Текст книги "Jessica Daniel: Locked In / Vigilante / The Woman in Black"

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 60 страниц)

Jessica crossed the road and asked the two teenagers in school uniform for directions to the victim’s address. She didn’t give the exact flat number but asked where the block was. The pair pointed her in what she assumed was the right direction without much of a protest and she and Cole set off to find out who actually lived at Craig Millar’s address.

They crossed back over the road and cut through an alleyway that separated one set of flats from another. Jessica thought the whole area seemed fairly depressing, even with the sun now up and shining. The estate was a mix of red-brick two-storey blocks of flats and small houses. Most of the area was administered by a housing association, with signs all around bearing the organ isation’s logo and strict instructions that ‘Ball games are not permitted’. Jessica knew full well from various newspaper reports and word-of-mouth around the station that, even if the association got tough on ball games, they weren’t so bothered about low-level drug dealing and other misdemeanours as long as rent was paid on time.

Everything looked the same and the small scraps of land that hadn’t been built on had patchy, muddied grass, graffiti littering many fences and walls. They continued walking and Jessica noticed a run-down children’s play park on the opposite side of the road from them. She could see a pair of swings had been wrapped around the top of the frame they hung from and guessed that much of the rest of the equipment was unusable or vandalised.

It was easy for the police to blame the people who lived here for making a mess of their own estate but Jessica knew well enough a cycle of poverty was hard to escape from. Kids would struggle to get jobs, so sat around bored and hung about in gangs. Then when they were mature enough to have children of their own, which wasn’t that old for some of them, the cycle would start over. Even if you wanted to get out, you would be up against it. A place like this would have a reputation, so it was easy to get left behind when it came to funding for things like education or anything else that might aid social mobility.

It didn’t help either if you had to live close to criminal scumbags who cared about no one but themselves.

Jessica and Cole followed the teenagers’ instructions and soon came across the row of flats they were looking for. He pointed out that the ground-floor apartments all seemed to have even numbers, so they took the nearby stairs up to the first floor. The concrete entrance to the stairwell stank and Jessica avoided looking towards the back of the area where the bins were overflowing. The stairs opened out onto a full row of odd-numbered properties on their left and a wooden rail running the full length of the building on their right plus a hard stone floor underneath them. The first thing Jessica noticed was a bank of satellite dishes overhanging the rail. It seemed as if every property had wires running from their front door across the ceiling covering the walkway and back down to their own dish.

They made their way halfway along the row until they reached the door they were looking for. Jessica knocked and waited but it didn’t feel very sturdy. Most modern properties had double-glazed entrances and windows but the whole rank of flats had old-fashioned wooden doors.

Jessica had grown to like working with DI Cole, although his coolness did sometimes unnerve her. When they ended up working together, he was the calm thoughtful one while she went in running her mouth off. She had spent the past year trying to calm those instant reactions but it was a work-in-progress. In most situations, there was a tacit agreement between the two of them that Jessica would take the lead when it came to talking to witnesses or suspects. It wasn’t a tactic they had ever spoken about, more something that had happened.

There was no immediate answer so Jessica knocked again, louder the second time. This time, she heard a voice from inside but couldn’t make out what was being said. It didn’t sound too friendly. The door was wrenched open and a woman stood there in a light pink dressing gown. She had greying brown hair and was scowling before Jessica had even bothered to get her identification out.

The flat’s occupant rolled her eyes. ‘What’s he bloody done this time?’

2

It seemed a pretty fair assumption the woman was Craig’s mum but Jessica asked the obvious question to make sure. ‘Are you Craig Millar’s mother?’

‘Yes, come on. It’s too early for all this. What’s he done now?’

The woman didn’t seem in a very good mood and had clearly only recently climbed out of bed. Jessica guessed this wasn’t the first time Craig’s mother had been woken up because her son had been up to no good. Usually officers would make an effort to make sure people were at ease before giving bad news. At the absolute least, they would get the person to sit down. Quite often someone from uniform would be specially trained and drafted in to do it. The ‘training’ actually entailed an afternoon of role-plays with someone paid a lot more than they were. Ultimately, all officers knew there was never a good way to deliver bad news. Not acting like an idiot was rule number one – it was mainly about common sense.

