DS Jessica Daniel series: Locked In/Vigilante/The Woman in Black - Books 1-3 (26 page)

‘Mr Ashford,’ she said. ‘I’ve been expecting you.’

Garry Ashford still felt as if he was constantly riding his luck at work. The profile of DS Daniel had somehow managed to get him into everyone’s good books. He even had
a text message from her saying she owed him. He would have settled for any kind of communication that didn’t involve copious but impressively creative swearing but that was even better.

He wasn’t entirely sure how it was going to go down in the office but the editor had been upbeat about the piece. Garry had claimed it as an exclusive, even though much of it hadn’t
come from Jessica herself. That along with the background piece he had put together on Wayne Lapham had given him two more days of decent coverage.

The pay rise still hadn’t materialised though.

Despite the text he received from DS Daniel, he didn’t respond and hadn’t contacted her since. Garry figured it was probably best to keep that goodwill stored up in case something
else significant happened.

This particular Saturday he was hoping for a quieter day given what he had ended up being asked to do the past few weeks. When he saw his source’s number ringing his phone, he groaned. He
half-thought about ignoring it but then took the call. He listened to the details and wrote everything down, before hanging up and calling DS Daniel. There was no answer and he wondered if she was
avoiding him. He phoned his editor and then set off to catch a bus out to the latest victim’s address. His source said they didn’t have a name but knew where the crime scene was. He
tried DS Daniel one more time but there was still no answer.

‘Another fine Saturday,’ he moaned to no one in particular.

‘Hi,’ Garry said. ‘I guess you know why I’ve been calling.’

‘You’re still going to have to tell me what you think you know.’

The journalist informed Jessica that he had visited the murder site and spoken to the upstairs neighbour. He knew Claire Hogan’s name and that the woman who lived upstairs had been keen to
talk about the dead female’s chosen profession, as well as telling him how the police had smashed in the door that morning. He wanted Jessica to confirm this murder had been committed by the
same person as the first two.

Jessica could answer that question honestly. ‘I don’t know that yet.’

‘What do you think, though?’

‘I think you’re putting me in an awkward position. We don’t have any results yet. I still shouldn’t be talking to you.’

‘I don’t have to use your name.’

Jessica thought for a few moments. ‘Who will you quote?’

‘A senior source close to the investigation.’

‘ “
Senior?
” ’

‘Okay. A “source” close to the investigation.’

‘ “
Close?
” ’

‘Come on . . . You’re taking the mick now.’

Jessica laughed. ‘Yeah, I am. Okay, fine, I do think it’s the same person but that is it. I owe you no more. We are even.’

‘All right.’

‘And no more phone calls. You’ve got to go through the press office like everyone else.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes! I know my sexy phone voice is a big turn-on for you but talking to the media can get me into trouble.’

Garry Ashford laughed awkwardly. ‘Okay.’

When Jessica arrived home, Caroline was waiting for her in the living room, alone. Jessica had gone to leave her bag and shoes in the usual position, on the floor by the door,
when her friend turned around to look at her. ‘Hi,’ Caroline said.

‘Hi.’

‘Long day?’

‘Another body.’

Caroline raised her eyebrows in surprise. ‘You’re joking?’

‘I wish.’

They looked at each other and there was a short pause that Caroline broke. ‘Are we okay?’

‘Yeah, of course we are.’

‘I was only trying to help. I wanted to cheer you up.’

‘I know.’

‘What did he do?’

‘It doesn’t matter really.’

Jessica sat next to her friend on the sofa and hugged her. ‘Where’s Randy?’

They both giggled.

‘I told
Randall
I wanted to spend the evening in with you.’

‘That’s nice. Is he still looking after you?’

‘Yeah, he’s a great guy. He was really upset the other morning. Neither of us knew what had happened with you and Ryan. You had both left. We were there staring at each other in
confusion. He felt bad his mate had upset you.’

‘It wasn’t his fault.’ Jessica moved slightly away from the embrace. ‘Wine?’

