‘I could tell you that, but it would be a lie. Move over, let me get to my filing cabinet,’ Carol said. Tony obediently wheeled himself to one side so she could reach the drawer with the secret stash of vodka. Carol took out a miniature and sloshed it into the cup of coffee she’d walked in with. She sat down on the visitor’s chair and glared at him. ‘What? You heard what I said. Look out there.’ She gestured at the squad room beyond the blinds. ‘The place is awash with coppers. Vance is not going to get near me while I’m at work.’
‘He got out of a prison without anybody stopping him. And now he seems to have disappeared into thin air. Pretty good for a man with a recognisable face and an artificial arm.’
‘For God’s sake, Tony. Vance is not going to walk in here and murder me. And when I’m at home, the team that are watching you can keep an eye on me too. Now, can we just stop talking about this?’
Tony shrugged. ‘If that’s what you want.’
‘It’s what I want.’
‘OK.’ He stared at the computer, closing down the windows he’d already minimised when Carol had walked in to take Lambert’s call. The last thing he needed was for her to see what he was working on. ‘I’m going home, then. Piers told me my guardian angels are waiting for me downstairs in reception. So I don’t have to hang around here any longer.’
‘I won’t be much longer, if you want to hang on and come back with me?’
He shook his head, getting to his feet. ‘My car’s here. Plus I’ve got stuff to be getting on with.’
Taken aback, Carol said, ‘Oh. I thought we could have a chat about the move. My move. I need to figure out what to do about the excess furniture. Because your house is fully furnished and I’ve got one or two things I want to bring with me. My bed, mainly. Because I love that bed.’
Tony smiled. ‘So bring your bed. The one in your room’s a bit of a monstrosity anyway. I can sell it, or give it away, or put it in the garage so there’s something to put back when you’ve had enough of living with me and need to be on your own again.’ He gave her a nervy, anxious look, seeking reassurance.
She ran a hand through her hair, turning shaggy into spiky. ‘I don’t think that’s going to happen.’ Her smile was uncertain too. ‘We’ve spent years taking very small steps towards each other. We never do anything in relation to each other unless we’re belt-and-braces sure of it. I can’t believe this is going to end in disaster.’
He stood up and moved round the desk to put a hand on her shoulder. ‘We won’t let it. I’ll get someone from the antiques centre round to value the bed. And now, I’m going home. It’s ten o’clock and I’m knackered. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, OK?’
She covered his hand with hers. ‘OK.’
‘I know you think I’m overreacting,’ he said, drawing away and moving to the door. ‘But I know what men like Vance are capable of. And it’s taken us so long to get this far, I couldn’t stand to lose you now.’
Then he was gone.
Vance woke up with a start, heart racing, all his senses on full alert. For a moment, he had no idea where he was, thrashing around in the big bed and getting tangled in the unfamiliar duvet. Then the silence sank in and he remembered. He was not where he expected to be. He was miles away from his confined cell in HMP Oakworth. He was in Vinton Woods, in a house owned by a Cayman Islands corporation whose sole director was Patrick Gordon, the name in one of the passports in the briefcase Terry had given him.
He rolled over and snapped on the bedside lamp. Its white glass shade cast a soft light over part of the room. That was novel in itself. The light in his cell at Oakworth had illuminated every corner, exposing its limits and its limitations. But this glow left things to the imagination. Vance liked that.
The bedding, though, was lamentable. That would have to go. Terry had been working class to the core. He really believed that black satin sheets meant you’d arrived.
Vance looked at his watch and was surprised to see it was barely ten o’clock. He’d been asleep for about six hours, but now he was in that peculiar state of still being tired and yet alert. Something had woken him up, some anxiety that had invaded his dreams, and now he couldn’t quite grasp it. He got out of bed, enjoying the feel of soft, rich carpeting beneath his feet. He had a piss, realised he felt hungry, and padded downstairs to the kitchen. Another freedom to luxuriate in.
He switched on the lights, pleased to notice there was no obvious sign of his earlier violence. He wasn’t naive enough to think he’d destroyed all the forensic traces of what had taken place, but he wasn’t anticipating any forensic scientists examining the place. To the casual observer, to the estate agent who would soon be selling the place, there was nothing amiss.
Vance opened the fridge and laughed out loud. Terry had clearly done a commando raid on Marks and Spencer. Ready meals, fresh meat and veg, fruit, milk, champagne and freshly squeezed orange juice. He pulled out the fizz and popped the cork one-handed while he decided what to eat. He settled on some Chinese appetisers, but struggled to make sense of the oven controls. Eventually he worked it out, but the edge had gone from his good mood.
As he poured a second glass of champagne, he recalled what lay behind the spike of anxiety that had awoken him. He hadn’t checked the camera feeds. That was mostly because he hadn’t actually explored the house before exhaustion had knocked the feet from under him. If he’d seen a computer, it would have reminded him.
He prowled through the darkened house, not wanting to draw attention by snapping lights on and off. He found a dining room, a TV room, a sitting room and finally, tucked away at the back of the house, a study. The soft moonlight from outside was enough to navigate by and he crossed to the desk, turning on a lamp that cast a pool of light over the dark wooden desk. Terry had clearly run out of imagination by the time he’d got to the study. A big desk, an extravagantly padded leather chair and a credenza were the sole furnishings. A laptop sat on the desk, a printer on the credenza. Vance assumed the oblong box on the window sill that flashed a trembling array of blue lights at him was the wireless router. He’d seen pictures of routers on the Internet, but never the real thing until now.
He flipped open the laptop. Terry had wanted to get an Apple. He said it was better for what Vance wanted. But he knew his learning curve was going to be steep as it was – the computers he’d been able to access in Oakworth had been old and slow, the access to the Internet severely restricted. He couldn’t help laughing. What the fuck were they thinking, letting someone like him loose on computers? If he’d been in charge, he would never have allowed inmates access to mobiles or the net. If you wanted to stop prisoners communicating with the outside world, then ban mobile-phone coverage from the prison. Never mind inconveniencing the staff, if you were serious about keeping a grip on your prisoners, you had to do shit like that. He’d bet you couldn’t get a mobile signal in a gulag.
