DS Jessica Daniel series: Locked In/Vigilante/The Woman in Black - Books 1-3 (59 page)

‘How do you mean?’

‘For instance, we charged a lad last week with making up a complaint. He basically wanted a new phone and said he’d been attacked just to get a claim number for his insurance. But
there are also real victims we know of who haven’t come forward – we’ve got some of them on CCTV.’

‘So you’re stuck with some people who have been attacked and won’t come forward but then having your time wasted by others trying it on?’

‘Exactly and that makes it all the harder.’

‘What about the gang initiation thing you had been talking about?’

‘The only reason the muggings started to be linked together was because we arrested someone early on. Poor kid was shit-scared, only about fourteen, and said he’d been put up to it
by older lads because he wanted to join their group.’

‘So did you get any of the other gang members?’

‘No chance. It took us long enough to get that out of him, plus he was a youth of course so you can’t push it too far. He wouldn’t give any names and his mother was having none
of it.’

‘Have you arrested anyone else?’

‘No. With the conflicting descriptions – or muggers wearing hoods – plus the dodgy CCTV and so on, we don’t really have anything other than a whole host of scared
students. It doesn’t help that they go out and get themselves so pissed they can’t walk straight but I guess we’ve all been there.’

‘Speak for yourself.’

Reynolds laughed. ‘You’ve not been that drunk? Who are you trying to kid?’

‘Oh, I’ve been that drunk but I can
always
walk straight.’

Reynolds laughed again. ‘Why did you want to know then?’

‘I need another favour.’

‘What?’

Jessica took a deep breath. ‘It’s a big one.’

‘I’m not going to like this, am I?’

‘Can you get the fourteen-year-old back in?’

‘You are joking? He pleaded guilty to that other mugging and was released. What do you want me to bring him in for?’

Jessica read the name of the mugging victim she had taken from the phone logs. ‘Bring him in for that.’

‘But there’s no reason for us to think it was anything to do with him.’

‘We know that but he doesn’t. Please, it could help solve two cases.’

Reynolds looked at her. ‘What if it doesn’t? It could totally stuff mine up. He’s a kid too, we’ll have to get his mother in and maybe one of the specialist duty
solicitors. It’s a lot to ask when we don’t even think it’s him. I don’t even know why we would suspect him.’

Jessica read the description of the assailant from the police log.

‘That could be anyone,’ Reynolds said.

‘Exactly,
anyone
. Including some teenager who’s got previous for it.’

‘Are you going to tell me why you want him in so badly?’

‘I don’t just want him in, I want to do the interview.’

‘Come on, Jess . . .’

‘Please.’

‘You’re going to have to tell me. It’s my arse that will be on the line.’

Jessica told him what Adam had said the previous evening that had got her mind whirring then told him how she hoped to solve two cases in one.

Reynolds looked at her when she had finished. ‘It’s risky. He’s still only a kid.’

‘He’s old enough to threaten someone with a knife.’

‘If I didn’t know you better I would have said you had logged into those files before I got into the office and already knew all about our young offender. After that, you went
through the phone archives to find a mugging description from a victim deliberately vague enough to bring him in on.’

Jessica smiled at him. ‘I think you know me well enough . . .’

Jessica had a reasonable idea what to expect having read the descriptions but the fourteen-year-old must have grown from the last time he had been in. Now fifteen, he was
bigger than plenty of adults she knew. Despite his size, he still shrunk into the interview room’s chair like the scared schoolboy he was.

Reynolds and Jessica had done their best to keep her idea under wraps and had certainly kept it away from the ears of Farraday. There was no way they could have gone ahead without an okay from
Cole though. He had listened to Jessica’s theory, put a few doubts in their minds and then said they could do it anyway.

The boy had promptly been arrested and brought to the station with his mother. He was told he had been arrested in connection with the mugging and cautioned. His mum repeated over and over they
had no money for a lawyer, so a specially trained duty solicitor had been brought in, as Reynolds had suspected would need to happen.

The mother was fuming with both the police and her son. In the holding room, Jessica had heard her shouting, ‘What have you done now?’ at the boy.

