‘My name is Garry Ashford,’ came the reply. ‘I work for the Manchester Morning Herald. I wanted to ask you about the body you found this morning.’
Jessica knew the media hadn’t been given any information yet. Later on, they would be told a standard line about a body being found and tests being done. If the son had been informed, they might even be given the name. Next week would be when the media were brought in and asked to cooperate. They would get the details of the victim and asked to give out a phone number for members of the public to call if they thought they had information.
Manning that line was definitely the worst job when you were a constable. Trying to pull out anything remotely useful from the mass of nonsense calls you had to wade through was a nightmare. Everything had to be followed up just in case that one piece of information you had deemed useless actually ended up being something vital. Someone would have to oversee the operation and Jessica thought it was a job that had DC Rowlands’ name all over it.
‘What body are you talking about?’ Jessica asked, wondering if straight-batting the caller would work.
‘Hang on, let me check. Er, somebody Christ or something… sorry, can’t read my own writing. Er, Yvonne, Yvonne Christensen.’
Those words meant there would be two names finding their way on to Jessica’s shit-list. First, this journalist, second whoever leaked him the name. Everything released to the media by the police had to go through the Press Office They got decidedly annoyed if something they hadn’t approved ended up in the papers or on television. Working with the media was even part of the training nowadays and, worse than that, the DCI would be annoyed if he didn’t get his chance to go on television and make an appeal.
‘How did you get that name?’
‘You know I can’t tell you that. I’ve got to protect my sources and all that.’
So he wasn’t just a know-it-all, he was a cocky sod too, thought Jessica. ‘Right, well look, I’m going to have to refer you to the Press Office. There’s no one in at the moment but I know there will be a statement going out later. If you phone their main number, somebody will come back to you in a bit.’ Jessica thought she was keeping her temper pretty well in check. The Press Office speech was something she had given to people in the past, usually when she was far more junior and didn’t know any information even if she wanted to give it out.
‘Yeah, I figured that but I thought they would probably only be giving out basic information later and thought I’d ask someone who might actually know something.’
‘Right… how did you get my number?’
‘Well, I know a guy at the phone company who can get numbers for me.’
He was really getting on her nerves now. ‘I wonder if you could pass him on a message for me. Have you still got you pen handy?’ She didn’t wait for the caller to answer before continuing. ‘Tell whoever got you that number that they
will
be fired and possibly prosecuted. Can you spell “prosecuted” or does it have too many letters for you?’
Even if he was telling the truth, Jessica was fully aware she had no way of knowing who this journalist’s “guy” was – let alone a way of getting him fired – but she may as well try to get someone sweating a bit.
‘Okay,’ he said dismissively. ‘I’ll tell them that… so do you want to make a comment then?’
‘No.’ The cheeky swine had gone right to the top of her list with that flippant remark. Jessica hung up abruptly after considering sending the journalist packing with a two-word send-off. She wondered if she should tip DI Cole off or not but thought that, if the journalist was going to go over her, he would have done already. Besides he was probably just full of it. One of those Scene of Crime people, or someone in uniform, had just blabbed and he was trying it on, seeing if she let anything slip. She would wait for the Sunday paper, then decide if she was going to hunt him down and make his life difficult or not.
As much as Jessica wanted to get on with the case, CID struggled with weekends simply because of everyone else’s working patterns. Courts, coroners, solicitors’ offices, forensics, their own Press Office and all kinds of other departments were either closed or trying to run with a cut-down weekend workforce. While uniformed officers had many more call-outs and lots more work to do across Friday nights, Saturdays and Sunday, plain-clothed officers were often left catching up with paperwork.
She had been planning on going home and possibly getting something to eat with Caroline but, given her mood, knew she wouldn’t be the best company. After her talk with the journalist, she went back into the station to catch-up on some paperwork, figuring it would be one less thing to do the following week. The desk sergeant was clearly confused, seeing as Saturdays were usually the day when plain-clothes officers were battling to get out of the door, rather than back in it.
