DS Jessica Daniel series: Think of the Children / Playing with Fire / Thicker Than Water – Books 4–6 (86 page)

Usually, she would speak or act first and worry about the consequences later. If a suspect or witness had lied to her so blatantly, she never would have held back – and yet she could not
bring herself to question Adam. She lay awake wondering why but could not come up with anything better than the fact she didn’t really want to know the answer.

As she rubbed her tired eyes, Jessica heard her phone begin to vibrate on the floor. She let it ring for one extra time, hoping it would wake Adam, then pressed the button to answer. She was
only half-surprised by the caller’s information that something had happened at Kayleigh Pritchard’s house and that she should get there quickly.

Jessica could never remember feeling as physically sick at a crime scene as she did after getting to Kayleigh’s house. It wasn’t anything she specifically saw, it was the reality of
it all. In part it was because she had been sitting in the woman’s living room a week or so before but also, although she tried to tell herself differently, she knew it was largely due to
what was going on with Adam.

She had a quick glance around the hallway, then turned and dashed across the road into a small garden area where she hunched behind a hedge and threw up on the ground. She felt close to tears as
she rose and walked back to the door, asking one of the officers who was smoking nearby if she could have some chewing gum.

The hallway was littered with items of shopping. Jessica could see a tin of beans that had rolled towards the stairs at the far end and a bottle of washing-up liquid on its side in the doorway
that led into the living room. There was a box of cereal, two bottles of water lying in the middle of the hall and a packet of biscuits had crashed to the floor at some point, leaving crumbs across
the carpet.

Jessica couldn’t stop the thought going through her mind that it would be really difficult to clear up the broken bits.

‘Wait there,’ a voice said, as Jessica looked up to see a Scene of Crime officer walking carefully towards her. She recognised the woman’s face from various scenes over the
past few months but didn’t know her name. Quite often, team members would move on to other roles, the late nights and short-notice calls taking their toll on people who were usually civilians
anyway. Someone threw Jessica protective covers to go over her shoes and she steadily walked around the food until she was next to the other woman.

‘Is the body gone?’ Jessica asked, realising it was an obvious question, considering the lack of one in the hallway.

As it was, the answer was one she didn’t expect. ‘She was found in the bath upstairs. They took her about fifteen minutes ago but we’ve still got people up there.’

‘Shite . . .’

Jessica couldn’t think of anything more constructive to say. She looked around the hallway, realising she had missed a half-full carrier bag hidden behind the front door on her first look
around. Something in the bottom was weighing it down but a bottle of shampoo had split and congealed into a blue pool.

Although she had her own ideas about what had happened, Jessica wanted to hear it from someone else, so asked what the woman thought. Seemingly grateful to be asked for her opinion, she pointed
towards the objects on the floor. ‘I’d say she was attacked from behind, presumably after opening the front door.’ She indicated the positions of the carrier bags. ‘Although
the objects are spread across the floor, the bags themselves are directly below where she would have been standing, so it probably happened as soon as she stepped inside.’

‘How did she die?’

Jessica could have guessed the reply before it came.

‘Probably asphyxiation, she has all the signs, although it’ll need to be confirmed.’

If how Oliver had died was anything to go by, then Jessica guessed the killer had surprised Kayleigh from behind, smothering her with a bag or something similar.

The woman turned towards the broken biscuits. ‘It looks like she fell forwards, crushing those and possibly knocking these bottles as well.’

It sounded like a horrible way to die, face-down as someone pressed a knee into your back, pulling something tight around your mouth to stop you breathing.

‘What happened then?’ Jessica asked.

Pointing towards the stairs, the woman continued her theory. ‘Somehow, she ended up in the bath upstairs. You’re going to have to leave it with us for a day or two to find out if she
was dragged or carried. We haven’t found anything on the stairs yet, but we’re going to rip the whole of this carpet out to test for shoe prints, hairs or blood.’

‘What else have you found?’

The woman turned and crept back towards the front door, crouching and pointing to a spot on the wall. Jessica looked on from a distance, not wanting to accidentally interfere. ‘It looks
like a partial shoe print here,’ she said. ‘It’s probably too small to be a man’s, so may well be the victim’s.’

