‘Not good.’ There was no easy way round the truth now he’d opened the door on it. ‘She’s lost the sight of both eyes, her face is terribly burned and they’re scared about her lungs. She’s in a medical coma to keep her stable and pain-free.’ He reached out for her but she flinched away. ‘We didn’t tell you because we thought you had enough to contend with.’
‘Christ,’ she said. ‘This just gets worse. What are you doing now? Why aren’t you working on Vance?’
‘I’ve already given Alvin all the help I can. He knows where I am if he needs me.’ He felt himself choking up and cleared his throat. ‘I can’t work miracles, Carol.’
‘I used to think you could,’ she said, her face crumpling. She bit her lip and turned away from him.
Tony’s mouth smiled but the rest of his face didn’t follow its lead. ‘You can fool some of the people some of the time … I’m sorry, Carol. I really am. If it makes you feel any safer, I think he’s going to go for hurting Micky next. That probably means Betsy’s the one at risk. Alvin’s done a big production number with the local police, they’ve got armed protection at their place.’ He poked his food with his finger, appetite gone. ‘I don’t know what else we can do. And yes. I’m bloody terrified of what he’s got planned.’
‘Ironic, isn’t it? We’re protecting the woman who enabled Vance’s criminal career all those years. Their fake marriage facilitated him abducting and imprisoning and torturing and raping and killing young women. And you and me, the ones who stopped him, we’re the ones who have lost. She’s going to walk away unscathed again,’ Carol said, anger taking over. ‘It’s so unfair.’ She slumped into the big leather swivel chair opposite him, running out of energy at last.
‘I know. But at least you’re safe here.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t think he knows about this place. I think he’s had someone investigating our lives, watching where we go and what we do and who we see. Those hidden cameras in the barn—’
‘What hidden cameras? Why wasn’t I told about this?’ She managed to summon up her last reserves of outrage. ‘And how the hell did you know?’
‘The techs discovered them while I was still there. Didn’t Franklin tell you?’
‘Franklin tells me about as much as you do, as it turns out.’
Tony let it go. He’d never wanted to fight with her in the first place. ‘Anyway, I don’t think he knows about the boat. I haven’t been here in ages. Saul from the pub keeps an eye on her for me. And when I came down here last night, Alvin got one of the techs to sweep it for me. No cameras, no bugs. So I think it’s off Vance’s radar. It’s a safe house.’
‘He was watching them?’
‘He picked his moment. When they were least likely to notice him walking right up to them.’
‘Bastard,’ she said. She closed her eyes and dropped her head in her hands.
‘There’s a cabin up front,’ Tony said. ‘Nice bed. Arthur liked his comforts. You could catch a couple of hours’ kip before you actually fall over.’
She shook herself, stood up and promptly sat down again. ‘Whoa. Haven’t got my sea legs yet. Thanks but I need to—’
‘You don’t need to be anywhere. Your team in Bradfield know how to run an operation. Alvin Ambrose and Stuart Patterson need some space to prove themselves to you before you’re really their boss. If they do need you for anything, someone will call you.’ He’d never tried harder to make her trust him. Even if it was only until she was awake again, it was worth the effort.
Carol looked around, considering. ‘What about you? You look like shit. Did you sleep last night?’
‘I never sleep,’ he said. ‘Why would one more night make any difference?’ It wasn’t strictly true. The terrible sleep patterns of most of his adult life had succumbed to the calm of Arthur Blythe’s house. It was one of the reasons he’d loved it so much. But he’d never told anyone, and he couldn’t tell her now. It would feel too much like a desperate reach for pity. ‘Go and sleep, Carol. You can fall out with me all over again when you wake up.’
‘That’s true,’ she said. But she didn’t argue. He watched her walk the few feet to the fore cabin, his heart as heavy as it had ever been. He couldn’t escape the conviction that there was something very final going on between them.
44
You could hire anything in coalition Britain, Vance thought. It used to be that everything was for sale. Now, it seemed, everything was for rent. If you couldn’t afford to own it, you could at least pretend you could. And thanks to the Internet, you could find the person who wanted to meet your needs.
By late afternoon, he had a quad bike on a trailer attached to his SUV. From the same farm shop he’d bought a massive sack of specialist stud feed cubes. How ironic was that, a pair of lesbians running a racing stud? At least it made dressing the part easier. He’d also bought a quilted green gilet, a lambswool sweater, a tweed cap and a pair of riding boots. He was all set.
Two miles from Micky’s farm, he pulled off the minor road on to a track that led through a patch of woodland. Once he was out of sight of the road, he unloaded the quad bike then unhitched the trailer and turned the SUV round, ready for a quick getaway. He changed into his disguise, trimming his moustache into a narrow toothbrush and replacing his Patrick Gordon glasses with a pair of goggles. He loaded the sack of feed nuts on to the back of the quad bike, on top of his fire kit, and started it up.
He drove down the road for about a mile then, as he’d memorised from maps and Google Earth, he pulled into a farm gateway on the right. He bounced across a wide expanse of cropped grass, glad that there hadn’t been much rain lately. On the far side was another gate, which led to a field where half a dozen horses looked up uncuriously as he skirted the edge of their pasture. Now he could see Micky’s farm, the house just visible beyond the stable block and the hay barn.
Vance could feel his heart pounding as he approached. He was taking far more of a risk than he enjoyed. But he was determined to make Micky pay for what she’d done to him. He’d thought of leaving her alone for a while. Wait till the police got tired of keeping an eye on her. Let her fear and fret for months, never knowing when he’d come for her. There would be a certain satisfaction in that. But what he wanted more than that was to get away clean and free. He didn’t want to have to come back to the UK once he’d left. He wanted to be done with his retribution. Pay the bills and walk away.
