Текст книги "Jessica Daniel: Think of the Children / Playing with Fire / Thicker Than Water"

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 56 страниц)

He didn’t finish his sentence but didn’t need to. With Ryan’s aggression, it was easy to forget he hadn’t had much of a life for the past few years. That didn’t stop Jessica thinking she might need to keep an eye on him.

The two officers exited the house after a final ‘Thank you’ from Martin, Reynolds leading them back to the car. A few years before, they had shared an office when they had both been sergeants. After his promotion to inspector, very little had changed initially but recently Jessica had begun to feel less comfortable around the man. It was something that was hard to pinpoint. A few months previously, while investigating the case of a missing child, she’d had what was a minor disagreement with the chief inspector. Largely because of her stubbornness, things hadn’t been addressed. Anyone who wasn’t familiar with the internal dynamics between Jessica and her colleagues might not notice anything different and she sometimes thought it was all in her head. Regardless of the truth, Jessica was feeling a little ostracised by her workmates.

It didn’t help that she was struggling to deal with the guilt of how she had broken the law trying to solve that case. Apart from Detective Constable David Rowlands, whom she had involved in her plan, no one knew what she had done.

Jessica slid into the passenger seat, slamming the door harder than she meant to. Reynolds sat in the driver’s seat and put the keys in the ignition without starting it.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

In the same way that ‘calm down’ could infuriate drunk or angry people, Jessica knew that someone asking how she was feeling was her trigger. ‘I’m fine,’ she replied, forcing an upbeat tone.

The inspector laughed gently. ‘How was the back of the van?’

‘Bumpy.’

‘Did Martin say much?’

‘No.’

Jessica’s reply was instant. She didn’t know why but she wanted to keep the man’s breakdown to herself – at least for now. Very little about her morning’s work had turned out how she’d expected but she was feeling a sense of responsibility for Martin she wasn’t sure she should have.

Jessica lay awake staring through the darkness at the ceiling. She stretched a hand across to rest on Adam’s hip as he slept facing away from her. She listened to his breathing. It wasn’t quite at snoring levels but he was certainly exhaling loudly through his nostrils. She wanted to blame him for waking her up but knew it was entirely down to her restlessness. She traced the outline of the man’s side with her fingers. His skin was smooth and tight, his hip bone jagged.

Rolling away, Jessica squinted to look at the alarm clock on her side of the bed. The red LED letters glowed 03.33 through the gloom. It was utterly irrational but Jessica had always found something satisfying about the numbers matching on a clock. It was small comfort in a house that still felt unfamiliar, even though she had been living there for a few months.

It was the home Adam had lived in with his grandmother before her death and Jessica was still coming to terms with being somewhere that didn’t feel like ‘hers’.

After leaving home, she had either shared a flat with her best friend Caroline Morrison, or lived by herself. The last few months had been a learning curve as she had never lived with a man before. Despite Adam’s insistence that the things in the house were ‘theirs’, she didn’t see them like that. Everything felt like it was his and that she was somehow trespassing. She even felt guilty about eating food from the fridge if she hadn’t bought it. At first she had confided in Adam about her discomfort but she wasn’t sure he understood her feelings. She didn’t think he was being insensitive, simply that, because the house was his, he couldn’t grasp why she didn’t feel it was home.

Jessica’s daze was broken by a buzzing sound from the small table next to the bed. The light on her mobile phone’s screen was flashing and the ringtone sounded after a second or two. She could feel Adam beginning to stir, his legs stretching as he rolled over. Jessica wondered if she was awake or asleep, blinking rapidly at the ceiling as she reached out and pulled the phone towards her. The grey haze around her vision prevented her from reading the name on the screen, so she simply stabbed the front to answer it.

‘Hello,’ she said groggily. Her throat felt dry and she squinted towards the table to see if the glass she left there had water in it.

‘Sergeant Daniel?’

It was a man’s voice. He spoke quickly and frantically.

‘Yes.’

‘It’s Martin Chadwick. Sorry, something’s happening. Please come quickly.’

4

Despite having lived at Adam’s house for months, Jessica still wasn’t sure of the best way to get from where they were in Salford to where she worked in Longsight. After the first night, she got lost trying to drive off the estate in the dark the following morning. She had stayed at his house before moving in but each time had left during daylight. It was only when she found herself turning back onto his road that she realised she had somehow gone the wrong way. After a few months, Jessica had a better grasp of the general area but still hadn’t mastered the shortcuts that avoided the queues.

