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

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

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Текущая страница: 45 (всего у книги 60 страниц)

10

Jessica drove back to the station mulling everything over. They now had a second connection to the rugby side as well as the school that linked the first hand to the second. She still had no idea how the woman in the black cape fitted into things – or if that person was January.

At the station Jessica parked her car and went to find Izzy. As she walked in, it was as if she was going through an invisible wall. The air felt heavy and, even though it was pretty humid outside, it was even hotter indoors. Luckily, the news hadn’t spread too far that it was her that broke the air-conditioning system. If it had, she would have been given far more dirty looks as she made her way to the canteen where the two constables were. Rowlands had a moan that he was being left to work from the station but Jessica didn’t pay his complaints too much attention.

Jessica and Izzy took a marked police car to see the rugby player. She didn’t know what she expected to get from him but there could be something buried in the past which had seemed innocuous at the time that was causing everything to happen now. Sometimes taking an actual police car as opposed to an officer’s own vehicle offered that little extra bit of encouragement for someone to talk.

Izzy was driving but happily chatting away as she followed the navigation device’s instructions. ‘How come you let me drive?’

Jessica shrugged, even though the constable wouldn’t have seen her from the driver’s seat. ‘Dunno really, going soft in my old age.’

‘Dave reckons you’re the worst driver he’s ever been in a car with.’

Jessica was outraged. ‘The cheek of it. I’ll remind him of that next time he’s complaining about being left at the station.’

‘He’s not the only one; your driving skills are legendary.’

‘Who says?’

‘Everyone. When I joined and you started giving me bits to do, one of the first things someone said to me was, “Don’t get in a car if she’s driving”.’

‘Bunch of bastards. I’m not that bad.’

‘One of the guys in uniform reckoned he was in the back seat when you mounted a kerb, did a U-turn, skidded between two cyclists and then handbraked it before jumping out of the driver’s seat to chase someone down.’

Jessica hummed in agreement. ‘That was only once and I got the guy. That was years ago.’

‘He told me someone else had a week off with whiplash.’

‘That guy was faking. He just wanted time off.’

‘A whole load of people reckon they’ve seen you take the turn into our car park on two wheels.’

‘I think they’ve been watching too many films.’

Jessica was trying her best to act outraged but all three stories sounded suspiciously close to the truth.

‘Anyway, what’s the deal with you and Dave?’ Izzy said.

‘Rowlands? What do you mean?’

‘You have that whole angsty thing going on. It’s like when you pick on someone at school because you secretly fancy them.’

‘Er, no. It’s just because he’s a mate and it’s fun to annoy him.’

‘That’s exactly what I mean. You joke around it but there’s this whole flirty thing going on.’

‘Flirting? Eew, he’s like a brother.’

‘Have you ever . . . ?’

‘Ever what? Oh, God, no, of course not. Yuck. Only in his dreams.’ Jessica wasn’t comfortable with the questions but figured ducking them would make it worse.

‘You’ve never even thought about it?’

‘Get out of it. He tried it one time when I was still a DC but I sent him packing. Not my type.’

‘So you do have a type then?’

‘Yes, they have to be male and not a complete dick.’

Izzy laughed. ‘So you’ll take a partial dick as long as he’s not a complete one? That’s setting the bar pretty high.’

Jessica sniggered. ‘Why the interest?’

‘Nothing really, now I’m married I have to get my kicks from hearing about other people’s fractured relationships.’

‘If you go into marriage counselling, you should use that as your slogan.’

Although she rarely talked to anyone about relationships, Jessica found it hard not to like her colleague. As well as the constable being an excellent professional, they shared a similar type of humour. Jessica had a sudden inclination to take the woman out and get her absolutely hammered, if only to see how she acted then. Izzy was great fun to hang around with – but a little too good.

As their conversation fizzled out, Jessica checked the notepad the constable had given her. The former player they were visiting lived in the Droylsden area, around twenty minutes from the police station. Izzy had phoned and asked if the man could spare them a bit of time. He was currently working for a building firm renovating some offices around halfway between his house and their base. After checking with his boss, he told the constable he could take a late lunch and talk to them during that.

