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

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 36 (всего у книги 60 страниц)

‘So you’re saying that, one way or the other, either my ma or my dad was definitely not mine? Either my dad went with his ma or my ma went with someone else?’

Jessica took a deep breath, trying not to look confused. ‘I think so, yes. I’m sorry.’

The woman had tears in her eyes again. ‘Does my brother know?’

‘Not yet, no.’

‘Why is he in prison?’

‘An armed robbery. He’s serving life.’

Mary looked down at herself and flung her arm into the air. ‘I guess we have something in common straight away. It must run in the family.’ Jessica said nothing. The woman carried on sniffing. ‘Do you think there’s any way they would let us meet?’

Jessica felt out of her depth, not knowing the answer. ‘I don’t know how these things work. You’re on remand here, I guess some of it depends on what happens at your trial.’

The woman leant back on her seat, wiping away more tears. ‘Not gonna be a trial, m’dear. I’m pleading guilty.’

With little more they could get from the woman, they said their goodbyes and one of the prison officers gave them a lift back to the train station.

When they were back on the train, they sat opposite each other, speaking quietly to avoid being overheard, aware it was unlikely to do any harm but feeling concerned for the woman’s privacy.

‘What do you reckon?’ Cole asked.

‘It seems plausible. I don’t think she was faking it about not knowing McKenna.’

‘Me either. We can check all the national insurance number stuff anyway so there’d be no point in making it up. She seemed keen to meet him too.’

‘She must have had some life, with people at every corner asking her to prove who she is.’

‘Still, it gives us something huge to work on now.’

Jessica didn’t get his point. ‘How do you mean, the lab guys said her DNA couldn’t be a match to what was found at the scenes.’

‘True, but if McKenna’s got a long-lost sister who doesn’t have a birth certificate then who’s to say he doesn’t have a long-lost identical twin that was never registered?’

30

Jessica knew instantly he was right but tried not to look surprised or sound as if the idea hadn’t occurred to her. ‘We could get a photo out to the media and see if anyone recognises him,’ she said. ‘The papers don’t need to know it’s a picture of Donald McKenna they’re printing, just that we are after someone who looks like that.’

‘Exactly, good thinking. We’ll get plenty of people calling to say it’s Donald McKenna but maybe we’ll get a few other names suggested too? We’ll have to talk to the chief inspector in the morning.’

Jessica had almost forgotten about Farraday and was trying to figure out how he could be involved. He didn’t particularly look like McKenna, although they had a similar physique. She remembered her first meeting with Adam when he told them matching DNA could come only from an identical sibling. The DCI had to be involved somehow though, with the way he had held up the investigation and then the fact he had taken Carrie’s phone to cover his tracks. The idea of McKenna having a brother could still be a red herring too.

‘I think we should phone it in now,’ Jessica said. ‘If we can get McKenna’s photo on tonight’s news, in tomorrow’s papers and on the Internet, it gives us a bit of a head start.’

She checked the clock on her phone. They didn’t have much time and couldn’t do anything themselves from the train so Cole called the chief inspector. Jessica could hear only one side of the conversation but it didn’t sound good. When he had hung up, Jessica asked the obvious question. ‘What did he say?’

‘He said we should wait until tomorrow and that he wants to talk to us both first. I think he’s worried we’re going to make another mistake by putting the wrong photo out there.’

‘It wasn’t our mistake last time.’

‘I know but he’s probably right. If we make sure all the paperwork from the labs is correct first, we can hammer the media with it tomorrow. We’ll still hit all the TV broadcasts and get it on the Internet, we’ll just miss the papers.’

Jessica thought Farraday might well have a different reason for wanting to hold things up – he wanted to give himself a few more hours to cover whatever tracks he might have left.

‘We still don’t know what’s going on, do we?’ she said.

‘Not really. After all this, it could be McKenna is actually nothing to do with any of it. If there is a twin he could be acting alone safe in the knowledge any crime he commits will get blamed on his brother who’s already locked up. Maybe the phone was left in the cell by who ever was in there before McKenna? If there is a twin, perhaps he never realised he had a brother and the coverage could be news to him too? Then again, we could have been right the first time and it is somebody on the outside working with McKenna. There are so many permutations, even if we get the guy we might never know.’

