again, Bets.’ She closed her eyes to concentrate and Marla seized the chance to work on her eyelids.
Betsy consulted her clipboard. ‘In the wake of the latest revelations that yet another junior minister has been caught in the wrong bed by the tabloids, we ask, “What makes a woman want to be a mistress?”’ She ran through the guests for the item while Micky listened attentively. Betsy came to the final interviewee and smiled. ‘You’ll enjoy this: Dorien Simmonds, your favourite novelist. The professional mistress, putting the case that actually being a mistress is not only marvellous fun but a positive social service to all those put-upon wives who have to endure marital sex long after he bores them senseless.’
Micky chuckled. ‘Brilliant. Good old Dorien. Is there anything, do you suppose, that Dorien wouldn’t do to sell a book?’
‘She’s just jealous,’ Marla said. ‘Lips, please, Micky.’
‘Jealous?’ Betsy asked mildly.
‘If Dorien Simmonds had a husband like Micky’s, she wouldn’t be flying the flag for mistresses,’ Marla said firmly. ‘She’s just pig sick that she’ll never land a catch like Jacko. Mind you, who isn’t?’
‘Mmmm,’ Micky purred.
‘Mmmm,’ Betsy agreed.
It had taken years for the publicity machine to carve the pairing of Micky Morgan and Jacko Vance as firmly into the nation’s consciousness as fish and chips or Lennon and McCartney. The celebrity marriage made in ratings heaven, it could never be dissolved. Even the gossip columnists had given up trying.
The irony was that it had been fear of newspaper gossip that had brought them together in the first place. Meeting Betsy had turned Micky’s life on its head at a time when her career had started curving towards the heights. To climb as far and as fast as Micky meant collecting an interesting selection of enemies ranging from the poisonously envious to the rivals who’d been edged out of the limelight they thought was theirs of right. Since there was little to fault Micky on professionally, they’d homed in on the personal. Back in the early eighties, lesbian chic hadn’t been invented. For women even more than men, being gay was still one of the quickest routes to the P45. Within a few months of abandoning her formerly straight life by falling in love with Betsy, Micky understood what a hunted animal feels like.
Her solution had been radical and extremely successful. Micky had Jacko to thank for that. She had been and still was lucky to have him, she thought as she looked approvingly at her reflection in the make-up mirror.
Perfect.
Tony Hill looked around the room at the team he had hand-picked and felt a moment’s pity. They thought they were walking into this grave new world with their eyes open. Coppers never thought of themselves as innocents abroad. They were too streetwise. They’d seen it all, done it all, got pissed and thrown up on the T-shirt. Tony was here to instruct half a dozen cops who already thought they knew it all that there were unimaginable horrors out there that would make them wake up screaming in the night and teach them to pray. Not for forgiveness, but for healing. He knew only too well that whatever they thought, none of them had made a genuinely informed choice when they’d opted for the National Offender Profiling Task Force.
None of them except, perhaps, Paul Bishop. When the Home Office had given the profiling project the green light, Tony had called in every favour he could claim and a few he couldn’t to make sure the police figurehead was someone who knew the gravity of what he was taking on. He’d dangled Paul Bishop’s name in front of the politicians like a carrot in front of a reluctant mule, reminding them of how well Paul performed in front of the cameras. Even then it had been touch and go till he’d pointed out that even London’s cynical hacks showed a bit of respect for the man who’d headed the successful hunts for the predators they’d dubbed the Railcard Rapist and the Metroland Murderer. After those investigations, there was no question in Tony’s mind that Paul knew exactly the kind of nightmares that lay ahead.
On the other hand, the rewards were extraordinary. When it worked, when their work actually put someone away, these police officers would know a high unlike any other they’d ever experienced. It was a powerful feeling, to know your endeavours had helped put a killer away. It was even more gratifying to realize how many lives you might have saved because you shone a light down the right path for your colleagues to go down. It was exhilarating, even though it was tempered with the knowledge of what the perpetrator had already done. Somehow, he had to convey that satisfaction to them as well.
Paul Bishop was talking now, welcoming them to the task force and outlining the training programme he and Tony had thrashed out between them. ‘We’re going to take you through the process of profiling, giving you the background information you need to start developing the skill for yourself,’ he said. It was a crash course in psychology, inevitably superficial, but covering the basics. If they’d chosen wisely, their apprentices would go off in their own preferred directions, reading more widely, tracking down other specialists and building up their own expertise in particular areas of the profiling craft that interested them.
Tony looked around at his new colleagues. All CID-trained, all but one a graduate. A sergeant and five constables, two of them women. Eager eyes, notepads open, pens at the ready. They were smart, this lot. They knew that if they did well here and the unit prospered, they could go all the way to the top on the strength of it.
His steady gaze ranged over them. Part of him wished Carol Jordan was among them, sharing her sharp perceptions and shrewd analyses, tossing in the occasional grenade of humour to lighten the grimness. But his sensible head knew there would be more than enough problems ahead without that complication.
If he had to put money on any of them turning into the kind of star that would stop him missing Carol’s abilities, he’d go for the one with the eyes that blazed cold fire. Sharon Bowman. Like all the best hunters, she’d kill if she had to.
Just like he’d done himself.
Tony pushed the thought away and concentrated on Paul’s words, waiting for the signal. When Paul nodded, Tony took over smoothly. ‘The FBI take two years to train their operatives in offender profiling,’ he said, leaning back in his chair in a deliberate attitude of relaxed calm. ‘We do things differently over here.’ A note of acid in the voice. ‘We’ll be accepting our first cases in six weeks. In three months’ time, the Home Office expects us to be running a full case-load. What you’ve got to do inside that time frame is assimilate a mountain of theory, learn a series of protocols as long as your arm, develop total familiarity with the computer software we’ve had specially written for the task force, and cultivate an instinctive understanding of those among us who are, as we clinicians put it, totally fucked up.’ He grinned unexpectedly at their serious faces. ‘Any questions?’
‘Is it too late to resign?’ Bowman’s electric eyes sparkled humour that was missing from her deadpan tones.
‘The only resignations they accept are the ones certified by the pathologist.’ The wry response came from Simon McNeill. Psychology graduate from Glasgow, four years’ service with Strathclyde Police, Tony reminded himself, reassuring himself that he could recall names and backgrounds without too much effort.
‘Correct,’ he said.
‘What about insanity?’ another voice from the group asked.
‘Far too useful a tool for us to let you slip from our grasp,’ Tony told him. ‘I’m glad you brought that up, actually, Sharon. It gives me the perfect lead into what I want to talk about first today.’ His eyes moved from face to face, waiting until his seriousness was mirrored in each of
