DS Jessica Daniel series: Locked In/Vigilante/The Woman in Black - Books 1-3 (30 page)

Jessica had a dilemma in whether to reveal his stepson Scott could in fact be indirectly responsible for what had happened. It didn’t seem fair to add more grief quite so quickly. She had
established that Scott was now at university in Liverpool, about to finish his first year studying forensic science.

‘His mum was so proud of him for turning things around,’ Paul Keegan said. ‘He used to be a bit of a tearaway before we got together. I think he had issues with his
dad.’

Jessica thought he didn’t know the half of it, while the irony of Scott learning about how to deconstruct a body given what Shaun Hogan said he had done wasn’t lost on her either.
Another constable took notes as Paul Keegan spoke but Jessica said nothing about Scott. There was an older stepson too, Steven, who was just about to take his final accounting exam at Keele
University. They were both due to return home in the next fortnight for the summer break.

Mary’s husband spoke clearly and simply, explaining that his wife was a nurse and had been working late shifts that week, starting at ten at night and finishing at six in the morning. She
would arrive home as he was waking up to get ready to go to his own job with the council for eight. They usually shared a cup of tea together, swapping notes on the previous twenty-four hours
before he went off to work and she went to bed.

‘I always hate it when she’s on nights,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t feel right sleeping alone.’

The present tense he spoke in was hard to hear. What he had told them explained why the body had been found upstairs rather than in the living room or anywhere else. It also indicated Nigel
Collins must have been watching the house to have known the woman would be vulnerable during the day.

Thinking about it from the killer’s point of view, Jessica could now see the pattern. Yvonne Christensen had been the easiest. She lived alone and slept at night like most people. If you
could get into the house without alerting her, she would be fast asleep and provide no threat. Martin Prince was next in line because he was always on his own during the day but perhaps seen as
more of a threat because he was a man? Claire Hogan would have been slightly harder to plan given that she lived on a main road and had a steady stream of visitors. And then there was Mary Keegan,
who was the hardest. Had Nigel been watching and waiting long enough for her shift patterns to switch from earlies, to daytimes then back to nights again? If she was working similar hours to her
husband, finding an opportunity to get either of them alone would have been a challenge. Nigel also didn’t seem too bothered whether he was targeting the father or mother, seemingly going for
whoever was easier. He certainly must have kept an eye on the comings and goings over the past few weeks or months.

Jessica hadn’t done the checking herself but it had been established the doors and windows had been locked as with the previous three victims. The police officers had found Mary
Keegan’s keys with her bag in the kitchen but the reasons were less clear.

Alibis would be checked for Paul, Scott and Steven Keegan – the only others with direct access to the house. Paul had given them the details of Scott and Steven’s real father too,
Mary’s former husband, but said he was now remarried and living in Scotland. Everything would be looked at but Jessica knew it would be a formality. The man they needed to find was Nigel
Collins. Tying him to the four murders could prove more of a problem, given the lack of obvious evidence at the scenes but Jessica figured they would cross that bridge when they got to it.

After she had asked all of her questions and heard everything that was likely to be useful, Jessica added, ‘Is there anything you would like to tell us?’

In interviews where the person had cooperated, it was always the last question you asked. In training, they had all been told a story of how a murder in the north east had been solved by a
throwaway comment at the end of an interview. It was probably apocryphal, as so many of those training stories were, but the point had always resonated with Jessica.

Paul Keegan looked at her blankly and shook his head. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Sometimes when we interview victims and relatives, there are things they might remember that seem normal at the time but, in retrospect, could throw new light on something. People
they’ve noticed and so on. Silent phone calls, things like that.’

‘We’ve had a few problems with kids over the last few months on the estate, riding their bikes and being loud late at night and so on. You phone the police but nothing really gets
done.’

