‘I’ll give you a ten-minute start,’ Paula said. ‘The last time we went behind her back, she made me feel like a toddler on a tear. And not in a good way. Let’s not give her any reason to start paying attention to us.’
As soon as he walked in the door, Tony realised he was the one who should have stayed behind in the coffee shop. Carol was sitting by Chris’s desk and she looked up when he walked in. ‘That was quick,’ she said. ‘I thought you were planning to stay at home all day?’
‘I was,’ he said. ‘But Penny Burgess came knocking so I thought I’d come in here and hide.’ He nearly elaborated, but stopped just in time. The best lies are the ones with the most truth, he reminded himself.
Chris had dark smudges under her eyes and her hair looked like it had been slept on. Her usually jaunty air was subdued, like a dog that’s been walked to exhaustion. She covered a yawn with her hand and barely raised her eyebrows in greeting. ‘What’s up, doc?’ she managed, in a pale reflection of her normal style.
‘We’re all dancing the Jacko Vance tango,’ he said ruefully, pulling up a chair and joining the two women. ‘He must be rubbing his hands in glee at the thought of us all running around chasing our tails, wondering where he is and what he’s doing.’
‘I just spoke to West Mercia,’ Carol said. ‘They’re coordinating the search. They’ve had even more than the usual spate of so-called sightings everywhere from Aberdeen to Plymouth. But not a single confirmed sighting.’
‘One of the problems is we’ve got no idea what he looks like,’ Tony said. ‘We can be certain he doesn’t look like a caricature of an England football supporter any more. He’ll be wearing a wig, he’ll have different facial hair and different-shaped glasses.’
‘He’s still the one-armed man,’ Chris said. ‘He can’t hide that.’
‘The prosthesis he’s got isn’t immediately obvious. After I spoke to my Home Office contact, I checked it out online. The cosmetic covers they have now are amazing. You’d have to look closely to realise they’re not real skin, and most of us don’t look closely at anything much. And what Vance has got is the best that money can buy.’
‘Thanks to the European Court of Human Rights,’ Carol muttered. ‘So what we know is that we don’t know much. Vance could actually be anywhere from Aberdeen to Plymouth. So how did you get on, Chris?’
Chris straightened up in her chair and glanced at her notebook. ‘OK. Leon’s still with the Met. He’s done well for himself. He’s exactly what the brass want – graduate, black, smart and presentable. And demonstrably not corrupt.’ She grinned at Carol. ‘He’s a DCI now, with SO19.’
Tony snorted with laughter. ‘Leon’s in Diplomatic Protection? Leon, who used to be about as diplomatic as me?’
‘According to my old muckers on the Met, he’s learned to keep his mouth shut and play the game. But he’s got respect, up and down. So I got hold of him on the phone and marked his card.’
‘What did he say?’ Tony said, remembering Leon with his sharp suits and swagger. He’d been smart enough to accommodate lazy, getting by on his wits rather than his work. To have climbed so far, he must have learned to buckle down. He’d have liked to have seen that, a Leon honed by work and responsibility.
‘He laughed it off. But then, he would.’
‘What’s his domestic set-up?’ Carol asked.
‘He’s got an ex-wife and two kids in Hornsey, and he lives with his current partner in Docklands. I tried to persuade him to move them for now, but he won’t have it.’ Chris pulled a face. ‘He said, “If I read an obit for Carol Jordan and Tony Hill, I’ll head for the hills. But right now, I can’t say I’m too worried.” I couldn’t budge him on that.’
‘He does have a point,’ Tony said. ‘Leon’s not near the top in terms of seniority or alphabetical order or geographical order. And given that none of us has a clue how long this is going to go on, he’s probably right not to turn his life on its head just yet.’
‘Unless of course the rest of us make ourselves so hard to hit Vance ends up taking out Leon by default,’ Carol said, acid in her tone. ‘You might want to mention that, Chris.’
Chris looked less than thrilled at the prospect. ‘Simon McNeill isn’t a cop any more. He stayed with Strathclyde for a couple of years after Shaz Bowman’s murder, then he quit to take up a job teaching criminology at Strathclyde University.’
Tony remembered Simon’s unruly black hair, his intensity and his infatuation with Shaz Bowman. Tony had heard on the grapevine that he’d had a breakdown, been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and been gently eased out of the job. ‘Poor sod,’ he said absently. He realised both women were looking at him oddly. ‘I mean, because he was besotted with Shaz, not because he ended up teaching at Strathclyde. Obviously.’
Chris looked amused as she continued. ‘He’s got a long-term partner and four kids. They live out in the country about an hour’s drive out of Glasgow. He seemed quite unnerved by the news. He’s going to talk to his local law enforcement about increased patrols. But he said where they live is at the end of a track – one way in and out. And they have shotguns. He’s taking it seriously, but it sounds like he was already prepared for a siege. He told me that Western capitalism was headed for a cataclysm and then crime would skyrocket. Every man for himself. But he’s made his arrangements.’
It sounded like the PTSD wasn’t entirely a thing of the past. ‘Christ, I hope Vance doesn’t show up there,’ Tony said. ‘There’d be a bloodbath and chances are Vance would be the only one who’d walk away from it.’
‘So that’s two we can’t do much about,’ Carol said. ‘Tell me Kay Hallam isn’t gung-ho or running her own Home Counties militia.’
‘Kay Hallam is why I look like a woman who’s slept in her car. Because I am that woman. I had a job trying to track her down. I struggled to pick up the trail because she left to get married. Mr Right turned out to be an accountant with a practice in the Cayman Islands. The kind of bastard who helps all those loaded gits to avoid paying their taxes like the rest of us.’
Carol whistled. ‘Quiet little Kay. Who’d have thought it?’
‘I’m not surprised,’ Tony said. ‘She had that knack of watching and waiting till she was sure of her ground then she’d mirror your attitudes and position. Everybody always thought Kay was on their side and she always ran into problems with the kind of exercise where you have to nail your colours to the mast and defend your position. When Mr Right swam into her orbit, she’ll have watched and waited, then swum up alongside him and made him feel he’d finally met the one person who really understood him.’ He watched the two women consider his words then nod in agreement. ‘It was what made her such a good interviewer. Paula has the same chameleon knack, but Paula’s also
