Jessica Daniel: Locked In / Vigilante / The Woman in Black

Текст добавлен: 3 октября 2016, 22:32

The Woman in Black"

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

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Kerry Wilkinson

DS JESSICA DANIEL SERIES: BOOKS 1-3

PAN BOOKS

CONTENTS

Locked In

Vigilante

The Woman in Black

Afterword

Author biography

KERRY WILKINSON

LOCKED IN

PAN BOOKS

Locked In Contents

THREE DAYS AGO

The killer used a gloved hand to try the front-door handle one final time and make sure it was locked. The back door and windows had already been checked and there was definitely no way in – a good thing considering the body was already dead on the bed upstairs.

Now the first part was complete, the months of careful planning that led to this night finally seemed worth it. Getting into a locked house and back out again wasn’t simple on the surface but, once the idea had been struck upon, everything had happened so easily.

The hardest part had been the final act. Until the moment the life had been choked out of the victim, the killer hadn’t been sure they could actually complete the deed. Murdering someone wasn’t easy but it had been necessary.

There was no regret, no feelings of anything really. The victim certainly deserved it, as would the others to come.

Jessica Daniel screwed her eyes tightly shut and thought about how much she hated morning people. For some, the dawn sun spilling through ridiculously thin curtains would herald a bright new day full of opportunity but, for her, it was just a reminder she still hadn’t asked her landlord to fix some better blinds.

Admitting she had lost the battle to stay asleep, she fumbled around for her mobile phone on the table next to the bed. It was always the first point of call in the morning, if only to remind her how little she had going on in her life. She opened her eyes slowly and struggled with the device’s unlock button, before bashing away at the supposedly touch-screen front. It only seemed to function to any great degree if your definition of ‘touch’ was actually ‘poke very hard until it does what you want’.

She had no texts, no missed calls and the only emails were ones offering her enhancements she definitely wouldn’t be needing without far more invasive and complicated surgery first.

Marvellous.

Jessica went to put the phone back on the nightstand but, before she could, it started to ring. She cursed herself for setting the ringtone to some upbeat pop tune she didn’t even like; the chirpy song really wasn’t suitable for this time of the morning. Her eyes were still seeing a hazy grey around the edges but the caller ID clearly showed Detective Inspector Jack Cole’s name. Jessica looked across at the digital alarm clock next to the bed which flashed 06.51. She was pretty sure it was a Saturday too, which made things worse.

She had been promoted to detective sergeant eight weeks ago and calls like this were something she knew she was going to have to get used to. When people were in a more junior position they could often get away with working regular shifts. Early-morning wake-up calls could now be expected more often.

‘Hello,’ Jessica said into her phone, trying not to sound too groggy.

Cole didn’t sound much more awake than she did, which at least didn’t mark him down as a morning person either. He told her ‘something big’ had happened but he wasn’t completely sure of the details and tried to give her an address.

She would happily have described herself as messy and disorganised but the one thing she had remembered to do in the past two months was keep a pad and pen next to her bed for a moment like this. Cole started to give her the details and she tried to write them down. At first she thought her eyes were still struggling with the early hour but then realised her confusion was down to the fact the pen wasn’t working.

‘Hang on, hang on,’ she said irritably, opening the drawer underneath her nightstand just in case there was a spare pen there.

There wasn’t.

It was typical that even when she had gone out of her way to be organised, things didn’t quite work out. She asked the inspector to send her a text message with the details instead and then hung up.

Cole was Jessica’s immediate superior and had been promoted at the same time she had. She had always got on fine with him when they had been in more junior roles. He was a decent guy but perhaps a bit too nice. He was about as normal a bloke as you could ever meet; one of those people whose descriptions you hated when taking statements from a witness. He was average height and weight, with sensible short brown hair and always wore regular unassuming clothes. He didn’t wear glasses or sport any distinguishing scars or facial hair. Even his voice was exactly as you would expect.

In fact, the only thing not really regulation about Jack was that he had what most officers didn’t seem to – a proper family life. He was in his mid-forties and married, seemingly happily, with two children. He had family days out with them, still took his wife out for meals and to the cinema, and booked his time off sensibly so they could all have weekends away together. Unlike pretty much every other officer, he didn’t drink and Jessica had never heard him swear. Perhaps that was normal to most people but it was anything but for the job they had.