‘Was there . . . anything else?’ Jessica didn’t want to say the words but the woman took the hint.

‘You’ll have to wait for the autopsy but her clothing wasn’t torn. She could have been re-dressed, of course . . .’

She nodded over Jessica’s shoulder towards the man now standing in the doorway. Cole was wearing a large coat far too big for him and looked as tired as Jessica felt. ‘I forgot how
close you lived,’ he said, as Jessica carefully made her way across the hallway.

She thanked the woman for her help and then walked with her supervisor to the end of the driveway. As they talked, she tried to keep a distance, hoping the gum was covering the smell of her
breath.

‘Did you go upstairs?’ Cole asked.

‘No, they reckon Kayleigh was killed by her front door and then taken to the bathroom where she was found. They’re trying to keep it all clear.’ Jessica blew into her hands and
then pushed them deeply into the pockets of her coat. ‘How did we know?’

For a few moments, Cole did not reply. Jessica thought he hadn’t heard but when she turned to face him, she could see his eyes were fixed on the front door. He sighed and started walking
backwards, then turned and headed towards the garden area where she had vomited. Luckily, he walked in the opposite direction and sat on a bench just inside the gate.

Jessica sat next to him, watching her breath evaporate into the air as Cole turned to face her. ‘I think my marriage is over, Jess,’ he said.

It was perhaps the last thing Jessica expected him to say. While most of the members of the team had relationship problems in one way or another, Jack Cole had made sure his relationship with
his wife and children was strong above anything else. Even though he rarely talked about them, and certainly didn’t bring them to any official events, everyone knew he used his free time to
be the father and husband his family deserved.

Jessica did not know how to reply. All she could think was that if a relationship such as his could fall apart, then what hope did anyone else have? She answered with a pitiful-sounding,
‘Sir . . . ?’

Cole shrugged. ‘It’s been on the cards for a while, probably since I took this job. It was easier to manage the shifts in the past but you never get away.’ He held his hands up
as if to indicate the time of day. ‘I’ve been in the spare room for around four months. Obviously the kids know there’s something wrong . . .’

Jessica had never had anything even approaching such an intimate conversation with the man before.

‘I’m sure it will be all right,’ she said, thinking it sounded like the type of thing she should say and wondering quite what had happened in the previous few days that made
children and adults alike think she was a sensible person to bring their problems to. Sarcastic remarks: fine. Useful advice: there were definitely better people.

‘I know you’ve just got married,’ he continued, making Jessica feel even more uncomfortable. ‘Don’t listen to me, it really is great. I think I lost focus on what
was important. One day you’re off at the zoo with the kids, the next you’re making phone calls to say you’re stuck at work because of too much paperwork. It hasn’t helped
since Jason left.’

It wasn’t strictly true that Reynolds had ‘left’ but Jessica knew what he meant; it had put an extra strain on everyone.

‘We all think you’re doing a good job.’

Jessica had not seen eye-to-eye with the man in a while but that wasn’t because she lacked respect for him, more that she didn’t agree with certain things he had to do.

‘It’s so easy to slip into a routine,’ he replied. ‘At first it’s just staying for an extra half-hour to get through things, then it’s coming in half an hour
early. Then you realise thirty minutes isn’t long enough. Before you know it, you’re taking work home.’

Jessica knew she couldn’t talk as she did all of those things when circumstances required. It was part of the job.

‘It was one of her co-workers who called us,’ Cole said. Jessica was momentarily confused before she realised he was finally answering her question about how they had found the body.
‘Kayleigh had returned to the supermarket she works at yesterday but didn’t turn up for today’s shift. A lot of her colleagues were worried, so they tried her phone but no one
answered. One of them lived locally, so tried knocking on her door but there wasn’t a reply. I think she may have looked through the letterbox and then called us.’

‘What time was that?’

The chief inspector checked his watch. ‘Late, I suppose. Either way, one of our entry teams went in because the address matched the previous crime scene. I’ve not been to bed yet. I
got the call late last night and was waiting to hear what happened.’

