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

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

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Текущая страница: 56 (всего у книги 60 страниц)

He wouldn’t have usually called her by her first name out of the station in anything other than a social situation but Jessica wasn’t bothered and could tell from his tone he had something. She stepped across to the bed and took the photo from him. The picture showed two people grinning and holding drinks up as if saluting at whoever had taken the photo. One of them was Ed Marks, the other a young blonde woman with brown eyes.

30

Steven Povey sat in his garden staring at Detective Sergeant Jessica Daniel’s business card. He wanted to call her and ask for someone to come and watch him but the consequences of having to tell his wife why the person was needed were something he couldn’t face. The police’s visit had largely been a surprise as he didn’t follow the news too closely and wouldn’t have recognised the names of all the victims in any case. He had seen something about a hand that was found in Manchester but hadn’t realised it could have any connection to him until the officer had said.

The incident on holiday was something he had done his best to forget. He’d not spoken about it to anyone since and, of the other five, only had contact with Barry after they arrived back in the UK. Even that had only been because they lived so close to each other but Steven had soon moved away. He’d heard of Barry’s death in a car crash but had no strong feelings about the man by that point.

After hearing about the possible fates of the other four people, Steven was certainly scared. He didn’t know if it was Sam who had been targeting the men who were in the room that day but whoever it was certainly seemed to know what had gone on. He didn’t know of any further connection he had to the other five people so it must be related. From what Sergeant Daniel had said all of the men involved were now dead so if it wasn’t Sam or someone like a husband or boyfriend, who else could it be?

The only crumb of comfort was that none of the other men’s families had apparently been targeted, meaning his wife and children should be safe.

Steven continued to stare at the business card trying to figure out if he was more frightened of the person who might be coming for him or of letting his wife down. The house had been given to them as a wedding present by her father, who loomed heavily over their lives. He was a businessman who owned a string of health clubs throughout the country. To the surprise of his wife and mother-in-law, Steven had been welcomed into the family with open arms.

His father-in-law had never taken to any of his daughter’s previous boyfriends but he liked Steven for whatever reason and the house had been an extravagant gift to show that. If Steven were to tell his wife what happened all those years ago, it could wreck everything and, while his family seemed safe, he wanted to do all he could to avoid letting her know.

Steven pocketed the business card and stood up from the table, looking at his watch. The officers had left almost fifteen minutes ago and he had barely moved. He’d been mostly honest with them but hadn’t given them one piece of information, thinking perhaps he could find a way to deal with things on his own.

He went to the computer in the hallway and switched it on, waiting for it to boot up then loading an Internet browser window. He had searched for the name a few times in the past, using search engines and, more recently, social networking sites.

‘Samantha Weston’ was a name he had never forgotten.

He didn’t know what he might be able to do if he did track her down somehow but he thought it was a better option than giving the full details to the police and having everything come out.

Steven first tried the social networking site where he had his own profile. As with the last time he had searched, there was no one who seemed to match the woman’s details. He didn’t know where she came from but, with a name and general age, Steven had an idea of what he was looking for. The biggest problem was filtering out the male ‘Sam Weston’ matches from the females but, even after doing that, he couldn’t find someone who seemed right. There were also far too many general matches through the search engines he tried and he realised the woman could have either emigrated or got married – or both – which would affect his results too.

He tried numerous combinations of ‘Sam’, ‘Samantha’, ‘Weston’, ‘wedding’, ‘married’ and ‘marriage’, eventually finding a couple of combinations of alternative names the woman could have. With that information, he then returned to the social network and did some new searches with the other name. After almost an hour of trying, he settled upon a profile for ‘Sam Kellett’. The woman’s main picture was of her in a wedding dress. Because of her privacy settings, Steven couldn’t see much information about her but he did manage to view the photo in a higher resolution. He wouldn’t have said it was an absolute likeness but it had been eleven years since Steven had seen the woman and he thought there was definitely a similarity in appearance. Her hair was a lot darker in the wedding photos but anyone’s facial appearance would change slightly over time.

Without anyone else matching the age or likeness criteria, Steven figured this ‘Sam Kellett’ was the only possible candidate he was likely to find for the woman he had watched being attacked all those years ago. He returned to his previous searches and looked for the wedding notice. It had been placed in a local newspaper in the Harrogate area just across the Yorkshire border eighteen months ago and, from what it said, the woman’s husband was called ‘Colin’. It was probably an hour’s drive assuming they still lived in that neighbourhood but, aside from the name and area, he didn’t have an exact address. Steven tried more Internet searches for ‘Kellett’ and ‘Harrogate’ but there was nothing that gave him any more information.

