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

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

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Текущая страница: 45 (всего у книги 56 страниц)

‘Ad,’ Jess said to get his attention, then nodded in the direction of the couple.

As soon as Corey noticed them, he let out a yelp and began running in their direction. Jessica and Adam followed at a distance and, by the time they had caught up, the child was busy hugging the woman’s leg.

‘Get off,’ she said irritably.

‘Are you all right, Corey?’ Adam asked.

The boy let go with one arm but held on with the other and turned to face Adam, nodding enthusiastically.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ the woman said in a strong local accent, glaring at Jessica, even though it was Adam who had spoken. In some areas of Manchester, that was as polite a welcome as you’d get. She was holding a cigarette with one hand and the man had taken a step away.

Jessica was about to respond in kind but Adam got in first. ‘We’ve been waiting with Corey because he fell over and couldn’t find his mother.’ His tone was steady and calm, definitely not the way Jessica would have replied.

The woman glanced down at her child, then returned to staring at Jessica. ‘Are you all right, Core?’ she asked, without a second look.

‘My hands hurt,’ Corey replied.

His mother still didn’t look down. ‘We’ll have a look when we get home,’ she said, before offering a far more aggressive, ‘What?’ in Jessica’s direction.

Adam again jumped in ahead of her. ‘Nothing, we’re just glad he found you safely. You’ve got a lovely young man there.’

Finally the woman stopped looking at Jessica, turning towards Adam and sneering, ‘Fuck off, you paedo prick. Is this what you do? Go around touching up kids?’

Jessica watched Corey bury his head further into his mum’s leg, which she twitched to free herself.

The woman turned to leave with a final, ‘And what have I told you about talking to strangers?’ as she started to walk back the way she had come.

Jessica was about to step in but Adam placed one hand on her shoulder. ‘Don’t,’ he said authoritatively. She was stunned not by the way he was holding her, or by what he said, but instead by the way he said it. She was used to him joking with her, even being jumpy on occasion, but had never heard him speak with such weight.

Once Corey and the two adults were around fifty metres ahead, Adam started following them, Jessica falling in step next to him. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

‘I’m hoping she’s going to get into a car and that we can get the number plate,’ Adam said. ‘With that and Corey’s name, you should be able to get her name and we can get onto social services.’

‘We’re not supposed to use the system for that . . .’

‘You can ask someone senior, though, after what we just saw?’

Adam’s question sounded so matter-of-fact that Jessica couldn’t help but answer positively. As they kept their distance from the couple, she added: ‘How did you know what to do?’

‘When?’

‘With Corey when we first saw him.’

Adam didn’t break stride, even though it started to spot with rain. ‘I don’t know. How do you know what to do in your job? How do you know what to say when you’re with a suspect or a victim?’

‘I don’t know . . . I just do.’

‘Exactly.’

‘But he was just a child.’

Jessica glanced sideways and, even though there was a look of serious concentration on Adam’s face, he still broke into a grin. ‘He’s still a person, Jess, just a little one. You treat them the same. What would you have done if it was a lost adult? You would have found a way.’

Although she started to protest, Jessica stopped herself. Somehow she had reached her mid-thirties without figuring that out. She tried to think of the children she’d had contact with in the past few years and realised it was only really Izzy’s baby she’d spent even a small amount of time with – and she seemed to sleep a lot. Most of her immediate network of friends consisted of people who were childless.

Lost in her thoughts, Jessica bumped into the back of Adam as he stopped at the edge of the pathway which led into the car park. He went to move forward but Jessica stopped him. ‘I’ll go.’

Adam sat on the nearby bench as Jessica ducked behind a hatchback and edged around the tarmac. She could see Corey getting into the back seat of a car, his mother standing impatiently next to him holding the front seat forward. When he was in, she climbed in herself and blew a kiss to the man who had been with her as he got into the adjacent vehicle. Jessica could guess what was going on and typed both number plates into her phone, thinking she would do a bit of digging and if a social services query didn’t get her anywhere, then there might be an anonymous letter or two ready to give someone a surprise.

