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

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

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Текущая страница: 43 (всего у книги 60 страниц)

7

Jessica’s heart sank. ‘What’s wrong?’

Izzy spoke confidently and fluently. ‘The man who’s missing is Ed Marks and it was his brother Charlie who reported it. Ed comes from around this area but, according to the notes we have, Charlie lives in London.’

Jessica knew the news wasn’t as bad as it could have been but it meant the chance of picking Charlie up and getting a swab off to the labs to potentially identify the first hand wasn’t going to happen that day.

‘It’s fine, Iz. That’s really great work. I’m on my way back now. Can you leave Charlie Marks’s details out for me and keep looking – there could be somebody else with a similar connection. I’ll call the brother when I get back and we’ll set him up to visit a police station near to him.’

Even if the man lived in London, he could give a DNA sample locally that the labs down south could process and send through.

As Jessica drove back to the station, she couldn’t help but be impressed by the almost ruthless efficiency of Izzy’s work. Some officers complained and stomped their feet when given tasks, others tried to delegate as much as they could, but the new recruit just got things done. Once again, Jessica found her colleague’s competence and attention to detail almost intimidating.

Back at Longsight, Jessica walked briskly through to her office. DS Cornish wasn’t at her desk and Jessica assumed she was out trying to track down Christine Johnson. Because of the intensity of her own case, she hadn’t been involved in the hunt for the missing MP’s wife but that seemed intriguing too.

On Jessica’s desk was a printout of Edward Marks’s missing persons report, which she read. The man’s brother Charlie did live in London. He had been unable to contact Ed on the phone and called the police to report him missing approximately a month ago. Give or take a day or two, he had disappeared at the same time as Lewis Barnes.

Jessica picked up the phone on her desk and called the contact number they had for Ed’s brother. The man answered on the second ring.

‘Hello, is that Charlie Marks?’ Jessica said.

‘Yes, who’s this?’ said a man’s voice.

‘My name is Detective Sergeant Jessica Daniel and I work for Manchester’s Metropolitan CID division . . .’

Before she could continue, the man cut in. ‘Have you found my brother?’

‘That’s what I’m calling about, we’re not sure. It’s a bit complicated.’ Jessica felt a little stuck because the first hand might not belong to Edward Marks and the fact he had been to the same school as Lewis Barnes and had gone missing at roughly the same time could be a coincidence. She didn’t want to jump in and tell Charlie they might have found his brother’s severed hand without having more to back it up.

‘I don’t want to say too much,’ she continued. ‘I wondered if you might be able to visit your local police station in the next day or two? If you tell me which one it is, I’ll make the arrangements so you can just go in and out.’

‘Why do you want me to do that?’

Jessica sighed. ‘I don’t want to talk out of turn but we’d like to take a mouth swab from you. It gives us DNA we can check . . .’

The man cut her off mid-sentence again. ‘Have you found a body?’

Jessica tried to keep her voice as level as possible. ‘Mr Marks, I know this is hard but I don’t want to tell you things that could end up not being true. I promise that, if you can work with me, I’ll tell you everything once we’ve tested your sample. I’m aware you don’t know who I am but if you can trust me on this it will be better for everyone.’

Charlie’s voice had been a little high-pitched throughout the conversation but the tone lowered slightly as he replied. ‘Okay but I’m actually in the process of moving back to Manchester. It’s been on the cards for a while. I’ve been selling off the bigger items I own down here and just have a few suitcases now. I’m catching a train in the morning and that’s it, I’ll be back in the north permanently.’

Jessica felt lost for words, stumbling over her reply. ‘Right . . . um, would you like us to pick you up from the train station?’

‘Have you moved into taxi services now?’ The man gave a nervous-sounding laugh as he spoke.

‘No, I just meant we could . . .’

For a third time, he cut her off. ‘No, it’s okay, I know. I think I would rather drop my cases off if that’s all right. It’s an early train anyway. If you tell me where your station is, I’ll be there by lunchtime.’

Jessica had little choice but to accept; it wasn’t as if he was under arrest, he was helping them out. ‘Yes that’s fine, just ask for me on reception.’

