DS Jessica Daniel series: Think of the Children / Playing with Fire / Thicker Than Water – Books 4–6 (40 page)

Jessica slid into the passenger seat, slamming the door harder than she meant to. Reynolds sat in the driver’s seat and put the keys in the ignition without starting it.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

In the same way that ‘calm down’ could infuriate drunk or angry people, Jessica knew that someone asking how she was feeling was her trigger. ‘I’m fine,’ she
replied, forcing an upbeat tone.

The inspector laughed gently. ‘How was the back of the van?’

‘Bumpy.’

‘Did Martin say much?’

‘No.’

Jessica’s reply was instant. She didn’t know why but she wanted to keep the man’s breakdown to herself – at least for now. Very little about her morning’s work had
turned out how she’d expected but she was feeling a sense of responsibility for Martin she wasn’t sure she should have.

Jessica lay awake staring through the darkness at the ceiling. She stretched a hand across to rest on Adam’s hip as he slept facing away from her. She listened to his
breathing. It wasn’t quite at snoring levels but he was certainly exhaling loudly through his nostrils. She wanted to blame him for waking her up but knew it was entirely down to her
restlessness. She traced the outline of the man’s side with her fingers. His skin was smooth and tight, his hip bone jagged.

Rolling away, Jessica squinted to look at the alarm clock on her side of the bed. The red LED letters glowed 03.33 through the gloom. It was utterly irrational but Jessica had always found
something satisfying about the numbers matching on a clock. It was small comfort in a house that still felt unfamiliar, even though she had been living there for a few months.

It was the home Adam had lived in with his grandmother before her death and Jessica was still coming to terms with being somewhere that didn’t feel like ‘hers’.

After leaving home, she had either shared a flat with her best friend Caroline Morrison, or lived by herself. The last few months had been a learning curve as she had never lived with a man
before. Despite Adam’s insistence that the things in the house were ‘theirs’, she didn’t see them like that. Everything felt like it was his and that she was somehow
trespassing. She even felt guilty about eating food from the fridge if she hadn’t bought it. At first she had confided in Adam about her discomfort but she wasn’t sure he understood her
feelings. She didn’t think he was being insensitive, simply that, because the house was his, he couldn’t grasp why she didn’t feel it was home.

Jessica’s daze was broken by a buzzing sound from the small table next to the bed. The light on her mobile phone’s screen was flashing and the ringtone sounded after a second or two.
She could feel Adam beginning to stir, his legs stretching as he rolled over. Jessica wondered if she was awake or asleep, blinking rapidly at the ceiling as she reached out and pulled the phone
towards her. The grey haze around her vision prevented her from reading the name on the screen, so she simply stabbed the front to answer it.

‘Hello,’ she said groggily. Her throat felt dry and she squinted towards the table to see if the glass she left there had water in it.

‘Sergeant Daniel?’

It was a man’s voice. He spoke quickly and frantically.

‘Yes.’

‘It’s Martin Chadwick. Sorry, something’s happening. Please come quickly.’

Despite having lived at Adam’s house for months, Jessica still wasn’t sure of the best way to get from where they were in Salford to where she worked in Longsight.
After the first night, she got lost trying to drive off the estate in the dark the following morning. She had stayed at his house before moving in but each time had left during daylight. It was
only when she found herself turning back onto his road that she realised she had somehow gone the wrong way. After a few months, Jessica had a better grasp of the general area but still
hadn’t mastered the shortcuts that avoided the queues.

As she pressed down on the accelerator and neared the turn onto Mancunian Way, Jessica figured driving to work at four in the morning was definitely the future given the complete lack of traffic
holding her up. Getting up at four in the morning was definitely not the future, however. Well, unless it was a future where people enjoyed seeing her very tired and annoyed by mid-afternoon.

Reluctantly, she had to admit it was nice to have a car that started first time on a cold dark morning. Six weeks previously, she had finally given up on her beloved Punto and gone with
Adam’s advice about a new vehicle. It was roughly the same size as her old car but had none of the character. Yes, it might start first time every time, yes, it might be fuel-efficient, yes,
it might be quiet – but it didn’t have a cigarette lighter that fell out and rolled under the pedals, making braking something of a lottery. It didn’t make a growling noise of
annoyance each time she hit exactly forty-two miles per hour. It didn’t even have that little dent in the passenger door from when she reversed into a concrete post in a multi-storey car
park.

