DS Jessica Daniel series: Locked In/Vigilante/The Woman in Black - Books 1-3 (53 page)

Because of her mood, Jessica thought it would be a decent idea to meet up with Adam in the afternoon, rather than the evening. It made it appear more like a ‘meeting’ than a
‘date’, ensuring she was unlikely to drink too much wine and end up looking stupid.

Jessica entered the cafe and walked over to the stools where Adam was sitting. ‘Hey,’ she said.

‘Hi, I thought you’d changed your mind or something . . .’

‘Nah, just missed the bus.’

‘Oh right, okay . . .’ Adam still seemed a little nervous about looking her in the eye. He was wearing a pair of jeans with a white T-shirt and black blazer. On his T-shirt was an
image of a cartoon Jessica remembered from when she was younger. He had clearly made an effort. The stubble from the first time she had met him had been shaved off and his dark hair was clean.
‘Nice place, this,’ he added.

‘It’s not too far from where I lived a while back. I used to come here regularly a few years ago.’

‘Oh, you look nice by the way,’ Adam blurted out. ‘Sorry, I should have said that before . . .’

Jessica struggled not to laugh. The poor guy was clearly so nervous around girls, even the things he obviously planned to say came out at the wrong time. She had made a little effort, with a
pair of jeans she still just about fitted in and a black top she’d had since she was sixteen. She had left her hair down too – not having to get dressed up properly was another
advantage of meeting in the afternoon.

‘Thank you,’ Jessica replied, making sure she kept a straight face. ‘I was thinking maybe we could have a drink in here and then watch a movie next door? If you’re
hungry, there are lots of places to eat around here afterwards.’

‘Great, yeah, that’s great.’

‘What kind of movies do you like?’

‘Oh, everything really.’

‘Even snuff movies and hardcore pornography?’

Adam looked at her, horrified. ‘No, God no. Of course not.’

‘I’m joking, Adam.’

He laughed nervously. ‘Oh yeah, sorry.’

Jessica smiled back at him. ‘Look, if we’re ever going to, er, meet with each other again, I’m going to have to lay down a few ground rules. Firstly, stop apologising. Second,
it’s probably fair enough for you to just assume I’m joking about things. Okay?’

‘Yeah, sor . . . er, yeah, that’s fine.’

The cafe had a rack with flyers advertising the films showing next door. The two went over the list together and decided on a documentary about a photographer. It was not the kind of thing
Jessica would have gone out of her way to watch but she didn’t fancy a subtitled film. It wasn’t that she had anything against foreign movies, just that her faith in her own eyesight
was slowly deteriorating. She wasn’t ready to admit to herself just yet that she was getting too old to be able to read things correctly from a distance and a subtitled film would probably be
pushing things a tad too far.

They had half an hour to wait until their showtime, so made small talk while having their drinks. Jessica found herself relaxing more as Adam finally started to overcome his nervousness.
‘Do you go to the cinema much?’ he asked.

‘Not really. I come here now and then but I can’t stand all those big multi-screen places.’

‘How come?’

‘It takes you a few years to realise but eventually you come to the conclusion that most of the general public are just arses. You want to sit there and watch some nonsense film but if
it’s not some idiot slurping his drink, then it’s some grossly overweight woman troughing a bucket of popcorn.’

Adam laughed, joining in. ‘Yeah and you get those teenagers using their phones all the time.’

‘Exactly, I once marched up to this lad and hung up his phone for him. He had actually taken a call and was merrily chatting away as if he was in his living room. I had two dozen people
giving me an ovation as this little scroat called me every name under the sun. He changed his tune when I pulled out my police ID.’

Adam laughed louder this time. ‘What did he do?’

‘Well, his little girlfriend didn’t seem too pleased when the staff turfed the pair of them out and gave him a bigger mouthful than he’d given me. I left her to sort him out in
the end, I think the embarrassment was punishment enough.’

There weren’t too many awkward pauses in their conversation and Jessica found herself laughing a lot more than she had done in a long time. When he relaxed and stopped being so nervy, Adam
was a fun guy and clearly very clever. Now he wasn’t too afraid to look at her, she could see his eyes were as big and brown as she had first thought. Jessica also found out he had a working
vocabulary of French, Spanish and Italian, which she found very impressive, if a little intimidating. She wondered if that was why she couldn’t place his accent but didn’t openly ask
him.