Jacob Chrisp was already waiting when they pulled onto the premises. He gave them a half-wave to indicate who he was and then started walking towards the car as Izzy parked. Jessica thought he looked as if he still had the build to play the game. He was wearing shorts and a vest with large muscled and tanned shoulders on display. There were spiralling tattoos running down the outside of both his arms and she afforded herself a small smile thinking how pitiful Rowlands’s was in comparison.

The man shook their hands and asked if they wanted to talk to him indoors. Jessica wasn’t bothered so the three of them sat on a wall next to the offices that were being cleared out. Given the clatter of furniture being removed it was a little noisy but Jessica thought that was outweighed by being able to sit in the sunshine.

‘How can I help you two ladies, then?’ Jacob said. From his tone of voice, Jessica could tell he was already looking to try it on.

Jessica slid the photo of the rugby team out of an envelope, pointing at one of the teenagers crouching down. ‘Is this you, Jacob?’

He took the picture from her, peering closely as a large grin spread on his face. ‘Yes. Wow, I’ve not seen this in years. Where did you find it?’

Jessica ignored his question. ‘Can you tell me anything about the other players?’

Jacob blew out, scratching his head. ‘Not really. We won the league this year, only lost one game. Do you know much about rugby?’

Jessica shook her head but Izzy spoke. ‘Only Union, I don’t follow League.’

The man smiled. ‘Cool, a rugby chick. Nice.’ Jessica was a little surprised her colleague was into sport but wasn’t convinced the officer would be overly impressed by being called a ‘chick’. She certainly wouldn’t have been but the constable said nothing.

Jacob pointed to a few more faces in the picture. ‘I played in the centre. This guy here played outside me and then Eddie and Liam were our two wingers.’ He had pointed to Ed Marks.

‘Can you think of anything significant away from the pitch that might have happened? I know you went to school with some of the players too.’

Jacob looked a little rattled for the first time. He handed back the picture to Jessica, screwing up his eyes. ‘How do you mean?’

‘You tell me? I’m a woman of the world; I know what groups of lads get up to.’

‘We were only eighteen or nineteen.’

Jessica raised her eyebrows and made sure she caught Jacob’s eyes. ‘Sometimes that can make it worse.’

‘I’m not sure I know what you’re getting at.’

Jessica wasn’t convinced. After having his arms open and being happy to eye them both up, he had now crossed them and was looking at the ground. ‘Two people from this photo have been hurt,’ she said. ‘We’re not sure why and we’re talking to other people in it to see if there’s a reason anyone might be able to think of.’

Jacob scratched his head, beginning to look a little nervy. Jessica noticed his dark tattoo circled all the way down from the bottom of his neck to the tip of his little finger. Even though she had never been much of a fan of body art, it was impressive.

‘How badly were they hurt?’ he asked.

Jessica didn’t want to give too much away. If the man did know anything, it was better to keep him on edge. ‘They were just hurt,’ she replied coolly, trying to make Jacob look at her.

‘I’m not sure what you want me to say. We were young lads but most of us could get served in pubs and we had a few good times. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?’

‘Again, you tell me. Did anything go particularly wrong?’

‘No . . . well, not really. The season after that we went on a bit of a tour. You know what it’s like with boys having a bit of a laugh, not everyone likes it, do they?’

‘Who didn’t like it?’

‘A few of the locals where we went drinking. One of the coaches ended up quitting too.’

‘Why?’

Jacob stood, not wanting to talk any longer. ‘I’ve got to get back. I did say I only had my dinner to talk.’

Jessica wasn’t in the mood for being mucked around. ‘You’ll have to be quick then. What happened with the coach?’

‘Nothing. Look, things just got a bit out of hand, some of the team were a bit drunk. They used to wind him up anyway and call him names. As well as coaching, he worked at the school. Anyway, he had that look, do you know what I mean?’

‘No, what look?’

‘You know, like glasses and that, like he was a paedo.’

Jessica tried not to roll her eyes. ‘He looked like a paedophile because he wore glasses?’

‘No, it wasn’t like that. He had this limp too.’

‘So because he limped and wore glasses, you and your friends accused him of molesting children?’

‘No . . . well, yes.’

Jessica was finding it hard to disguise her contempt. Although Jacob was well-built, his frame had almost shrunk as he stood. He was slumped with his shoulders down and head drooping towards the ground, clearly embarrassed about what had happened at some point in the past.

‘What did you do to this man on tour?’