Cole liked working from his desk and saw any real interaction with criminals, witnesses or anyone outside of the station as something he would rather not be involved with. To some it showed he didn’t like to get his hands dirty but Jessica understood he had strengths in different areas.

Sitting on the edge of her bed, Jessica ran her hands through her long dark-blonde hair thinking that it needed a wash, as it always seemed to. There was definitely not going to be time for that this morning. She pulled it back into a loose ponytail and hunted around her room for some suitable clothes.

She thought most of her colleagues took ‘plain clothes’ a bit too literally. Even the younger blokes seemed to take the title ‘detective’ as a chance to start clocking up department-store loyalty points with a wardrobe seemingly consisting of identikit dull suit jackets and pairs of chinos. The only difference between the younger guys and the veterans seemed to be the width of their ties. The new guys would start off with skinny monstrosities around their necks but their neckwear seemed to become wider the longer they spent turning up in those dreary suits.

Jessica knew she couldn’t take things too far and still wore a suit to work each day but at least it wasn’t the same one with an egg stain on the pocket, unlike a certain colleague or two she could think of. She also made sure she dressed something like her age – she was almost thirty-one after all. Hunting through her wardrobe, Jessica pulled out a light grey suit to put on and, just to be a hypocrite, a blouse straight from the floor.

Jessica lived in the Hulme district, just south of the main centre of Manchester. It wasn’t too bad, far enough away from the pubs and clubs and the full-on student areas to be able to sleep through the early hours – and only ten minutes’ drive to her team’s Longsight base. Far more important than all of that was the fact it was close enough to the curry mile to pick up a good Madras without too much hassle.

Cole had messaged Jessica an address in Gorton, in the east of the city. It took her just over fifteen minutes to drive, despite the roads being fairly quiet. There wasn’t too much in the way of traffic but, as ever, the traffic lights constantly seemed to be red. She also nearly ran over some student type who looked like she was making the dreaded Saturday morning walk of shame. There didn’t seem to be any other reason for a girl in a short purple dress to be walking bare-footed across a main road holding impossibly tall heels in her hand. Jessica wondered if the girl had actually had a good night as she crunched down through the car’s gears after swerving around her.

Jessica’s bright red K-reg Fiat Punto was her pride and sometimes-joy, even if it didn’t give her much pleasure on the cold winter mornings when it wouldn’t start no matter how much she kicked and swore at it. She had been given it as a present for passing her theory test from her mum and dad over ten years ago and had learned to drive in it. It was an attachment to easier, less serious days. How it was still on the road was a mystery far beyond Jessica’s detective skills. The exhaust was perhaps the only thing loud enough to wake up her flatmate and best friend Caroline, while the MOTs were expensive and the piss-taking from colleagues was relentless.

Even her dad gave her stick about it. ‘We only bought that as a first car,’ he would say to her. ‘You earn a decent salary now . . .’

Well she earned a salary now, that was for sure, and, as long as they could get her from A to B, or at least close to ‘B’, she wasn’t that bothered about cars. In an emergency, she had access to the patrol’s pool of vehicles and, rusting heap or not, it was at least her rusting heap.

Jessica pulled up behind two patrol cars outside the address. It wasn’t too far off the main road, fairly close to the speedway stadium. Luckily her supervisor had sent the basic directions too. She got out and walked towards the plain-clothes officer she recognised by the house’s gate.

Detective Constable David Rowlands had a grin on his face. ‘I didn’t know if they were calling you in but then I heard the exhaust on that heap you drive from half a mile away.’

‘It’s come to something when someone with hair like that takes the piss out of anything,’ Jessica fired back with a grin, flicking him the V just for good measure.

‘I was still asleep when I got called in,’ he protested as a way of explaining why his usually spiky and gelled hair was instead decidedly fluffy and floppy.

Rowlands was younger than she was, still not out of his twenties, and tall with spiky jet-black hair – plus the customary skinny tie. He certainly fancied himself with the opposite sex and had a sharp mouth with a cheeky, dimpled smile that meant it was hard to get angry with him. Even with his constant bragging about various conquests and his obvious cockiness, Jessica had taken an instant liking to him when he had joined the squad a few months after she had.

He had once tried it on with her late one evening a year or so ago. To be honest, given his reputation, she would have been bloody annoyed if he hadn’t at some point or another. She hadn’t been receptive but that wasn’t the point. They had both been drinking after a rare result; some woman who had been sent down for stealing from her own mother. Rowlands wasn’t the type to take her rejection too seriously and, if anything, they were better mates afterwards. He was certainly one of the few members of the Criminal Investigation Department she would go out for a drink with.

