Woman in Black (19 page)

The man shook his head. ‘No, no, not at all.’

‘Do you know where the camera is?’ Jessica asked the maid.

The woman waved her hands from side to side. ‘I don’t know. The other Mr Johnson just told Mrs Johnson it was pointing at the gate. He wasn’t talking to me.’ She looked around at the politician and hurriedly added, ‘I don’t listen in to things.’

The man nodded and Jessica couldn’t read his face. She looked to Reynolds. ‘We’re going to have to either talk to the son or get some electrical experts in who know more than we do.’

Her boss had already started to stand, clearly thinking along the same lines. ‘I’ll try to contact the son first to find out if the camera that’s present actually stores the images.’ He turned back to the maid who was standing next to the politician, addressing the pair of them. ‘Do you know why the camera was placed? Is it there for you to see who’s at the gate?’

The man was shaking his head as he stood. ‘I have no idea. We have the intercom for people to say who’s at the front. I didn’t even know there was a camera. Until recently, I didn’t spend much time here. I was either in our flat in London and we have a place in France where we usually spend the summer.’

Reynolds asked Mr Johnson to phone his son as Jessica went to look for the camera. The maid insisted she didn’t know where it was so she was on her own. It seemed almost inconceivable there could be a camera on the politician’s property he didn’t know about. The maid said Christine Johnson had wanted it putting in but why would she do so without her husband’s knowledge and, if he did know about it, why hadn’t he told them?

Jessica let herself back out of the front door, walking down the driveway towards the front gate. When she reached it, she turned, looking for areas that would have a decent visibility of the opening. She peered at the large gateposts but there was nothing on top. Jessica walked back up the paved area, glancing from side to side. She couldn’t see anything on the house itself and, even if there was, it would have had to be zoomed in significantly to have a clear view.

After walking to the house and back to the gate another time, she decided to have a look at a large oak tree that was sprawled on the edge of the garden. The main trunk was thick and must have been many years old but the branches themselves had been trimmed at some point not too long ago. Jessica squinted up at the top of the trunk and, in a large circular knot, finally saw what she was looking for. It was too high to reach but there was definitely some kind of metal-looking object angled towards the entrance.

She returned inside where Reynolds was standing next to George Johnson talking on a portable home phone. Not long after she entered, the inspector passed the phone to the other man and moved next to Jessica.

‘I found it,’ she said. ‘It’s in a knot of that giant tree out there. It’s no surprise no one else saw it; you never would unless you were looking.’

Reynolds nodded. ‘The son says he put the camera in for his mother because she was worried about being on her own a lot. He doesn’t know if his dad knew or not.’

‘Does it keep recordings?’ Jessica asked.

‘He said the camera is wireless and stores a still image once every minute. I didn’t really understand it all but he said everything is recorded on a web server and, unless he specifically deletes something, everything is kept.’

‘Why didn’t he tell you this before?’

‘Maybe he thought we knew? I have no idea. I’m going to talk to some of the computer team out at Bradford Park and get them to contact the son. The system only takes a photo every minute but, unless she jumped over the hedge or left in between snaps, hopefully we’ll have something of her.’

SEVENTEEN

With little more she could contribute, Jessica cheekily asked Garry Ashford for a lift back to the station as Reynolds was going to be a little while and would need the car. The journalist obliged and she told him he might want to make a check-call or two to the police press office a little later.

Back at Longsight, Cole already knew what they had found and had been in contact with one of the computer technicians to discover how long things would take. Jessica didn’t understand the technical talk entirely but there was some sort of problem they were trying to sort out with George Johnson’s son that wasn’t proving easy as he was having problems accessing the Internet wherever he was.

