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

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

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Текущая страница: 51 (всего у книги 60 страниц)

21

After the conversation with Cole, Jessica knew exactly where she was going. A call had come in from a man apparently in a back room of an off-licence just off Oxford Road saying it was being held up by a woman wearing a familiar-sounding black hooded cloak. He told the operator he was going to intervene and had not given the person time to try to talk him out of it.

Jessica had no idea what to expect at the scene because the man who called them had hung up. She could be going to a situation where somebody had been stabbed or to a shop where the person she was trying to track down had been stopped. As she pulled onto the side street where the shop was, her heart sank. Police had sealed off the area and there was a chaotic mix of officers trying to keep pedestrians away, others securing the scene, and an ambulance blocking one end of the road. She hoped the woman she wanted hadn’t escaped but, above that, wanted to hear no one had been hurt.

Jessica parked on double yellow lines, half on the pavement, and bounded towards the officers. ‘What’s going on?’ she said.

One of the officers recognised her and replied. ‘There’s a woman down on the inside and a paramedic with her. Two men have been separated and are being spoken to.’

‘Is she badly hurt?’ Jessica asked.

‘I don’t think so. I’ve been out here and it’s been a bit crazy.’ The officer broke off to tell a pedestrian who had come a little too close to back away. Jessica looked around and glimpsed a familiar-looking face among the small crowd of people. She didn’t want to spook the person so continued looking around the crowd as if it was a natural thing to do. Jessica walked back towards her car as calmly as she could, then doubled around until she was at the back of the people watching the shop front. A few other pedestrians continued to walk by but Jessica kept her eyes on the back of the man. He was edgy and kept reaching towards the pocket of the three-quarter-length trousers he was wearing. Jessica hoped it was a phone or something similar but wasn’t willing to take any chances.

Still out of sight of the man, she beckoned one of the larger male police officers over and whispered some instructions to him. The crowd had grown a little larger while she had been watching and while she might have usually acted on her own, it wasn’t worth the risk with so many others around.

The officer crept forward quietly with Jessica following. They moved into position in the crowd so they were just behind the man and the police officer acted quickly, taking a grip of the man’s wrists and handcuffing him. Jessica stepped around to look into the face of the person she recognised from the CCTV footage she had been poring over. He was undoubtedly the person who had picked up the magazine from the rack in the off-licence a few days previously and Jessica told him he was under arrest.

Moments later as the man was being led to a waiting police van, the noise from the crowd around the shop increased. Jessica turned and saw a woman wearing dark clothing being led out of the door by two officers. She didn’t appear to be hurt and her hood was slumped around her shoulders. Her face was visible but it didn’t belong to anyone Jessica recognised.

The rest of the day was a blur as Jessica lurched from one job to the next. Before going back to the station to talk to the people who had been detained, she persuaded the shopkeeper and the Scene of Crime team to let her watch some of the CCTV footage on site.

The camera system in the off-licence was more sophisticated than the first one and the young man who said his father owned the shop was much better at using it.

He skilfully manoeuvred through the screens, finding the exact piece of footage Jessica knew they would likely need at a later date. Forty minutes before the robbery had taken place, the man who had been arrested outside the shop entered. Much like on the first occasion, he looked around at the floor layout, made a few brief glances towards where the cameras were placed, then left without buying anything.

Jessica had no idea who the two people were but the plot seemed relatively clear. The man would walk in at a time mid-afternoon when they figured the shop would be quiet and familiarise himself with the layout. Then, at some point not long after, his accomplice would enter the store wearing the robe and carrying a large knife. Presumably the man would be waiting somewhere nearby with a car to make their exit.

Before she left, Jessica checked the buildings around the off-licence to see if there were any cameras around. As far as she could tell there weren’t, which was consistent with the first target. The internal recording devices would be easy to avoid given the disguise but it would be much harder to conceal a car waiting outside if there were a camera there.

Back at the station, the two suspects were separated and put in different cells on the basement level. Neither had a legal representative so the process of them both talking separately to the duty solicitor was taking some time. Jessica didn’t really mind as it gave her the opportunity to gather some evidence before the interview. She got new copies of the still-shots of both the man and hooded figure from the first robbery and harassed one of the computer team to send her through the images of the man from just before the second one. They would work on enhancing the pictures at a later time but it gave her a start.