She had her own office but wanted a bit of company. DC Rowlands was on the main floor doing some paperwork of his own so she went and sat opposite him. ‘Wotcha,’ she said.
‘You’re way too old to be talking like that.’
‘Oi. How are you doing anyway? Did Eric Christensen get home okay?’
‘I assume so. Someone took him in a car to identify the body then they were going to drop him back. How are
you
? Isn’t it this week that...?’ He tailed off.
As much as they bickered and joked with each other, there really was affection under the surface, albeit strictly platonic. ‘Yeah, Monday.’
‘How long has it been?’
‘Eight months.’
‘Do you still miss him?’
‘Yeah, of course.’
Everyone who first joined
CID
started as a Detective Constable after previously spending around two years in training as well as a period before that in uniform. Generally, being a new DC meant you were the first point of call when the teas needed to be made or you could possibly be sent on a biscuit run on a quiet day. Woe-betide a freshly-recruited constable who brought back a packet of custard creams from a mid-morning dash to the local supermarket. Even hardened criminals didn’t get as much abuse as some unfortunate new recruit returning with something that didn’t have chocolate on it.
You learned pretty quickly.
On top of that really important work, you also got all the jobs no one else really wanted. You would get the vast array of forms to fill in and handle the rest of the paperwork to file and send off to wherever it was needed. You would have to hunt through the mountains of papers or computer files to fulfil the freedom of information requests. You might have to work with the Press Office if you really annoyed someone, or perhaps liaise with other police forces around the country and make the endless hours of phone calls to rule people out from enquiries. If you were really unlucky, you could even get the task of hunting through hours of CCTV, phone logs or anything else in an attempt to find a breakthrough.
Every now and then you were actually responsible for a decent lead, something that might get an expression that wasn’t just a scowl from an inspector or Chief Inspector if you were really lucky. If you got a “well done” or someone bought you a pint, you knew you’d had a really good day.
Those months were the initiation ritual where you found out whether you actually wanted the job or not, or whether you were up to it. Not everyone was.
After her introduction to the department, Jessica had been assigned to help out DI Harry Thomas just over two years ago. Despite his position, he was still eager to get out into the thick of the action. Desks weren’t for him and neither was the brown-nosing, which was why he hadn’t even looked for anything like a promotion. At first it was just a shadowing exercise set up by bosses looking to tick boxes and perhaps have a laugh among themselves. She was twenty nine then, emerging from five years of working in uniform and taking exams to qualify.
Harry was two ranks above her and twenty years older. He was an old-fashioned detective with not much hair, a paunch belly and a north east accent – even though he hadn’t lived north of Manchester since he was a child. He also had a supposed attitude problem, certainly when it came to anyone in authority above him.
It had most-likely been their DCI’s little joke at first – pair the new girl with the grumpy old guy who has sat at the same desk for a decade and see how much she wanted to be a detective then.
In actual fact, their coupling turned into a firm friendship and mutual respect. She liked how he got results and was completely committed to getting bad guys off the streets. He liked... well, she wasn’t sure. It wasn’t the type of conversation they would ever have had, feelings and all that. It would have been like confiding in your dad but he had put up with her for long enough and, for Harry, that was as close as it ever got to giving someone his approval.
‘I know you and Harry were close but I didn’t really know the guy,’ DC Rowlands said. ‘He always seemed a bit grumpy and people always went on about leaving him be. I don’t think people really knew how to take it when he kind of took you under his wing.’
Jessica nodded. ‘He was certainly grouchy but I think it was just his way. When you got past that he had a really dry sense of humour.’
‘Is that where you got all your dirty jokes from?’
‘Only the good ones,’ Jessica grinned. ‘The thing was he had contacts everywhere. This killing this morning, if I’m honest with you Dave, I don’t really know where to start. I’m just sat here hoping forensics strike lucky. Harry would have been out there talking to people he knew. I’d ask him how he had those contacts and he’d just shrug and say he had a pint with them fifteen years ago.’
