DS Jessica Daniel series: Locked In/Vigilante/The Woman in Black - Books 1-3 (20 page)

‘What
have
you heard?’ Jessica asked.

Garry’s version of events was almost exactly as Jessica remembered. He certainly had a very good source considering there had only been three people in the room and she knew he
hadn’t got the information from herself or Wayne Lapham. Hunt may have confirmed details but she doubted he would have tipped someone like Garry Ashford off in the first place.

‘I can’t really talk about it, Garry,’ she said after he finished telling her his story.

‘I know but I have to ask.’

‘What are you going to write?’

‘I don’t know yet . . . something.’

‘You know this could ruin me?’ Jessica wasn’t sure what to say. It wasn’t as if she had been too nice to him before. That had just slipped out.

‘Would you like to tell me what happened?’

Jessica didn’t know what had come over her in the past few days with the anger in the interview room, plus the emotion in the station’s toilet and over the phone with Harry. She had
even enjoyed a laugh with the DCI, a person she had never really got on too well with before. And now she told Garry Ashford, a journalist and relative stranger, everything. Once she started
speaking, she couldn’t stop. He didn’t try to interrupt or ask anything, he simply let her talk. She told him how Lapham had got under her skin and that Hunt had let him. She spoke
about the investigation itself: how the police had got nowhere and were struggling. They weren’t even sure how the murders had happened, let alone who did them. She even told him about her
own feelings of inadequacy amid a complete lack of leads.

If Internal Investigations were listening in, they would have had a field day. When she had finished, there was a short silence.

Garry eventually broke it. ‘That was a bit . . .
more
. . . than I expected.’

Suddenly she was laughing again and so was he. ‘I don’t know why I told you all that,’ she added once things had calmed down. ‘I could be ruined if all of this got out.
They wouldn’t trust me to go into an interview room again.’

‘What would you like me to do?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I have an idea but would need your help?’

‘Go on . . .’

‘Do you think you can trust me?’

‘I’m not sure I have much choice.’

Jessica listened as Garry told her to leave it with him but to make sure she got hold of the next day’s paper. ‘I think I’ve got a way to keep you and my editor happy,’
he said.

Jessica thought that, if he could manage that, he was definitely a lot cleverer than she had previously given him credit for.

Having read the
Herald
’s website on her phone the next morning and then bought the print edition on her way to the station, Jessica was beginning to think she
had definitely underestimated Garry Ashford. But if the scruffy little genius had got her off the hook, he had also ensured her colleagues would be taking the piss out of her for weeks.

She had been impressed when she had seen the online version but it was the actual hard copy that really stood out. The front-page banner headline read: ‘HOUDINI HUNTER’. She
wasn’t a fan of the ‘Houdini Strangler’ label but, good or bad, it had stuck. Garry’s front-page piece, which extended over a two-page spread on the inside, was a full
profile of her. It was positive throughout, reassuring the public that she was looking out for them and hard on the trail of the killer. After the previous editorials slating the lack of progress,
this piece praised the ‘behind the scenes efforts’. Very little of the information had actually come from her but, even if it had, it was written so cleverly no one could have known for
sure. It quoted ‘sources close to Detective Sergeant Daniel’ and ‘senior members of the team’.

The journalist must have really done his homework the day before. They still didn’t have a great photo of her but had come up with one taken a few years previously when she was in uniform.
She remembered it being taken but had no idea where the newspaper would have got it from. She definitely looked younger in the shot and she thought more naive too.

Jessica was planning only a brief stop at Longsight to pick up some paperwork on her way to court. It would give her something to do while she was stuck hanging around in the witnesses’
waiting room. Court duty was a mixed blessing for officers. On the one hand, you did get a day off work. She thought it was like when the teacher used to wheel in the video player at school and you
knew you would get an easy ride for that lesson. The downside was the sheer amount of waiting around you had to do.

At the station, Jessica had walked into a rowdy, sarcastic cheer from the half-a-dozen or so people milling around the reception area. Before she could make her way through to her office, the
desk sergeant pointed towards the stairs. ‘He wants to see you.’