Jessica checked in with Rowlands and Diamond, neither of whom sounded like they’d had a fun day. Cornish had made them talk her through each step of where they were up to in the investigation, telling them how she would have done things differently. Jessica thought it was a sign she had matured, even if only a little, that those revelations hadn’t sent her into an instant rage. A few years ago it certainly would have done but she was at the point where, if someone thought they could do a better job, they were welcome to try – and have severed fingers addressed to them instead of her. Either way, it didn’t seem as if they had got any further and, once again, it looked as if they were going to have to work their way through the full list of college-leavers in an effort to find anything to move the case forward.

That evening, Reynolds called Jessica at home. He thanked her for her help, refusing to accept her point that the afternoon’s discovery was just luck and not much to do with her. From the tone of his voice, she figured a lot of the gratitude was simply down to relief that something had happened. She knew both the inspector and Cole were under a lot of pressure to make a breakthrough. He told her the computer experts had finally managed to figure out with the Johnsons’ son what was going on with the stored images. There were tens of thousands to scan through and the naming of the files wasn’t too efficient but, after hours of work, they had isolated three still-shots ‘of interest’.

From the day Christine Johnson had gone missing, one image showed the maid heading out via the gate at the front which was presumably to go shopping as she had told them, leaving Mrs Johnson alone in the house. Twenty minutes later a faded red van pulled up outside the large double gates at the end of the driveway. The vehicle was in the next three pictures before disappearing, meaning it had been outside for less than four minutes. In the final image, the rear door of the van had been open and there was a faded logo visible which they were now trying to identify.

The bad news was that, with the gap in between the photos, no actual people had been seen but it did at least give them something to work with. With the high-profile nature of the case, experts were going to spend the weekend enhancing the images as best they could in order to release them to the media. Reynolds also said he was looking into either getting permission to go to Luxembourg to visit the son, or seeing if they could arrange for him to return home to be interviewed. The man insisted he had set up the camera at the request of his mother and assumed it was done with his father’s knowledge. Given the lack of time his dad spent at the family home, it was plausible but certainly unusual.

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

When she woke up the next day, Jessica had almost forgotten that she had to go to the summer fete as part of the dreaded community engagement plan. She had finally read Cole’s email properly and it was clear a lot of it had been written under duress from people above him. Three separate times it mentioned that instructions had come down from the superintendent, presumably to stop the rest of the officers thinking too badly of him. The event was at Crowcroft Park, the recreation area closest to their station, and there was very little information other than the venue and a rota for the times they should arrive.

It was another scorching day and Jessica couldn’t remember a longer spell of uninterrupted good weather since she had moved to the area. When she arrived, Jessica could see the park itself was parched with large areas of sand-coloured grass. A lot of people had come out seemingly because of the weather and the whole spectacle took Jessica back to a different age when she was young.

In the village where she’d grown up, there would always be a summer fair once a year. The whole population would descend on their local park where there would be a funfair, stalls selling homemade cakes and biscuits, various tables offering jumble-sale items for charities and all sorts of games going on. It was probably selective memory but it never seemed to rain on those days and she could remember her father with his big tanned arms carrying her around on his shoulders.

Jessica thought it was amazing how one thing could give you flashes of another. It was the smell of candyfloss as she walked through the park gates that most reminded her of the village fetes where she used to live. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d eaten any but the stall next to the entrance had a queue of children and she could almost see herself as one of the younger girls in line.

Jessica had arrived early and didn’t know where the police’s stall was so decided to go for a walk. She had her work suit on as it wouldn’t have seemed right representing the force wearing her everyday clothes but she was feeling a little sweaty given the heat. A small ferris wheel was the obvious thing Jessica noticed as she strolled around. It was playing a cheesy fairground tune but the other noise that stood out was laughter. In doing a job that could be so dark at times, it was easy to forget the little things like this. Children weaved in between adults, running around excitedly as parents pushed empty pushchairs. A group of youngsters had started a game of rounders against a hedge and Jessica couldn’t help but smile.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a tap on her shoulder. She turned around and Izzy stood there grinning. She wasn’t in her work clothes, instead wearing a long flowing white skirt and pale vest top. Jessica thought the woman’s hair looked a brighter red, most likely because it wasn’t tied back or perhaps because her clothes were lighter than usual. She was arm-in-arm with a man she introduced as her husband, Mal. He was a little older than her with greying patches of hair above his ears.

