Tony gave a little laugh. ‘You sure about that? These days when I’m the answer it’s usually because somebody is asking the wrong question.’
‘I think I’ve found where Vance is hiding when he’s not committing his crimes.’
‘That’s great. Where is it?’
‘It’s called Vinton Woods. It’s between Leeds and Bradfield. The last bit of woodland before you hit the Dales.’
‘Does that mean it’s on Franklin’s patch?’
‘It’s in the West Yorkshire force area.’
‘Have you called Franklin?’
‘That’s the problem. DS Ambrose was there when I found it, so I told him. He’s determined that West Mercia should make the arrest and he ordered me not to tell Franklin or any of the other West Yorkshire detectives.’
‘I can see that would be awkward for you,’ Tony said, still not clear why Stacey was involving him.
‘Just a bit. So I thought I’d speak to DCI Jordan and let her make the call.’
‘Only, she won’t call Franklin either, am I right?’
‘Exactly. She’s heading there now. I don’t know where she’s heading there from, but the chances are she’s going to get there ahead of West Mercia. And I’m afraid she’ll bite off more than she can chew. He’s a very dangerous man, Dr Hill.’
‘You’re not wrong, Stacey.’ Even as he spoke, he was reaching for his coat and groping in the pockets for his car keys. He got one arm in a sleeve then juggled the phone to his other ear. ‘You did the right thing, calling me. Leave it with me.’
‘Thanks.’ Stacey made an odd sound, as if she was about to speak but thought better of it. Then said in a rush, ‘Take care of her.’ And the line went dead.
As he stuffed the other arm in its sleeve and hustled up the steps and padlocked the boat, Tony thought that those four words from Stacey were the equivalent of anyone else in MIT grabbing him by the throat and shouting, ‘If you let anything happen to her, I will kill you.’
‘I’ll take care of her, Stacey,’ he said to the night as he ran up the pontoon and sprinted down the marina to the car park. He didn’t stop to think until he was joining the motorway and realised that he didn’t actually know where he was going. Nor did he have Stacey’s number. ‘You numbskull,’ he shouted at himself. ‘You fuckwit numbskull.’
The only thing he could think of was to call Paula. Her phone went straight to voicemail and he swore all the way through the outgoing message. After the beep, he said, ‘This is really important, Paula. I don’t have Stacey’s number and I need her to text me the directions to the place she’s just told me about. And please don’t ask either of us what this is all about or I will have to cry.’
It wasn’t an idle threat either. In spite of his determination to keep his emotions at arm’s length, Tony was starting to feel fraught, as if the threads that held him together were fraying. It was easy to take for granted how important Carol was to him when she was there in the background of his life. He’d grown accustomed to their companionship, he was used to the lift in his spirits when their encounters were unexpected, he had come to rely on her presence as a constant steadying force.
Growing up, he’d never learned the building blocks of love and friendship. His mother Vanessa was cold, her every gesture and comment calculated and calibrated to get precisely what she wanted from any situation. This was the woman who had taken a knife to Eddie Blythe, her fiance, when it had seemed the most profitable thing to do. Luckily for Tony, she hadn’t managed to kill him. Just scare him off for ever.
When Tony had been a kid, Vanessa had been too busy constructing her business career to be bothered with the shackles of motherhood and she’d mostly abandoned him to his grandmother, who was equally lacking in warmth. His grandmother had resented him occupying the space she thought ought to be occupied by an unfettered old age and she let him know it. Neither Vanessa nor his grandmother brought their social lives home with them, so Tony never had much chance to watch people interact in normal, routine ways.
When he looked at his childhood, he saw the perfect template for one of the damaged lives he ended up treating as a clinician or hunting as a profiler. Unloved, unwanted, harshly punished for normal childhood mischief or obliviousness, estranged from the normal interactions that allowed for growth and development. The absent father and the aggressive mother. When he interviewed the psychopaths that became his patients, he heard so many echoes of his own empty childhood. It was, he thought, the reason he was so good at what he did. He understood them because he had come within a hair’s breadth of being them.
What had saved him, what had given him the priceless gift of empathy, had been the only thing that ever saved anyone like him – love. And it had come from the most unexpected of places.
He hadn’t been an attractive child. He remembered knowing it was true because that’s what he was always told. He didn’t have much objective evidence. There were almost no photographs. A couple of class photos when the teacher had actually managed to shame Vanessa into ordering a copy, and that was that. He only knew which one was him because his grandmother had pointed it out to him. Usually accompanied by, ‘Anybody looking at this photograph would know which one was the most worthless bastard of the lot.’ Then she’d stab the photograph with her knobbly arthritic finger.
Little bastard Tony Hill. Short trousers that were just a bit too short, a bit too tight, revealing skinny thighs and bumpy knees. Shoulders hunched, holding himself together with arms ramrod straight by his side. Narrow face under a tousle of wavy hair that looked like it hadn’t ever seen anything as poncey as a stylist. The wary expression of a kid who’s not sure where the next slap is coming from, but knows it’s coming. Even then, even there, his eyes had commanded attention. Their blue sparkle was undimmed by everything else. They were the clue to a spirit that hadn’t entirely given in. Yet.
He was picked on endlessly at school; Vanessa and her mother had invested him with the air of the trained victim and there were plenty willing to take advantage of his unprotected status. You could batter Tony Hill and know his mother wouldn’t be up at school next morning bellowing at the Head like a Grimsby fishwife. Last to be chosen for team sports, first to be jeered at for anything, he’d stumbled through school in a state of misery.
He was always last in the dinner line. He’d learned that was the only way to get any dinner at all. If he let all the big kids get well ahead of him, he could hang on to his tray without having his crumble and custard ‘accidentally’
