Woman in Black (22 page)

Jessica was well aware the previous chief inspector, DCI Farraday, had made a disastrous call a few months before that had ended up linking one suspect’s description to a much wider case the person wasn’t involved with. It had ended up denting both cases and Jessica didn’t want to repeat the same mistake.

‘The press office have already put out a standard statement about the date, time and place of the robbery,’ she added. ‘We’ll see if anyone comes forward for that while I go back over the videos. If we’re struggling in a few days, it could be a time to release the new still-shots.’

With little else to talk about, everyone went their separate ways but Jessica did at least feel the tension between her and Cornish had thawed slightly, even if it had taken jibes about her driving to do it. After the meeting, Jessica updated Rowlands and Diamond and set them to work finding out which traffic cameras and other CCTV fixtures were close to the shop. The robber must have gone somewhere and, although there wasn’t a monitoring device directly outside, there would be city-operated ones somewhere nearby.

Jessica drove to the Bradford Park station, which was close to Manchester City’s football ground. The place operated not only as a local community hub but also provided a base for almost all of Greater Manchester Police’s forensics team and other non-frontline staff, such as payroll and Human Resources. The shop’s hard drive had been taken for analysis and image enhancement, which wasn’t something they could do from the Longsight station.

She was led through the building to an area full of computers and introduced to a staff member who would be working with her. Together they began to watch the footage, starting with the Saturday itself and working backwards.

It was largely a tedious job but it did become easy to eliminate people. A lot of visitors to the shop clearly knew the layout already as they would simply walk in, pick up the newspaper or other item they wanted, pay for it and leave. Jessica realised that if the robber used the shop frequently, they would be hard to isolate. The process could still be useful if someone paid particular attention to the cameras.

Victor Burnham had been right about the Saturday-morning rush. As he opened the shop, there was a steady stream of customers who almost all picked up a paper, paid for it with near enough the right change, then quickly left. After the first couple of hours, the foot traffic dropped considerably and, after lunch, there were very few people who entered.

At the point the time code had moved on to half past two, Jessica knew that was where she had picked the footage up when she had viewed it the first time. A man entered the shop, as she knew he would, but this time she was watching properly. The scientist working with her saw exactly what she had and they exchanged a look before he rewound it to watch again. When the man walked into the shop, he glanced immediately upwards at the camera, holding the look for a fraction of a second longer than would have been normal. Switching from one angle to the other, they saw him do the exact same thing to the second camera before walking around the store. He picked up a magazine then put it back where it was and left the shop without buying anything.

They watched it back again and the man turned to Jessica. ‘What do you reckon?’

‘I believe the term is “casing the joint”,’ she said.

Jessica was annoyed at herself for being in a rush the first time and not spotting it. She had noticed the man not buying anything but completely missed his mannerisms. It could be a coincidence but, as it had happened just half an hour before the woman entered the store, it appeared unlikely. If the woman had an accomplice, it seemed all the more probable they had some sort of car, which made the work the other two constables were doing crucial.

Jessica checked in with Izzy, who said they were struggling with the various agencies that operated the cameras. She then got the contact number for the shop’s owner. Jessica called Victor Burnham and described the footage before asking if he knew exactly which magazine it was the man had picked up. The angle of the camera wasn’t the best but, with her descriptions, the owner narrowed down the possible titles to three or four. Because he had been shut on the Sunday, he was convinced none of the publications had been sold since the person picked it up. Jessica told him not to touch the rack as she would arrange for someone to come and collect the magazines. If they could isolate fingerprints, they could run it against their database to see if they had any record of the man.

While that was all going on, the scientist had managed to get some better definition printouts of the man looking at the cameras. Jessica took the hard copies and asked him to email the digital versions then drove back to the station. The jokes about her driving were definitely in the back of her mind as she was careful and stuck to all the speed limits.

As she was waiting to pull into the station’s car park, three marked police cars raced out of the entrance, their sirens and lights going. Jessica parked and walked into the front reception area.

‘Where were they off to?’ she asked the desk sergeant.

‘There’s something going on in town. I’m not completely sure, it’s been mad here this morning.’