He looked up to make sure he caught Jessica’s eye and winked at her. ‘There could still be a secret tunnel out of the prison too, remember.’

The thought hadn’t occurred to Jessica that McKenna could be completely innocent in it all. She had spent so long trying to think of ways to connect him to the crimes and then to Farraday that it hadn’t even crossed her mind the prisoner could now be exonerated.

‘If you’re right then I guess the phone isn’t necessarily relevant to the case either. You’re always hearing stories about people smuggling things into jails.’ A second thought then popped into her head. ‘Hang on though, if McKenna is nothing to do with it, that doesn’t explain what happened with the warden Lee Morgan. I know nothing has been proven against him but he must have been killed for a reason.’

‘True, but he was the one where no DNA was found so they could be separate cases.’

‘Same stab wounds but I guess it could be a copycat thing to puzzle us.’

Cole rubbed his head. ‘This is all getting confusing.’

‘You’re telling me. We have Craig Millar, Benjamin Webb, Desmond Hughes and Carrie who were all definitely killed by either Donald McKenna, someone who planted his DNA or his twin . . .’

‘. . . and if there is a twin, either, neither or both brothers may or may not know he has a relation.’

‘Er, right.’

‘Then there’s John Mills, who is still unconscious, and Lee Morgan – who may or may not be connected to all of this as well as McKenna separately.’

The two detectives looked at each other and broke out into grins at the same time. It wasn’t meant as anything disrespectful to the victims, more as a way of coping with the complex nature of everything. ‘I think we should write this down before trying to explain it to anyone else,’ Jessica said.

Cole laughed and said he would while Jessica leant back and closed her eyes. The inspector might think it was intricate but he didn’t know the half of it considering what she knew about Farraday as well. At first she pre tended to be asleep but, when she felt Cole tapping her forearm and telling her they were back, she realised she actually had dropped off.

It was early evening and beginning to get dark as they walked out of the train station and caught another taxi back to Longsight. Jessica knew the chief inspector would have left early in order to not have to make any decisions about what they were bringing back but wasn’t too bothered. With everything that had happened in the past couple of days, she felt as if something had lifted from her and knew she wouldn’t be sitting on the wall opposite Farraday’s house that night hoping for who knows what.

Jessica drove home and parked in one of the designated spaces at her flat. She switched off the engine and headlights and took her phone out without moving from the driver’s seat. It was gloomy outside and the street lamps were just beginning to come on. She thumbed through her contacts and stared at Adam’s name.

After a couple of days of proper sleep and the way she finally felt she was coming to terms with Carrie’s death, Jessica could see how badly she had treated him. She felt terrible watching him in the office the previous day knowing he had done some really good work but not having the guts to tell him so. Jessica was fully aware he had done nothing wrong and that she should tell him so – but the thought of calling him up and admitting it was all her fault wasn’t something she knew if she could do.

It almost felt as if she needed someone like Carrie or Caroline to give her a kick and tell her she was being stupid. She closed her eyes and could almost hear the Welsh officer’s accent in her head. ‘Stop mucking around and just call him. You obviously like him, y’daft sod.’

What would Jessica say to him though? ‘Hey, just calling to say sorry I was a bitch, fancy a pint?’ Would he understand she just hadn’t known how to react to Carrie’s death? Could she tell him about everything that had happened with Farraday? Or about the phone under her bed which belonged to the dead officer and where she’d found it? She didn’t know what to do and felt it would be hard to tell him why she had blanked him without explaining everything she knew about the chief inspector.

Jessica sat looking at her phone, watching the screen turn itself off to save the battery and then pressing a button herself to make it come back to life.

‘Adam Compton’, the name read at the top.

Her thumb hovered over the ‘Call Mobile’ button and then the device started ringing before she could make up her mind. It was a number she didn’t recognise but she immediately pressed to answer.

‘Hello?’

The voice on the other end stuttered and was clearly nervous. ‘Um, hello. Is that Detective, erm, Daniel?’

‘Yes, who’s this?’

‘It’s Dennis from the prison. You gave me your number. How are you?’