Now in the interview, her displeasure was focused on them. Each time Jessica asked a question, the boy would nervously answer and then his mother would jump in; ‘See, I told you it
weren’t him.’ She hadn’t told them anything of the sort but her anger was clear. Jessica had her secret weapon in an envelope on the table in front of them and was biding her
time. They had already gone over the formalities of the mugging, asking where he was, who he hung around with and anything else they would usually include. He hadn’t helped himself by not
really having an answer for where he was. It had been late on in the evening but, despite his age, he still claimed to be playing football in his local park.

‘Were you playing football with other members of the gang you’re in?’ Jessica asked.

‘I ain’t in no gang.’

‘That’s not what I’ve heard. I read that you robbed your first victim because you wanted to get in with the cool kids.’

‘So?’

‘So did you get in or not?’

He looked sideways at his mother. ‘No.’

‘That’s not what I’ve heard.’ The boy’s solicitor went to step in but Jessica had sewn the doubt in his mind. She showed the boy some photographs of the new
victim’s injuries, having deliberately picked out the ones that looked the worst. Both the legal representative and his mother objected and she knew she was walking on a tightrope.

Eventually, she knew she just had to go for it. She opened the envelope on the table, took one final photograph out and held it facing her. ‘In a moment, I’m going to turn this photo
around and I need you to answer one last question. I know your mum is here and you might not want to admit to certain . . . things but this is crucial.’ She tapped the top of the photo to
emphasise her point that it could be him and then turned it around. The image was of Robert Graves and had been taken post-mortem after he had been cleaned up. When she had first seen his body she
hadn’t known whether it was male or female but the photo was a lot clearer.

Both the boy and his mother reeled backwards while the solicitor tried to stop the interview. He was outraged but Jessica wouldn’t budge. She locked eyes with the boy. ‘Was Robert
Graves in your gang? Do you know him?’

Amid the noise as Reynolds tried to calm everyone down, Jessica didn’t move. She stared at the teenager. She could see the answer in his eyes but needed him to say the words. ‘Tell
me,’ she said.

‘Yes.’ The answer was quiet and barely audible over the objections from his solicitor.

Jessica put the photograph face down on the table and shushed everyone present, much to their annoyance. ‘Please repeat that. Was Robert Graves a member of your gang?’

Finally there was quiet. She hadn’t stopped looking at him.

‘He wanted to be.’

The teenager had been released without charge but Jessica had got what she wanted. Ultimately he seemed more scared of his mum than he did of them. Reynolds and Jessica had
immediately passed the news on to Cole and the three of them were now sitting in DCI Farraday’s office listening to him tell them off for not informing him of what was going on.

Jessica was happy to step in and admit it was her fault but Cole didn’t give her a chance, instead saying he should be blamed. He said he knew the DCI was busy and that he didn’t
want to concern him with matters that could come to nothing.

Jessica was grateful for what he had done but also saw it as an indictment of their boss that they had to work behind his back to get things sorted out.

When he had calmed down, Jessica got around to explaining her theory, leaving Adam out of the tale. ‘I had been talking to a member of the forensics team at the end of the week and they
mentioned they were going to be able to start working on the student mugging cases this week. It got me thinking about Robert Graves’s age and the type of kid his parents said he was.’
She indicated towards Reynolds sitting next to her. ‘Jason has been working on connecting the robberies all together and had mentioned a theory about a gang initiation ritual.’

Farraday nodded along as she spoke, again drumming his fingers on the desk. She tried to block the noise out and keep talking. ‘I think we’ve all got it in our heads now that Robert
isn’t connected to the other, er, vigilante cases but of course we didn’t know why he would have been killed. But now we’ve been told he wanted to become a member of this gang. So
what if he picked on a student who wasn’t just some drunk? What if he picked on someone who fought back too hard?’

The chief inspector stopped tapping his fingers. ‘Why wouldn’t he have been identified with that sketch if that’s the case?’