As she pressed down on the accelerator and neared the turn onto Mancunian Way, Jessica figured driving to work at four in the morning was definitely the future given the complete lack of traffic holding her up. Getting up at four in the morning was definitely not the future, however. Well, unless it was a future where people enjoyed seeing her very tired and annoyed by mid-afternoon.

Reluctantly, she had to admit it was nice to have a car that started first time on a cold dark morning. Six weeks previously, she had finally given up on her beloved Punto and gone with Adam’s advice about a new vehicle. It was roughly the same size as her old car but had none of the character. Yes, it might start first time every time, yes, it might be fuel-efficient, yes, it might be quiet – but it didn’t have a cigarette lighter that fell out and rolled under the pedals, making braking something of a lottery. It didn’t make a growling noise of annoyance each time she hit exactly forty-two miles per hour. It didn’t even have that little dent in the passenger door from when she reversed into a concrete post in a multi-storey car park.

After she had pointed that out at the showroom, Adam told her there were many more concrete posts out there just waiting for her to collide with them. Jessica smiled as she remembered his cheeky grin, then her phone rang, snapping her back to the present.

Reaching forward, Jessica pressed a button next to the dashboard. The Bluetooth answering function was another benefit of the new vehicle. ‘Yep,’ she said.

‘Jess, it’s Dave. Are you on your way to Martin Chadwick’s?’

Detective Constable David Rowlands didn’t sound anywhere near as tired as she might have expected him to, given the hour. He had been her first call as she headed out of the house.

‘I’m ten minutes away,’ Jessica replied. ‘Are you there yet?’

‘Yes.’

‘I woke Jason up. He’s on his way too.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘It’s probably best if you see for yourself.’

She drove through a red light and turned right towards Stockport Road. ‘Are Martin and Ryan okay?’ she asked.

‘Sort of. They’re not hurt.’ Jessica heard a muffled noise, as if the constable had broken away from the conversation to talk to someone. He quickly returned. ‘I’ve got to go, sorry, Jess. I’ll see you in a minute.’

Jessica focused back on the road, adding extra pressure to the accelerator as she headed past the turn for the station and kept driving, passing Crowcroft Park before turning left into the estate where Martin lived. A police van was blocking the entrance to the road, so Jessica parked on the adjacent street and walked briskly past the van. A female uniformed officer was standing next to the vehicle and nodded as she neared. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

‘Four in the morning is not a time I recognise,’ Jessica replied.

In the distance, she could see a small crowd gathered under a street light. When she was within a few feet, she saw Martin sipping from a mug of tea with Rowlands standing next to him.

Martin saw her before anyone else. ‘Sergeant,’ he said.

‘Are you okay? What’s happened?’

Martin pointed through the gloom towards his house where Jessica could see the front window had a hole roughly in the centre with cracks that had spread towards the corners. ‘Is that why you called?’ she asked.

Martin nodded. ‘I’m sorry. I know I should have called 999 first. I wasn’t thinking.’

Before she could reply, Jessica heard a raised voice. She turned towards the house, where Ryan was storming out of the front door, pointing towards her aggressively. ‘Where the fuck were you lot?’ he shouted. Jessica tried to shush him, aware it was still the early hours of the morning. ‘Don’t you fuckin’ shush me,’ the young man shouted, even louder. ‘Where were you?’

He was within a few feet of her and she could see the saliva around his mouth as he spat the words, his eyes wide and the whites illuminated in the street light.

‘Hey,’ Martin said sharply to his son. Ryan turned to his father and screwed his lips together. ‘Anything could have happened,’ he said, slightly more quietly than before, this time addressing his dad.

‘We’ll sort out some sort of panic button,’ Jessica said, trying to sound reassuring. She wasn’t surprised by Ryan’s aggression but wanted him to calm himself, rather than having to have an officer step in.

‘It’s not just the window,’ Rowlands said.

His words sounded ominous. Jessica turned to face him as he gently gripped her arm and started to walk her forward. She could hear Ryan ranting to his father behind them as they opened the gate, leaving the pavement.

‘He’s a happy chap, isn’t he?’ Dave said.

‘Ryan? I think he’s on something,’ Jessica replied. ‘Did you see his eyes?’

‘Shall we take him in?’

Jessica sighed. ‘Not tonight. Someone’s going to have to keep a close eye on him though.’