Jessica’s heart immediately sank. She had known it was a mistake to pass on her details and felt sure he would end up phoning her at some point. The last thing she wanted was a social call from him. ‘I’m fine but a little busy at the moment.’

‘Oh, um, I was wondering if you were free this evening? If maybe you wanted a drink or something?’

Jessica had half a mind to tell him to get lost but she forced herself to be polite. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea. I only gave you my number in case someone recognised the picture.’

‘Oh yes, sorry, that’s why I’m calling. It’s about the picture. Can we meet?’

Jessica didn’t know if he was being genuine or not. Something in his voice didn’t sound quite right but it could just be his nervousness. ‘We can meet in town but I don’t really have time for a drink or anything. Does that sound okay?’

Jessica thought that, if he was trying it on, he would change his mind but instead he said ‘yes’ and asked for an address. She named a pub in the middle of the city, not wanting to be openly seen with him for either professional or personal reasons. At the same time, she didn’t feel quite right having the type of illicit meeting she’d had with Garry Ashford in a supermarket car park. Jessica knew the pub wasn’t one of the busy ones and should be fairly quiet on a weeknight. She hoped she wasn’t wasting her time but turned her engine and headlights back on and reversed out of her space.

As Jessica walked into the pub, she looked around hoping Dennis would already be there so she could make it quick; the last thing she needed was to be left sitting at a table on her own as if she’d been stood up. There was a raised seating area that ran around the whole of the pub, with a wooden banister separating it from the bar and tall tables with stools. Jessica put one hand on the rail and started walking around in a circle to see if she could see him.

The pub was as empty as she could have wished. Aside from a couple of people serving at the bar and a few customers watching football on the other side, there wasn’t anyone else present. It was the type of place that had been done up nicely around a decade ago but hadn’t had anything renovated since. A thin layer of dust came off on her hands from the rail as she continued walking and she wiped it on her trousers until she finally saw Dennis sitting in a booth at the very back of the pub. He was cradling a pint of bitter and stood as he spotted her.

Jessica walked up the three steps to the raised area and slid herself into the booth opposite him. He followed her lead and sat back down. She had only ever seen him before in the standard uniform of heavy boots, dark trousers and a navy-blue jumper but he definitely must have thought she’d consented to some sort of date given the way he was dressed. As he sat down, the lights caught his black shoes which were either brand new or had been recently shined. He was wearing dark suit-type trousers with a light blue shirt, with the top few buttons undone.

Jessica felt slightly sick at the amount of wiry greying chest hair that was poking out of the top. She tried not to look but the way the hairs spiralled was almost hypnotic. ‘I’ve got to be quick, Dennis,’ Jessica said. ‘I’ve got quite a lot on at the moment so only have a few minutes.’

‘Are you sure you don’t want a drink?’

‘Sorry, I’m driving. I never drink on duty anyway.’

It was a little white lie. She didn’t drink when she was driving but pretty much every officer she had ever met wasn’t averse to a quiet drink, even if their shift wasn’t quite over. Dennis’s face fell slightly and his scar seemed even more prominent, illuminated by the small spotlights overhead. It really did run the entire length of his face from his mouth to the bottom part of his ear. She almost wanted to ask where he got it but the idea of getting into a full conversation wasn’t too appealing.

‘Are you sure you don’t fancy a soft drink?’ he asked.

‘Sorry, I’m really in a rush. You said you had some news about the photo?’

Dennis dug into his trouser pocket and took out the newspaper clipping she had given him. Jessica could see instantly it was slightly torn and a lot grubbier than when she had handed it over. He put the photo on the table between them and pushed it towards her. ‘Who is this guy anyway?’

Jessica had known it was a gamble to pass on a photo from a newspaper because it would indicate it was of someone semi-important. Aside from printing out something from the force’s website where Farraday would have been in uniform, she had no other option. She didn’t know if either Dennis or someone else he showed it to would have recognised the image as being of her boss – he was involved in TV appeals – but, at the same time, if you didn’t know what you were looking for, he was just another face.

‘I can’t really tell you that, Dennis.’

The man shuffled in his seat. ‘I thought he looked familiar but didn’t recognise him directly. I showed him to a couple of the other office guys but they had no idea. One of the late girls reckons he was definitely a regular visitor a few months back.’