They both laughed again. ‘Of course.’

Jessica was feeling a lot better as she fetched a bottle from under the sink with some glasses. At some point, someone would call her with the results they were waiting on and they had Shaun
Hogan to see on Monday. She was expecting a busy week and was pleased to have made up with her friend.

Back in the living room, she sat next to Caroline putting her feet up on the sofa and poured them each a glass of wine. ‘So is it getting serious with you two, then?’

‘Maybe,’ Caroline said with a smile. ‘He’s been talking about getting a new job. He’s had enough of working on the market now. He’s better than that
anyway.’

Jessica weighed up what to say next. She knew what she wanted to ask. ‘Are you going to move in with him?’

It was something Jessica had been thinking about since she had first seen the two of them together, the way they looked at each other left the thought nestling in the back of her mind.

Caroline looked directly at her friend. ‘It was always going to happen to one of us sometime.’

‘I know. It’s a shame. We’ve had a good run.’

Jessica could see a tear in her friend’s eye but was determined not to cry herself after her recent sob fests. She put her arm around her friend. ‘What type of job is he looking
for?’

‘I don’t know really. He’s only worked on that stall, fixing shoes and other bits and bobs. He’s skilled though. Good with his hands.’

Jessica burst out laughing.

‘Not like that,’ Caroline clarified, giggling herself through a thin stream of tears. ‘Dirty mind. He’s only young, he’ll find something.’

‘So now you’re admitting he’s young?’ Caroline smiled. ‘Cradle-snatcher,’ Jessica added with an even bigger grin.

‘Jealous.’

‘I’m pleased for you both.’

‘We had talked about looking for a place when he gets himself fixed up with a better job. It was his decision. I said I could afford it at first but he reckoned he couldn’t let me do
that.’

‘You’re not going to move
away
away, are you?’

‘Of course not. You’re not going to get rid of me that easily.’

‘Shame, I could get some good rent for that room.’

Jessica had never been a big fan of travelling by train. For one, she hated facing backwards while the train moved forwards; there was something inherently unnatural about it.
She wasn’t even too keen on the sideways-facing seats. Why was it so hard to have rows of seats that all faced the same way? They managed it on aeroplanes.

She was sitting next to Cole on their way to Leeds, facing backwards and feeling slightly sick. Travelling in a car across the Pennines was a nuisance at the best of times but during the morning
rush hour on a Monday, traffic was at its peak. As much as she would never admit it to anyone, especially not Rowlands, Jessica rarely took her car on the motorway. She relied on it to get her a
few miles to work and back and occasionally trusted it to complete a return journey to her parents’ house, although only on the minor roads. She definitely didn’t have faith for it to
get her from one side of the country to the other. The force didn’t like paying out expenses on car journeys either so a trip on the train it was.

The scenery thundered past as they made small talk. Neither of them seemed keen to speak about the case but Cole told Jessica about his Sunday out with his wife and kids. It felt like another
world to her but made her think of poor Kim Hogan and how she hadn’t had the opportunity of a proper upbringing.

Both she and Cole had seen the initial forensic test results. Claire’s neck wounds were almost identical to those of Yvonne Christensen and Martin Prince, while the instrument was again
some type of steel wire or rope. With that and the way the flat was locked, they were as sure as they could be that the murders had all been carried out by the same person. Forensics had once again
failed to find any trace of the killer. There were no fingerprints, no DNA, no blood and nothing under Claire Hogan’s nails. It also didn’t look as if she’d had sex the night she
died.

Either the murderer was very careful indeed, or he knew how to cover his tracks.

The cash that had been left on the side had at least six different sets of fingerprints between the two notes and traces of cocaine. The labs were working on isolating anything that could be
useable but Jessica wasn’t hopeful. Even if they did get something they could check, it would only rule people out unless they got a match on the National DNA Database.

At this point, Jessica would have been happy enough with someone to rule out.

