his leg and rocked to and fro on his chair. ‘Shazza, baby,’ he yelled. ‘You are more full of shit than a sewage farm, but you are the best value in town! All right, baby, way to go!’

‘Hang on a minute, Leon,’ Simon objected. ‘You’re quick off the mark to slap the girl down. What if she’s right?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ Leon drawled contemptuously. ‘Like Jacko Vance is
obviously
a psychopathic serial killer. You’ve only got to watch him on the telly. Or read about him in the tabloids. Yeah, Jack the Lad, marriage made in heaven, England’s glory, the hero who sacrificed his arm and his Olympic medal so that others might live. Very Jeffrey Dahmer, very Peter Sutcliffe. Not.’

Tony had kept half an eye on Shaz during Leon’s outburst, noticing the apparent darkening of her eyes and the tense line of her mouth. She couldn’t handle mockery the way she dealt with straightforward criticism, he realized. As Leon paused for breath, Tony jumped in with a dose of irony. ‘I just love the cut and thrust of intellectual debate,’ he said. ‘So, Leon, how about you stop showing off and provide us with some cogent argument against the case that Shaz is making?’

Leon scowled, unable as usual to disguise his emotions. Hiding behind the lighting of a cigarette, he mumbled something.

‘Can you let us have that again?’ Carol interjected sweetly.

‘I said, I didn’t think Jacko Vance’s personality fits our general terms of reference for serial offenders,’ he repeated.

‘How do you know that?’ Kay cut in. ‘All we ever see of Jacko Vance is the image manufactured by the media. Some serial killers have been superficially charming and manipulative. Like Ted Bundy. If you’re going to be a top athlete, you have to develop phenomenal self-control. Maybe that’s what we’re seeing with Jacko Vance. A totally synthetic front covering up a psychopathic personality.’

‘Spot on,’ Simon said vigorously.

‘But he’s been married a dozen years or more. Would his wife have stayed with him if he was a psychopath? I mean, he couldn’t maintain the mask permanently,’ someone objected.

‘Sonia Sutcliffe always asserted she was totally unaware that her husband went out topping prostitutes the way some men go to football matches. And Rosemary West still claims she had no idea Fred was using bodies for foundations under their patio extension,’ Carol pointed out.

‘Yeah, and think about it,’ Simon urged, ‘couples with jobs like Micky Morgan and Jacko Vance, they’re not like the rest of us. Half the time Jacko’s on the road doing
Vance’s Visits
. Then there’s all his hospital voluntary work. And Micky must be in the studio at the crack of sparrowfart getting prepared for her programme. They probably see less of each other than coppers see of their kids.’

‘It’s an interesting point,’ Tony said, cutting across a couple of loud interjections. ‘What do you think, Shaz? It’s your theory, after all.’

Shaz’s jaw was set mutinously. ‘I don’t hear anybody arguing against my identification of the cluster as a significant entity,’ she started.

‘We-ell,’ Kay said. ‘I’m wondering how significant it really is. I mean, I pulled together several clusters that maybe are just as validly connected. The girls who the police thought might have been sexually abused, for example.’

‘No,’ Shaz said firmly. ‘Not with as many linking factors as this group. It’s worth saying again that some of the things that connect them are unusual features, unusual enough for investigating officers to make a particular note of them. Like taking their best clothes with them.’ Tony was pleased to see she was undaunted by this latest example of Kay’s constant nit-picking.

Her rebuttal didn’t win her a reprieve, however. ‘Of course you’d note that,’ Leon chipped in, never squashed for long. ‘It’s the single factor that indicates you’re looking at a runaway rather than the victim of a serial killer. You didn’t make a note of it, you’d be a pretty crap detective.’

‘Like the one who didn’t even notice the cluster in the first place?’ Shaz demanded belligerently.

Leon cast his eyes upwards and stubbed out his cigarette. ‘You women, when you get an idea in your heads…’

‘Christ, you talk shite sometimes,’ Simon said. ‘If we could just get back to what this is supposed to be about…I’m wondering how much of a coincidence it is that Vance visited those towns. I mean, we don’t know how many public appearances he does in the average week. It may be that he’s constantly on the road, in which case it wouldn’t mean a lot.’

‘Exactly,’ Kay backed him up. ‘Did you check the local newspapers for the missing kids who aren’t in your cluster to see if Vance turned up there as well?’

