DS Jessica Daniel series: Locked In/Vigilante/The Woman in Black - Books 1-3 (17 page)

‘He was a man.’

‘That’s a start . . .’

‘Wearing a baseball cap.’

Jessica said nothing.

‘I don’t remember any more than that.’

Jessica sighed, looked at Cole, then Hunt, then back at Wayne. ‘The problem is that I don’t believe you. I don’t believe there was a man in the pub. I think
you
stole
those items and I think
you
went back to those houses and murdered two innocent people for whatever reason you could come up with.’

She wasn’t sure if she did believe that but had nothing else to go on. Hunt spoke louder this time. ‘My client has been cleared of those burglaries.
Cleared
. Now if you have
any evidence, any single scrap at all that he was at any of those scenes then – or at any of them last week – please produce it. If not, let him go and we can all get back to enjoying
the weekend.’

Jessica ignored him. ‘How did you get back into those houses a second time?’

No answer.

‘How did it feel strangling those victims, Wayne?’

The two of them continued to stare at each other as if Cole and Lapham’s lawyer were invisible. ‘Did you enjoy it?’ Jessica added.

Hunt started to stand up, pulling his pad from the table as if to indicate the interview was over, but his client didn’t move.

‘Fuck ye,’ Wayne said aggressively.

‘You’d like that wouldn’t you? Violent man like you. Is that what you got up to in prison? Is that how you got that scar?’

‘De-tec-tive!’ Hunt was shouting now, standing up to his full height and indicating for his client to do the same. Cole shuffled nervously in the seat next to her but neither Jessica
nor Wayne moved. The suspect didn’t say a word, continuing to stare at Jessica, neither of them wanting to be the first to look away.

He growled his response. ‘Yous have got fuck all on me and yous know it.’

Jessica did know it and trying to wind him up was having the opposite effect. She was allowing herself to be frustrated by his lack of cooperation. ‘Who’s the girl?’ Jessica
asked.

Hunt was still standing but, with the obvious lack of movement from his client, had little option other than to sit again.

‘What girl?’

‘The one at your flat. Wife? Girlfriend? Mistress? Sister? Girlfriend and sister?’

‘What’s it to ye?’

‘Nothing . . . just that when she phoned to tip you off about us looking for you yesterday, that was what we call “obstructing a police constable in execution of their duty”.
It’s a criminal offence, something I know you are very familiar with.’

Cole shuffled nervously and Jessica knew she was on thin ice. ‘We’ve already checked the phone records,’ she lied, snapping her fingers. ‘I could send an officer around
to pick her up like that.’

Wayne finally looked away, peering towards his Hunt. ‘Is that true?’

Hunt stumbled over his words. ‘I, er, well, I don’t know. It could be an offence . . .’

His client was suddenly angry, his cool expression and steely stare gone. Jessica had the feeling she was finally seeing the real Wayne Lapham. ‘Why won’t ye lot leave us alone?
I’ve not done nothing wrong. Every time I get out and try to get clean I have ye lot banging on my door, stopping me in the street. It’s not right.’

He was finally animated; banging on the desk with his cuffed hands, any pretension of coolness gone.

‘“Not done nothing” is a double negative, Wayne. Can I take that as a confession?’ Jessica smiled.

Hunt cut back in. ‘Don’t be bloody ridiculous.’ He looked to Cole. ‘Are these questions going anywhere? If you’ve got anything at all on my client then charge him.
If not, let’s end this ridiculous grandstanding.’

Even Hunt’s demeanour had slipped with that exchange. Jessica knew she was pushing it. She didn’t even know where she was going but hoped her superior wouldn’t shut her down.
‘The problem is, Wayne, that you
don’t
go out and get clean, do you? At the very least you go out and buy a load of stolen gear from some bloke down the pub who you just happen
to not remember.’

Wayne was back to staring at her; the calm had returned. ‘Ye are even cuter when ye are angry.’ He winked at her again.

Cole cut in even before Hunt could. ‘Right, this is going nowhere.’ He gave the time and said he was terminating the interview before stopping the tape and getting to his feet.
‘Mr Lapham, you are free to leave. I will find the keys to those cuffs and you can go out with your legal representative. Check with the sergeant on the front desk on the way out. He will
give your lawyer further instructions regarding police bail. You may have to return at a later date.’

