DS Jessica Daniel series: Locked In/Vigilante/The Woman in Black - Books 1-3 (54 page)

‘Do you want to go after this one then?’

‘Yeah, sor . . . I mean, er, I’ve had a good time . . .’

‘Me too.’

‘Honestly?’

‘Believe me, Adam, if I hadn’t, you would be the first person to know about it.’

Jessica felt a little guilty and drank up as quickly as she thought she could without looking like an alcoholic. Adam followed her lead and they placed their empty glasses on the table and
left.

‘How are you getting back?’ he asked.

‘The bus stop over there,’ Jessica said, nodding across the road. ‘It takes me straight home. What about you?’

‘One of the tram routes runs pretty close to my house.’

It was an awkward moment. Adam was looking a little nervous again, so Jessica took the initiative, reaching out and taking his left hand in her right. ‘I really have had a good
evening,’ she said.

‘Me too.’

She leant in to kiss him but he seemed surprised by her movement and tilted his head the wrong way. They ended up softly bumping foreheads.

Jessica pulled back but carried on holding his hand. ‘You’ve not done this too much, have you?’

‘Not for a while.’

The second time around, Jessica made sure she was in control, kissing him gently and then pulling away. ‘We’ll do this again. I’ll send you a text or something,
okay?’

‘Great.’

Jessica crossed the road and stood at the bus stop as Adam walked up the main road. The traffic was light but, as she squinted into the distance to see if there was a bus with the number she was
waiting for coming towards her, Jessica’s thoughts drifted back to the case. She thought about Adam’s question she had dodged.

She was lost in her thoughts when the bus eventually pulled in. She paid the fare and took the first seat on the lower level. She hadn’t focused on the journey down the main road out of
the city but, as they reached the junction where the bus would turn towards her house, Jessica noticed flashing blue lights in the other direction.

Just because she was a police officer, it didn’t mean she had to intervene in every incident she ever saw but Jessica had a feeling. The driver had stopped anyway and she asked him to let
her out. At first he mumbled something about not being a proper stop but she told him she was a police officer and he opened the doors.

She walked quickly down towards the scene, recognising one of the uniformed officers standing nearby.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

The officer looked back at her, clearly not realising who she was at first. He would have only ever seen her in her work suit with her hair tied back.

‘Oh, right, sorry,’ he said when she stood next to him. ‘I didn’t recognise you looking like a girl. The call came in half-hour ago – there’s another
body.’

DCI Farraday’s words were spiralling around Jessica’s head. She remembered them exactly: ‘If this guy’s for real we might get lucky and have another
piece of shit off the streets by Monday’.

She said the first thing that came into her head. ‘Who’s dead?’

The officer was clearly confused. He pointed towards one of the flats on the opposite side of the road. ‘I don’t know. One of the people who live there phoned it in. They said
they’d heard a disturbance and saw some man running off. I don’t think she knows who the body is though. The woman didn’t realise someone was dead until after she had called us.
She was only reporting a fight.’

Jessica had made a rash assumption that, because the first three bodies had been well known to the police, this one would be too. It dawned on her that this could be nothing to do with the
‘vigilante’ and instead some disturbance that had got out of hand. ‘Where is she?’

‘In her flat. Someone’s up there talking to her now. She had come down but the Scene of Crime team will be here in a minute and won’t want anyone around the body.’

Now she looked properly, Jessica could see there was a small tent-type structure over the top of what was presumably the body. It wasn’t a full white one like the SOCO squad would use to
walk in and out of, just something temporary to prevent anything being contaminated.

Jessica nodded towards it. ‘Can I have a look?’

The officer blew out through his teeth. ‘Up to you, I’m not authorising anything.’

Jessica walked over and pulled down the zip to look inside. She instantly looked towards the corpse’s neck for a knife wound but there wasn’t one. There was a lot of blood though.
Glancing back towards the face, Jessica realised she didn’t know if the person was male or female. She would have guessed a man but the face was battered and very badly bruised. There was no
way she would have been able to recognise who it was, even if they were a well-known local criminal. She zipped the cover back up and checked the number of the witness’s flat with the officer
before crossing the road.

