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

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

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Текущая страница: 40 (всего у книги 60 страниц)

2

Jessica peered down at the officers in front of her, waiting for one of her colleagues to speak. She was in Longsight Police Station’s incident room in the basement, standing on a slightly raised platform next to DI Reynolds and DCI Cole. On a giant whiteboard behind them was an enlarged photo of the hand that had been found as well as stills from the video footage. In front of them was a selection of officers, some in uniform, as well as other members of CID.

Cole was someone Jessica had a lot of respect for. Although she’d had differences with each of the previous two chief inspectors, she had worked closely with him when he had been an inspector. He had covered for her on numerous occasions and she trusted him implicitly. Her only concern about his promotion was that he knew her a little too well. As an inspector he had given her a little leeway in the way she acted but Jessica wasn’t convinced the same would apply now he had more responsibility.

It was Cole who opened the briefing. ‘Following yesterday’s discovery, I know we have some quite serious business to go over but, before any of that, I’d like to welcome a new member to our team.’ He indicated for a woman near the front to come and stand next to him on the stage. Jessica had met her the previous week but it was the new person’s first official day in the job.

As the woman reached the front, Cole continued, ‘It’s unfortunate the way timings have worked out but Louise Cornish will be taking the sergeant role vacated by DI Reynolds. She’s new to the area so be nice. I’ve already filled her in about which ones of you are the troublemakers.’ He pointed at a couple of the officers in front of him to a mixture of laughs, cheers and boos.

Jessica didn’t know much about DS Cornish but was aware she had asked for a transfer to the area from somewhere around the Midlands, and that she was married with children. The sergeant was somewhere in her mid-forties and had short brown hair that was swept backwards. If Jessica had had to give one word to sum the new recruit up, it would have been ‘mumsy’, harshly thinking the woman had a shape that looked as if she’d had children but hadn’t lost all of the weight.

Cole continued to speak after the shouts had quietened down. ‘I’m positive you’ll all get to know DS Cornish in time but, for now, let’s crack on. A severed hand was found on the edge of Piccadilly Gardens yesterday morning.’ He pointed behind him at the enlarged images from the CCTV cameras. ‘These are the best images we have of the person who left it. As far as we can tell it is a white woman who is around five foot six or so. As you can see, there isn’t an awful lot to go on.’

He looked towards Jessica, raising his eyebrows. She took the hint, explaining they were pretty sure the person had scouted the location and was most likely local to the area, given their apparent knowledge of the camera positions.

Reynolds spoke next. ‘We spent large parts of yesterday compiling a list of murder victims around the country who had been found with only one hand. There weren’t many and nothing matched the right hand we discovered so we moved on to lists of missing people. Obviously this was pretty long to start with, even just locals, but we had some initial lab results through yesterday evening that helped narrow things down. We now know the hand came from a man likely in his late twenties or early thirties. Aside from indications it had been frozen before being left, we don’t really have much else to go on in terms of who it came from. There are almost sixty names of men between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five from this area who have been reported missing in the past twelve months. The only way of matching anyone from that list to the actual hand is by contacting one of their family members and asking for a swab so we can test the DNA. For now, this seems pretty impractical and an enormous drain on resources so we’re going to go through the media first.’

Cole picked up again, strolling across the stage and then walking back to his original position. ‘Our labs are still doing tests and we might get more results at some point today or tomorrow. From the camera stills, you can see the hooded person who dropped it was wearing gloves, so we’re not expecting any fingerprints. Given the planning that seems to have gone into the choice of location, I don’t think any of us are expecting much more in the way of evidence we can work with from forensics. As Jason said, we don’t have the resources to contact family members of all those missing people at the moment. It would be a long shot anyway, given we would be assuming it belongs to someone local who has been reported missing. For now we’re going to release these stills to the media and ask for a hand . . .’

He was cut off as the assembled officers collectively started to laugh.

