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

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 60 страниц)

One down, two to go.

After a few more questions, the DCI pointed at the hand from the back – suspect number three. The man ruffled his hand through his hair and said: ‘Garry Ashford, Manchester Morning Herald. I was just wondering why it took the force two days to respond to Stephanie Wilson’s concerns?’

Jessica narrowed her eyes and stared at him. ‘Got you,’ she thought.

9

The last couple of days had seen a complete turnaround for Garry. After the call from his source about Yvonne Christensen’s murder, he had phoned the number he had been given for that detective sergeant but not really got anywhere. She seemed like a right moody so-and-so.

When she asked how he had found out her number, he made up something about a friend from a phone company but didn’t think she’d bought it. They would struggle to find his source even if they got into his own phone records. The person that contacted him had at least two SIM cards and had called from the unregistered pre-pay one.

After getting a ‘no comment’ from her, he made the call he had been waiting eighteen months for – to tell his editor he actually had a story of note for him. It was both of their days off and he had never called his boss on his mobile before. He figured this was as good a time as any. Garry reckoned Tom Simpson would have been a good journalist at some point in the past but, being in the job for as long as he had while he worked his way up to editor, he had lost something along the way. Garry had taken a year and a half to become cynical about the industry but his boss had been in the job for over twenty years, so who knows what he thought of it all?

The editor was in charge of managing the paper’s content and staff but recently there increasingly seemed to be pressure to make savings. Everyone had seen the memos from management about cost-cutting and, along with the length of time he had been doing the job, Tom Simpson had appeared to lose any courtesy he might have once had.

As editor, his one concern was getting a paper out on time and not getting fired. He frequently swore and bawled out other reporters in the newsroom, warning them that costs had to be brought down and, if they didn’t get him better stories, perhaps they would be expendable. Some of the older production staff and journalists had told Garry it hadn’t always been like that. When Tom had first been promoted to editor eight or nine years ago, the atmosphere had been much better but declining sales, the rise of free content on the Internet, and rifts with management had taken their toll.

One of the older reporters, who was eagerly awaiting retirement in a year or two, had explained to Garry in the pub one evening just why he thought things had got so bad.

‘All those government departments and councils and police and fire and everyone else have these bloody press officers now,’ he said. ‘In the old days you could buy someone a pint and get the full story on everything. It was all cock-ups galore and you could really go to town on these idiots. Now you just get stuck rewriting these nonsense statements about “diversity” and “ethical funding”, whatever the hell that means.’

Garry didn’t know whether that was right but it was clear the only time the editor’s mood seemed to improve was when somebody brought in a story that raised sales.

The finance department and editor received daily figures for how many copies of the paper had been returned by newsagents and street sellers. This allowed them to work out how many copies of the paper had actually been sold. Garry thought his luck had finally turned with his ‘bin fury’ story. On the back of that, sales had gone up twenty per cent for three straight days. His editor was delighted. He had praised Garry’s work ethic in a group email and hovered around his desk for those days asking about follow-up stories. Eventually it had to end – there were only so many articles you could churn out about rubbish before people stopped buying and moved on to something else. Sales dropped to where they were before and Garry had been forgotten about again. In many ways, that had made things worse. Before, he was just some anonymous reporter in the newsroom but after that, he had shown he could get stories that spiked sales, just not consistently.

Garry’s editor answered his phone with a ‘who’s this?’ Not even a ‘hello’ and definitely not a ‘hi’.

‘This is Garry, Garry Ashford.’

‘You do know it’s my day off?’

‘Yes . . . but I think I have something big for you.’

‘You “think” you have something big? I’m on my way to the football.’

Garry stumbled his way through telling his editor about the phone call he had just received. He talked about the murder and how the body had been found locked in a house as the police took two days to find it. His editor asked for the source and Garry gave it.

‘You scruffy little genius! Why didn’t you use them before?’

It sounded good-natured but Garry wondered if the ‘genius’ part outweighed the ‘scruffy’ comment to actually make it a compliment. He told his boss that his source had never really come up with anything of note before.