Shaz’s pursed lips gave the answer before she even opened her mouth. ‘I didn’t have the chance,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘Maybe you’d like to take on that little task, Kay?’

‘If it was a real operation, you’d have to follow up Kay’s suggestion,’ Carol pointed out. ‘But you would have the bodies and time to do it, which you didn’t have here. I must say, I’m impressed with what you have achieved with the limited time and resources available.’ Shaz’s shoulders squared at Carol’s praise, but as the DCI continued, she looked wary. ‘However, even if it’s a genuine connection, it’s too much of a leap in the dark to point the finger straight at Jacko Vance. If these disappearances and presumed murders are connected to his appearances, it’s much more likely that the perpetrator is a member of Jacko’s entourage or even a member of the public who has an initiating stressor in his past that connects to Vance. At its most obvious, perhaps he was rejected by a woman who was a big fan of Jacko’s. These would be my first areas of interest, before I came to the assumption that Jacko himself was involved.’

‘It’s a point of view,’ Shaz said, momentarily mortified that she’d been so carried away with her headline-grabbing theory that she hadn’t considered that possibility. It was the nearest Tony had ever seen her come to a concession. ‘But you think the cluster is worth pursuing?’

Carol had looked desperately at Tony. ‘I…uh…’

Coming to her rescue, he’d said, ‘This was only ever going to be an exercise, Shaz. We’ve got no authority to take any of these cases any further.’

She looked devastated. ‘But there’s a cluster here. Seven suspicious disappearances. Those girls, they’ve got families.’

Leon butted in again, sarcasm back in full working order. ‘C’mon, Shazza. Get them synapses working. We’re supposed to be clearing things up for the plods on the street, not finding more work for them to do. D’you really think anybody’s going to thank us for stirring up a load of aggro over a theory that’s dead easy to dismiss out of hand as the product of the fevered minds of a bunch of rookies on a special squad that nobody much wants on the job anyway?’

‘Fine,’ Shaz said bitterly. ‘Let’s just forget I spoke, eh? So whose turn is it to be shot down in flames next? Simon? We going to get the benefit of your words of wisdom now?’

Tony had taken Shaz’s seeming capitulation as a signal to move on. The other team members’ analyses had been considerably less controversial, which had allowed him to demonstrate useful tips and pitfalls in data sifting and the developing of conclusions from raw material. As the afternoon had worn on, he’d noticed Shaz slowly recover from the combative reception her ideas had been given. Gradually, she had ceased to look desolate, moving through crestfallen to an air of stubborn determination that he found slightly worrying. Some time in the next few days, he’d have to make time to have a word with her, to point out the quality of much of her analysis and explain the importance of keeping apparently wild conclusions private until she could back them up with something more solid than a hunch.

He turned off the main street into the narrow alley that housed Whitelocks pub, an old-fashioned relic that had somehow survived the years when the city centre died at half past five. If he was honest, the last thing he felt like was a drink with Carol. The history between them meant theirs could never be entirely easy encounters, and tonight he had something he ought to tell her that she wouldn’t want to hear.

At the bar, he ordered a pint of bitter and found a quiet table in the far corner. He’d never been one to shirk his obligations. But Shaz’s failure to consider one of Jacko Vance’s fans or a member of his entourage as a possibility had reminded him of the importance of waiting for data before exposing theories to the harsh scrutiny of others. Just for once, Tony thought he’d take his own mental advice to Shaz and say nothing of his ideas until he too had more evidence.

It had taken Carol half an hour to escape from the probing questions of the two women task force officers. She had the distinct feeling that if she hadn’t taken so very definite a leave, the one with the eyes, Shaz, would have pinned her to the wall until she’d sucked her dry of every piece of pertinent information, and a fair amount of impertinent. By the time she pushed open the etched glass door of the pub, she was convinced he’d have given up on her and left.

She saw his wave of greeting as soon as she approached the bar. He was sitting in a wood-panelled nook at the far end of the room, the remains of a pint of bitter in front of him. ‘Same again?’ she mouthed, making the universal gesture of a hand tipping a glass.

Tony placed one index finger across the top of the other to form a T. Carol grinned. Moments later, she placed a straight glass of Tetley’s in front of Tony and sat down opposite him with her own half-pint. ‘Driving,’ she said succinctly.