Leaning back in the computer chair, Steven wondered what he should do. He could call Sergeant Daniel and tell her what he had found but, if things ended up in court, there was no way he could keep everything from his wife.

The man spent the next twenty-four hours running through scenarios in his mind, wondering if there was some way he could reveal what he knew without tearing his family apart. Would his wife understand he had said nothing during the attack because he was scared himself, or would she have a similar reaction to the officer? He wanted to take the risk of telling her but ultimately he felt more scared of her reaction than he did of whoever might be targeting him.

With that, Steven continued to try to find Sam. He didn’t know for sure if what was happening was down to her – or what he’d do if he found her – but he wondered if he might be able to reason with the woman. A voice at the back of his mind told him he deserved everything that was happening. As well as more Internet searches, Steven called directory enquiries, asking for ‘Sam Kellett’, ‘Samantha Kellett’ and ‘Colin Kellett’, none of which returned any results.

Eventually, two days after the visit, Steven felt almost resigned to his fate. He didn’t know if someone might end up coming after him but he did start carrying around a pocket knife just in case. His wife sensed something was wrong but he said things were fine. If he left the house, he tried to make sure he had someone else with him. He felt guilty at using his wife and children almost as human shields but tried to blank those feelings out.

After the weekend, his wife went to work as usual and, with his children at school, Steven was alone in the house for the first time properly since the officers had visited. He often worked from home anyway but was edgy about being on his own. He made sure the windows and doors were locked and tried to do his regular work.

Halfway through the morning the doorbell rang. Steven felt his heart rate rise but looked through the side window and saw the postman standing there. He signed for a parcel but, after taking it inside, realised how jumpy everything was making him.

Not long after, the doorbell sounded again. Steven again checked through the side window. A short and fairly slight man in jeans and a T-shirt was waiting but, from where Steven was looking, he had no idea who the person was. He moved around so he was on the other side of the door and shouted. ‘Who is it?’

‘Gas man, I’m here to check the meter.’

Steven hadn’t noticed a van outside his house but decided it wasn’t necessarily unusual as the person could have parked at the other end of the row of houses and then walked from one to the next. ‘Have you got identification?’

The man pressed a badge up against the window to the side of the door. Steven stared at it, realising that, aside from a company logo, he had no idea what he was looking for. He still couldn’t see the person’s face either. The identification had someone’s name on, as well as a company and a phone number. Steven thought about calling the number to check but figured it was probably a little over the top. He unbolted the door and opened it inwards before stepping back. His hand hovered imperceptibly close to the knife in his pocket.

The visitor stepped into the house and looked up. There was a flicker of recognition between the men and Steven realised he’d made a horrible mistake. ‘You?’ he said.

‘Me.’

Steven tried to grab the knife from his pocket but the other man was quicker, reaching forward and pushing something into his neck. His last thought before his eyes closed and he slumped to the floor was that the police officers who had visited him didn’t know how horribly wrong they were.

31

Jessica had worked through the weekend as best she could but the problem, as ever, was that most people in other organisations didn’t. She spoke to DCI Cole on Friday but releasing the photo of the woman to the media in a ‘Who’s this?’ way was their last resort. The problem was that Jessica couldn’t think of another method to identify the person. They had nothing except for a first name, only a vague idea that Sam was English and no clue where she came from, or if she would still be there eleven years on. Not only that but there was something not quite right about the picture that Jessica couldn’t figure out. Jessica looked at it over and over, feeling there was something obvious she was missing but she couldn’t see what it was.

She again tried the various travel companies but the people she spoke to repeated that they didn’t keep records that went back that far. With no crime reports and no other way to identify who the person was, Jessica spoke to the chief inspector again on the Sunday morning and he agreed the picture of Sam could be released. The trouble was that they didn’t actually know if the woman was responsible for everything that had been happening. She was the only suspect they had but it would be harsh to get her photo on news bulletins, potentially reminding the woman of something terrible that had happened over a decade ago if it ended up having no relation to what was going on. If Jessica could have thought of any way of identifying the person without having to do that, she would have done.