As they were talking, Jessica’s mobile phone started to ring and she saw it was Cole’s extension. ‘I’m downstairs,’ she said as her way of answering.

After a short conversation with her boss, Jessica turned and ran back to her car – and this time she wouldn’t be driving quite so carefully.

TWENTY

Given his twenty-one years of eating and drinking experience, Frank Rice was finding it hard to figure out quite how he’d managed to forget how to do something seemingly simple. In essence, he’d done everything right. He had picked up the cappuccino mug, put it to his lips and then, for some reason that utterly escaped him, breathed in the milk foam instead of sipping it.

The woman sitting opposite him asked if he was all right and, despite not being able to get a word out without coughing, he assured her he was. In actual fact, every time he breathed in, he could feel a tiny bit of liquid at the top of his lungs while his nose still tickled. He had also burned the outside of his right index finger trying to hastily put the cup down as the spluttering began and was pretty sure his eyes had been bulging at one point.

All in all, it wasn’t the best impression to be making on a first date.

Frank tried to smile but the woman in the chair across from him had her head tilted slightly to the side with a puzzled look. ‘Are you sure you’re…’ she started.

‘Yeah, no worries.’ Frank nodded as he spoke but felt his voice lurch down an octave as he struggled not to cough again.

The woman picked up a napkin from under her own cup and held it out towards him. ‘Do you want a tissue?’

Frank reached out and took it before turning around, hunching over and letting out the most guttural heave he had ever managed without throwing up. He finally felt the liquid come back up his windpipe and swallowed it properly then turned back around to face the woman. ‘Sorry about that.’

Kelly Stark was clearly trying not to laugh. ‘I’m not saying I’ve been out with too many guys I’ve met on the Internet but you’re definitely the first who’s nearly choked to death.’

Frank didn’t want to ask how many she had been out with – but she was his third Internet date and the first two hadn’t gone too well. The first had been a little similar to the current one in that they had opted for an afternoon meeting in a cafe. After they sat down at a table, she’d asked him if he minded that she had asked to meet on an afternoon instead of an evening. His reply still haunted him. “Yes it’s fine – I’m not a sex attacker or anything.”

It had taken him a few days to figure out his own thought process. When he had first signed up for the dating website, he read the Frequently Asked Questions section. In that, it advised people to meet in public places, which seemed sensible. Frank had confided in only one friend that he’d joined the service and, after telling him he was all set for a coffee date with a girl, his mate had joked that the only reason she had asked to meet during the daytime was so he couldn’t attack her.

With the mixture of his friend’s joke and the site’s FAQ in his mind, for some reason he thought the best thing he could say to a stranger on first date was that he had no intention of assaulting her.

There wasn’t really anywhere to go from there.

The second date had definitely gone better and Frank was on the brink of asking her about a possible second meeting. That was until the woman’s tiny dog had stuck its head out from her handbag. Frank didn’t hate animals but he wasn’t a massive fan either and he figured dogs just weren’t meant to be that small. He felt a shiver go down his back each time the creature appeared and it was clear that wasn’t going to work either.

When he had first seen the pictures of Kelly and sent her a message, he hadn’t thought for a moment she would message him back. She had gorgeous long straight black hair and big brown eyes. He knew she was probably out of his league and his friend had put it best. ‘She’s an eight or a nine, mate and, if you’re lucky, you’re a five.’

As Kelly smiled across the table at him, Frank wasn’t sure if she was trying not to laugh at him but the crinkles around her eyes and the way her dark eyes grinned with her lips meant marking her down as an ‘eight’ was definitely underplaying it.

‘Sorry, I just sort of breathed the frothy bit in,’ Frank said.

‘I wondered why you’d gone purple.’ Frank took a sip from his cup and managed to swallow it without choking. Kelly grinned widely and silently clapped him. ‘Well done.’

Frank wasn’t sure how to respond. He was used to feeling uncomfortable around girls but hadn’t met too many who were actually friendly.

‘So, why did you email me then?’ Kelly asked.