She wasn’t sure if it would be a negative trip to see the DCI. He surely couldn’t be annoyed given the force had finally been painted in a good light? Jessica went up the stairs but,
as she made her way past his office’s window, he didn’t appear to be smiling. ‘DS Daniel,’ he said as she knocked and entered. She instantly noticed a copy of that
morning’s
Herald
on his desk. ‘So you
have
been making friends with the press then?’ he added, referring to their initial conversation in reception when details
of the first murder had made the papers.

‘Not really, Sir. I don’t know where he got most of that information.’

‘But you know where he got
some
of it . . . ?’

Jessica said nothing but the half-smile on Aylesbury’s face indicated he wasn’t expecting an answer. He spoke again. ‘I talked to Superintendent Davies this morning and he was
particularly
pleased with today’s media coverage. Delighted, I would say. He asked me to pass a message on to you.’

Aylesbury paused, presumably waiting to see if Jessica would bite. She stayed silent, her face neutral and waited for her boss to continue. ‘He wanted me to tell you not to worry about
either Peter Hunt or any internal investigation. His exact words were, “Tell Ms Daniel I’ll handle it”.’

Jessica half-smiled. ‘Thank you, Sir.’

‘I should of course remind you of your responsibilities when dealing with victims, witnesses, suspects and their representatives . . .’

‘I understand, Sir.’

‘Right then. Enjoy your day in court with Mr Hunt today. I’m sure he will be positively delighted to meet you again so soon.’

Manchester has two Crown Courts. Jessica had been to the Minshull Street one in the north of the city centre a few times in the past as that was generally where the cases from
her district were heard. But the most serious crimes and anything referred up from magistrates’ courts were usually heard at Crown Square. Given it involved a police officer as the victim,
Harry’s case was always likely to end up there.

The building was largely the same as any other court precinct Jessica had been into. It was disorganised with groups of people anxiously checking boards to make sure they were in the right
place, with solicitors and ushers racing from various side rooms to the courts, checking on witnesses and defendants. Other sets of people sat on the uncomfortable-looking plastic chairs, checking
their watches and fiddling with mobile phones.

If you were in uniform, court officials generally liked having police witnesses in the various public waiting areas. It offered a clear disincentive for anyone in the room who might want to
cause trouble. Jessica was in her regular suit but the prosecutor dealing with Harry’s case came enthusiastically bounding across the reception area as if appearing from nowhere. He shook her
hand, reintroduced himself and assured her everything in court was going well. That wasn’t what she had heard, of course . . .

Harry was nowhere to be seen but, as the prosecutor led her into court one, she saw him sitting at the back in the public gallery. The court itself was a beautiful creation. It had enormous high
ceilings with everything exquisitely wood-panelled. The judge’s bench at the front was long and ran the full width of the room, with a huge seal on the wall behind it. From his view out onto
the court, the jurors sat on his right, with the dock, probation seats and press box on his left. The middle of the room was set aside for the lawyers and assorted legal workers, with the public
area at the back. The witness box was between the jurors and the judge.

Jessica went to sit next to Harry at the rear. He looked fairly scruffy in a suit but had no tie and was unshaven with uncombed hair. As she sat, he offered a ‘hello’ but
wouldn’t be drawn into any more conversation than that and didn’t seem too keen to engage. She wondered if he would still be up for that drink later, or if he even remembered
agreeing?

She watched Peter Hunt swan into court with an air suggesting he believed the case was already won. As ever, he was immaculately turned out. He glanced towards her and Harry but acknowledged
neither of them before quickly turning away and taking his seat. Being called as a character witness meant Jessica was last in line for the prosecution. Given Harry had self-destructed on the
stand, she was possibly a last chance to turn things around before Hunt had the chance to call his own witness, namely Tom Carpenter. The prosecution knew Hunt would claim Harry had provoked a
reaction from the accused by threatening him and that, even though a weapon was involved, that knife was a necessary part of Carpenter’s job as a joiner. They would say he had just forgotten
to take it out of his trousers and things had got out of hand with disastrous consequences.

