DS Jessica Daniel series: Locked In/Vigilante/The Woman in Black - Books 1-3 (47 page)

‘Are you going to arrest them?’ he asked.

‘It’s a bit late for that,’ Jessica replied before telling him of his attackers’ fate.

The two had lengthy records with a slightly more serious edge to them than Craig Millar. Hughes had been in jail for possession of a firearm plus he had a string of assaults to his name. Webb
didn’t have the weapons charge but most of their records matched up. They clearly worked as a pair. Interestingly to Jessica, they had both only been released from prison in the past year,
meaning all three victims – plus Donald McKenna – had been in the same jail at the same time.

After leaving the hospital, they had gone to the snooker club where the emergency call had come from. They spoke to the owner, who told how he had been terrorised the previous night. He said he
was too scared to intervene in the assault but had at least given a full description to officers the night before. Samples had been taken from the club and sent through for analysis but the local
police hadn’t connected that incident to the two murders at the time. Jessica texted Adam just in case but felt pretty sure someone else would have already told the labs about the link.

The owner didn’t know Hughes and Webb personally but said he recognised their faces from the club. They hadn’t caused him trouble in the past but, given their records, Jessica
thought they were an accident waiting to happen once alcohol was thrown into the mix.

It was becoming clear that the three victims’ links to Donald McKenna would be extensive. At first Jessica had set Rowlands to look for direct connections between McKenna and Millar but
the link seemed to be the prison itself.

They arrived back at the station late in the afternoon. Jessica typed up her notes from the day and then went through the lists Rowlands had compiled. The names that linked McKenna and Millar
were simply other known criminals. Some of them would have no doubt been in prison at the same time as Hughes and Webb too, which would be something to start with. She checked through the computer
records and narrowed the list further but none of the names jumped out at her. They were all petty troublemakers, each of them a nuisance, but no one who she would have bet had the inclination, let
alone motive, to kill three people.

With links to organised crime also seeming unlikely, as Cole had pointed out, it meant their only firm connection was still Donald McKenna, a man behind bars.

Jessica shut the computer down and walked into the reception area in preparation to head out towards her car. She had stayed at Longsight for forty-five minutes longer than she needed to but it
wasn’t as if she had anything to rush home to. With dismay she saw the bright autumn day had given way to grey skies and drizzle and what little summer they’d had seemed to be over for
another year. She stood in the doorway of the station looking across the fifty or so yards to her car. She hadn’t brought an umbrella or coat to work in the morning, trusting the way the
skies had looked when she left her flat earlier on. It was always a foolish assumption to make in Manchester but she never learned her lesson.

She fumbled around her pockets for her car keys and held them at the ready before ducking her head and making a run for it. Rowlands had pointed out to her a few months ago that the force had
started hiring recruits that were younger than her car. It was red, rusty and unreliable and Jessica didn’t really know why she hadn’t upgraded to something better. She could afford it
if she wanted to but there was something sentimental about the vehicle and she had resigned herself to keeping it until it literally fell apart.

Jessica thought remote central locking would have been nice as she tried to force the key into the car’s lock and ended up accidentally scraping a bit more paint away from the area around
the key hole. There were enough scuffs and scratches for her to not worry too much as she eventually fell onto the driver’s seat and shut the door behind her.

It was only as she slammed the door that she realised her phone was ringing. Her wet fingers struggled with the screen more than usual but she just managed to say ‘hello’ before it
rang off.

‘Oh hi. It’s Adam, Adam Compton. I didn’t think you were going to answer.’

‘No, I’m here. A bit wet but here.’

‘It’s raining out?’

‘Yeah. Shock, hey?’

‘Oh right. I’ve not been outside all day. Erm, look, I probably shouldn’t be calling you yet because it’s not official but we did find a few things.’

Jessica felt her heart rate suddenly go up. ‘What?’