‘I told you, it wasn’t me. Some of the lads were pissed up and we were staying in this giant hostel place. They stripped him then threw him in a freezing cold shower. After that they tied him to the roof of our minibus and left him overnight.’

‘What happened then?’

‘Well, it was the middle of winter. He ended up in hospital but no one owned up to it and nothing happened. He didn’t grass or anything and everyone was really impressed but he didn’t come back to coaching after that.’

‘I wonder why.’

Jacob was suddenly angry. ‘Look, I told you it wasn’t me. We were only kids mucking about.’

‘I’m sure that’s how he saw it when he spent a night strapped to a bus in the freezing cold.’

Jacob sounded defensive. ‘All right, it’s not like it was yesterday or anything, it was ages ago.’

‘Anything else you want to tell us about?’ Jessica could see in his face that he wasn’t going to say anything further, even if there was more to come. It was why she had tried to hide her contempt but the effort had become too much.

‘I’ve got to get back to work.’

‘What was his name?’

‘Who, the coach? You can’t reckon he’s involved? He was only this little skinny bloke.’

‘What’s his name?’ Jessica spoke firmly to show she wasn’t in the mood.

‘I don’t know, it was ages ago. Mr Wright, something like that. Michael I think. Look, what’s going on with people being hurt?’

‘We’re not sure yet but if you see anyone limping who wears glasses I’m sure you’ll know exactly how to act.’

Izzy wrote the man’s name down as they noted the school he taught at was the same one Edward Marks had gone to. If he was a former staff member, his contact details should be on record somewhere. The two women walked back to the car.

‘Do you think we should have given him more information?’ Izzy asked.

‘No, we don’t even know if the rugby team is the link yet. It’s not as if we should be telling him or anyone to be vigilant because we don’t know who the targets are – or if there’s more to come.’

‘What do you reckon about the coach?’

‘Who knows? They sounded like right little shits.’

Izzy hummed in agreement. ‘It’s a bit of a long wait from then to now if it is the coach though, plus it’s a pretty extreme form of revenge.’

‘I know. I doubt it’s him; it’s a bit obvious. Still, it’s someone else to go talk to. Anything that keeps us out of the station.’

‘Well, if you hadn’t have broken the air-conditioning, it wouldn’t be too bad.’

‘Oi, that sounds like something Dave might say. Just for that, I’m driving.’

When they were back in the vehicle, Jessica made sure to drive as steadily as she could. She didn’t swear and was extra careful not to be angry with other drivers. While she drove, Diamond checked in with Rowlands. Jessica couldn’t make out much from the one side of the conversation she’d heard but the constable sounded a little excited about something.

‘What was that?’ Jessica asked after the other woman had hung up.

‘You remember the stain you told us about on the floor in January’s kitchen?’

‘It was either blood or gravy.’

Izzy laughed before composing herself. ‘Dave says the labs have been on and emailed through some results. It’s blood and it definitely comes from Lewis Barnes.’

11

The morning briefings were really beginning to wind Jessica up because her case was being treated as a distant second priority compared to the disappearance of Christine Johnson. Jessica wouldn’t have minded quite so much if Reynolds and Cornish were actually getting anywhere.

Cole had told them all that the superintendent was on the brink of becoming personally involved in the hunt. Jessica knew DSI Aylesbury from when he had been DCI and didn’t have a clue quite what he thought he could add by interjecting himself. She had drifted in and out of the talk but, from what Jessica had heard, they really didn’t have any ideas what had happened to the MP’s wife. In between the conversation with her husband on the phone and him arriving back from Parliament, she had simply disappeared. There didn’t seem to be anything untoward in the couple’s finances, none of their vehicles had moved, their cleaner hadn’t seen anything and the woman’s passport and other documents were still at the house.

Officers had looked at CCTV feeds from local shops and roads but had seen nothing, there was no sign of anything untoward in her phone records and the movements of the couple’s children, as well as of the MP himself, were all accounted for. Jessica knew a small team of officers were quietly looking into George Johnson’s background to see if he might have been having an affair or keeping other secrets that could have a bearing. Despite everything, and the massive amount of media attention the case had received, they knew as much now as they had when the woman first went missing.

Despite their initial falling out, it really was becoming a baptism of fire for Cornish, and Jessica felt sorry for the woman, watching her say nothing during the briefing and wondering if she was regretting the transfer yet. With such scrutiny and a lack of leads, even Cole was beginning to show a degree of strain. Outwardly he was still calm but Jessica knew him well enough to see the worry lines beginning to appear in his face.

