The Retribution (10 page)
Carol frowned. This wasn’t the Tony Hill she’d known all these years. Yes, he’d recently claimed he’d been changed profoundly by discovering the identity of his biological father, understanding the reasons why the man had played no role in
his life, and coming to terms with his legacy. But she’d been doubtful, seeing little evidence of any change beyond the superficial decision to leave Bradfield and move into the splendid Edwardian house in Worcester. OK, that had also meant jacking in his job at Bradfield Moor secure mental hospital, but Carol was convinced that giving up work wouldn’t last for more than a few weeks. Tony identified himself too closely with the exploration of damaged minds to abandon it for long. There would be another secure hospital, another set of messy heads. She had no doubt of that.
However, the idea of taking off on an unplanned excursion to anywhere on a narrowboat was entirely out of character, a genuine marker of change. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d even taken his annual leave, never mind actually going on holiday. Maybe he too was feeling the fear gnawing at his heart. ‘We’ll sail under that bridge when we come to it,’ she muttered, getting up and heading for the door. ‘But the first thing I need to do is break the bad news to Chris. Then we have to get cracking on tracking down the others and telling them.’
Tony got to his feet.
‘No, you’re staying right here,’ Carol said, reaching past him and closing the blinds.
‘I need to go home for my laptop,’ he protested.
‘No, you don’t. You can use my computer.’
‘It doesn’t have my boilerplate.’
Carol gave a grim smile. ‘If you mean your standard intro, just use one of your old profiles. You’ll find them in the directory conveniently entitled “profiles”. Sorry, Tony. If this is as serious as you made out, you have to take as much care of yourself as you would like to take of me.’
There was, she thought as she marched into the main squad room, absolutely nothing he could say to that.
Vance drove to a quiet section of the car park, as far as he could get from the motel. He checked out the CCTV cameras and made sure he was parked in a position where the number plate couldn’t be seen. Any time he could buy himself was an advantage at this point.
Out of curiosity, he opened the boot. Tucked in a corner at the back was some clothing. He reached in and shook out the folds of a lightweight rain jacket. Perfect. It was a bit tight on the shoulders, but it covered his tattooed arms, which was the
most noticeable aspect of his current look. All the better for getting in and out of the motel.
Leaving the keys in the ignition in the hope that someone would steal the taxi, he walked briskly up the paved path to the motel, keeping his face tucked down into the upturned collar of the jacket. As he walked, he could feel the tension in his body. It wasn’t fear; there were no grounds for fear yet. It was a mixture of apprehension and anticipation, he thought. It was a heightened awareness that would keep him safe. Not just for the moment, but for as long as he needed to carry out his plans.
He turned down the last lane of parked cars, studying them as he passed. Halfway down he saw the dark blue Mercedes estate car that he was looking for. Propped on the dashboard was a piece of paper with a number on it. The last three digits were 314.
Vance peeled away and made straight for the motel. He pushed the door open and walked confidently across the lobby to the lifts. None of the people chatting on sofas or drinking coffee at the functional tables so much as glanced at him. The receptionist, busy with another arrival, barely looked his way. Everything was exactly as he expected. Terry had done a good job of setting this up and reporting the salient details during his visits. Vance hit the call button and stepped aboard as soon as the doors opened. On the third floor, he turned left down a corridor that had the sharp chemical tang of artificial fragrance. He walked along the corridor till he came to the door marked 314. He knocked three times then stepped away from the door, ready to run if that proved necessary.
But there was no need to worry. The door swung silently open to reveal the wiry frame and monkey face of Terry Gates, the true believer who had done Vance’s bidding in every particular since the day he’d been arrested. It had been Terry whose lying testimony had cast doubt on his first
murder convictions, Terry who had never questioned what had been asked of him, Terry who had never wavered in his belief in Vance’s innocence. For a moment he looked uncertain. Then their eyes met and his face crinkled in a toothy grin. He spread his arms wide, stepping backwards. ‘Come away in, man,’ he said, his Geordie accent obvious even in that short greeting.
Vance quickly crossed the threshold and closed the door behind him. He let out a long whoosh of breath and grinned right back at Terry. ‘It’s great to see you, Terry,’ he said, relaxing back into his own honeyed tones.
Terry couldn’t stop smiling. ‘It’s champion, Jacko. Champion. It’s been so depressing all these years, only ever seeing you in them places.’ He waved an arm at the room. ‘How nice is this?’
It was, in truth, a lot better than Vance had expected for this stopping point on his journey back to the luxury and comfort he craved as his right. The room was clean with no stale notes of cigarettes or booze. The decor was simple – white walls and bedding, dark wood panelling behind the bed and the table that doubled as a desk. The curtains were tobacco brown. The only rich colours came from the carpet and the bedspread. ‘You did well, Terry,’ he said, pulling off the hat and shrugging out of the jacket.
‘How did it go? Can I make you a brew? Is there anything you need? I’ve got all your paperwork and ID here in the briefcase. And I got some nice salads and sandwiches from M&S,’ Terry gabbled.
‘It went like clockwork,’ Vance said, stretching luxuriously. ‘Not a hitch.’ He clapped Terry on the shoulder. ‘Thanks. But first things first. What I need now is a shower.’ He looked at his arms with distaste. ‘I want to get rid of these eyesores. Why anyone would do that to themselves is a mystery to me.’ He headed towards the bathroom.
‘Exactly. Have you got a razor, Terry? I want to get rid of the goatee.’