Frank knew the answer was, ‘Because I saw a little bit of cleavage in your picture, clicked to have a closer look and then thought you actually seemed quite nice’ but didn’t think that would be the best response. ‘I just saw you liked the cinema and music and thought we’d get on,’ he said.

Kelly took a sip of her strawberry smoothie and had a playful smile on her face as she put the glass down. ‘I guess there aren’t that many people interested in movies and music. What type of films are you into?’

Frank thought the look on her face showed she was teasing him and there was a definite hint of sarcasm in her voice. He tried to give himself a few moments by breathing deeply and looking as if he was thinking about it. He didn’t want to say the wrong thing and was trying to remember his friend’s advice about asking a question, then agreeing with the girl’s answer rather than letting her do the initial talking. At the time it sounded like a ridiculously sexist notion but, as he weighed up whether to admit ‘The Lion King’ was his favourite movie, he saw the sense in it. If he had asked the question and she had named some subtitled indie movie, he could have agreed with her and sounded vaguely intellectual. Choosing a children’s cartoon could either show he was endearingly sensitive or make her think he was tragically immature. ‘Probably “Citizen Kane”,’ Frank said, thinking it sounded like a safe option, even though he had never seen it.

‘Oh, that’s a good choice. I wish I could say something like that but I still like stuff like “Toy Story” and “The Lion King”,’ Kelly replied. Frank nodded along with her choices but was annoyed with himself for not being honest. ‘What else do you get up to?’ Kelly asked.

The man thought it was the time to tell the truth. ‘You know I’m a student and am doing agency work through the summer but when I’m on days off from that, I just tend to play on the PlayStation, maybe watch a bit of wrestling on TV or football during the season, go the pub…that kind of thing.’

‘Video games and wrestling?’

‘Not all the time.’

Kelly started laughing. ‘No, it’s fine. At least you’re honest. Some guys will tell you anything.’

Frank screwed up his face slightly in his best look of disbelief. ‘Really? That’s just shameless.’

‘Yeah, like you’ll ask them what movie they like and they’ll mention some classic just because it’s in all those top ten of all time lists.’

Frank peered at her but she was smiling. ‘How did you know?’

‘I looked you up – I look everyone up. I don’t just go out with someone based on their stupid dating website profile. Everyone looks like a decent person on there. I read the reviews you wrote on the uni’s magazine website. I know what you’re actually into, that’s why I agreed to meet.’

‘Oh, right. That’s kind of clever. I didn’t do any of that.’

Kelly grinned even more widely and Frank realised he really liked her. ‘No, it’s fine,’ she said. ‘Admittedly I didn’t find anything that said you didn’t know how to drink a cup of coffee but the rest of it seemed nice.’

‘Sorry, I can usually drink without choking,’ Frank smiled. ‘So, er, what do you mean by “looking people up”?’

‘Why, have you got something to hide?’

‘No but…’

‘Look, you’re twenty-one and I’m twenty-three. When you’re a young woman on a site like that, you get all types of weirdo wanting to talk to you. You get the older guys telling you how rich they are and that they’ll look after you, then you get the younger ones sending you pictures of their six-packs as if it’s supposed to be impressive.’

Frank must have glanced down at his own non-washboard stomach because Kelly giggled. ‘Look, if it was only pictures of stomachs I got sent, I’d be fine.’

The man felt his eyes widen. ‘Oh…’

‘Exactly. By comparison, you’re pretty normal. That’s good.’

‘So do you already know my favourite film?’

‘Yes, you should probably change the privacy settings when you sign up to social networks.’

‘Is it your favourite movie too?’

‘Yes. I used to watch it over and over when I was a kid. I think it’s kind of sweet you like it too.’

Frank didn’t know what to say. He felt a little embarrassed but also slightly ill-equipped as Kelly clearly knew far more about him than he did about her. It did give him hope that he could just be himself rather than have to concentrate non-stop in an effort to try to be someone he wasn’t. He took another drink of his coffee while the woman watched him. ‘Sorry if I sound a little stalker-ish but I’ve been out with a few dicks over the years and I don’t have the time to invest in them any longer. You seemed nice.’