As if by Magic (15 page)

‘Can’t we just open up a regional division in, say, Barbados or something?’

‘You love it really,’ Reynolds teased. ‘I’m sure this rain is just the prelude to a tropical summer.’

Jessica snorted, inadvertently sending a stream of rain spraying from her top lip. ‘The only thing tropical about Manchester is when we get a rainbow.’

‘Well you know what they say, you can’t have a rainbow without the rain.’

Jessica stared at him, shaking her head gently. ‘I’d like to know just who“they” actually are. There’s no way anyone who said that lived up here.’

Reynolds smiled but he looked awkward. ‘What’s up?’ Jessica asked.

‘I need a word.’

‘What have I done now?’ Jessica was joking but, when she saw Reynolds’ fixed expression, she realised he wasn’t. ‘All right, I’ll take that towel.’

Reynolds led her along the corridors to his office, which, she noted, was unnaturally clean and tidy. When he had shared with her, she told herself that he was as messy as she was but it was now apparent that her clutter had simply invaded his half of the room. She hoped whoever his replacement ended up being was either as untidy as she was, or one of those people who would happily clean up after her without saying anything.

Reynolds threw the towel across the desk and Jessica caught it, before beginning to dry her hair.

‘Brenda Gale,’ Reynolds said firmly.

Jessica could feel his eyes on her but ignored him. ‘That’s two words. What about her?’

‘Anything you’d like to tell me?’

‘Only what you already know. She put us on to her husband for fraud, she killed her goddaughter’s husband – possibly with the wife’s knowledge – and then she murdered an old theatre owner that she had a feud with.’

There was an uncomfortable silence as Jessica felt water drip on to her leg while she squeezed the towel.

‘We’ve talked about this,’ Reynolds said firmly.

‘You talked, I listened. I’m still right.’ Jessica was doing her best not to look at her supervisor.

‘Did you listen?’

‘Yes – you said there’s no evidence and that I had to leave her alone. I’ve left it to everyone else to look into her and you have summarily failed to find anything.’

‘You’ve not answered the question: Have you been anywhere near her?’

Jessica put the towel on Reynolds’ desk and met his eyes. ‘Why, are you going to stick a tag on me?’

‘Jess...’

‘No, I haven’t been near her. I’ve not looked at the file, I’ve not spoken about her; I haven’t done anything since you told me not to.’

For a moment, Jessica thought he was going to ask her again but instead he gave a short nod. ‘Something strange has been happening on her road,’ he said. ‘In the past ten days, three different households have reported pets missing.’

‘Go on.’

‘Last week, the cat that belongs to the house opposite disappeared.’

‘Don’t cats go walkabout all the time?’

‘Maybe but on Monday another cat three doors away from Brenda’s house also went missing. Yesterday, next door’s dog was taken from the back garden. None of them had bothered to report it until they spoke to each other and realised there was some sort of pattern. One of them came in yesterday afternoon.’

‘What’s that got to do with me?’

Reynolds’ expression gave nothing away. ‘Nothing but Jack and I know you’ve got a thing for Brenda...’

He was talking about Detective Chief Inspector Jack Cole, but Jessica resented the implication. ‘I don’t have a thing for
her
. I have a thing for anyone who thinks they can get away with what she’s got away with.’

‘You need to stop taking things personally, Jess. As you seem to have more of an interest in her than anyone, I’m asking if you can think of anything that might be going on.’

Jessica rubbed the last vestiges of sleep away from her eyes and stifled a yawn. The sound of the rain hammering on her bedroom window in the early hours had woken her up at an ungodly hour. ‘I don’t know. She’s a psycho; she probably ate them.’

 Reynolds sighed. ‘You know we’ve done our best, don’t you? I’m not saying you’re wrong, or that you shouldn’t have said what you thought. I’m just telling you that we have no evidence at all against her. She’s never even had a parking ticket. She has an alibi for the night both men went missing...’

‘... From the man’s wife. She could have been in on it too.’

‘That might be true. But there are no witnesses anywhere that can say any differently. No CCTV, no DNA, no fingerprints.’

