The Wire in the Blood (41 page)

Kay had lost count. She couldn’t remember if this was the seventh or the eighth set of videos she’d inspected. Having drawn the short straw in the division of the sites, she’d set off on the M1 from Leeds before dawn and driven all the way to London. Then she turned the car round and retraced her journey, stopping at every service area she came to. Now it was late afternoon and she was sitting in yet another scruffy office, stuffy with stale sweat and smoke, watching jerky images dancing in front of her as she fast-forwarded through the tapes. She was awash with bad coffee, her mouth still slimy and fat-flavoured from the long ago breakfast at Scratchwood Services. Her eyes were gritty and tired, and she wished she was anywhere else.

At least they’d managed to narrow the time frame down. They reckoned the earliest Shaz or Vance could possibly have hit the first northbound services on the motorway was eleven in the morning, the latest seven at night. Adjusting the times forward for each service area wasn’t difficult.

The tapes took much less running time than real time, since, rather than taping continuously, the cameras only took a certain number of still frames per second. Even so, she’d spent hours working her way through the recordings, fast-forwarding until she saw either a black Volkswagen Golf or one of the cars registered to Jacko Vance—a silver Mercedes convertible or a Land Rover. The Golf was common enough to cause frequent pauses, the other cars turning up less often.

She thought she was faster now than when she’d started. Her eyes were in tune with what she was searching for, though she feared she was beginning to flag and worried that might make her miss something crucial. Forcing herself to concentrate, Kay flicked forward until the familiar black pram-like shape of another Golf appeared. She slowed to normal speed, then almost at once she registered that the driver was a male with grey hair sticking out from under a baseball cap rather than either of her expected targets so her finger moved towards the fast-forward button. Then, suddenly, it swerved to the pause button as she noticed that there was something odd about the man.

But the first thing that struck her on closer scrutiny had nothing to do with the person who’d climbed out of the driver’s seat and headed for the petrol pump. What Kay spotted was quite different. Although the car was sitting at an awkward angle to the pumps, she could make out the last two letters of the number plate. They were identical to the final digits of Shaz’s registration.

‘Ah, shit,’ she breathed softly. She rewound the tape and watched it again. This time she identified what had caught her eye about the driver. He was awkwardly left-handed, to the point where he hardly used his right arm at all. Just as Jacko Vance would inevitably be if he were using equipment that wasn’t specially designed to accommodate his disability.

Kay studied the tape a few more times. It wasn’t easy to make out the man’s features, but she wouldn’t mind betting that Carol Jordan would know someone who could help them over that particular hurdle. Before the night was over, they’d have something on Jacko Vance that even a team of highly paid defence lawyers wouldn’t be able to get him out of. And it would be down to her, the best tribute she could pay to a woman who had been on the way to becoming a friend.

She flipped open her mobile phone and called Carol. ‘Carol? It’s Kay. I think I might have something your brother would like to see…’

It wasn’t that Chris Devine objected to pathologists having a day off. What pissed her off royally was that this particular pathologist spent her free time sitting in the pouring rain in the middle of nowhere waiting for a glimpse of some bloody stupid bird that was supposed to be in Norway but had managed to get lost. There was nothing clever about getting lost, Chris muttered as she felt more rain slide between her neck and her collar. Bloody Essex, she thought bitterly.

She sheltered from the gusting easterly so she could take another look at the rough map the bird warden had sketched out for her. She couldn’t be far away now. Why did these bloody hides have to be so inconspicuous? Why didn’t they just make them look like her nan’s house? She had more bloody birds in her back garden than Chris had seen all afternoon on the marshes. The birds were too flaming sensible to come out on a day like this, she grumbled as she stuffed the map back in her pocket and set off round the edge of the copse.

She almost missed the hide, so well was it camouflaged. Chris pulled back the wooden door and forced the scowl from her face. ‘Sorry to butt in,’ she said to the three people cramped inside, grateful that her head at least was out of the wind. ‘Is one of you Professor Stewart?’ She hoped she was in the right place; it was impossible to tell even genders inside waxed jackets, woolly scarves and thermal hats.

