Vigilante (12 page)

‘Have you heard anything from the prison?’

The warden laughed as loud as she had ever heard. ‘I had the super on this morning. The governor called him earlier, furious about the stuff in the papers. Apparently he was going on about how nothing had been proven and that it would undermine his staff. I would have
loved
to have taken that call.’

‘What did the super say?’

‘Not much, just that we’d have to try to keep the media under wraps.’

‘Where do you reckon they got the information about the warden from?’ Jessica was careful not to phrase her question in an accusing way.

‘No idea. Maybe they’re not all completely useless? At least with the information out there we might get a few useful calls in.’

‘What would you like me to do now?’

‘Not much. Finish up whatever paperwork you have then go home and have a good weekend. Calls have started to come in so it’s just a waiting game for now. If this guy’s for real we might get lucky and have another piece of shit off the streets by Monday.’

Jessica said nothing but there was something incredibly unsettling about her boss’ attitude.

FOURTEEN

Even though they were both scheduled to be off work, Jessica phoned DI Cole the next morning. He was with his kids but did tell her they had found nothing of note at Lee Morgan’s house. If the warden had large bundles of cash hidden away somewhere, he had taken the location to the grave. Jessica was glad she hadn’t been a part of that raid. Carla had told her how pleased she was with the state of the house and, having just lost her husband, seeing the search team tear her home apart would have been traumatic.

Jessica had bought that morning’s
Herald
and there was a small article with Garry Ashford’s byline. It was an interview with Denise Millar where she talked about her son and highlighted a few of the good things he had done in the area. Jessica had to admit there wasn’t much but he did regularly help out with a local youth group. The story was buried on page eleven, behind ten pages of speculation about the apparent vigilante and more debate as to whether or not people should be taking the law into their own hands.

The coverage was difficult to get away from. It was leading local and national television news bulletins and had a presence on the front of every national newspaper. Well, except one, which instead had a nearly topless photo of a reality TV star Jessica only half-recognised.

Jessica texted Caroline to see how her friend was doing but their back-and-forth messages fizzled out quickly, as they always seemed to now. She spent the weekend doing very little, which was unusual for her. Frequently she would end up going to the station on her days off, if only for a few hours, or arrange to meet up with Carrie for an evening out or in. Given the way things were going, she felt as if she needed a couple of days away from everything work-wise – Farraday in particular.

She did some tidying around her flat, something else that was out of the ordinary and watched hours of bad television. Jessica wasn’t particularly in the mood for meeting up with Adam but felt even less like cancelling on him. There was no way she was going to be left on her own waiting for him, so she deliberately caught a slightly later bus on her way into the city centre on the Sunday.

Jessica had texted him the address for where to meet and saw him sitting in the window as she walked from the bus stop. The place they were meeting was a nice cafe Jessica knew next to an independent cinema in an area where mainly students lived. It hadn’t been a particularly sunny day but it was at least still daylight as she walked.

Adam seemed a little glum and was staring at his phone pressing buttons as Jessica spotted him. Jessica did that herself when she wanted to look occupied in a public place. As he looked up and saw her through the glass, his expression instantly changed, realising he hadn’t been stood up.

Because of her mood, Jessica thought it would be a decent idea to meet up with Adam in the afternoon, rather than the evening. It made it appear more like a ‘meeting’ than a ‘date’, ensuring she was unlikely to drink too much wine and end up looking stupid.

Jessica entered the cafe and walked over to the stools where Adam was sitting. ‘Hey,’ she said.

‘Hi, I thought you’d changed your mind or something…’

‘Nah, just missed the bus.’

‘Oh right, okay…’ Adam still seemed a little nervous about looking her in the eye. He was wearing a pair of jeans with a white T-shirt and black blazer. On his T-shirt was an image of a cartoon Jessica remembered from when she was younger. He had clearly made an effort. The stubble from the first time she had met him had been shaved off and his dark hair was clean. ‘Nice place, this,’ he added.

‘It’s not too far from where I lived a while back. I used to come here regularly a few years ago.’

‘Oh, you look nice by the way,’ Adam blurted out. ‘Sorry, I should have said that before…’

Jessica struggled not to laugh. The poor guy was clearly so nervous around girls, even the things he obviously planned to say came out at the wrong time. She had made a little effort, with a pair of jeans she still just about fitted in and a black top she’d had since she was sixteen. She had left her hair down too – not having to get dressed up properly was another advantage of meeting in the afternoon.