After she had pointed that out at the showroom, Adam told her there were many more concrete posts out there just waiting for her to collide with them. Jessica smiled as she remembered his cheeky
grin, then her phone rang, snapping her back to the present.

Reaching forward, Jessica pressed a button next to the dashboard. The Bluetooth answering function was another benefit of the new vehicle. ‘Yep,’ she said.

‘Jess, it’s Dave. Are you on your way to Martin Chadwick’s?’

Detective Constable David Rowlands didn’t sound anywhere near as tired as she might have expected him to, given the hour. He had been her first call as she headed out of the house.

‘I’m ten minutes away,’ Jessica replied. ‘Are you there yet?’

‘Yes.’

‘I woke Jason up. He’s on his way too.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘It’s probably best if you see for yourself.’

She drove through a red light and turned right towards Stockport Road. ‘Are Martin and Ryan okay?’ she asked.

‘Sort of. They’re not hurt.’ Jessica heard a muffled noise, as if the constable had broken away from the conversation to talk to someone. He quickly returned. ‘I’ve
got to go, sorry, Jess. I’ll see you in a minute.’

Jessica focused back on the road, adding extra pressure to the accelerator as she headed past the turn for the station and kept driving, passing Crowcroft Park before turning left into the
estate where Martin lived. A police van was blocking the entrance to the road, so Jessica parked on the adjacent street and walked briskly past the van. A female uniformed officer was standing next
to the vehicle and nodded as she neared. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

‘Four in the morning is not a time I recognise,’ Jessica replied.

In the distance, she could see a small crowd gathered under a street light. When she was within a few feet, she saw Martin sipping from a mug of tea with Rowlands standing next to him.

Martin saw her before anyone else. ‘Sergeant,’ he said.

‘Are you okay? What’s happened?’

Martin pointed through the gloom towards his house where Jessica could see the front window had a hole roughly in the centre with cracks that had spread towards the corners. ‘Is that why
you called?’ she asked.

Martin nodded. ‘I’m sorry. I know I should have called 999 first. I wasn’t thinking.’

Before she could reply, Jessica heard a raised voice. She turned towards the house, where Ryan was storming out of the front door, pointing towards her aggressively. ‘Where the fuck were
you lot?’ he shouted. Jessica tried to shush him, aware it was still the early hours of the morning. ‘Don’t you fuckin’ shush me,’ the young man shouted, even louder.
‘Where were you?’

He was within a few feet of her and she could see the saliva around his mouth as he spat the words, his eyes wide and the whites illuminated in the street light.

‘Hey,’ Martin said sharply to his son. Ryan turned to his father and screwed his lips together. ‘Anything could have happened,’ he said, slightly more quietly than
before, this time addressing his dad.

‘We’ll sort out some sort of panic button,’ Jessica said, trying to sound reassuring. She wasn’t surprised by Ryan’s aggression but wanted him to calm himself,
rather than having to have an officer step in.

‘It’s not just the window,’ Rowlands said.

His words sounded ominous. Jessica turned to face him as he gently gripped her arm and started to walk her forward. She could hear Ryan ranting to his father behind them as they opened the gate,
leaving the pavement.

‘He’s a happy chap, isn’t he?’ Dave said.

‘Ryan? I think he’s on something,’ Jessica replied. ‘Did you see his eyes?’

‘Shall we take him in?’

Jessica sighed. ‘Not tonight. Someone’s going to have to keep a close eye on him though.’

Rowlands pointed towards the side wall of the house that adjoined the property’s driveway but he didn’t need to say anything. The graffiti had been sprayed in bright yellow paint,
the letters half a metre high. The message was easy enough to make out, even in the limited light.

‘DEAD MAN’

Jessica sighed again, louder the second time. ‘Oh for f—’

‘I know,’ Rowlands said. ‘At least they can spell.’

She couldn’t stop herself from laughing. ‘You’re such a dick sometimes.’

The constable didn’t miss a beat. ‘Who do you think did it? Anthony Thompson?’