She was pretty sure the couple were copycats and that the coverage in the papers of the woman leaving hands around the centre of the city had given them a convenient cover to commit crimes.

When the solicitor had finished, Jessica interviewed the man first. They found out his name was Jordan Benson and he had a lengthy record for thefts. He was in his thirties but had almost fifty convictions for crimes ranging from shoplifting minor goods not worth much up to street robbery and burglary. The interview had been a mixed affair which started with a stream of ‘no comment’s and ended with the suspect blaming everything on his partner.

According to his version of events his girlfriend, Erica Tomlinson, had planned the whole thing. She had chosen targets for them to rob then sent him in to scout the place out. After that, she would enter in disguise to get the money and they would escape together. Jessica believed the final parts but wasn’t quite so convinced he played as small a part as he claimed. Because of his confession, the still images from the CCTV cameras and the fact they were likely to get fingerprints from the magazine he picked up in the first shop, Jordan was charged with robbery. That charge could be downgraded to conspiracy to rob before he got to court but it would be the Crown Prosecution Service’s ultimate choice. If they felt they could prove he was involved in the planning of the crimes, he would be charged for the more serious offence. If he continued to insist his partner was the one to blame, it would be something their respective legal teams could argue between themselves in court. Jessica didn’t even bother to question him about the hands as it was his girlfriend she was waiting to talk to and he could always be re-interviewed at a later time.

Erica was brought up to the interview room next. She was in her late thirties and had short blonde hair in very tight curls but otherwise seemed very plain except for a series of garish tattoos down her arms. The woman had a criminal record of her own, including a few thefts, but it was all minor compared to Jordan and most of it revolved around drug possession. As soon as they started talking, Jessica realised the woman probably couldn’t spell ‘mastermind’ let alone be one. After giving her name, Erica copied her boyfriend by answering ‘no comment’ to the first few questions.

‘You do know Jordan just told us everything?’ Jessica said. ‘He talked all about how you planned the robberies and sent him in ahead.’

The woman stared back. ‘No he didn’t.’

‘I’m afraid he did. If it wasn’t your idea you should probably say so.’

‘No comment.’

Jessica sighed and reached into an envelope, taking out a series of photographs. She selected the one from the CCTV camera in Piccadilly Gardens of the figure positioning the first hand they had found. ‘Why did you leave this hand?’

The woman picked up the photograph and looked at it before angrily putting it down. ‘It weren’t me.’

Jessica handed her the other photos. ‘What about these hands?’

‘They weren’t me.’

‘It looks like you.’

‘But it weren’t.’

‘Why were you caught robbing from a shop with the exact same outfit then?’

‘No comment.’

Jessica sighed again and leant back in her chair. ‘Do you want to go to prison, Erica?’ The woman said nothing. ‘Right, I’ll assume that’s a “no”. Do you know the starting point for the type of robbery you committed is four years in prison? With some remorse, a confession and the return of the money you might get away with a year, maybe two on a suspended sentence so you stay out. If you’ve done time on remand you might not even get that. The reason I say “might” is because, if you don’t start talking, Jordan’s going to pin all of this on you and that’s not to mention the issue of the hands. We’ve found three so far. Three hands, three people missing, no bodies. That could be three murder charges. That’s life, probably with little chance of parole.’

Jessica knew the outfit on its own wasn’t enough to link the woman to the hands and in their brief initial inquiries they hadn’t managed to connect her to any of the victims as she was a different age and from a different area compared to the three people they had identified.

Erica stared at the table and spoke quietly. ‘I didn’t kill anyone.’

‘Right and I believe that but, if you had nothing to do with it, you need to tell me why you’ve been stealing money while wearing a black robe that looks just like this one.’

The woman sighed and started to cry. Her solicitor passed her some tissues and she took a drink of water. ‘It was Jordan’s idea,’ she said. ‘He’d seen the pictures on the news of this woman in the cloak and reckoned if we robbed some places it would get blamed on whoever that was. I’ve had the outfit for ages because of this fancy dress thing a few years back but not worn it.’