‘I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you, Mrs Millar.’

The woman rolled her eyes and swore. ‘I don’t know how many times I’ve got to keep telling him. He’s out on his arse this time. I’ve had enough. I don’t want his brother getting involved in all this shite.’ The woman nodded behind her as if to indicate towards another son, who was presumably in a different room. He certainly wasn’t visible in the hallway.

‘I’m afraid your son is dead, Mrs Millar.’

Someone would have to formally identify the body but, given the wallet with his name in it and the fact Jessica recognised him, there was little point in making the poor woman suffer any longer.

She shook her head, taking half a step back. ‘He’s what?’

Jessica put a hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m afraid he’s dead.’

Craig Millar’s mother took the news surprisingly well. Jessica sensed it was something she had probably had in the back of her mind for a long time given the lengthy list of her son’s crimes. She introduced herself as Denise Millar and invited them into her kitchen, offering Jessica and Cole seats at a round dining table. The inside of the house was well maintained. The hallway was clean and decorated with school photographs of Craig and another boy. The kitchen was small but as tidy as the hallway. The table was at the centre of it, with worktops running the length of the room’s sides. Apart from the door they had come through, there was another leading towards what looked like the living room.

Denise explained that her other son Jamie was still asleep. He had finished his GCSEs a few months ago but didn’t want to stay on at school and hadn’t managed to find a job. ‘I just didn’t want him going the same way as Craig,’ his mother said.

The woman carried on as if nothing had happened, making the three of them a cup of tea. Neither Jessica nor Cole had said they wanted one but Denise had made one for them in any case. As she sat sipping from her mug, she asked the officers how it happened. Jessica replied that they wouldn’t be sure for a few days but it looked as if her son had been attacked.

Denise nodded as if it was the most natural thing in the world. ‘He wasn’t always bad,’ she insisted. ‘He got in with the wrong people at the wrong time. I knew some of the things he got up to but he was my son. I couldn’t just kick him out. There was nowhere for him to go. He promised me he wouldn’t bring any of it home with him but I don’t know what he got up to outside of here.’

Jessica realised the ‘it’ could mean anything but didn’t think it was worth pushing the point at that exact time. ‘Do you know anyone who might want to hurt him?’ she asked.

The woman snorted and put the mug down on the table. ‘Christ. You tell me. He’d only been back out of prison for a few weeks. I didn’t want to get involved with anything he did. I stopped asking for rent because I didn’t want to be associated with wherever he got his money from.’

Jessica didn’t know he had been in prison quite so recently. She wasn’t surprised but there was a wide range of community punishments people like Craig Millar seemed to end up on that kept them out of jail.

‘What was he in for?’

‘Some assault or something, he was on remand. It didn’t go to court in the end so they let him out. He told me he didn’t do it but then he always said that.’

‘Do you know who he was out with last night?’

‘No, I’d never remember the names anyway. I’ve got two kids with one always in trouble and a father that pissed off years ago. It all blurs into one in the end.’

Jessica nodded as Mrs Millar picked up her mug and took it over to the sink, washing it up. Jessica made a token gesture to sip some of the three-quarters of a mug she had left. ‘Would Jamie know any of the names?’ she asked.

Mrs Millar had her back to them but Jessica saw her freeze momentarily before turning around. ‘He better not.’

‘Could you ask him anyway?’

She met Jessica’s eyes. The look told her that Jamie probably did know who his older brother had been out with but that his mother still hoped he was innocent and unaffected by the trouble Craig had consistently been in.

‘I’ll get him up and you can ask.’

Denise returned to the hallway and they heard her knocking on a door, then two muffled voices speaking. A few moments later she came back into the kitchen, her son trailing behind her. From what his mum had said, Jamie was sixteen years old but looked a little younger. He was pasty and skinny, while only wearing a pair of boxer shorts. He had what would be spiky brown hair when styled but for now it jutted out at random angles. His mother must have told him about his brother because there were tears in his eyes, although he was clearly trying hard to force them back.