Jessica puffed through her teeth. ‘I bloody hope not. The last thing we need is to arrest him. The media will kick our arses.’

‘Someone’s going to have to visit him either way, if only to find out where he was this evening.’

‘Shite.’

Jessica knew it was true – and that she would be dispatched to ask Anthony the question someone had to but nobody wanted to. If he had done it, it wouldn’t be good for anyone. If he
hadn’t, they were harassing a man because his son had been killed seven years previously.

‘It could be anyone,’ Jessica added. ‘Martin’s release was in the papers and on the Internet. All it takes is some nutter who has read the story.’

‘Are you trying to convince me or yourself?’

Rowlands leant sideways, deliberately nudging her with his shoulder. Jessica rocked to one side and then back again, hitting the constable with her own shoulder.

‘How’s Chloe?’ she asked, referring to his live-in girlfriend.

‘Pissed off at my phone going off at half-three in the morning.’

Jessica laughed but moved the constable further away from the road because she didn’t want either Martin or Ryan to think she was enjoying the situation. ‘I knew you only lived a few
minutes away. It was quicker than phoning the station and I told Martin to call 999 anyway.’

‘What about Adam?’

‘He barely stirred. He just farted and rolled over.’

‘Classy.’

Jessica giggled again. ‘He’s been saying the four of us should go out for a meal again.’

‘Chloe was going on about that too. She reckons she had fun last time.’

‘That’s because she didn’t have to stay in alone with you all night.’ Jessica nudged her colleague with her shoulder again. ‘What are we going to do with
Ryan?’ she asked.

‘I thought you wanted to leave him be?’

‘For now, but you didn’t see him earlier. If it was Anthony who did this, Christ knows what might happen.’

Rowlands cupped his hands around his mouth, blowing into them for warmth. ‘Do you think he might go looking for some sort of revenge?’

‘I don’t know. He seems like a very angry young man. Not that I blame him; he has grown up without any parents.’

‘Where’s his mum?’

Jessica shook her head, although it was gloomy enough that she realised she wouldn’t be seen. ‘I don’t know. I think she left when he was young. It’s not been mentioned
but she’s not in the picture.’

Rowlands blew into his hands again. ‘Aren’t you cold?’

Jessica pulled up the lapels on her jacket. ‘I nicked a coat off uniform.’

The constable gripped Jessica’s arm and nodded towards the road, where Ryan was striding towards them. At first she could make out only his silhouette against the street lamp but he kept
walking until he was within a few feet of the two officers.

‘I want to say sorry,’ he said. ‘I know it’s not your fault. I’m just worried about my dad.’ His voice still contained a menacing undercurrent and Jessica
suspected his father had sent him across.

‘We understand,’ Jessica replied, although she said it with enough fire in her voice to let him know she wasn’t prepared to allow him to speak to her in that way too often.

She could tell from the angle of Ryan’s body that he was looking towards her but it was too dark to see his facial reactions. There was an uncomfortable pause before the teenager grunted
some sort of acknowledgement, then he turned and headed back towards the road.

Jessica knocked on the door and stepped backwards, accidentally standing on Rowlands’s toe. She turned to see her colleague leaping sideways with a scowl on his face.

‘Will you stop being such a baby?’ Jessica said with a frown of her own as she heard the door unlocking.

By the time she turned around, a small crack had appeared between the door and its frame. Jessica could see an eye peering through the gap at her. Faded red paint was flaking from the wood and
the man’s blotched skin was almost the same colour as the emulsion.

‘Mr Thompson?’ Jessica asked in the friendly tone she saved only for visits such as this. She deliberately raised the pitch of her voice, but also had a slower, more serious version
for the moments when she had to break bad news to someone. Her semi-aggressive, slightly lower-pitched voice was what she most often used – although that was usually followed shortly after by
a threat that someone would break the door down if whoever she was after didn’t open it. Jessica could feel Rowlands eyeing the back of her head, no doubt partly amused by her method.

The eye flickered from side to side before a low gravelly voice answered. ‘Who’s asking?’

Jessica introduced herself and offered her identification so the man could have a better view. His eye darted around it before he added, ‘So?’