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

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 60 страниц)

Caroline had spent three years studying, while Jessica tried to find something she was interested in doing. She applied to the police on a bit of a whim. While a lot of people joined the force because they had a family member who also worked in the emergency or security services somewhere, this was far from the case for Jessica. Her parents managed a post office in their home town, which was certainly something that did run in the family. Her father’s father had bought the building and started the business almost sixty years ago. There was never really any chance of Jessica hanging around to take over the reins and both of her parents knew it. They never pressured her though and still ran the place, happily looking ahead to retirement in a few years. Jessica usually found time to visit her parents once every couple of months but spoke to them regularly on the phone.

Perhaps the reason the two had remained so close was that Caroline’s parents had both died within a few months of each other not long after she graduated. It hadn’t been much of a surprise; her mother and father were quite a bit older than Jessica’s parents and her dad had been ill for a while. Not long after he died, her mother did too. Caroline had been devastated but took heart from the fact they had both seen her graduate, the first in her family to do so.

‘So, new boyfriend then?’ Jessica said.

‘Yep.’

‘Let’s hear it then.’

‘Do you remember a few months ago when I went over in those heels?’

‘Of course,’ Jessica laughed. ‘It was really funny.’

‘Thanks for the sympathy; I could have broken my neck.’

‘Honestly, if there was any neck-breaking involved, I would have definitely laughed a little less.’

‘Anyway, I really like that pair, so I took them to that place on Gorton Market where they mend shoes. There was this lad who worked on the stall . . .’

‘You dirty tart.’

They giggled again. ‘We had a few drinks and have been seeing each other since then. We’re going out again some time this week.’

Jessica understood that meant her friend had been spending time with him when she claimed she was at the gym or somewhere else inconsequential but didn’t mind. ‘As long as you don’t dump me to move in with this obvious weirdo, then I hope you have a good time.’

‘Weirdo?’

‘He went out with you.’

‘Oi.’

They both laughed some more. ‘What’s his name then?’ Jessica asked.

‘Randall. Randall Anderson.’

‘Randall? What sort of name is that?’

‘I dunno. I kind of like it. It’s a bit different.’

‘Hmm . . . Caroline Morrison-Anderson. I guess it does have a ring to it.’

‘Don’t start . . .’

The fact neither of them had really had time for a serious relationship was perhaps the biggest reason neither Caroline nor Jessica had decided to move into their own place. Of course they actually liked living together but, with neither of them having a heavy commitment, there had never been too much need to hunt for a new place to live.

Jessica felt the wine taking hold and, as the final orders bell rang, she pulled her phone out from her bag. ‘I’m just going to check the Internet to see what’s in tomorrow’s paper.’

She thumbed away at the screen, flicking through her bookmarks before finding the Herald’s news site. The front page loaded and she pinched the screen to zoom in, before slamming her free hand down on the table.

‘What’s up?’ Caroline asked.

Jessica just about kept her temper intact. ‘Garry Ashford. Whoever he is, I am going to string him up.’

7

Sunday night hadn’t ended in the way Jessica thought it would. The top headline on the Herald’s website had read: ‘MURDERED IN HER OWN HOME’. Underneath that was: ‘LOCKED DOOR MYSTERY’ and the byline: ‘EXCLUSIVE by Garry Ashford’.

Pretty much all the details were there: the victim’s name, the fact the house was locked and that the police had taken two days to respond to Stephanie Wilson’s concerns. That sounded bad straight away. The journalist had also spoken to Mrs Wilson, who had blabbed pretty much everything she had already told them.

Worse than that, he had quoted her: ‘Detective Sergeant Jessica Daniel insisted she had no extra comment to make.’ There was even a complimentary line about her being ‘trusted to head up the inquiry’. That write-up almost certainly meant her bosses were going to think she was the leak. They were going to hit the roof and, seeing as the journalist had phoned her the day before, if Internal Investigations were involved, they would see his phone number on her records.

