‘I told them straight off they should warn her,’ Tony said. ‘He’ll perceive what she did as a betrayal. Not only did she fail to stand by him, she chose to humiliate him. That’s how he’ll see it. Rather than divorce him, she went for annulment. You and me, we understand why Vance wanted a marriage of convenience, but as far as your average prison inmate is concerned, not consummating your marriage means only one thing.’ He gave Carol a wry look. ‘That you’re a sad sack of shit who can’t get it up.’
Carol saw the pain in his eyes and felt the twist of the knife. It wasn’t just his impotence that had come between them over the years, but it sure as hell hadn’t helped. ‘You’re not a sad sack of shit,’ she said briskly. ‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself. I hear what you’re saying about Micky – the way she went about getting rid of Vance set him up for ridicule, at best.’
‘He’ll have seen that as deliberate,’ Tony said. ‘But I don’t think she’ll be the one he goes for first. What she did was after the fact, if you like. The real villains are the ones who took his life away from him.’
‘Which would be us,’ Carol said. Anxiety was beginning to climb closer to alarm. She really needed that drink now.
‘I think we’ve got a small window of opportunity before he makes a move,’ Tony said. ‘Vance was never one to take risks. He’ll want to be rested and he’ll want to be certain the plans he put in place from prison will work in practice. That gives all of us time to get our lives in order and go into hiding.’
Carol looked bemused. The notion of giving into the fear was anathema. ‘Go into hiding? Are you crazy? We need to be out there, working with the search team.’
‘No,’ Tony said. ‘That’s the last place you want to be. You want to be where he won’t be looking. Halfway up a Welsh mountain, or on a crowded London street. But certainly not with the search team, the very people he’ll be doing his best to keep tabs on. Carol, I want us all to survive this. And the best way is to take ourselves out of harm’s way till they catch Vance and put him back where he belongs.’
Carol glared at him. ‘And what if they don’t catch him? How long do we stay off the radar? How long do we put our lives on hold till it’s safe to come out?’
‘They’ll catch him. He’s not Superman. He’s got no sense of the surveillance society that’s sprung up since he was sent down.’
Carol snorted. ‘You think? The hard evidence that put him away came from the early versions of what we’ve got now. I think he’ll be very conscious of what’s out there. If he was on a Therapeutic Community Wing, he’ll have had a TV, a radio. Maybe even limited Internet access. Tony, Vance will know exactly what he’s up against and he’ll have made his plans with that in mind.’
‘All the more reason to lie low,’ Tony said stubbornly. He slammed his hands down on the arm of his chair. ‘Damn it, Carol, I don’t want to lose anybody else to that sick bastard.’ His face was stripped of defences and she was reminded of how personal Shaz Bowman’s death had felt to him. The blame he’d loaded on his own shoulders had weighed him down for years, not least because the courts had allowed Vance to escape the consequences of that particularly brutal act.
‘You won’t,’ she said, her voice soft and warm. ‘It’s not going to be like last time. But cops like us don’t hide from animals like Jacko Vance. We go out after them.’ She held up a hand to stop him as he opened his mouth to speak. ‘And I don’t say that in the spirit of gung-ho stupidity. I say it because I believe it. If I start letting the fear take control, I might as well quit right now. Never mind a new start. The only thing I should be looking at is early retirement.’
Tony sighed, knowing when he was defeated. ‘I can’t make you,’ he said.
‘No, you can’t. And unless the others have changed a hell of a lot in the past dozen or so years, you can’t make them either. We need to be out there, looking for him.’
Tony screwed up his face in a pained expression. ‘Please don’t do that, Carol. Please. Warn the others, by all means. But just do your normal work. Leave the manhunt to people he’s got no interest in killing.’
‘And you? Is that what you’ll be doing?’
Tony found he couldn’t meet her eyes, even though he didn’t feel he had anything to be ashamed of. ‘I’m going to be a long way away from the front line, preparing a risk assessment. Suggestions about what Vance will want to do. Where he will want to go. I was going to hide halfway up a Welsh mountain with you so I could pick your brains, but that’s not going to happen, is it?’ Again, he was aware of anger creeping into his voice. This time, he clamped down on it, forcing himself to sound genial. ‘So I’ll probably get somebody else to deal with my appointments at Bradfield Moor today and drive back to Worcester so I can work there in peace.’
It wasn’t an option that pleased Carol. She wanted him where she could keep tabs on him. ‘I’d rather you stayed here,’ she said. ‘If we’re not going into hiding, the least we should do is stay close to each other. Avoid giving Vance any opportunity for attack.’
Tony looked dubious. ‘You’re in the middle of a serial-killer inquiry and I’m not supposed to be working with you. If your beloved Chief Constable sees me hanging around in here, he’ll have an aneurysm.’
‘Tough. Anyway, I thought you’d figured out a way round that?’
Tony continued to avoid her eyes. ‘I didn’t get round to it. This other business put it out of my mind. And now I’ve got to work on this Vance assessment. I tell you what: I’ll work in your office with the blinds drawn, then, when I deliver to the Home Office, I’ll get it sorted out. OK?’
Carol surprised herself by laughing. ‘You’re hopeless, you know that?’
‘But you have to promise me something in return …’
‘What’s that?’
‘If he comes anywhere near any of us, you’ll take cover.’
‘I am not hiding up a mountain in the middle of Wales.’ Carol’s mouth set in a firm line.
‘No, I see that. But I’ve still got the narrowboat moored up in the basin in Worcester. We could set sail like the owl and the pussycat. It’d take our minds off Vance.’
Carol frowned. This wasn’t the Tony Hill she’d known all these years. Yes, he’d recently claimed he’d been changed profoundly by discovering the identity of his biological father, understanding the reasons why the man had played no role in his life, and coming to terms with his legacy. But she’d been doubtful, seeing little evidence of any
