The Wire in the Blood

Days after he lost his Olympic dream saving the lives of two toddlers, Jacko Vance has broken his engagement to his childhood sweetheart Jillie Woodrow.

Heartbroken Jacko, speaking from the hospital bed where he is recovering from the amputation of his javelin-throwing arm, said, ‘I’m setting her free. I’m no longer the man she agreed to marry. It’s not fair to expect her to carry on as before. I can’t offer her the life we’d expected to have, and the most important thing to me is her happiness.

‘I know she’s upset now, but in the long run, she’ll come to see I’m doing the right thing.’

Now Jillie could never deny his version of events without making herself look a complete bitch.

Jacko bided his time, playing along with Micky’s proffered friendship. Then, when he deemed the moment was right, he struck like a rattler. ‘OK, so when’s payback day?’ he asked, his eyes holding hers.

‘Payback day?’ she echoed, puzzled.

‘The story of my love sacrifice,’ he said, larding his words with heavy irony. ‘Don’t they call tales like that a nine-day wonder?’

‘They do,’ Micky said, continuing to arrange the flowers she’d brought in the tall vase she’d charmed from the nurse.

‘Well, it’s ten days now since the media broke the news. Jacko and Jillie are officially no longer headline material. I was wondering when I’d get the account for payment due.’ His voice was mild, but looking into his eyes was like staring into a frozen puddle on high moorland.

Micky shook her head and perched on the edge of the bed, her face composed. But he knew her mind was racing, calculating how best to handle him. ‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ she stalled.

Jacko’s smile was laced with condescension. ‘Come on, Micky. I wasn’t born yesterday. The world you work in, you’ve got to be a piranha. Favours don’t get done in your circles without the full understanding that payback day is lurking somewhere in the background.’

He watched her consider lying and reject it; he waited while she considered the truth and rejected that, too. ‘I’ll settle for having one in the bank,’ she tried.

‘That’s the way you want to play it, OK,’ he said nonchalantly. His left hand suddenly snaked out and seized her wrist. ‘But I’d have thought you and your girlfriend were in pretty dire need as of now.’

His large hand encircled her wrist. The sculpted muscles of his forearm stood out in strong relief, a shocking reminder of what he’d lost. The grip wasn’t tight against her flesh, but she sensed it was unbreakable as the bracelet of a handcuff. Micky looked up from her wrist to his implacable face and he saw a momentary clutch of fear as she wondered what lay behind his impenetrable eyes. He made his face relax into a ghost of a smile and the instant passed. He saw himself reflected in her eyes, not a trace of sinister showing now. ‘What a strange thing to say,’ she said.

‘It’s not just journalists who have contacts,’ Jacko said contemptuously. ‘When you started taking an interest in me, I returned the compliment. Her name’s Betsy Thorne, you’ve been together more than a year. She acts as your PA but she is also your lover. For Christmas you bought her a Bulova watch from a Bond Street jeweller’s. Two weekends ago you shared a twin room overnight at a country house hotel near Oxford. You send her flowers on the twenty-third of each month. I could go on.’

‘Circumstantial,’ Micky said. Her voice was cool; the skin under his grip felt like a burning ring of flesh. ‘And none of your business.’

‘It’s not the tabloids’ business either, is it? But they’re digging, Micky. It’s only a matter of time. You know that.’

‘They can’t find what isn’t there to be found,’ she said, slipping into obstinacy as if it were a tailored blazer.

‘They’ll find it,’ Jacko promised her. ‘Which is where I might be able to help.’

‘Supposing I did need help … what form would your help take?’

He released her wrist. Rather than pull her arm to her and rub it, Micky let it lie where he dropped it. ‘Economists say good money drives out bad. It’s like that with journalists. You should know. Give them a better story and they’ll abandon their sordid little fishing expedition.’

‘I won’t argue with that. What did you have in mind?’

‘What about, “Hospital romance for hero Jacko and TV journo”?’ He raised one eyebrow. Micky wondered if he’d practised the gesture before the mirror in adolescence.

‘What’s in it for you?’ she asked, after a moment when they’d each stared appraisingly at the other, as if measuring for romantic congruence.

‘Peace and quiet,’ Jacko said. ‘You have no idea how many women there are out there who want to save me.’

‘Maybe one of them would be the right one.’

