Oh, and by the way, he added, almost as an afterthought, when they do nail the bastard thanks to your hard work, they wont even invite you to the party.
The silence was so intense he could hear the hiss of burning tobacco as Leon inhaled. Tony got to his feet and shoved his springy black hair back from his forehead. You probably think Im exaggerating. Believe me, Im barely scratching the surface of how bad this job will make you feel. If you dont think its for you, if youre having doubts about your decision, nows the time to walk away. Nobody will reproach you. No blame, no shame. Just have a word with Commander Bishop. He looked at his watch. Coffee break. Ten minutes.
He picked up his folder and carefully didnt look at them as they pushed back chairs and made a ragged progress to the door and the coffee station in the largest of the three rooms theyd been grudgingly granted by a police service already strapped for accommodation for their own officers. When at last he looked up, Shaz Bowman stood leaning against the wall by the door, waiting.
Second thoughts, Sharon? he asked.
I hate being called Sharon, she said. People who want a response go for Shaz. I just wanted to say its not only profilers that get treated like shit. Theres nothing you said just now that sounds any worse than what women deal with all the time in this job.
So Ive been told, Tony said, thinking inevitably of Carol Jordan. If its true, you lot should have a head start in this game.
Shaz grinned and pushed off from the wall, satisfied. Just watch, she said, swivelling on the balls of her feet and moving through the door on feet as silent and springy as a jungle cat.
Jacko Vance leaned forward across the flimsy table and frowned. He pointed to the open desk diary. You see, Bill? Im already committed to running the half-marathon on the Sunday. And then after that, were filming Monday and Tuesday, Im doing a club opening in Lincoln on Tuesday night youre coming to that, by the way, arent you? Bill nodded, and Jacko continued. Ive got meetings lined up Wednesday back to back and Ive got to drive back up to Northumberland for my volunteer shift. I just dont see how we can accommodate them. He threw himself back against the striped tweed of the production caravans comfortless sofa bench with a sigh.
Thats the whole point, Jacko, his producer said calmly, stirring the skimmed milk into the two coffees he was making in the kitchen area. Bill Ritchie had been producing Vances Visits for long enough to know there was little point in trying to change his stars mind once it was made up. But this time, he was under sufficient pressure from his bosses to try. This documentary shorts supposed to make you look busy, to say, Heres this amazing guy, busy professional life, yet he finds time to work for charity, so why arent you? He brought the coffees to the table.
Im sorry, Bill, but its not on. Jacko picked up his coffee and winced at its scalding heat. Hastily, he put it down again. When are we going to get a proper coffee maker in here?
If its anything to do with me, never, Bill said with a mock-severe scowl. The lousy coffees the one thing guaranteed to divert you from whatever youre going on about.
Jacko shook his head ruefully, acknowledging hed been caught out. OK. But Im still not doing it. For one, I dont want a camera crew dogging my heels any more than I already have to put up with. For two, I dont do charity work so I can show off about it on prime-time telethons. For three, the poor sick bastards I spend my nights with are terminally ill people who do not need a hand-held camera shoved down their emaciated throats. Ill happily do something else for the telethon, maybe something with Micky, but Im not having the people I work with exploited just so we can guilt-trip a few more grand out of the viewers.
Bill spread his hands in defeat. Fine by me. Do you want to tell them or will I?
Would you, Bill? Save me the aggravation? Jackos smile was bright as a shaft of sunlight from a thundercloud, promising as the hour before a first date. It was imprinted on his audience like a race memory. Women made love to their husbands with more gusto because Jackos sexually inviting eyes and kissable mouth were flickering across the inside of their eyelids. Adolescent girls found their vague erotic longings suddenly focused. Old ladies doted on him, without connecting the subsequent feelings of unfulfilled sadness.
Men liked him too, but not because they found him sexy. Men liked Jacko Vance because he was, in spite of everything, one of the lads. A British, Commonwealth, and European gold medallist and holder of the world javelin record, Olympic gold had seemed like an inevitability for the darling of the back pages. Then one night, driving back from an athletics meeting in Gateshead, Jacko drove into a dense bank of fog on the A1. He wasnt the only one.