Jessica double-checked she had the right digits as each car pulled away, then stood and walked back to Adam. She was momentarily confused as the bench he had been on was empty but then she saw him walking away from her towards the play park. Jessica followed quickly, then realised he was talking on his phone. She slowed her pace, although the pitter-patter of the rain was preventing her from hearing anything. As Adam turned and noticed her, his eyes wide with surprise, she heard him say abruptly, ‘. . . anyway, I can’t talk now. I’ve got to go’, before stabbing the phone to hang up and pocketing the device.

‘Who was that?’ Jessica asked, trying not to sound as if she was accusing him of anything.

‘No one, just a marketing call.’ Adam locked eyes with her and she knew he was lying. Before she could reply, he added breezily: ‘Did you get the numbers?’

As Jessica stumbled over a response, he stretched out his hand for her to hold and they turned to head home.

13

The killer had endured a mixed week. What he hadn’t expected was for Kayleigh to spend almost seven days indoors following the discovery of Oliver’s body. He hadn’t necessarily thought she would return to work straight away but his plans had been put back by the fact she seemingly did not answer the door either. A few days before, he had watched a postman ring the bell three times before resting on the glass to write out a card and then leaving that. The killer knew the woman was in, yet no one else would have realised that unless they were watching as closely as he had been.

The only time she had left was to go to the local shop. Even though he had watched her every move, there hadn’t been a time when no other pedestrians were around. He had thought about simply smashing his way in for a second time but discounted it, assuming she would be far more alert. One quick mobile call from her would be enough to get her taken to safety and ensure he would not have his opportunity.

Instead, he watched and waited. His vantage point was a little unconventional, the long-closed public toilet block a few hundred metres from Kayleigh’s house. Although it was uncomfortable, it did at least give him protection. Apart from the odd drunk looking for somewhere to stay when it was raining – and they soon disappeared when he told them what he would do to them if they didn’t – the killer had the place to himself. Although he could not watch the house twenty-four hours a day, he knew there must soon come a time when Kayleigh went back to work, giving him the perfect opportunity.

Each morning, he would return to the block and watch until lunchtime. If she had not left by then, he assumed it would be one more day. Finally, she broke her isolation, the killer observing as she stepped nervously out of the house just as the sun was coming up. He could see her breath flitting into the air as she tested the front door handle half-a-dozen times after locking it. He didn’t know exactly what shift she was working – but had found out where she worked by checking through her cupboards after leaving Oliver. The mass of carrier bags from one supermarket under the sink had given him a clue and the nametag she kept in her bedside cabinet almost confirmed it. The fact she wrote ‘work earlies’ or ‘work lates’ on a branded supermarket calendar, coupled with a spare uniform in her wardrobe, gave him as much verification as he could hope for. He had thought it would be harder, but hunting for payslips or anything more official hadn’t been needed.

As she finally seemed to accept the door was locked, the killer quickly left the abandoned building and jogged out of sight towards the pavement. By the time she was back in his eye line, Kayleigh was hurrying away from him towards the main road. He walked as quickly as he could without drawing attention and gradually gained on her. As she turned a corner, he ran to catch up, slowing back down to a walk as he reached the point where she’d turned.

The distance was barely fifty metres as the killer pulled his hat down and then buried his hands in his pockets. This was about figuring out exactly what ‘work earlies’ entailed and discovering her method of transport.

Kayleigh checked nervously over her shoulder a few times but he kept his stride, making sure his matched hers and that he didn’t gain, except for when he wanted to.

He followed her across the main road and, as she leant against the glass of a bus stop, the killer slowed his pace until he had no choice but to halt at the same place. Although he didn’t think she would recognise him, he did at least have the cover of the other four people also waiting. While Kayleigh, second in line, was bobbing nervously from one foot to the other, he waited at the back and was soon joined by more people.

The killer took great pleasure watching the woman touching her ear and scratching her head nervously. She pulled her coat tighter and continued to stare at the ground until a bus pulled up next to them. After waiting until she had made a move, he slipped onto the bus, taking time to fumble with change to ensure Kayleigh had found a seat before he turned. She was sitting three rows from the back, staring at the rail in front and refusing to acknowledge anyone around her, or the surroundings outside the window.