Rather reluctantly, the senior press officer came into the station on Sunday afternoon and worked with Jessica on something they could release to the media. The biggest problem was that it would have to be run as nationally as possible. With local campaigns they both knew people they could lean on if they really needed a favour to get something published but it was far harder to do something across the whole country.

The statement they ended with was a mixture of spiced-up language including a recap of the hands found. The comments relating to Sam were toned down and carefully worded to make it clear she wasn’t a suspect. She might well be but they couldn’t have that broadcast. Instead, Sam was someone who ‘might hold key information’. Jessica knew it was the type of nothing phrase the police always came out with but, in this instance, it was as good as they could manage. They hoped the recap of the juicy details regarding the hands might persuade the newspapers to print something, while the television news may have a brief segment with Sam’s photo. Everything was also put on the police’s own website and the press officer put out alerts across their social network accounts. It was about as much as they could do and Jessica hoped they received phone calls so they could find out who Sam was and, with luck, figure out exactly what had been going on.

On the Monday, there was something on the television news. One of the two main news channels ignored their story but the other gave them the briefest of ten-second slots where they flashed Sam’s photo and a phone number for the public to call if they knew who it was. It wasn’t the best result but there was some information on a few news outlets’ websites and Jessica knew it was now a waiting game to see if any useful suggestions came in.

The day didn’t produce too much but the news story gradually received more attention as it went on. Jessica didn’t hurry into the station on Tuesday, partly because she had put the hours in over the weekend but also because there wasn’t a whole lot she could do. The calls were being taken by the national Crimestoppers service, with any names suggested being fed back for her team to go over. She had already left Rowlands and Diamond instructions.

As she arrived, Jessica instantly knew something was going on because of the lack of marked police cars in the car park. Usually there would be a couple of rows of vehicles but there were just two. She walked into the reception area, asking the desk sergeant what was going on.

‘They’ve found a body.’

‘Of who?’ Jessica’s first thought was that one of the handless victims had been discovered but she wasn’t prepared for the actual response.

‘They think it’s Christine Johnson.’

‘You’re joking?’

‘Nope. It’s been mad in here all morning. Some tip-off had everyone dashing out; even the DCI’s gone and someone said the super was on his way too.’

‘Where?’

‘Some garage not that far away.’ The sergeant wrote out the address for Jessica. She first went to check on Dave and Izzy, who were working their way through a few names that had been put forward that morning but, as yet, no one who had been suggested matched ‘their’ Sam.

Jessica left them to it and drove herself to the site where Christine’s body had apparently been found. She was grateful it hadn’t happened a day earlier, else there was no way she would have had any coverage to help find Sam. As she neared the location, Jessica could tell someone had said something they shouldn’t. A helicopter belonging to a news station was hovering overhead while vans with enormous satellite dishes were parked nearby, meaning some one had tipped the media off. Jessica shoved her way through a small crowd that had gathered, ignoring questions being shouted at her by the waiting journalists.

The garage was only a ten-minute journey from their station, the type of place that looked as if it had been there for years and was easy to ignore. A sign at the front promised cheap MOT prices with a wide driveway leading towards the working area. The public and media were being penned back at the end of the drive as Jessica walked quickly towards where she could see other police officers in a courtyard, as well as a couple of the Scene of Crime team standing around.

‘What are you doing here?’ Cole asked as Jessica strode towards him.

Jessica shrugged. ‘I don’t know. My team are handling the calls back at the station so I thought I’d come take a look. Have you really found her body?’

The chief inspector nodded towards a set of large doors ahead of them that were closed. ‘Probably. It looks as if it could be her but we don’t know for sure. The body is a little decomposed and was being stored in the well underneath where they work on the cars.’

Jessica could tell from the placement back and away from the main road that it would be easy to conceal things at the garage. ‘Do you mean the pit things that mechanics stand in and then work above them? How were they keeping her down there, they’re not exactly deep? Or was it just her body they had dumped?’

‘We don’t know,’ Cole replied. ‘You’re right about it not being big enough to leave someone, it’s not like a mine shaft or anything, it’s an area roughly five feet deep. She could have climbed out. It’s a mess of oil and diesel so the forensic boys aren’t happy. We’re assuming it’s where her body was dumped.’

‘How did you find it?’