Jessica still had Garry’s details in her mobile’s previous callers list and, figuring she could be in enough trouble already, phoned him back as she left the pub to walk home. She wasn’t sure whether to go straight in with the full barrage of swear words or to build up in a particularly obscene crescendo. Afterwards, she couldn’t quite recall the full details of the one-sided conversation but definitely remembered promising to do something not at all pleasant with his lower intestines and quite possibly inventing a host of new curses.

She had arrived at the station earlier than usual on the Monday to be greeted by a hard copy of the paper sitting on the reception desk in front of that morning’s desk sergeant. The headline was the same on the print version as it was online, except the article itself was even more terrible than she thought. Jessica saw that, in the absence of any photos of the victim, they had used a picture of her. Worse still, it was a horrible passport-type photo the press office had taken to use on the force’s website.

Under a big banner headline about a murder, she was there grinning like an idiot. Just as she thought her morning couldn’t get much worse, Jessica saw Detective Chief Inspector William Aylesbury bounding through the big double doors into reception.

Most people called William would have the good grace to let you call them ‘Will’ or ‘Bill’. A huge majority would even prefer it but not the DCI. She called him ‘Sir’ of course but, when he introduced himself to anyone, he would pronounce every last syllable of Will. I. Am. Ay. Les. Bury. He would roll the letter ‘r’ as if he were royalty.

He was certainly one of those types who followed the family trade into the police force. His father and grandfather had been senior officers in the Met, while his son had recently joined Greater Manchester Police’s uniformed ranks based at a different station. She had no doubt he would be superintendent in no time with the current one, DSI Dominic Davies, well-known to be retiring in under twelve months.

He was in his early fifties with short grey hair but could have passed for someone ten years younger given the way he looked after himself. He was tall and imposing when he wanted to be and almost always perfectly turned out with expensive-looking suits.

‘Been making friends with the press, have we?’ Aylesbury said, indicating the paper in Jessica’s hand that she hadn’t been quick enough to put down.

He beckoned her into a meeting along with Cole and the woman in charge of press relations. Jessica told them she had spoken to Garry Ashford on Saturday afternoon but only because he had called her. She explained she had not given away any details and didn’t know how the information had appeared in that morning’s paper, although pointed out there were plenty of people who had been at the crime scene.

She was pretty sure Cole believed her but Aylesbury was far too hard to read and the press officer definitely didn’t buy it. The woman stared daggers throughout the meeting but, given she was outranked by everyone present, that was about as much dissatisfaction as she could get away with. Jessica’s opinion of the DCI improved a tiny amount when he dismissed the press officer and told her and Cole he would inform Internal Investigations there was no need to be involved.

They had the powers to start an inquiry regardless of what the chief inspector thought but seeing as nothing had been leaked that was likely to compromise the inquiry – and that he was backing her for now – it seemed probable they would listen to his advice.

That meeting led straight into a second one with the three of them, which was how her morning would have started if it wasn’t for the newspaper story. The next discussion was about how the case would run. Aylesbury confirmed Cole would work from the station with Jessica reporting directly to the inspector, who would keep him up to date.

After that the three of them went downstairs for the main team briefing. They were standing at the front of the station’s large meeting room, with no natural sunlight in the basement hall – the only illumination being provided by bright white strip lighting. Sometimes on the night shift, officers would come to sit in this room just to be kept awake. The whole of the station’s force had been called in to be told what was happening, including most of the uniformed officers. A couple of detectives from neighbouring districts had been loaned to the station, as often happened with murder cases. In all, there were between twenty and thirty people sitting on uncomfortable-looking plastic chairs, or standing near the doors at the back, sipping on cups of coffee, waiting to be filled in.

Behind the three of them were two huge whiteboards pinned to the wall. At the top in the middle of the left-hand one was an enlarged photo of Yvonne Christensen’s neck wounds, next to a recent photo to show how she had usually looked. Her name was written underneath in marker pen, along with the husband and son’s in smaller writing under that.

