The Last Temptation (3 page)

‘Just as well. We’d have looked bloody stupid if we’d come’ this far and then had to admit we didn’t have a credible operative. But it’s still very dangerous,’ Thorson said.

Surtees gestured to Bishop that he should take the chair Carol had recently vacated. He sat, pinching the creases in his trousers between finger and thumb to free them from his knees.

‘She’s been in dangerous places before. Let’s not forget the Jacko Vance business,’ Morgan reminded Thorson, his jaw jutting stubbornly.

‘Colleagues, Commander Bishop is here,’ Surtees said forcibly. :

Paul Bishop cleared his throat. ‘Since you’ve brought it up … If I could just say something about the Vance operation?’

Morgan nodded. ‘Sorry, Commander, I didn’t mean to be so rude. Tell us what you remember. That’s why we asked you to come along.’

Bishop inclined his handsome head gracefully. ‘When an operation is perceived as having reached a successful conclusion, it’s easy to sweep under the carpet all the things that went wrong. But by any objective analysis, the pursuit and

ultimate capture of Jacko Vance was a policing nightmare. I would have to characterize it as a renegade action. Frankly, it made the Dirty Dozen look like a well-disciplined fighting unit. It was unauthorized, it ran roughshod over police hierarchies, it crossed force boundaries with cavalier lack of respect, and it’s nothing short of a miracle that we managed to salvage such a favourable outcome. If Carol Jordan had been one of my officers, she would have faced an internal inquiry and I have no doubt that she would have been demoted. I’ve never understood why John Brandon failed to discipline her.’ He leaned back in his chair, his heart warmed by the soft glow of righteous revenge. Jordan and her bunch of vigilantes had cost him dear, and this was the first real chance he’d had for payback. It was a pleasure.

But to his surprise, the interview panel seemed singularly unimpressed. Morgan was actually smiling. ‘You’re saying that, when she’s in a tight corner, Jordan cuts through the crap and does her own thing? That she doesn’t have a problem showing initiative and dealing with the unexpected?’

Bishop frowned slightly. ‘That’s not quite how I would have put it. More that she seems to think the rules don’t necessarily apply to her.’

‘Did her actions endanger either herself or her fellow officers?’ Thorson asked.

Bishop shrugged elegantly. ‘It’s hard to say. To be honest, the officers involved were less than candid about some aspects of their investigation.’

Surtees, the third member of the panel, looked up, his pale face almost luminous in the fading afternoon light. ‘If I may summarize? Just to check we’re on the right track here? Vance hid behind the facade of his public celebrity as a television personality to murder at least eight teenage girls. His activities went entirely unsuspected by the authorities until

15

?

a classroom exercise by the National Offender Profiling Tasl^ Force threw up a puzzling cluster of possibly connected cases J And still no one outside the group took the case seriously even after one of their number was savagely killed. I’m righj in saying that DCI Jordan had no involvement in the case until after Vance killed outside his target group? Until it wa^j clear that unless some action was taken to stop him, he would almost certainly kill again?’ ‘

Bishop looked slightly uncomfortable. ‘That’s one way of putting it. But by the time she came on board, West Yorkshire were already investigating that case. They were taking appropriate measures and conducting a proper inquiry. If Jordan had wanted to make a contribution, that would have been the correct channel to go through.’ ,

Morgan smiled again. ‘But it was Jordan and her motley’ crew that got the result,’ he said mildly. ‘Do you think Jordan displayed strength of character in the way she acted in the Jacko Vance investigation?’

Bishop raised his eyebrows. ‘There’s no doubt that she was stubborn.’

‘Tenacious,’ Morgan said.

‘I suppose.’

‘And courageous?’ Thorson interjected. I

‘I’m not sure whether I’d characterize it as courage or bloodymindedness,’ Bishop said. ‘Look, why exactly have you, asked me here? This isn’t normal procedure for appointing an NCIS officer, even at senior rank.’ I

Morgan said nothing. He studied his pencil on its rotating journey. Bishop hadn’t asked why he was here when he thought: there was an opportunity for putting the shaft in on Jordan. It was only when he realized that he was talking to people who didn’t share his managerial view that he’d pushed for an answer. In Morgan’s book, that meant he didn’t deserve one.

