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

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

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Текущая страница: 58 (всего у книги 60 страниц)

A couple of taxis were already waiting and Jessica got into the first one.

‘Are you “King”, love?’ the driver asked, half-looking over his shoulder.

‘Sorry?’ Jessica replied.

‘I’m here to pick up someone called “King”. I thought it was a couple though.’

Jessica realised the golf club was out of the way and the only taxis would be ones other people had booked. She couldn’t be bothered waiting. ‘Yeah, sorry it’s just me,’ she said.

‘Where are you off to?’

‘This might sound weird but can you take me to Longsight Police Station?’

‘Are you sure you’re “King”? My note said a couple to go to Stockport.’

Jessica sighed. ‘All right, you’ve got me. My last name isn’t King but I am a police officer who’s a little bit tipsy and I could really do with getting back to the station.’

The driver turned around and Jessica saw him eyeing her outfit. ‘All right, whatever you say, love. I’ve not seen too many “officers” wearing a dress like that.’

Jessica wouldn’t have let too many people get away with looking at her the way the driver had and it was clear he didn’t believe who she was. Partly because of the alcohol she’d had but also because he started driving in the direction she needed to go, Jessica said nothing.

The man tried to strike up a conversation more than once but Jessica was pretty adept at giving dull answers to make him stop and he eventually pulled up outside of the police station. ‘Are you sure this is where you want to go?’ he asked sarcastically. Jessica ignored his tone and dropped some money on the passenger seat before getting out of the vehicle and walking towards the main door.

Most of the officers on duty on a Saturday night would have been in the city centre dealing with various amounts of trouble. Jessica knew the station would only get busy in a few hours when the first van of people arrested for various drink– or violence-related crimes would arrive.

As she walked into the station, the desk sergeant first looked her up and down and then did a double-take when he realised the woman in the blue dress and matching shoes with her hair clean and down was the same person who usually wore a trouser suit with her hair tied back in a ponytail. Jessica ignored his stare, walking around the counter as she would do usually.

‘Are you all right?’ the sergeant asked.

‘Fine. I’ve just got to check something in my office and then I’ll need a lift home if you can get someone to sort that?’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Jessica walked along the corridor to her office and opened the door. She turned the lights on and headed to where there were the usual piles of clutter on her desk. She sifted through a few things and then settled on a copy of the photo that showed Edward Marks and the woman who had been Samantha Weston.

Something about the photo hadn’t seemed right to Jessica when she had looked at the picture before and only now was she beginning to understand what it was. Ed and Sam were holding their glasses towards the camera in exactly the way the photographer had said looked awkward. Thoughts began to swirl around her head as Jessica wrote frantically on a pad the names of people she would have to speak to before the weekend was over.

34

Jessica spent her Sunday partly at the station and partly at home, trying to get hold of the people she needed. By mid-morning on the Monday, she had checked over the final few things from her flat. There had been little point in going to the station as the commute would have wasted time.

Jessica phoned Cole’s mobile but it went straight to voicemail so she called his desk phone, which also went unanswered. She then called the station’s reception and told the person who answered who she was. ‘Is the DCI around?’ she asked.

‘Haven’t you heard?’

‘What?’

‘They arrested George Johnson first thing this morning. He’s been in there with him all morning, it’s chaos here.’

‘What about Jason?’ Jessica asked.

‘I’ve not seen him all morning. I assume he’s there too.’

‘Shite.’

‘Do you want me to take a message?’

‘No, I’ll be in later.’

Jessica had learned the hard way a couple of years earlier not to go charging in on her own but felt hamstrung by the fact all of her supervisors were unreachable. She could have contacted one of them the day before but didn’t feel as if she had the entire picture and figured gathering that evidence before taking it to her bosses couldn’t do much harm.

She drove to the location she needed to be at, completed one final task and stood outside of the big front door feeling the rain fall on her hair. As she had struggled to figure everything out over the past few weeks, the sun had shone but now she believed she knew a lot of the answers, the weather had finally turned. The irony of it happening just after the air-conditioning had been fixed at the station wasn’t lost on anyone.

After knocking on the door, Jessica waited in the rain for the man to answer.

