DS Jessica Daniel series: Locked In/Vigilante/The Woman in Black - Books 1-3 (51 page)

As the other officer returned with some drinks, Jessica asked where the toilet was. Carla gave her the directions and she made her way out into the hallway then went up the stairs, not looking
to go snooping but wanting to get a feel of the house. There were no obvious illustrations of wealth but there were framed photographs on the wall the entire way up the staircase. All of the
pictures were of the two Morgans and seemed to be from recent years given the similarity in their appearances. Each one was taken in an exotic location with beaches, attractive-looking palm trees
or clear blue ocean in the background.

There wasn’t much more for Jessica to see at the top of the stairs but an overall impression was emerging that the couple might not be overtly rich but were certainly comfortable.

Back downstairs, Jessica sat on the sofa close to Carla. The other officer left them alone again. ‘It’s a nice place you have here, Mrs Morgan,’ she said.

The woman nodded. ‘Thank you. Lee was always talking about having somewhere nice to retire to. It’s taken us a while but we’ve got the house the way we wanted.’

‘I liked the photos on the way upstairs . . .’

The woman smiled sadly. ‘Yes. Can you believe I’d never been on a plane until three years ago? Lee had been talking about it for years but we never had the money and I was always a
bit scared of flying.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘We went to Egypt first of all. Lee wanted to go to the Caribbean but I didn’t want to go too far. It was nice but a bit too hot. The year after, I let him have his way and we went
to Antigua. The island was amazing but I didn’t like being on the plane for so long.’ She motioned towards her back. ‘Last year we just went to France. It was warm but I
don’t think Lee really took to the food and neither of us could speak the language so it wasn’t easy.’

‘A new car too . . . ?’

‘Yes. Lee always wanted a brand-new vehicle. We always had old ones that kept breaking down. I never learned to drive, so it was all down to him.’

‘How did you pay for the car?’ Jessica tried to ask the question in as innocuous a way as possible.

‘I don’t really know. Lee always wanted me to stay at home and he took care of the money.’

‘Didn’t you ever ask questions?’

Jessica could see that the penny had dropped for Carla. The woman spoke slowly, deliberately choosing her words and shuffling nervously in her chair. ‘Why are you asking?’

‘Because I have to, Mrs Morgan.’

‘Why?’

‘Because we are trying to find out why your husband was killed and these things could all be important.’

Jessica knew she had lost the woman. She did ask further questions but everything was met with one- or two-word answers. She wasn’t going to get any further worthwhile information and
didn’t see the point of pushing a clearly upset widow any further. After saying goodbye to Carla and the family liaison officer, Jessica called Cole when she got back into her car.

She asked if he had dug up anything on the family’s finances. ‘Sort of,’ he said. ‘It’s not what’s in the accounts that’s odd, it’s what
isn’t there.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, you can see Lee Morgan’s monthly salary going into his account but the only bits that come out are large things like money for a holiday that was paid off in one go. The items
you or I might pay for, groceries, petrol, even things like household bills, there’s no sign of that at all.’

‘So you think they’ve been using cash?’

‘Yes but there are no actual withdrawals from the account. No credit cards, no loans and no outstanding debts, either. Most people would owe some amount of money but there’s nothing.
Their current account acts as if it’s for savings because, aside from the odd large purchase, the money is rarely touched.’

‘No direct debits or standing orders?’

‘No but you can pay things like electricity bills in cash at the post office, can’t you?

‘I guess . . . How long has that been going on?’

‘Maybe three years, perhaps a little less. What did you find?’

Jessica explained about the holiday photos, new car and electronic goods. Cole said he would update Farraday because they would have to apply for a warrant to search the house. It seemed likely
there would be cash somewhere but whether it would be kept on the property or in some other location only Lee Morgan knew about was difficult to judge. In some ways Jessica hoped they didn’t
find anything. She doubted Carla was complicit in whatever her husband had been involved in, even if she had perhaps turned a blind eye and not asked some of the questions she should have. But it
seemed overly harsh to not only have her husband taken from her but also his reputation and possibly any financial security she could hope to have.