‘That red van. Someone scrapped a red former Royal Mail van down in the Midlands on Saturday. The guy who was working handed over the money and so on but the scrapyard’s owner noticed the transaction this morning and luckily he watches the news. Because you need the DVLA documents, it would be pretty hard to fake an address. He phoned us, gave us this place and, when we came around earlier, there was the body.’

‘Has anyone been arrested?’

‘No, we’re looking for the guy who runs this place but he’s not here and not at his house. We reckon he might have seen the police cars this morning and made a run for it. We know who he is though so I don’t reckon he’ll be able to hide out for long. Any luck with your woman?’

Jessica hadn’t been thinking about her case. ‘Not yet. We’d have been screwed if this had happened a day earlier. At least we made the news this morning. Has anyone told George Johnson we might have found his wife?’

Cole pointed at the helicopter overhead. ‘Bit hard to keep it from him. He’s in London but someone’s gone to see him.’

‘Do we have anything on him?’

The chief inspector stopped looking at the closed garage doors, peering towards Jessica. He lowered his voice. ‘Some of his emails showed he was certainly friendly with his PA and there were the regular cash withdrawals but nothing really. All we can do is ask him but we’ve been delaying bringing him in to see if we can connect any more dots. He’s clean though; he’ll be able to say the emails were harmless flirting and I’m sure he’ll have a reason for the cash. Our best hope is finding the garage owner. If he was acting alone then we’ll have our man, if not then hopefully he’ll be willing to tell us.’

‘Why are you here?’

‘The super’s on his way so I’m waiting for that. I suspect he’ll say something to the cameras. We’ve got to try to get the garage owner’s photo distributed as far and wide as possible so it’s going to be one of those days.’

‘You wait all year for a manhunt to come along then two pop up at once.’

Jessica hoped Cole would smile but he was unmoving. He looked as if he was about to say something but his phone rang. Overhead the helicopter moved swiftly away from the area, flying towards the city centre. Because of the noise, Jessica missed the first part of the conversation but the second was clear enough and, if she was in any doubt, it evaporated when the chief inspector handed her his phone.

Another hand had been found.

Jessica leant back into her office chair, closing her eyes. She couldn’t remember a busier day than the previous one at Longsight. A hand she assumed belonged to Steven Povey had been left not far from Piccadilly train station. Jessica arrived there to find the news helicopter overhead and a handful of officers trying to keep the scene fresh while bemused and annoyed commuters hurried past, oblivious to what was going on.

The appendage had been recovered but tests were going to take a while to confirm the identity because the forensics team were tied up with what everyone assumed was Christine Johnson’s body. Jessica had managed to contact Steven’s wife, who said she hadn’t seen her husband since the previous morning. She had reported it to her local force but not much had happened because it was only a little over a day since he disappeared. Jessica didn’t reveal anything specific that she knew but did feel bad about the whole affair. Though Steven had refused protection because he didn’t want to talk to his partner. Jessica wondered if she could have forced him to accept protective custody but it was unlikely, especially with their lack of resources.

The hunt for Sam hadn’t got much further than where it had been the previous morning, largely because the discovery of Christine Johnson’s body had overtaken everything, both at the station and in the media. A few phone calls were coming in relating to the woman in their photograph but nothing that seemed to match their criteria for age and appearance.

If everything happening at the station wasn’t already enough, the company had finally arrived to fix the station’s air-conditioning unit and had been clattering in and out of reception as confused journalists stood at the front gates wondering what was going on.

Jessica breathed in deeply enjoying the relative quiet and, for the first time in a while, not feeling sweaty in her own office.

‘Jess? You awake?’

She jumped, wondering if she actually had dozed off for a few moments. She certainly hadn’t heard her office door go. Opening her eyes, she saw Izzy standing in between her desk and DS Cornish’s.

‘I’m just having a rest after a long few days.’

The constable clearly thought Jessica had been asleep for some time. ‘I just wanted to make sure I was fine to get off?’

Jessica looked at the clock above the door and realised she had been sleeping for almost an hour. On most days, it wouldn’t have been possible but with everyone dashing around to find the garage owner, people hadn’t been bothering her. ‘Of course. I take it nothing came in on the phones to match our Sam?’ she asked.

‘No, but I guess it’s going to be over now, isn’t it?’ Jessica must have had a confused look on her face because the constable followed it up. ‘I mean, that’s six men from the photo and all of them are either dead or missing.’