‘You not on the stall today?’ Jessica asked.

‘Nah, just thought I’d come down and have a look at everything seeing as the sun’s out.’

‘Do you know where we’re based?’

Izzy pointed towards an area on the far side of the park. ‘It’s over there. Jack’s on the stall but not looking too happy. I think his wife and kids are around somewhere. It’s mainly uniform but there are a couple of other detectives from the area there too. It’s not just our lot.’

‘Was it looking busy?’

‘The press office team have got some games set up and are taking photos for the website. You can tell they’re mad keen to make us look good in all of this. They’d just collared one of the local newspaper photographers too.’

Jessica didn’t think it sounded her type of thing. ‘I’ll hide over here for a bit then. If they’re looking for a good impression, the last thing they need is me telling off a bunch of kids.’ Jessica remembered her colleague talking about the dispute over children she was having with her husband and saw what looked like an awkward glance sideways from Mal to his wife. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ she added.

Izzy said goodbye and the couple walked away still arm-in-arm. Jessica slowly made her way around the rest of the park towards the direction the constable had said their stall was in. The ambulance service and fire brigade had setups of their own and Jessica watched as the paramedics showed people how to perform CPR. She nodded at one of the workers she recognised and they shared a ‘What are we doing here on a Saturday?’ look.

The fire officers had a much larger stall and were showing people the dangers of chip-pan fires by deliberately pouring water on hot oil. Huge flames shot into the air and Jessica saw  a group of gathered youngsters gasping at the heat. She wondered if the display was aiding awareness or simply putting ideas in the minds of potential young pyromaniacs. She concluded her suspicious mind was getting the better of her.

Eventually she saw the force’s stall. Cole was handing out pencils to children and she could see the forced smile on his face. With the rota he had sent around, she was due to do a two-hour shift on the stall which would take them up to the day’s end. He seemed relieved she was there, wiping the sweat away from his forehead as the line of children thinned.

‘Are you all right?’ Jessica asked.

‘Yes but I’m glad you’re here.’ The man explained that press officers were running games of cops and robbers every half hour and there was a big pile of certificates for her to sign and give out to the participants. He said the day had gone well but his tired eyes told a different story. ‘Did Jason call you last night? He said he was going to.’

‘Yes, he told me about the stills from the camera. What do you reckon?’

Cole shrugged. ‘I’m not really sure. The quality isn’t great but the lab boys reckon they can enhance them. I guess we’ll find out on Monday.’

‘How is Jason?’

‘Between you and me, I think he needs a day off. He’s gone to the labs today just to watch.’

‘Maybe he didn’t want to get stuck here?’

The chief inspector knew her well enough to know she was joking and smiled back. ‘I know it’s a pain but the idea behind all of this is a noble one.’ He nodded towards the children running around nearby. ‘If we can get this lot not hating us from an early age it will be better for everyone.’

Jessica knew he was right. ‘Are you off home now?’

‘No, I said I’d help put everything back down later. The super was around earlier too. I’m going to nick off for a bit. My kids were definitely around here somewhere. I’ll be back later, have fun.’

Jessica wouldn’t have said she had ‘fun’ but the afternoon wasn’t as bad as she thought it might have been. During a round of cops and robbers, two young boys collided with each other and the game had to be abandoned. It was the type of accident that would have health and safety officials filling in forms for the rest of the day but, with the ambulance service just a few stalls down, there was no harm done except for two bumped heads. At first, Jessica had to force herself not to laugh because of the comical way the youngsters had fallen over. They had both been racing in one direction while looking in another and run head-first into one another before bouncing and falling to the floor. There was an audible gasp from onlooking parents but Jessica was convinced she saw other adults trying not to laugh as well.