Charlie Marks soon opened the door wide and waved her in. He was eating a piece of toast, rotating his free hand around in a circle as if to apologise. When he had finished chewing, he smiled. ‘Sorry about that, I know we spoke yesterday but I didn’t know exactly what time you were coming.’ Jessica closed the door behind her as Charlie ate the final piece. ‘Was there anything in particular I can help you with?’ he added.

Jessica shook her head. ‘Not specifically, we’re just tying up a few loose ends.’

Charlie was unmoved. ‘Do you want to look through the things upstairs again?’

‘There are a couple of pictures I was hoping I could borrow for a short while.’

Charlie shrugged. ‘That’s fine, do you need my help? You’re welcome to look on your own if you know what you’re after.’

‘I’ve seen them before. They’re just upstairs if you don’t mind.’

‘It’s fine. I’ll be in the kitchen if you want me.’

Jessica made her way up the stairs in the same way she had done a few times previously, heading to the room where Charlie had handed her the photo of the rugby team and where she had found the photo of the six young men on holiday. She could feel her heart beating faster as she stepped across the threshold, walking towards the window. There was a steady beat of the rain falling outside as Jessica looked out towards the back garden wondering about the specific questions she didn’t yet know the answers to.

The serene view was almost hypnotic as she stared into the distance before turning around and walking towards the box where she had previously looked through the photographs. She was partly relieved to see the ones still there from the last time she had been in the room. Jessica had no reason to think they would have been moved and ultimately it wouldn’t have altered her theory but it was nice to hold some degree of proof in her hands.

Jessica stood thinking about her next move. Should she return to the station with what she was holding? It appeared Cole was going to be unavailable for most of the day and, although she was confident she knew what was going on, Jessica wasn’t completely sure.

After a few moments’ thought, she took the photographs downstairs, entering the kitchen where Charlie was sitting on a stool typing on a laptop computer that was on the main counter.

He glanced up as she walked in. ‘Did you get what you needed?’

‘Yes, here you go.’ Jessica held out one of the photos and Charlie took it, looking at the picture then up to Jessica, clearly confused. ‘What about these?’ She handed him two more photos which he took, glimpsed at and then put on the counter.

‘I’m not sure what you’re showing me,’ he said.

Jessica smiled thinly. ‘Is there something you want to tell me, Charlie?’

‘Like what?’

There were a few moments of silence which Jessica let hang before continuing. ‘Given it was Sunday yesterday, it took a bit of doing but I managed to speak to a couple of your former colleagues at Bennett Piper. It wasn’t the first time I’d talked to them but this time I knew the right questions to ask.’ Charlie shuffled nervously but didn’t move from his stool. ‘This time I asked about how you quit your job and I’m sure you know what the reply was.’

The man shook his head. ‘I sent them an email, so what?’

Jessica nodded. ‘That’s right; an email to your boss and a couple of text messages to your other colleagues. If I had known that all those weeks ago, it might have had me thinking straight away.’

‘About what?’ Charlie reached forward, closing the lid of his computer.

‘About the fact no one I can find has seen you in person since you announced you were moving back up north to see your brother again.’

Charlie was silent for a moment, as if thinking how to reply. ‘I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.’

Jessica nodded and picked up the pictures the man had put on the counter. ‘What were you like as a kid, Charlie?’ He shrugged as if not knowing what she was getting at. She held up the photos one by one for him to see. They were the same ones she had looked at upstairs a couple of weeks ago before finding the one of the six men on holiday. ‘You liked football, yes?’ she asked, showing him the one of the young boy with a ball.

‘So what? Lots of people do.’

‘Were you a good angler? I’m not sure I would have guessed you were a keen fisherman.’ Charlie looked at the second photo and shrugged. ‘What about building sand-castles with your brother? Do you remember that?’

‘I have no idea what you’re getting at.’

Jessica picked up a fourth photo from the counter. It was the one of the two boys doing their homework together while sitting across from each other. ‘Even your body language since I walked in has told me everything I needed to know. When you were eating as I came in, the toast was in your left hand. When you shut the laptop lid, you did it with your left hand.’