A gloved hand rose. ‘I’m Liz Stewart,’ one of the figures said. ‘What’s going on?’

Chris sighed with relief. ‘Detective Sergeant Devine, Metropolitan Police. I wonder if I could have a word?’

The woman shook her head. ‘I’m not on call,’ she said, her Scottish accent growing stronger in indignation.

‘I appreciate that. But it is rather urgent.’ Chris unobtrusively edged the door wider so the wind could whip inside the rickety structure.

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Liz, go and see what the woman wants,’ an irritated male voice said from under one of the other hats. ‘We’re not going to see anything worthwhile at all if you two stand there screaming like fishwives.’

The grudging professor squeezed past the other two and followed Chris outside. ‘There’s some shelter under the trees,’ Professor Stewart said, pushing past her and scrambling through the undergrowth until they were out of reach of most of the weather. In the clearing, Chris could see she was a sharp-featured forty-something with clear amber eyes like a hawk. ‘Now, what is all this about?’ she demanded.

‘You worked a case twelve years ago. An unsolved murder of a teenage girl in Manchester, Barbara Fenwick. Do you remember it?’

‘The girl with the crushed arm?’

‘That’s the one. The case has cropped up in connection with another investigation. We think we’re looking at a serial killer, and it’s possible that Barbara Fenwick is the only one of his victims where the body’s turned up. Which makes your postmortem pretty significant.’

‘Which it will still be on Monday morning,’ the professor said briskly.

‘Yeah, but the girl we think he’s holding might not make it that long,’ Chris said.

‘Ah. You’d better fire away then, Sergeant.’

‘Retired Superintendent Scott told my colleagues that you had thought, but didn’t put in your report, that the arm looked like it might have been crushed deliberately in something like a vice rather than accidentally, is that right?’

‘That was my opinion, but it was only speculation. Not the sort of fanciful thing I’d put in a formal postmortem report unless I had considerably stronger grounds for my belief,’ she said repressively.

‘But if you were pressed, you’d say that?’

‘If I were asked directly if it were possible, yes, I’d have to agree.’

‘Was there anything else you didn’t write down because it was “fanciful”?’ Chris asked.

‘Not that I can think of.’

‘I know you said you didn’t put it in your formal report, but would you have put something in your notes to that effect?’

‘Oh yes,’ the professor said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. ‘That way, if it became important later, the prosecution could introduce it more readily.’

Chris closed her eyes momentarily in a short prayer. ‘And have you still got your notes?’

‘Of course. In fact, I’ve got something even better than that.’

The café of the motorway services at Hartshead Moor on the M62 had never been anyone’s idea of a good Saturday night out, which made it perfect for their purposes. The ad hoc investigative team was now augmented by Chris Devine, who had slotted in as if she’d always been there. Already, it seemed she and Carol were about to sign up as blood sisters, both because of their common experiences in the Job and because they were the nearest thing the team had to senior officers.

The group had colonized a distant corner with no prospect of being overheard or disturbed since it was right on the border of the smoking area. Leon, dispirited at drawing a blank, was buoyed up by Kay’s results. But Simon’s face was showing signs of strain inevitable in a man whose name was on the wanted list, turned on by the very group who had given him a sense of community. Tony wondered how long the younger man could stand it without his judgement slipping dangerously.

Carol cut into his thoughts. ‘I’ve arranged for Kay to meet a friend of my brother who can enhance these pictures for us, to cut the margin of doubt to the bone.’

‘You’re not coming along?’ Kay asked, looking slightly worried.

‘Carol has responsibilities in East Yorkshire tonight,’ Tony said. ‘Is that a problem, Kay?’

She looked embarrassed. ‘Not a problem, not as such. It’s just…well, I don’t know this bloke, and he’s doing this as a favour, right?’

‘That’s right,’ Carol said. ‘Michael says he owes him.’