His editor didn’t sound as if he was really listening anyway. ‘Right, right,’ he continued. ‘Look, get hold of this witness. Just turn up at her door and find out what she told the police, then get into the office tomorrow. No point in wasting something like this for tomorrow’s edition – the city’s empty on a Sunday. We’ll get everyone with a blinding front page on Monday. Blow the nationals out of the water.’

Despite a few pangs of uncertainty about turning up at the front door of a potential witness, Garry did what he was told. He first did a few online searches through his phone to find the correct address. His source had given him Stephanie Wilson’s name and the road she lived on but not the exact house number. Luckily, there was a Ray and Stephanie Wilson on the electoral roll, so he knew where he had to go. He had also found them in the online version of the phone book too. Not many people seemed to be in the book now, given the widespread use of mobiles, but the Wilsons were obviously old-fashioned and had a landline number. Garry called it and spoke to the husband, Ray, who seemed delighted the press were involved. They arranged for the journalist to visit the house the following morning.

The interview with Stephanie herself was largely taken over by her husband who, from what he said, had been single-handedly responsible for uncovering the whole story. He kept saying how he had been a journalist in his youth and that it was his idea to call the police.

The way he had spoken, you would have been forgiven for thinking it was he who had uncovered the body and was in the process of cracking the case. Stephanie hadn’t said too much and was clearly highly affected by her friend’s passing. As Garry managed to coax the truth from her, it became clear her husband had had pretty much nothing to do with any of it. That didn’t stop him asking if the paper wanted to send a photographer over to take photos of them both. Garry thought he was a bit of a nuisance but seemed relatively harmless and thanked them both for their time. He had what he needed.

The offices of the Morning Herald were spread across two floors midway up one of the taller buildings in the centre of Manchester. Editorial and advertising shared a floor, production and finance occupying the one above it. Other businesses had various floors within the property but the whole place was like a ghost town on a Sunday. Garry used his security pass to get through the staff door at the back and then again for the lift.

He had barely stepped out of the elevator when he heard his editor’s far-too-cheery voice from across the other side of the room: ‘Garry.’

While the few heads who happened to be working that day turned to look in his direction, no doubt confused why their boss was so pleased for once, Tom was bounding towards him. Garry started walking towards his desk but his editor caught up and put a fatherly arm around his shoulders, ushering him into his own office. Even when he had been popular in the past, he had never been invited into the editor’s office.

Garry had a good look around. The view was as impressive as it could be considering what Manchester had to offer. Garry’s usual desk offered various angles of the back of some girl’s head who worked in advertising. Admittedly, she looked more attractive from the back than the front but that wasn’t the point. The editor ushered him into a plush leather swivel chair, where the mechanism to move the seat up and down actually worked, which was significantly more than you could expect from a chair on the main news floor. He then offered to make Garry a cup of tea.

What on earth was going on?

Garry thought his boss making him a hot drink was perhaps pushing things too far, so declined.

He told his editor how the morning interview had gone and repeated what he had said on the phone the day before. His boss nodded furiously throughout, making the odd note and just repeating ‘good, good’ over and over. Garry was aware that the magnitude of someone being brutally murdered seemed to be lost in the moment. He was told he could use the editor’s own computer to type up the story so, still feeling as if he were in some bizarre alternate universe, he used his notes to do just that.

Garry thought of the victim as he wrote. He was excited about finally being in his editor’s good books but didn’t want to let that detract from the empathy he felt. Ray Wilson and now his boss both seemingly wanted to use the murder almost as a springboard for their own aims. Ray’s were harmless and slightly pathetic but Garry hoped his boss wouldn’t push things too far. Yes, it was a big story and he was going to be the one to break it, but he didn’t want the fact to be lost that someone had been murdered.

He finished typing and went to find the editor back on the main floor, receiving plenty of odd looks from his colleagues, unsure what he had done to receive such a warm welcome. Tom almost skipped across the newsroom towards him and they both went back into the office. Garry’s boss sat in front of the computer and read through what had been written. He nodded frequently and again repeated ‘good, good’ numerous times. When he was done, he turned back to Garry. ‘Top, top work, this, young man. Top work. Need to spice it up a bit in a few places but this is really well done.’

Garry was nervous by what he meant by ‘spice it up’ but said nothing.

‘I think you’re just about done for the day,’ Tom added. ‘Go get yourself a pint and enjoy the evening. You deserve it. We’ll get this on the website tonight and then tomorrow your name will be on the front page.’

