DS Jessica Daniel series: Locked In/Vigilante/The Woman in Black - Books 1-3 (100 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘How does today work then?’

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

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

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

‘Have you got anything stronger?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It took a little while for the youngsters to move away from questions relating to guns. Given the security gates below it could have been a little unsettling but there didn’t seem to be
any malice, simply kids asking about the things they had no doubt seen on television. She was asked the fastest speed she had ever driven at and whether or not she knew someone’s dad because
they were in prison along with a series of other things she couldn’t have predicted.

The final question was the one that tripped her up the most. A young girl near the back asked how they could get away with a crime. Jessica didn’t know if she was just talking about
stealing sweets from a shop but either way she couldn’t responsibly answer the question. ‘You’ll always get caught,’ she said, not really believing it herself but at least
feeling she might have put someone off committing a crime at such a young age.

After the children left for lunch, the various teachers thanked Jessica and she left to walk back to the station.

The last question had stuck with her because she knew the answer. If you wanted to get away with something, the best way was to make people like her think the crime was committed by someone
else. If George Johnson had arranged for his wife to disappear, maybe that was where he had gone wrong? He had left them nothing to go on, instead of something misleading to follow up. With her
case they had the woman in the black cloak from the very first day and Jessica wondered if that was where their problem lay? The hands were being left in public places for a reason and Jessica felt
as if whoever was behind things wanted her to put the pieces together. There was definitely a degree of showing off, which the wave to the CCTV camera proved, but the full reasoning seemed beyond
her.

As she walked, Jessica remembered her phone was still on silent. She took it out of her pocket and thumbed across the welcome screen, noticing she had a text message from Rowlands.

‘Call me, urgent.’

She pressed the button to phone his mobile and the constable picked up on the first ring. ‘Jess, are you on your way back?’

‘Yeah, I’m walking. I’ll be about five minutes.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘Another finger has arrived for you.’

Jessica instantly asked the question she knew Rowlands wouldn’t have the answer to. ‘Whose is it? We’ve not found a hand.’

‘We don’t know. The forensics team have already been and gone. The envelope was exactly the same and the mail room staff got the DCI involved straight away.’

Jessica raised her voice. ‘Why didn’t anyone call me?’

Rowlands’s tone sounded softer than usual. ‘It was the DCI’s decision. I guess he thought there wasn’t much you could do anyway. None of us could because the science lot
were called immediately. The finger and the envelope and all of that have been taken back to the labs.’

Jessica hung up without saying goodbye. She felt angry at not being called, even though there was nothing she could have added if she had have been. As she neared the station, she sat on a wall
for a couple of minutes to compose herself. She realised the fury wasn’t something she felt against her colleagues, more towards the person who was sending her body parts. Jessica felt
targeted but figured the only way she could escape those feelings was to find out what it was the person was trying to tell her.

Once at the station she acted as calmly as she could as Cole gave her the information she already knew. He put a hand on her shoulder and asked if she was okay. Jessica nodded and replied she
was fine.

She had already decided what she wanted to do. ‘I know it’s loads of work but I’m going to take constables Rowlands and Diamond with me to look through CCTV footage from the
past few mornings. Before this, we’ve only received fingers after a hand has been found so perhaps it’s still out in the open somewhere?’

‘What exactly are you going to look for?’ Cole asked.

‘Our woman in black I suppose – someone leaving the hand. If things follow the pattern of the others in that it happens early in the morning in a public place, we’ll hopefully
come up with something. It’s going to be lots of locations to search through and it could have been left any time in the last few days.’

Cole nodded in agreement. ‘I have one other thing for you. The person from the labs who handled the package said the finger had a letter “A” tattooed just above the
knuckle.’

Jessica crinkled her eyes in surprise. ‘Like the “love– hate” thing people put on their hands when they’re in prison?’

‘Possibly. If it’s a ring finger like the others, that could fit but the others were a right hand, so that would make it “hate” on the right hand and “love”
on the left. It’s usually the other way around.’

‘You’re right. It’s worth looking at though. Can you spare me some officers?’

Cole shook his head. ‘Not many. How many do you want?’

‘Someone to update our missing persons list with anyone reported since the last time we went through it. After that, I want them to check the names against lists of former prisoners. It
could end up being worthless but at least we’re ahead if it does turn out to be from a prison tattoo.’

‘Fine, you go do what you need to and I’ll set someone on this and give them your mobile number.’

After checking with the private security firm that there was space for three officers to invade their offices for an afternoon at least, Jessica drove Dave and Izzy the few miles into the city
centre. She drove very carefully given it was apparently open-season on her abilities but that seemed to amuse Rowlands even more. ‘Who stole our DS and replaced her with my gran?’ he
asked.

When she wasn’t having the mickey taken out of her, Jessica spent the rest of the journey briefing the constables about what was required. The company said they would set up three
individual terminals so they could work separately. Between them, they put together a list of public spots in the city they would watch footage from. To start with, they were assuming the previous
three locations wouldn’t be revisited.