Jessica knew she had to be careful how she phrased the next part. ‘Don’t forget the description of the attacker was from a bit of a distance in dim lighting but also . . . we were
asking people to look for the wrong thing. We were saying, “This is your vigilante”, so people would have been looking at their mates and thinking, “Oh, it can’t be him
because he was with me the night of the vigilante attacks”. But no one would have been reporting their friends for being unaccounted for on just that one evening where Robert Graves was
killed.’

‘What do you two think?’ Farraday looked first at Reynolds, then DI Cole, standing behind the two sergeants. ‘Reynolds?’

‘I think it’s a better theory than anyone else has had.’

‘Cole?’

‘I think we should go to the local media and the universities themselves. Let’s tell them we were wrong and get the description of the person back out there. Let’s ask people
to think just about the one night Robert Graves was killed instead of asking them to worry about who the vigilante is.’ There was a harshness to his tone Jessica had rarely heard.

Before the DCI could respond, Jessica started speaking. ‘We have the fingerprint and blood on file. If we get any useful leads, people can easily be ruled out. I know there are thousands
of students but there can’t be too many who look like that picture.’

‘How do you know for sure it’s a student?’

Cole spoke. ‘We don’t, Sir. That’s why we would bring the media in too and admit we made a mistake. Either way, it has to be someone relatively local.’

Farraday was back to drumming his fingers and finally slapped his hand down hard on the wood. ‘Right, this is what we’re going to do. Reynolds, you get on with the gang stuff. If
people are dying, we need to shut them down. Cole, you go to the papers and the university and do whatever you have to. Daniel, if you’re so clever you get us a lead on the other killer we
have to catch.’

It was basically the same arrangement they already had – except that Jessica had solved at least one case she wasn’t directly assigned to and it didn’t look as if she was going
to get any credit for it. Ultimately it didn’t matter as long as they found whoever killed Robert Graves and then, her case or not, she would be visiting his parents.

Jessica went to stand but Cole started speaking. ‘I think you should let Jessica close the Graves case, Sir. It was her theory after all.’

Feeling frozen to the spot, she looked from DCI Farraday to DI Cole, who were staring at each other. It was the chief inspector who finally spoke. His tone was steady but had an undercurrent of
anger. ‘Fine. Sort it out among yourselves but I want some progress on all three cases by the end of the week or I’m going to start kicking some arses around here.’

Cole hadn’t even let Jessica thank him as they walked back down the stairs to their own offices. As she went to speak, he cut her off. ‘Don’t worry, you did
well today. Now find the killer.’

Jessica went back to her office and immediately called Garry Ashford. Even though Reynolds was in earshot, she thanked the journalist for his article about Craig Millar’s mother and then
told him the news about the type of person they now suspected had killed Robert Graves. She told him he had a two-hour head start to get a story on his newspaper’s website before she called
in the local television and radio stations.

She phoned back the witness to the murder and re-checked each detail with her, especially focusing on the time and description of the killer. After that, Jessica went to the press office and
told the woman who worked there exactly what she wanted doing. The small team on site were well known for being tetchy with officers in trying to balance the needs of both sides but Jessica
didn’t make it a negotiation. The press officer was obviously nervous about going to the media and admitting they had made a mistake but Jessica was clear the only way people would pay
attention to a new appeal was if they started from scratch.

Jessica sat in their office taking phone calls and giving statements to local radio stations and other newspapers with Farraday reluctantly agreeing to go on camera for that evening’s news
broadcasts. Officers were brought in to answer the phones and Jessica took Carrie to the main road near the universities later that evening. They had arranged for the press office to print out
flyers of the e-fit and handed them out to the young people walking past. Being two youngish women standing on the street, they got a fair amount of attention and inappropriate suggest ions but the
sight of their respective police identification cards sent people scurrying quick enough.

As the passing foot traffic dried up, with everyone either in or out for the night, Jessica sent Carrie home, telling her to make sure she took the hours back in lieu and then drove herself to
the station. Jessica watched the late-evening news on the television in the reception area. It replayed everything that had been on the earlier broadcasts, which was good as their story was still
high on the bulletin. She walked through to the incident room where a bank of half-a-dozen phones had been set up at the back. Given the time, the area was fairly empty. Four of the officers were
chatting with each other, with two others on calls.