He could hardly believe how quickly the machine booted up. It was a thing of beauty compared to what he’d grown used to. He went back to the kitchen to fetch the briefcase and opened it on the desk beside the laptop. Vance took out a small address book and thumbed it open at ‘U’ and directed the web browser to the first of a list of urls on the page. It opened an anonymous-looking website that asked for a password. Then he went to the letter ‘C’ and typed in the first string of letters and numbers on the page. ‘C is for camera,’ he said aloud as he waited for the page to open. Seconds later, he was looking at a screen divided into quarters. One quarter was in complete darkness. One showed a brightly lit kitchen; beyond that, a dining area; beyond that still a sitting area with a vast inglenook fireplace. It looked like a barn conversion, judging by the scale and the hammer beams in the ceiling. Another showed the same open-plan space but from the other end. A man was sprawled on a long leather sofa. Greying blond hair, indistinct features, a T-shirt with a logo Vance didn’t recognise, and a pair of boxer shorts. Over to one side, a woman was sitting at a desk, tapping on a laptop. Beside her was a glass of red wine. The fourth quadrant showed the top of an open staircase leading to a gallery bedroom. It was hard to make out much detail, but it looked as if there was a bathroom and a dressing room behind the main area.
Vance watched, fascinated, a self-satisfied smile on his face, as nothing much happened. So many private investigators, so few scruples. Ask around and you could find one who would do more or less anything, as long as you could find a way of dressing it up in some guise that made it sound remotely legitimate. It hadn’t been cheap to get the cameras in place, but it had been worth every penny. He wanted to be sure exactly how the land lay before he took on this act of revenge.
He closed down the window and repeated the process with another access code. This time, the views were external. They showed a large Edwardian house set in a good-sized garden. The cameras showed the approach to the front door, a view of the living room from the outside, a wide shot of the back of the house and the driveway. In the light from nearby street lamps, the house appeared to be empty. The curtains were open, the windows dark. Vance nodded, still smiling. ‘It’s not going to be dark forever,’ he said, moving on to the third access code.
Again, four camera angles. A gravel drive leading to a long, low farmhouse covered in some kind of creeper. Very English. He could see what looked like a stable block in the distance, lit by floodlights. Next, the block itself. He’d seen places like this all over the country; the brick and wooden frontages of stable yards where horses occupied the stalls, paid for by the largesse of rich men and women and tended by ill-paid workers who loved the beasts more than most of their owners ever would. A figure passed across the yard, his movements jagged. A beam of light arced out from one hand. He shone the light jerkily on each door in turn before disappearing from sight. The third quadrant showed the rear of the house, while the fourth was a long shot of the approach to the drive. Parked across the entrance was a horsebox, making it impossible for a vehicle to pass. Vance’s smile grew broader. Anticipation was so sweet.
Reassured by what he had seen, he closed the computer down. There were other sets of cameras waiting to be activated, but now wasn’t the time. If his cameras were picked up on one of his early hits, he imagined the police would sweep all the other possible locations for hidden surveillance. If there was no electronic signal, they would be almost impossible to find. Or so Terry had told him. It would be nice to keep tabs on all his targets all the time, but he was willing to hold back in the interests of keeping ahead of the game.
This time, he took the precaution of carrying the briefcase upstairs with him. Now he had satisfied his curiosity, he was feeling sleepy again. The spy cameras were every bit as good as he had been promised. If he’d had any doubts about whether he could carry out his mission, they were all dispelled. Tomorrow, the next phase would begin.
Tomorrow there would be blood.
The Toyota didn’t look red under the sodium street lights. That was just as well, since the number plates belonged to a tan Nissan. All very confusing for a witness, or even someone trying to analyse a CCTV tape. Not that the driver expected them to be running surveillance of the sex workers’ beats. All that bleating about front-line cuts and budgets – what little money the cops had at their disposal these days was going where the taxpayers could see it. Neighbourhood patrols, turning up at burglaries instead of giving out a crime number over the phone, anti-social behaviour. Orders from on high to make it look good, keep the government on the right side of the voters.
It was total jackpot time for anyone below the
How could the cops not notice what was going on? Maybe he should start taking photos of his victims with his trademark front and centre. The media would be all over it soon enough if that sort of thing started landing on their desks. Then the cops would have to sit up and pay attention.
Fletcher drove slowly through Temple Fields, Bradfield’s main red-light district. The Vice squad had cleaned it up a lot in recent years, the gay community had annexed whole streets, and there was a lot less sex for sale out in the open than there used to be. The brasses worked inside, in saunas and massage parlours or out-and-out brothels. Or else they’d moved out to other parts of town, like the dual carriageway near the airport and round the back of the hospital building site.
The traffic on Campion Way was heavy, which suited him. It wasn’t usually this clogged so late at night. But some of the cars had yellow scarves hanging from the windows and Fletcher reckoned Bradfield Victoria must have had an evening kick-off. He vaguely remembered they were in the Europa League, which the guys down the pub derisively referred to as, ‘Thursday night, Channel 5. Not football as such.’ He didn’t understand the comment, but he grasped the fact that it was derogatory. He often didn’t really get what the guys in the pub or at work were on about, but he knew the best way to hide his true self was to conceal his bewilderment and act like he was one of the quiet ones who didn’t say much but took it all in. It had served him well over the years. Well enough to fool Margo for long enough to make her his. And once that had stopped working, well, he’d managed to deal with that without it coming back to haunt him, and never had to explain it away because nobody expected him to.
As the cars crawled up the dual carriageway, Fletcher studied every woman he passed who might be working the street. His search wasn’t random; he knew exactly what he was looking for. In his heart, he didn’t expect to get lucky here on the fringes of Temple Fields. He’d thought he would have to cast his net wider tonight.
But just when the traffic began to pick up speed, he saw what he was looking for. It was impossible to stop, so he took the next turning on the left, found a mildly illegal parking spot and doubled back. He wanted so badly to run it was like the pain you get when you need to pee. But the last thing he wanted was to draw attention to himself. So he walked briskly, hoping she would still be in sight when he rounded the corner.
And yes, there she was. Unmistakable, even though he was approaching her from behind. She was clearly working. He could tell by the way she walked; the swivel in the hips, the languid half-turn towards the traffic, the ridiculous heels that bunched her calves into tight knots.
He could feel the blood pounding in his head. His vision seemed to blur at the periphery, leaving her as the only clear element. He longed for her. He ached to take her away from the filth and the depravity that she was wallowing in. Didn’t she know how dangerous it was out on these streets?
‘Mine,’ he murmured softly as he slowed down to match his pace to hers. ‘Mine.’