Jessica breezed past him, ducking under the police tape, to enter the small front garden of the semi-detached house, thinking it was quite a nice-looking place. Not all the houses in this area were as well kept. The red brickwork looked fairly clean, as did the upstairs and downstairs bay windows. The only thing spoiling the illusion of middle-class fulfilment was the bright white double-glazed front door just about hanging on to its bottom hinge.

Rowlands followed her under the tape. ‘Who did this?’ Jessica asked, nodding at the door as they stepped towards it.

‘Our lot. The tactical entry boys came down this morning.’

‘Bit early for them, wasn’t it?’

‘I guess but they get called out to all sorts.’

‘What’s inside?’

‘You’ll see . . .’

Rowlands stopped by the front door while a uniformed officer in the hallway pointed Jessica up the stairs. The house looked as nicely decorated on the inside as it was tidy on the outside with prominent plush shaggy carpets and ornaments in the hallway.

Jessica found Cole outside one of the bedrooms. He had his back to the room facing the stairs as she got to the top. ‘Scene of Crime boys are on their way,’ is all he said as he moved aside for Jessica to have a look.

The first thing she noticed was how bright the room was. The bay window to her right had blinds that were fixed into the frames but they were only partly closed. The early-morning sun poured into the room, illuminating the magnolia walls and light yellow sheets on the king-size bed opposite.

Jessica first saw a pile of clothes on the floor. She thought it was similar to her own floordrobe but, as her eyes flicked across the room, she saw the body.

She was glad she hadn’t had breakfast that morning.

A woman was lying on her side half underneath bed covers that were pulled back to her waist. Her eyes were bulging and her face was a light grey, almost pale blue colour. Deep cut marks were visible around her neck and had bled over the covers. The dark red liquid had pooled and set underneath her, matting into her blonde hair and the sheets. ‘Oh,’ Jessica said.

‘Oh indeed,’ Cole replied behind her.

Jessica had seen bodies in all types of horrific situations – people beaten so badly you didn’t know if they were male or female, limbs contorted at almost incomprehensible angles and worse. Parts of the training programme had been pretty grim but it was something that came with the job. While you were working in uniform, you also saw plenty of things most people wouldn’t want to. Some could handle it better than others.

She hadn’t seen too many bodies in a state like the victim’s though and it looked as if the dead woman had been there for a day or two. The deep, vicious choke gouges in her neck had almost certainly been caused by some kind of thick wire and the colour of her skin made the cause of death pretty clear, even before the Scene of Crime team arrived.

Jessica knew that the SOCOs would have their hands full considering it was a Saturday morning. Scene of Crime teams were a mix of civilians and serving officers and worked citywide, meaning the hours and travelling distances were awful. Saturday and Sunday mornings were by far the worst times, cleaning up the mess of various revellers’ nights out and the inevitable alcohol-related carnage that came with it.

Various television shows made investigating crime scenes seem like a glamorous occupation but Jessica doubted whether darting around Manchester, usually in the rain, and tidying up one drunken mess after another would quite reach the same heights.

She didn’t enter the room any further as she could see all she needed to from the doorway and didn’t want to risk contaminating anything. She turned back around to face her DI, who was still looking away. ‘That’s pretty nasty. Do we know who she is?’ Jessica asked.

‘Probably. The house is owned by someone called Yvonne Christensen. One of her friends called in two days ago saying she’d not seen her in a couple of days and that no one seemed to be home, even though her car was still parked outside. Uniform were around yesterday and couldn’t get any type of response. They came back this morning with the tactical entry lot.’

‘Bit early for them, isn’t it?’

‘They had already been out at another job raiding some place for drugs. You know what everyone’s like with budgets. I guess someone figured they’d get two jobs done for the price of one.’

Jessica let his answer hang for a few moments, before replying. ‘Does anyone else live here?’

‘We’re not sure yet. It looks like the body has been there for a couple of days so probably not.’

Cole didn’t turn around the whole time he talked. He was leaning with both hands on the banisters at the top of the stairs. ‘This one’s going to be ours,’ he said quietly.

It was only a few words but Jessica understood it was more what he implied than what he explicitly said. She knew he wouldn’t really want too much to do with the grim details but would help out in his own way and direct operations from the station. The groundwork would be hers.