The morning news bulletins put the figures at between twenty-seven and thirty-five vehicles in the multiple pile-up. The big story wasnt the six dead, however. The big story was the tragic heroism of Jacko Vance, British athletics golden boy. In spite of suffering multiple lacerations and three broken ribs in the initial impact, Jacko had crawled out of his mangled motor and rescued two children from the back of a car seconds before it burst into flames. Depositing them on the hard shoulder, hed gone back into the tangled metal and attempted to free a lorry driver pinioned between his steering wheel and the buckled door of his cab.
The creaking of stressed metal turned to a shriek as accumulated pressures built up on the lorry and the roof caved in. The driver didnt stand a chance. Neither did Jacko Vances throwing arm. It took the firemen three agonizing hours to cut him free from the crushing weight of metal that had smashed his flesh to raw meat and his bones to splinters. Worse, he was conscious for most of it. Trained athletes knew all about pushing through the pain barrier.
The news of his George Cross came the day after the medics fitted his first prosthesis. It was small consolation for the loss of the dream that had been the core of his life for a dozen years. But bitterness didnt cloud his natural shrewdness. He knew how fickle the media could be. He still smarted at the memory of the headlines when hed blown his first attempt at the European title. JACK SPLAT! had been the kindest stab at the heart of the man who only the day before had been JACK OF HEARTS.
He knew he had to capitalize on his glory quickly or hed soon be another yesterdays hero, early fodder for the Where Are They Now? column. So he called in a few favours, renewed his acquaintance with Bill Ritchie and ended up commentating on the very Olympics where he should have mounted the rostrum. It had been a start. Simultaneously, hed worked to establish his reputation as a tireless worker for charity, a man who would never allow his fame to stand in the way of helping people less fortunate than himself.
Now, he was bigger than all the fools whod been so ready to write him off. Hed charmed and chatted his way to the front of the sports presenters ranks in a slash and burn operation of such devious ruthlessness that some of his victims still didnt realize theyd been calculatedly chopped off at the knees. Once hed consolidated that role, hed presented a chat show that had topped the light entertainment ratings for three years. When the fourth year saw it drop to third place, he dumped the format and launched Vances Visits.
Now, he was bigger than all the fools whod been so ready to write him off. Hed charmed and chatted his way to the front of the sports presenters ranks in a slash and burn operation of such devious ruthlessness that some of his victims still didnt realize theyd been calculatedly chopped off at the knees. Once hed consolidated that role, hed presented a chat show that had topped the light entertainment ratings for three years. When the fourth year saw it drop to third place, he dumped the format and launched Vances Visits.
The show claimed to be spontaneous. In fact, Jackos arrival in the midst of what his publicity called ordinary people living ordinary lives was invariably orchestrated with all the advance planning of a royal visit but none of the attendant publicity. Otherwise hed have attracted bigger crowds than any of the discredited House of Windsor. Especially if hed turned up with the wife.
And still it wasnt enough.
Carol bought the coffees. It was a privilege of rank. She thought about refusing to shell out for the chocolate biscuits on the basis that nobody needed three KitKats to get through a meeting with their DCI. But she knew it would be misinterpreted, so she grinned and bore the expense. She led the troops shed chosen with care to a quiet corner cut off from the rest of the canteen by an array of plastic parlour palms. Detective Sergeant Tommy Taylor, Detective Constable Lee Whitbread and Detective Constable Di Earnshaw had all impressed her with their intelligence and determination. She might yet be proved wrong, but these three officers were her private bet for the pick of Seaford Centrals CID.
Im not going to attempt to pretend this is a social chat so we can get to know each other better, she announced, sharing the biscuits out among the three of them. Di Earnshaw watched her, eyes like currants in a suet pudding, hating the way her new boss managed to look elegant in a linen suit with more creases than a dossers when she just looked lumpy in her perfectly pressed chain-store skirt and jacket.
Thank Christ for that, Tommy said, a grin slowly spreading. I was beginning to worry in case wed got a guvnor who didnt understand the importance of Tetleys Bitter to a well-run CID.
Carols answering smile was wry. Its Bradfield I came from, remember?
Thats why we were worried, maam, Tommy replied.
Lee snorted with suppressed laughter, turned it into a cough and spluttered, Sorry, maam.