‘I took the bus. Cheers,’ he added, raising his glass.

‘Cheers. It’s good to see you.’

‘And you.’

Carol’s answering smile was wry. ‘I wonder if there’ll ever come a time when you and I can sit opposite each other and not feel there’s a third person at the table?’ She couldn’t help it. It was like a scab she was impelled to pick, always convinced that this time it wouldn’t draw blood.

He looked away. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘you’re about the only person who doesn’t make me feel like that. Thanks for coming today. I know it probably wasn’t the way you would have chosen to reopen our…’

‘Acquaintance?’ Carol said, unable to avoid a sour note.

‘Friendship?’

It was her turn to look away. ‘I hope so,’ she said. ‘I hope friendship.’ It was less than the truth and they both knew it, but it served its purpose. Carol found a frail smile. ‘An interesting bunch, your baby profilers.’

‘They are, aren’t they? I suppose you saw what they’ve all got in common?’

‘If ambition was illegal they’d all be doing life. In the next cell to Paul Bishop.’

Tony nearly choked on his mouthful of beer, spraying the table and narrowly missing Carol’s cream twill jacket. ‘I see you haven’t lost your killer instinct,’ he spluttered.

‘What’s to be coy about? You can’t miss it. High octane aspiration. It fills the room like testosterone in a nightclub. Doesn’t it worry you that they all see the task force as a stepping stone in their brilliant careers?’

Tony shook his head. ‘No. Maybe half of them will use it as a springboard to what they perceive as greater things. The other half think that’s what they’re doing, but actually they’re going to fall in love with profiling and they’re never going to want to do anything else.’

‘Name names.’

‘Simon, the lad from Glasgow. He’s got that sceptical turn of mind that takes nothing on trust. Dave, the sergeant. He likes the idea that it’s methodical and logical yet it still has space for flair. But the real star is going to be Shaz. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s been bitten by the bug. Don’t you think?’

She nodded. ‘She’s an obsessive workaholic and she can’t wait to get to grips with the screwed-up minds out there on the street.’ She cocked her head to one side. ‘Know what?’

‘What?’

‘She reminded me of you.’

Tony looked like he couldn’t decide whether to be offended or amused and settled for puzzled. ‘How odd,’ he said. ‘She reminded
me
of you.’

‘What!’ Carol exclaimed, startled.

‘This afternoon’s presentation. The basic work was solid. The cluster she’d identified is definitely worth consideration as a phenomenon.’ He spread his hands and opened his eyes wide. ‘To jump from that to the conclusion that Jacko Vance is a serial killer was a leap of imagination unrivalled since your virtuoso performance in the Bradfield case!’

Carol couldn’t help laughing at his histrionics. ‘But I was right,’ she protested.

‘You may have been right in
fact
, but you broke all the laws of logic and probability to get there.’

‘Maybe Shaz is right. And maybe we’re just better at profiling than the boys,’ Carol teased.

Tony grunted. ‘I wouldn’t deny the possibility that girls are better at this,’ he said. ‘But I can’t believe you think Shaz is right.’

Carol pulled a face. ‘Six months down the road, she’ll be mortified she even suggested it.’

‘Knowing cops, one of that bunch will probably set her up with a face-to-face on
Vance’s Visits
.’

Carol shuddered. ‘I can see it now. Jacko Vance nailed to the wall by those extraordinary eyes, Shaz saying, “And where were you on the night of 17th January 1993?”’ When they’d both stopped laughing, she added, ‘I’ll be fascinated to see what she comes up with for my serial arsonist.’

‘Mmm,’ Tony said.

She raised her glass in a toast. ‘To the mumbo jumbo squad.’

‘May we be a long time in heaven before the devil notices we’re gone,’ he responded wryly and drained his glass. ‘Another?’

Carol looked at her watch consideringly. It wasn’t that she had to be anywhere; she wanted a moment to decide whether it was better to leave things on this pleasant footing or stay for another drink with the risk they might end up putting the distance back between each other. Deciding not to chance it, she shook her head regretfully. ‘No can do, I’m afraid. I want to catch the night-shift CID team before they all disappear into the twilight zone.’ She swallowed the last half-inch of beer and stood up. ‘I’m glad we had the chance for a chat.’