He sat in the chair his mum had been in and she went through the other door into the living room. Jessica guessed she didn’t want to hear whatever her youngest son might have to say but legally they couldn’t speak to a child without their guardian present. Cole realised the problem so followed after Mrs Millar.

It was the two of them left at the table. ‘Are you Jamie?’ Jessica asked.

‘Yeah.’ The boy wouldn’t meet her eyes and didn’t look up from the table.

‘I want to ask you a question or two if that’s okay?’

‘Fine.’

Cole and Mrs Millar returned and stood in the doorway. Jessica’s colleague nodded to indicate he had told the mother why they needed her back. ‘Okay, Jamie. I only really need to ask you two things. First, do you know of anyone who might want to hurt your brother?’

‘No.’ The reply was short and Jamie didn’t look up from the spot on the table.

‘Do you know who he would have been out with last night?’

Jamie finally glanced up from the table over to his mother in the doorway. She was looking at the floor herself. ‘Maybe.’

‘If you know their names, we can look into it if you’re not sure. No one has to know it came from you.’

Jamie nodded slowly to himself as if weighing up his options. ‘There’s this guy Kev who he hangs around with, then Kev’s brother Phil.’

‘Do you know their last names or where they live?’

‘Wright. Kev and Phil Wright. They live at opposite ends of the estate.’ Jamie didn’t know the exact addresses but had given them enough information so they could find out for themselves. If the Wright brothers were anything like Craig, the police would have plenty in their records.

They had all the information they could realistically need for now. Jessica told Denise they could arrange for a uniformed officer to come around if she wanted. The woman shook her head and Jessica said she would be asked to do a formal identification at some point in the near future. The woman shrugged and Jessica took out a card, turning it over and writing her mobile phone number on it, before handing it over.

‘Call me if you want to talk,’ she said.

Usually, she would leave a card for professional reasons if anyone remembered anything further relating to the case. In this instance, she thought the woman might simply need someone to talk to. There would be a family liaison officer appointed, as was the case in any killing, but Jessica genuinely felt for her.

‘Poor woman,’ Cole said softly as they walked out of the flat back towards the stairs. Jessica didn’t reply but she was thinking the exact same thing. Craig Millar was clearly a right piece of work. He might have brought plenty of misery to the people he dealt drugs to but he had surely brought no greater unhappiness than to his own mother.

Another call to the station had established that Kevin and Phillip Wright did indeed share lengthy criminal records in common with Craig Millar. Jessica asked the officer she spoke with to read her the highlights of Craig’s run-ins with the law too. She had remembered most of his record pretty well but there was a handling stolen goods she hadn’t known about. She also checked why he had been in prison. As his mother had said, he had been remanded on suspicion of grievous bodily harm but charges were dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service because potential witnesses hadn’t cooperated and the victim didn’t want to give evidence in court. With someone who had a record like Craig, likely a well-known figure on the estate, it was no surprise that people stopped cooperating with the law. No one wanted to be seen as a grass, even if they’d had their face smashed in.

Kevin and Phillip, meanwhile, had two separate addresses but both were on the estate where Craig Millar’s body had been found. Neither of them were necessarily suspects but they were apparently the last people to see Craig alive and would be arrested and taken to the station to be interviewed under caution.

Jessica and Cole made their way back to the murder site where the Scene of Crime team looked as if they were finishing up. Jessica went with one of the uniformed officers in a marked car to arrest Kevin, Cole going with a different officer in another car to pick up Phillip. They would both be spoken to separately. It was only a short journey and Jessica sat in the front of the car as the uniformed officer drove. Jessica knew the constable’s first name was Jonny but didn’t really know him.

They made small talk as Jonny weaved around the parked cars. ‘One less for us to worry about,’ he said, clearly talking about the body of Craig Millar. Jessica had never really been one of the laddish types at the station. Some of the females were and the gender boundaries had certainly blurred in recent times compared to the kind of stories some of the older officers would tell.

If there were any doubts as to her attitude regarding catching Craig Millar’s killer, they had disappeared as Jessica sat with his mother. Regardless of what her son was like, his mum deserved the truth. Jessica didn’t reply to Jonny’s jibe. She just nodded.