‘Didn’t it cross your mind that, if you got caught first, those more serious crimes would be blamed on you?’

The woman continued to dry her eyes and shook her head. ‘I didn’t think of it like that. The first one went so well we didn’t think we’d get caught. We thought it would be easy money.’

It was pretty much what Jessica suspected. ‘So, just to be clear, are you saying the reason you went in with a knife was because you wanted us to think you were the same person that has been leaving hands?’

‘Yes.’

‘And is that why Jordan did the initial scouting instead of committing the actual robberies?’

‘Yes.’

Erica’s story was actually remarkably similar to her boyfriend’s with the one key difference that she blamed him for planning the robberies, while he insisted it was her idea. Jessica didn’t believe either of them was involved in the main case she was working on but a warrant had been granted for a search team to raid their house. Erica said the cash left over from the first theft was in a box under their bed, which seemed to back up the point neither of them were the sharpest criminals going. The car they had used had also been impounded as evidence after being found around the corner from the second scene.

In terms of the robberies, Jessica had worked on enough cases to know things should be fairly straightforward. Jordan’s record would probably be enough to get him remanded, while Erica was likely to get the same treatment because she used a knife. The level of planning, albeit a little unscientific, would go against them too and Jessica thought the pair would spend the months leading up to their Crown Court date behind bars despite their confession.

Things would still need to be checked and compared to her main case. Their house and car were being searched while some officers had already begun to see if there was a link from either of them to the missing victims. None of the hands offered any forensic clues as to who left them, so the two suspects’ DNA wouldn’t be any use from that point of view – but they did at least now have time.

With a regular suspect, they would only have the usual period of questioning before they had to charge or release, which was the problem they had run into when January was in custody. Because the pair were likely to be remanded, if anything unexpected did turn up when they were trying to link them to the victims, they would at least know where the duo were.

Jessica charged Erica with robbery and the woman was led back to the cells. The two would be appearing in the magistrates’ court the following morning.

She went back through to the main area and found Dave and Izzy, who had been tasked with looking into the pair’s backgrounds. ‘Have you found anything to link them to the hands?’ Jessica asked after they found a quiet corner.

The two constables shook their heads almost in unison and it was Izzy who spoke. ‘Nope, neither of them are on our college-leavers’ list and they’re both too old anyway. Erica was brought up out of the area and seemingly only moved here a couple of years ago. Jordan comes from around here but we’ve not got anything that says he knows any of the victims let alone might have a grievance against them.’

Jessica nodded. ‘I thought we’d probably struggle. There’s no violence on either of their records and they don’t seem the type. To be honest, they’re too stupid.’ The two constables exchanged knowing smiles and Jessica continued. ‘You are going to have to keep working on this for a little while though. Check everything and let’s make it official. I don’t want us to miss something and end up looking like fools but I don’t want to waste days looking into something we know is a blind alley either.’

‘How are you anyway?’ Rowlands asked. ‘It’s been a mad few days.’

Jessica nodded. ‘You’re right about that and, because of you, I’ve got to spend tomorrow morning at a bloody primary school talking about careers. I thought it was older kids until I read the email properly.’

‘Can’t someone else go?’ Izzy asked.

‘Are you volunteering?’

‘No . . .’

‘Jack says it can’t be anyone working on the Christine Johnson case and he wants someone senior. He reckons the super wants it both ways. He doesn’t want any officers taken from the Johnson inquiry but wants us to keep up this community engagement thing. Did you see the coverage the fete got in the paper the other day? They gave that more space than when we were trying to get them interested in the severed hands.’

‘I didn’t see you in any of the pictures,’ Dave said.

‘Yeah, sod that. Because I wasn’t in uniform the photographer didn’t realise I was involved. I went and hid next to some of the parents as he snapped away.’

The two constables laughed in unison. ‘Do you have to give a speech tomorrow?’ Izzy asked.

Jessica realised she had no idea. ‘I bloody hope not.’

