accommodate all their vehicles, especially on a Saturday night when people came round to eat dinner and complain about the government. That suited Vance. Nobody would notice one extra parked among the locals. He slotted in between a Volvo and a BMW three houses down from Vanessa Hill and opened up a window on his smartphone that showed the live camera feed from her living room. The image was small and lacked resolution at that size, but it was clear enough to let him see she was still curled up on her regal sofa watching TV.

It was hard to imagine Tony Hill at ease in that room, focused as it was on meeting the needs of one person alone. Where did he sit when he visited? Did they camp out in that sterile kitchen, or was the conservatory the place where Vanessa gave some consideration to the comfort of her guests? Or was it more that her son had inherited his lack of casual social skills from her? Over the years, Vance had replayed his encounters with the strange little man who’d chased him down based on instinct and insight rather than robust forensic evidence. He’d often wondered if Hill was autistic, so awkward was he in social encounters that were not based exclusively on drawing information from the other person. But maybe it was less interesting than that. Maybe he’d grown up with a mother who had no interest in social encounters in the home, so Hill hadn’t learned how to do it at an early enough age for it ever to have become second nature.

Whatever the dynamic here, it wasn’t going to exist for much longer.

Vance gave a last look round to check there was nobody about, then he got out of the car and took a holdall from the boot. He walked briskly up the street and turned in at Vanessa’s gate as if he lived there. He walked past the Mercedes, his rubber-soled shoes silent on the block-paved driveway. There was a gap between the 1930s wooden garage and the house, barely wide enough for an adult turned sideways. Vance slipped into the space and sidestepped his way to the back garden. He hadn’t had a chance to scout out the back of the house; he didn’t even know whether there were security lights. But for once, he was willing to take the risk. It wasn’t as if his target was much of a challenge. An old woman with a bottle of wine inside her wasn’t exactly going to be on full alert if her back garden lights suddenly came on. Even if she noticed, she’d write it off as a cat or a fox.

But as he emerged, no light flooded the patio. All was still, silent but for the distant hum of traffic. He put down his holdall and squatted beside it. He took out a paper overall like the ones worn by the CSI teams and struggled into it, almost falling over as he tried to get his prosthetic arm inside without dislodging any crucial connections. Plastic bootees over his shoes, blue nitrile gloves on his hands. He wasn’t trying to avoid leaving forensic traces. He didn’t care about that. But he wanted a quick getaway and he didn’t want to be soaked in blood on the short drive back to Vinton Woods. That would be the kind of carelessness that deserved to be punished by a random road accident.

Vance stood up, rolling his shoulders and flexing his spine to make the overall settle on his body. He hefted the crowbar in his hand and set the knife down on the sill of the window by the back door. He took a good look at the door, assessing its strengths and weaknesses, and smiled. Someone had replaced the original solid wood door with a modern one whose glass panels rendered it a lot weaker. Luckily, they’d gone for wood rather than UPVC. Contemporary wooden doors were made of soft wood that splintered and broke relatively easily. This was not going to be much of a challenge.

He pushed against the top and bottom of the door to test whether there were any bolts, but apparently Hill hadn’t invited his good friend DCI Jordan round to sort out his mother’s security. It seemed that the door was only secured by the mortice lock and the door catch.

Vance pushed the point of the crowbar into the spot where the door met the jamb. It was a tight fit, but he was strong enough to force it in, denting the soft wood of the door-frame in the process. He pushed harder, trying to put more stress on the lock before he began the serious business of forcing it.

Once he was satisfied he had the leverage right, Vance leaned into the crowbar, using his weight as well as his strength against the wood and metal holding the door closed. At first, his only reward was a faint creak of wood. He put more effort into it, grunting softly like a pianissimo tennis player on the serve. This time, he felt something give. He paused to realign the crowbar’s bite and put everything into shifting the lock body out of the box keep. This time, there was a scream of metal and a splintering of wood as the door burst open.

Vance stood panting on the threshold, feeling very pleased with himself. He shifted the crowbar into his prosthetic hand, checking his grip was secure. It was amazing how well this worked. He could actually ‘feel’ that he was holding something and he could judge how much pressure he needed to apply to keep hold of it. And those bastards had wanted to deny him access to this technology. He shook his head, smiling at the memory of his delight at their defeat in the European Court. But this was no time for basking in past victories. He had work to do. Vance reached for the knife with the seven-inch blade that he’d left on the window sill and stepped inside the kitchen.

To his surprise, there was no sign of Vanessa Hill. He hadn’t made a lot of noise, it was true, but most people were attuned to the sounds of their home at an unconscious level, particularly when they were home alone. Anything out of the ordinary would bring them to their feet to investigate. Apparently Vanessa Hill was either hard of hearing or so engrossed in whatever crap she was watching on TV that she hadn’t heard him break in. Admittedly, the door into the hallway was closed, which might have made the difference between hearing and not.

Vance moved across the kitchen as quietly as he could, lifting his feet high to avoid the shuffle of his bootees on the tiled floor. He inched the door open and wasn’t surprised to hear American voices talking and laughing. He walked down the hall, his movements loose and relaxed now he was so close to accomplishing his goal. First he’d taken Tony Hill’s home from him. Now he was going to rob him of his only relative, his beloved mother. Vance’s one regret was that he wouldn’t be sticking around to see the suffering at first hand.

Two steps away from the threshold of the living room he paused, straightening his spine and squaring his shoulders. The flickering TV light reflected on the shining steel of his blade.

Then he was through the door and round the sofa and brandishing his weapons at the woman sitting upright among the cushions. Her response was not what he expected. Instead of screaming panic, Vanessa Hill was simply looking at him with mild curiosity.

‘Hello, Jacko,’ she said. ‘What kept you?’

55

Tony assumed the blue flashing lights that were gaining on him all the way up the main drag belonged to Ambrose. He turned into the side street leading to his mother’s road just ahead of them and managed to stop them overtaking him before they all took a hard left into her street.

Tony abandoned his car in the road, making no attempt at parking. He ran for the front door, but before he got there, a young Asian man grabbed him in a bear hug and slammed him into the side of the house. ‘No, you don’t,’ he said. Then Ambrose was in front of him, struggling into a stab vest the size of a car door.

‘Take it easy, Tony,’ he said softly. ‘You don’t go in first. Have you got a key?’

Tony snorted. ‘No. And no, I don’t know if any of the neighbours has one. I’d doubt it, though. She’s a very private person, my mother.’

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