Jonny clearly took her silence with the intent it was meant – she was his superior after all – pulling the car up outside a row of flats that looked almost identical to the one Jessica had just left. Kevin Wright’s apartment was on the ground floor. The two of them went to the front door and Jessica rang the bell before knocking loudly. She was ready to start hammering for a second time when the door opened.

A man stood in the door in his underwear, smoking a cigarette. He had a shaven head and was fairly well built with broad shoulders and tattoos across his chest. ‘Oh for f—’ he started before Jessica interrupted him.

‘Are you Kevin Wright?’

‘Yeah, look, I ain’t done nothing wrong, okay?’ he said. There was a hint of aggression in his voice but he sounded more exasperated than anything else.

Jessica gave the standard caution she had given to people hundreds of times over.

Kevin interrupted her throughout. ‘Craig? He’s dead? What? I didn’t do it.’ Jessica would hate to admit it but she already believed him.

The interviews with both Kevin and Phil had thrown up very little of use. Jessica hadn’t really thought they would. The fact both men had been picked up in their own flats the morning after the killing was a fairly safe sign neither of them had done it. If they had stabbed their friend, it was unlikely they would have hung around for the police to come knocking the next day. Their records showed they were clearly thugs but they were not idiots.

They shared the same solicitor. Jessica knew him well as one of the cheaper ones from the centre of the city. He was a frequent visitor to the station and an apparent favourite of the low-lifes who lived in the area. That meant they had to be spoken to one at a time, so Jessica handled both interviews with Cole. Each brother was clearly stunned that Craig had been killed the night before and Jessica believed most of their respective stories with both versions matching up fairly well. They each said they had spent the previous evening with Craig but insisted they had just been playing computer games at Phil’s house, before spending the early hours hanging around chatting on the streets. There were very minor discrepancies around exact timings and Jessica strongly suspected there was a decent chance they had been up to no good while out and about but ultimately there was nothing they could hold either of them for in relation to the murder itself. Phil said he had left the group first and Kevin conceded he was probably the last person to see Craig alive. Both claimed they knew nothing about the death, with Kevin especially vociferous. Jessica had no reason to doubt them.

The forensics team would currently be working on Craig’s body and the autopsy results would be released in a day or two. Given their lengthy records, Kevin and Phil’s DNA profiles would both be stored in the National Database but new fingerprints and samples would be taken. The police were entitled to take a mouth swab on arrest and that would be sent off to update the database. Seeing as they had spent the evening together, there was every chance the DNA of the two brothers would appear on Craig’s body, so linking them to him wouldn’t necessarily prove anything untoward.

Neither of them said they had seen anything out of the ordinary and both claimed they didn’t know anyone who would want to harm Craig. That last part sounded particularly ridiculous given the list of people he must have wronged at some point. Jessica was fully aware not much would happen until those initial forensics results came back. Both of the brothers’ flats would be searched on the off-chance the murder weapon was found. Jessica thought they may well find drugs or a weapon but she didn’t believe either of them was a killer.

For now the team would get cracking on a list of people who had a grievance with the victim. Starting with a suspects list of zero was always a big problem. Beginning with a list that would comfortably reach double figures was barely a better result.

Jessica would leave compiling that list to someone else – seniority did have its advantages and she knew just the man for the job: Detective Constable David Rowlands.

3

Jessica found Rowlands sitting in the canteen with DC Carrie Jones. Jessica outranked both of them but had great relationships with the pair of constables. Rowlands was cocky and frequently bragged about his female conquests but, underneath all that, Jessica saw him almost as an annoying younger brother who was there for her amusement. She was an only child, so didn’t really know what it was actually like to have a sibling.

Fifteen months ago, Jessica had been involved in the first big case of her career. A complicated trail of murders had ultimately led back to her best friend Caroline’s boyfriend, Randall, who had tried to kill Jessica. She had caught him and he was now secured in a hospital having been deemed unfit to stand trial. He hadn’t spoken a word to anyone since being arrested.

It had been a tough year back at work for Jessica. Given her injuries, both physical and mental, she had been granted leave but wanted to quickly return to the job. Any officers hurt in the line of duty were obliged to undergo counselling sessions and Jessica had gone along with everything asked of her. It had been the support of the two DCs that had really helped her get her mind back on the job.