Being careful not to risk any sort of possible recognition, he walked towards the back of the bus while looking out of the opposite window and then slid into the seat behind her. He saw Kayleigh’s body tense as she felt his presence. Her jumpy movements were so satisfying that he wanted to lean in and smell her. He could practically feel the fear in the air and took enormous delight from the fact he knew he had caused it. It had been quite an effort to find out where she lived, let alone Ellie Sexton, whose name change had not helped at all. Luckily, people’s carelessness with social networks and open access to the electoral roll through the Internet had made things easier than he could have imagined. It had still taken plenty of work but had not been as impossible as he first thought it might be.

As the bus made its various stops, Kayleigh did not move until they were outside the neon glowing sign that matched her uniform. The killer waited until she was off and then stood, ringing the bell again to ensure the driver did not pull away. He stumbled along the aisle and muttered a ‘thanks’, before following Kayleigh, making sure there was a greater distance than before. He knew she was untouchable at work but that wasn’t the point.

He first spent half an hour on a bench at the far end of the supermarket’s car park, waiting for the sun to fully come up. After that, he had a cup of tea in their cafe, before spending time browsing the store as aimlessly as he could. He bought a couple of items, paying with cash, then left and returned to the bench. He knew it would be a long day, but then it was always going to be. You had to make some sacrifices for the greater good, and this was his.

He didn’t know how long a shift Kayleigh might work but he could guess it would either be six, eight, or ten hours. With the time he had wasted inside the store, over two of those had already passed.

Although he thought about leaving and instead going to wait near Kayleigh’s home, he didn’t want to risk her heading somewhere else, certainly without his knowledge. Instead he sat and waited until, finally, the woman emerged not long after lunchtime. The man dumped his coat in the bin and put on the one he had bought in the store, removing his hat. While it had been easy to stay relatively out of sight on the bench away from the store, he didn’t want to be recognised by Kayleigh on the return journey.

He hurried across the car park, reaching the bus stop before the woman, and leaning on the shelter as he watched her stagger along the pavement with two shopping bags. He could sense the excitement building as he got on the bus, this time sitting on the very back set of seats, a few rows behind her. Each stop seemed to take an age as his mouth filled with anticipation.

Finally, the vehicle stopped close to Kayleigh’s house and he filed into the queue to exit directly behind her. He allowed her to get a lead as he trailed her back through the estate, keeping a careful eye out for any potential bystanders. He knew it wasn’t quite time for parents to start picking their children up from school and felt his heart soar as they turned the corner onto Kayleigh’s road, which was empty apart from a handful of parked cars. He had been planning to wait but he might never get a better time than now to act.

He quickened his pace, ensuring he was close enough and then, as Kayleigh put her shopping bags down next to the front door, he took his hands out of his pocket and stepped onto her driveway.

14

Jessica lay in bed staring into the darkness, wondering why she couldn’t bring herself to ask the simple question about why Adam was being so secretive. Given his parents had died when he was young, and his grandmother a couple of years ago, he didn’t have any other family to be communicating with. Other than the people he worked with, he had never really had much in the way of friends, certainly not since they had been seeing each other, so Jessica had no clue. She hadn’t challenged his ‘no one’ responses and was not used to being in such a position.

Usually, she would speak or act first and worry about the consequences later. If a suspect or witness had lied to her so blatantly, she never would have held back – and yet she could not bring herself to question Adam. She lay awake wondering why but could not come up with anything better than the fact she didn’t really want to know the answer.

As she rubbed her tired eyes, Jessica heard her phone begin to vibrate on the floor. She let it ring for one extra time, hoping it would wake Adam, then pressed the button to answer. She was only half-surprised by the caller’s information that something had happened at Kayleigh Pritchard’s house and that she should get there quickly.

Jessica could never remember feeling as physically sick at a crime scene as she did after getting to Kayleigh’s house. It wasn’t anything she specifically saw, it was the reality of it all. In part it was because she had been sitting in the woman’s living room a week or so before but also, although she tried to tell herself differently, she knew it was largely due to what was going on with Adam.