Jacko laughed, a dry, bitter sound. ‘It’s the Groucho Marx principle, isn’t it? Not wanting to be a member of any club that would let me in. A woman who’s demented enough to think that, a) I need saving and b) that she’s the person for the job is by definition the world’s worst woman for me. No, Micky, what I need is camouflage. So that when I get out of here – which should be quite soon – I can go about my life without every brain-dead bimbo in Britain thinking I’m her chance at the big time. I don’t want someone who feels sorry for me. Until somebody I choose comes along, I could use the erogenous equivalent of a bulletproof vest. Fancy the job?’

Now it was his turn to guess what was really happening behind her eyes. Micky was back in control of herself, maintaining the air of bland interest that would later stand her in good stead as the housebound nation’s favourite interviewer. ‘I don’t do ironing,’ was all she said.

‘I’ve always wondered what a PA did,’ Jacko said, his smile as wry as his tone.

‘You better not let Betsy hear you say that.’

‘Deal?’

Jacko covered her hand with his. ‘Deal,’ she said, turning her hand over and clasping his fingers in hers.

The stench hit Carol as soon as she opened her car door. There was nothing quite as disgusting as barbecued human flesh, and once smelled, it could never be erased from the memory. Trying not to gag too obviously, she walked the short distance to where Jim Pendlebury appeared to be conducting an impromptu press conference under the fire brigade’s portable arc lights. She’d spotted the journalists as soon as her driver had turned into the car park, and she’d asked to be dropped nearby, well away from the phalanx of scarlet engines where fire officers were still spraying a smouldering warehouse with water. High above his colleagues, one man on a cherry picker sent a soaring arc of water above their heads on to the flaking remains of the roof. Milling around behind the fire brigade were half a dozen uniformed police officers. One or two watched Carol’s arrival with vague interest, but soon turned back to the more absorbing vista of the fag end of the fire.

Carol hung back as Pendlebury gave brief and noncommittal answers for the benefit of local radio and press. Once they realized they would get nothing much out of the fire chief at that stage, they dispersed. If any of them paid attention to the blonde in the trench coat, they probably assumed she was another reporter. Only the crime reporters had met Carol so far, and it was too early for this to have graduated from a news headline into a crime story. As soon as the night-shift news reporters called in that the factory fire was not only fatal but also suspected arson, the jackals on the crime beat would have their morning assignments on a plate. One or two of them might even be turfed out of bed as unceremoniously as she had been.

Pendlebury greeted Carol with a grim smile. ‘The smell of hell,’ he said.

‘Unmistakably.’

‘Thanks for turning out.’

‘Thanks for tipping me off. Otherwise I’d have known nothing about it till I got into the office and read the overnights. And then I’d have missed the joys of a fresh crime scene,’ she said wryly.

‘Well, after our little chat the other day, I knew this one would be right up your street.’

‘You think it’s our serial arsonist?’

‘I wouldn’t have phoned you at home at half past three in the morning if I hadn’t been pretty sure,’ he said.

‘So what have we got?’

‘Want to have a look?’

‘In a minute. First, I’d appreciate a verbal briefing while I’m in a position to concentrate on what you’re saying rather than on what my stomach’s doing.’

Pendlebury looked slightly surprised, as if he expected her to take such horrors in her stride. ‘Right,’ he said, sounding disconcerted. ‘We got the call just after two, from one of your patrol cars, actually. They’d been cruising and saw the flames. We had two units here within seven minutes, but the place was well ablaze. Another three tenders were here inside the half-hour, but there was no way we were going to save the building.’

‘And the body?’

‘As soon as they had the fire damped down at this end of the warehouse – which took about half an hour – the officers became aware of the smell. That was when they called me out. I’m on permanent stand-by for all fatal fires. Your lads called in CID, and I called you.’

‘So where is the body?’

Pendlebury pointed to one side of the building. ‘As far as we can tell, it was in the corner of the loading bay. There seems to have been a kind of alcove at one end. Looking at the ash, there was probably a load of cardboard stashed at the front of it. We’ve not been able to get in yet, it’s still too hot and too chancy in terms of walls coming down, but from what we can see and what we can smell, I’d say the body’s behind or underneath all that wet ash down the back of that recess.’

‘There’s no doubt in your mind that there’s definitely a body in there?’ Carol was grasping at straws, and she knew it.