Charlie started to stand but Jessica raised her voice and he almost cowered under it, sitting back down. ‘How about this photo of you building sandcastles? The older, blonder child – Charlie – is using his right hand while Ed, the younger, dark-haired kid, is using his left. In the one of you doing your homework, Charlie, the older, blonder child is using his right hand while Ed, the younger, dark-haired kid, is using his left.’

The man shuffled nervously but seemed transfixed by what she was saying. ‘How about young Charlie kicking a football with his right foot? Or young Charlie holding a fishing rod with his right hand? And that’s where the problem is because, in the photo of Ed having a drink with Sam Weston on holiday, just like the ones from when he was young, he is using his left hand to hold his drink.’

The man winced at the sound of Sam’s name. ‘You know her name, don’t you, Edward?’ He said nothing but Jessica stood, continuing to speak. ‘It wasn’t Edward’s hand we found first of all, it was Charlie’s. You killed your brother, then took his identity, acting as if you were only just returning from London. I checked the dates and Charlie’s colleagues say he left his job a fortnight before his hand was found. When I spoke to you on the phone, you said you were coming up to Manchester on a train. But you were already here because you’re Edward and you never left.’

The man shook his head. ‘I don’t know why you’re saying all of this. I use my right and left hands to do things.’

‘It’s not about being right– or left-handed. That was just what got me thinking. The hand we’ve been thinking of as Edward’s this whole time was never identified by anyone because we didn’t have anything else to match it to – except for when you came along and gave us a mouth swab. But all that proved was that the hand belonged to your brother. You reported “Edward” as missing, even though you are Edward. When we matched the DNA and you told us you were Charlie, we made the obvious conclusion we had found Edward’s hand. But the DNA was always going to be a match because you are brothers. We just didn’t know which one had lost a hand and which one hadn’t.’

Jessica stopped for a breath before continuing but he didn’t attempt to respond. ‘From the photos, you look fairly similar,’ she added. ‘Because Charlie had been out of the area for such a long time, all you had to do was dye your hair and you would easily pass as him as long as none of Charlie’s colleagues in London ever saw you.’

The man’s voice was level and had a small undercurrent of menace that wasn’t lost on Jessica. ‘Even if all of this were true, how would you prove it?’

Jessica was feeling a little nervous and wondered if she should have involved officers higher-up from the station. She ignored his question and continued. ‘I still don’t know everything. I don’t know which brother contacted the other about reconciliation but I guess it was you because it was the only way you could make the plan work. I assume the figure in black on the cameras was also you? You’re roughly the same size and shape but the same thing always confused us; the way the person walked in those shoes. I’ve not figured it all out yet but there were women’s shoes in one of the bedrooms upstairs at the bottom of a wardrobe. Considering the only people who lived here were you, your brother and your father, I don’t know why there would be the need for female things. There were so many random items around it didn’t register at the time but there were women’s heeled shoes in there plus other female clothes in boxes. When I first came here, your neighbour told me he didn’t like to stick his nose into other people’s business but, when I visited him this morning and asked what he meant, he said he’d often seen a man in women’s clothing coming in and out of the house late at night. He was pretty sure it was the young man who owned the house but didn’t want to say anything about it. There’s no law about cross-dressing but I can’t help but wonder if that’s why you were so confident about walking in heels?’

He said nothing, narrowing his eyes but Jessica was on a roll. ‘As for why you made everything so public with leaving the hands, I’m not really sure. It was you who gave me the leads from the photographs too. I think maybe you wanted everyone to find out what the other men had done when they’d attacked Samantha. Perhaps she was your first proper girlfriend and you never recovered from it?’

‘You don’t know anything.’ His tone was hard to judge – firm but unthreatening.

‘That’s what I’m saying,’ Jessica said. ‘I really don’t. I have no idea why you killed your brother but all I can come up with is that it was the only way to make your plan work. You’d fallen out with him over who owned the house so it got that out of the way while also confusing us. As Edward, all you’d have to do is sign the house over to your brother, who you planned to kill, then set the wheels in motion. I don’t really know why you sent me fingers but perhaps that was part of the game? I also don’t know how you managed to subdue the other men because they are almost all bigger than you.’

‘You’re so wrong.’

‘Am I?’

