Rage flooded his body, raising his temperature and making him feel caged inside the car. Vance took the first exit and parked in a lay-by. He got out of the car and started kicking the plastic rubbish bin, swearing at the night. All the tension that had kept him going during the preparation for the attack on Micky’s farm exploded in a sudden rush of violence. ‘Bitch, bitch, bitch,’ he shouted into the sky.
Finally, he exhausted himself and staggered back against the car, a tide of angry misery still engulfing him. What he’d planned, that would have been enough. He’d have been satisfied with that. But she’d managed to get one over on him yet again. He couldn’t allow that to happen. Things would have to step up now. He’d complete tomorrow’s mission tonight. Thanks to his fetish for contingency planning, he’d brought all he needed with him, just in case. Afterwards, he could go back to Vinton Woods and lie low for a few days. He could activate the other camera systems and figure out how to destroy the other cops. Then he could come back for a second bite of the cherry and really make Micky pay.
Anything else was not an option.
Her legion of fans would still have recognised Micky Morgan, in spite of the years that had passed since she’d last appeared on their TV screens. It didn’t matter that there were silver threads running through the thick blonde hair, or that there were lines radiating from the corners of her blue eyes. The bone structure that underpinned her beauty meant she was still clearly that same woman who had smiled into their living rooms four days a week at lunchtime. The constant exercise of working with horses meant she’d kept in shape; her trademark long shapely legs still looked as good as ever they had, as Betsy frequently reassured her.
But tonight, the last thing on Micky’s mind was how she looked. Betsy had come close to losing her life for her beloved horses. If it hadn’t been for the quick wits and quicker hands of Johnny Fitzgerald, she’d have been the one crushed beneath a smouldering beam and Micky might have been without the only person who still made her life worth living. They’d been together for more than fifteen years now, and Micky couldn’t imagine life without Betsy. It went beyond love; it was a shared set of values and pleasures, a complementary set of skills and failings. And tonight she’d nearly lost it all.
The same thoughts and fears kept circling her mind, pushing everything else to the periphery. She knew with her head that Betsy was safe and well, soaking in the tub upstairs to get the smell of smoke out of her hair and skin. But Micky’s emotions were still churning. She really wasn’t paying much attention to the police officer who kept asking her questions she didn’t know the answers to.
Yes, she thought this was Jacko’s handiwork. No, she hadn’t heard from him since he’d escaped. She hadn’t actually heard from him in years, which suited her just fine. No, she didn’t know where he might be. No, she didn’t know who might be helping him. He’d never been big on friends. Just on using people. No, she hadn’t seen or heard anything out of the ordinary that evening. She and Betsy had been playing bridge with a couple of friends from a nearby village when the alarm had gone up.
Micky shuddered at the memory. Betsy had been first to her feet, throwing her cards to the table and running for the door. The police protection officers had tried to keep them from leaving. They clearly hadn’t expected to be straight-armed out of the way by a middle-aged woman who was stronger than either of them. Micky had run after her, but one of the officers had been a bit more together and he’d grabbed her round the waist and manhandled her indoors. ‘It could be a tactic, the fire,’ he’d shouted at her. ‘He could be trying to draw you out so he can take a potshot at you.’
‘He doesn’t do shooting,’ Micky had shouted back at him. ‘You need two arms to target shoot well. And he doesn’t do anything he can’t do well.’
Where that had come from, she didn’t know. Until the events of this week, it had been a long time since she’d thought of Jacko. But since his escape, he’d felt like a constant presence, always at her shoulder, continually watching her and telling her how she could improve. When the police had come to her door, telling her what they believed he was up to, she’d had no trouble believing she would be high on his list of those who should be punished.
If not for Betsy and the horses, she would have run. Daphne, one of the friends they’d been playing bridge with, had counselled her to go. ‘Darling, he’s a brute. You mustn’t let yourself be a target for his spite. Betsy, tell her. She should take herself off somewhere he won’t find her.’
But it wasn’t an option. She couldn’t leave Betsy behind. And besides, how long was she supposed to stay gone? If they caught him in a day or two, fine. She could come back. But Jacko was resourceful. He would have planned his escape and its aftermath in detail and with precision. He could be on the lam for months. For ever. And what was she to do then? No, running wasn’t an option.
The policeman asked something and Micky roused herself enough to ask him to repeat it. ‘I asked if you could give us a list of the people who are turning up to take your horses away.’
‘I can do that,’ Betsy said, coming into the room. The first thing she’d done after the paramedics had given her the all-clear was to get on the phone to anyone in the surrounding area who might have spare stalls in their stables so she could provide shelter for her beloved horses. ‘I’m sorry, I should have given you the details. I was just so desperate to get the smell of smoke off me.’
‘I understand,’ he said.
Betsy was already scribbling names down on a sheet of scrap paper in her small precise script. She passed it to the policeman and put a reassuring hand on Micky’s shoulder. ‘Now, if that’s all, we’d appreciate a little peace and quiet,’ she said, charming but firm. When they were alone, she cradled Micky’s head against her breasts, loose inside her eminently respectable tartan dressing gown. ‘I don’t want another evening like this in a hurry,’ she said.
‘Me neither,’ Micky sighed. ‘I can’t believe he tried to kill the horses. What’s that about?’
‘It’s about hurting us, I think,’ Betsy said sensibly. She let Micky go and went to pour herself a Scotch. ‘Do you want one?’
Micky shook her head. ‘If that’s the case, I’m glad he chose the horses to go after rather than you.’
‘Oh, honey, don’t say that. It cost Johnny his life, don’t forget. And those poor horses. They must have died in utter fear and total agony. It makes me furious. Poor old Midnight Dancer and Trotters Bar. Innocent animals. There’s not much I would have put past Jacko, but harming those glorious, innocent animals is lower than I thought he could sink.’
Micky shook her head. ‘There’s nothing Jacko wouldn’t do if it served his ambitions. We should have realised that before we tied our lives to his.’
Betsy curled up on the chair opposite Micky. ‘We had no way of knowing what his secret life was.’
‘Maybe not. But we always knew he had one.’ Micky fiddled with her hair, winding a strand round her finger.