Their conversation was interrupted by a young out-of-breath constable in uniform arriving and tapping Jessica on the shoulder. ‘Are you all right?’ Jessica asked.

‘Yeah, they want you back. It’s something to do with the Erica Tomlinson woman.’

‘Where is she?’

‘One of the interview rooms. She’s been asking for you but we weren’t sure where you were.’

Jessica quickly retraced her steps and was surprised to see Cole sitting in the interview room as she entered. She looked quizzically at him but he simply nodded towards Erica, who was sitting next to her solicitor on the opposite side of the table.

‘I hear you’ve been asking for me?’ Jessica said.

‘Yeah, you were saying earlier about being able to stay out of prison for cooperating and that?’

Jessica pursed her lips. ‘Sort of, I said you might get a lesser sentence if you confessed and gave us the details. It wouldn’t be up to us – you still robbed two places carrying a knife and that means you should go to custody.’

‘What if I had information?’

‘It depends what it was about.’

The woman looked nervously to her solicitor then back at Jessica. ‘What if I told you who arranged for that politician’s missus to go missing?’

22

One of the first rules of interviewing suspects was to give nothing away but, if it had been a game of poker, Jessica knew full well the whole room would know she had a flush. She wheeled around to face Cole, who had barely suppressed his surprise either.

‘Sorry, can you repeat that?’ Jessica asked.

‘I know who sorted it for the politician’s wife to disappear. I dunno if she’s dead but I know who paid for it.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘I just know people. You hear them talking.’

Jessica was trying to stay calm. ‘Who did you hear talking?’

‘I’m not telling you that.’

‘Okay, so what do you know? Do you know where she is?’

Erica continued to stare at the table. ‘No, I don’t know any of that. I don’t know who took her either but I know who arranged it and why.’

‘Do you have evidence or is it just something you’ve heard?’

‘Something I heard – but the person won’t be wrong.’

Cole leant forward and looked at Erica’s solicitor. ‘We’re going to need a few minutes.’ The two officers left the room, shutting the heavy door behind them and crossing into a nearby room they used for witnesses. It was stifling as they walked across the threshold. The air-conditioning was still not working and, although fans were cooling the interview room, the room they had gone into had none of that.

Jessica used her hand to fan her face as she spoke. ‘What do you reckon?’

‘She’s never going to get what she wants regardless of what she thinks she knows. If she knew who took Mrs Johnson, why they took her and where the woman is, whether she’s alive or dead, then maybe the CPS would talk about things. All she says is that she knows who arranged for it and she won’t even tell us who told her. I think she’s seen too much American TV. It doesn’t work like that here.’

Jessica shrugged. ‘Are you going to talk to the super?’

‘Yes, let’s go back and tell her she’s got no chance first and see if she’s got anything else to add. I don’t know what her solicitor thinks he’s playing at.’

The two detectives walked back into the interview room and sat down. ‘I think there might be a bit of confusion here,’ Jessica said. ‘If you’re going to confess to the robberies in court, they will sentence you. All we can do is tell the people prosecuting you that you’ve been extremely helpful. We’ve had a chat and, in all honesty, neither of us are convinced you’ve got any information you can help us with. Even if you knew where Mrs Johnson was, or who took her, we still couldn’t drop the charges. It doesn’t work like that.’

The woman glanced at the table then scratched her head before nodding towards the solicitor sitting next to her. ‘That’s what he said.’ Jessica looked at the DCI but, before they could say any more, Erica spoke again. ‘It was the husband.’ The tone was lower and softer than the woman’s previous words.

‘Sorry?’ Jessica said.

‘It was the husband who wanted rid of her – the one that’s been all over TV. He paid some people to get rid of her. He’s got some other woman somewhere.’

‘Who told you?’

‘I’m not saying. I don’t know anything else, that’s it.’ She looked to her solicitor. ‘Can I go back downstairs now?’

Erica refused to add anything else and, after she had been returned to the cells, Cole called both Reynolds and Cornish back to the station and told them what had been said. The information was nothing they could use as evidence but, at the same time, the robbery suspect had ended up giving it to them voluntarily. She didn’t have a reason to lie as they hadn’t promised her anything.