Charlie asked her to send him a text message with the address of the station so he had a record he could look at, rather than something verbal. She tried not to use her personal mobile phone for police business but sometimes it was unavoidable, especially as the force consistently seemed to be a few years behind the real world when it came to technology.

Almost a day later and Jessica was sitting back at her desk. Things hadn’t moved on since the identification of the second hand. Izzy and Dave were both trying to find a second link from Lewis Barnes to anyone else on their missing persons list. So far no other names had matched. Meanwhile, there had been no sign of January Forrester. She hadn’t returned to her flat the previous day and there had been no sightings of her. It didn’t help that even the local television channels and newspapers were fully focused on Christine Johnson. If it wasn’t for that, the press office might have been able to push to get January’s photo somewhere high up the news bulletins or near the front of the papers. As it was, the search for her was barely mentioned. January’s photo had been put on the force’s website and posted on social media networks but Jessica knew hardly anyone looked at those. She had once jokingly suggested in a meeting a few months ago that the best way to get the public to visit their website was to have a pornographic image at the top of each page. The idea hadn’t been warmly received.

If that wasn’t enough failure for one twenty-four hour period, the Scene of Crime team hadn’t found the black cape at January’s flat and had come away with little other than the slice of linoleum which might have a blood stain on it. Jessica spoke to one of the scientists the previous evening but they told her it would be hard to get a solid match given someone had tried to clean it and it would have likely been walked on many times since. If they could get something conclusive from the cutting, it wouldn’t be in a hurry.

Jessica was contemplating the state of everything when the officer on reception phoned to tell her Charlie Marks had arrived. At the front desk, a man she didn’t recognise was standing to one side, nervously moving from one foot to the other. He wasn’t very tall but his frame was lean and tight, as if it were mainly muscle with little fat. The mini heatwave was somehow still lasting and Jessica thought the checked shorts and T-shirt he was wearing looked a lot more comfortable than the suit she was in. He had short sandy hair that was tousled in a just-got-out-of-bed way some men seemed to prefer. Because of the shade, she couldn’t tell if it was bleached or his natural colour.

She held her hand out for him to shake. ‘Are you Charlie?’

‘Yes. Detective Daniel?’

The two shook hands and Jessica asked if she could take the swab. He had no objections and she passed the sample to an officer who would arrange for it to be taken across the city to the laboratories to be tested. Because Jessica had known a day ago they would be getting the saliva, she had already spoken to one of the scientists to tell them to expect it. With the first hand having already been tested, the person assured her it wouldn’t take very long for Charlie’s DNA to be compared to it.

Charlie was standing around looking a little lost and Jessica felt bad about bringing him in for something that had taken just a few moments. As with Vicky Barnes, she figured she could at least get as much information as possible from him to go with the missing persons file. Even if it turned out the first hand didn’t belong to the man’s brother, at least she would have done something.

Jessica invited him through to her office. With Louise seeming to be constantly out of the station, it seemed as good a place as any. Jessica wheeled the absent sergeant’s chair around to the other side of her desk, offering it to her guest, before moving a few stacks of paper from her table so they could see each other. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ she asked. ‘It’s only from the machine and tastes a bit like washing-up liquid but I’ll go get you one.’

‘Were you a salesperson before you took this job?’ Charlie replied, smiling.

Jessica grinned back. ‘Yeah but I only sold coffee.’

‘I think I’ll be all right, it’s too warm for a hot drink anyway.’

She fully agreed but could never hear anyone saying that without thinking of her mother claiming a hot drink was the best thing to rehydrate you on a warm day. It sounded suspiciously made up but she had never bothered to look into it to know for sure.

Jessica rarely took notes herself nowadays, which was something that came with seniority. She hunted through the drawers of her desk to find a notepad and a pen and, for the first time in a while, started to write.

‘I’ve read the report about your brother’s disappearance but I was hoping you could tell me a bit more about it. When exactly did he go missing?’

Charlie shrugged slightly. ‘I’m not sure. Obviously I’ve been living down south and he’s been up here. We’ve only been back talking regularly recently and even then not more than once or twice a week. It was only when I’d not been able to reach him for a couple of weeks that I got in touch with you.’

‘Why have you only recently been back in regular contact?’

Jessica thought she saw Charlie shiver a little but it was likely because of the air-conditioning unit buzzing away over his head and the fact he was dressed for a summer’s day.