The movie was a lot better than she expected and, given it had not long turned dark after they came out, they decided to get something to eat. Jessica told Adam he could choose, seeing as she
had picked the initial location. They ended up eating in a small Italian restaurant right next to her bus stop.

Jessica knew the area reasonably well and, for a district where lots of students lived and restaurants were constantly bought and rebranded, this particular place had been ever-present for as
long as she could remember.

There was only room for half-a-dozen tables inside and they received a warm welcome as they entered from the man who was presumably the owner. He took Adam’s jacket and led them to a table
for two in the bay window. ‘The most romantic table in the house,’ he declared loudly. Jessica and Adam laughed nervously with each other.

The walls were adorned with a mixture of cheesy Italian imagery, such as photos of a man with a moustache, and hanging peppers, chillies and spicy-looking sausages. The smells given off from
those and the ones drifting from the kitchen were making Jessica hungry. Despite her earlier pledge not to drink, she ordered a bottle of wine for the two of them to share.

They agreed to split one of the large pizzas but Adam insisted he was allergic to onions, so they opted for a purely meaty one. They had almost finished eating when Jessica asked the question
she had wanted to when he had first mentioned it. ‘Are you
really
allergic to onions or just a bit funny about them?’

‘They give me big stomach cramps.’

‘Oh, so it’s a fake allergy then?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, for me, if you’re not going to keel over dead, it doesn’t really count.’

‘So you’d rather I died as opposed to just having a tummy ache?’

‘Exactly. If you’re going to go around calling something an allergy, I think you’ve got to be able to back that up.’

Adam laughed and Jessica realised he had finally cottoned on to her sense of humour. ‘So where do you live then?’ she asked.

‘I have a house out Salford way.’

‘Do you live alone?’

Adam shuffled in his seat. He finally seemed comfortable with making eye contact but glanced out of the window as he answered. ‘No, with my grandma.’

‘Oh . . .’

Jessica didn’t mean to sound quite so blunt, it just slipped out. She didn’t know exactly how old he was but it was certainly somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties. Living
with your parents, let alone grandparents, wasn’t a great image. It could partially explain his awkwardness around girls. It must be hard getting time alone with the opposite sex if you still
lived with your family.

Adam quickly jumped in. ‘My parents died when I was a baby and my grandma brought me up. I’ve been meaning to move out for a long time but . . . well, it’s just I don’t
want her ending up in a home or anything. It wouldn’t seem fair to leave her after she took me in.’

‘Is it her you get your accent from? It doesn’t sound local.’

‘She’s from the west country somewhere. I guess some of her dialect has rubbed off on me.’

Jessica nodded gently and half-thought about making some sort of cider- or cheese-related joke. Adam had spoken quickly though and there was a strong undercurrent of emotion in his voice.
Jessica felt it a little herself. ‘That’s really nice.’

‘No, it’s okay. I know it’s weird.’

‘I think it’s nice. What’s she like?’

Adam grinned. ‘Grandma? She’s . . . different. She’s got to that point where she just doesn’t care what anyone thinks any longer. Whatever’s in her head just pops
out. I took her to the supermarket the other week and we were behind this woman in the queue. She had these dodgy leggings on that made her look . . . well, y’know?’

Jessica nodded, knowing exactly what he meant. There were some women who, to be polite, didn’t have the figure to pull off wearing leggings.

‘Most people wouldn’t say anything. You might glance, then look away and think, “That doesn’t look good” or something like that. But Nan’s at the point where
she doesn’t have any of those social niceties. She just turns to me and goes, “Adam, do you think that woman’s got a mirror in her house?”’

‘How loud?’

‘Really loud. She’s a bit deaf too.’

‘Oh God . . .’ Jessica found herself laughing in a way she hadn’t done since before Caroline had moved out, really deep belly laughs. There were tears in her eyes as Adam
joined in too.

‘Did the woman say anything?’ Jessica asked when she managed to calm herself down.