It was a story Jessica heard all too regularly. On the one hand she knew how much of a blight it could be on people’s lives but she was also aware the police couldn’t be everywhere.
With a lack of funding and targets that needed to be hit, things like this were often treated as a low priority. Again, there was no irony lost on Jessica, considering how Mr Keegan’s stepson
had seemingly behaved when he was younger.

‘I can only apologise for that, Mr Keegan,’ Jessica said. ‘Is there anything else?’

‘Not really, no.’ Jessica thanked him for his time then broke the news that they would have to arrest and speak to Scott. She reassured him his stepson was not suspected of any
direct involvement to his mother’s death but couldn’t add any more than that. They were arranging for Scott and Steven to come back to the area. Steven would be interviewed informally
at a later date in regards to the killing of his mother although he wasn’t a suspect. With the story breaking in the media tomorrow that their chief suspect was Nigel Collins, having Scott in
custody would be a necessity. Even if the original assault case from almost six years ago wasn’t reopened, they couldn’t risk him running. He would obviously put two and two together
but they would need to speak to him regardless – if only to formally rule him out of the inquiry into his mother’s death.

Jessica had already arranged for Jonathan Prince and James Christensen to be cautioned in relation to the unsolved assault all those years ago too. Things really were getting complicated, with
Nigel Collins being both a victim and suspect in two different crimes.

Back in the main part of the station, Jessica could see the search for Nigel Collins was moving, albeit slowly. The original list of forty-seven names had been brought down to just three who
were the right age. Two lived in the London area, while one was in a small town not too far from Nottingham. An officer was going to visit the Nigel Collins who lived in the town but dealing with
the Met Police in London was always trickier. Their structure was even more confusing than Greater Manchester’s and there were always enough jobsworths to tell you that you were speaking to
the wrong department. Anyone would think it was a different country they were trying to deal with. Eventually Aylesbury had become involved and two sets of two constables were now on their way to
talk to the other two Nigel Collinses.

Jessica knew it was only a matter of time until they were ruled out. Whoever their killer was, it was someone who had been in the area very recently. Mary Keegan had been murdered that day but
must have been watched for at least a few weeks previous. Their Nigel Collins wasn’t someone who drove up from Nottingham or London, walked through a wall and then travelled home again.

Door-to-door inquiries were being made in the hope anyone on the street had seen someone acting suspiciously. An accurate e-fit could be their only hope. The police did have a photograph on file
from the original case but it was only the one of the poor kid’s battered face that had been on every news broadcast and in every newspaper at the time. It was no use for putting into a media
campaign to find their prime suspect as you couldn’t tell if the victim was male or female, let alone make out any features.

The children’s home Nigel Collins had lived in didn’t exist any longer, having been bulldozed a few years ago. Cole had already set some officers on the task of tracking down some of
the staff who would have been there at the same time as Nigel. Even if they got hold of the right people, it seemed unlikely they would stumble across a picture from his childhood they could use.
At best it would be six years old but Jessica doubted they would get anything anyway.

That left them with a name of someone who seemingly didn’t exist, whose appearance they had no idea of and no idea how he got in and out of locked houses.

Nigel Collins really had set them quite a puzzle.

The next day was something Jessica had not been looking forward to. Every news bulletin on TV and radio had led off with the story that Nigel Collins was the ‘Houdini
Strangler’. The only photograph the police had to give out was that of Nigel’s bruised face from almost six years previously, so it had been that staring out from the front of every
newspaper, national and local, as well as the morning’s broadcasts.

Jessica had been up at six in the morning to watch the coverage on a loop. She had found that watching things over and over could sometimes help clarify the facts in your mind. She first watched
the BBC news, then changed channels and watched it on ITV, before returning to the BBC for the local take on it all. She also spent the whole time surfing news websites on her phone. In terms of
information released, none of the stations had that much to go on. Aylesbury had hosted a press conference the night before. The first three murder victims’ names had been previously released
but Mary Keegan had been added to that list. The media were told Nigel Collins was the chief suspect but the link to the victims’ children had not been revealed.