The man sighed, looking at the floor. ‘We had a big falling out and didn’t speak for something like five years. He got in contact a few months ago and it was only after that we started talking again. Things were going well and it’s partly why I was moving back here.’

Jessica could see he was looking a little upset but trying not to show it. ‘What did you fall out about?’ She knew the answer was likely one of two things – a woman or money.

Charlie hesitated for a moment before replying. ‘Our mother died when we were young but our dad passed away five years back. He raised Ed and me on his own. I’m the oldest by eighteen months and I guess I thought what he left would be shared out between us. Back then I had been working around the country but Ed had been looking after Dad as he was getting ill. It turned out Dad left the house and pretty much everything else to him. Ed said he’d earned things by being a full-time carer while I had gone off to pursue a career. There was this big row not long after the funeral and that was it – I went to London while he stayed here.’

Jessica had heard similar stories many times before. There was nothing quite like a will to get families falling out.

‘Is it just you two?’

‘Yes, we don’t have any other family. I suppose it’s why the disappearance is so hard to take. We had just made things up after all this time and then he’s gone.’

Jessica could see he was looking a little emotional. ‘Is all of this why you were moving back?’

Charlie nodded. ‘Sort of. I was looking for a new job anyway. I work in publishing but wasn’t enjoying it any more. It was more going through the motions and getting paid each month. Ed was an artist and the one with real talent. He phoned my office out of the blue three or four months ago. I didn’t know how he got my number at first but he said he had looked me up on the Internet and found my name on the company’s website.’

‘Did you actually meet or just talk on the phone?’

‘We met once. He came down to see me and gave me a key for the house, saying I was welcome any time. Eventually, with that and the fact I was after a new job anyway, I decided to move back. Ed lived in our house – Dad’s house – ever since he passed away. He told me he wanted to sign half of it over to me and that I could come and live with him. I didn’t know if I wanted it to be a permanent thing. The place is massive out Alderley Edge way but I think I’ve got a taste for city centres after living in London.’

Jessica knew the type of houses he was talking about. The area was just across the Cheshire border on the south of the city with many properties belonging to famous footballers and other celebrities. Even the smaller houses were enormous and, given the money involved, she could see why one brother had been so aggrieved at being written out of the will.

‘What did your father do?’ she asked.

Charlie knew what she was getting at. ‘Oh, the house? We weren’t rich or anything, it’s complicated. Our mum died because of a medical mistake and our dad got a large payout; that’s why he had a house in that area. Apart from the gardens, I don’t think he ever really liked it. He was more hands-on and worked as a gas-fitter before that. With all that money he took up gardening and that was pretty much his only pleasure. I think the money just depressed him. Given the choice between that and Mum, he would have picked her every time.’

Jessica could see a picture of a very complicated family life emerging. She picked up the missing persons file that was still on her desk and read the address out. ‘Is that where you’re going to be living now?’

Charlie rubbed the stubble on his chin as he nodded. ‘I guess. It’s not as if I have anywhere else to go. I was only renting down south and the furniture was all theirs. I had a few bits to sell off but everything I arrived with this morning is all I have.’

Jessica felt an idea forming. ‘Did your brother ever sign the other half of the house over to you?’

‘No, he was going to do it when I moved back. I don’t know what’s going to happen now.’

Jessica had a reasonable inkling. It would probably take a while to go through the legal hoops considering Ed was missing, not confirmed dead, but the house would eventually become Charlie’s in its entirety. Given the earlier rivalry between them, she wondered if the wounds hadn’t entirely healed – people had killed for less in the past. If the test result on the first hand didn’t come back as a match, it might be worth looking into the circumstances regarding Ed’s disappearance and any possible connection to his brother. If Charlie’s swab did show the first hand belonged to his brother though, it could give them a lead, albeit one with many unanswered questions.

There had been a brief pause in the conversation and Charlie spoke next. ‘Can you tell me what you needed a sample for? Do you think he’s . . . ?’

He didn’t finish the sentence but Jessica didn’t jump in too quickly, watching him closely to see if there was any reaction she wouldn’t expect. Charlie looked a little upset. His eyes were slightly red and he had his arms crossed tightly. Jessica figured she was going to end up telling him one way or the other within the next few days, so informed him about the hand they had found. She left out the woman in black – if he wanted to check the news, he could find that out for himself.