He was being sent home early. Working unpaid overtime was something he had done many times but Garry had never been let go before his shift ended. This really was new ground.

‘I reckon there’ll be a press conference tomorrow and you’ll be right there,’ his editor added. ‘Maybe you can give your little source a call when you get in? Y’know, see if anything else has happened?’

Garry had no intention of doing that but said he would, picked up his bag and made a beeline for the lift. He moved quickly as he didn’t want to risk his invitation to leave early being revoked but also because he didn’t want to see the accusing stares from his colleagues as he walked out, wondering why he was suddenly so popular.

They would find out when they saw the front page.

After checking in again with his delighted editor on the Monday morning, Garry had been told he would be going to the press conference over at Longsight mid-afternoon. His editor told him to ‘ramp up that two-day cock-up angle’.

What he meant was to ask questions about why it had taken two days for the police to successfully find Yvonne’s body after Stephanie Wilson’s phone call. Personally, Garry thought it was a bit harsh. The police weren’t to know there was a dead body involved and, considering she could have just gone away for a few days, he thought they had done pretty well to act in that time.

Regardless of his own thoughts, he would ask the question. At least with all the other media present DS Daniel couldn’t shout at him in quite the way she had on the phone the night before. He found a clean pair of dark trousers and his favourite jacket. He had worn it out a few times after being assured by his friends it made him look interesting. He thought it gave him the air of some type of philosophical deep thinker.

He made sure he was sitting at the back for the briefing, making notes as other people asked their questions, and spotted DS Daniel on the end. She hadn’t said much, simply sitting and scowling at the audience in front of her. As he sat waiting to pluck up the courage to put his hand up, he thought she had looked directly at him. Her long almost-blonde hair was swept back out of her face and he thought she looked kind of cute.

That thought began and ended as he asked his question. He saw her looking straight at him, a half-smile on her face with her eyes telling him one thing clearly: ‘You’re dead meat, sunshine.’

10

Jessica wasn’t sure whether she liked Caroline’s new boyfriend. Perhaps she felt that way because the investigation was going nowhere and nobody would have impressed her given her mood – or maybe it was because she had arrived home from another unproductive day and found him already in their flat?

Their flat was on the ground floor with another one above them which had been empty for a little while. Unlike some in the area, it was an actual apartment and not just a converted house. They had a small garden at the front but it had been paved over before they moved in and they never did anything in it. As you entered the front door, Jessica’s room was immediately on the left, while the entrance to the living room was opposite it. Next to her bedroom was Caroline’s, while at the end of the hallway directly opposite the front door was their bathroom. The kitchen was a separate room, with its door opposite Caroline’s bedroom. The living room was the biggest in the flat but the two bedrooms were fairly equal in size.

It was a week and a half since Yvonne Christensen’s body had been found and Jessica had got precisely nowhere. They had already reached the point where constables from other districts had been returned to their force while officers at Longsight were being moved on to other cases. It really was a disaster, with the finger of blame pointing squarely at her.

Nothing much had happened in the initial investigation with lead after lead finishing in a dead end. The hotline had come up with nothing, except for members of the public wanting a chat or thinking their uncle looked a bit like the e-fit. Someone had even phoned up to say the sketch looked like the officer who had been on the news the night before. They were referring to Cole, which brought plenty of quiet laughs around the station when he wasn’t present. All potential leads had been checked but there was nothing of any substance.

The day after the press conference, the Herald had gone to town on the force because of the two-day delay in finding the body. There was a big picture of the victim smiling out from the front page, with an editorial inside asking why the body had been ‘left to rot’.

‘Nice and tactful for the family,’ Jessica said to Cole when they had seen the paper.

A few days after that, the force had been blasted again, this time for a lack of progress. The byline on both articles had been ‘Garry Ashford’. With the investigation not going anywhere, Jessica would spend parts of her free time thinking up creative ways to make life miserable for the long-haired, tweed-jacket-wearing pain-in-her-arse.