For one, Rowlands continued to poke fun at her, even when other officers were going out of their way not to say anything that could accidentally upset her. It was that normality which helped her as much as any formal counselling.

Her friendship with Carrie was something that had grown enormously since her return to work. Before they had just been colleagues but now they were firm pals. It was a bitter-sweet friendship however as it had most likely grown because Jessica and Caroline had drifted further and further apart since the incidents of last year. It wasn’t that they had fallen out but they had become different people. They had been friends for all of their adult lives but had gone from living together and talking every day to simply not speaking and seemingly having very little in common. At the time, Caroline had been planning to move in with Randall but, following his arrest, she had ended up moving out of the flat she and Jessica shared and settling into a place on her own.

The two constables were sitting opposite each other at a table with four seats. Jessica sat next to Carrie, who wasn’t eating but cradling a mug of tea, pulling out the chair with a scrape. Both were in their late twenties, although Rowlands was due to turn thirty in a few months – a source of much amusement to Jessica.

‘Is that a new wrinkle around your eye, Dave?’ she asked with a grin.

The man looked up from the food he was eating. ‘Hardee-har-har. You do know you’ll always be those few years older than me, don’t you?’

‘Yeah, but I look younger. No greys either,’ Jessica replied, holding out a few strands of her long dark-blonde hair as if to illustrate her point.

Rowlands was eating some sort of spaghetti concoction but put his fork down and touched his own spiky dark hair. ‘I don’t have any grey hairs.’

‘Only ’cos you dye it,’ chipped in Carrie with a wink to Jessica. DC Jones had a strong Welsh accent. She was short and slim with light blonde hair and a cackling laugh that carried across rooms. Jessica always marvelled at how even her laugh sounded as if it had an accent. She was the type of person that, due to her slight frame, was easily under estimated by people who didn’t know her. She was incredibly sharp though and Jessica liked her a lot.

‘Oh aye. Female union again, is it?’

Jessica and the other woman laughed together. ‘I’ve got a job for you actually,’ Jessica said when things had settled down.

Dave had now finished eating and was fiddling with something stuck between his teeth. ‘It’s something you don’t want to do, isn’t it?’

‘You’re very perceptive in your old age.’

‘Go on then.’

‘The body we found this morning, Craig Millar, he will have annoyed a fair few people . . .’ The constable rolled his eyes, guessing where the request was heading as Jessica continued. ‘We’ve got a few uniforms on his estate knocking on doors but you know what it’s like around there, people won’t want to be seen talking to us. I want you to put together a file of people who may have had it in for him. It’ll be a big list.’

Rowlands sighed. ‘Didn’t you bring in two brothers this morning?’

‘Yeah. Their flats are being searched as we speak but I’m not convinced we’ll get anything linking them to the actual killing.’

‘When are you expecting results from the scene?’

‘Dunno. Maybe tomorrow for the initial bits? It depends how busy they are with other stuff and what they found.’

‘When do you want the list by?’

‘Tomorrow’s briefing. We’ll go over it then and divide it up among officers so we can start ruling people out.’ He scowled back at her. ‘You’ve gotta be careful screwing your face up like that at your age, Dave. It’ll only add more wrinkles.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ Rowlands slid his chair back and stood up. ‘I guess I’m going to have to go get on with this ubiquitous list then.’

Jessica looked at her colleague with a look of bewilderment on her face, while Carrie gave a small laugh. ‘A what list?’ Jessica said.

‘Ubiquitous. I figured it’s about time someone around here tried to raise the standard of conversation.’ He was grinning, clearly joking.

‘Can you even spell it?’ Carrie asked.

‘Did you get into a fight with a dictionary or something?’ Jessica added.

‘I figure at least one of us should be well-read.’

‘The only thing you’re well-read in is mucky magazines and pizza menus,’ Jessica snorted. Carrie laughed loudly, the familiar accent clear.

‘You look like you’re pretty good at reading pizza menus yourself,’ Dave replied with a laugh of his own, patting his stomach and pointing at Jessica. He turned around and strolled off still chuckling before anyone could say anything back.