‘So you think the hand could be Ed’s?’ Charlie asked.

‘We don’t know. Your sample will help us find out one way or the other.’

‘Why do you think it might be his?’

Jessica didn’t give the full details but said someone he previously went to college with had also been missing and it was a shot in the dark. Charlie nodded along.

‘Can I give you a couple of names and ask if you know them?’ Jessica asked.

‘Sure but I’ve not lived here in a while.’

‘Do you know a “January Forrester”?’

Charlie shook his head. ‘Never heard of her. I’d probably remember someone with that first name but I don’t even recognise the surname.’

‘How about Lewis Barnes?’

The man screwed up his eyes. ‘I don’t think so. It rings a vague bell but maybe that’s just because the first and last names aren’t that uncommon? I can have a look in the house if you want? All of Ed’s photos and papers are still around – there might be something in those.’

Jessica wasn’t sure what to make of his reaction. It seemed genuine and perhaps she was being overly suspicious because of the complicated family setup. He hadn’t really done anything to alert her. ‘Okay, that would be good. Do you still have my number?’

‘Yes, I’ll call if I find anything.’

She knew it was a little premature as there was every chance the first hand didn’t belong to Ed but extra information couldn’t do any harm. Jessica glanced at the clock above the door, realising they had been talking for over an hour and a half. After making sure there was nothing else Charlie wanted to ask and assuring him she would let him know the results from the hand as soon as she had them, Jessica showed the man back out of the station, asking one of the officers to give him a lift home.

The rest of the afternoon was spent typing up her hand-written notes for the missing persons report. Jessica was a quick typist but reading her own writing was proving tricky. She was holding the paper a few inches from her face, squinting, when the phone on her desk rang. ‘Daniel,’ she answered.

‘Hi, I’m calling from Bradford Park with the results you wanted from this afternoon’s sample,’ a man’s voice said.

Bradford Park was the central hub where the force’s forensics work took place.

‘That was quick. What have you got?’ Jessica asked.

The person at the other end gulped. ‘I’ll email you over the confirmation but the swab came from a “Charlie Marks”, correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘That first hand comes from a direct relation of his.’

8

Jessica was in her office, with Izzy sitting on a chair across from her and Dave perched on DS Cornish’s desk. She had already told him once not to disturb the neat rows of photographs her office mate had laid out but was keeping a close eye as her colleague’s backside edged ever closer to the other sergeant’s family pictures.

‘What is going on with the heat?’ Rowlands asked, undoing his top button.

‘Er, funny story, that,’ Jessica said. ‘It was a bit chilly in here yesterday so I asked someone from admin if I could alter the thermostat. Unfortunately, a bit broke off.’

‘So the station’s entire air-conditioning system has stopped working because of you?’

‘No, because whoever installed it didn’t do a very good job,’ Jessica said defensively.

‘But it was you who broke it?’

‘It’s not like I wrenched the dial off, it just snapped. The engineers were in this morning and reckon it’s not just the dial. Apparently there was some knock-on effect and the whole thing has to be turned off.’

The constable took off his suit jacket, placing it across the desk while being careful not to nudge the various knick-knacks. He rolled his shirt sleeves up. ‘Brilliant, so we’ve all got to walk around sweltering because you’re bumbling around like the Incredible Hulk breaking things.’

‘You can’t blame me for the heatwave. Anyway, what the hell’s that on your arm?’ Jessica pointed to a tattoo on the constable’s inner forearm she hadn’t seen before.

‘It’s just a tattoo. I had it done a few weeks ago.’

Jessica stood and stepped forward to get a closer look. ‘What does it say?’

Rowlands didn’t seem too keen to talk about it. ‘It’s Chinese lettering,’ he said. ‘I picked it out of the guy’s folder. It means “Warrior”.’

Izzy giggled from her chair and Jessica glanced over to her, raising her eyebrows while re-taking her seat. ‘“Warrior?”’ Jessica said. ‘How is that appropriate? Do you go cage fighting in the evenings?’

‘Sod off, I just liked the shape of it.’ Rowlands twisted his arm around so he could see the marking.