16

Surtees bridged the gap. ‘We’re considering DCI Jordan or a very demanding role in a key operation. It’s highly confiential, so you’ll understand why we’re not able to provide ou with details. But what you have told us has been very .elpful.’

It was a dismissal. He couldn’t believe he’d been dragged cross London for this. Bishop got to his feet. ‘If that’s all

. ?’

‘Do her junior officers like her?’ Thorson caught him on he back foot.

‘Like her?’ Bishop seemed genuinely puzzled.

‘Would you say she has charm? Charisma?’ she persisted.

‘I couldn’t say from personal experience. But she certainly had my officers on the profiling task force eating out of her feiand. They followed where she led them.’ Now the edge of [bitterness was impossible to disguise. ‘Whatever feminine wiles she used, it was enough to get them to forget their training, forget their loyalties and chase off all over the country at her bidding.’

‘Thank you, Commander. You’ve been very helpful,’ Surtees said. The panel sat in silence while Bishop left the room.

Morgan shook his head, grinning. ‘She really got under his skin, didn’t she?’

‘But we learned what we needed to know. She’s got guts, she shows initiative and she can charm the birds off the trees.’ Surtees was scribbling notes on his pad. ‘And she’s not afraid to confront danger head-on.’

‘But nothing like this. We’d have to cover her back in ways we’ve never considered before. For example, she couldn’t be wired. We couldn’t risk that. So any product is going to be compromised for lack of corroboration,’ Thorson objected.

Surtees shrugged. ‘She has an eidetic memory for aural stimulus. It’s in the notes. She’s been independently tested.

17

Anything she s heard, she can recall verbatim. Her reports \ probably going to be even more accurate than the muffl crap we get from half the surveillances we mount’

Morgan smiled triumphantly. ‘Like I said, she’s per The target won’t be able to resist.’ i

Thorson pursed her lips. ‘For all our sakes, I hope not I before we make a final decision, I want to see her in actij

The two men looked at each other. Morgan noddc Agreed. Let s see how she performs under pressure.’

18

The sun was slanting at an awkward angle as Tony Hill drove up the long hill out of St Andrews. He pulled the sun visor down and glanced in the rear-view mirror. Behind him, the

reen of the Tentsmuir Forest contrasted with the blue sparkle of the Firth of Tay and the North Sea beyond it. He glimpsed

ic jagged grey skyline of the town, ruins cheek by jowl with imposing nineteenth-century architecture, each indistinguishable from the other at this distance. It had become a familiar sight over the past eighteen months since he’d taken up his post as Reader in Behavioural Psychology at the university, but he still enjoyed the tranquillity of the view. Distance lent enchantment, turning the skeletons of St Regulus Tower and the cathedral into gothic Disney fantasies. Best of all, from a distance he didn’t have to deal with colleagues or students. Although his professor had acted as if acquiring someone with his reputation had been a major enhancement of their Departmental prospectus, Tony wasn’t sure he’d lived up to expectations. He’d always known he wasn’t really suited to the academic life. He was bad at politics, and lecturing still left him sweaty-palmed and panicky. But at the time he’d been offered the job, it had seemed a better option than continuing with work he no longer felt fit for. He’d started °ut as a clinical psychologist, working at the sharp end in a secure mental hospital, dealing with serial offenders. When

19

the Home Office had started taking an interest in the ei tiveness of offender profiling in police investigations, been one of the obvious candidates to run the feasibility sti It had helped his reputation almost as much as it . damaged his psyche that in the course of the study, he’d b directly caught up in the capture of a psychopathic killer \ had been targeting young men. In the process, his own vuli abilities had come close to destroying him. The degree of involvement still gave him screaming nightmares from wl he woke drenched in sweat, his body racked with echoe past pain.