Jessica was mock-outraged and the other woman was clearly trying not to laugh. ‘Cheeky bastard,’ Jessica said.

In the same way that Rowlands wasn’t really going grey or wrinkly, Jessica knew she wasn’t getting fat. It was banter that got them through the days. Jessica turned to face Carrie more directly. ‘So how’s this new bloke of yours then?’ she asked.

The two had forged a good friendship that had been littered with the Welsh detective’s various disasters with boyfriends.

Since an encounter she regretted with one of Randall’s friends and the way things had turned out with Randall himself, Jessica hadn’t had anything that might even begin to count as a boyfriend. Not that she was bothered; the job was what drove her at the moment.

Just recently, it seemed as if Carrie had settled on someone she actually liked. Jessica could tell because, whereas before they would hold regular wine-fuelled inquests into disastrous dates, her friend had stayed pretty quiet about the latest man in her life.

‘He’s okay,’ she replied with a small smile, slightly more quietly than usual.

‘Still don’t want to talk about him, then?’ Jessica didn’t really mind. Her friend would open up when she was ready.

‘Nope.’

‘So what else is going on? Still having problems with the house?’

While a lot of police officers rented places while they were young because they could be moved around or apply for posts with other forces, Carrie’s father was insistent that renting was throwing money away. Because of that, her parents put up the money for a deposit on a two-bedroom house where she lived on her own a few minutes’ walk away from the Longsight station. Jessica had stopped over the odd night in the spare room after they had gone out together or following team drinks in the station’s local pub. It was in a great area for getting to and from work but not in a terrific place considering the neighbours.

It wasn’t as rough as the estate where Craig Millar had been killed but it wasn’t too much better. The fact the locals knew she was a police officer just made things worse for her. Bricks had been put through her windows twice in the past year and, while targeting a law-enforcement officer would be an aggravating factor if someone was arrested for the damage, no one had been found.

‘It’s not been too bad. That Mills guy is back out of prison.’

‘How long was he in this time?’

‘Not long. His girlfriend didn’t want to give evidence in the end and they dropped the charges.’

‘Did you really think she would?’

‘No. It’s always the way, isn’t it? Boyfriend smashes up his girlfriend’s face. She calls us when she wants protection then changes her mind the next day. At least it got him out of the area for a few weeks.’

John Mills was somebody else very well known to the local police officers. He was in his fifties but had a long record of being in and out of custody for various, usually violent, offences. He also happened to live half-a-dozen doors down from Jones after buying two houses and converting them into one much bigger property. A few months ago, Carrie had conducted some research in her own time and shown Jessica that crime rates on the estate where she lived directly correlated to whether Mills was in prison. When he was on the outside, he would have a network of low-level drug dealers working for him and things like burglary rates would go up without fail. It was hard to pin very much on him directly, though. There were always middle men to take the fall, with Mills set up as a legitimate businessman, owning a nightclub in the city centre. It was almost certainly where he laundered money but proving that was something far beyond either of their expertise.

Jessica nodded and the woman continued.

‘She visited him every day. She still stayed at his house and I’d see her driving off to the prison for visiting hours when I wasn’t here. You could still see the bruises on her face. The Crown were relying on her to give evidence but she was spending each day going to check on the guy who beat her up. It’s ridiculous.’

Jessica couldn’t disagree but knew from experience it often happened in instances of domestic violence. So many cases fell apart before they reached trial. Given his violent record, Mills would have been denied bail due to the likelihood of interfering with the one witness but that witness was happily visiting him each day in jail. The system was farcical.

‘Does he actually cause you any direct problems?’

‘Of course not. He wouldn’t dare put himself on the line like that. If he really wanted to get at me, he’d have someone unconnected do it.’

‘That’s how cowards operate.’

Carrie had said nothing at first. There was no specific reason why Mills would target her, other than his hatred of the police. He wasn’t stupid and wouldn’t risk his empire crumbling just for a cheap laugh at the expense of a detective who lived nearby.

‘He still stares . . .’ DC Jones said quietly. ‘Every time I walk past or anything like that. You can see him in the window or if he’s outside. He stares and watches until I’ve shut my front door.’ She didn’t sound scared but there was something in her voice. Mills obviously intimidated her.