By the time it was her turn to update them on her case, the other three officers seemed completely uninterested, not that Jessica blamed them. Cole had been interrupted during the meeting four separate times by his phone going off.

She managed to tell everyone about the rugby team, plus the coach and teacher Michael Wright, but even she had to admit she doubted it was him. By the time the chief inspector’s phone rang for a fifth time, he ushered the other detectives out of his office, giving Jessica the fairly obvious brief that she should put her efforts into finding January.

If she didn’t respect him so much – and if he hadn’t been on the phone – she might have pointed out that giving her some other officers to work with might actually be a help. It wasn’t that she disagreed with him but, while two senior detectives and two-thirds of the rest of the station’s staff, along with other senior figures across the district, were trying to track down Christine Johnson, Jessica couldn’t keep the hunt for January in the news for longer than the initial one day. After that, she simply didn’t have the numbers to go door-to-door while there were still other leads to follow up.

It didn’t help that everyone was on edge because of the heat and humidity inside the station. If Cole knew it was her fault, he hadn’t said anything and she had no intention of letting on to Reynolds or Cornish. The engineer hadn’t been in for two days, leaving a message with the admin department that he was waiting on a part.

After returning to her own office, Jessica called Rowlands and Diamond into sit with her. The two had a mini argument over who got the spare seat before Dave relented, sitting on the corner of the other sergeant’s desk as he had done a couple of days before.

‘I feel like I’m babysitting sometimes,’ Jessica said, shaking her head. ‘The DCI wants us to focus on finding January. He’s so keen on that happening, he’s given us no extra staff and zero extra resources. As usual, it means it’s just us. The good news is we’re all going to get out of this oven today. I’d like you guys to go back and doorstep everyone Dave spoke to the other day. If you can find any other friends or relations January may have, get onto them, else just harass the same people. We all know she’s not started living on the streets somewhere – so someone knows what she’s up to. Take some officers with you, even if you don’t have a use for them. If we don’t use them, they’ll only spend the day around here being used by Jason and his crew.’

‘Where are you off to?’ Izzy asked.

‘I’m going to go talk to this rugby-coaching-teacher guy. I doubt he’s involved but maybe he’ll know some other things the team got up to. I still don’t know if the link is the school, the team or something else but I’m not going to sit around in this heat all day. Did you see the temperature on the news this morning? Twenty bloody nine degrees. They reckon it’s the driest June for thirty years.’

‘Typical, it rains eleven months of the year and now we’ve got a hosepipe ban,’ Rowlands said.

‘Why does that affect you? What are you doing with a hosepipe?’ Jessica asked.

‘Nothing, it’s just the principle.’

The two women exchanged looks before Jessica continued. ‘Right, you guys head off. Call me if anything happens and I’ll check in later anyway. Iz, if Dave tries to flirt, you’ve got my permission to arrest him with as much force as you deem necessary. Dave, if she calls you a “knob” more than three times you can put in an official complaint.’

Rowlands had an outraged look on his face but Jessica knew full well he had been waiting for an opportunity to try it on with the fiery red-head, whether she was married or not. In some places it could be seen as some sort of sexual harassment but he was so clumsy with his words – and the female officers were generally pretty tough anyway – so it wasn’t as if there was any harm done. Everyone knew there was a fine line between professional banter and something more serious and no one thought the constable crossed it.

After they had left, still bickering, Jessica checked the information she had on Michael Wright. Jacob had remembered the name correctly and Jessica suspected he recalled things a little more clearly than he wanted to let on. Izzy found his details the previous evening between a mixture of old school records and the electoral roll. Jessica called and asked if he was free to talk. She hadn’t told him exactly what about but he said he was retired anyway and invited her over.

Jessica had spent large parts of the last few days driving around the city to visit various people and was getting tired of navigating Manchester’s roads while the sun shone. Her car blowers were bad enough when it was cold and she needed the heat to clear the windscreen – but they weren’t much better when it was baking hot and she set to cool. The device seemed to have three settings: off, really hot or really cold. Even on a scorching day, the ‘cold’ setting somehow managed to make things feel arctic but the heat of the sun through the window was too hot to switch them off. The weather forecasters had predicted no end in sight for the current heatwave and people didn’t seem sure how to deal with it. When it rained everyone knew where they stood, that was just what it did in the city. A day or two of sun had everyone wondering why it couldn’t be like that more often but, after two weeks without rain, Jessica thought the locals, including herself, seemed to be walking around a little bemused.

