sure. Still, her instincts said there was something a little off in Stacey’s account. ‘Would I be crazy if I said it sounds a lot like the way Tony’s mind works?’
Stacey gave her a look. ‘Paula’s a big fan, you know that. Maybe his way has rubbed off on her.’
Carol knew the brick wall of loyalty when she ran into it. ‘Terry Gates’s computers are over there.’ She pointed to the table. ‘See what you can do with them. Don’t ignore the Bradfield cases either. His cycle is definitely speeding up.’
Stacey shrugged. ‘I can set programs running on the Gates hardware and work the Oklahoma stuff while I’m waiting for results. With luck, I’ll have something for you later today. If not, tomorrow.’
Stacey’s reassuring competence was exactly what Carol needed right then. It was good to know somebody was on top of things. But if Tony Hill was interfering with the Bradfield cases, she wanted to know. Her brother’s murder had demonstrated that Tony wasn’t the operator he used to be. The way she felt right now, she didn’t think she could ever work with him again. And the last thing she wanted was to be blindsided by him. ‘Thanks, Stacey,’ she said vaguely, already looking for Ambrose and the answer to her next question. Where exactly was Tony Hill?
43
If Vance had needed any support for his conviction that his programme of retribution was the right thing, he would have pointed to his deep and dreamless sleep. No nightmares troubled him, no tossing and turning, no staring at the ceiling praying for unconsciousness. After he’d done his work at Tony’s, he’d brought a Chinese takeaway back to his hotel room and surfed the news channels till he felt sleepy. It wasn’t just that he was interested in seeing how his own exploits were reported; he’d been away from full access to the media for a long time, and he was interested to see how it had developed while he’d been gone.
He couldn’t help feeling a twinge of regret. He’d have been a perfect fit for this multimedia universe. Twitter and Facebook and the like would have suited him much better than a lot of those idiots who basked in the public’s adoration these days. Something else Carol Jordan and Tony Hill and his bitch of an ex-wife had robbed him of. Maybe he should set up a Twitter account to taunt the police with. Vanceontherun, he could call himself. It was tempting, but he’d have to pass. If he’d learned one thing behind bars, it was that everything you did in cyberspace left a trail. He had enough on his plate without the elaborate covering of his tracks that would be involved in thumbing his electronic nose at the authorities. Enough that they knew he was out there and doing his thing.
It was mid-morning when he woke, and he was gratified to find a selection of photographs of the fire on a local news website. Arson was apparently suspected. Well, duh. There was no mention of Vance, and whoever had written the report hadn’t bothered to find out anything more about ‘the owner, Dr Tony Hill’ who wasn’t available for comment. One thing made Vance’s antennae twitch. In the background of one shot, he could see the distinctive head of the cop who’d been on TV talking about his escape. Polished dark skull, watchful eyes, a face that looked like it had encountered a few fists over the years. And here he was at the fire.
Someone was making the right connections. Which was fine by Vance. They could connect the dots as much as they liked, but he was always going to be one step ahead. Take right now, for example. The safest place in the country for him was Worcester. Because they’d be convinced he was long gone. This was the one place they wouldn’t be keeping an eye out for him. He could have walked through the Cathedral Plaza shopping mall without raising an eyebrow. The idea made him laugh with delight.
But safe though he was here, he had no intention of hanging around. He had places to go, people to see. And none of it was going to be pretty. But first, he had to put his final preparations in place. He paid a visit to his cameras. The barn was dead; presumably the police had found a camera and swept for the others. That was why the cameras at Tony Hill’s house and Micky’s farm were on the outside – the police would be looking in all the wrong places. It seemed he’d been right again.
Vance checked out the suite of images from the stud farm in Herefordshire where his treacherous ex-wife and her lover had created their new lives. He’d done Micky and Betsy a huge favour when he’d married Micky. The rumour and gossip that had swirled around Micky was hindering her ascent to the very pinnacle of TV presenting. That had died a death when they’d tied the knot. Obviously she must be straight, for why would Vance marry a lesbian when he could have had his pick of beautiful, sexy women? Cynics tried to shoot the line that Vance was also gay. But nobody believed that. He had a heterosexual track record and never a whisper that he swung both ways.
Of course, the marriage had been a sham. What Micky got out of it had been clear from the start, and she’d been so keen to accept the benefits that she’d chosen not to question his excuse for wanting it. He’d spun her a line about wanting protection from the fans who stalked him, convinced her that what he liked was the nostrings contract between himself and the high-class hookers he used for sex, and promised her he would never embarrass her with some tacky encounter with a kiss-and-tell nobody. That was easier to believe than the truth – that he wanted cover for his other life as a serial abductor and killer of teenage girls. Not that he had ever shared that truth with Micky.
He’d kept to his side of the deal. He expected her to stick to her end of the arrangement in return. But as soon as things got sticky, instead of providing the alibis he needed, she’d washed her hands faster than Pilate. There was nothing that infuriated Vance more than people who didn’t honour their debts. He always kept his word. The only time he’d promised and failed to deliver was when he swore to the British people that he would bring home an Olympic gold medal. But they hadn’t seen it as a let-down, because the reason had been so heroic.
He wished they’d been able to understand his other actions in the same light. He’d done what he had to do. It might not have been the reaction most people would understand, but he wasn’t most people. He was Jacko Vance and he was exceptional. Which meant he was an exception, outside the petty rules the rest of them had to live by. They needed the rules. They couldn’t function without them. But he could. And he did.
Vance checked out the images one by one, watching them intently, zooming in where he could. The shape of the protection that was in place soon became clear. The police were staking out the road approaches to the farm in both directions. The drive was still blocked by a horse box. A police Land Rover stood at the entrance to the back drive, three officers visible inside it. Two pairs of officers in the forage caps of firearms officers patrolled the perimeter of the house itself, their Heckler and Koch automatics carried at port arms.
It looked like the yard itself was being protected by the stable hands, a group of men who appeared to have been manufactured out of pipe cleaners, wire and plasticine. A couple of them had shotguns broken over their arms. What interested Vance was that they all dressed in variations of the same outfit. Flat caps, waxed or quilted jackets, jeans and riding boots. The cops didn’t look twice when one of them walked out of the house and headed for the stable block. Or vice versa.
Which would have been interesting if he’d been aiming to get inside the house. But his plans were very different. And from the looks of this set-up, eminently likely to be successful. Vance showered and dressed and checked out with half an hour to spare. Nothing to attract attention.
He left the car on a side street a short distance from the car-hire firm where Patrick Gordon had already booked today’s vehicle, the kind of SUV that fitted in perfectly in the countryside. It had, as he had specified, a tow ball. He drove back to the previous car, retrieved his petrol cans, laptop bag and holdalls from the boot, and set off for
