was usually something to evade.
She looked out into the squad room, where Kevin and Paula were on the phone. There was no sign of Sam, so she scribbled a note. ‘My office when you’re done.’ She left it in front of Kevin, who gave her a look of pained resignation. He was in her visitor’s chair inside two minutes.
‘Nice work last night,’ Carol said, leaning back in her chair and resting her feet on her open bottom drawer.
‘Thanks,’ Kevin said cautiously.
‘I’ve seen Sam’s report. You seem strangely absent.’
Kevin crossed his legs, propping his left ankle on his right knee. He drummed his fingers on his left knee. He was as relaxed as an exam candidate. ‘It was Sam’s show. The manager tried to blag us into believing Leanne never worked there. When we were leaving, Sam spotted Leanne’s bike. So he went back to confront the manager.’
‘Where were you?’ Still keeping it light, not quite sure what she was looking for.
‘I was in the car.’
‘What? You couldn’t be bothered following up?’
Kevin pursed his lips. His fingers stopped dancing and clutched his knee. ‘That’s not actually how it went.’
‘So how did it go?’
‘Does it matter? Sam got what we needed. It doesn’t bother me that he followed his nose and came up trumps.’ He shifted in his chair, trying for nonchalant and missing spectacularly.
Carol sized him up. Now she had a clearer idea of what had gone on. Sam had left Kevin in the lurch and chased his own gut instinct. Stupid behaviour at any time, but especially when there was a killer on the loose. ‘You know you should always work in pairs when you’re dealing with people who understand the power of screaming “foul” at every opportunity. Sam left himself exposed, and you shouldn’t have let that happen.’ By Carol’s standards, it was the mildest of reprimands, but it was enough to make Kevin’s milky skin flush dark red.
‘I understand,’ Kevin said, his expression mutinous. ‘I didn’t realise he was going to conduct the interview there and then.’
Carol shook her head, a wry smile on her face. ‘And how long have you been working with Sam?’
Kevin stood up. ‘I take your point.’
Carol followed him into the room, looking for Paula. But while she’d been talking to Kevin, Paula had disappeared. ‘It’s like the bridge of the
‘I’m still here.’ Stacey’s voice came from behind the monitors. ‘I’m looking at footage from traffic cameras.’
‘Shouldn’t some uniform from traffic be doing that?’
‘The truth? I don’t trust them to do it properly. They get bored too easily.’
Carol walked back to her office, unable to keep from smiling. Her bloody-minded, arrogant specialists were never going to be conventional team players. God help the commanding officers who ended up with the members of her squad. It almost made her want to stay, just to see the fun and games.
Vance had only been on the loose for a matter of hours, but that had been long enough for Maggie O’Toul to get her defences in order. So far, the media hadn’t discovered that she was responsible for advocating Vance’s transfer to the Therapeutic Community Wing, but she clearly realised that was going to happen. When Ambrose turned up for their appointment at the Probation Service offices where she was based when she wasn’t at Oakworth, the receptionist acted as if she’d never heard the name. He’d had to produce his ID before she would even acknowledge the existence of Dr O’Toul. It didn’t help his mood.
Maggie O’Toul’s office was a cubicle on the second floor with a view across the street to a former cinema turned carpet warehouse. When Ambrose entered in response to her, ‘Come in,’ she had her back to the door, staring out the window as if something remarkable was happening in the world of carpets. The office was crammed with books, files and papers, yet they were organised in such a way that the overall impression was one of neatness. It wasn’t much like any space where Tony Hill was working.
‘Dr O’Toul?’ Ambrose said.
Slowly, apparently reluctantly, she swung round to face him. She had one of those weakly pretty faces marked by anxiety that always made Ambrose feel like he had the upper hand. He thought her looks were the kind that used to be called ‘elfin’ when Audrey Hepburn was a star. Her face was framed by artificially dark hair in a gamine cut which emphasised the fact that she wasn’t going to revisit fifty. ‘You must be Sergeant Ambrose,’ she said, her voice weary, her mouth turning down at the corners. Her lipstick seemed the wrong sort of colour for her complexion. He didn’t know much about that sort of thing, but he’d always had a good eye for what looked well on a woman. He never thought twice about choosing a gift of clothes or jewellery for his wife, and she always seemed happy to wear what he’d bought. Maggie O’Toul did not look like a happy woman.
Christ, who did he think he was? Tony Hill? ‘I need to talk to you—’
‘About Jacko Vance,’ she interrupted, finishing his sentence for him. ‘Am I to be the scapegoat? The blood sacrifice? The person to stand in the pillory of the
‘Spare me the histrionics,’ he said roughly. ‘If you know your job at all, you must know that Vance is a dangerous man. All I care about is getting him back behind bars before he starts killing again.’
She gave a dry little laugh and ran her fingers through her hair. Her nail polish was the same wrong colour as her lipstick, making her fingers look oddly mutilated. ‘I rather think I’m better qualified than you to form an accurate impression of what Jacko Vance is capable of these days. I know it’s hard for you to grasp, but even people who have committed dreadful crimes like Jacko are capable of finding a route to redemption.’
The phrase smacked of a soundbite from a platform presentation. ‘He’s already put one person in hospital today,’ Ambrose said. ‘What I’m looking for from you is not a lecture about how rehabilitated Vance is. Clearly, he’s not. How you square that in your professional world is up to you. But I don’t have the luxury of breast-beating right now. What I need is a sense of how he will behave, where he will go, what he will do.’