Rowlands pointed towards the side wall of the house that adjoined the property’s driveway but he didn’t need to say anything. The graffiti had been sprayed in bright yellow paint, the letters half a metre high. The message was easy enough to make out, even in the limited light.

‘DEAD MAN’

Jessica sighed again, louder the second time. ‘Oh for f—’

‘I know,’ Rowlands said. ‘At least they can spell.’

She couldn’t stop herself from laughing. ‘You’re such a dick sometimes.’

The constable didn’t miss a beat. ‘Who do you think did it? Anthony Thompson?’

Jessica puffed through her teeth. ‘I bloody hope not. The last thing we need is to arrest him. The media will kick our arses.’

‘Someone’s going to have to visit him either way, if only to find out where he was this evening.’

‘Shite.’

Jessica knew it was true – and that she would be dispatched to ask Anthony the question someone had to but nobody wanted to. If he had done it, it wouldn’t be good for anyone. If he hadn’t, they were harassing a man because his son had been killed seven years previously.

‘It could be anyone,’ Jessica added. ‘Martin’s release was in the papers and on the Internet. All it takes is some nutter who has read the story.’

‘Are you trying to convince me or yourself?’

Rowlands leant sideways, deliberately nudging her with his shoulder. Jessica rocked to one side and then back again, hitting the constable with her own shoulder.

‘How’s Chloe?’ she asked, referring to his live-in girlfriend.

‘Pissed off at my phone going off at half-three in the morning.’

Jessica laughed but moved the constable further away from the road because she didn’t want either Martin or Ryan to think she was enjoying the situation. ‘I knew you only lived a few minutes away. It was quicker than phoning the station and I told Martin to call 999 anyway.’

‘What about Adam?’

‘He barely stirred. He just farted and rolled over.’

‘Classy.’

Jessica giggled again. ‘He’s been saying the four of us should go out for a meal again.’

‘Chloe was going on about that too. She reckons she had fun last time.’

‘That’s because she didn’t have to stay in alone with you all night.’ Jessica nudged her colleague with her shoulder again. ‘What are we going to do with Ryan?’ she asked.

‘I thought you wanted to leave him be?’

‘For now, but you didn’t see him earlier. If it was Anthony who did this, Christ knows what might happen.’

Rowlands cupped his hands around his mouth, blowing into them for warmth. ‘Do you think he might go looking for some sort of revenge?’

‘I don’t know. He seems like a very angry young man. Not that I blame him; he has grown up without any parents.’

‘Where’s his mum?’

Jessica shook her head, although it was gloomy enough that she realised she wouldn’t be seen. ‘I don’t know. I think she left when he was young. It’s not been mentioned but she’s not in the picture.’

Rowlands blew into his hands again. ‘Aren’t you cold?’

Jessica pulled up the lapels on her jacket. ‘I nicked a coat off uniform.’

The constable gripped Jessica’s arm and nodded towards the road, where Ryan was striding towards them. At first she could make out only his silhouette against the street lamp but he kept walking until he was within a few feet of the two officers.

‘I want to say sorry,’ he said. ‘I know it’s not your fault. I’m just worried about my dad.’ His voice still contained a menacing undercurrent and Jessica suspected his father had sent him across.

‘We understand,’ Jessica replied, although she said it with enough fire in her voice to let him know she wasn’t prepared to allow him to speak to her in that way too often.

She could tell from the angle of Ryan’s body that he was looking towards her but it was too dark to see his facial reactions. There was an uncomfortable pause before the teenager grunted some sort of acknowledgement, then he turned and headed back towards the road.

Jessica knocked on the door and stepped backwards, accidentally standing on Rowlands’s toe. She turned to see her colleague leaping sideways with a scowl on his face.

‘Will you stop being such a baby?’ Jessica said with a frown of her own as she heard the door unlocking.

By the time she turned around, a small crack had appeared between the door and its frame. Jessica could see an eye peering through the gap at her. Faded red paint was flaking from the wood and the man’s blotched skin was almost the same colour as the emulsion.

‘Mr Thompson?’ Jessica asked in the friendly tone she saved only for visits such as this. She deliberately raised the pitch of her voice, but also had a slower, more serious version for the moments when she had to break bad news to someone. Her semi-aggressive, slightly lower-pitched voice was what she most often used – although that was usually followed shortly after by a threat that someone would break the door down if whoever she was after didn’t open it. Jessica could feel Rowlands eyeing the back of her head, no doubt partly amused by her method.