From being sceptical about why he had asked to meet, Jessica was suddenly hanging on Dennis’s every word. ‘What do you mean by “late girls”?’

‘Oh, right. Nothing really, just that she does the late shift which is why I don’t always see her. I waited around especially though because you asked me . . .’

He was waiting for a compliment but Jessica was feeling too impatient to indulge him. ‘What did she say?’

‘She used to work on days up until about three or four months back. Everyone’s shifts got bumped around and I moved from earlies to days and she moved from days to nights. But she reckoned, when she was on days, he was a regular visitor. She said he looked a bit different, like he had a beard or something, but that he used to come all the time.’

‘Why haven’t you seen him then?’

‘She reckons he just stopped suddenly. He went from visiting a couple of times a week to not coming at all. Not long after that we all swapped shifts which is why I didn’t know him.’

‘Doesn’t everyone have to sign in with ID when they come to the prison?’

‘Yeah, if you don’t have your driving licence or whatever, you’re not allowed through reception.’

‘Did you ask her if she remembered the name?’

‘Funny you should say that. I never remember anyone but, as soon as she saw the picture, she knew exactly who it was.’

Jessica could feel her heart pounding in her chest, knowing all the paranoia she had shown was about to be proved correct, that all the sleepless nights weren’t in vain. ‘What was his name?’

‘Somebody Farraday.’

31

Jessica had to fight showing any emotion. She wanted to yell out, ‘I was right’ as vindication for all the things she had found herself doing over the past couple of weeks. She knew she couldn’t do any of that in front of Dennis though.

She pulled the scrap towards her and pocketed it, desperately trying not to react to what he had said. ‘You’ve been really helpful, Dennis, thank you.’

‘No worries, shame you couldn’t stay longer. Still I’ve got your number, maybe we can try another night?’ She gave him a half-smile and said something utterly noncommittal, walking out of the pub before he could say any more.

Jessica couldn’t sum up the way she was feeling. There was some sort of elation that she hadn’t just been paranoid, but sadness she hadn’t figured any of it out before Carrie had died. Then there was the realisation she still didn’t have the proof she needed. She had a broken phone under her bed and the second-hand word of someone who worked at the prison. She still had to figure out how it happened too. Farraday could have met Donald McKenna in prison and somehow smuggled blood and hairs back out again but it wouldn’t have been easy.

Then another idea struck her, something she should have thought about when she was on the train earlier. Adam told her a twin had to be identical to share DNA but what if one of them changed their appearance? Could it be possible that somewhere along the line her boss and McKenna were direct relations but one of them had altered the way he looked? It was unlikely but surely more of a possibility than tunnelling out of a maximum-security prison? The more Jessica thought about it, the more she was convinced. They were around the same age, same height and same build. As she reached her car, she took out the piece of newspaper from her pocket and stopped under a nearby street light to look at the photo of the DCI. She tried to remember what McKenna looked like. Surely it was like this? Surely?

She could feel the itch in the back of her head again. ‘It’s him. You’re right. You were always right.’ Jessica knew she wasn’t heading home. She drove to the estate Farraday lived on and parked where she had done in the previous days, a couple of streets away. She hadn’t changed her clothes all day and was still wearing the suit she’d had on at the women’s prison and for the train journeys. The nights were beginning to get cooler but Jessica didn’t want to miss anything, shivering as she got out of the car and walking the short distance to sit on the wall opposite the chief inspector’s house. Behind the low row of bricks was a large hedge which meant no one from the house behind could see her and she could push back into the greenery to avoid being seen easily from the front. On a night like this, it also offered a small amount of protection from the cold.

She sat on the wall, leaning backwards, eyes fixed on the house in front of her. She eyed the gate she had jumped over and hurt her ankle. It was as imposing as ever and, as she squinted into the darkness, Jessica could see a car parked on the driveway. She let her mind run away with her.

‘The garage is being used for something sinister. Just go and look.’

There were lights on downstairs and Jessica fixed her eyes on the illuminated rooms, looking for silhouettes or clues of anything that might be untoward.

How could she prove it was him?

