DS Jessica Daniel series: Locked In/Vigilante/The Woman in Black - Books 1-3 (69 page)

The woman rubbed her head and grimaced. ‘If this is right, what are you saying? That my mum is his mum?’

‘Well, that’s partly why we’re here, we don’t know. We have a copy of Mr McKenna’s birth certificate and wondered if we could compare it to yours?’

‘You’ll do well, I’ve never had one.’

Jessica looked to Cole and back again. ‘How is that possible?’

‘My ma and dad were travellers and we moved around a lot. There was always some kind of work. Usually you’d get married in the community but they died before I was an adult and it
wasn’t the life for me. I ended up settling around this area.’

‘But how did you get work, a passport or driving licence?’

‘Never had a passport or driving licence but I did get a national insurance number. I don’t know if it’s easier now but I got passed from agency to agency back then. Event
ually someone was given my case and sorted it out. They told me it’s not completely uncommon for traveller children to be unregistered and reckoned they get three or four every year. It
didn’t stop them arsing me about for a couple of years but I ended up with a number that lets me work. I still don’t have a birth certificate though.’

Mary looked as if it was a story she was familiar with telling. Given the employers, councils and other organisations that would have asked the question over the years, it wasn’t
surprising.

‘That’s mad,’ Jessica said.

‘You’re telling me. I’ve had to put up with this all my life.’

A possibility was occurring to Jessica. ‘Mary, can I ask you something personal?’

The woman looked back at her. ‘I think you’re going to ask me something I’ve had in the back of my mind for the past fifty-odd years.’

‘Do you think there’s a chance your parents weren’t actually
your
parents?’

Tears suddenly formed in the prisoner’s eyes and Jessica felt guilty for asking it. Given she was locked up, Mary was about as calm an inmate as Jessica had ever met. She found herself
wondering how on earth this mild person in front of her had assaulted someone seriously enough to end up here. Jessica motioned for one of the guards, who picked up some tissues from one of the
other tables and brought them over. Mary took one and blew her nose. ‘I guess it would answer a lot of questions,’ she finally said through the tears.

‘The problem is, Mary, that Mr McKenna’s mother has also passed away and there’s no father listed on his birth certificate. Without your parents, the way I understand it is
that we have no way of knowing whether you and he shared “your” mother or “his” mother. All we know is that you definitely had different fathers. Your dad could well still
be your own.’

‘So you’re saying that, one way or the other, either my ma or my dad was definitely not mine? Either my dad went with his ma or my ma went with someone else?’

Jessica took a deep breath, trying not to look confused. ‘I think so, yes. I’m sorry.’

The woman had tears in her eyes again. ‘Does my brother know?’

‘Not yet, no.’

‘Why is he in prison?’

‘An armed robbery. He’s serving life.’

Mary looked down at herself and flung her arm into the air. ‘I guess we have something in common straight away. It must run in the family.’ Jessica said nothing. The woman carried on
sniffing. ‘Do you think there’s any way they would let us meet?’

Jessica felt out of her depth, not knowing the answer. ‘I don’t know how these things work. You’re on remand here, I guess some of it depends on what happens at your
trial.’

The woman leant back on her seat, wiping away more tears. ‘Not gonna be a trial, m’dear. I’m pleading guilty.’

With little more they could get from the woman, they said their goodbyes and one of the prison officers gave them a lift back to the train station.

When they were back on the train, they sat opposite each other, speaking quietly to avoid being overheard, aware it was unlikely to do any harm but feeling concerned for the woman’s
privacy.

‘What do you reckon?’ Cole asked.

‘It seems plausible. I don’t think she was faking it about not knowing McKenna.’

‘Me either. We can check all the national insurance number stuff anyway so there’d be no point in making it up. She seemed keen to meet him too.’

‘She must have had some life, with people at every corner asking her to prove who she is.’

‘Still, it gives us something huge to work on now.’

Jessica didn’t get his point. ‘How do you mean, the lab guys said her DNA couldn’t be a match to what was found at the scenes.’

‘True, but if McKenna’s got a long-lost sister who doesn’t have a birth certificate then who’s to say he doesn’t have a long-lost identical twin that was never
registered?’