‘No but you could see her tense up – she must have heard. Then Nan kept going on about why people dress like that in public. I was trying to change the subject but she was
oblivious.’

‘Oh, that poor woman.’

‘I know! This other time, she scolded a teenage kid in the local shop for wearing his trousers too low. His mates were all there and she goes, “If you don’t buck your ideas up,
you’ll never get yourself a young lady. I didn’t see a young man’s underpants until I was in my twenties”.’

‘What did the kid say?’

‘Nothing much. What could he say? There was some woman in her eighties talking about his boxer shorts in front of his friends. I think he wanted the ground to open up and swallow
him.’

Jessica exploded with laughter again and couldn’t stop. On three separate occasions, she thought she had finished but each time, the image of the youth being told off about his underwear
by a pensioner popped into her head and set her off again. Even the owner got involved, bringing over a napkin for her to dry her eyes and asking if she was okay.

‘She sounds ace,’ Jessica finally said when she finished giggling.

‘She’s all right.’

‘I’ve got to meet her one day.’ Jessica had blurted it out before she realised what she had said. It was the equivalent of asking to meet someone’s parents.

‘We’ll see. She’s not good with new people. She is always going on about me getting a girlfriend though.’

Adam had clearly said that without thinking too much either as he immediately picked up his glass of wine to stop himself saying any more. For the first time since they sat down to eat, there
was an awkward pause between them. Jessica finished her own glass of wine and then broke the silence. ‘Can we talk a bit of work for a minute?’

‘Okay.’ Adam seemed pleased she was changing the subject.

‘I know you said before but do you think the blood and hairs could have been planted?’

‘I doubt it. It looked too genuine, especially the blood under the nails.’

‘What could prove things one way or the other?’

‘I guess the only thing for sure would be a fingerprint. It might be unlikely but you could plant blood or something at a scene. Getting someone’s fingerprint onto a scene they
weren’t at would be as close to impossible as you could imagine.’

‘Are you going to find anything on Lee Morgan’s body?’

‘I wouldn’t have thought so. We usually find things pretty early, it just takes time to do the testing afterwards.’

‘So what made you want to hang around dead bodies for a living then?’

‘I don’t know really. I got into it by accident. I always liked science at school and then ended up doing it at university. I didn’t want to leave Grandma so went to the local
uni and lived at home. I just fell into the job.’

Jessica nodded. ‘I pretty much fell into the police stuff too. It wasn’t as if I had dreamed of dealing with all this stuff when I was a kid. It just happened.’

‘Do you enjoy it?’

It was Jessica’s turn to look out the window. She was fine with talking to people about what she did but not so good with her feelings. In truth, she didn’t know if she liked her
job. She enjoyed some of the people and the teamwork that came with it. She liked it when things went well and bad people were caught. But, overall, she didn’t know. It was a question she
tried not to ask herself, especially since her friendship with Caroline had deteriorated. They had been best friends since the age of sixteen and then, whether she liked it or not, it had been her
job that had split them up.

She looked out across the street where one of the pubs had a bright neon sign that simply said, ‘Live football’.

‘Do you want a pint?’

It was clearly not the answer to the question Adam had asked. ‘Sorry?’

‘Do you want a pint? Let’s pay up here and go get a proper drink.’

‘All right.’

Jessica signalled for the bill. Adam went to pay with a card but Jessica insisted on giving him half the money back in cash. They stood to leave and, as they were walking out, Adam tripped over
the step that led back onto the pavement. Even though he had relaxed, he still had that awkward streak.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked, again trying not to laugh.

‘Yeah, sorry.’

‘What did I say about that word?’

They crossed the road and Jessica ordered two pints of lager. They found a round table near the front door where no one else was sitting.

Adam looked at his watch as they sat. ‘All right?’ Jessica asked.

‘It’s just Grandma. She tells me not to worry but you still do. I got her a mobile phone so she could call if there was a problem but she doesn’t have a clue. I programmed my
numbers in for her but she’ll only call my work number from the landline. She thinks a mobile can only call another mobile, even though I’ve told her. Then if she wants me, she’ll
do this thing where she rings once and quickly hangs up before the call connects. She reckons it costs a fortune to call anyone.’