‘Are you sure it doesn’t say “knob” or something like that?’ Izzy asked in between giggles. Jessica joined in the laughing.

‘All right, all right,’ Rowlands said, pointing at Jessica. ‘You’ve been hanging out with her for too long. What’s this, some sort of harem with the two wicked witches ganging up on me?’

‘In your dreams, mate,’ Jessica said. ‘Besides, from what I’ve heard, this is the most female attention you’ve had in months.’

Rowlands didn’t seem amused. ‘Why are you so obsessed with me? I know I’m charming and dazzlingly good-looking but your infatuation is almost worrying.’ Both women were openly laughing now. Dave nodded towards Izzy. ‘What’s with the bright red hair anyway? Are you a secret ginger?’

The two women exchanged amused looks. ‘What’s wrong with being ginger?’ Izzy asked.

‘Nothing, Ginge. You’re the one trying to cover it up.’

Jessica was grinning but knew it was time to get to business. ‘All right, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, a lot of the officers around here are stuck failing to find Christine Johnson. Jack let me pick who I wanted to work with and, because I’m losing my mind, I opted for you two. We’ve got uniform support when we need it but, for now, it’s just us. You know the first hand belongs to Ed Marks and we already knew the second comes from Lewis Barnes. Now it’s down to us to connect the dots.’

Despite the jovial atmosphere moments before, Jessica knew the two constables were professional enough to switch on when they needed to. The banter got them through the day and Jessica enjoyed it but they did have a job to do.

‘First things first,’ she continued. ‘We don’t actually know if these two are dead yet given the fact we’ve not found the rest of their bodies. Obviously the first issue is whether we’re looking at a murder investigation or a missing persons one. Given the length of time they’ve been gone – and having spoken to Jack earlier – I think it seems sensible to treat this as murder.’

The two officers were nodding as she spoke. ‘Dave, can you write this down? This is what we have to try to answer. First, are Lewis and Ed connected in any way other than going to the same college? Were they even friends? It seems too much of a coincidence for them to be total strangers. Second, can we connect January Forrester to Ed in any way? She’s still our only formal suspect but finding her isn’t too easy given we have hardly anyone else to help.’

Jessica looked to Izzy, who was playing with a strand of her long red hair as she spoke. ‘The calls have slowed to a stop. I spoke to the press office yesterday but they said the main media aren’t interested in publicising January’s photo. We’ve had a few mentions but no major coverage. It’s on the website for all the good that is but she’s gone to ground.’

Izzy looked back to a nodding Jessica for approval.

‘Exactly,’ Jessica replied. ‘Dave, find anyone connected to January you can and doorstep them. She could be hiding with a friend but someone must know where she’s gone. I don’t think she’s the type to live on the streets. Take an officer in case you do stumble across her and she runs.’

She winked at him, struggling to contain a mischievous grin as she remembered how out of breath he had been during their last chase.

‘Iz, I want you to carry on working from here. See if you can link Lewis and Ed or Ed and January. Just in case, see if we can get a list of everyone who finished sixth form at the same time as them. There’s no way we can contact them all to say they could be in danger, not that we know they are, but at least we’ll be prepared. While you fish around, you might find out they were all members of some school club or something.’

Izzy was making notes of her own and Jessica knew she was the right person for the job. ‘Check in with me during the day. I’m going to look at Charlie Marks. He was feuding with his brother. There might be nothing in it but it’s worth going over. He’s a year and half older so would have been in a different year at school but if you see any reference to him, let me know.’

Jessica sent the two officers out for the day and then turned on her computer. She had become used to her office being empty as Cornish was almost never there. While she waited for her computer to boot up, Jessica walked across to the other sergeant’s desk, checking the photos were still perfectly in line.

The missing MP’s wife was huge news and officers from other areas had been called in with the superintendent taking an active part in the investigation. Jessica guessed it was down to political pressure but didn’t want to get too involved herself.

The information they held on the Marks brothers was limited as neither of them had criminal records so she called someone she hadn’t contacted in a while. Garry Ashford was a journalist on the Manchester Morning Herald newspaper. They’d had a fractious professional relationship in the past but he had certainly helped her on occasion, infuriating her on others. He had a dress sense that was a throwback to an age of tweed and long hair and, although she actually quite liked him, she would never have told him that.