It would surely only be a matter of time before that got out and Jessica was only half-surprised she hadn’t read the story on the
Herald
’s website that morning with Garry
Ashford’s byline. It was the type of story where he seemed to steal a march on everyone. Aylesbury had been keen to stress that the public were not at risk and the police didn’t believe
there was any need for further alarm. It was a fine line as they were pretty sure Nigel Collins had completed his killing spree but couldn’t be sure. It seemed unlikely he would go back for
the other parents but perhaps the people who actually tortured him could be targeted.

If it wasn’t leaked, that information almost certainly would be revealed at some point in the next forty-eight hours. It seemed inconceivable the original case into the assault on Nigel
Collins would not be reopened.

Randall had stayed over the night before and he and Caroline had got up an hour or so after Jessica and the three of them had watched the news together. ‘Oh God, Jess. This is
awful,’ Caroline said as she cuddled into her boyfriend on the sofa.

Jessica had never really told her the full extent of the case and, though it had been in the media consistently through the past few weeks, this coverage seemed so much more real given the
graphic detail everything was now being laid out in. ‘It’s okay,’ Jessica said, giving her friend a half-smile.

‘It’s sick is what it is,’ Randall said, gripping Caroline tighter and kissing the top of her head.

Jessica had to leave them to it. She had a feeling it was going to be a long day, something which was confirmed as she pulled her car onto the road the station was on. She could see a full media
scrum outside the gates. She often took the turn into the station in third gear and one of the other officers once claimed he’d seen her car take it on two wheels. On this occasion, she had
to stop and crawl through the mass of people. There were television cameras and flashes going off from photographers’ cameras. She drove slowly, being careful not to hit anyone, and saw Garry
Ashford off to one side as well. In the fleeting glimpse she got, he seemed slightly overwhelmed with the mass of people pushing and shoving.

Scott Keegan had been kept in the cells under the station overnight after returning from Liverpool late the previous evening. They could hold him for up to twenty-four hours without charge but
the intention had only been to keep him in until the morning. By then the news about Nigel Collins would be widely known and they could speak to him.

Jessica parked and entered through the station’s main entrance. In the reception area, there was a television high on the wall above a rank of chairs for people who had to wait there. A
few years previously, someone had managed to steal an old TV from a similar spot, despite being in the reception of a police station. There had been much mickey-taking at the time. The replacement
was usually turned off but had a rolling news channel switched on with the sound turned up as Jessica walked in. She glanced sideways at it and could see an outside shot of the door she had just
walked in.

‘They didn’t get your good side, did they?’ laughed the desk sergeant, who was pointing at the screen. Jessica ignored him, breezing towards the stairs to check in with
Aylesbury. Cole was also present, of course, and the morning update was as she would have expected. All three Nigel Collinses from the previous day had been ruled out, which left them with no
one.

Initial forensic results were back, which meant someone would have been working late into the night. Mary Keegan had been strangled in the exact way as the previous victims but it was suspected,
as with Yvonne Christensen, that she had been asleep. There was next to no evidence of a struggle. As Jessica had thought, all of the blood in the bedroom belonged to the victim, with nothing in
the way of DNA from anyone other than the husband. In some ways that kind of evidence was irrelevant as they knew who they were after. But, if and when they found Nigel Collins, it would have been
useful in tying him to the scenes for a trial.

The DCI did tell them that word had come down that the Nigel Collins assault case was going to be reopened. Given the way the two cases would be linked together, it was the only thing that could
realistically happen. A separate set of officers would return to Leeds Prison to speak to Shaun Hogan again. When Jessica and Cole had spoken to him the previous day, he wasn’t under caution
as he wasn’t considered a witness in the murder of Claire Hogan; he was behind bars after all. They had gone to talk to him to see if there was any background he could give them to help
discover who killed his mother. The hope was that he would repeat what he had told them on tape and under caution. Having seen his demeanour the previous day, Jessica felt that he would.