‘Yes and I can prove it.’ The man quickly got to his feet, surprising Jessica with his movement. She took an involuntary half-step backwards but he didn’t move towards her, instead stepping towards the kitchen door, holding it open for her. ‘Come and see.’

Jessica was a little confused. She realised she didn’t know everything but felt sure her explanation about which brother was which was correct. Without really thinking, she walked towards the door, ducking ever so slightly under the man’s arms and going through it. It was then Jessica realised she had made a terrible mistake as something sharp punctured her neck and the man pushed her to the floor.

Jessica swung violently with her legs as the man lunged down on top of her, sitting across her midriff and pinning her arms to the floor. She heard a clattering noise as something bounced to the ground. He was a lot stronger than she would have thought and no matter how much she fought, she couldn’t escape his grasp. His eyes locked on hers; they were fierce and staring, although he seemed completely in control of himself. ‘Just go with it,’ he said.

As Jessica tried to struggle, she could feel her arms and legs heavy with the effort. Her mind was alert but her body wasn’t reacting to her commands. She didn’t know how much time had elapsed while he was on top of her but it didn’t feel long before he stood. Jessica couldn’t move her neck far but saw him crouch and pick up an empty syringe from the floor. She tried to move but her limbs weren’t responding.

‘I really didn’t think that would work,’ he said, a mixture of confusion and amusement on his face.

35

Jessica wanted to speak but her lips wouldn’t move and she could feel a small amount of drool around the corner of her mouth. The man went into the kitchen then returned without the syringe. He picked Jessica up and leant her against the wall so she was in a sitting position.

‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘I don’t want you to swallow your tongue or something stupid.’

Jessica’s mind was screaming ‘GET OFF ME’ but no words were coming out.

The man stood back and looked her up and down. ‘If it’s any consolation, you’re right, I am Edward. It’s pretty clever figuring it out from those photos. If I’d thought it through, I would have hidden those ones but the left-right-handed thing didn’t even occur to me. I wanted you to find the rugby photo and so on. As you say, I wanted people to know what those animals did to Samantha. I was hoping it would get on the news a bit more so they would be exposed but it didn’t quite work as I hoped. The problem with this unfortunate situation is that it might never come out now.’

Jessica was trying to stay calm and focus on breathing. It wasn’t hard exactly but felt slightly unnatural because she found herself thinking about it. She felt so stupid – she had literally fallen for the oldest trick in the book. Someone had said, ‘Look over there’ and, while she had, they’d seized their chance.

Edward sat cross-legged on the floor a few feet away from her, his head tilted slightly. ‘Pancuronium if you’re wondering. It’s a muscle-relaxing drug. When my father was ill in his later days he was in a lot of pain and his doctor prescribed it. Small doses would help him sleep but I managed to keep plenty of it over the final few months. Larger doses of it leave you in a state, well, like you are in now. As you can probably tell, most of the other men were bigger and stronger than me, so I needed something in my favour. Jacob was a bit different but it was easy enough to spike his drink. This is quite a useful little drug really. It takes around a minute to kick in and then, depending on the person’s size, can last for anything up to three hours. I didn’t want to take any risks with Jacob because he’s a big guy.’

Jessica continued to focus on her breathing. She had never heard of the drug but didn’t doubt the things Edward was telling her were true. Her arms felt floppy and useless by her side and she fought to move one of them a small amount. She realised she wasn’t totally paralysed but certainly couldn’t do much more than twitch her right arm.

Edward scratched his chin, appearing a little unsure. ‘As I’m sure you know by now, this wasn’t really part of the plan. I don’t actually know what to do with you. I’ve got this storage unit in the city with two big chest freezers. I got them about a year ago from this supermarket that went out of business. After I’d killed them, that’s where I kept the bodies before going back for the hands when I needed them. I’ve never had a live victim in the house so I’m at a bit of a loss because my tools are all there.’

He stood and paced before walking into the kitchen and returning. He sat back down in front of Jessica and started playing with a large kitchen knife, moving it from one hand to the other and staring closely at the handle and blade before looking back to her. ‘This is a pretty good knife, you know. I like cooking and I use it a lot. I don’t really want to have to throw it out but it’s not as if I can use it on you then go back to chopping carrots tomorrow, is it?’