He raised his voice to talk over them. ‘All right, all right. You know what I mean. We don’t have a clear facial image but perhaps someone will recognise something about the outfit? I’ve already been in contact with someone from the BBC and they think it will make it onto the local news this lunchtime. The press office are drafting a full release that can go to the others.’ He paused and looked at Jessica and Reynolds to see if they had anything to add. When it was clear they didn’t, he spoke again. ‘Does anyone have any ideas?’

Jessica knew some of the best leads they’d had over the years had come because of random suggestions from officers in briefings such as this. Some senior detectives would prefer ideas to be brought to them in private so they could take partial credit but Cole wasn’t one for pecking orders. As it was, everyone seemed as baffled as they were. There were a few questions about the finger that was missing from the hand and a couple of thoughts about what could have happened to the rest of the body – and whether the person it came from was still alive – but no one really knew anything.

When the ideas had dried up, Cole shushed everyone and spoke again. ‘I have to remind you about the community engagement programme.’ He stopped as a groan sounded from the floor. Jessica wanted to join in but just about stopped herself. ‘All right, calm down. Don’t shoot the messenger. This has come from a lot higher up than me. I know there have been a few emails going around but, with the summer upon us, things are about to move fully into action. Essentially the idea is for us to get more involved with local projects in order to portray us all in a better light.’

There were more complaints from the floor as the DCI struggled to speak over the top of people. He eventually stopped, standing with his hands on his hips waiting for people to quieten down. He reminded Jessica of an old geography teacher she’d had who would stand and wait for silence. Her class had once wasted twenty-five minutes of a lesson as the teacher did nothing but glare at them in silence from the front of the room.

Finally the chatter dropped and the chief inspector continued. ‘As I was saying, the idea is to place us more centrally in the community. Before the schools break up we will be attending a couple of careers days to talk to the students. There’s also a summer fete-type event where we’ll have a stall and be available for people to chat to, plus we’re upping the number of community meetings we hold. There’s a volunteers sheet outside my office so if anyone wants to get involved then put yourself down. If there aren’t enough people interested, I’m going to have to assign people myself.’ As more complaints sounded out, he finally lost his temper, raising his voice. ‘All right, shut up. The next person to speak instantly gets volunteered for everything.’ He paused, lowering his voice. ‘I know it’s not ideal but it might not be a bad idea, given the publicity we’ve had in recent years. Now stop moaning and wait for your jobs.’

Jessica could think of a few stories in the local press over the past two years that hadn’t exactly painted them in a good light. She had no intentions of signing up for anything but wasn’t convinced anyone else would either, given the apathy around the room. With her position there was every chance Cole would tell her to get involved whether she wanted to or not. It wasn’t that she was against the overall idea behind the policy but she wasn’t massively keen on associating with the general public at the best of times, let alone when she would have to act as some sort of representative.

The chief inspector divided people up into various teams and then sent everyone on their way. Jessica first went to help the press office but, after speaking to two different television stations, things had gone quiet. Her own office was on the ground floor near to the canteen. When she first moved in a couple of years before, DS Reynolds, as he was at the time, occupied it and had done for a while. After he moved into his own office a couple of months ago following his promotion, Jessica had enjoyed the large room to herself.

As she walked through the door, DS Cornish was in Reynolds’s old chair closest to the entrance. Jessica’s own desk was at the back of the room and, as usual, the items she was working on were scattered around the floor, the tops of filing cabinets and her own desk. Her messiness was well-known and ridiculed around the station.

The woman was typing on her keyboard but quickly stood as Jessica opened the door. She turned to face Jessica, speaking quickly and offering her hand. ‘Hi, it’s DS Daniel, isn’t it? I hope this is okay? The chief inspector told me this would be my new office and the desk was free.’

Jessica shook her hand. ‘It’s fine but call me Jess. I’m not big on formalities.’ She could see the sergeant had already made her mark. There were family photos placed in perfect rows on the desk and the keyboard and monitor had been moved so they were exactly perpendicular to the edge of the table itself.

The woman was wearing glasses, which she hadn’t been earlier, but took them off and placed them on the desk. ‘Nice to meet you, Jess, I’m Louise.’

Jessica walked across to her side of the room and shoved a stack of folders away from her keyboard, trying not to knock anything onto the floor, then sat down. ‘It’s not always as mad as this.’