‘Thank you,’ Jessica replied, making sure she kept a straight face. ‘I was thinking maybe we could have a drink in here and then watch a movie next door? If you’re hungry, there are lots of places to eat around here afterwards.’

‘Great, yeah, that’s great.’

‘What kind of movies do you like?’

‘Oh, everything really.’

‘Even snuff movies and hardcore pornography?’

Adam looked at her, horrified. ‘No, God no. Of course not.’

‘I’m joking, Adam.’

He laughed nervously. ‘Oh yeah, sorry.’

Jessica smiled back at him. ‘Look, if we’re ever going to, er, meet with each other again, I’m going to have to lay down a few ground rules. Firstly, stop apologising. Second, it’s probably fair enough for you to just assume I’m joking about things. Okay?’

‘Yeah, sor…er, yeah, that’s fine.’

The cafe had a rack with flyers advertising the films showing next door. The two went over the list together and decided on a documentary about a photographer. It was not the kind of thing Jessica would have gone out of her way to watch but she didn’t fancy a subtitled film. It wasn’t that she had anything against foreign movies, just that her faith in her own eyesight was slowly deteriorating. She wasn’t ready to admit to herself just yet that she was getting too old to be able to read things correctly from a distance and a subtitled film would probably be pushing things a tad too far.

They had half an hour to wait until their showtime, so made small talk while having their drinks. Jessica found herself relaxing more as Adam finally started to overcome his nervousness. ‘Do you go to the cinema much?’ he asked.

‘Not really. I come here now and then but I can’t stand all those big multi-screen places.’

‘How come?’

‘It takes you a few years to realise but eventually you come to the conclusion that most of the general public are just arses. You want to sit there and watch some nonsense film but if it’s not some idiot slurping his drink, then it’s some grossly overweight woman troughing a bucket of popcorn.’

Adam laughed, joining in. ‘Yeah and you get those teenagers using their phones all the time.’

‘Exactly, I once marched up to this lad and hung up his phone for him. He had actually taken a call and was merrily chatting away as if he was in his living room. I had two-dozen people giving me an ovation as this little scroat called me every name under the sun. He changed his tune when I pulled out my police ID.’

Adam laughed louder this time. ‘What did he do?’

‘Well, his little girlfriend didn’t seem too pleased when the staff turfed the pair of them out and gave him a bigger mouthful than he’d given me. I left her to sort him out in the end, I think the embarrassment was punishment enough.’

There weren’t too many awkward pauses in their conversation and Jessica found herself laughing a lot more than she had done in a long time. When he relaxed and stopped being so nervy, Adam was a fun guy and clearly very clever. Now he wasn’t too afraid to look at her, she could see his eyes were as big and brown as she had first thought. Jessica also found out he had a working vocabulary of French, Spanish and Italian, which she found very impressive, if a little intimidating. She wondered if that was why she couldn’t place his accent but didn’t openly ask him.

The movie was a lot better than she expected and, given it had not long turned dark after they came out, they decided to get something to eat. Jessica told Adam he could choose, seeing as she had picked the initial location. They ended up eating in a small Italian restaurant right next to her bus stop.

Jessica knew the area reasonably well and, for a district where lots of students lived and restaurants were constantly bought and rebranded, this particular place had been ever-present for as long as she could remember.

There was only room for half-a-dozen tables inside and they received a warm welcome from the man who was presumably the owner as they entered. He took Adam’s jacket and led them to a table for two in the bay window. ‘The most romantic table in the house,’ he declared loudly. Jessica and Adam laughed nervously with each other.

The walls were adorned with a mixture of cheesy Italian imagery, such as photos of a man with a moustache, and hanging peppers, chillies and spicy-looking sausages. The smells given off from those and the ones drifting from the kitchen were making Jessica hungry. Despite her earlier pledge not to drink, she ordered a bottle of wine for the two of them to share.

They agreed to split one of the large pizzas but Adam insisted he was allergic to onions, so they opted for a purely meaty one. They had almost finished eating when Jessica asked the question she had wanted to when he had first mentioned it. ‘Are you
really
allergic to onions or just a bit funny about them?’

‘They give me big stomach cramps.’

‘Oh, so it’s a fake allergy then?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, for me, if you’re not going to keel over dead, it doesn’t really count.’