She was aware she wasn’t really dressed for the moment and didn’t have her identification but Jessica knocked on the door and was relieved when it was opened by one of the uniformed
female officers she knew. ‘You were quick,’ the officer said, eyeing Jessica’s attire.

‘Just luck. I was on a bus and saw the lights. How’s the witness?’

‘Shaken but okay. Do you want to come in?’

The officer led Jessica through to the living room where a woman was sitting with her feet underneath her on a brown leather sofa. She stood as Jessica entered, looking to the officer for
assurance.

‘This is one of the local sergeants,’ the officer said. Jessica introduced herself properly and apologised for her outfit. After deciding she was happy the woman was in a fit state
to talk, Jessica asked her what she had seen. At some point a proper witness statement would need to be taken but she was feeling impatient.

‘It was pretty dark out and I couldn’t see completely because of where the street lights are,’ the woman said. ‘You could hear some sort of scuffle though and some guy
was shouting – that’s what made me get up and look.’

‘Could you hear what was being shouted?’

‘No, I’m not sure they were even proper words, just noises.’

‘What happened while you were watching?’

‘One man was on top of the other, punching him over and over.’

‘Did you see a knife?’

‘I don’t know, I don’t think so.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘Eventually he stopped and ran off. That was it really. I didn’t realise the one on the floor was dead. I phoned you because there was a fight and I thought whoever was on the ground
would need an ambulance. I would have gone out but you never know who’s out there at night, do you?’

Jessica nodded, trying to look reassuring. ‘Are you sure they were both men?’

‘Definitely.’

Jessica asked her next question and held her breath. She knew the answer could be crucial. ‘Did you get a good look at the man who ran off?’

The woman squinted as if to indicate she was thinking. ‘It was dark but he ran straight under that light opposite. I think I’d recognise him. He wasn’t massive, more like one
of those rugby players. Do you know what I mean? Kind of thick and strong but not fat. He had dark hair but it was quite short.’

Jessica thought the description sounded a lot like Donald McKenna. She remembered the prison governor telling her they were locked up from eight at night until eight in the morning. She looked
over at the clock on the wall; it was almost ten.

‘How old would you say he was?’

‘That’s hard to say. Maybe somewhere in his thirties? I don’t know. He had one of those faces, either a younger man who looks older or an older man who looks younger.
I’ve never been that good with guessing people’s ages anyway.’

It wasn’t an exact description for the man supposed to be locked in Manchester Prison but it wasn’t too far away either. Given the darkness and the distance, it could be accurate.
Jessica explained they would need her to visit the station and give a formal witness statement and then asked if she would mind doing it that night even though it was late. The woman didn’t
seem too put out, so Jessica phoned the station and asked the desk sergeant to make sure someone would be on site to sort out a sketch. Not that long ago, it would have been someone with a giant
drawing pad and a pencil but most of the profiling was now done through a computer. It could have waited until the next morning but Jessica thought it was best if someone took the description of
the assailant while it was fresh.

Back downstairs, the Scene of Crime team had arrived, as had more marked police cars. Jessica arranged for one of the officers to drive the witness to the station.

It was going to be a long night.

The next day, the station was again buzzing with activity and anticipation. The murder had happened too late for the newspapers to get the story but the morning’s news
broadcasts had led with the e-fit of the killer, as had plenty of news websites. At the start of the main national news bulletin, the newsreader’s first words were: ‘Is this the face of
Manchester’s vigilante killer?’

Farraday arrived at the station in the early hours and insisted the photo be released to the media. Jessica had reservations considering there was no formal link to the other killings and she
knew they would connect everything regardless of whether it was true. It wasn’t her call though and her boss said that even if the cases weren’t linked, it would at least get them more
attention than they might usually have.