She had a quick glance around the hallway, then turned and dashed across the road into a small garden area where she hunched behind a hedge and threw up on the ground. She felt close to tears as she rose and walked back to the door, asking one of the officers who was smoking nearby if she could have some chewing gum.

The hallway was littered with items of shopping. Jessica could see a tin of beans that had rolled towards the stairs at the far end and a bottle of washing-up liquid on its side in the doorway that led into the living room. There was a box of cereal, two bottles of water lying in the middle of the hall and a packet of biscuits had crashed to the floor at some point, leaving crumbs across the carpet.

Jessica couldn’t stop the thought going through her mind that it would be really difficult to clear up the broken bits.

‘Wait there,’ a voice said, as Jessica looked up to see a Scene of Crime officer walking carefully towards her. She recognised the woman’s face from various scenes over the past few months but didn’t know her name. Quite often, team members would move on to other roles, the late nights and short-notice calls taking their toll on people who were usually civilians anyway. Someone threw Jessica protective covers to go over her shoes and she steadily walked around the food until she was next to the other woman.

‘Is the body gone?’ Jessica asked, realising it was an obvious question, considering the lack of one in the hallway.

As it was, the answer was one she didn’t expect. ‘She was found in the bath upstairs. They took her about fifteen minutes ago but we’ve still got people up there.’

‘Shite . . .’

Jessica couldn’t think of anything more constructive to say. She looked around the hallway, realising she had missed a half-full carrier bag hidden behind the front door on her first look around. Something in the bottom was weighing it down but a bottle of shampoo had split and congealed into a blue pool.

Although she had her own ideas about what had happened, Jessica wanted to hear it from someone else, so asked what the woman thought. Seemingly grateful to be asked for her opinion, she pointed towards the objects on the floor. ‘I’d say she was attacked from behind, presumably after opening the front door.’ She indicated the positions of the carrier bags. ‘Although the objects are spread across the floor, the bags themselves are directly below where she would have been standing, so it probably happened as soon as she stepped inside.’

‘How did she die?’

Jessica could have guessed the reply before it came.

‘Probably asphyxiation, she has all the signs, although it’ll need to be confirmed.’

If how Oliver had died was anything to go by, then Jessica guessed the killer had surprised Kayleigh from behind, smothering her with a bag or something similar.

The woman turned towards the broken biscuits. ‘It looks like she fell forwards, crushing those and possibly knocking these bottles as well.’

It sounded like a horrible way to die, face-down as someone pressed a knee into your back, pulling something tight around your mouth to stop you breathing.

‘What happened then?’ Jessica asked.

Pointing towards the stairs, the woman continued her theory. ‘Somehow, she ended up in the bath upstairs. You’re going to have to leave it with us for a day or two to find out if she was dragged or carried. We haven’t found anything on the stairs yet, but we’re going to rip the whole of this carpet out to test for shoe prints, hairs or blood.’

‘What else have you found?’

The woman turned and crept back towards the front door, crouching and pointing to a spot on the wall. Jessica looked on from a distance, not wanting to accidentally interfere. ‘It looks like a partial shoe print here,’ she said. ‘It’s probably too small to be a man’s, so may well be the victim’s.’

‘Was there . . . anything else?’ Jessica didn’t want to say the words but the woman took the hint.

‘You’ll have to wait for the autopsy but her clothing wasn’t torn. She could have been re-dressed, of course . . .’

She nodded over Jessica’s shoulder towards the man now standing in the doorway. Cole was wearing a large coat far too big for him and looked as tired as Jessica felt. ‘I forgot how close you lived,’ he said, as Jessica carefully made her way across the hallway.

She thanked the woman for her help and then walked with her supervisor to the end of the driveway. As they talked, she tried to keep a distance, hoping the gum was covering the smell of her breath.

‘Did you go upstairs?’ Cole asked.