Cole left the room, leaving the door slightly ajar. Hunt was also standing and packing his notepad into his briefcase, shaking his head while making tutting noises. Jessica and Wayne remained
sitting, weighing each other up. Jessica finally relented, scraping her chair back, turning around and walking towards the door. Before she could get there, Wayne spoke. ‘Detective . .
.’

Jessica turned around.

‘That is one mighty fine arse ye’ve got there. I would
love
to have a go on that.’ He used both hands, still handcuffed, to grab his crotch. ‘I’ll bet ye
are a real goer, yeah?’

Hunt went to say something but Jessica acted on instinct. She took two strides across the room and leant over the table so she was at eye level around a foot away from him. ‘You think
you’re a real hard man, don’t you, Wayne?’

He eyeballed her as Hunt said something about the interview being over. Jessica ignored him and stared directly into Wayne’s eyes. ‘It must take a really hard man to break into
people’s houses and take their possessions before getting some slimy shitbag like this to get them off.’

She heard Hunt splutter as Wayne’s gaze flickered away for a fraction of a second, perhaps unnerved by how close they were.

‘I don’t think you’re hard, Wayne. I don’t think you’re hard at all. I think you’re a pathetic little man who’s pissed their life away. And do you know
what else? I think you’re all talk.’

She moved even closer to him, just six inches between them now. ‘Do you know how to fight, Wayne? I bet you think you do. Most people start by throwing a few punches.’

Her gaze hadn’t shifted but Wayne’s had. He had shunted his chair backwards slightly, looking towards his speechless lawyer. Neither Jessica’s tone nor eye line had wavered.
‘The thing is, Wayne, it’s not about how you throw those punches, it’s where you target them. For instance, if you punch someone hard in the windpipe, that would crush their
larynx. They would go into instant shock. But, because they’d be in shock, they wouldn’t quite be aware of how to fight back. Do you know punching someone in the nose isn’t really
an effective way of breaking it?’

She used her left hand to rub her right palm but otherwise didn’t move. Hunt was frozen to the spot, his client desperately looking from side to side. ‘The best way to truly put
someone out of action is to use the base of your palm to hit upwards through their nose. As well as a crushed larynx, their nose will shatter.’

Jessica finally moved backwards, albeit only half a step. There was silence. Hunt hadn’t moved and Wayne was staring back at Jessica not knowing what to say. ‘So there you go, Wayne.
You think I’m a goer, how about you
fucking
try me?’

Jessica saw a visible bead of sweat appear on his forehead. She held out her hand towards him. ‘Just touch me and let’s see what happens, shall we?’

Jessica was in the ladies’ toilets at the station. She locked herself in a cubicle after checking the rest of the facility was empty and sat on the closed seat. Her heart
rate had only just started to drop and she felt a complete mess. Her day-old clothes were beginning to get uncomfortable and she had an overwhelming feeling of being trapped. Something had come
over her in the interview room that had never happened before.

She sat with her head in her hands and sobbed silently to herself. Jessica didn’t even remember everything she had said or done with Wayne Lapham. It was less than five minutes ago but
already she could see only flashes of the incident. It was as if she had watched herself from the corner of the room, an out-of-body experience of sorts. She remembered Peter Hunt shouting for an
officer and calling her ‘out of control’. She remembered Cole returning and looking bemused as she stomped out of the room, past the uniformed officer and down the hallway into the
toilets she sat in now. The parts between Cole leaving the room and him returning were patchy.

What on earth had happened? She didn’t even know where all that stuff had come from. She had never hurt anyone like that in her life. You got basic combat training in the force but they
didn’t go out of their way to hurt anybody. She had read a few guides on Internet sites and knew how to look after herself, while Harry had given her those tips about targeting people’s
windpipes and noses if you were in trouble. She could only assume that, as her emotions had got the best of her, the things she had absorbed had all come out in the most venomous way she could have
managed. In some ways it could be fearfully impressive but that wasn’t how she felt.