Jessica thought Aylesbury sounded quite impressive as he spoke, despite his over-pronunciation. He started by reminding everyone of their responsibilities in not talking to the media without prior permission, then thanked everyone for being there and said he had every faith they would catch the person responsible. He told them Cole would be their link person at the station and then handed the floor over to Jessica.

He gave her a full introduction for the benefit of the visiting officers but they would have known exactly who she was because of the ridiculous photo of her gurning on the front of that morning’s paper. Jessica thanked her boss, ignoring the murmurings of amusement from the officers standing in front of her, and then explained how the house had been found locked up.

After that, she moved on to the morning’s developments. ‘We’ve got the initial results back from the labs but there’s not an awful lot to go on,’ she said. ‘We know Yvonne Christensen was killed some time late on Tuesday night or in the early hours of Wednesday which all fits in with Stephanie Wilson’s timings. She was strangled with some type of steel rope or wire but we don’t have anything more specific on that. They have been running tests on the bed sheets and the body but haven’t yet found any samples that don’t belong to the victim.’

‘Do we know why she was in the bedroom?’ someone asked.

Cole answered. ‘Probably. If you were being strangled, the obvious thing you would do is try to pull away the other person’s hands or the rope but there are no cuts to the victim’s fingers. Given that and the estimated time of death, it seems likely she was throttled in her sleep. If she did wake up, it would have been too late.’

Jessica nodded along and then carried on speaking. ‘Obviously this makes it more difficult to figure out what actually happened. Even if the victim had let someone in we wouldn’t know how he or she got out. Because of the findings, it seems very unlikely the killer was a person she opened the door to. The obvious answer is that either her estranged husband or son was involved. As far as we know they are the only family members still alive but there are no life insurance policies in place and no other obvious motive.’

Jessica paused for breath. ‘Since Saturday, we have been able to pretty much rule out the husband Eric and son James. Confirming their respective alibis was complicated because of the period between the time of death and the body being found. James is at university in Bournemouth and, given the distance along with everything we’ve been able to verify, there aren’t any gaps long enough for him to have come up here and been able to return again.’

Jessica looked at Cole and raised her eyebrows. He took the hint and picked up the story. ‘James does at least have a set of keys which he showed to our colleagues down south but he insists they are kept with his other keys and are always on his person or somewhere nearby. Eric Christensen, on the other hand, says he gave his set back to his wife when he moved out. We don’t know if this is true but his alibis for the past few days certainly do check out.’

He looked back to Jessica, who turned again to face the floor and spoke. ‘Essentially, with the lab teams not coming up with anything and the only family members we know of unlikely to be involved, we don’t have an awful lot to go on. We’re not even sure how the killer got in and out, let alone who it was. We’ve examined all the usual things and know there is no basement, while the attic is full of junk. There was certainly no one hiding up there waiting for us to clear out.’

‘Can you cross over from the attached property?’ someone asked from the floor.

‘No, good thinking though. It is semi-detached but the brickwork goes all the way up to the top. It was one of the last things we checked.’

Jessica asked the assembled officers if anyone had any suggestions for how someone could have managed it. One constable got a laugh by putting forward the name of a popular TV magician, with a sensible suggestion to look at the previous owners. It had already been established the Christensens had lived in the place for just over five years but theoretically the previous owners might have kept a key. It seemed unlikely but it was something that should be formally ruled out.

‘Did the door-to-door inquiries come up with anything?’ one of the constables asked.

Jessica and Cole snorted at the same time. ‘Nope,’ Jessica said while Cole expanded. ‘The best we got was one neighbour at the other end of the street who thinks they saw the same person walk past their house three or four times in a short period. She was a little elderly and it could be the postman for all we know. Her description was fairly bland and didn’t really give us too much but they are going to work with the profilers today to get something onto the evening news. It does seem a long shot though.’

Someone made a crack that any picture without a gormless grin being on the front of tomorrow’s papers would be an improvement. Jessica made a mental note so she could give the joker something tedious to do when the jobs were given out. She had read the witness’s description and doubted there was anything in it but thought it perfectly summed up Cole himself, given the normality of it.