With murders, in a huge majority of cases the killer was someone who knew the victim. In most of them it was either a family member or someone romantically involved. But anyone they knew of who apparently fitted that description with Yvonne Christensen had been ruled out. They had looked into everyone from the husband, to his new girlfriend, to the son, to the neighbours and even Stephanie and Ray Wilson, just in case. They checked her bank accounts and phone records, all of which seemed normal. No one seemed to have a motive for murdering Yvonne and, even if they had stumbled across a reason, no one – least of all Jessica – had much of an idea how the murder had been pulled off.

With all of that running through her mind, she had driven home in the rain with a clear plan for the evening: take her shoes off and relax in the living room with a bottle of wine.

Jessica really liked her and Caroline’s living room. She found it incredibly cosy and relaxing, perfect after a bad day. There was a deep dark brown fabric sofa that allowed her to sink into it. She had fallen asleep on it a fair few times in the past. They had a separate reclining seat made of the same coloured fabric but Jessica much preferred the sofa. There was a glass coffee table in the middle of the seats too, which usually had some selection of celebrity magazines Caroline had bought on it. Jessica pretended she never read them but would often have a flick through when she was alone.

Between the two of them, they didn’t really watch too much television and hadn’t bothered paying for anything like satellite or cable. Given their jobs, both of them lived pretty busy lives but Jessica had never been much of a television-watcher in any case.

Caroline had plenty of DVD box sets but Jessica only really watched the news and late-night reruns of trashy morning talk shows. Not that she would have admitted the talk-show watching to her colleagues, of course. You would lose plenty of credibility if you confessed that one of your hidden pleasures was staying up at night to see what the results of the previous show’s DNA tests would throw up.

But, after arriving back in her flat, there was a man she didn’t know sitting on their sofa drinking from a can of lager.

‘Er, hello?’ Jessica said as his presence caught her by surprise while she had half-kicked off one of her shoes.

‘Oh, hi . . . is it Jessica? I’m Randall, Caroline’s boyfriend.’

Caroline had re-entered the main room at the sound of the voices. She said she had been changing in her room and added that she hoped Jessica didn’t mind Randall coming over. ‘It was just that I wanted you both to meet but everyone is always so busy so, in the end, I just invited him over. I hope you don’t mind.’ Caroline explained.

Jessica didn’t mind, well not really, but it would have been nice to have been asked.

As it was they weren’t having a bad evening. Randall was decent-looking – just under six feet tall, with a shaven head and blue eyes. He clearly had a decent physique judging by the tight fit of his T-shirt and must work out, though his muscles weren’t bulging in a grotesque way. There was some kind of spiky-lettering tattoo visible on the lower half of his right arm but Jessica couldn’t figure out what it was. He wasn’t really her type; she didn’t go for guys who spent so much time working out and tattoos and piercings had never been too appealing. He did seem nice and Caroline could barely take her eyes off him.

Although she preferred the sofa for comfort, Jessica had left it to Randall and Caroline to share while she took the recliner. They half-watched some nonsense game show, laughing at the contestants’ lack of knowledge while Caroline tried to get her best friend and boyfriend to interact with each other. The bottle of wine the two women had shared was certainly helping in that regard.

‘So, you met over shoes then?’ Jessica said after an hour or so of small talk.

Caroline and Randall looked at each other and giggled then had a mini argument over who should tell the story in full. If it had been anyone other than her best mate – and if they didn’t look so happy – Jessica would have felt sickened by their show of affection. There was nothing more annoying to her than happy couples.

It was Caroline who spoke. ‘He did such a good job fixing them and they are my favourite going-out heels.’

She smiled and squeezed her boyfriend’s hand.

‘Isn’t it just a bit of glue?’ Jessica asked, not meaning the question to sound quite as blunt as it did. She was moderately interested but probably could have phrased the question better.

Randall laughed. ‘Well, yeah. You just take the names, addresses and phone number if they’re cute, wait until they’re gone, get the old superglue out then charge ’em for the privilege.’

Jessica assumed it was a bit more complicated than that but laughed along.

‘Wait, you only get the phone numbers if they’re “cute”?’ Caroline asked with mock indignation.

‘I got yours, didn’t I?’

‘Oh yeah, that’s all right then.’

‘At least you’ve got a story for the grandkids anyway,’ Jessica said. ‘Grandma fell over and broke her shoes, while Grandpa fixed them for her.’