A light breeze whipped across her and Jessica edged backwards into the shrub. She could feel its spiky branches pushing into her back but it was more appealing than the cold. An owl hooted somewhere nearby and Jessica found herself looking around for the source of the noise before cursing herself for taking her focus away from the house.

‘Don’t look away, you’ll miss something.’

She flicked her eyes back towards the building and tried to see if anything had changed, remembering the spot-the-difference puzzles she used to do as a kid. The car hadn’t moved and the light was still on in the same downstairs room but had someone moved a curtain? She blinked to test that her eyes were working fine. It wasn’t that late but Jessica knew she couldn’t risk moving. With her watching the house, the chief inspector couldn’t leave and no one else could be killed.

As she moved her focus towards the gate, Jessica felt the blinks lasting longer until, finally, she could resist them no more.

Jessica jumped as the sound of a car’s engine roared past. She went to move her arms but one of them was full of pins and needles, the other wedged tight. Opening her eyes to see a tangle of leaves and branches, Jessica jolted upwards, knowing where she was but not quite believing she had let it happen. It was light and cool so she knew it must be morning. She had somehow slept for the whole night in the small gap between the wall and hedge opposite DCI Farraday’s house.

She squeezed her way up and looked over the top of the wall. The chief inspector’s gates were still shut but there was no car in the drive. Jessica banged her hand on the edge of the bricks to try to get some feeling back into it before pulling out her phone and checking the time: 07.41.

Jessica could feel the pain had returned to her ankle and grimaced as she put her weight on it, hauling herself back onto the pavement. She tried to run but could only hobble back to her car. In her mind she knew she had let another victim down; she had fallen asleep and that meant the DCI had been free to leave the house the night before. She was trying to calm the panic rising in her as she reached her car, fumbling in her jacket pocket for the keys. Her hands were grubby and she could see dirt stains on her trousers but there was something far more important than all of that.

She unlocked the car door and threw herself into the driver’s seat, starting the engine and tuning the radio to the local talk station. If there had been another killing the night before, it would definitely be a big story. She knew she hadn’t missed any calls but maybe it was because they were waiting for her to get into the station?

Jessica crunched the car into first gear and turned around in the road, heading towards the station. The two radio presenters were joking about something irrelevant and she swore at them to get to the news. Eventually, when she was just a few minutes from Longsight, the jingle kicked in and the newsreader started to speak. Jessica turned the volume up but they were talking about football. She took a hand from the steering wheel to rub her head. Something wasn’t right but maybe they just hadn’t been given the story yet? That made sense.

She pulled into the station and parked at an angle in one of the bays but didn’t want to waste time straightening out. She hurried through the front entrance, heading to the front desk.

‘Are you all right?’ the desk sergeant asked.

‘Yeah, yeah. What happened overnight?’

The man looked confused. ‘Um, nothing in particular – a domestic violence call-out, a bit of vandalism. The usual. What are you looking for?’

It was Jessica’s turn to be puzzled. ‘That’s all?’

‘Yes . . . are you sure you’re okay? You look a bit, um . . .’

Jessica ignored him, moving quickly around the counter towards the female toilets. She pushed through the door and went quickly to the sinks, putting together the pieces of what had happened in the past few hours. It barely seemed believable but, after hearing Farraday’s name, she had driven to his house, sat on the wall opposite watching him, slept in a hedge and then, for some reason, convinced herself someone else had been killed in the meantime.

Were those the actions of someone thinking clearly?

Jessica looked at herself in the mirror, staring into her own eyes and wondering what was happening in her head. There was a scuff of dirt on her right cheek and, as she reached up to wipe it away, she saw just how filthy both of her hands were. As she looked closer, Jessica could see there were a couple of small twigs lodged in her hair and one was stuck to her suit jacket.

She took deep breaths as she cleaned her hands and face, trying to get as much soil from her suit as possible. All she could think of was DCI Farraday. He must have left all the clues because he knew whoever found them wouldn’t be able to prove anything.

‘He’s playing a game with you.’

Or was she seeing something that wasn’t there? Jessica looked under the cubicle doors to make sure there was no one else in the room and then took out her phone. This time she didn’t hesitate in calling Adam.

‘Jess?’

‘Yes, Adam, look, can you do something for me?’

‘Um, I guess. I mean you didn’t call and then . . .’