He laughed slightly as he spoke. ‘This is like one of those big movie moments, isn’t it, where the dastardly crook reveals everything to the plucky secret agent, who is seemingly in an impossible situation but the agent then somehow escapes.’ He shuffled forward and poked Jessica in the shoulder. ‘You’re not going anywhere though, are you?’

Edward stood and put the knife deliberately on the floor close to Jessica, then stepped towards her, picking her up and holding her over his shoulder. She felt sick, her head hanging limply against his back. She bobbed up and down as he walked toward the area where the pool was being built. Edward pushed through a plastic curtain, then placed her gently on the floor, propping her up so she could see the room before he left.

Jessica couldn’t do anything other than twitch her arms but it was suddenly obvious what he had done with the bodies of the other men. When she had seen the room before, the whole area was covered in plastic sheeting and she hadn’t bothered to look. It was uncovered now, revealing a giant pit in the centre of the room where the pool would go. The surface wasn’t level, with some areas far deeper than others and a few sections filled with concrete that had set.

Edward entered back into the area with the knife and set it down on the floor next to Jessica. Instinctively she tried to move towards it but her limbs were incapable of responding. He started to walk around. Plastic sheeting was pinned to the ceiling and shielded the gaps in the walls where the windows would go. Jessica could hear the rain falling but it sounded louder because, aside from the sheets, there was nothing to separate them from the outside. Edward talked loudly as he wandered around the space where the pool would be before ending up back next to Jessica.

‘I know you’re not stupid so you’ll know by now that this is where all those bodies ended up. Charlie, Lewis Barnes, Jacob Chrisp, Matthew Cooper and Steven Povey are all in the foundations of the pool. I’ve got a company coming around on Thursday to put the sealant in and get a proper bottom down. For obvious reasons I’ve had to do a lot of the foundations myself; I couldn’t really get a company in to help me bury bodies, could I? I don’t really know what I’m doing. This other company dug it all out for me and I’ve just been burying them then pouring the concrete into the space they dug. It was actually a little easier than I thought.’

Edward paused and coughed, kicking a bit of plastic sheeting before continuing. ‘When you were around the other week I was worried you’d take me up on the offer and have a much closer look around here. The covering sheets were all out and luckily you didn’t pay too much attention. There were no bodies on show but it was a bit of a mess. I dreaded it every time you came around because, on the second occasion, Charlie’s phone went off. I’d been keeping it just in case but obviously forgotten to turn it off. I was surprised the battery hadn’t died.’

As he finished his loop, Edward crouched near to the edge of the pit. ‘There’s still a space at this end and I’ve got loads of cement left. It’ll be a waste of a day and I’ll have to do something with your car but at least the driveway’s long enough so no one will see it for now. I’m a bit pissed off you spoke to the neighbours actually but I can just say you came and went. I’ll think of something. Maybe I’ll use your phone to send a text then ditch it?’

Jessica was still trying to concentrate on breathing but panic was beginning to set in. The knife was on the ground mere inches away but her body wouldn’t move.

Edward stood and moved to stand directly in front of her. ‘Right, to business,’ he said, clapping his hands. ‘I know it’s a bit of a cliché but I figure you may as well go out actually knowing what’s gone on, so what the hell. I’ve got to be quick though because I’ve got a body to bury and a car to get rid of, though you already know that.’

The man’s cheeriness was incredibly unsettling and he continued speaking in the same tone. ‘Right, here goes. I am your woman in black. It was pretty funny actually when I saw those headlines. At first, it was just a disguise but then I realised it really had confused you. I was a bit pissed off with those robbers who stole my disguise but I guess it didn’t do any long-term harm. Either way, I dress up in women’s clothing now and then, so what? I might have to have “words” with my nosy neighbour though. I know the city pretty well and, once you realise where the cameras are, it’s pretty easy to get out of places without being spotted.’ He paused for a moment, then added, ‘Any questions?’