‘No, they reckon Kayleigh was killed by her front door and then taken to the bathroom where she was found. They’re trying to keep it all clear.’ Jessica blew into her hands and then pushed them deeply into the pockets of her coat. ‘How did we know?’

For a few moments, Cole did not reply. Jessica thought he hadn’t heard but when she turned to face him, she could see his eyes were fixed on the front door. He sighed and started walking backwards, then turned and headed towards the garden area where she had vomited. Luckily, he walked in the opposite direction and sat on a bench just inside the gate.

Jessica sat next to him, watching her breath evaporate into the air as Cole turned to face her. ‘I think my marriage is over, Jess,’ he said.

It was perhaps the last thing Jessica expected him to say. While most of the members of the team had relationship problems in one way or another, Jack Cole had made sure his relationship with his wife and children was strong above anything else. Even though he rarely talked about them, and certainly didn’t bring them to any official events, everyone knew he used his free time to be the father and husband his family deserved.

Jessica did not know how to reply. All she could think was that if a relationship such as his could fall apart, then what hope did anyone else have? She answered with a pitiful-sounding, ‘Sir . . . ?’

Cole shrugged. ‘It’s been on the cards for a while, probably since I took this job. It was easier to manage the shifts in the past but you never get away.’ He held his hands up as if to indicate the time of day. ‘I’ve been in the spare room for around four months. Obviously the kids know there’s something wrong . . .’

Jessica had never had anything even approaching such an intimate conversation with the man before.

‘I’m sure it will be all right,’ she said, thinking it sounded like the type of thing she should say and wondering quite what had happened in the previous few days that made children and adults alike think she was a sensible person to bring their problems to. Sarcastic remarks: fine. Useful advice: there were definitely better people.

‘I know you’ve just got married,’ he continued, making Jessica feel even more uncomfortable. ‘Don’t listen to me, it really is great. I think I lost focus on what was important. One day you’re off at the zoo with the kids, the next you’re making phone calls to say you’re stuck at work because of too much paperwork. It hasn’t helped since Jason left.’

It wasn’t strictly true that Reynolds had ‘left’ but Jessica knew what he meant; it had put an extra strain on everyone.

‘We all think you’re doing a good job.’

Jessica had not seen eye-to-eye with the man in a while but that wasn’t because she lacked respect for him, more that she didn’t agree with certain things he had to do.

‘It’s so easy to slip into a routine,’ he replied. ‘At first it’s just staying for an extra half-hour to get through things, then it’s coming in half an hour early. Then you realise thirty minutes isn’t long enough. Before you know it, you’re taking work home.’

Jessica knew she couldn’t talk as she did all of those things when circumstances required. It was part of the job.

‘It was one of her co-workers who called us,’ Cole said. Jessica was momentarily confused before she realised he was finally answering her question about how they had found the body. ‘Kayleigh had returned to the supermarket she works at yesterday but didn’t turn up for today’s shift. A lot of her colleagues were worried, so they tried her phone but no one answered. One of them lived locally, so tried knocking on her door but there wasn’t a reply. I think she may have looked through the letterbox and then called us.’

‘What time was that?’

The chief inspector checked his watch. ‘Late, I suppose. Either way, one of our entry teams went in because the address matched the previous crime scene. I’ve not been to bed yet. I got the call late last night and was waiting to hear what happened.’

He rolled his sleeve back down and put his hands into his pockets.

‘I probably shouldn’t have called you, especially as we’re going to be waiting for results anyway.’

‘I’m glad you did.’

Cole offered a thin smile. ‘You should be at home with your new husband, Jess. Go get some sleep, you look worse than me.’

‘Thanks.’

He smiled. ‘You know what I mean. You head out and we’ll catch up again tomorrow.’ After a second, he corrected himself. ‘Not tomorrow, later.’

‘Are you going to be okay?’

The chief inspector stood, then began walking back to Kayleigh’s front door with Jessica a few steps behind. ‘I’m going to go back to Longsight anyway. There’s going to be all sorts to pull together – and that’s before we get any results back.’ Jessica was about to return to her car when he added, ‘How did your car reg thing go, by the way?’

