‘Did the door-to-door enquiries come up with anything?’ one of the constables asked.
Jessica and DI Cole snorted at the same time. ‘Nope,’ Jessica said while DI Cole expanded. ‘The best we got was one neighbour at the other end of the street who thinks they saw the same person walk past their house three or four times in a short period. She was a little elderly and it could be the postman for all we know. Her description was fairly bland and didn’t really give us too much but they are going to work with the profilers today to get something on to the evening news. It does seem a long shot though.’
Someone made a crack that any picture without a gormless grin being on the front of tomorrow’s papers would be an improvement. Jessica made a mental note so she could give the joker something tedious to do when the jobs were given out. She had read the witness’ description and doubted there was anything in it but thought it perfectly summed up DI Cole himself, given the normality of it.
DI Cole continued. ‘We’ve set up a phone for people to call in with information but, despite the media coverage, we haven’t had anything yet.’
Neither the inspector nor Jessica had anything further to add, so DCI Aylesbury told everyone there was going to be a Press Conference in the station at 3pm and pressed the point they should all look busy. He sent them on their way with a slightly cheesy attempt at inspiring them into action. It was probably better than what Jessica could have managed, so she was grateful for it.
As the floor thinned out with various people being given their jobs for the week, Jessica waved DC Rowlands over and told him he was coming with her to the locksmith.
The two of them walked out to the car park at the back of the station. The morning had taken a lot longer than Jessica thought it would but at least things now seemed to be moving. She wished she had thought to bring a jacket to work, her trouser suit offering little resistance to the chilly spring breeze as they walked towards the car pool. Saturday’s warm weather seemed long gone and DC Rowlands must have taken one look at the morning’s grey skies and thought ahead as he was wearing a long trench coat to guard against the cold, while his hair was back to its full spikiness.
‘We’re not going in yours, are we?’ DC Rowlands said sarcastically as they reached the bank of vehicles.
Jessica grinned and shivered at the same time. ‘I’m not sure, we do need something to distract from your flasher’s mac.’
‘Careful with that smile, there might be a Herald photographer around.’
Jessica thought she may as well remind the locksmith who they were if he started looking at his watch too quickly so they took one of the marked police cars. She told DC Rowlands the address and said he could drive. Her mood was better than it had been in days but she still couldn’t be bothered with the other idiots on the road. Sometimes being in a marked car simply aggravated things. You could always tell the worst drivers; they were the ones who slammed on their brakes and pretended they were doing the speed limit the minute they saw you in their mirror.
The journey wouldn’t take very long but they had barely reached the bottom of the road when Jessica’s phone rang.
‘Will you change that bloody ringtone?’ DC Rowlands said as she fumbled in her bag for the device.
The caller was one of the other officers from the station. They had done some checking on the house’s previous owners. The couple that owned it before had emigrated to Canada when they moved out five years ago and were still living there.
‘Not a bad alibi,’ Jessica said to the caller. She hadn’t thought the previous occupiers would be a serious avenue to explore anyway but also didn’t think another lead would fall through quite so quickly.
She hung up and turned to DC Rowlands. ‘Perhaps we should see if that TV magician guy’s got an alibi after all?’
The locksmith’s white van with company branding was parked on his drive making the house the two detectives were looking for easily identifiable. Just to fit the stereotype, he even had a red-top tabloid sat on the dashboard as they walked around it to get to the front door. The man invited them in and offered to make some tea. Jessica never really drank tea when she was younger but when you joined the force it became almost inescapable. Every time you went to a house to interview someone you were offered a hot drink and whenever you were on a training course you would have tea shoved down your throat at every given opportunity.
One of Harry’s favourite places to get himself out of the station, aside from the pub, was a cafe which refused to serve coffee. On questioning this, the owner had told Jessica: “This is England, we drink tea. The French drink coffee.” She didn’t really get that statement then or now. Even when you were at your desk in the station, whoever you were sitting next to seemed to ask at least once every hour or so if you fancied a tea from the machine. Whether what the machine spewed out could be classed as “tea” was another issue, of course. She would love to get forensics involved in that particular investigation.
After their phone call, Jessica thought it would be a quick ten-minute trip where the locksmith would want them back out the door quickly. But, far from keeping an eye on his watch, he actually seemed to enjoy showing off his knowledge. He talked about multipoint locks, five-lever dead locks, security hinges, double-locking handles and all types of other things that generally washed over the two of them. DC Rowlands wrote it all down but he may as well have written down “super special double-locking lock locks that can’t be opened, not even with special fairy dust” for all the use it was to Jessica.
‘Could someone pick this type of lock?’ Jessica asked.
The guy rocked back in his chair, almost spilling the cup of tea he was cradling and laughed as if she had just told a particularly-funny joke no one else got. ‘You’ve been watching too much TV, love.’
She forced DC Rowlands to ask about a skeleton key, which brought even more laughter. The locksmith’s point was pretty clear – as long as they had been fitted correctly, it was more-or-less impossible to break through double-glazed doors and windows that were secured.
Aside from the fact their visit hadn’t really got them anywhere, being called “love” was the final straw for Jessica. The two detectives said their goodbyes and set off back to the station with DC Rowlands clearly trying to suppress a smirk at the term of affection his superior had been called.
The desk sergeant had pulled Jessica to one side as soon as they had arrived back at Longsight. ‘Has anyone told you about what’s happened in court this morning?’
She hadn’t forgotten that Harry’s case was beginning that day; it had been in the back of her mind all morning. With so much going on, and the fact Harry was still ignoring her, there didn’t really seem much she could do. She was supposed to be acting as a prosecution character witness at some point during the proceedings. It was booked into her schedule that she would appear but she wasn’t completely sure when that would be. Most cases were allocated a set number of days or weeks for a trial and both sides had a rough idea what the order would be. Witnesses had to be booked in, whether civilian or professional but there could sometimes be a day or two’s leeway.
