She was smart enough to know she’d been thwarted. ‘I sincerely think he is no threat,’ she said. ‘Like all of us, he will lash out if he’s cornered or frightened.’
‘The man he battered senseless was a taxi driver,’ Ambrose said flatly. ‘I can’t readily see how a thirty-four- year-old taxi driver made him feel cornered or frightened. No matter how crap his driving was.’
‘There’s no need to be facetious,’ she said primly. ‘Look, hear me out. I’m not stupid, Sergeant. I’ve been doing this job a long time and I am no pushover. I recommended Jacko for the Therapeutic Wing because in our sessions together he was remorseful and insightful about his past crimes. He fulfilled all the criteria for the community, except for the fact that he would never be eligible for release. But why should someone be denied the best chance to recover from the disaster that is their life simply because they can’t gain a hundred per cent of the benefit from that opportunity?’
Another soundbite, Ambrose thought. He wondered how much of her career Maggie O’Toul had planned to build on redeeming Vance. ‘Tell me, how did his remorse manifest itself?’
‘I’m not sure what you mean. He expressed regret and he unpicked the chain of circumstances that drove him to commit his crimes.’
‘What about atonement? Did he talk about that at all? About the people whose lives he’d destroyed?’
She looked momentarily annoyed, as if she’d missed a trick. ‘Of course he did. He wanted to meet his victim’s relatives and apologise in person. He wanted to make amends to his ex-wife for all the grief he’d brought her.’
‘Can you remember which victims he mentioned?’
‘Of course. Donna Doyle’s family, that’s who he wanted to speak to.’
‘Just them?’
She drummed her fingers quietly on the arm of her chair. ‘She was his victim, Sergeant.’
Ambrose cracked a half-smile. ‘The only one he was tried and convicted for. What about the other girls he abducted and killed? Did he give up their names at all? Did he express any regrets for their deaths?’
‘As you well know, he has always denied those accusations and he was never charged with any other murders.’
‘He was actually charged with one other, but he got off because his pal Terry Gates perjured himself. And he was convicted of killing Shaz Bowman till the Appeal Court threw it out. Did Vance mention them among his sins?’
Dr O’Toul exhaled heavily. ‘I am not engaging in a point-scoring competition with you, Sergeant. I know my competence. I suggest you stick to yours. I’ll say it again: I think Jacko is no threat. I’m disappointed that he has hatched this plot to escape, but I imagine he simply found prison finally intolerable. My guess would be that he will leave the country for somewhere he feels safe.’ She smiled, her cheeks subsiding into an array of concentric curved lines. ‘And I do believe he will live a rehabilitated life.’
Ambrose shook his head in disbelief. ‘You really believe all that, don’t you?’ He stood up. ‘This is pointless. Unless you have a specific notion of where he might be – maybe some place he mentioned, some person he was close to – there’s no point in continuing this interview.’
‘I have no idea where he might go. Nor who he knows on the outside. I do think this is a tremendous waste of manpower,’ she added. ‘I wouldn’t have recommended Jacko for this community if I hadn’t known he was a changed man.’
Ambrose headed for the door, pausing as he prepared to step into the corridor. ‘I hope you’re right. I really hope you’re right. I would love to be proved wrong on this.’ He rubbed the back of his thick neck, trying to loosen the tight muscles. ‘And I think you are right about one thing. There are people out there that Vance has unfinished business with. But I don’t think he wants to atone for what he’s done. I think his plan is to make them pay through the nose for what they’ve done to him.’ Ambrose didn’t wait for a reply. He didn’t even close the door behind him. Maggie O’Toul didn’t deserve the satisfaction of a slammed door.
27
Paula had not gone far. When she’d seen Carol Jordan heading her way, she’d almost panicked, wondering if her boss had by some sixth sense detected that she was speaking to Tony. But Kevin had been the focus of her attention and Paula had wound up the conversation with, ‘If you’re that near, meet me in the Costa Coffee on Bellwether Street. Five minutes.’ And she’d shot off before anyone could ask where she was going.
Now she was sitting with the largest skinny latte the coffee shop could provide, waiting for her partner in crime. He didn’t keep her long, plonking himself down at the table opposite her. ‘You not getting a coffee?’ she asked, half-rising.
He shook his head. ‘Some days, it’s just too hard to choose.’ He frowned. ‘I think the politicians have got it wrong. It’s not more choice we need, it’s less. Too much choice is too stressful. There have been experiments, you know. Rats live longer and healthier lives when they have fewer choices, all other things being equal.’
Sometimes Paula wondered how Carol Jordan coped with any kind of social relationship with him. His capacity for tangential conversation was beguiling, but hard to handle when you wanted to get straight to the point. ‘Did you get all the files?’ she said.
He produced a quirky little smile. ‘I assume so. But that’s one of the unanswerable questions, isn’t it? Because I won’t know about the files I didn’t get. It’s like when you’re doing a lecture and you ask if everyone can hear you. Because obviously, if they can’t hear you, they can’t answer the question, so you’re none the wiser.’
‘Tony!’
‘Sorry. I’m in a funny mood at the moment.’
Paula scowled at him. ‘We all know you and the chief are watching your back in case Jacko Vance comes after you. Hell, so does anyone who can read. So I will cut you a bit more slack than usual.’
Tony ran a hand through his hair. ‘I’m not used to people knowing stuff about me,’ he said. ‘I’ve had all these phone calls from journalists wanting me to write profiles of Vance. I don’t think they have any idea how dull a profile is. Even if I was interested enough to return their calls, I couldn’t turn what I do into tabloid fodder. Or even