Cole continued. ‘We’ve set up a phone line for people to call in with information but we haven’t had anything yet, despite the media coverage.’

Neither the inspector nor Jessica had anything further to add, so Aylesbury told everyone there was going to be a press conference in the station at three in the afternoon and pressed the point they should all look busy. He sent them on their way with a slightly cheesy attempt at inspiring them into action. It was probably better than what Jessica could have managed, so she was grateful for it.

As the floor thinned out with various people being given their jobs for the week, Jessica waved Rowlands over and told him he was coming with her to the locksmith.

The two of them walked out to the car park at the back of the station. The morning had taken a lot longer than Jessica thought it would but at least things now seemed to be moving. She wished she had thought to bring a jacket to work, her trouser suit offering little resistance to the chilly spring breeze as they walked towards the car pool. Saturday’s warm weather seemed long gone and Rowlands must have taken one look at the morning’s grey skies and thought ahead as he was wearing a long trench coat to guard against the cold, while his hair was back to its full spikiness.

‘We’re not going in yours, are we?’ Rowlands said sarcastically as they reached the bank of vehicles.

Jessica grinned and shivered at the same time. ‘I’m not sure, we do need something to distract from your flasher’s mac.’

‘Careful with that smile, there might be a Herald photographer around.’

Jessica thought she might as well remind the locksmith who they were if he started looking at his watch too quickly so they took one of the marked police cars. She told Rowlands the address and said he could drive. Her mood was better than it had been in days but she still couldn’t be bothered with the other idiots on the road. Sometimes being in a marked car simply aggravated things. You could always tell the worst drivers; they were the ones who slammed on their brakes and pretended they were doing the speed limit the minute they saw you in their mirror.

The journey wouldn’t take very long but they had barely reached the bottom of the road when Jessica’s phone rang.

‘Will you change that bloody ringtone?’ Rowlands moaned as she fumbled in her bag for the device.

The caller was one of the other officers from the station. They had done some checking on the house’s previous owners. The couple that owned it before had emigrated to Canada when they moved out five years ago and were still living there.

‘Not a bad alibi,’ Jessica said to the caller. She hadn’t thought the previous occupiers would be a serious avenue to explore but also hadn’t reckoned another lead would fall through quite so quickly.

She hung up and turned to Rowlands. ‘Perhaps we should see if that TV magician has an alibi after all?’

8

The locksmith’s white van with company branding was parked on his drive, making the house Rowlands and Jessica were looking for easily identifiable. Just to fit the stereotype, he even had a red-top tabloid flopped across the dashboard as they walked around it to get to the front door. The man invited them in and offered to make some tea. Jessica never really drank hot drinks when she was younger but when you joined the force it became almost inescapable. Every time you went to a house to interview someone you were offered one and whenever you were on a training course you would have tea shoved down your throat at every opportunity.

One of Harry’s favourite places to get himself out of the station, aside from the pub, was a cafe which refused to serve coffee. On questioning this, the owner had told Jessica: ‘This is England, we drink tea. The French drink coffee.’ She didn’t really get that statement then or now. Even when you were at your desk in the station, whoever you were sitting next to seemed to ask at least once every hour or so if you fancied a tea from the machine. Whether what the machine spewed out could be classed as ‘tea’ was another issue, of course. She would love to get forensics involved in that particular investigation.

After their phone call, Jessica thought it would be a quick ten-minute trip where the locksmith would want them back out the door as soon as possible. But, far from keeping an eye on his watch, he actually seemed to enjoy showing off his knowledge. He talked about multipoint locks, five-lever dead locks, security hinges, double-locking handles and all types of other things that generally washed over the two of them. Rowlands wrote it all down but he might as well have written down ‘super special double-locking lock locks that can’t be opened, not even with special fairy dust’ for all the use it was to Jessica.

‘Could someone pick this type of lock?’ Jessica asked.

The guy rocked back in his chair, almost spilling the cup of tea he was cradling, and laughed as if she had just told a particularly funny joke no one else got. ‘You’ve been watching too much TV, love.’