‘Whoa. Who said anything about grandkids?’ Caroline laughed.

‘Or kids.’ Randall joined in.

‘And as for getting married . . .’ Caroline added.

They were already finishing each other’s sentences and, despite the public sentiment being a bit too much for her, Jessica was pleased that her friend seemed happy. She could just do with a lot less of that happiness happening in front of her.

When the giggling had died down and Jessica had poured another glass of wine for each of them, Caroline said to her boyfriend: ‘Did I tell you Jessica works for the police?’

‘Yes. What is that, local?’ he asked.

‘Not too far.’

The conversation fizzled out as Caroline yelped due to Randall tickling her. Jessica went back to half-watching the television. Whatever game show it was they had on seemed to be lasting a ridiculous length of time, the contestants definitely not getting any cleverer.

‘Are you single?’ Randall asked Jessica during an advert break.

‘Yep.’

‘I’ve got some mates – I could hook you up with someone.’

‘I’m all right, thanks.’

‘Come on, it’d be fun the four of us going out.’

Jessica didn’t feel comfortable with the conversation. ‘Nah, I’m okay. I’m busy at work.’

‘Well, if you change your mind . . .’

‘. . . You’ll be the first person I call.’

Jessica thought she had enough on her plate without complicating things with dates or boyfriends.

A short while after, Randall stood and asked if he could get a glass of water.

‘Lightweight, are we?’ Jessica asked playfully, considering he’d had three cans of lager.

‘I’ve got a bit of a headache coming on.’

‘There are painkillers in the drawer under the sink if you want some?’ Jessica said but Caroline cut in. ‘Oh, he’s allergic to aspirin and things like that.’

Caroline stood up, pushing her boyfriend back to the sofa. ‘I’ll go, you explain.’

Caroline left the room and Jessica said: ‘Sounds nasty?’

Randall made a face as if to indicate ‘sort of’. ‘I’ve kind of got used to it. You live with the headaches and so on. Some people have it really bad, their throats swell up and within a few minutes they can’t breathe. With me it takes an hour or so.’

Caroline returned and gave her boyfriend a glass of water, which he drank a few mouthfuls from, then put the glass on the coffee table.

‘So what actually happens?’ Jessica asked.

‘It’s not happened in years because I just stay away from most medicines. Back then, my ears would start to ring slightly, then I’d come out in a rash on my arms. It’s only after an hour or so when the inside of my throat begins to swell. That could stop you breathing and kill you in theory.’

Caroline spoke then. ‘He had to tell me because if he ever had anything by accident, if I noticed a rash on his arms or anything, I would have to call an ambulance. That’s a telltale sign.’

Jessica just nodded but she was glad it wasn’t her. ‘Must be hard getting over hangovers,’ she joked.

Randall got up, saying he had to go to the toilet. He left the room and, as soon as they had heard the bathroom door close, Caroline wasted no time.

‘What do you reckon?’

‘He seems nice. You seem good together.’

Caroline grinned. ‘It helps that he’s hot too.’

Jessica grinned back. ‘He’s not too bad. Bit young for you.’

‘Young? I’m only thirty. He’s twenty-three, you cheeky mare.’

‘That’s toyboy territory. Mrs Robinson and all that.’

‘It is not.’

Both women were now laughing with each other. ‘You should take him up on the offer of going out with his mate. It would be fun with the four of us and take your mind off the job, too. You deserve a night away from it all.’

‘Nah.’

‘Go on . . .’

‘Well, maybe. Not now though, I’m busy. Maybe in a few weeks when things have quietened down?’

Having a fun evening in with her friend was beginning to take Jessica’s mind off the fact that things were not going well at work.

‘I’m glad you like him,’ Caroline added.

‘He seems like a good laugh.’

‘He is. He told me he was quite shy as a kid but says I’ve brought him out of it. He’s quite sensitive when you get him on his own.’

‘As long as he treats you all right.’

‘Well, if he doesn’t I know a police officer that can put him right.’

The flushing of the toilet brought an end to their conversation but, before Randall could return, Jessica’s phone rang anyway. She had dumped her bag by her shoes next to the living room doorway and forgotten to take her phone out. She answered just a moment before it would have rung off.

It was Cole telling her that another body had been found.