Jessica watched the twelve jurors enter court from a side room and made snap judgements on all of them. She could instantly tell the two people who weren’t too bothered by the case. One of
them was fairly young, a man in his early twenties or so. Earphones were just about visible hanging by his neckline, indicating he had only just had the decency, or been told, to turn the music
off. He scuffed his feet and looked at the floor throughout, showing no enthusiasm on his way in. There was a woman too, much older in her fifties, who looked utterly bored as they filed in.
Jessica thought she was probably annoyed she’d had to put her book down or something like that. When the time came to make a decision, Jessica marked the two of them down as going along with
whatever the majority would do – especially if it would get them discharged quicker.

The older man at the front, likely the person who would be foreman, was sharply dressed in a suit, although it wasn’t a necessity when you sat on a jury. He was undoubtedly the one who
would take the most interest and lead all the discussions in the retiring room. He probably watched a lot of courtroom or police procedural television shows and thought this was his big moment in
the sun. He would no doubt be taking copious notes and sticking rigidly to all the judge’s instructions about not reading about the case in the media or talking about it outside of the court.
He certainly wouldn’t have seen her on the front of that morning’s paper.

Jessica would have bet money that, although he hadn’t spoken about the case, he had told anyone who would listen that he was a juror
on
the case and then insisted he
couldn’t talk about it. He looked exactly the type who would delight in the fact that he knew things other people didn’t – and revelled in letting them know that. Jessica figured
he was a good person to get on side. He would vigorously put his point across after they had retired and be hard to sway away from that.

There were two women around Jessica’s age sitting on the end of the front row of jurors. It looked as if they had bonded during the course of the case. They spoke quietly together while
everyone awaited the judge’s arrival. They were exactly the kind of people who would be key swing votes on a jury: interested enough to listen throughout, forthright enough to not be bullied,
but open-minded to take on other people’s views.

Jessica had no idea if she was right but working as a police officer gave you a pretty good grasp of the type of people you could be dealing with on any given day. She figured the foreman and
these two women would be the key people to convince. These two females especially would stick together and argue their points of view. It was often that fair-mindedness that would get others to
agree with you.

The judge entered and everyone stood. He was an enormous man, his robes bulging under the strain from his belly. Some people wore their weight well and managed to hide it but the judge
definitely did not. His portly, rounded face was red and he looked out of breath merely walking into the room. He nodded to acknowledge the court and everyone sat down.

Jessica was asked to step out of the court as the two sides bickered over some point before she was called back in and introduced by the prosecutor. As she made her way the few feet to the
witness box, she felt the jury’s eyes on her. She looked over towards them and, as she would have expected, the potential foreman was feverishly making notes, despite the fact she
hadn’t even taken the oath yet.

As she reached the stand and took a copy of the Bible, she made a special effort to make eye contact with as many of the jurors as she could. The potential foreman was still writing while
headphone boy was looking at his feet. She managed to look at the others and held the eyes of the two female jurors on the front row for a fraction of a second longer.

She confirmed her name, age and rank and then began to answer the initial clarification questions. When you appeared as a witness, your side would want to make sure the judge and jury knew you
were a reliable, trustworthy person. That often involved a brief rundown of your entire life story and history. It was dull to pretty much everyone involved and, if Jessica had been asked to
confirm her conception date, she would have only been half-surprised.

She saw Tom Carpenter in the dock watching her. The first time she had seen him was after the stabbing when he had been questioned after handing himself in. Jessica wasn’t involved in that
but had seen him walking through the station with Hunt. He looked very different then, unshaven with a sneer and contemptuous look for the officers around him. Now he was smartly turned out in a
suit, shirt and dark-coloured tie. He was shaven and had shorter hair. Back then he looked exactly the type to carry a knife ready to stab anyone who looked at him the wrong way. Now he looked the
height of suburban respectability, someone you could trust and rely on. If you compared him to Harry’s unkempt appearance and demeanour in court, you would easily mistake the accused for the
supposed veteran police officer.