He answered on the second ring.

‘Garry, it’s Jess. Have you got a minute?’ she said.

‘Sure.’

‘Can you do me a favour?’

‘It depends . . .’ Jessica thought his tone of voice betrayed a slight amount of panic. She knew he was a little scared of her and liked playing up to it.

‘It’s nothing too bad. I was just wondering how easy your archives are to work with and whether you could check something for me?’

The man paused before replying. ‘They’re not brilliant. The company employed someone to start digitising everything last year but then sacked them four months into the job because it was taking too long and costing too much. Everything’s very patchy so it’s pot luck really.’

Jessica gave him the name of the Markses’ father. She told Garry she was looking for a story about his wife’s death that could be anything up to thirty years old. She was also after something about his own death from approximately five years beforehand.

‘I might be able to find something on the man’s death if there was an obit but there’s no chance on the other one,’ Garry said. ‘The library might have something if you’ve got an exact date or you can come in and go through our archives yourself if the editor agrees. I’ll have a look for the more recent one on our system and call you back.’

Jessica thanked him and hung up. She didn’t have the time or inclination to hunt through newspapers and didn’t know an exact date the father had died anyway. Without going back to Charlie Marks she was unlikely to get it and she didn’t want to alert him to the fact she was checking his background. Twenty-four hours after meeting him, her suspicions had waned but she wanted to check all angles before ruling him out in her own mind.

In complete contrast to the previous day, Jessica’s office was sweltering. She was trying to keep it quiet that it was her who had broken the air-conditioning system because the whole station was baking. It seemed typical that, in a city where it was consistently grey and wet, they were in the middle of a heatwave as their cooling system was broken. She hadn’t told Rowlands but the engineer told her he would have to order a part and it could take weeks to get everything fixed again.

Despite the discomfort, Jessica continued to work as best she could before calling Rowlands in the middle of the afternoon. He had visited January’s parents, who lived separately, as well as a few of her friends. Either no one knew where she was or they didn’t want to say.

As for Izzy, she had compiled a full list of college-leavers and spoken to one of the old teachers who still worked at the establishment. Unfortunately, the person couldn’t even remember the names, let alone tell her if Ed Marks and Lewis Barnes had been friends. Neither she nor Jessica could find any connection between the two victims, not to mention January or Charlie.

After a couple of hours, Garry phoned back but he could only confirm what Charlie had said. The father’s obituary had been accompanied by a news piece which had a couple of lines saying the man’s wife had been killed by a medical mix-up years previously. Garry said it sounded as if it had been a big story at the time but it would be too much work for him to go back through the archives. She thanked him but had a sinking feeling all of their leads were slowly drifting.

Cole was involved in various briefings because of Christine Johnson’s disappearance so Jessica emailed him an update before leaving for the day.

Usually her drive home was a depressing tale of red traffic lights and commuters who didn’t know what lane they were supposed to be in but Jessica had other plans for the evening. The steering wheel was far too hot for her to grip properly as she started her car’s engine. Jessica cursed herself for parking where the shade had been that morning instead of where it had moved to by the end of the day. The weather had been clear and sunny for over a week now, something almost unheard of in Manchester. She often thought people got so used to moaning about the rain they didn’t quite know what to do when the sun came out for longer than a couple of hours.

Jessica lived south of the city centre in the Didsbury area but travelled west crawling at an even worse speed than she usually did. One of the other side-effects of the good weather was that everyone was in a rush to get home and enjoy it. Drivers weaved in and out and Jessica saw at least half-a-dozen people jumping red traffic lights that she could have pulled over. She tried to keep her patience, eventually manoeuvring her way to Salford Quays. The area had been extensively redeveloped over twenty years and what had once been largely wasteland was now a thriving hub for the media industry, surrounded by posh apartments.

Jessica parked her car in an area dominated by vehicles that dwarfed hers both in size and value. She had only been to the area a few times in the past but knew where she was going and rang a nearby doorbell. A voice crackled through the speaker to ask who she was before a buzzing sound indicated the front door opening. Jessica walked up three flights of stairs and saw a woman holding the door open for her with a big smile on her face.