She forced Rowlands to ask about a skeleton key, although that brought even more laughter. The locksmith’s point was pretty clear – as long as they had been fitted correctly, it was more or less impossible to break through double-glazed doors and windows that were secured.

Aside from the fact their visit hadn’t really got them anywhere, being called ‘love’ was the final straw for Jessica. They said their goodbyes and set off back to the station, Rowlands clearly trying to suppress a smirk at the term of affection she had been called.

The desk sergeant pulled Jessica to one side as soon as they arrived back at Longsight. ‘Has anyone told you about what’s happened in court this morning?’

She hadn’t forgotten that Harry’s case was beginning that day; it had been in the back of her mind all morning. With so much going on, and the fact Harry was still ignoring her, there didn’t seem much she could do. She was supposed to be acting as a prosecution character witness at some point during the proceedings. It was booked into her schedule that she would appear but she wasn’t completely sure when that would be. Most cases were allocated a set number of days or weeks for a trial and both sides had a rough idea what the order would be. Witnesses had to be booked in, whether civilian or professional, but there could sometimes be a day or two’s leeway.

‘No, I’ve been out,’ Jessica replied.

‘Harry hasn’t turned up. They’ve delayed selecting the jury for now but, if it goes on much longer, the case is in danger of being dismissed. Apparently they can get through the first day or two without him as they have all the photos and the knife and so on but, after that, if there’s no Harry they don’t really have a case.’

Jessica sighed and cursed under her breath.

‘We’ve sent uniform around to knock on his door but there’s no answer. His phone’s off too so no one knows where he is,’ the desk sergeant added.

‘That lawyer guy is going to be furious.’

Jessica had met with the prosecutor heading up the Crown’s case on a couple of occasions. First he had come to her to ask what she could offer as a character witness for his side, and then he had returned not too long ago to give her examples of the types of question he would ask her in court. All officers were trained in regards to court procedure but this was a case the CPS really wanted to win. They knew Peter Hunt would be claiming Harry was an alcoholic who had started some sort of fight where Tom Carpenter had defended himself against a violent drunk.

Jessica didn’t have to lie to refute that. Harry did drink, sometimes more than he could handle, but she had never seen him get aggressive with it. In fact the opposite was true. He would calm down significantly and start to tell his stories. He was full of tales from the ‘old days’. Some of them weren’t very politically correct and certainly not in keeping with the modern police force but he certainly knew how to tell a good anecdote.

That was what she would say on the stand; he was a good man and, though she hadn’t been present, she didn’t believe he was the type of person to instigate something that would end up with him being stabbed. None of that would matter if they couldn’t get Harry himself to court.

‘Hunt can’t believe his luck, of course,’ the sergeant added. ‘The guy I spoke to reckons he’s had a huge grin on him all morning. He’s been swanning around like it’s already in the bag.’

‘Great. Any other good news?’

‘The computer system is down again.’

‘Again? What’s happened this time, did someone stop feeding the hamster?’

‘The what?’

‘Y’know, giant hamster wheel, powering the station . . . ? All right, forget it.’ Her humour was obviously far too advanced for the likes of her colleagues. ‘Is the DCI around?’

‘Getting ready for the press conference, of course.’

A few years ago, somebody had decided the force wasn’t open enough to the general public. They wanted the police to be far friendlier with the media, who would in turn get across a better positive message on their behalf to the general public. To do this, some of the ground-floor offices had been knocked through, repainted and reassigned as an area where they could host press conferences, or bring select members of the media in for cosy briefings.

The major problem had been that, for some reason, that same person had called the new room the ‘Longsight Press Pad’. No one really knew what the name was supposed to mean and anyone with any sense would have just called it a media or press room. Even the journalists thought it was ridiculous and, given the negative reaction, the whole initiative had been swiftly forgotten with the police effectively given the green light to go back to treating journalists with the contempt most of them thought they deserved.