The eye flickered from side to side before a low gravelly voice answered. ‘Who’s asking?’

Jessica introduced herself and offered her identification so the man could have a better view. His eye darted around it before he added, ‘So?’

‘Can we come in, Mr Thompson?’ Jessica asked, even more sweetly than before.

‘What do you want?’

‘Just a chat. We’ll be quick if you’re busy.’

For a fraction of a second, Jessica caught the gaze of the single eye. It widened, the white lined with deep red veins, and then blinked shut. The face disappeared from the crack and the door opened inwards slightly. Jessica took a half-step forward but, as she did, it was slammed in her face with a bang that sent a rush of air into her face. Jessica stepped backwards quickly, again standing on Rowlands’s toe. He yelped and she felt his hand pressing into the small of her back through the borrowed coat.

‘Can you stop doing that?’ he said, his voice decidedly squeaky.

‘I’m only a little girl, stop whingeing.’

‘Not so “little” any more.’

Jessica didn’t get a chance to reply before the door rattled in front of her. At first it stuck in its frame and then it was wrenched open.

The pictures of Anthony Thompson that had been in the newspapers looked hardly anything like the man standing in front of her. In the media, he had sensible brown hair cut almost into a basin style and had been wearing an open-necked shirt. Jessica wondered how long ago the photo had been taken because the man in front of her had straggly grey hair that hung to his shoulders, his cheeks puffy and glowing red. He was wearing a thick green jumper with a hole in one of the shoulders and Jessica could smell the alcohol without having to cross the threshold. The only thing that told her this was the man she was after was a scar that ran across his chin, finishing somewhere before it reached his neck. In the photos it had been visible, although somewhat faded. On the man in front of her, it was white against the crimson of his skin. She knew from their files he was in his early fifties but he looked much older.

Without a word, Anthony turned and walked through a doorway. Jessica glanced around at Rowlands, shrugging before stepping inside. As she wiped her feet on a thinning grey mat, she couldn’t help but notice everything seemed to be as faded as the paint of the front door. It reminded her a little of Adam’s house in that there wasn’t necessarily anything wrong with it but its style was twenty years out of date. The crusty wallpaper had a raised oval pattern that had been painted over in white gloss that was also beginning to flake. Apart from the reek of alcohol, there was also a stale smell which Jessica associated with the boot of her old car.

Jessica headed to the doorway she had seen Anthony go through. It was no surprise as she walked into the living room to see it had the same carpet and wallpaper as the hallway. Directly across from the door was a white cabinet filled with books – except for one slot in the centre where there was a large framed photo. Without going any closer, Jessica knew it was of Alfie Thompson. She had seen similar pictures in the file they had and, given the length of time since his death, she knew the photo had to be somewhere between eight and ten years old.

Anthony was sitting in a rocking chair steadily going forwards and backwards. It was made out of dark wood and creaked noisily each time it moved. He was holding a glass filled with a dark brown liquid that Jessica assumed was whisky. She walked around the room until she was standing in front of him, Rowlands staying close to the door awkwardly leaning to one side.

‘Are you okay, Mr Thompson?’ Jessica asked.

Anthony sipped from his glass before answering with a croaky ‘Yup’.

‘Do you live alone?’

The man’s rocking increased in tempo, the back of the curved wood touching the floor. ‘Yup.’

With the obvious tension, Jessica didn’t think it was worth wasting any more time. ‘Can you tell me where you were between three and four this morning, Mr Thompson?’

She tried to use her sweetest tone again but it seemed to agitate the man further. The speed of Anthony’s rocking increased again, causing a few drops of his drink to splash over the top of his glass.

‘Mr Thompson?’ Jessica persisted.

Abruptly, Anthony planted his feet on the floor and stopped the chair, springing up in a way that was totally at odds with his age and appearance. With an elegance Jessica could barely believe, he switched from rocking to walking in one fluid movement, striding from one end of the room to the other. He sat in a brown armchair closest to the photograph of his son and leant back, pointing at a matching seat across from where he was sitting. The whole incident had lasted a few seconds. As she walked towards the seat he was indicating, Jessica caught Rowlands’s eye but he too seemed stunned by Anthony’s sprightly movement.

‘I was sleeping,’ Anthony said crisply, still holding the drink in his hand.

‘On your own?’ Jessica asked, already knowing the answer.

‘Yes.’

‘Did some officers visit you a couple of days ago?’ Jessica again knew the answer.