‘It’s early and nothing will be confirmed until tomorrow but we found a few hairs on the top that Ben Webb was wearing. There’s nothing unusual about that but they’re not
his or Des Hughes’s. I got your text but someone had already phoned through. We used those samples from the snooker club but they don’t belong to either of the two victims who were
beaten up.’

Jessica held back from interrupting, letting him say the exact words she knew he would. ‘They are a direct match for Donald McKenna though.’

Adam went on to reiterate that things would need to be confirmed. They were going to request a new swab from Donald McKenna in prison. He added that nothing was final and that
samples could degrade over time. McKenna’s initial swabs could have been contaminated or could have simply not been stored correctly. They had been on file since he was sent to prison for the
armed robbery four years earlier. Nothing would be official until new saliva was taken and then re-tested against everything they had. He said his boss would pass on the first results to someone at
the station officially the next morning but request a media blackout until a full re-analysis was done. It was a bit late to stop the release of the murder victims’ names but it would look
bad for everyone if it was all linked back to a contaminated sample.

He drifted off into scientific speak she didn’t really understand and then said it was going to take days but Jessica wasn’t really listening. She knew it would all come back to
confirm what she felt sure she knew; Donald McKenna had somehow been involved with the murder of three people.

She decided to rest on things that night. Adam had trusted her with information she
technically
shouldn’t have yet and there didn’t seem too much point in passing it on
considering it would be phoned through the next morning anyway, albeit with the proviso that the testers wanted new samples.

The following day, there was definitely a different atmosphere in the station. Big crimes always created a buzz and, although Craig Millar’s killing hadn’t got people going, Jessica
knew as soon as she walked in that news had broken about the latest DNA results. She didn’t let on that she already knew as the desk sergeant directed her upstairs for a meeting with
Farraday.

As soon as she started to walk past the windows of his office, she could see Cole already sitting inside chatting with their boss. She knocked as a courtesy but was waved straight in and took a
seat next to Cole on the opposite side of the desk from Farraday. ‘Daniel,’ the DCI said to acknowledge her.

‘Sir.’ The chief inspector proceeded to tell her everything she had already been told by Adam the previous evening. She nodded along in all the right places. If Cole suspected she
already knew the details, he said nothing.

The DCI finished by summing up where he saw everything standing. ‘Daniel, I’m moving you up to take lead on this. I know it should really fall to Cole but so far it’s only
three arseholes we’re better off without. There are other jobs to do around here. Take whoever you want to the prison today but then we’ll have to wait until the Bradford Park lot have
done their jobs. If any more bodies show up, we might have to look again. All right?’

‘What are we telling the media, Sir?’ Jessica asked.

‘Not much. The press office stuck out the victims’ names yesterday. Do I think they’ll put the pieces together and link it to the other killing? Not unless someone gives the
game away. It’s not as if they’re the sharpest bunch of knives in the drawer, is it?’

Jessica grimaced at the question he had asked himself but wanted to laugh at his dig about the local reporters. With her last big case a journalist named Garry Ashford who worked for the
Manchester Morning Herald
had actually helped her figure out what was going on, albeit not directly. Still, she liked the description and would tell him the next time she saw him.

‘What exactly do you want me to do at the prison, Sir?’ She wouldn’t normally have asked but, with them in limbo waiting for further test results, there was only so far they
could push things.

‘Talk to the governor, check McKenna’s cell, put the shits up them all – that kind of thing. Talk to the wardens, one of them might be bent. Do I think someone there must know
more than they’re letting on? Maybe.’

It hadn’t crossed Jessica’s mind that someone who worked on the wings could have helped McKenna in some way. It still seemed far-fetched but it was something she would bear in mind
now that Farraday had mentioned it. A warden or someone in a similar position would certainly have more chance at getting blood or hairs from the prisoner than someone on the outside if they wanted
to frame him. If they were working together, it would be easier, although still difficult in technical terms. It didn’t get her any closer to coming up with a motive.