Cornish laughed. ‘I’d hope not. I didn’t move up here for the quiet life but I wasn’t expecting something like this on my first day.’

Jessica turned around to face her office mate. ‘Where did you come from?’

Cornish was watching her closely. ‘My husband James originally came from around here but we had been living in the Coventry area for almost ten years. I was a DS there but James’s father has been really ill over the past few years. We’ve got two kids and we both wanted them to get to know their grandfather before he gets too sick. I put in for a transfer over a year ago but it’s taken this long for things to work out.’

‘How old are your children?’

‘Nine and five. James looks after them while I go to work.’

Jessica realised she must have inadvertently pulled some sort of face because the woman instantly defended herself.

‘It was his decision . . .’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean anything.’

The sergeant looked away, clearly annoyed, leaving Jessica to feel uncomfortable. Her reaction wasn’t deliberate but she realised how offensive it could have seemed. She didn’t have any strong feelings about child-rearing but there weren’t too many female officers who worked while their partners stayed at home with the children and the situation had caught her off-guard.

Cornish started typing on her keyboard and Jessica knew there wasn’t much more she could add. Within a couple of minutes of properly meeting her new office mate for the first time, she had put her foot in it.

Jessica turned back to her computer and logged into the system, bringing up the Internet browser and loading a couple of news websites. The ones she looked at were already running the still of the woman in black along with their contact number – a good sign – while the first TV news stories should have been aired within the past half-hour or so.

As she read, Jessica could sense a tense atmosphere in the office, the silence only broken by the tapping of keys on the two women’s respective keyboards, the odd click of a mouse and a faint hum of activity from elsewhere in the station.

Jessica logged out and stood. ‘I’m off to the press office if anyone comes looking for me,’ she said. Cornish nodded, mumbling an acknowledgement as Jessica left the room.

On the station’s basement level was the main incident room, some general-use computer terminals, the cells and a few private rooms for lawyers and others. The ground floor was where the main reception area was, as well as the senior officers’ offices. Jessica and Cornish’s was near the canteen, with Reynolds’s just down the hallway. The interview rooms and other private meeting areas were also on the floor along with the press office, Human Resources department and separate press conference room. Upstairs was Cole’s office as well as rooms visiting officers could use and a vast storage area.

As she made her way along the corridor, Jessica could hear a woman’s raised voice coming from the reception area. It wasn’t necessarily a surprise as most days involved at least one person getting angry in their entrance. Often it was someone with a relative that had been arrested who wanted information or sometimes it was just a person who had been picked up for being drunk and was about to be stuck in a cell for a few hours to sober up. Jessica couldn’t hear anything specific but had to walk through reception to get to the press department.

As she moved, she tried not to catch the desk sergeant’s eye but he called her name out. ‘DS Daniel here might be able to assist you . . .’

Jessica looked at the officer as if to offer a sarcastic ‘thanks’ and then walked across to the woman who was next to the main reception desk. She was red in the face and looked somewhere between upset and angry. She was in her fifties, short with greying shoulder-length brown hair and wearing clothes that were far too tight for her. Jessica offered a thin smile in an effort to partially placate her. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘I’ve been trying to get someone to listen to me,’ she replied with a sigh. ‘I drove straight here after watching the lunchtime news. I know who your woman in black is.’

3

Jessica’s first thought was that the media had only been given a telephone number to pass on, not the address of the station. She guessed the reason the desk sergeant hadn’t immediately contacted either her or Reynolds was because he was trying to figure out if the woman was genuine or another in a long line of attention-seekers.

‘How did you know to come here, rather than call?’ Jessica asked.

‘I didn’t really,’ the woman stammered. ‘This is where I came when my son first went missing. I’ve been in a few times since but there are never any updates. When I saw the news today, I knew what had happened.’

Jessica tried not to appear too puzzled. ‘Okay, right. Do you want to follow me to a more private place?’ She turned and led the woman down a hallway towards one of the station’s meeting rooms. It was where they let witnesses who weren’t suspects sit before they were formally interviewed. Sometimes family members would be allowed to wait in the area. Jessica still wasn’t convinced the woman would have any useful information so wanted to talk to her first before deciding whether they would need to take a full statement.