Jessica saw his reasoning but thought the opposite was also true; someone might recognise the picture but not phone in because they didn’t think their friend or family member was the
so-called vigilante. She had seen the computer sketch and hadn’t changed her opinion from the night before. It looked a bit like Donald McKenna but perhaps slightly too young. It certainly
wasn’t enough to start building a case against him.

She had phoned the prison the night before after arriving back at the station. It sounded like Dennis who answered on reception but, whoever it was, he didn’t hesitate in putting her
through to the wing she asked for. She spoke to the warden on duty and asked him to check on Donald McKenna. The warden didn’t sound too pleased, especially considering the tension the prison
staff must all be feeling after Lee Morgan’s death, but did as she asked. He came back to her a few minutes later and assured her the prisoner was in his cell.

Jessica didn’t know how many times she was going to have to make a phone call like that. She was already up to two and each one sounded ridiculous. They couldn’t request the prisoner
be put under constant watch, or placed in an isolation cell which he couldn’t walk away from, without actually charging him. But they couldn’t charge him unless they had significantly
more proof than they did. If the prisoner had somehow committed this new crime, he would have had just enough time to get out and back again given the timings of the incident and her phone call to
the jail.

The one piece of good news the next morning was that they had identified the body. The Scene of Crime team found a wallet in the victim’s pocket with a provisional driving licence. There
was also a mobile phone in his other pocket. The full results wouldn’t be back from the labs for a few hours but there was no reason to assume someone would have planted another
person’s ID on a dead body.

Robert Graves wasn’t as well known to the police as the other victims but he did have a record. He was eighteen but had been arrested for shoplifting when he was thirteen. His most recent
offence was taking a vehicle without consent and driving without a full licence or insurance. According to his file, it was his mother’s car he had taken and she had reported him.

The man’s identity clouded Jessica’s impression of whether he was linked to the other killings. The fact his wallet and phone had been left was similar to the first victim and showed
it wasn’t just a mugging that had gone too far but the way he had been killed was different. Even without the full test results, Jessica could see he had been beaten to death, rather than
stabbed. There was also something a little different about his criminal record. The prison officer may have been corrupt, while the other three were drug dealers with a history of violence, but
Robert Graves was just a pest. There were thefts, muggings and plenty of drink-related incidents, despite his age, but nothing that singled him out as dangerous compared to the others.

Despite that, there was no deterring Farraday from his belief the vigilante killer had returned. He had been in his office the entire morning making phone calls to various people, as Cole was
left trying to connect Lee Morgan to the rest of the bodies or Donald McKenna. Jessica’s job was to visit Robert Graves’s parents.

Their house wasn’t too far away from where their son’s body had been found the previous evening. Jessica had taken DC Jones with her in a marked police car. The estate they lived on
was known for being fairly rough but the Graveses’ home was beautifully kept, making it stand out from the rest of the properties. The house next door had various car parts strewn on the
front garden but theirs had a lawn mown in immaculate straight lines, with neat trimmed hedges and a well-kept flower bed that ran underneath the front window.

Jessica knew from experience that you could tell a lot about the people you were going to speak to by the first impression you had of where they lived. It didn’t always hold true and you
had to be careful about the assumptions you made but she felt instantly that the Graveses wouldn’t be the stereotypical type of family who lived in this area.

Jones knocked on the front door and a man let them in. He had clearly been crying and led them through to a living room where a family liaison officer was sitting with a woman who also looked as
if she had recently been in tears.

Jessica introduced herself and DC Jones. The man said his name was Arthur and his wife was Jackie. Their living room looked as if it had been decorated recently and was as well presented as the
outside of the house. Arthur offered to make them all tea but the family liaison officer went to do it instead, leaving the four of them alone. It was always an awkward judgement to make as to
whether bereaved relatives were stable enough to talk to you in a situation like this. You had to balance their feelings with the necessity to get the freshest information you could.