‘No, I’ve been out.’
‘Harry hasn’t turned up. They’ve delayed selecting the jury for now but, if it goes on much longer, the case is in danger of being dismissed. Apparently they can get through the first day or two without him as they have all the photos and the knife and so on but, after that, if there’s no Harry they don’t really have a case.’
Jessica sighed and cursed under her breath.
‘We’ve sent uniform round to knock on his door but there’s no answer. His phone’s off too so no one knows where he is,’ the desk sergeant added.
‘That lawyer guy is going to be furious.’
She had met with the prosecutor heading up the Crown’s case on a couple of occasions. First he had come to her to ask what she could offer as a character witness for his side then he had returned not too long ago to give her examples of the types of question he would ask her in court. All officers were trained in regards to court procedure but this was a case the CPS really wanted to win. They knew Peter Hunt would be claiming Harry was an alcoholic who had started some kind of fight where Tom Carpenter had simply defended himself against a violent drunk.
Jessica didn’t have to lie to refute that. Harry did drink, sometimes more than he could handle, but she had never seen him get aggressive with it. In fact the opposite was true. He would calm down significantly and start to tell his stories. He was full of tales from the “old days”. Some of them weren’t very politically correct and certainly not in keeping with the modern police force but he certainly knew how to tell a good anecdote.
That was what she would say on the stand; he was a good man and, though she hadn’t been present, she didn’t believe he was the type of person to instigate something that would end up with him being stabbed. None of that would matter if they couldn’t get Harry himself to court.
‘Hunt can’t believe his luck, of course,’ said the sergeant. ‘Guy I spoke to reckons he’s had a huge grin on him all morning. Been swanning around like it’s already in the bag.’
‘Right... great. Any other good news?’
‘Well the computer system is down again.’
‘Again? What’s happened this time, did someone stop feeding the hamster?’
‘The what?’
‘Y’know, giant hamster wheel, powering the station...? All right, forget it.’ Her humour was obviously way too advanced for the likes of her colleagues. ‘Is the DCI around?’
‘Getting ready for the Press Conference, of course.’
A few years ago, somebody had decided the force wasn’t open enough to the general public. They wanted the police to be far friendlier with the media, who would in turn get across a better positive message on their behalf to the general public. To do this, some of the ground floor offices had been knocked through, repainted and reassigned as an area where they could host Press Conferences, or bring select members of the media in for cosy briefings.
The major problem had been that, for some reason, that same person had called the new room the ‘Longsight Press Pad’. No one really knew what the name was supposed to mean and anyone with any sense would have just called it a media or Press room. Even the journalists thought it was ridiculous and, given the negative reaction, the whole initiative had been swiftly forgotten with the police effectively given the green light to go back to treating journalists with the contempt most of them thought they deserved.
Despite that the name had stuck, almost as a badge to remind people not to be so stupid in the future. The Pad was fairly full that afternoon. DCI Aylesbury was sitting in the middle of a table at the front with the Greater Manchester Police branding across the wall behind him. DI Cole was on his right, while Jessica sitting on his left. Jessica was sweating and thought that whoever had named the room should have spent more time getting air-conditioning installed and less time coming up with a ludicrous title for it.
There were three local television cameras on tripods at the back of the room blocking the door. If there was a fire in the station they would all no doubt burn – but at least the cameras would have a good angle on it all. In front of them were around fifteen people, some journalists and some seemingly technical people to deal with the audio and visual quality. Jessica recognised a couple of the faces, one or two she had watched on the local television news and another female print journalist she had seen a few times over the years.
In the past, she had never really had cause to speak to the media because there was always someone above her to do the talking. That fact hadn’t even crossed her mind as they had spoken about doing the Press Conference that morning. She didn’t really get nervous but might have dressed up a bit if she had known she was going to be on TV. Before she had gone in, one of the uniformed female officers had given her a trick about wearing extra eye make-up to look more “serious” on camera. Jessica thought the implication was really that she would look more “awake” on camera but had taken the advice with a quick trip to the toilets before entering the room. Regardless of her efforts, DCI Aylesbury was wearing enough make-up for the three of them.
One face she did make a special point of looking out for was Garry Ashford. She didn’t know what he looked like but, as everyone assembled in front of them, she had started to narrow down her list of suspects. She had ruled out the females obviously and the older male journalist who she had seen on TV. There were a couple of technical-type people, which left her with three possible options for who this Ashford character could be.
First was a grossly overweight bloke sitting in the front row. She had never seen him before but he looked as if he was in his early-forties. He had short patchy black hair and blotched skin on his face. He was talking to a much-younger female journalist next to him who didn’t seem too interested in making conversation.
Second was a guy in his late-twenties or possibly early-thirties. He was tall, good-looking and seemed far too sharply dressed to be a journalist. He had nicely-styled brown hair and certainly stood out in the room. He was in the second row of seats, sitting behind the station’s Press Officer, already writing in his notepad and seeming attentive. If this was Garry Ashford, she might just about feel guilty about kicking his arse considering how good looking he was.
Suspect number three was sitting at the back and had barely looked up since Jessica had started watching him. He was young, maybe mid-twenties and had shoulder-length scruffy black hair which stood out against his pasty white skin. She stared closely at him and noticed he was wearing a brown tweed-like jacket with elbow patches. Who the hell was this guy? Tweed? Elbow patches? He had that kind of look some people seemed to think made them look like a quirky rock star, or tortured writer. It didn’t; it made them look like dicks. As she compared all three “Garry Ashfords”, she hoped this guy was the real one. She would actually enjoy bullying him.