The room was bright because of the overhead strip light but, despite the heat outside, it felt cold. Jessica opened the door and could hear the air-conditioning unit overhead working noisily. She tried not to shiver and offered the woman a seat. ‘Do you want a cup of tea or something?’ she asked.

‘No, I just want someone to listen to me.’

Jessica nodded, closed the door behind them and sat opposite the woman. ‘What’s your name?’

‘I’m Vicky Barnes, my son is Lewis and I think it’s his girlfriend January who’s your woman in black.’

‘Why do you believe that?’

The woman spoke quickly. ‘Lewis went missing around a month ago. He used to phone or text me every day but I’ve not heard from him. I went around to the flat they shared but January at first told me he was out. Then she changed her mind a few days later and said she hadn’t seen him either. I reported him missing to you lot but no one’s done anything. I always knew that druggie bitch was involved and then I saw her on the news in that cloak thing of hers.’ Jessica saw the woman’s bottom lip start to tremble. The last few words were barely audible. ‘Oh God, does this mean . . . ?’

With the reports talking about a severed hand being found, it was a fair assumption the woman would now be contemplating the fact her son could be dead.

‘Mrs Barnes?’ Jessica put a hand on the woman’s shoulder.

There were a few tears running down her face but she was fighting to stay in control. ‘Yes?’

‘Why do you think the person in the black cloak is your son’s girlfriend?’

Vicky was trying to compose herself. ‘On the news they said the hand belonged to someone between twenty-five and thirty-five. Lewis is exactly thirty. January’s one of these Goth-weirdo types with long black hair and all that. She’s always wearing a hooded top thing that’s exactly like the one that was on the news. When Lewis went missing I just knew it was her.’

Jessica could see the woman was beginning to get angry again. ‘Mrs Barnes, what I’m going to do is ask an officer to come and sit with you for a bit. I’m going to check our files to see what we have on your son Lewis and his partner. Then I’ll come back and we’ll take a formal statement. Is that okay?’

The woman took a tissue out from the bag she was carrying and blew her nose. ‘Yes, thank you.’

‘Can you tell me the full name of your son’s girlfriend?’

‘It’s January Forrester.’

Jessica also took the couple’s address and was about to leave the room when the woman called her back. ‘Sorry, I forgot. Look, I brought this to show you.’ She reached into her bag and took out a photograph, holding it out for Jessica to take. It was a picture of a young woman in heavy make-up clinging to the arm of a man. She was wearing a long black robe with a hood that looked a lot like the one from the footage. It was even the same length, the bottom ending just above the woman’s ankles. Both people were smiling widely and it seemed as if they were in a park of some sorts.

‘Is this Lewis and January?’

‘Yes.’

After arranging for a uniformed officer to sit with the woman, Jessica returned to her office. Cornish was sitting in exactly the same place she had been when Jessica left and didn’t move to acknowledge her colleague’s re-entry. Jessica sat at her desk and logged back into the system, muttering ‘come on’ under her breath as the computer took its time. Eventually she got through to the area she wanted and searched for ‘Lewis Barnes’. Everything his mother had told her was true – she had reported him missing in person four weeks ago to the day. From what Jessica could see, aside from the name being logged, very little else had been done other than someone scanning a photo into the system which had been uploaded onto the force’s website.

She closed the record and searched for ‘January Forrester’. The woman was twenty-six and had a criminal record. Jessica could see there were two thefts when she was still a teenager, a drunk and disorderly from two years previously and then, twice within the past year, charges of domestic violence that had been dropped before getting to court. Both incidents involved her hitting or scratching Lewis. From experience Jessica knew a lot of domestic violence cases never got as far as court whether it was a man hitting a woman, as most people would think, or the other way around.

Some people wanted to forget it had happened and went back to their partners, others were keen to move on with their lives away from the attacker. A few would take things as far as they could legally but, even with protection of witness programmes and being able to give evidence behind a screen in court, those were still the minority. Jessica was surprised no one had cross-referenced the missing persons report with the fact Lewis’s girlfriend had recent charges for domestic violence but things like that did sometimes slip through the net.