She hung up and called Adam. He told her they were yet to find much from the prison officer’s body. ‘The Scene of Crime officers didn’t bring in anything specific and so far we
haven’t found anything either. I know they’ve been looking for footprints around the area it all happened in but I haven’t heard anything.’

Jessica assured him they were still on for meeting on Sunday, assuming things didn’t get too busy for her, and then ended the call. She took special care not to refer to it as a
‘date’.

Even if the forensics squad didn’t find any specific link to Donald McKenna, it wouldn’t mean the killing of the officer wasn’t linked to the first three. For one, the obvious
connection to the prison was there but so was the similarity in the stab wounds.

Jessica checked the clock on her phone and didn’t figure it was worth going back to the station. She had already passed on the information she had to Jack and had again worked comfortably
more hours that week than she was required to. She tuned the radio into the local news station. She rarely listened to it, usually preferring a frequency that played rock music. Given Farraday had
told her a few hours ago he was going to bring the media in, she felt she should tune in to find out what was being reported.

The station had regular half-hourly updates and Jessica had to listen to an infuriating phone-in show before they finally got to the part she was waiting for. The newsreader’s first words
were, ‘Is there a vigilante on the loose?’ with dramatic music in the background. It was sensationalist but the names of Craig Millar, Ben Webb and Des Hughes were all mentioned
prominently, which was good. The presenter then gave out a phone number for listeners to call in with information.

But the next few lines were what stood out to Jessica. The reader then mentioned the name ‘Lee Morgan’ and added that, ‘a senior police source told us the officer could have
links to corruption within the prison’.

It was clear Farraday believed Lee Morgan had taken back-handers but, having just met the man’s widow, Jessica was fuming the woman’s husband had been outed with no concrete
evidence. If she needed any further proof as to who the ‘senior source’ was, she got it the next morning. She didn’t often buy the
Manchester Morning Herald
but got up
early and went to the local shop. She read through their pages at home, half-watching the television news.

The paper’s front-page headline was simply ‘
VIGILANTE
’. She didn’t recognise the byline on the piece but even she had to admit it was well written
if the aim was to sell papers. On pages two and three, they had a profile of the three victims, pointing out in as many words that the streets were safer without them on it. On four and five they
laid out in pretty gory detail what had actually happened to the trio and included the force’s appeal for information.

It was page six that concerned Jessica. The headline was: ‘
AS BENT AS A PAPER CLIP
’, then underneath, ‘
IS DEAD WARDEN VICTIM NO.
4?’. The chief inspector wasn’t named – instead that elusive ‘senior source’ was quoted – but the exact choice of words left no doubts who it was that had leaked
the information.

From listening to the television news and checking a few websites, Jessica could see the story of the prison officer’s death was inconsistent between the organisations. Some made the link
to the first three bodies, some didn’t. It seemed clear to Jessica her boss had given off-the-record briefings to certain journalists in order to muddy the water. If the police found nothing
to incriminate Lee Morgan, it didn’t matter too much because the damage had already been done to the man’s reputation. The DCI could point out he had said nothing formal for the media
to quote and the organisations themselves were off the hook because you can’t libel the dead.

Jessica felt it was a very sly move that, although making the force look competent and gaining attention for their appeal, would cause maximum harm to Carla, not to mention Craig Millar’s
mother. It was all right for the chief inspector to play games from his office but she was the one who had to go out and look the victims’ families in the eye.

Still angry, she first called Cole, making sure she kept her temper in check. She told him that, given the media attention, she was going to return to visit Denise Millar to make sure she was
all right and asked if he could pass that on at the station if anyone asked after her. He told her that was fine but said she should try not to take too long. The press office had already phoned
him at home because the national media had picked up on the local story and they wanted everyone at the station to deal with the attention.