‘So who’s the friend?’ Jessica asked.

‘Someone she goes to one of those weight clubs with. They live a few doors down. Uniform are with her now but she doesn’t know yet. Dave has her name.’

That was his second implication: ‘Go tell her’.

Jessica walked around him back down the stairs. The interior design seemed far gloomier than it had moments before and she met Rowlands by the front door. ‘Do you have the details of the friend who called this in?’ Jessica asked.

He ummed as he pulled a notebook out from his pocket and flicked through the pages. ‘Stephanie Wilson,’ he said, folding the book back up and putting it away. ‘She lives just down the road.’

‘Are you ready to go talk to her?’

‘Yep.’

‘Let’s hope she’s not too traumatised or your hair’s going to tip her over the edge.’

Despite their joking, they both knew it was time to be serious. The two of them ducked back under the police tape outside the house and Rowlands pointed for them to turn right. Mrs Wilson lived on the same street but on the other side of the road around a hundred yards away. Jessica thought the sun was surprisingly warm considering the time of the day and the fact it wasn’t yet summer. She noticed there were a few obvious curtain-twitches as they walked down the road, which was little surprise considering the patrol cars outside the victim’s house and the obvious police presence. The ones hoping for a show would be sadly disappointed when the body was removed under a cover later on.

Perhaps it was because she was so used to actually attending crime scenes but Jessica never really understood the interest that came when police attended an incident. She didn’t get the types of people who slowed down for motorway accidents just in case there was blood or something else to get excited about, or those who crowded around vicious fight scenes. When you had seen some of the sights police officers had to each day, and dealt with the aftermath, Jessica didn’t believe most people would be so keen to get in line for a good view.

Rowlands rang the doorbell of Stephanie Wilson’s house, which set off an overly cheery ‘Greensleeves’ chime not really appropriate for the moment. The door was answered by a uniformed officer, who led them through to the kitchen.

The basic layout of the house seemed to be identical to that of the victim’s home. There was a stairway just inside the front door with a hallway running alongside it straight to the kitchen. A couple were sitting at a small round dining table in the kitchen with mugs of tea in front of them. There wasn’t an awful lot of room but the two officers were pointed to the remaining two seats around the table, while the constable picked up a third mug from the side and went through to the living room.

Mrs Wilson was a lot larger than her husband, with short shoulder-length greying hair. Jessica would have guessed she was in her early fifties but she was never that great with ages. The woman wasn’t massively overweight but, compared to her short unimposing partner, she seemed a lot larger than she was.

It was the man who stood up to shake their hands and introduce himself. He was clearly nervous as he spoke. He kept one hand on his wife’s shoulder to reassure her and talked quickly, barely pausing to breathe, while his wife didn’t even look up from the table. ‘Hi, I’m Ray and this is Steph. It was Steph’s idea to call you, wasn’t it, dear?’

He looked down towards her but she didn’t respond. He continued speaking as he sat back down. ‘I wasn’t sure whether we should dial 999. I didn’t want to waste your time. You always see those articles about people phoning up because they’ve lost their slippers or whatever.’

Jessica took a deep breath herself, perhaps subconsciously affected by Ray’s non-stop opening. ‘I’m afraid we have some bad news for you.’

She paused but Stephanie didn’t give her a chance to add any more. She looked up for the first time from the table, directly at Jessica. ‘Yvonne is dead, isn’t she?’

There wasn’t too much point in trying to tone things down. ‘Yes, she is.’

The woman let out a little sob that seemed to have been building, while her husband reached to put his arm around her, making soothing noises as he did so.

‘I’m afraid we are going to have to ask you about anything you might have seen and why you contacted us,’ Jessica added.

They had to be careful in moments such as this with balancing someone’s grief against needing to act as quickly as possible. Given the state of the body, it looked as if they had already lost a day or two. Jessica let the words hang as the woman blew her nose on a tissue offered by Rowlands and took a sip of tea.

‘We always go to this slimming club at the local school on a Wednesday,’ Stephanie said. ‘We began going together at the start of the year. Yvonne had split from her husband at the end of last year and I . . . well, I could do with losing a few pounds.’

Rowlands had his notebook out and was writing while Jessica listened as the woman continued. ‘She’d lost around eight pounds but I’d lost over a stone. I couldn’t believe it. We usually have a brew and a natter, then go to get weighed. I had texted her Tuesday morning, just some stupid joke, and she replied to say: “See you tomorrow”.’