Jessica again turned the computer off and left the room to tell Reynolds what had happened. At the absolute least she thought they could bring January in for questioning and take a mouth swab from Mrs Barnes that would be tested to see if the hand belonged to her son.

The inspector wasn’t in his office so Jessica walked back through to reception where the desk sergeant pointed her towards Cole’s office. She made her way upstairs and instantly saw both the DI and DCI in conversation through the glass windows of the chief inspector’s room. As Cole noticed her, he waved her in. Jessica sat next to Reynolds across the desk from their boss. She started to tell him what had happened but didn’t get the chance as he spoke first.

‘I was about to come get you. Have you seen the news?’

‘The woman in black stills?’

Cole sounded concerned. ‘Not that. It’s George Johnson.’

‘The MP George Johnson? What about him?’

‘Yes, the Member of Parliament – his wife has gone missing. It’s the top story on the breaking news channels.’

‘Why didn’t we hear about this before?’

Reynolds answered. ‘He’s friends with the superintendent and went straight to him. It’s only just filtered down to us but he spoke to the cameras before anyone took a proper statement. The news crews are outside his house now and have started phoning here but we don’t have anything to tell them because we didn’t know ourselves until twenty minutes ago. We don’t even know how long she’s been gone or if they were separated or anything.’

‘Where does he live?’ Jessica knew he was the MP for the Gorton constituency which covered the Longsight station where they were based but that didn’t mean he lived in the area. Even if he was their representative, it wouldn’t be their case if he resided elsewhere.

Her hopes were instantly dashed as Cole spoke. ‘You know those giant houses on the edge of Platt Fields Park set back from the main road?’

‘Bollocks, so it’s ours then?’ Jessica replied.

‘I wouldn’t have put it quite like that but yes.’

In the years they had worked together, Jessica had never heard the DCI swear and rarely known him to raise his voice or shout. The incident in the briefing that morning was one of a single-digit number of times he had even looked like he might lose his temper when she had been around.

With the news about George Johnson’s missing wife, Jessica had almost forgotten why she had come upstairs in the first place. It came to her just as the chief inspector was about to start speaking. ‘Sorry, I remembered why I was here. A woman walked into reception, claiming she knows who our woman in black is. She says her son went missing a month ago and that his girlfriend has an identical cloak.’

Jessica took the photo out of her jacket pocket and slid it across the desk. Cole picked it up and looked at it then turned it around for Reynolds to see. ‘Do you think she’s genuine?’

‘I have no idea but the son’s girlfriend has a record for DV. It’s probably worth bringing her in to speak to and taking a sample from the mother to see if the hand really does belong to her son.’

Cole leant back, exhaling loudly. ‘You’re probably right but Superintendent Aylesbury is obviously very keen on us at least trying to find Johnson’s wife.’ He paused, thinking through his options.

Detective Superintendent William Aylesbury had been the DCI at the station until a year and a half ago. Jessica hadn’t always got on with him but had just begun to see how good he was at his job when he had been promoted to the higher position. It meant he was no longer based at their station, instead overseeing the whole district.

The chief inspector leant forward in his chair. ‘Okay. Jason, can you go and deal with Mr Johnson? Take Louise with you and it will at least look like we’ve got two senior people working on things. Jessica, pick a constable or two and do what you have to. Take a sample from the woman downstairs and get it off to the labs before you do anything. Regardless of whatever’s in the girlfriend’s past, it’s pretty much irrelevant if the hand doesn’t belong to the woman’s son. After you’ve got that, go and bring the girl in. It can’t do any harm to talk to her, especially as we’ve got a missing person anyway.’

Jessica and Reynolds nodded in agreement before leaving. ‘I’m not sure who’s got the shortest straw here,’ the inspector said as they walked down the stairs together.

‘Definitely you,’ Jessica replied. ‘While all the TV cameras are focused on what you’re up to I can just go about my business.’