Jessica knew instantly he was right but tried not to look surprised or sound as if the idea hadn’t occurred to her. ‘We could get a photo out to the media and see
if anyone recognises him,’ she said. ‘The papers don’t need to know it’s a picture of Donald McKenna they’re printing, just that we are after someone who looks like
that.’

‘Exactly, good thinking. We’ll get plenty of people calling to say it’s Donald McKenna but maybe we’ll get a few other names suggested too? We’ll have to talk to
the chief inspector in the morning.’

Jessica had almost forgotten about Farraday and was trying to figure out how he could be involved. He didn’t particularly look like McKenna, although they had a similar physique. She
remembered her first meeting with Adam when he told them matching DNA could come only from an identical sibling. The DCI had to be involved somehow though, with the way he had held up the
investigation and then the fact he had taken Carrie’s phone to cover his tracks. The idea of McKenna having a brother could still be a red herring too.

‘I think we should phone it in now,’ Jessica said. ‘If we can get McKenna’s photo on tonight’s news, in tomorrow’s papers and on the Internet, it gives us a
bit of a head start.’

She checked the clock on her phone. They didn’t have much time and couldn’t do anything themselves from the train so Cole called the chief inspector. Jessica could hear only one side
of the conversation but it didn’t sound good. When he had hung up, Jessica asked the obvious question. ‘What did he say?’

‘He said we should wait until tomorrow and that he wants to talk to us both first. I think he’s worried we’re going to make another mistake by putting the wrong photo out
there.’

‘It wasn’t
our
mistake last time.’

‘I know but he’s probably right. If we make sure all the paperwork from the labs is correct first, we can hammer the media with it tomorrow. We’ll still hit all the TV
broadcasts and get it on the Internet, we’ll just miss the papers.’

Jessica thought Farraday might well have a different reason for wanting to hold things up – he wanted to give himself a few more hours to cover whatever tracks he might have left.

‘We still don’t know what’s going on, do we?’ she said.

‘Not really. After all this, it could be McKenna is actually nothing to do with any of it. If there is a twin he could be acting alone safe in the knowledge any crime he commits will get
blamed on his brother who’s already locked up. Maybe the phone was left in the cell by who ever was in there before McKenna? If there is a twin, perhaps he never realised he had a brother and
the coverage could be news to him too? Then again, we could have been right the first time and it is somebody on the outside working with McKenna. There are so many permutations, even if we get the
guy we might never know.’

He looked up to make sure he caught Jessica’s eye and winked at her. ‘There could still be a secret tunnel out of the prison too, remember.’

The thought hadn’t occurred to Jessica that McKenna could be completely innocent in it all. She had spent so long trying to think of ways to connect him to the crimes and then to Farraday
that it hadn’t even crossed her mind the prisoner could now be exonerated.

‘If you’re right then I guess the phone isn’t necessarily relevant to the case either. You’re always hearing stories about people smuggling things into jails.’ A
second thought then popped into her head. ‘Hang on though, if McKenna is nothing to do with it, that doesn’t explain what happened with the warden Lee Morgan. I know nothing has been
proven against him but he must have been killed for a reason.’

‘True, but he was the one where no DNA was found so they could be separate cases.’

‘Same stab wounds but I guess it could be a copycat thing to puzzle us.’

Cole rubbed his head. ‘This is all getting confusing.’

‘You’re telling me. We have Craig Millar, Benjamin Webb, Desmond Hughes and Carrie who were all definitely killed by either Donald McKenna, someone who planted his DNA or his twin .
. .’

‘. . . and if there is a twin, either, neither or both brothers may or may not know he has a relation.’

‘Er, right.’

‘Then there’s John Mills, who is still unconscious, and Lee Morgan – who may or may not be connected to all of this as well as McKenna separately.’

The two detectives looked at each other and broke out into grins at the same time. It wasn’t meant as anything disrespectful to the victims, more as a way of coping with the complex nature
of everything. ‘I think we should write this down before trying to explain it to anyone else,’ Jessica said.