‘Blimey, I was still at school then.’
‘Exactly. This one time I was out with him and there was a homeless bloke he bought cans of lager for. He’d just put them down next to him and give the guy a wink. I didn’t know why he’d done it but he just said, “You’ll see.” Then, two weeks later we went back to the same guy. He was in the same window wearing the same clothes and Harry went and sat next to him.’
‘What in his suit?’
‘Yeah, it was mad. I just kind of hung around on the other side of the path not knowing where to look. He gave the guy this brown envelope or something, had a quick word then walked off again. I asked him what was going on and it turned out this homeless guy had witnessed some incident a few nights previous. People don’t notice him because they think he’s asleep or passed out or whatever. Later on, Harry goes and arrests some other bloke and the case we’re working on is all sorted.’
‘That’s quality.’
‘I know. Things like that happened all the time but most people didn’t get to see him work.’
‘Has he told you what actually happened with... y’know?’
‘I’ve not spoken to him in five months. He doesn’t answer his phone and, assuming he hasn’t moved, he doesn’t open his front door either.’
‘People have been saying he didn’t cooperate with the investigation.’
‘Who knows? I think he just feels embarrassed by it all.’
‘Surely it wasn’t his fault he got stabbed?’
‘The thing is Dave, I just don’t know.’
Eight months ago, Harry had gone to the pub after shift for a late drink. She didn’t know for certain but Jessica assumed it was something he did most nights. In general Harry wouldn’t go near the police pubs; he preferred the ones far more dimly-lit where the landlord was happy to let his clientele hang around after closing for a cheeky final drink. Or five.
The drinking never seemed to affect his work and, other than the job, there wasn’t really much they had in common but Jessica had seen Harry mellow somewhat. After they had been working together for six months, she had even persuaded him to go to the same pub the rest of the crew went to. He had let her buy him a drink: “Not that Scotch shite, a proper drink, bourbon,” is what he had told her to order.
That is exactly what he had been drinking when some boozed-up thug knifed him in a dingy pub at the end of a bright September day. He survived but spent weeks in hospital and never returned to the force. Jessica had visited him but he wasn’t the same person.
Faced with the mandatory counselling sessions before being allowed to return fully, he simply took early retirement. He didn’t even seem that interested in helping the police’s own investigation. Whether it was the shame of drinking himself into a vulnerable position or simply not being able to defend himself, she didn’t know.
‘From what the papers said, it sounded pretty clear cut,’ DC Rowlands said. ‘We got the guy’s fingerprints and the knife and everything.’
‘The prosecution are using me a character witness at some point. I know people were saying Harry hadn’t cooperated properly with them but they didn’t tell me any of that when we met up last week.’
‘But if they’ve got the knife and everything, what else do they need?’
‘From what the lawyer said, the problem is the CCTV from the pub is more-or-less unusable. There were plenty of people in there at the time but mysteriously they all seemed to be in the toilets at the same time.’
‘Oh right, like that then.’
‘Exactly, no one wants to say anything.’
Tom Carpenter was someone who couldn’t handle his drink and happened to carry a knife in his back pocket. Regardless of the witness problems, his fingerprints had been all over the knife left sticking out of Harry’s guts. A string of low-level thefts meant they’d had no problems identifying who he was.
At the time Carpenter might not have realised he had stabbed a police officer but, when the papers and news programmes got hold of the story and started flashing his photo around, there weren’t too many places to hide and he handed himself in.
Jessica hadn’t known how to take the news when she found out. She had certainly done plenty of hard graft working with Harry but he had always been fair with her. The years of exams you had to take before getting on to CID could teach you the things you might need to be a detective but Harry had helped her
become
one. He had introduced her to his sources and shown her how to find her own. He told her which journalists you could trust and which ones you should nip to the public lavatory to avoid, even if they were on fire. It was almost as if he opened her eyes to the city itself.