Jessica couldn’t have spoken even if she’d wanted to. Edward smiled. ‘No, right, well, it was me who reconciled with Charlie. The guy’s a complete dick; I bet you didn’t know that. I was the one who looked after Dad and he left me the house. Charlie whined on about his share and then pissed off to London. I got in touch a few months ago and gave him a sob story about signing over half the house and making up and so on but it was just because I needed him for this. He was the key one because I wanted the story to come out about what they’d done to Samantha but I couldn’t do everything as Edward because you lot would know it was me. So I came up with the idea of killing “me” off and becoming Charlie. That way you’d have no way of knowing I was involved. Well, in theory anyway.’

Jessica found his tone and mood difficult to judge. He spoke about the killings in a matter-of-fact voice with no emotion at all. He seemed almost put out by the entire affair and, although he clearly intended to do her harm, he almost seemed regretful about the whole thing.

He began to speak more quickly, clearly becoming impatient. ‘You probably want to know why I sent you the fingers. I should really apologise because it can’t have been nice to get something like that in the post, especially when a big package arrives. Whenever the post van turns up, I always get a little excited wondering what’s inside. I feel like a kid again whenever something with my name shows up that I haven’t specifically ordered. Anyway, sorry about that. It was just because I didn’t want you to forget. That was the reason I gave the thumbs-up and waved at the camera too – I wanted you to find the reason for it all so people would know. I figured you might have been struggling to identify everyone and I wanted to keep you interested. I couldn’t make it too obvious, which is why I used the fingers and called you over for that first picture. It almost worked out.’

Edward tapped his hand on the floor as if wondering what else he should say. ‘Umm,’ he muttered to himself, tutting. ‘Right, I suppose the only other thing is to tell you why.’ He stood, pacing a couple of times before sitting directly in front of Jessica. He moved the knife away from her and made sure her eyes could meet his. She had no choice but to look at him.

He lowered his tone and his voice cracked a couple of times as he spoke. ‘I was a virgin, you know. I met Samantha on holiday and we had a really good time. We’d talked about meeting up again when we got back to England. She was the first girl who ever really showed much interest in me. I know you know most of this now about the attack on her. I wanted to tell them to stop but Jacob was so much bigger than me. I didn’t know what to do; I was just some scrawny kid.’

Edward looked away, then met Jessica’s eye again. He sniffed and then spoke even more quietly; his demeanour had changed completely from being breezy and cheerful to sounding far more solemn. ‘I wasn’t always like this. You know in “The Shining” when Jack Nicholson goes a bit crazy in a big house on his own? I’ve felt a bit like that since Dad died. I’ve got all this space and don’t know what to do. I paint and cook but it’s only for me.’

He paused for a moment. ‘I’ve not had a girlfriend since Sam. The dressing up is just for show. Manchester’s the right place to be for all of that with other men but I don’t really know what I am. I started to think all of this through about a year ago. I figured that, if I could make the other men pay for what they did to Sam, maybe I would be able to get over it too? It took ages to find out where everyone was but the Internet’s a wonderful thing. After that, I had the problem of it being obvious it was me. That’s when I thought of using Charlie too. Believe it or not, after all the planning, it really wasn’t that hard.’

Edward stood again, sounding a little cheerier. ‘I think that’s everything. At least you should be happy now.’ He played with the knife before putting it back down and muttering under his breath, ‘Bit messy’. He made a ‘hmm’ noise then began to speak again. ‘Sorry about all of this, I’ve never done it like this before. The men were easy because it all happened in the storage unit which was easy to clean out.’

Jessica continued to try to move but her body refused to respond to her commands. Her arms and legs felt heavy and she couldn’t shift them. She didn’t know any of the correct medical terms but Edward had clearly gone mad. She could perhaps just about understand his motive but everything had been exacerbated by his isolation. Jessica wondered about the effect of seeing his girlfriend assaulted and how it had changed him. It sounded as if he were just a normal teenager before that but now he had turned into a killer whose moods shifted drastically.

He was clearly artistic and clever, while everything must have taken a huge degree of planning. Somewhere along the way, though, he had lost his conscience. The casual way he was talking about getting rid of her but being unsure how to do it was almost as disconcerting as the fact he was happy to kill an innocent person. Jessica tried to keep herself cool and focused on trying to move her right arm. She could twitch it ever so slightly more than she could before but still nowhere near enough to do anything of note. It was hard to stay calm but she realised getting frustrated would do no good either.