You will be, Carol said pleasantly. Ive got a task for you three. Ive been taking a good look at the overnights since I got here, and Im a bit concerned about the high incidence of unexplained fires and query arsons that weve got on our ground. I spotted five query arsons in the last month and when I made some checks with uniform, I found out there have been another half-dozen unexplained outbreaks of fire.
You always get that kind of thing round the docks, Tommy said, casually shrugging big shoulders inside a baggy silk blouson that had gone out of fashion a couple of years previously.
I appreciate that, but Im wondering if theres a bit more to it than that. Agreed, a couple of the smaller blazes are obvious routine cock-ups, but Im wondering if theres something else going on here. Carol left it dangling to see who would pick it up.
A firebug, you mean, maam? It was Di Earnshaw, the voice pleasant but the expression bordering on the insolent.
A serial arsonist, yes.
There was a momentary silence. Carol reckoned she knew what they were thinking. The East Yorkshire force might be a new entity, but these officers had worked this patch under the old regime. They were in with the bricks, whereas she was the new kid in town, desperate to shine at their expense. And they werent sure whether to roll with it or try to derail her. Somehow she had to persuade them that she was the star they should be hitching their wagons to. Theres a pattern, she said. Empty premises, early hours of the morning. Schools, light industrial units, warehouses. Nothing too big, nowhere there might be a night watchman to put the mockers on it. But serious nevertheless. Big fires, all of them. Theyve caused a lot of damage and the insurance companies must be hurting more than they like.
Nobodys said owt about an arsonist on the rampage, Tommy remarked calmly. Usually, the firemen tip us the wink if they think theres something a bit not right on the go.
Either that or the local rag gives us a load of earache, Lee chipped in through a mouthful of his second KitKat. Lean as a whippet in spite of the biscuits and the three sugars in his coffee, Carol noted. One to watch for high-strung hyperactivity.
Call me picky, but I prefer it when were setting the agenda, not the local hacks or the fire service, Carol said coolly. Arson isnt a Mickey Mouse crime. Like murder, it has terrible consequences. And like murder, youve got a stack of potential motives. Fraud, the destruction of evidence, the elimination of competition, revenge and cover-up, at the logical end of the spectrum. And at the screwed-up end, we have the ones who do it for kicks and sexual gratification. Like serial killers, they nearly always have their own internal logic that they mistake for something that makes sense to the rest of us.
Fortunately for us, serial murder is a lot less common than serial arson. Insurers reckon a quarter of all the fires in the UK have been set deliberately. Imagine if a quarter of all deaths were murder.
Taylor looked bored. Lee Whitbread stared blankly at her, his hand halfway to the cigarette packet in front of him. Di Earnshaw was the only one who appeared interested in making a contribution. Ive heard it said that the incidence of arson is an index of the economic prosperity of a country. The more arson there is, the worse the economy is doing. Well, theres plenty unemployed round here, she said with the air of someone who expects to be ignored.
And thats something we should bear in mind, Carol said, nodding with approval. Now, this is what I want. A careful trawl through the overnights for CID and uniform for the last six months to see what we come up with. I want the victims re-interviewed to check if there are any obvious common factors, like the same insurance company. Sort it out among yourselves. Ill be having a chat with the fire chief before the four of us reconvene in shall we say three days? Fine. Any questions?
I could do the fire chief, maam, Di Earnshaw said eagerly. Ive had dealings with him before.
Thanks for the offer, Di, but the sooner I make his acquaintance, the happier Ill feel.
Di Earnshaws lips seemed to shrink inwards in disapproval, but she merely nodded.
You want us to drop our other cases? Tommy asked.
Carols smile was sharp as an ice pick. Shed never had a soft spot for chancers. Oh, please, Sergeant, she sighed. I know what your case-load is. Like I said at the start of this conversation, its Bradfield I came from. Seaford might not be the big city, but thats no reason for us to operate at village bobby pace.
She stood up, taking in the shock in their faces. I didnt come here to fall out with people. But I will if I have to. If you think Im a hard bastard to work for, watch me. However hard you work, youll see me matching it. Id like us to be a team. But we have to play by my rules.
Then she was gone. Tommy Taylor scratched his jaw. Thats us told, then. Still think shes shaggable, Lee?