Jessica knew officers had discreetly been looking into a situation such as the MP himself being involved but hadn’t come up with anything. It was an awkward thing to examine because they would need a warrant to look at items like bank records, phone logs or emails and, at least until the current moment, the situation hadn’t reached that far. Even if they did get that paperwork, they all knew the politician would have had to be pretty careless to leave a trail. The chief inspector said he would ask DSI Aylesbury what he thought but even that was complicated as he was apparently friends with George Johnson. The priority was still to track down the red van that had been parked outside the gates. Reynolds said they had a likely make and model, which would be shared with the media, but that trying to go via the Royal Mail’s own records of vehicles sold wasn’t getting them anywhere as the files were so patchy across the different areas. All in all, the inspector was undeniably correct when he pointed out that everyone was struggling.

The following morning, Jessica had to go to the school for the careers day. She had found out the previous evening that she was expected to give some sort of talk, which might have been useful information to have had a few weeks ago.

It was a late-morning start at the school and, just before she was getting ready to leave the station, news came through via the desk sergeant that magistrates had remanded both Erica and Jordan. In the end, their legal teams hadn’t objected to the refusal of bail, which meant there wouldn’t be any appeal against the decision either.

While that had been going on, it had been more or less accepted that neither were credible suspects to have left the hands. Apart from the cash relating to the first burglary, nothing of note had been found at their house and no connection had been found between either of them and the missing victims. Jessica left Rowlands working through the list of almost a hundred college-leavers to find as much information as possible on each one. A lot of the basics had already been discovered, such as current addresses, but there were still a few they hadn’t had time to look into.

The school wasn’t far from the station and Jessica decided she would walk, hopefully giving her time to figure out what she was going to say. Her own primary school had been one of two in the Cumbrian town she lived in. All of the children on one half of town went to one, while the other school housed the rest. It led to some very competitive sports days but, as there was only one high school, they all ended up going to the same place in the end.

Jessica walked through the school gates into a reception area where a secretary told her she would have to have her identification checked for security purposes. Along with the huge metal railings that ran around the perimeter of the building, it was certainly a change from the school she had gone to. The district it was in wasn’t one of the best in the city but it was nothing compared to some of the ones you read about. Despite that, there was still a metal-detecting gate just inside the doors and a table on either side where bag searches were carried out.

The receptionist finally put her phone down and gave Jessica back her identification. A few moments later a woman came into the area. She had short black hair and walked quickly, almost as if the speed she moved at had to be ruthlessly efficient. She was wearing a bright green cardigan, which clashed with a navy-blue knee-length skirt, and she stretched out a hand for Jessica to shake. The woman introduced herself as the deputy head teacher and led Jessica up a set of stairs to the staff room. The overwhelming smell of coffee drifted from the room as Jessica sat on a low material-backed chair, turning down a hot drink.

When she had made herself a cup of tea, the teacher sat opposite her and started. ‘The students you’re here to speak to are all in year six and in their last few weeks at this school. They head off to secondary school in September. They’re all either ten or eleven years old so shouldn’t give you too much trouble. They’re at that age where they have enough of an attention span as long as you only talk for five or ten minutes but not at the point where the hormones have gone crazy.’

‘What’s with all the security gates downstairs?’ Jessica asked.

The woman shrugged sadly. ‘A sign of the times. Some year five pupil brought a knife to school eighteen months ago and threatened another child. I don’t think he even knew the damage he could do. The governors decided every student should have to pass through a metal detector on their way in now and we have to pay for security guards to stand around.’

‘That’s just . . . wrong.’ Jessica meant the situation, not the fact the scanners had been put in but the teacher knew what she was getting at.

‘I couldn’t agree more but it’s one of those things. It will be everywhere in a few years.’

‘How does today work then?’

After another sip of her tea, the teacher continued. ‘We’ve organised someone from a different profession to come in every day this week and again next week. There are around forty students. You just need to talk for a few minutes about what you do. Obviously you know the children are still quite young so please don’t be too explicit. We had a fire marshal in yesterday and a journalist is coming tomorrow. The day after that, we’ve got a local author. We’ve got a doctor and a chef next week. It’s not really to get them thinking about jobs specifically – more about the types of thing they like doing. They have to start choosing school subjects to focus on in a while, so it’s just to give them something to reflect on over the summer.’