They separated at the bottom and Jessica went to sort out the saliva sample from Mrs Barnes. After the woman’s swab had been passed on to the labs it was going to take until the morning at least before they knew whether the hand belonged to her son. Jessica told the woman one of the other officers would take a statement because they were going to pick up her son’s girlfriend. Usually they would have spoken to the mother properly beforehand but if January did turn out to be involved in some way, the news coverage could have spooked her and the last thing anyone wanted was for her to disappear. Jessica already had the basic facts as well as January’s criminal record, which at least gave them a reason to question her.

Mrs Barnes seemed delighted they were going to pick up her son’s girlfriend and Jessica had to make clear they weren’t arresting January, merely bringing her in so they could ask her questions about Lewis’s disappearance. She checked the address they had was still valid and then walked through to the main floor. The person she was looking for was at a desk by himself so she walked around out of his eye line, creeping behind before cuffing him across the rear of his head with the back of her hand.

‘Oi!’ he yelled.

‘All right, Dave. Fancy a road trip?’

Detective Constable David Rowlands spun in his chair, holding the back of his head. He had turned thirty just over six months ago and was a little delicate over it – especially as the string of girlfriends he’d had over the past few years had started to slow down. He liked to maintain an air of being young, free and single but Jessica wasn’t sure the last two were by choice any longer. She was an only child and considered Rowlands her best friend in the force, even if he was more of an annoying brother-type than any thing else. They had been good mates before but, if anything, had become even more so since the death of their colleague and friend Carrie Jones the previous year. Both of them had been close to her and, in some ways, hadn’t got over her death. Their way of coping was by constantly winding each other up. Regardless of that, Rowlands was one of the few colleagues Jessica was happy to spend time with away from the station.

‘What did you do that for?’ Rowlands said. At first he’d had an angry scowl on his face but, once he saw who it was that had hit him, it turned into an aggrieved grin.

‘I was just flattening down a sticky-out bit of hair for you.’

‘Is this because I signed you up for careers day duty?’

‘You did what?’

Rowlands seemed surprised, then his smile widened. ‘Oh, you hadn’t noticed?’

‘Did you really sign me up?’

‘Erm, maybe. You know the DCI would have sent you anyway. This way you come off looking positive about things. You should thank me.’

‘You do know you’ll never beat me in this escalating war. I outrank you so you sign me up for careers day, I get you to work your way through that giant pile of freedom of information requests no one else wants to do.’

‘Oh come on. That’s playing dirty. What did you want me for anyway?’

Jessica explained they were going to collect January Forrester for questioning but they weren’t going to arrest her. She chose two uniformed officers to go with them just in case and the four of them set off in two marked cars.

January lived in a flat above a row of shops in the Abbey Hey area. There were far worse districts in Manchester but, as they arrived, Jessica could see a grubby rank of stores with a dirty-looking and smelly pizza shop, a hairdressers and a convenience store. Each shop was separated by a single door leading to three upstairs flats. From what they could see, there was no back entrance to the properties, only loading areas for the shops.

Jessica rang the doorbell as Rowlands and the two other officers stood behind her. They had parked the cars in the alley which led to the delivery yard in order to not be too obvious.

There was no answer so Jessica rang and knocked again.

‘Did Lewis’s mother tell you if January worked?’ Rowlands asked.

‘She said she’d never known her have a job and that she was always in.’

‘It doesn’t bode well if she’s gone missing, especially with everything that’s been on the news.’

‘She could have just popped out to the shops.’

Jessica turned, leaning against the store’s window next to the front door. The other three officers were looking at her but Jessica saw a swish of long black hair out of the corner of her eye behind them. Someone had been walking towards where they were but quickly turned around. The person was moving quickly but not running. It was clearly a woman and, despite the ongoing June heat, she was wearing knee-length black leather boots with a short black dress. The woman reached the corner where the shops met the first house of a row and her head disappeared behind a hedge.

Jessica started walking quickly in the direction the woman had headed. ‘I think she was just here,’ she said as the three detectives followed her.

They got to the corner and could see the woman walking quickly away from them. As she moved, the girl turned and noticed the police officers, breaking into a run.