Although Jessica did not want to involve her supervisor too much, she had asked him for permission to trace the details of the two cars. She had access to do it herself but there had been a recent tightening of rules in regards to who could check what because a colleague in a neighbouring district had used their access to find out details of a former partner. Cole had not asked for anything other than the most basic of details.

‘All fine,’ Jessica said. ‘Exactly what I expected.’

Circumventing various agencies was an awkward thing to do at the best of times but Jessica knew someone who worked as a family liaison officer for Greater Manchester Police. She had passed on the details of Corey and his mother and mentioned that the woman could be worth a closer look. There was nothing on her record in terms of child abuse but there were convictions for assaults and threatening behaviour which did not bode well. Jessica was at least pleased with herself for leaving it in the hands of people who could deal with it if there were a problem.

As for the mystery man, his number plate matched that of someone who most definitely was not married to Corey’s mother and, from everything she had found, was still supposed to be in a relationship with someone else. Although she had toyed with a bit of playful meddling, Jessica had held off, thinking there were perhaps things she might not want to know about her own life if the situation was reversed.

Jessica returned to her flat but knew she wasn’t going to get any sleep. Instead of trying, she sat in the living room, flicking through the television channels in the hope that something would take her mind away from Kayleigh, Adam and everything else that was going on. Instead, it made it worse. She had long since given up following anything other than her own cases on the rolling news channels and her secret pleasure of watching late-night reruns of early-morning talk shows was diminished by the topic of ‘Your boyfriend’s sleeping with me, now deal with it’.

She switched off the set and entered the bedroom quietly, looking for a warmer pair of shoes to wear out onto the balcony. Adam stirred but did not wake as she crept around to her side but Jessica’s attention was drawn to the blinking light of his phone on the bedside table. She stood silently staring at the LED as it flickered on and off, wanting to summon the courage to pick it up but knowing once that line was crossed that there was no going back.

Jessica’s eyes were feeling too heavy to keep awake but her mind was strangely alert as she sat in the incident room in the basement of the Longsight station. She knew exactly what she was going to be spending part of the afternoon doing, even if she wasn’t going to tell the chief inspector. Before that, she did want to find out what had happened since the early hours.

Because they were now in what looked like a double murder investigation, officers had been brought in to help and press officers were having private briefings with the DCI and superintendent about ‘strategy’, making it feel more like a website relaunch than the end of someone’s life.

The briefing did reveal plenty of details but nothing Jessica couldn’t have figured out by herself. Despite extensive door-to-door inquiries that morning, none of Kayleigh’s neighbours had apparently seen or heard anything untoward. Given they had also failed to hear anything to do with the break-in, Jessica wasn’t really surprised – it didn’t seem like a particularly caring, sharing district, somewhere the estate agent would describe as ‘socially unique’.

Although they were waiting for the first set of forensic tests to come back, someone had been on the ball enough to check the recent obituary listings in all of the local papers, where nothing had appeared about Kayleigh. They had not been able to figure out what the motive might have been for placing Oliver’s notice but, if it was simply for attention or to show off, the killer could have something more sinister in store for them with Kayleigh.

Jessica left the briefing with Izzy, whom she hadn’t seen in anything other than passing since the smaller meeting in Cole’s office the previous week.

‘You look like you’re the one who was up until two in the morning with a sick child,’ the constable said as Jessica held the door open for her. They walked side by side towards the stairs.

Reminded of how tired she felt, Jessica couldn’t stop herself from yawning. ‘You’re not the first to point that out.’

‘If you’re up in the early hours anyway, feel free to pop around and you can look after Amber while I get some kip.’

‘You’re very kind but I think I’ll be all right.’ They started to climb the stairs as Jessica added: ‘Did you find anything else about Nicholas Long?’

‘Not really. I’ve been so busy.’

As they reached the crossroads from where the corridor branched towards Jessica’s office one way and the area where the constable worked the other, they stopped and moved to the side. ‘Me neither.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again.’

‘I thought your motto was to give up if you didn’t get it first time?’

Jessica smiled weakly. ‘It is but when someone pisses me off, I take extra care to go back for seconds.’