She had seen Garry Ashford’s name on the front page of the
Herald
again that morning. The other media outlets had the story too but Jessica doubted they had spoken to the woman
who lived above the victim. In a good way for him, Garry was showing himself to be a bit of a pest. He was certainly persistent but she wondered who his source was. There were plenty of
possibilities. Someone on the Scene of Crime team, maybe? They were the only people who had actually been to every scene that she knew of but then somebody had told him about her interview-room
incident too.

The train steadily pulled into their destination but they remained sitting until the other commuters were off, a wall of suits, smart shoes and briefcases hurrying away almost as one. When it
was clear, the two stood and made their way through the station, showing their tickets to the inspectors on the gate. They got a taxi but it was only a few miles to their destination.

HMP Leeds was a massive old Victorian building for B-class prisoners. The categorisation meant the authorities thought Shaun Hogan didn’t need to be kept with the most violent offenders
but he wasn’t trusted enough to be in an open prison either. Jessica had read his file and knew the GBH he had been sent down for was something that happened all too frequently. It reminded
her of Tom Carpenter but without the knife; two men fighting outside of a bar after drinking too much on a Saturday night. Shaun Hogan had ended up head-butting the victim, before kicking him in
the head on the ground.

He was lucky he hadn’t killed him.

Even with his guilty plea, he had been sentenced to five years in prison but he would be out in a few months because of time spent on remand and apparent good behaviour. He would have served
just over half his sentence.

From the outside, the building looked like a castle with imposing cylindrical walls at the front. There was an enormous heavy set of wooden doors at the opening too, all of which added to the
structure’s intimidating appearance.

The taxi dropped them off outside and they walked into the reception area. It was a smallish office off to the right of the entrance. They showed their credentials and were searched. The fact
they were police officers meant they were given a lot more leeway than most but everyone was patted down and had to go through the metal detectors – regardless of who they were.

The governor himself had come down to meet them both. He was a strict-looking man in his late forties with a short, tight haircut and fierce-looking eyes. He had a voice that, even with his
Yorkshire accent, was a little too high-pitched and didn’t quite fit. He introduced himself and shook both of their hands, saying he was taking them to the visitors’ centre. He told
them it wasn’t visiting hours yet, so it would just be the two of them plus Shaun Hogan and the guards in the room.

He led them across the main yard, explaining that was where prisoners were first brought in and then took them through two sets of lockable doors before they emerged back outside into another
yard. He told them about the facility itself and pointed them to the various wings as he did so, explaining where the old buildings ended and the new ones began. It obviously wasn’t an
inspection but the governor clearly wanted to impress them.

They crossed a second yard and went down a concrete walkway towards a separate building as the governor told them he had informed Shaun about his mother’s death on Saturday.

‘How did he take it?’ Jessica asked as they walked side by side.

‘He didn’t even react. He nodded and asked if he could return to his cell.’

‘Seriously?’

‘He didn’t seem upset at all.’

‘How has he behaved since he’s been with you?’ Cole asked.

‘Incredibly well. He’s not been in trouble, he’s done any jobs assigned to him and worked hard in class according to the tutors.’

‘Is that normal?’ Jessica asked.

‘Sometimes you get the odd one but most people who want to cause trouble end up at Wakefield or one of the other Category A places.’

The governor led them into a building that was clearly newer than a lot of the prison, up a flight of stairs, before it opened into a large visiting area. The room was enormous, with vending
machines lining the sides interspersed with posters that had words like ‘Respect’ and ‘Think’ written in large letters across them. The windows high on the walls were
covered by metal bars and there were large banks of white strip lighting across the ceiling. Banks of grey and red plastic tables were bolted to the floor, with two chairs on each side. Everything
looked very tidy and Jessica wondered if it had been cleaned for their benefit.

They were led to one of the tables near the front as the governor nodded to the two guards who were standing next to a separate door. One of them unclipped a radio from his belt and spoke into
it as the governor said his goodbyes and left through the door they had entered through. Cole took out a notebook and pen and moments later they heard the door at the front being unlocked and a man
was led in by two guards.