‘It’s just that…well, if I want to push a bit harder, you know, if I don’t think he’s going to the max because he can’t be bothered, or it’s going to cost too much, I can’t actually lean on him the way Carol could.’

‘She’s got a point,’ Chris affirmed from the smoking table she was occupying with Leon. ‘She’s not even the one who’s asked for the favour. And it’s Saturday night. Even computer nerds must have something better to do than a favour for somebody who can’t be bothered to turn up in person. That’ll be how it looks. I think Carol should be there.’

Carol stirred her sludgy coffee. ‘You’re right. I can’t fault your logic. But I can’t afford to be off my patch tonight.’ She glanced at her watch and made rapid calculations.

‘No, Carol,’ Tony said hopelessly, knowing already he was wasting his breath.

‘If we left now…we could be there by nine…I could be back in Seaford by one at the latest. And nothing ever happens before then…’ Coming to a decision, Carol grabbed her coat and bag. ‘All right. Come on, Kay, we’re off.’ As they walked towards the door with Kay scrambling to catch up, Carol turned. ‘Chris—good hunting.’

‘So what do we do now?’ Leon demanded aggressively, lighting another cigarette from the butt of the one he’d been smoking. ‘I feel like I’ve wasted a whole day fucking about with motorway cameras. I want to be doing something worthwhile, you know?’

Tony was glad Chris Devine had come to join them; he had a feeling he was going to have to rely on her experience now the others were starting to fray round the edges. ‘Nobody’s been wasting their time, Leon. We’ve come a long way today,’ he said calmly. ‘We need to build on that. The information Chris has got from the pathologist is a big step forward. But on its own, it’s still not worth a whole lot. He profiles right. Everything we learn about him puts another tick in the box. But we’re still in the realms of supposition.’

‘Even with a victim with a crushed right arm?’ Simon asked incredulously. ‘Come on, that’s got to be a clincher. What more do we need, for God’s sake?’

‘Given the kind of lawyers Jack the Lad is going to be able to afford, we’d be laughed out of court—always supposing we got that far,’ Tony said. ‘I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.’

‘The crushed arm is good stuff,’ Chris said. ‘But it’s not a lot of use as an isolated case. What we need is something to compare it with. Only so far there haven’t been any bodies, right?’ The others nodded. ‘But you reckon he’d got another one just before Shaz fronted him up? Well then, chances are he’d started on her but he hadn’t finished. So we find her, we tie her to him, and we’ve got him. Anything wrong with that?’

‘No, except we don’t know where he keeps them before he kills them,’ Tony said.

‘Course we don’t. Or do we?’

If they’d been dogs, their ears would have pricked up. ‘Go on,’ Tony encouraged her.

‘The great thing about being a dyke my age is that when I was getting into the scene, everyone who had a job was in the closet. Now, half the women I used to drink with are bosses all over the shop. One of them just happens to be a partner in the agency that handles Jacko’s publicity.’ She pulled out a sheaf of fax paper from inside her jacket. ‘Jacko’s schedule for the last six weeks. Now, unless he’s Superman or his wife is in on this, there’s only one area of the country he could possibly be keeping this kid.’ She leaned back and watched them cotton on to what had leapt out at her.

Tony ran his hand through his hair. ‘I know he’s got a cottage up there. But it’s a huge area. How can we narrow it down?’

‘He could be using his own place,’ Leon said.

‘Yeah,’ Simon butted in eagerly. ‘Let’s get up there, take a look at this hideaway.’

‘I don’t know,’ Chris said. ‘He’s been so careful about everything else, I can’t believe he’d do something so risky.’

‘Where’s the risk?’ Tony demanded. ‘He brings the girls there under cover of darkness, they’re never seen or heard from again. There’s never a trace of the bodies. But Jack the Lad does volunteer work at the hospital in Newcastle. They must have an incinerator. He’s always pushing the image of himself as being a man with the common touch. I’d guess he regularly pops down to the boiler room, having a natter with the lads. And if he helps them load the incinerator from time to time, well, who’s going to notice the extra bag of body parts?’