DS Jessica Daniel series: Locked In/Vigilante/The Woman in Black - Books 1-3 (34 page)

Jessica’s heart was racing, all signs of a hangover long gone. ‘Who?’

‘I dunno. I wasn’t even in. Just someone she knew.’

Jessica didn’t want to ask the obvious but couldn’t see a way around it. ‘One of her clients?’

‘Piss off. Don’t talk about her like that.’

‘Please, Kim. I . . . Look, it could be really helpful.’

‘Whatever. I don’t know. It was just someone she knew.’

Jessica apologised for the call, ignored the sweary response and hung up. She was in her living room, sitting on the sofa in a still-empty flat. She took a deep breath, her heart still charging.
She would have to make at least two more phone calls with the first to Garry Ashford to get Paul Keegan’s phone number. She didn’t want to risk another call to the station to get
information that technically she wasn’t entitled to any longer. It most likely wouldn’t have got her in trouble but she didn’t want to alert anyone to the fact she was still doing
background work on the case.

She kept the call to Garry short and didn’t give him any reason why she needed the number. He sounded more hungover than she did but text-messaged her the number. Straight away Jessica
phoned Paul Keegan. The poor guy sounded shattered on the other end and she just couldn’t bring herself to ask him anything over the phone. She asked if he could spare an hour or so and they
arranged to meet in a cafe local to him. He sounded grateful to be getting out of the house. Jessica thought about driving but didn’t want to risk still being over the limit from the night
before. The place they were meeting was only a bus ride away and she figured it would give her time to consider how best to approach things.

Paul Keegan was already waiting for her when Jessica arrived. The place they had arranged to meet was his choice, a greasy-spoon establishment just off a main road not too far
from his house. Jessica could smell the fat as she walked through the door, instantly reminding her of childhood. She and her parents used to spend two weeks every summer in Blackpool. At the time,
the sea front was lined with places like this, dirt-cheap cafes competing to sell the cheapest cup of tea and fighting to get as many people in as possible to play bingo. This was the sort of place
that had once been the lifeblood of a city like Manchester but had largely died out in the last few years, replaced by posher, more expensive chain restaurants. There were still a few remaining,
mainly on the outskirts where defiant locals would still go for a fry-up and a brew a couple of times a week.

There was a low chatter as Jessica spotted Paul Keegan off to her right, not far from the counter. He had a mug of tea on the table in front of him. She said hello and asked if he wanted
anything to eat or a refill but he shook his head to both. Jessica ordered and paid for a cup of tea, although she wasn’t entirely sure it would be of a much better standard than the ones
from the machines in the station and then took it back to sit opposite Mr Keegan. ‘Thanks for coming,’ she said.

‘No worries, it’s fine. It’s nice to get away from the house to be honest. We weren’t allowed back for a couple of days and now it doesn’t feel right.’

Jessica didn’t know how to begin to respond to that. It was a horrendous thought to have to return to live in a house where your wife was murdered. He was clearly trying to sound positive
but it was obvious he was struggling to cope. She didn’t think going straight in to ask the one question she wanted to would be that tactful.

‘How are you doing?’ she asked.

She knew the answer wouldn’t be terrific but she didn’t want to ask directly about his stepson. Magistrates had refused Scott initial bail, fearing he and the other two who admitted
to assaulting Nigel Collins could run. They had all confessed to the crime and it was just a matter of time until it came to court.

‘I don’t really know,’ he said. ‘It’s Steven I feel sorry for the most. He’s had to go back to do his final exams with all this hanging over him. With all the
funeral arrangements and everything I’ve not really stopped for the past few days. I even went to see Scott yesterday . . .’

Jessica must have looked surprised because he felt the need to justify what he had said. ‘He’s not a bad kid. He had a bad time when his dad and Mary split up. Don’t get me
wrong, I know and he knows that what he did was wrong but . . .’