Cole laughed and said he would while Jessica leant back and closed her eyes. The inspector might think it was intricate but he didn’t know the half of it considering what she knew about
Farraday as well. At first she pre tended to be asleep but, when she felt Cole tapping her forearm and telling her they were back, she realised she actually had dropped off.

It was early evening and beginning to get dark as they walked out of the train station and caught another taxi back to Longsight. Jessica knew the chief inspector would have left early in order
to not have to make any decisions about what they were bringing back but wasn’t too bothered. With everything that had happened in the past couple of days, she felt as if something had lifted
from her and knew she wouldn’t be sitting on the wall opposite Farraday’s house that night hoping for who knows what.

Jessica drove home and parked in one of the designated spaces at her flat. She switched off the engine and headlights and took her phone out without moving from the driver’s seat. It was
gloomy outside and the street lamps were just beginning to come on. She thumbed through her contacts and stared at Adam’s name.

After a couple of days of proper sleep and the way she finally felt she was coming to terms with Carrie’s death, Jessica could see how badly she had treated him. She felt terrible watching
him in the office the previous day knowing he had done some really good work but not having the guts to tell him so. Jessica was fully aware he had done nothing wrong and that she should tell him
so – but the thought of calling him up and admitting it was all her fault wasn’t something she knew if she could do.

It almost felt as if she needed someone like Carrie or Caroline to give her a kick and tell her she was being stupid. She closed her eyes and could almost hear the Welsh officer’s accent
in her head. ‘Stop mucking around and just call him. You obviously like him, y’daft sod.’

What would Jessica say to him though? ‘Hey, just calling to say sorry I was a bitch, fancy a pint?’ Would he understand she just hadn’t known how to react to Carrie’s
death? Could she tell him about everything that had happened with Farraday? Or about the phone under her bed which belonged to the dead officer and where she’d found it? She didn’t know
what to do and felt it would be hard to tell him why she had blanked him without explaining everything she knew about the chief inspector.

Jessica sat looking at her phone, watching the screen turn itself off to save the battery and then pressing a button herself to make it come back to life.

‘Adam Compton’, the name read at the top.

Her thumb hovered over the ‘Call Mobile’ button and then the device started ringing before she could make up her mind. It was a number she didn’t recognise but she immediately
pressed to answer.

‘Hello?’

The voice on the other end stuttered and was clearly nervous. ‘Um, hello. Is that Detective, erm, Daniel?’

‘Yes, who’s this?’

‘It’s Dennis from the prison. You gave me your number. How are you?’

Jessica’s heart immediately sank. She had known it was a mistake to pass on her details and felt sure he would end up phoning her at some point. The last thing she wanted was a social call
from him. ‘I’m fine but a little busy at the moment.’

‘Oh, um, I was wondering if you were free this evening? If maybe you wanted a drink or something?’

Jessica had half a mind to tell him to get lost but she forced herself to be polite. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea. I only gave you my number in case someone recognised the
picture.’

‘Oh yes, sorry, that’s why I’m calling. It’s about the picture. Can we meet?’

Jessica didn’t know if he was being genuine or not. Something in his voice didn’t sound quite right but it could just be his nervousness. ‘We can meet in town but I don’t
really have time for a drink or anything. Does that sound okay?’

Jessica thought that, if he was trying it on, he would change his mind but instead he said ‘yes’ and asked for an address. She named a pub in the middle of the city, not wanting to
be openly seen with him for either professional or personal reasons. At the same time, she didn’t feel quite right having the type of illicit meeting she’d had with Garry Ashford in a
supermarket car park. Jessica knew the pub wasn’t one of the busy ones and should be fairly quiet on a weeknight. She hoped she wasn’t wasting her time but turned her engine and
headlights back on and reversed out of her space.

As Jessica walked into the pub, she looked around hoping Dennis would already be there so she could make it quick; the last thing she needed was to be left sitting at a table
on her own as if she’d been stood up. There was a raised seating area that ran around the whole of the pub, with a wooden banister separating it from the bar and tall tables with stools.
Jessica put one hand on the rail and started walking around in a circle to see if she could see him.