‘Yes.’

‘And you told them you hadn’t threatened Mr Chadwick?’

Anthony downed the rest of his drink in one and winced slightly. ‘Yes,’ he replied, his voice hoarser.

‘Have you had any contact with him since then?’

The reply came instantly, although the man was staring at his empty glass, refusing to acknowledge Jessica. ‘No.’

From her first impression, Jessica would have doubted Anthony being able to throw a brick but it was now clear the man was a lot more agile than he looked. They had no evidence to connect him to the scene of vandalism at Martin’s house and, although the specialist team were looking for footprints or anything else of note, she didn’t expect them to come up with anything. Jessica didn’t want to tell Anthony what had happened; for now, she wanted to get a feel of what he was like, especially after the time she had spent with Martin and Ryan.

She’d been hoping Anthony’s words had been taken out of context by the newspaper. Instead, her fears that something could happen between the two parties had only increased.

After a host of one-word replies and general lack of cooperation from Anthony, Jessica glanced sideways at Rowlands, who had a blank look on his face. It was clear they weren’t going to get anything. Jessica stood and offered her hand for the man to shake. She didn’t know if he would, but the man reciprocated, sending a shiver through her from the coldness of his hand. Jessica left him one of her cards and followed Rowlands out of the house. Anthony hadn’t moved to show them out, so Jessica closed the door behind them.

‘He’s friendly,’ Rowlands said once they were outside.

Jessica clicked her tongue into the top of her mouth. ‘Did you see how quickly he moved?’

The constable hummed in acknowledgement. ‘I thought he was going straight towards you before he went for the armchair.’

‘I hope we can keep him and Ryan apart. I don’t trust either of them.’

As she was talking, Jessica bumped into the back of Rowlands, failing to notice he had stopped in front of her. She peered around him and saw why: at the end of the pathway leading to Anthony’s house was a woman with a camera with a telephoto lens pointing towards them. Even at this distance, Jessica could hear the click and whirr as the person took their photo.

She pushed ahead of Rowlands and strode purposefully towards the gate, opening it as the photographer stepped backwards, still taking pictures.

‘Who are you?’ Jessica demanded.

The photographer answered without lowering her camera. ‘Press.’

‘I can see that,’ Jessica snapped, trying not to take the bait. ‘Where are you from?’

The woman finally moved her camera down to her hip. ‘Herald.’ Jessica turned and realised there were two more photographers a few metres away also taking her photo.

Before she could say anything, a male voice sounded from behind her. ‘Sergeant Daniel?’

Jessica turned to see a man holding a silver metal device towards her. He was somewhere in his mid to late twenties with spiky dark hair, wearing a black pinstripe suit that looked as if it was tailored specifically for him. It fitted perfectly around his trim physique and he was also sporting a thin dark tie. His smartness coupled with the fact he was standing on a pavement uttering her name made Jessica take a step backwards in surprise.

‘Who are you?’ Jessica asked, noticing that the electrical object had what looked like a small microphone pointing out of it.

The man’s response was as sharp as his attire. ‘Sebastian Lowe, Manchester Morning Herald. Why are you visiting Anthony Thompson, Ms Daniel?’

Jessica winced at the use of the word ‘Ms’. She hated it and had long figured you were either a ‘Miss’ or a ‘Mrs’. Or an idiot. She wondered if he had said it to deliberately annoy her.

‘It’s Sergeant Daniel,’ Jessica replied. She hardly ever asked anyone to use her title but the man’s directness had annoyed her.

‘Why are you visiting Anthony Thompson, Sergeant Daniel?’ he asked.

‘Detective Sergeant Daniel.’

Jessica could hear the click of one of the cameras behind her as she locked eyes with Sebastian. She was annoyed with herself for noticing how attractive he was. He had long dark eyelashes, his eyes an intoxicating mix of brown and black. His high cheekbones and blemish-free skin only added to the impression with his short dark brown hair stylishly pointed to one side. He stared back, expecting an answer. ‘Detective Sergeant Daniel,’ he added sarcastically.

‘None of your business,’ Jessica replied loud enough for the small crowd of photographers to hear. She motioned to stride past Sebastian but, before completely passing him, she stepped close enough so she could hiss in his ear. ‘Stop stirring this up.’

Before he could react, Jessica strolled past him towards her car, forcing herself not to turn around to see if his suit fitted him as well at the back as it did in the front.