When the profiling task force was set up according to

recommendations he’d made, he’d been the inevitable chc

to take charge of training a hand-picked team of young pol

officers in psychological profiling techniques. It should h

been a straightforward assignment, but it had turned into

excursion into hell for Tony and his charges. For a seccj

time, he had been forced to confound the rules that said

should be an arm’s-length role. For a second time, he I

ended up with blood on his hands. And the absolute certai

that he didn’t want to have to do any of it ever again.

His participation in the shadow world of offender profil had cost him more than he cared to tot up. Two years la and he was still never free of the past. Every day, when went through the motions of a professional life he didn’t re; believe in, he couldn’t help thinking of what he had wall away from. He’d been good at it, he knew. But in the e that hadn’t been enough.

Impatient with himself, he ejected the Philip Glass casse Music gave him too much space for idle speculation. Wo that’s what he needed to divert him from his pointless inl version. He listened to the tail end of a discussion about emergence of new viruses in sub-Saharan Africa, his eyes

20

the road that wound through the picturesque scenery of the East Neuk. As he turned off towards the fishing village of Cellardyke, the familiar pips announced the four o’clock news.

The comforting voice of the newsreader began the bulletin. The convicted serial killer and former TV chat show host Jacko Vance has begun his appeal against conviction. Vance, who once held the British record for the javelin, was given a life sentence at his trial eighteen months ago for the murder of a police officer. The appeal is expected to last for two days.

‘Police appealed for calm in Northern Ireland tonight…’ The words continued, but Tony wasn’t listening any longer. One last hurdle and then it would finally be over. One more anxiety would, he hoped fervently, be laid to rest. Intellectually, he knew there was no chance of Vance’s appeal succeeding. But while it was pending, there would always be that niggle of uncertainty. He’d helped put Vance away, but the arrogant killer had always maintained he would find a loophole that would set him free. Tony hoped the road to freedom was only a figment of Vance’s imagination.

As the car wound down the hill towards the seafront cottage Tony had bought a year ago, he wondered if Carol knew about the appeal. He’d e-mail her tonight to make sure. Thank God for electronic communication. It avoided so many of the occasions for awkwardness that seemed to occur when they were face to face, or even talking on the phone. He was conscious of having failed Carol, and, in the process, himself. She was never far from his thoughts, but to tell her that would have been a kind of betrayal he couldn’t bring himself to Perform.

Tony pulled up in the narrow street outside his cottage, parking the car half on the kerb. There was a light on in the living room. Once, such a sight would have set the cold hand

21

]

of fear clutching his heart. But his world had changed in mo^ ways than he could ever have dreamed of. Now, he want everything to stay the same; clear, manageable, boxed off. It wasn’t perfect, not by a long way. But it was better tha bearable. And for Tony, better than bearable was as good it had ever been. ,.„.. , j.

The throb of the engines soothed him, as it always had. Ba things had never happened to him on the water. For as lor as he could remember, boats had protected him. There wei rules of life on board, rules that had always been clear an simple, rules that existed for good and logical reasons. Bu even when he’d been too young to understand, when he’< inadvertently done things he shouldn’t have, the punishmen had never descended on him until they went ashore. He^ known it was coming, but he had always managed to hoi the fear at bay while the engines rumbled and the mingle smells of men’s unwashed bodies, stale cooking fat and dies fumes filled his nostrils.

The pain had only ever been visited on him when they 1Ť their life on the water behind and returned to the stinl< apartment by the fish docks in Hamburg where his granc ther demonstrated the power he held over the young boy his care. While he was still staggering to recover his land k the punishments would begin.

Even now when he thought about it, the air in his lun§ seemed to condense. His skin felt as if it were writhing owe his flesh. For years, he’d tried not to think about it becaus< it made him feel so fractured, so fragile. But slowly he ha

22

Small transgressions had meant he would be forced to crouch in a corner of the kitchen while his grandfather fried up a hash of sausage, onions and potatoes on the stove. It smelled better than anything the cook on the barge ever served up on the boat. He never knew if it tasted better, because when the time came to eat, he would have to wait in his corner and watch while his grandfather tucked into a steaming plate of fried food. Drenched in the appetizing aroma, his stomach would clench with hunger, his mouth become a reservoir of eager saliva.