‘That doesn’t sound too bad actually. I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do when I left school.’

‘We’ve been doing it for a couple of years now. Are you sure you don’t want a coffee?’

‘Have you got anything stronger?’

Jessica’s attempt at a joke had clearly been missed and the deputy head looked fairly concerned. ‘Er, no . . .’

‘Sorry, I was joking. I know I’m an acquired taste,’ Jessica said. ‘I only usually drink before operating heavy machinery and driving.’ The woman pulled another face. ‘Shit, sorry, I make bad jokes when I’m nervous . . . and, er, swear.’

The woman didn’t seem too impressed. ‘Are you going to be all right to not do that when I take you through?’

‘Yes, sorry. I’m a little nervy. I don’t really deal with children very often.’

‘It’ll be fine. They only bite at the end of the week.’ It was Jessica’s turn to pull a concerned face. ‘Sorry,’ the deputy head added, ‘I guess I make ill-judged jokes too.’

After a few more minutes, the woman stood, leading Jessica down a corridor into an empty classroom. Even though she couldn’t have expected anything else, the height of the tables and chairs took Jessica by surprise. Each desk had four chairs placed around it that barely seemed higher than her knee. The whole room was a mass of colour with measurement charts, paintings and giant pictures of castles. In the corner was a carpeted area surrounded by low bookcases whose spines offered yet more colour.

‘We’re going to have a couple of classes joining into one for your talk,’ the deputy head said. ‘It’s up to you if you want to sit or stand. I’ll get you a chair if you want one.’

‘Standing’s fine. I quite fancy one of those little chairs anyway though. I’ll put one in our interview room to confuse people.’

This time the teacher realised she was joking and laughed. ‘If you want to settle yourself, I’ll go and get everyone.’

Jessica put her phone on silent and turned around to have a look at some of the work pinned to the wall. There was a display showing various students’ handwriting and she had to admit to herself that almost all of the examples were better than what she could have managed. With the way she delegated jobs and the fact most of the work she did was through a computer, Jessica rarely had to write anything down and, when she did, it was generally an untidy scrawl. She wondered if the children knew how little they would most likely have to use a pen as soon as they left education.

The sound of high-pitched chatter interrupted her thoughts and she turned to see a stream of youngsters walking through the door. Some of them were carrying chairs and by the time they had finished arranging themselves, the room was packed. Two other teachers stood at the back as the deputy head came to the front and introduced Jessica.

The students gave a resounding chant-like, ‘Good after-noon, De-tec-tive Dan-i-el’ that was more creepy than anything else. Jessica tried to keep things simple in her speech, talking about how a criminal could be caught by fingerprints or their blood and then saying how they could get a warrant to read people’s emails or text messages. She didn’t want to go into too much depth and there were clearly areas of her job it wouldn’t be appropriate to talk to children about. After that, she reverted to the usual kind of speech a standard police officer might give, telling them about things like dialling 999 in an emergency.

When she began to see heads turning to look at the walls instead of her, she realised it was time to stop and let them ask questions. Jessica had been expecting the students to put their hands up but it was the deputy head that had the first query. ‘Why did you want to become a detective?’

Jessica almost felt as if she were the subject of a dreary magazine article but explained it had never really been an ambition and that applying to join the police force was just something she had done when she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with her life. It was only once she was working as an officer in uniform, that she had decided to take the step up. She knew it didn’t really answer the question but there wasn’t a better explanation.

From the predictable dreariness of an adult’s question, the children’s queries were far more random and funny. The first, ‘Have you ever shot anyone?’ brought a few giggles from around the room and an apologetic ‘sorry’ from one of the teachers at the back. Jessica didn’t mind answering and struggled not to smile herself. She told the young boy she hadn’t shot anyone as there was a specialist firearms squad and she didn’t carry a weapon. That brought the perhaps inevitable follow-up question, ‘Have you ever wanted to shoot anyone?’