round to his way of thinking. ‘You all grow unaccustomed to nice,’ his psychologist had once remarked. That had given Vance a powerful tool, and finally he’d cracked it. Collins’ elder son was about to become a pupil at the best independent school in Warwickshire and Jacko Vance was about to walk out of jail.
Vance tidied up, tearing the soggy paper into fragments and flushing it, along with hair wrapped in thin wads of toilet paper. He scrunched the plastic film into little balls and squeezed it between the table and the wall. When he could think of nothing more, he finally lay down on the narrow bed. The air chilled the sweat on his body and, shivering, he pulled the duvet over him.
It was all going to be all right. Tomorrow, the screw would come for Jason Collins to take him for his first day of Release on Temporary Licence. ROTL was what every prisoner in the Therapeutic Community dreamed of – the day they would emerge from the prison gates and spend a day in a factory or an office. How bloody pitiful, Vance thought. Therapy that so reduced a man’s horizons that a day of mundane drudgery was something to aspire to. It had taken every ounce of his skills in dissimulation to hide his contempt for the regime. But he’d managed it because he knew this was the key to his return to a life outside walls.
Because not everyone in the Therapeutic Community would be allowed outside. For Vance and a handful of others, there would always be too high a risk involved in that. No matter that he’d convinced that stupid bitch of a psychologist that he was a different man from the one who’d committed the deeply disturbing murder he’d been convicted of. Not to mention all those other teenage girls that he was technically innocent of killing, since he’d never been found guilty of their murders. Still, no Home Secretary wanted to be branded the person who released Jacko Vance. It didn’t matter what his tariff from the judge said. Vance knew there would never be an official return to society for him. He had to admit, if he was in charge, he wouldn’t let him out either. But then, he knew exactly what he was capable of. The authorities could only guess.
Vance smiled in the darkness. Very soon he planned to take the guesswork out of the equation.
7
The liveried police car made a slow turn at Carol’s direction. ‘Third house on the left,’ she said, her voice a weary sigh. She’d left Paula at the crime scene, making sure things were done the way the Major Incident Team preferred. Carol had no problem with delegation, not with a hand-picked squad like this one. She wondered whether she’d have that same luxury in Worcester.
‘Ma’am?’ The driver, a stolid twenty-something traffic officer, sounded cautious.
Carol roused herself to attention. ‘Yes? What is it?’
‘There’s a man sitting in a parked car outside the third house on the left. It looks like his head’s leaning on the steering wheel,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to PNC the index number?’
As they drew level, Carol looked out of the window, surprised but not shocked to see Tony, as the PC had said, leaning on his arms on the steering wheel. ‘No need to trouble the computer,’ she said. ‘I know who he is.’
‘Do you need me to have a word?’
Carol smiled. ‘Thanks, but that won’t be necessary. He’s entirely harmless.’ That wasn’t strictly true, but in the narrow terms of reference of a traffic cop, it was as close as damn it.
‘Your call,’ he said, drawing in front of Tony’s car and coming to a halt. ‘Night, ma’am.’
‘Good night. No need to wait, I’m fine.’ Carol got out of the car and walked back to Tony’s car. She hung on till the police car drove off, then opened the passenger door and got in. At the sound of the lock clicking shut, Tony’s head jerked back and he gasped as if he’d been struck.
‘What the fuck,’ he said, his voice frightened and disorientated. His head jerked from side to side as he tried to make sense of his surroundings. ‘Carol? What the …?’
She patted his arm. ‘You’re outside the house in Bradfield. You were asleep. I came home from work and saw you. I thought you might not have intended to spend the whole night spark out in the car.’
He rubbed his hands over his face as if splashing himself with water, then turned to her, wide-eyed and startled. ‘I was listening to a podcast. The fabulous Dr Gwen Adshead from Broadmoor talking about dealing with the disasters that are our patients. I got home and she was still talking and I wanted to hear the end of it. I can’t believe I fell asleep, she was talking more sense than anybody I’ve heard in a long time.’ He yawned and shook himself. ‘What time is it?’
‘Just after three.’
‘God. I got back not long after midnight.’ He shivered. ‘I’m really cold.’
‘I’m not surprised.’ Carol opened the door. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m going indoors.’
Tony scurried out of his side and met her at the gate to the house. ‘Why are you only coming home just after three? Do you want a drink? I’m wide awake now.’
He could be so like a small child, she thought. Out of nowhere, all eagerness and curiosity. ‘I’ll come in for a nightcap,’ she said, following him to the front door rather than to the side door that led to her self-contained basement flat.
Inside, the house had the still cold air of a space that’s been empty for more than a few hours. ‘Put the fire on in my office, it warms up faster than the living room,’ Tony said, heading for the kitchen. ‘Wine or vodka?’
He knew her well enough not to bother offering anything else. ‘Vodka,’ she called as she squatted down to struggle with the ignition of the gas fire. She’d lost count of the number of times she’d suggested he have the fire serviced so it wouldn’t be a wrestling match to get it going. It didn’t matter now. Within a couple of weeks, the sale of this house and her flat within it would be completed and he’d have the problems of a whole new house to ignore. But then, the problems wouldn’t have the chance to turn into nagging irritations. Because she’d be living there, and she didn’t tolerate infuriating shit like that.
The fire finally caught as Tony returned with a bottle of Russian vodka, a bottle of Calvados and a pair of tumblers that looked as if he’d collected them free with petrol sometime in the 1980s. ‘I packed the nice glasses already,’ he said.
‘Both of them?’ Carol reached for the bottle, flinching at the cold. It had obviously been in the freezer and the spirit slid down the bottle in sluggish sobs as she poured it.
‘So why are you coming home after three? You don’t look like it was a party.’
‘Superintendent Reekie at Northern wants me to go out in a blaze of glory,’ she said drily.