She hung up and made another call but it wasn’t to the parent of the first murder victim as she had claimed. Instead, she phoned someone she hadn’t spoken to in over a year. After a
quick one-sided conversation, she got in her car and drove to the centre of the city, picking up a passenger and then driving back out again and parking in a quiet area at the back of a supermarket
car park.

Jessica figured it was best not being seen openly talking to the person she had phoned. She put the handbrake on and switched off the engine, turning to the man sitting next to her. ‘So,
Garry,’ she said. ‘How about I tell you what’s really going on?’

Garry Ashford shuffled nervously in the passenger seat of Jessica’s car. ‘Hang on a minute, let me get a pen out,’ he said.

He lifted himself up, bumping his head on the ceiling of the vehicle with a muffled clang. He rubbed his skull and fumbled in his trouser pockets before rifling through the ones in his jacket.
It was a struggle given the lack of space. Jessica avoided his swinging elbow and intervened.

‘Y’know, Garry, for a clandestine meeting in the middle of nowhere, you’re doing a pretty shoddy job and I’ve not even started telling you what we’re here for
yet.’

‘Sorry, you didn’t give me much notice. I was still in bed.’ The man’s straggly black hair had grown since the last time Jessica had seen him and was now a little below
his shoulders. He was still pasty and scrawny with a questionable taste in clothes. The journalist was wearing brown cord trousers with a navy-blue jacket that looked like it was made of velvet.
Jessica had the urge to touch it but held off.

When she had first called him that morning, she had been pretty angry. Given his outfit and the fact he was a journalist who didn’t even have anything to write with, that fury had
evaporated into comical disbelief. ‘Do you want to borrow a pen?’ Jessica reached into the storage area on the inside of the driver’s door and pulled out a blue biro, holding it
out towards her passenger.

‘Yeah, that’d be good, thanks.’

‘You do have a pad, don’t you?’

‘Yep, got that.’

Garry took the pen from her and pulled out a notepad from the plastic carrier bag he had brought with him. He tried scribbling with the pen on the front of the notebook, pressing harder and then
handing it back to her. ‘Er, this one doesn’t work.’

‘Oh for f— look, do you reckon you can just remember what I tell you?’

‘Yes, sorry. Thanks for your call—’

Jessica cut him off. ‘Did you go to the press briefing yesterday with all the vigilante stuff?’

‘No. We’ve got this new senior crime reporter guy on the
Herald
. I think he’s some relation of the editor. He was only brought in a few months ago but he always gets
sent to things like that now.’

‘What do you do?’

‘Well, since last year, I wasn’t able to get many crime beat stories—’

Jessica cut him off again. ‘How is Dave Rowlands?’

Garry paused for a moment. ‘Who?’

‘I know you went to university together. I checked.’

‘The name doesn’t ring a bell.’

Jessica let it go. ‘Okay, so you were struggling with crime stories. What are you working on now?’

‘Local government correspondent.’

Jessica didn’t mean to but burst out laughing. ‘Oh God . . .’

‘Yeah, I know. It wasn’t my choice.’

‘It sounds awful.’

‘You don’t know the half of it. The reason I was still in bed this morning is that I was at the council chambers until half past eleven last night for some budget vote.’

‘You must have
really
annoyed someone?’

‘After last year, the stories started to dry up. One of the older guys retired and they moved me over. I get a bit more money but it’s not really worth it.’

Rain started to hammer down on the windscreen and Garry jumped slightly. Jessica thought for a moment about turning on the heater in the car but decided against it. For one, it would take the
best part of ten minutes to warm up in any case but she also didn’t trust the battery to start the car again if she tried to use anything without the engine on. ‘You know I
shouldn’t really be talking to you so no names, okay?’

‘Of course.’

‘The story you’ve all got this morning is only half of what’s actually going on. The vigilante stuff, that might be true, we don’t really know yet. The corrupt prison
officer, that might also be true but again we just don’t know.’

Garry nodded along as she spoke. He had clearly read or seen the news that morning and knew what she was talking about. ‘What you’ve not been told is that we have DNA matches for the
first three victims.’