condemned her for not being with her family at a time like this, but he understood the irresistible drive to be doing something. He also realised that it had its price. ‘We’ve still no positive leads on where he might be,’ Ambrose said.
Patterson snorted. ‘We know where he bloody was last night,’ he said.
Carol’s eyes brightened. ‘You do? Where was he?’
‘Smack bang in the middle of Worcester. Right under our noses.’ Patterson looked disgusted, as if a bad smell were literally under his nose.
Carol leaned forward. ‘How do you know?’
‘We don’t know for certain,’ Ambrose said, a cautionary note in his dark rumble.
Patterson rolled his eyes. ‘How many other people have got that big a grudge against Tony Hill?’
Her eyes widened in shock. ‘Tony? Has something happened to Tony?’
‘He’s OK,’ Ambrose said, wishing his boss would show Carol some of the sensitivity he prided himself on. ‘Well, physically OK. He’s pretty upset, though. Last night, somebody burned his house to the ground.’
Carol started as if she’d been slapped. ‘His house? His beautiful house? Burned down?’
Patterson nodded. ‘Arson. No question about it. Petrol as accelerant. The fire started at the back of the house where it’s not overlooked. By the time anyone noticed it, the fire had properly taken hold. The fire brigade had no chance of saving it.’
‘That house was full of beautiful things that would go up like a Roman candle,’ Carol said. She ran her hands through her hair. ‘Didn’t you have anyone watching it? Christ, this has got Vance written all over it.’
‘That’s what we thought,’ Ambrose said. ‘I’ve got a team going through the traffic cameras now, to see if we can spot what he’s driving. But if he’s got any sense, he’ll have dumped that car and moved on to another by now.’
‘And he’ll have changed his appearance,’ Carol said. ‘We’ve got no idea what he looks like.’
The door was shouldered open at that point by a uniformed PC cradling a computer tower in his arms. Another followed him with a similar burden. ‘Where d’you want these, guv?’ he called to Patterson.
Patterson looked bemused. ‘What are they?’
The uniform hid his impatience badly. ‘Computers. Towers for desktop machines, complete with hard drives.’
Patterson was in no mood to take cheek from a uniform. ‘I can see what they are. But what are they doing here?’
‘They’re from Northumbria. Urgent overnight delivery. So where do you want them?’
‘They’re Terry Gates’s computers,’ Ambrose said. ‘I asked for them. Tony thinks Gates isn’t smart enough to have cleaned them up properly.’ He pointed to a table against the wall. ‘Stick them down there, would you?’
Patterson’s air of discontent deepened. ‘Nobody told me about this. I suppose you’ll be wanting to spend a fortune on Gary Harcup now?’
Ambrose looked mutinous. ‘I will when I can get hold of him. He’s the expert. And we need an expert for this.’
‘The Super will blow a gasket when you blow the budget on fat Gary,’ Patterson said. ‘It’s not like he’s that fast either. Vance will be on the other side of the world before Gary gets anything off those hard drives.’
Carol cleared her throat. ‘Who is Gary Harcup?’
‘He’s our forensic computer specialist. He costs a fucking fortune, he looks like a bear and he’s about as easy to deal with as a bear,’ Patterson said.
‘I can do better than that,’ Carol said.
‘You’re a computer expert? Forgive me, DCI Jordan, but you don’t look much like a geek to me.’ Patterson could be so bloody annoying, Ambrose thought wearily.
Carol ignored him. ‘My computer specialist, Stacey Chen, is a genius. She can do stuff that makes other geeks weep.’
‘That’s all very well, but she’s a BMP officer, not a West Mercian.’
‘She’s a cop. And an expert witness. That’s all that matters,’ Carol said, taking out her phone. ‘I can second her to you.’ Her questioning look was directed at Ambrose. ‘She’s the best.’
‘I’m not going to say no,’ Ambrose said. Patterson turned away in apparent annoyance.
Carol summoned up Stacey’s mobile number. ‘I’ll get her on the road right now.’
‘Doesn’t she have other stuff on? I thought you guys were looking at a serial?’ Ambrose asked.
‘It’s a question of priorities,’ Carol said. ‘And right now, my team knows exactly where their priorities lie.’
41
Putting Humpty Dumpty together again required starting somewhere. So Tony turned on his computer and made himself another brew while he waited for the latest files from Bradfield to download. He sat down and opened the latest email from Paula, sent from her phone less than an hour previously. The news of a fourth victim saddened him and fed his own sense of failure, but there was no room for his personal feelings in his work. His empathy, yes, but his emotions, no.
The presentation of the body sounded even more bizarre than the last. Dismemberment wasn’t as common as people thought. Professional killers did it to hinder identification. But according to Paula, all the pieces were present and intact, so that wasn’t what was going on here. If Tony had been presented with this case in isolation, he could