‘You’ll have to do the testing quietly though?’

‘Testing?’

‘Yes, at your labs.’

‘Oh, right. I didn’t realise that’s what you meant. I can’t do that, everything we test has to be logged and then they can check it all back through the computer system.’

‘Forget that. Say I wanted to bring some skin samples or saliva in for you to test, what would you need? Like a fork or something the person had touched?’

‘I can’t do that, Jess.’

‘Okay, but say you could, what would you need?’

‘Um, look, it’s not as easy as that. DNA isn’t just an object you can pick up, it’s why we’re so careful at crime scenes. The second you touch something, you contaminate it. It’s not like just picking up some cutlery and then running it through a scanner. We even use sterile storage bags to put things in, so the material can’t pollute the object either. Plus it’s why we use swabs because saliva is much purer – either that or blood. Even with hairs, if you touch them then your signature is on it. But I can’t do anything like that anyway, I could lose my job.’

‘Can we meet tonight?’

‘Jess . . .’

‘Please, Adam. I’m asking you if we can meet up.’

‘I . . . well, yes. I’ve wanted to see you ever since the quiz but . . .’

‘Brilliant. How about that pub we were in before opposite that Italian place. Around eight?’

‘Um, yes, I guess but . . .’

Jessica hung up, not waiting to hear if he had anything else to say. She had a plan that would hopefully prove once and for all she was right.

She knew she first had to keep up appearances. If things were going to work, she couldn’t seem to be acting erratically. She found Cole in his office and they both went up to DCI Farraday’s floor for their morning briefing. Jessica let the inspector do the talking and didn’t push her own views. Eventually the chief inspector consented to let a picture of Donald McKenna be released to the media – without a name – and ask the public for information.

Jessica wanted to grin, knowing she was already on to him, but kept a straight face. She looked at the picture they were sending out of McKenna and could see Farraday completely. The eyes weren’t quite the same, the hairline was completely off and there was definitely a different shape to the face but there was unquestionably something similar only she could see. Maybe it was the ears? Perhaps the chin?

In the meeting, they agreed to keep details about McKenna’s sister from him. With nothing else formally to go on, they were edging towards a secret twin and didn’t want to risk letting the prisoner know they were on to him. Instead, the three were going to spend the day working with the media, either directly or behind the scenes, to get the photo as widely circulated as possible. If papers or TV stations wanted interviews, one of them would be on hand to peddle the line that this person was someone they wanted to speak to. They would give no extra details and no names. Meanwhile, more officers were being brought in to take the phone calls. Anyone who suggested McKenna as the identity would be instantly discounted and there would be a secondary team of officers ready to start looking into the backgrounds of any other names suggested who had a similar date of birth to McKenna – or better yet no trace of a birth certificate.

Jessica nodded along and spoke when she was supposed to, silently thinking her own plan through. The way the day was going to work out should go in her favour. The three of them would be operating closely together, which would give her a better chance.

After the meeting, she went to the storage room to ask for some evidence bags. It wasn’t unusual for officers to be asking so she wasn’t giving anything away. Jessica then returned to her car and hunted around in the door wells. She knew there was a nail file in there somewhere but hadn’t used it for years. She found it in the passenger door and started chiselling one of the nails on her right hand, knowing she had to get it exactly right and that she would only have one chance. Finally, she looked through the first-aid kit in her boot, taking out a fine piece of gauze and handling it as gently as she possibly could by the corners.

With everything in place, she went back into the station and entered the Pad – which was the ridiculous name that had been given to their media briefing room. DI Cole and DCI Farraday were already in there along with the press office staff. They worked on a statement together, reiterating they were appealing for help with the identity of the man, and then it was faxed and emailed to the various media organisations along with the photo of McKenna. With that done, the three detectives put in follow-up calls to various newsdesks to give them any additional quotes they might want. They first started off with the local media as the press officer contacted a few national broadcasters and the wire services.

Jessica got through the morning looking for an opening that never came. As lunchtime approached, she was beginning to feel pangs of anxiety about whether she could pull off what she hoped for. She could also sense grumblings in her stomach and realised she hadn’t eaten since breakfast the previous day. She hadn’t wanted to risk train food and then simply forgot to eat.