She didn’t think she’d had one conversation in the last week that hadn’t involved the weather in one way or another. Jessica’s parents lived further north and she spoke to them once a fortnight or so. She had spoken to them the previous night but all they wanted to talk about was the weather. ‘I like it hot,’ her mother had said. ‘But not this hot.’ Considering her mum had spent large parts of the winter saying how cold it was, Jessica wondered if there was a magic temperature where it was just fine. Half a degree hotter or colder and it would be too far the other way again.

Before she knew it, Jessica had arrived at Michael Wright’s house. She was familiar with the place as it wasn’t too far from where she used to live when she first came to the city with Caroline. As she got out of her car, she realised that would have been roughly the same year the rugby photo was taken.

Jessica rang the man’s doorbell and, before the chime had finished, the door was yanked inwards. Jessica thought of the way Jacob had described his former coach and, as much as she hated herself for thinking it, it was hard to disagree with the picture he had painted. Michael Wright was shorter than she was and wore black thick-rimmed glasses. As he stepped backwards to let her in, he had a clear limp, as if one leg were shorter than the other. He was completely bald and stammered as he spoke. ‘Can I, I, I see your identification please?’

Jessica took her identification out from her jacket pocket and let him examine it. He held it close to his face and, for a moment, she thought he was going to lick it. Much to her relief, he didn’t and handed it back. ‘C-C-Come in.’

As much as you were trained to treat and judge people on their actions and words, police officers were still human beings and made snap first impressions like anyone else.

The front door opened immediately into a living room and, as Jessica sat in the armchair the man offered to her, she could see why the team had picked on him. She remembered being at schools and in clubs herself and knew there was always one teacher or helper who the children targeted. For her there was the geography teacher who would stand and wait for the class to go quiet but, when she was younger than that, she remembered a form tutor dashing out of registration in tears because no one was listening to her.

Michael stood in front of her rocking slightly from one leg to the other. ‘Can I get you a cup of tea or something?’

‘If it’s not too much trouble, that would be fab. No sugar though, just milk.’

Jessica didn’t really want one but figured if he was in the kitchen, she could have a proper look around his living room. It was a trick one of the men she first worked with had taught her. He had told her off for turning down a hot drink and then, when she’d told the person she’d changed her mind, they had scuttled off and her colleague had proceeded to look at every photo, even opening a few drawers.

With Michael out of the room, Jessica stood and peered at a couple of pictures around the room. Nothing appeared to be recent. A couple of photos seemed to be of a group of people who looked like teachers. Jessica could clearly see Michael standing on the end, leaning slightly to one side. There were two even older photos of a couple getting married whom she assumed were the man’s parents. The only picture that jumped out was on the mantelpiece behind another frame. She had to pick it up to see it properly but it was of a rugby team. She looked to see if either Ed Marks or Lewis Barnes was a part of the side but it didn’t look like it. Jessica put the frame back down and returned to the armchair.

The whole room looked like a throwback to twenty years ago. The carpet, sofa and armchair all had flowery patterns, the wallpaper sporting an awful raised print design. It had been painted over and was flaking in some parts. When she looked properly, Jessica could see the windows were single-glazed too with flimsy looking wooden frames. It was the kind of house she had grown up in but even her parents had redecorated at least twice since.

Michael walked back into the room with two china teacups clinking on saucers next to a teapot on a tray. It didn’t surprise her to see the crockery had a flowery pattern too. He put everything on the coffee table and sat on the sofa. ‘I hope I didn’t put t-t-too much milk in.’

Jessica took a sip just to be polite and assured him it was fine. ‘Thanks for inviting me around, Mr Wright. I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions about some of your former students, if that’s all right?’

‘I’ve not taught for over ten years I’m afraid, I’m not sure h-h-how much use I can be.’ He pushed his glasses up higher on his face but seemed far too nervous to actually look at Jessica.

‘If I ask you about a couple of people, could you tell me if you recognise the names?’

He made something approaching a gurgling noise before saying that was fine.