Jessica stared at the corner of his desk. He and Cole had spent weeks telling her the exact same thing and, while she hadn’t exactly stayed out of the files they had on Brenda, she hadn’t poked her nose in either.

‘We’ve not got any other suspects, have we?’

‘She’s not a suspect either.’

‘I know...’

Reynolds looked at her in the almost-fatherly way he occasionally did. Jessica felt secretly charmed but also unnerved. She was a grown woman who shouldn’t need babysitting and felt incredibly defensive if anyone tried to treat her differently.

‘We’ve had something else come in overnight,’ Reynolds began in a tone that Jessica knew meant he was stitching her up.

‘What is it?’

‘There was a street robbery last night; a takeaway driver went out on a delivery with a dozen pizzas and then got jumped on his way back to the shop. They stole around a hundred quid and gave him a bit of a beating.’

‘How bad?’

‘He was discharged from hospital more or less straight away. There are a few bruises but nothing serious.’

‘So why has this come to us?’

‘His father is James Lieberman.’

‘The judge guy?’

‘Exactly.’

Jessica paused. His Honour Judge Lieberman was one of the Circuit Judges assigned to the north but was also relatively well known in local circles. He lived in a large house just south of Moss Side – which was something of a surprise given the poor reputation of the area. He had given an interview to the provincial paper a year ago where he said that being close to the local community made him understand it better. That may well have been true but Jessica thought that, if she earned the money he did, there was no way she would choose that as an area to live in.

‘Why is his son working as a pizza boy?’ she asked, confused.

‘I guess that’s what we’re going to find out. Apparently, whoever attacked him told him, “That’s for your Dad”.’

‘Brilliant,’ Jessica said sarcastically. ‘That’s all we need. It’s a good job he didn’t end up seriously hurt or there really would be a shit-storm. Hang on, “we’re”?’

‘Yeah, you’re not the only one who gets dumped on...’

‘Ah-ha! So you admit I get dumped on?’

Reynolds stood up from his chair and took his coat from a hook next to his desk. ‘You bring it on yourself. Anyway, now you’re dry, it’s time to head back into the rain. Let’s go.’

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

The journey to Judge Lieberman’s house was fairly uncomfortable, largely because Jessica couldn’t think of anything to break the steady silence, but also because of the amount of rain hammering down on Reynolds’ vehicle. A journey that should have taken fifteen minutes at most ended up taking over half an hour simply because the car’s windscreen wipers couldn’t cope with the amount of water emptying out of the sky.

The Judge’s house was large and impressive, but somehow subdued at the same time. A long driveway was surrounded by plain green lawns and the house itself was a straightforward two-floor detached house, albeit two or three times the size of a regular one.

Jessica would have expected a maid or someone to answer the door but instead it was the Judge, dressed down in a pair of brown trousers and an open-necked shirt, who welcomed them in. He apologised profusely for them going out of their way, even though he must have known it was part of their job. It left Jessica wondering who exactly had made it a priority.

‘Jonah is upstairs,’ he said to them quietly as he closed the front door and led them into a dining area. It wasn’t extravagant, just decorated with a plain wooden dining table and four chairs; the type of thing you might find at any furniture shop.

‘I was hoping if we might have a quick word first,’ he added.

‘That’s fine,’ Reynolds replied.

Judge Lieberman had thinning black hair but still looked younger than he probably was. He had kept himself in shape and had a thin, toned frame, while his voice was a lot softer than Jessica would have thought. Out of court, she never would have placed him as someone who held a high position of authority. He sat opposite them at the dining table and apologised for a mess Jessica hadn’t noticed and still couldn’t see. If he considered this room untidy, he should visit her flat, Jessica thought to herself as she turned down a mug of tea because Reynolds had.

‘It’s been a hard year for Jonah,’ Judge Lieberman said. ‘He didn’t do as well in his GCSEs as was expected and we told him he had to go to a sixth-form college in the city. He wanted us to pay for him to go to a private college but we thought it was about time he saw how real people live.’

‘Do you mind if I ask you something a little personal?’ Reynolds said delicately.

Lieberman shook his head.