‘It’s all in there, Jacko. Everything you asked for, all your regular toiletries.’ Terry flashed him a smile again, ever anxious to please.
Vance closed the bathroom door and set the shower running. Terry was like a pet dog. Whatever Vance asked for, it would be there, on the double. No matter how many demands Vance made, it seemed that Terry still felt like he was the one who owed the debt. It all rested on one simple thing. Back when he’d been a national hero, Vance had spent hours by the bedside of Terry’s twin sister Phyllis as she lay dying from the cancer that had rampaged through her body. Terry had thought Vance was acting out of compassion. He’d never understood that Vance sat by the beds of the dying because he liked to watch their lives leaking away. He enjoyed watching the humanity leach out of them till they were nothing more than a shell. Luckily for him, that had never even occurred to Terry as a possible motive for what he’d seen as an act of profound kindness. Phyllis had always loved
Vance’s Visits
; having the real thing at her bedside had been the one light in her life as it had wasted away.
Vance removed his prosthesis and stepped into the shower, luxuriating in an endless flow of water whose temperature was entirely under his control. It was bliss. He washed himself from head to toe with an expensive shower gel that smelled of real lime and cinnamon. He scrubbed the tattoo off his neck then shaved the goatee off, leaving the moustache. He stood under the water for a long time, savouring the sense of being master of his own destiny again. Eventually, the
tattoo transfer began to slip, slithering down his arm like a Dalí print. Vance rubbed his arm against his chest and stomach, helping it to dissolve into a gluey puddle then to disappear down the drain, flushing away all traces of Jason’s body art.
He stepped out of the shower and wrapped himself in a thick towel. It felt impossibly soft against his skin. Next, he covered the artificial skin of his prosthesis in shower gel and eased the tattoo sleeve off, again letting it dissolve and slip away, leaving no sign of what had happened there. As he dried himself, Vance’s thoughts slipped back to Terry. He’d perjured himself for Vance. Who knew how many criminal offences he’d committed in the past year on Vance’s behalf – everything from obtaining false ID to money laundering. He’d set up the practicalities of Vance’s escape. There had never been even a hint that he might betray the man he still hero-worshipped. And yet …
The fact that Terry was the man who knew too much was inescapable. He’d kept the faith for so long because he’d managed to convince himself that Vance was innocent. It was impossible for him to believe that the man who had made his sister’s last weeks bearable could also be a killer. But this time, it would be different. Vance had plans. Hellish plans. And when the terror started, when the full revelation of his revenge became clear, there would be no wriggle room for doubts. Not even Terry could fly in the face of that coming storm. Terry would have to accept some personal responsibility for the havoc Vance planned to wreak. It would be a terrible moment for him. But there was no escaping the fact that Terry was a man who had the courage of his convictions. Having stood four square behind Vance for so long, the realisation of his error would send Terry straight into the arms of the police. He wouldn’t be able to help himself.
Not that he should be here, by rights. True, Oakworth was on West Mercia’s patch and close enough to Worcester to make the escape the indisputable responsibility of the city’s CID. That meant, Ambrose thought, that this assignment should have been handled by his boss. But ever since Carol Jordan’s appointment to the job he’d wanted had been announced, it seemed like DI Stuart Patterson had gone on strike. Everything he could shunt Ambrose’s way was dumped on the sergeant’s desk. And so it was with this. Any hope Ambrose had had of seeing his boss take charge had vanished as soon as the identity of the escaped prisoner was revealed. That Carol Jordan had been involved in his initial arrest had simply cemented what was becoming standard operating procedure in their office.
As far as the head of CID was concerned, Patterson was handling the case. The reality was that Ambrose was fronting
it up. Never mind that the prison governor would expect a higher rank than sergeant to be leading the hunt for a dangerous escapee like Vance. Ambrose was just going to have to lump it and rely on his formidable presence to get him through. At least he might be able to call on Carol Jordan’s expertise ahead of her arrival in Worcester. When he’d worked with her before, he’d been impressed. It wasn’t easy to impress Alvin Ambrose.
At last, he was through the checks and through the sally port and trailing down a corridor to an office where a surprisingly young man was sitting behind a cluttered desk. He jumped up, holding his swinging jacket front down with one hand, sticking out the other to greet Ambrose. He was tall and rangy, full of bounce. As Ambrose drew near enough to shake his hand, he could see that his skin was crisscrossed with dozens of fine lines. He was older than he appeared. ‘John Greening,’ he said, his handshake as vigorous as his appearance. ‘Deputy Governor. The boss has gone London, talking to the Home Office.’ He widened his eyes and raised his eyebrows. He reminded Ambrose of David Tennant’s rendition of Doctor Who. The very thought made him tired. Greening gestured towards a seat, but Ambrose remained standing.
‘Hardly surprising,’ Ambrose said. ‘In the circumstances.’
‘Nobody is more embarrassed than us about Jacko Vance’s escape.’
Embarrassed
seemed a woefully inadequate word to Ambrose. A serial killer had walked out the front door of this man’s jail. In his shoes, Ambrose would have been paralysed with shame. ‘Yeah. Well, obviously there’ll be an inquiry into a screw-up of this magnitude, but that’s not what I’m here for right now.’
Greening looked peeved. Not angry or ashamed, Ambrose thought. Peeved. Like someone had criticised his tie. Which frankly would have deserved all it got. ‘I can assure you there’s no indication of corruption among our staff,’ he said.