He didn’t finish the sentence but Jessica knew what he was alluding to. Most people did something stupid when they were younger. That wasn’t to excuse what Scott had done in any way
but one stupid immature decision when he was barely a teenager had now cost him any semblance of an adult life. She couldn’t help but be impressed by his stepfather. Paul Keegan had every
right to hate a son that wasn’t his own flesh and blood but had indirectly caused the death of his wife. Yet he didn’t; it seemed he had already forgiven him. Jessica was stunned by the
man’s compassion.

‘Do you want another?’ she asked, nodding towards his now-empty cup on the table.

‘Yeah, okay.’

‘Anything to eat?’

Paul Keegan shook his head.

Jessica thought he looked as if he could do with a meal but knew she couldn’t force him. She went to the counter and ordered a new mug of tea before returning to the table. When Jessica
sat down, he asked her why her team had been removed from the case. She gave the best answer she could, trying to sound professional and remarking that the Serious Crime Division had more training
in this type of area now it had essentially become a search for one man. She thought it sounded good, even if she didn’t believe it herself.

‘I just wanted to check one thing with you, if that’s okay?’ Jessica said.

‘No worries.’

‘Do you remember when you told me you’d had a few problems with kids recently, what kind of problems did you mean?’

‘Oh, the usual. Kids out and about at night, just noise and that. Someone ended up putting Super Glue in our locks. We had to climb out the window, plus get someone to change them and get
a bunch of new keys cut.’

Jessica struggled to respond. How had she not asked this question before? She went to speak but stumbled over her words. It almost seemed as if time had slowed down before she finally managed to
reply. ‘How long ago?’

The penny had clearly dropped for Paul Keegan too. ‘Why, do you think . . . ? Umm, a few months, five or six.’

‘Do you know who fixed the locks?’

‘No, I was at work while Mary was off but um . . .’ He stopped speaking and was clearly mulling something over. ‘Yeah, yeah, I remember. Here’s the thing; we got this
flyer through the door literally the day before it happened. It was some kind of special offer thing. Mary always kept the mail and everything so neatly on the table next to the door. It seemed
like a piece of good fortune at the time.’

Jessica’s mind was racing and she prayed the answer to her next question would be positive. ‘Did you keep the flyer?’

‘Oh . . . I don’t know. Mary usually kept things like that just in case. I don’t know if it was one of those things you had to hand in.’

‘Can we have a look?’

‘Of course.’

Paul Keegan quickly stood up, clearly understanding what could be happening. He marched towards the door, Jessica just behind. His house was only a few minutes’ walk away and Jessica
followed him along a cut-through towards the estate. Neither of them said a word. Jessica could feel the nerves in her stomach. Suddenly things seemed to be making sense, at least for the final two
victims. Nigel Collins had tracked down Claire Hogan and perhaps befriended her as a client. Then he had sabotaged the lock on her front door by squirting glue into it and just happened to be there
to fix it for her. It would have been so easy to keep a copy of the key for himself. He could have either let himself in, murdered her, then left, locking up on the way out, or he could have gone
to her as a client, killed her and locked the door behind him.

Even the ‘why’ seemed clear. It was as Hugo had told her – misdirection. While the police were busy trying to find out how the crimes had taken place, they weren’t
focusing on what linked the bodies. He had even used the trouble with local kids as another way of directing attention away from himself but this time for the victims. The victims had blamed local
children for the trouble, not bothering to trust the police to do anything.

Something similar would have happened with Mary Keegan, except Collins had been even cleverer, all but ensuring the Keegans would come to him to get their door fixed. He cunningly posted a flyer
through their door offering a cheap deal and then damaged their locks not long after. It wasn’t entirely foolproof but everyone liked a good bargain.

It would be a pretty good bet the Christensens and Princes had to have had their locks changed after being robbed too. Most people obviously wanted it doing for their own piece of mind but it
was usually an insurance requirement after a burglary anyway. How Collins had managed to make sure he had a key for those properties wasn’t exactly clear and there were still gaps, such as
how he knew where everyone lived – but she knew she had figured out a large part of everything.

Now she just had to figure out the final but largest part of the puzzle – where was Nigel Collins?

