The Retribution by Val McDermid Read Free Book Online Page B

shoulder under his torso. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to his feet. All those hours in the gym had been worth it. He’d made sure to build strength and endurance rather than exaggerated muscle; he’d never seen any point in being obvious.
    Vance staggered as far as the hedgerow that bordered the road. Breathing heavily, feeling his heart hammer in his chest, he dumped the driver on to the top bar of a metal field gate, then tipped him over on the far side. He grinned at the startled expressions on the faces of the nearest sheep as the cabbie tumbled to the ground, arms and legs flailing weakly.
    He leaned against the gate for a moment, catching his breath, letting himself recover from the overdose of fight-orflight hormones. Then he returned to the car, this time to the driver’s seat. He cancelled the right turn on the indicator, slipped the car into drive then turned left, the opposite direction to Evesham Fabrications. He reckoned it would take him about forty minutes to make it to the service area on the motorway and the next stage of the plan.
He couldn’t help wondering how long it would take before someone noticed Jason Collins was still on the Therapeutic Community Wing. And Jacko Vance wasn’t. Before they understood that one of the most notorious and prolific serial killers the UK had ever produced was on the loose. And keen to make up for lost time.
    This time, his grin lasted a lot longer than a few minutes.

9
    P aula shuffled her papers and stifled a yawn. ‘I’m ready when you are,’ she said, moving closer to the whiteboards that lined one wall of the cluttered squad room. Carol wondered whether she’d managed any sleep at all. Paula would have had to hang around at the crime scene to make sure everything was being done according to the Major Incident Team’s protocols. Then she’d have had to go back to Northern HQ with their detectives and set up the programme of actions for the morning shift to carry out, again according to Carol’s specifications. And now she was charged with delivering the morning briefing to this close circle of colleagues who had learned each other’s ways with as much acuteness as they’d ever paid to a lover.
This was the squad Carol had hand-picked and built into the best unit she’d ever worked with. If James Blake hadn’t walked into the Chief Constable’s job with a personal mission to cut costs to the bone long before the idea occurred to the Prime Minister, she’d have been happy to stick with this bunch till she was ready to collect her pension. Instead, she was about to take another of her leaps into the unknown. Only this time, it felt like she was following instead of leading. Not the most reassuring prospect she’d ever faced.
    ‘Briefing in five,’ she shouted, giving them time to wind up whatever they were doing. Stacey Chen, their computer specialist, invisible behind her array of six monitors, grunted something inarticulate. Sam Evans, deep in a phone call, gave her the thumbs-up. Her two sergeants, Kevin Matthews and Chris Devine, raised their heads from the huddle they’d been forming over their cups of coffee and nodded.
‘Got all you need?’ Carol asked.
    ‘I think so.’ Paula reached for her coffee. ‘Northern sent me everything from the first two deaths, but I’ve not had time to go through it in detail.’
    ‘Do your best,’ Carol said, heading for the coffee maker and fixing herself a latte with an extra shot. Another thing she’d miss. They’d clubbed together to buy the Italian machine to satisfy everyone’s caffeine cravings. Apart from Stacey, who insisted on Earl Grey tea. She doubted there would be anything comparable in Worcester.
    And speaking of missing, there was no sign of Tony. In spite of his bold promises, it looked as though he hadn’t managed to deliver. She tried to dismiss the disappointment that threatened her; it had never been a likely outcome, after all. They’d just have to wrestle their way