Despite that the name had stuck, almost as a badge to remind people not to be so stupid in the future. The Pad was almost full that afternoon, Aylesbury sitting in the middle of a table at the front with the Greater Manchester Police branding across the wall behind him. Cole was on his right, with Jessica sitting on his left. Jessica was sweating and thought that whoever had named the room should have spent more time getting air-conditioning installed and less time coming up with a ludicrous title for it.

There were three local television cameras on tripods at the back of the room blocking the door. If there was a fire in the station they would all no doubt burn – but at least the cameras would have a good angle on it all. In front of them were around fifteen people, some journalists and some seemingly technical people to deal with the audio and visual quality. Jessica recognised a couple of the faces; one or two she had watched on the local television news and another female print journalist she had seen a few times over the years.

In the past, she had never really had cause to speak to the media because there was always someone above her to do the talking. That fact hadn’t even crossed her mind as they had spoken about doing the press conference that morning. She didn’t really get nervous but might have dressed up a bit if she had known she was going to be on TV. Before she had gone in, one of the uniformed female officers had given her a trick about wearing extra eye make-up to look more ‘serious’ on camera. Jessica thought the implication was really that she would look more ‘awake’ on camera but had taken the advice with a quick trip to the toilets before entering the room. Regardless of her efforts, Aylesbury was wearing enough make-up for the three of them.

One face she did make a special point of looking out for was Garry Ashford. She didn’t know what he looked like but, as everyone assembled in front of them, she had started to narrow down her list of suspects. She had ruled out the females and the older male journalist who she had seen on TV. There were a couple of technical-type people, which left her with three possible options for who this Ashford character could be.

First was a grossly overweight bloke sitting in the front row. She had never seen him before but he looked as if he was in his early forties. He had short patchy black hair and blotched skin on his face. He was talking to a much younger female journalist next to him who didn’t seem too interested in making conversation.

Second was a guy in his late twenties or possibly early thirties. He was tall, good-looking and seemed far too sharply dressed to be a journalist. He had nicely styled brown hair and certainly stood out in the room. He was in the second row of seats, sitting behind the station’s press officer, already writing in his notepad and seeming attentive. If this was Garry Ashford, she might just about feel guilty about kicking his arse considering how good-looking he was.

Suspect number three was sitting at the back and had barely looked up since Jessica had started watching him. He was young, maybe mid-twenties, and had shoulder-length scruffy black hair which stood out against his pasty white skin. She stared closely at him and noticed he was wearing a brown tweed-like jacket with elbow patches.

Who the hell was this guy? Tweed? Elbow patches?

He had that kind of look some people seemed to think made them look like a quirky rock star, or tortured writer. It didn’t; it made them look like dicks.

As she compared all three ‘Garry Ashfords’, Jessica hoped this guy was the real one. She would actually enjoy bullying him.

Aylesbury opened the conference, introducing himself and the other two officers and welcoming everyone present. Without naming names, he criticised ‘uninformed reporting’ and said that any leaks should be properly checked with the station’s press office. After telling the assembled media off, he then effectively confirmed that every detail already reported by the Herald was true.

Each journalist had been given a pack with the photos and details the force was happy to release. It included the phone number members of the public should call if they had any information, as well as the sketch based on the person the neighbour had seen walking past the victim’s house a few times the previous weekend. That had only arrived moments before the briefing had begun but the assembled media had been assured they could download a better-quality version from the force’s website. Jessica had seen the sketch itself and didn’t expect any useful leads. It looked so plain it could really be anyone. Whoever was manning the phone lines the following day would have a lot of useless information to wade through, she thought.

The media were told that Yvonne Christensen’s husband and son had helped the inquiry but were not suspects and the point was reinforced that the public should feel safe. Aylesbury made a special instance of looking into the camera to emphasise his words and enforce that point as if he was making an Academy Award acceptance speech.

After that he opened the floor to questions. Most of what was asked was simply going over what was already known. The first question came from the obese man at the front, who immediately ruled himself out of Jessica’s list of suspects by saying, ‘Paul Davies, Bury Citizen,’ before asking something particularly bland.