The three of them held the morning briefing in the main incident room in the basement of the Longsight station. It essentially consisted of them telling everyone what had been decided in the
office. The chief inspector reminded them all of their responsibilities to not leak any details to the papers. Jessica made sure she caught Rowlands’s eye. She hadn’t been able to prove
it at the time but she was as sure as she could be that he had been giving information to Garry Ashford at the time of Randall Anderson’s killing spree. It wasn’t malicious and had
drastically enhanced one of his friend’s careers but it still shouldn’t have happened. Neither he nor the journalist had ever owned up to it but the reporter’s knowledge of the
police force’s inner workings had certainly stopped appearing in the local paper since Jessica had challenged them. Rowlands wasn’t keen to make eye contact and looked away.

After the briefing was finished, she motioned him over to one side. ‘Fancy a trip to the prison?’

‘You know how to show a guy a good time, don’t you? Hospital one day, prison the next. Are we off to the cemetery tomorrow?’

‘Are you seriously giving out dating advice?’

Rowlands winked at her. ‘Word around the station is that you might be looking for some.’

Jessica didn’t think Cole was the type to gossip and doubted it was him who had said anything about Adam but news travelled pretty quickly around a police station, especially if it
involved officers’ private lives.

She thought about asking how Rowlands knew but didn’t think it really mattered. ‘Why? Are you jealous?’

‘Nah, you’re a bit old for me.’

Jessica snorted. ‘Only if you’re talking about mental ages.’

On arrival at the prison, they had been greeted by another member of front-office staff who was slightly unnerving. The people who worked there had obviously been given some
sort of briefing regarding the police visit and the man was keen to ask questions and try to show how efficient he was. Jessica did her best to ignore him as Rowlands pulled out his phone and had
what was almost certainly a fake conversation. Jessica thought she would remember that trick for next time.

If it was a phoney talk, he didn’t have to pretend for too long. They had called to confirm they were visiting after putting off their trip the day before and the governor had been pretty
quick to meet them in the reception area. After the usual security checks, he took them through into the main arrivals yard. He told them the large concreted area was where the security vans first
arrived. Inmates were either taken back to their blocks if they were already prisoners, or moved into a separate processing office if they were new arrivals.

The governor was outwardly far friendlier on their second visit but his tone definitely seemed forced and a tad over-enthusiastic. He talked them through the areas that had been rebuilt and
showed them where the old parts of the establishment had been before the riots. He led them off to an area where he said executions used to take place. Jessica knew the basics but was surprised
when he told them the last hangings took place in the 1960s. She wouldn’t have guessed it was quite so recent.

He took them into the main prison area and pointed out the various wings. He mentioned a famous rock star and told them how he had spent six weeks in the prison a few years previously. He
offered to show them the cell but Jessica decided that would be a step too far. The pleasantries were at least interesting but they were there on business. If the governor was annoyed at having his
impromptu tour interrupted, then he didn’t react, instead walking them through to the wing McKenna was kept on.

It was essentially a wide and long hallway, with cells that went up three storeys high. There was a big gap between the two sides with a couple of pool tables interspersed with a few other
chairs in the middle of the hard grey floor. Jessica had been into a few prisons but rarely into the area where prisoners were actually housed. In terms of the actual cells, there wasn’t much
sign of the stereotypical vertical bars most people would picture. The main gates in and out of the wings themselves were barred across and needed to be unlocked but the actual cell doors were
thick, heavy and made of metal. It wasn’t as grim as she might have guessed but certainly wasn’t as bright and new as the visiting areas always appeared.

‘Everyone gets to spend twelve hours out of their cell between eight and eight,’ the governor explained. ‘There’s a games area towards the bottom of the wing with more
pool tables and so on. What we’ve done is move them all down there just for while you’re here. It was a bit cramped so some of them are outside in the rec area. It will give you free
access to walk into the cells. You do have to understand that the property they have in their rooms is their own, though. Some get very, er, funny about things being moved.’