Paul Keegan unlocked the same front door Jessica herself had done not that long ago when she had discovered Mary’s body and they both went in. She remembered the tidy stack of post on the
table next to the front door and it looked as if it had been added to. She was led into the kitchen and Paul opened a drawer to the left of the sink. ‘We keep things like menus and vouchers
and so on in here. If it’s not here, it won’t be anywhere.’

He pulled out a big pile of glossy pieces of paper and put them on the kitchen table. Jessica was on one side as he sat opposite her. They each started looking through a very large heap. Jessica
worked quickly. She could see from some of the vouchers that the expiry date was years old. The whole house was spotless but this seemed to be something of a forbidden drawer, where all sorts of
miscellaneous junk was thrown just in case. Her dad kept a similar hoard at home.

She didn’t want to seem disrespectful and copied Paul by putting the pamphlets that weren’t useful in a separate pile. Her stack was twice the size of Mary’s husband’s,
who was taking time to read each piece of paper, while she was far more ruthless. There were lots of menus, plus vouchers for money off fried chicken and pizza, various flyers for local
supermarkets or the off-licence on the main road. Between them the initial selection was down to around a quarter of its original size.

Jessica started to put one more sheet on her discard pile and then she saw it. She had been so close to tossing it away but stopped in mid-action and brought the flyer back towards her so she
could read it. She scanned the words, her eyes flicking from side to side and reading the contents twice over.

She knew where to find Nigel Collins.

Paul Keegan watched her take the flyer. He had stopped sorting himself and glanced up. ‘Have you found it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can I see it?’

‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’ Jessica didn’t think he was the type to go storming off looking for revenge but she didn’t want to risk giving it back to
him just in case. It looked as if he understood anyway.

He nodded gently and simply made one request. ‘Just make sure you get him,’ he said sadly.

Jessica followed the details on the flyer to the address it had given. Things almost made sense, though there were still gaps. The location listed would have almost certainly been the place
closest to all four homes if they wanted to get keys cut. As well as being the nearest place, there was a good chance it would be the cheapest too. All of the victims were local and would have been
well aware of those facts.

It was quite possible the person that ran the place would have had the skills to replace a lock for Claire Hogan too but, even if he didn’t himself, there was still a very reasonable
connection. Jessica didn’t know if she would ever truly know the whole story – unless Nigel Collins was willing to talk after he had been caught. There was perhaps still some
coincidence but maybe she just didn’t know the whole story yet.

The biggest problem Jessica had was that she couldn’t find the place listed. She knew she was roughly in the right area but found herself walking in circles. She had made at least two laps
of the site, weaving in and out of the people and checking each possible location individually. She didn’t understand how she could be missing it.

Eventually she decided she just didn’t have enough knowledge of that precise area and that she should ask someone who did. She walked up to the closest person, took out the flyer and held
it up to the man in front of her.

‘Hi. I was wondering if you knew where this place is?’

The man squinted to look at the paper in her hand. ‘Hang on a minute, love. I’ll need my glasses.’ The man fiddled with a pocket on the inside of his jacket and took out a
case, before removing a pair of bifocals. He put them on and reached out for the flyer. Jessica was reluctant to let it go, given it could be used as evidence at some point, but released her grip
nonetheless. The man took it and scanned through the words. ‘Sorry love, I’m only here on Saturdays. Not a clue.’

He gave it back but Jessica was silently fuming. ‘Why didn’t you just bloody say that in the first place,’ she thought to herself.

She decided to ask a woman close by, walking over and holding the flyer out once again. ‘Hi. I was just wondering if you know where this place is?’

The woman took the paper from her and gave it a read. ‘Do you know the offer’s out of date?’ Jessica felt like shaking the woman. ‘Of course I bloody know,’ she
thought. ‘I do know how to read. Just answer the question.’

Instead, she actually said: ‘It’s okay. I was looking to find the place rather than use the offer.’

The woman shrugged at her, pointing the way Jessica had come from. ‘It should be on the end just over there.’

Jessica took the flyer back, put it in her bag, said ‘thank you’ and turned around. She was puzzled as she knew she had checked each place behind her. She figured the woman knew
better than her, so walked back the way she had come and paid even more attention to her surroundings.