Jessica heard the main bathroom door open and someone enter. She held her breath and lifted her feet off the ground, though didn’t really know why she was doing it. She listened to the
other person enter one of the cubicles next to her and waited for the flush and the sound of water gushing from the sinks. Eventually the door went and she was alone again.

Jessica had never really been an emotional person. The last time she remembered crying was when Caroline’s parents had died almost a decade ago. Caroline’s devastation had affected
her significantly but helped them bond. Jessica genuinely felt her friend’s pain and they had cried together at the funeral. They were such good friends but also such opposites. Jessica
generally didn’t get attached but Caroline would cry at everything from videos on the Internet, to movies at the cinema, to articles in the paper and even, on one occasion, an advert on
television. While Jessica was fiery and easily angered, Caroline was consistently cool and very little fazed her. They constantly ribbed each other about things. If they were watching some TV show
with an animal in, Jessica would throw a box of tissues at her friend ‘just in case you go off again’. Caroline, meanwhile, had devised a sliding scale of Jessica’s moods, ranging
from ‘a tad sweary,’ to ‘particularly sweary’, to ‘volcanic sweary’. Who knows what she would have made of her friend’s mood in the interview room?

It was all in good humour but Jessica sat wondering if perhaps her temper had become too much of a problem. She was also struggling to figure out why she was crying. Was she upset, embarrassed
or even fearful for her future after what had happened? And why had she let Wayne Lapham wind her up so much?

Jessica took a deep breath and stopped to think. In truth, she didn’t believe Wayne was the man they were looking for. His list of crimes was long but didn’t have anything on it that
indicated he was capable of two brutal murders. She also believed his life was as pathetic as visiting the pub and going home, probably with a little bit of criminality on the side. He didn’t
seem intelligent enough to set up the scenes either. Someone had very cleverly and deliberately covered their tracks by not only making sure they left no trace of themselves with the bodies but
also hiding the very way the murders had even been conceived.

Could Wayne Lapham really have figured out a way to get into a house and out again undetected? He was a thug and a bully and Jessica had no doubt he’d broken into those houses a year ago.
Sneaking in through partially open windows was his style. Subtlety was something she doubted he could spell, let alone pull off.

That left her wondering about her own behaviour. Why had she threatened him? Whatever the reasons and whether she had simply lost it, she had at least achieved one thing. She had seen it in
Wayne’s eyes as he panicked and looked to Peter Hunt for assistance. He hadn’t touched her, he wouldn’t have dared. He was the most scared person in that interview room and,
despite his bravado, he was no murderer.

Jessica dried her eyes and unlocked the cubicle’s door. She checked herself over in the mirror, smoothed her hair down and retied it into a ponytail, thinking it was definitely getting too
long. She straightened her suit and left the room.

The hallway was unnervingly quiet. It was a weekend but, even so, the silence boomed in Jessica’s ears. She wasn’t due to be in that day but, given the nature of her job and the case
itself, was pretty much always ready to come in at short notice. She walked down the hallway towards her office, wondering if she should go home or if there was anything else she could do. Lapham
had been released and there would be paperwork to go with that.

As she rounded the corner that would take her to her office, she almost walked straight into Cole. They both stepped back. ‘You okay?’ he said.

‘Yes, I’m fine.’

‘What happened in there? Hunt was fuming. He practically ran up to see the chief inspector and then stormed out with Lapham a few minutes later.’

Jessica had pretty much expected that would be the lawyer’s reaction. ‘Not much. We exchanged words.’

Cole gave her a sideways look as if to imply he knew it must have been much more than that but he said nothing. ‘I think the DCI wants a word.’

‘Right.’

Jessica went to head towards the stairs but, as she half-turned, Cole added: ‘Do you reckon he’s our man?’

She looked back towards him. ‘Do you?’

Neither of them said anything but Jessica could tell from her superior’s look that he was thinking exactly what she was: ‘No’.

She made her way up the stairs and could see Aylesbury in his office through the window. She knocked and he waved her in. ‘DS Daniel,’ he said, indicating for her to sit down. She
did but said nothing. They looked at each other as if waiting for the other to talk first. He eventually broke the silence. ‘Is there anything you want to tell me?’