It seemed an obvious point but, for whatever reason, Jessica had missed the significance of the find. She was feeling tired after working through the weekend but Izzy was right. Unless they had missed something major, the six men involved in the assault Steven Povey had described were all accounted for in one way or the other. Barry Newcombe had been killed in a car accident but Jessica wondered if the other five men’s bodies would ever be found, assuming they were dead.

‘I don’t know what we’re going to do if we can’t find Sam,’ Jessica said. It was an honest statement but not something she would have revealed to many of her colleagues.

‘She’s bound to show up somewhere.’

‘Maybe, but we’ve only got a picture that’s eleven years old and we can’t get too much attention for that at the moment.’

‘She won’t be able to hide forever though.’

Jessica sighed. ‘Don’t you think it’s a really rough way of doing things? The only thing we’ve got to connect her to the six men in the photo is the say-so of Steven Povey and he’s disappeared. What if it’s nothing to do with her at all? What if we’re going after someone who’s spent eleven years trying to forget everything and we’re punishing her for it?’

Izzy paused, thinking it over. ‘Do you think Steven was lying?’

‘No, you saw him; he was genuinely frightened but I wonder if we’ve missed something else.’

‘Like what?’

Jessica shrugged. The truth was she didn’t know. It wasn’t as if they had any other suspects or leads but she felt very uneasy with making assumptions about the woman whose face she had been responsible for getting in the papers and on the news. ‘I have no idea.’

She had spent the morning going through more CCTV footage. The hand had been left in very similar circumstances to the others. A figure wearing a black hooded gown had dropped it near the train station in the early hours of the morning. With so many people hurrying past, it had somehow been ignored for almost six hours. Jessica wondered how people could be so oblivious but, as she watched the footage, it was clear everyone leaving or arriving at the station was in a rush. As before it seemed clear the person knew where the cameras were and, from what Jessica had seen, they had no clear views of the person. She wondered if it was the sheer amount of time staring at monitors over the past few weeks that was making her feel so tired.

Izzy scratched her chin. ‘What about the woman in black?’

Jessica weighed up the question. ‘Who knows? It could be Sam. Whoever she is knows the area well. Her photo has been in the local papers so you’d assume she would be recognised but we’ve not had anything so far. Honestly? I just don’t know.’

Another package arrived for Jessica the next day but, once again, she didn’t get to see it before it was taken away by the science team. The previous ones had bothered her but Jessica had pretty much expected another finger to arrive. If it was Sam, she wondered if the woman knew who she was because of the media reports.

The biggest development of the day again didn’t relate to her case. The garage owner was found hiding in a caravan in a field north of the city. His photo had been everywhere and a member of the public had called the police after spotting him. He had spent the first twenty-four hours no-commenting but there were hints from his solicitor that he might have information to reveal. Jessica thought he might have been more willing to speak given the fact he was likely to be charged with murder but people could do strange things when they were either frightened or felt they could be battling for their life. What had perhaps been telling was that George Johnson hadn’t said anything to the media since his wife’s body had been found. For someone who had been only too keen to speak beforehand, it really was a turnaround and, from what Jessica could tell, had convinced Cole and Reynolds even further that he was somehow involved.

On the Thursday, Jessica finally got confirmation the hand they’d found belonged to Steven Povey. She’d thought all along that it did but actually getting the test results had her wondering what might happen next. With the final finger also identified, Jessica debated if things really were now over in terms of finding body parts. It was an odd feeling, thinking a killing spree had started and ended on her watch.

Also playing on her mind was the fact it was Caroline’s wedding in two days. Jessica had done her best to stay in touch over the past week and gone to the final dress fitting but things had been so busy it was proving almost impossible to be involved. Caroline seemed to be calm but Jessica felt she was neglecting her friend by not having the time to visit her with the day so close. Jessica was due to sleep at the bride’s house on the Friday night but hadn’t packed anything to take. She was frequently disorganised but had wanted to get everything ready a day or two ahead of time.

Jessica was sitting in her office thinking about marriage when her desk phone rang. The noise surprised her and it was almost as if she didn’t know what to do. When she answered, the man on the other end sounded nervous. He introduced himself as an officer from a force somewhere around Nottingham. He waffled for a little bit but, when he finally got to the point, Jessica was left worrying whether or not she would be back in time for Caroline’s wedding as there was no doubt she was going to have to travel to see him the next day. A woman named Sam Kellett had handed herself into her local police station, identifying herself as the person in the holiday photo.