Stephanie paused for another sip of tea. ‘But the next day she didn’t seem to be around. I’d texted her in the afternoon, just to check times, but I’d not heard back. Then I went around at five o’clock anyway, like usual, but there was no answer. Her car was on the road outside; it still is, so I didn’t think she’d gone anywhere. No one was answering the door and I could hear her phone going off inside when I called it. I tried shouting through the letterbox in case she’d hurt herself but there was no answer. I looked through the windows but couldn’t see anything and then tried the front door but it was locked.’

‘Does she live on her own?’ Jessica asked.

‘Yes. Her husband Eric moved out not long before Christmas. He’s shacked up with some other woman somewhere and James is off at university. I’ve tried to be there for her but yes, she’s on her own.’

‘Is James her son?’

‘Yes, only child. You should’ve seen her on the day he first went off to university. Crying ’cos her little baby had grown up.’

‘I don’t suppose you have any contact details for Eric, do you? We’ll need them if you do.’

Stephanie slid her chair backwards with a screech, stretching towards a handbag on one of the counters. She reached in and took out a mobile phone. ‘I have a mobile number for him. I don’t know where he lives though. I texted him on Thursday before I called you, just to see if he’d seen her.’

‘Had he?’

‘I only got a one-word reply.’

Stephanie held up the phone for the officers to see the simple answer: ‘No’.

‘I was surprised I got that to be honest,’ Stephanie added. ‘That’s when I called you. I didn’t really know what else to do. It wasn’t like her to say nothing if she was going away and . . . I just felt something was wrong. You do, don’t you?’

Jessica nodded while Rowlands took down the number for Eric Christensen then handed the page to her.

Stephanie tailed off tearfully . ‘I guess I’m just glad it wasn’t me that found her . . .’

Jessica started to say something hopefully reassuring but stopped herself and thought for a moment. ‘I’m sorry, can you repeat that?’

The woman breathed in and her sobs slowed for a moment. She took a second to compose herself and then made eye contact with Jessica. ‘It’s just that, if Yvonne’s front door hadn’t have been locked, it might have been me that found her the other day.’

Jessica narrowed her eyes slightly and leant back into her chair, feeling a slight tingle down her spine. ‘So, you don’t have a key then?’ she asked to make sure.

‘No. She would leave me one to watch the house if she was on holiday but that was it.’

Jessica offered her thanks and sympathy and told Rowlands to hang around to make sure Mr and Mrs Wilson were okay. She walked as quickly as she could back down the street to the victim’s house, weaving in between the parked squad cars and ducked under the police tape, striding towards the busted front door.

The Scene of Crime team had arrived. Usually it was only one person who attended but, on this occasion, word had obviously gone out that it wouldn’t be so straightforward. Someone Jessica didn’t recognise was wearing a white paper suit just inside the hallway, while a second person was disappearing up the stairs. The one in the hall started to say something but Jessica ignored him, nudging past and pushing on towards the door at the back of the hall that led into the rest of the house.

Cole came out of the kitchen just as she reached the already open hallway door. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked but she didn’t react.

She looked at the wall to the right of the doorway, wanting to make sure she had been right about what she thought she had seen when she was going up the stairs earlier. At the time it hadn’t registered fully but she could now see what was in front of her: a row of hooks with keys hanging from them. On the right one was a set of car keys attached to a fob but it was what was hanging next to it she was interested in.

Cole looked at her bemused as Jessica went to the paper-suited person still by the doorway and asked for a rubber glove. She returned to the rack and carefully took the key ring hanging on the left hook. It had two keys on it. ‘What are you . . .?’ Cole started to say before tailing off.

Jessica took the key to the front door, still just about hanging on to the frame after being smashed through by the police. It was a big, heavy double-glazed door, the type that needed the handle pulling up so it would lock. She crouched down and wiggled the key into the lock, turning it just to make sure it was the right one.

She then quickly hopped up, striding back past the paper-suited officer and Cole into the kitchen. She walked purposefully past the immaculately clean stove and worktops to the back door before trying the handle. It was locked but the second key on the key ring fitted and turned. Cole was now behind her next to the door and spoke more forcefully this time. ‘What are you doing?’

Jessica paused for a moment before replying. ‘Well, Sir, if the front door had to be broken down because it was locked but the key was hanging in the hallway the whole time, then how did the killer get in – or back out?’

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