He rolled his sleeve back down and put his hands into his pockets.

‘I probably shouldn’t have called you, especially as we’re going to be waiting for results anyway.’

‘I’m glad you did.’

Cole offered a thin smile. ‘You should be at home with your new husband, Jess. Go get some sleep, you look worse than me.’

‘Thanks.’

He smiled. ‘You know what I mean. You head out and we’ll catch up again tomorrow.’ After a second, he corrected himself. ‘Not tomorrow, later.’

‘Are you going to be okay?’

The chief inspector stood, then began walking back to Kayleigh’s front door with Jessica a few steps behind. ‘I’m going to go back to Longsight anyway. There’s going to
be all sorts to pull together – and that’s before we get any results back.’ Jessica was about to return to her car when he added, ‘How did your car reg thing go, by the
way?’

Although Jessica did not want to involve her supervisor too much, she had asked him for permission to trace the details of the two cars. She had access to do it herself but there had been a
recent tightening of rules in regards to who could check what because a colleague in a neighbouring district had used their access to find out details of a former partner. Cole had not asked for
anything other than the most basic of details.

‘All fine,’ Jessica said. ‘Exactly what I expected.’

Circumventing various agencies was an awkward thing to do at the best of times but Jessica knew someone who worked as a family liaison officer for Greater Manchester Police. She had passed on
the details of Corey and his mother and mentioned that the woman could be worth a closer look. There was nothing on her record in terms of child abuse but there were convictions for assaults and
threatening behaviour which did not bode well. Jessica was at least pleased with herself for leaving it in the hands of people who could deal with it if there were a problem.

As for the mystery man, his number plate matched that of someone who most definitely was not married to Corey’s mother and, from everything she had found, was still supposed to be in a
relationship with someone else. Although she had toyed with a bit of playful meddling, Jessica had held off, thinking there were perhaps things she might not want to know about her own life if the
situation was reversed.

Jessica returned to her flat but knew she wasn’t going to get any sleep. Instead of trying, she sat in the living room, flicking through the television channels in the hope that something
would take her mind away from Kayleigh, Adam and everything else that was going on. Instead, it made it worse. She had long since given up following anything other than her own cases on the rolling
news channels and her secret pleasure of watching late-night reruns of early-morning talk shows was diminished by the topic of ‘Your boyfriend’s sleeping with me, now deal with
it’.

She switched off the set and entered the bedroom quietly, looking for a warmer pair of shoes to wear out onto the balcony. Adam stirred but did not wake as she crept around to her side but
Jessica’s attention was drawn to the blinking light of his phone on the bedside table. She stood silently staring at the LED as it flickered on and off, wanting to summon the courage to pick
it up but knowing once that line was crossed that there was no going back.

Jessica’s eyes were feeling too heavy to keep awake but her mind was strangely alert as she sat in the incident room in the basement of the Longsight station. She knew
exactly what she was going to be spending part of the afternoon doing, even if she wasn’t going to tell the chief inspector. Before that, she did want to find out what had happened since the
early hours.

Because they were now in what looked like a double murder investigation, officers had been brought in to help and press officers were having private briefings with the DCI and superintendent
about ‘strategy’, making it feel more like a website relaunch than the end of someone’s life.

The briefing did reveal plenty of details but nothing Jessica couldn’t have figured out by herself. Despite extensive door-to-door inquiries that morning, none of Kayleigh’s
neighbours had apparently seen or heard anything untoward. Given they had also failed to hear anything to do with the break-in, Jessica wasn’t really surprised – it didn’t seem
like a particularly caring, sharing district, somewhere the estate agent would describe as ‘socially unique’.

Although they were waiting for the first set of forensic tests to come back, someone had been on the ball enough to check the recent obituary listings in all of the local papers, where nothing
had appeared about Kayleigh. They had not been able to figure out what the motive might have been for placing Oliver’s notice but, if it was simply for attention or to show off, the killer
could have something more sinister in store for them with Kayleigh.