‘Is that why he’s been working in, well, somewhere that perhaps wouldn’t be expected?’

The Judge nodded. ‘I knew you’d ask that. It’s fine, honestly. I know you might not know anything about me but I was brought up on a council estate and my parents both worked. I was brought up working myself – there’s no harm or shame in that. I think my wife and I both felt that perhaps Jonah had had it a little easy for too long. We’d paid for his education and bought him more or less whatever he wanted. He threw a strop the other Christmas because we hadn’t bought him a quad-bike and I think we realised then that things had gone too far.’

‘How has he taken to the delivery job?’ Jessica asked.

Lieberman turned to face her. ‘Surprisingly well actually. It seems like he has made a couple of friends and he’s earning his own money. It’s nothing like what he was used to at one point – but at least now he realises how much things cost. He wanted to learn to drive when he turned seventeen but we told him he had to pay for his own lessons – and that’s exactly what he’s been doing. It’s quite the turnaround.’

‘And how’s he doing at college?’

‘He seems all right. His grades aren’t amazing but then they never were. But everything has happened in the last twelve months and it’s been quite the change for him. And then last night, with the robbery... I’m worried it will put him back to square one again.’

After a little more background, Judge Lieberman left them as he went to fetch his son.

When the teenager wandered into the room by himself, Jessica was taken aback by how similar Jonah looked to his father. The eyes, the facial structure, the way he walked and the colour of his hair were all identical, with only the fact his hair hadn’t yet started to recede seeming different.

Jonah would not make eye contact and appeared overcome with adolescent shyness. Jessica could see slight markings around his eyes, although they weren’t blackened.

He told them he had been driving a delivery moped back from the customer’s house when two people had jumped out of an alleyway and pushed him off the bike.

‘How much money did you have on you?’ Jessica asked.

‘It was exactly a hundred. The pizzas came to about ninety-five and then they told me to keep the change.’

The details of the delivery had already been verified, while the attack had taken place around a mile away from the house.

‘What happened after you were pushed off your bike?’ Reynolds asked.

‘There were two of them, one of them kept saying “quickly, quickly”. I was on the ground with the bike on top of me but the other one yanked me out.’

‘Where did you have the money?’

‘I have this pouch thing around my waist – they snatched the whole thing.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘I thought they were going to run off. The one who pushed me off took my money and he said something like, “Let’s go”. Then I saw the other one was holding this bat...’

‘What kind of bat? Cricket? Baseball?’

Jonah seemed confused and shook his head. ‘I don’t know. It was pretty dark. The next thing I know, he was bashing me in the arms with it.’

‘What exactly did he say?’ Reynolds asked.

‘His mate kept going, “Come on, let’s go” and eventually the one with the bat stopped. Then, just before he ran off, he goes, “That’s for your Dad”. Then he legged it.’

‘Can you remember what they looked like?’ Reynolds asked.

Jonah shook his head. ‘It was really dark. They were more shadows than anything else.’

Reynolds had already told Jessica that a team had gone to the attack site that morning. There had been a delay because no-one knew who Jonah’s father was at first but, by the time they had got there, the rain had washed away anything that may have been of use. The road connected two residential areas, with numerous cut-throughs running off it.

Reynolds tried again. ‘What did they sound like? Young, old?’

Jonah shrugged. ‘Young I guess. Both male. Maybe twenty-something? I don’t know.’

‘What about skin colour?’

‘White I think.’

‘What were they wearing?’

Another head-shake. ‘I don’t know, just dark stuff.’

Before talking to him, Jessica would have predicted almost that exact description; male, young, dark clothing, no distinguishing features, nothing to go on. It was the same description for at least half of everything they ever had in.

Reynolds asked to look at the bruises and Jonah rolled up his sleeves. She had already looked at the photographs in the file on the way over, passed on from the officers who had attended the night before, but they looked worse in person. It was hard to tell if the blows had broken the skin as the whole area was a deep  red colour, with areas of purple already creeping in.

‘How did you defend yourself?’ Jessica asked. Jonah seemed confused so she demonstrated by holding her arms over her face. ‘Were you protecting your head?’ she added.