‘Do you remember a student called Edward Marks?’

The man’s reply was instant. ‘Yes, he took A-levels in English Literature, Communication Studies and Art. He had a brother called Charles.’

Jessica was a little startled. ‘How do you know that?’

‘If I’ve taught someone, I remember everything. Edward got two C’s and an A for Art if I remember correctly. He played hockey and rugby too. He was a pretty quick winger from what I remember.’

Jessica noticed his stammer had gone and he suddenly sounded confident. ‘How about Lewis Barnes?’

‘English Literature, History and Geography. Two B’s and a C. He also played rugby, open-side flanker, and was a keen swimmer.’

‘Jacob Chrisp?’

‘Government and Politics, History and Communication Studies. B, C, D. Inside centre.’

Jessica tried to remember one of the other names from the photo. Izzy had matched as many first names to surnames as she could and they had identified all but three of the players, although hadn’t contacted anyone except for Jacob.

‘How about Rory King?’

‘No idea, not one of mine.’

‘Timothy Davidson?’

The man shook his head emphatically. ‘Nope.’

Jessica gave him a few more names; some of them he knew, some he didn’t. ‘I’ve got to ask again, how can you remember all this? It’s astonishing.’

The man sounded nervous but somewhat proud. He had stopped stammering. ‘It’s just something I can do. If I’ve taught or coached someone, I remember things like that. Those names weren’t too long from before I retired but I can go back a lot further.’

It almost sounded like a challenge. If he was involved in any way, surely showing off this kind of knowledge of the victims would be an odd thing to do in front of a police officer? Looking at him, she felt guilty herself for thinking he was a bit odd but he didn’t seem capable of hacking off a hand. Her instincts were telling her he was just someone who had been caught up in something unsavoury a few years ago but was harmless enough.

‘I understand you were a teacher and rugby coach?’ Jessica asked.

‘And hockey – plus I worked for the scouts for a while too.’

‘Why did you stop?’

The man leant forward and picked up the teacup, taking two large sips and then returning it to the tray. His hand was shaking and the hot liquid spilled on his hand. He barely reacted, wiping it on the sofa. Still staring at the carpet he finally spoke. ‘After I got out of hospital I couldn’t face it any longer.’

Jessica suddenly felt awful; there was such pain in the man’s voice. She didn’t want to ask the question but the words came out anyway. ‘Why were you in hospital?’

Michael drank some more tea before answering. ‘An acc-acc-accident with some of the rugby players I was coaching. It wasn’t the first time and things weren’t right at the college either. They offered me some m-m-money to go and I took it and quit everything else too.’

Jessica didn’t know what else she could get from the conversation. The man’s stutter had returned and he was clearly upset. The picture seemed pretty clear without him filling in the gaps. Given years of bullying from the very people he had spent a career trying to help, he had finally reached the end of his tether.

‘I’ve just got one last thing. Do you ever see your students out and about?’ It wasn’t the exact question she should have asked but she didn’t want to upset him further.

‘One of them was my postman for a little while b-b-but unless they’re on TV or in the paper, I wouldn’t really notice. I d-d-don’t often go out.’

Jessica could have continued to talk to him but, despite his almost autistic knowledge of former students, he seemed a little pathetic. As he stood to show Jessica out, a thought occurred to her. Ever since they had looked at the first CCTV footage, they had been assuming the figure in the black cape was a woman. She didn’t think the former teacher was involved but perhaps another male with his stature could be. If they were confident enough to walk in heels, she thought someone as short and slight as him could just about pass as female.

After saying her goodbyes, Jessica drove back to the station. Clouds had started to form and taken the edge off the heat. She walked through reception into her office which was hot and empty. Jessica was planning on running a few more checks on the former teacher. She suspected he may have had a breakdown at some point and, though the police didn’t have open access to someone’s medical records, there could be something in their system that could reveal more about him.

Her desk was messy at the best of times but there was a pile of post on Jessica’s seat that would have been left by someone from the mail room. Although that was what the officers called it, it was essentially just a cubby hole connected to the admin and Human Resources department. She flicked through a couple of letters, before seeing an object that sent a chill through her. A large brown envelope with a printed name and address was at the bottom of the pile. Jessica could see it matched the package that had been sent to the station containing the severed finger but, unlike that one, this was addressed directly to her.