‘So you’d rather I died as opposed to just having a tummy ache?’

‘Exactly. If you’re going to go around calling something an allergy, I think you’ve got to be able to back that up.’

Adam laughed and Jessica realised he had finally cottoned on to her sense of humour. ‘So where do you live then?’ she asked.

‘I have a house out Salford way.’

‘Do you live alone?’

Adam shuffled in his seat. He finally seemed comfortable with making eye contact but glanced out of the window as he answered. ‘No, with my grandma.’

‘Oh…’

Jessica didn’t mean to sound quite so blunt, it just slipped out. She didn’t know exactly how old he was but it was certainly somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties. Living with your parents, let alone grandparents, wasn’t a great image. It could partially explain his awkwardness around girls. It must be hard getting time alone with the opposite sex if you still lived with your family.

Adam quickly jumped in. ‘My parents died when I was a baby and my grandma brought me up. I’ve been meaning to move out for a long time but…well, it’s just I don’t want her ending up in a home or anything. It wouldn’t seem fair to leave her after she took me in.’

‘Is it her you get your accent from? It doesn’t sound local.’

‘She’s from the west country somewhere. I guess some of her dialect has rubbed off on me.’

Jessica nodded gently and half-thought about making some sort of cider- or cheese-related joke. Adam had spoken quickly though and there was a strong undercurrent of emotion in his voice. Jessica felt it a little herself. ‘That’s really nice.’

‘No, it’s okay. I know it’s weird.’

‘I think it’s nice. What’s she like?’

Adam grinned. ‘Grandma? She’s…different. She’s got to that point where she just doesn’t care what anyone thinks any longer. Whatever’s in her head just pops out. I took her to the supermarket the other week and we were behind this woman in the queue. She had these dodgy leggings on that made her look…well, y’know?’

Jessica nodded, knowing exactly what he meant. There were some women who, to be polite, didn’t have the figure to pull off wearing leggings.

‘Most people wouldn’t say anything. You might glance, then look away and think, “That doesn’t look good” or something like that. But Nan’s at the point where she doesn’t have any of those social niceties. She just turns to me and goes, “Adam, do you think that woman’s got a mirror in her house?”’

‘How loud?’

‘Really loud. She’s a bit deaf too.’

‘Oh God…’ Jessica found herself laughing in a way she hadn’t done since before Caroline had moved out, really deep belly laughs. There were tears in her eyes as Adam joined in too.

‘Did the woman say anything?’ Jessica asked when she managed to calm herself down.

‘No but you could see her tense up – she must have heard. Then Nan kept going on about why people dress like that in public. I was trying to change the subject but she was oblivious.’

‘Oh, that poor woman.’

‘I know! This other time, she scolded a teenage kid in the local shop for wearing his trousers too low. His mates were all there and she goes, “If you don’t buck your ideas up, you’ll never get yourself a young lady. I didn’t see a young man’s underpants until I was in my twenties”.’

‘What did the kid say?’

‘Nothing much. What could he say? There was some woman in her eighties talking about his boxer shorts in front of his friends. I think he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him.’

Jessica exploded with laughter again and couldn’t stop. On three separate occasions, she thought she had finished but each time, the image of the youth being told off about his underwear by a pensioner popped into her head and set her off again. Even the owner got involved, bringing over a napkin for her to dry her eyes and asking if she was okay.

‘She sounds ace,’ Jessica finally said when she finished giggling.

‘She’s all right.’

‘I’ve got to meet her one day.’ Jessica had blurted it out before she realised what she had said. It was the equivalent of asking to meet someone’s parents.

‘We’ll see. She’s not good with new people. She is always going on about me getting a girlfriend though.’

Adam had clearly said that without thinking too much either as he immediately picked up his glass of wine to stop himself saying any more. For the first time since they sat down to eat, there was an awkward silence between them. Jessica finished her own glass of wine and then broke it. ‘Can we talk a bit of work for a minute?’

‘Okay.’ Adam seemed pleased she was changing the subject.

‘I know you said before but do you think the blood and hairs could have been planted?’

‘I doubt it. It looked too genuine, especially the blood under the nails.’

‘What could prove things one way or the other?’

‘I guess the only thing for sure would be a fingerprint. It might be unlikely but you could plant blood or something at a scene. Getting someone’s fingerprint onto a scene they weren’t at would be as close to impossible as you could imagine.’