Locked In (26 page)

‘Hi.’

‘Long day?’

‘Another body.’

‘You’re joking?’

‘I wish.’

They looked at each other and there was a short pause that Caroline broke. ‘Are we okay?’

‘Yeah, course we are.’

‘I was only trying to help. I wanted to cheer you up.’

‘I know.’

‘What did he do?’

‘Doesn’t matter, really.’

Jessica went and sat next to her friend on the sofa and hugged her. ‘Where’s Randy?’

They both giggled.

‘I told
Randall
I wanted to spend the evening in with you this evening.’

‘That’s nice.’

‘Is he still looking after you?’

‘Yeah, he’s a great guy. He was really upset the other morning. Neither of us knew what had happened with you and Ryan and you both had left. We were just there looking at each other. He felt bad his mate had upset you.’

‘It wasn’t his fault.’

Jessica moved slightly away from the embrace. ‘Wine?’

They both laughed again. ‘Of course.’

Jessica went to get a bottle from under the sink and some glasses. She felt a lot better. At some point the next day someone would call her with the results they were waiting on, then they would see what they could get from Shaun Hogan on Monday. She was expecting a busy week and was just pleased to have made up with her friend.

Back in the living room, she sat next to Caroline putting her feet up on the sofa and poured them each a glass of wine. ‘So is it getting serious with you two, then?’

‘Maybe,’ Caroline said with a smile. ‘He’s been talking about getting a new job. He’s had enough of working on the market now. He’s better than that anyway.’

Jessica weighed up what to say next. She knew what she wanted to ask. ‘Are you going to move in with him?’

It was an issue Jessica had been thinking about since she had first seen the two of them together. There was something in the way they looked at each other that had left the thought nestling in the back of her mind. Caroline looked directly at her friend. ‘It was always going to happen to one of us sometime.’

‘I know. Shame, we’ve had a good run.’

Jessica could see a tear in her friend’s eye. She was determined not to go herself after her recent sob fests. She put her arm around her friend. ‘What type of job is he looking for?’

‘Dunno really. He’s only worked on that stall, fixing shoes and other bits and bobs. He’s skilled though. Good with his hands.’ Jessica burst out laughing.

‘Not like that,’ Caroline clarified, giggling herself through a thin stream of tears. ‘Dirty mind. He’s only young, he’ll find something.’

‘So now you’re admitting he’s young?’ Caroline just smiled.

‘Cradle-snatcher,’ Jessica said with an even bigger grin.

‘Jealous.’

‘Nah, I’m pleased for you both.’

‘We had talked about looking for a place when he gets himself fixed up with a better job. It was his decision. I said I could afford it at first but he reckoned he couldn’t let me do that.’

‘You’re not going to move
away
away are you?’

‘Course not. You’re not gonna get rid of me that easily.’

‘Shame, I could get some good rent for that room.’

Jessica had never been a big fan of travelling by train. For one, she hated facing backwards while the train moved forwards; there was something inherently unnatural about it. She wasn’t even too keen on the sideways-facing seats. Why was it so hard, she thought, just to put the rows of seats in all facing the same way? They managed it on aeroplanes.

She was sitting next to DI Cole on their way to Leeds, facing backwards and feeling ever so slightly sick. Travelling in a car across the Pennines was a nuisance at the best of times but during the morning rush hour on a Monday it was at its peak. As much as she would never admit it to anyone, especially not DC Rowlands, Jessica rarely took her car on the motorway. She relied on it to get her a few miles to work and back and occasionally trusted it to complete a return journey to her parents’ house, though only on the minor roads. She definitely didn’t have faith in it to get her from one side of the country to the other though. The Force didn’t like paying out expenses on car journeys either so a trip on the train it was.

The scenery thundered past as the two detectives made small-talk. Neither of them seemed keen to speak about the case but DI Cole told Jessica about his Sunday out with his wife and kids. It felt like another world to Jessica but made her think of poor Kim Hogan and how she hadn’t had the opportunity of a proper upbringing.

Both she and DI Cole had seen the initial forensic test results. Claire’s neck wounds were almost identical to Yvonne Christensen and Martin Prince’s, while the instrument was again some type of steel wire or rope. With that and the way the flat was locked, they were as sure as they could be that the murders had all been carried out by the same person. Forensics had once again failed to find any trace of the killer. There were no fingerprints, no DNA, no blood and nothing under Claire Hogan’s nails. It also didn’t look as if she’d had sex the night she died. Either the murderer was very careful indeed, or he knew how to cover his tracks. The cash that had been left on the side had at least six different sets of fingerprints between the two notes and traces of cocaine. The labs were working on isolating anything that could be useable but Jessica wasn’t hopeful. Even if they did get something they could check, it would only rule people out unless they got a match on the National DNA Database.

At this point, Jessica would have been happy enough with someone to rule out.

She had seen Garry Ashford’s name on the front page of the Herald again that morning. The Press Office had put a release out on the Sunday when the initial results dropped and the other media outlets had the story anyway. She doubted they had spoken to the woman who lived above the victim though. In a good way for him, Garry was showing himself to be a bit of a pest. He was certainly persistent but she still wondered who his source was. There were plenty of possibilities. Someone on the Scene of Crime team, maybe? They were the only people who had actually been to every scene that she knew of but then somebody had told him about her interview room incident too.

The train steadily pulled into their destination but the two detectives remained sitting while they let all the commuters get off first. A wall of suits, smart shoes and briefcases hurried away from the train almost as one. When it was clear, the two stood up and made their own way out through the station, showing their tickets to the inspectors on the gate. They got a taxi but it was only a few miles to their destination.

HMP Leeds was a massive old Victorian building for B-class prisoners. The categorisation meant the authorities thought Shaun Hogan didn’t need to be kept with the most violent offenders but he wasn’t trusted enough to be in an open prison either. Jessica had read his file and knew the GBH he had been sent down for was something that happened all too frequently. It reminded her of Tom Carpenter but without the knife; two men fighting outside a bar after drinking too much on a Saturday night. Shaun Hogan had ended up head butting the victim, then kicking him in the head on the ground. He was lucky he hadn’t killed him. Even with his guilty plea, he had been sentenced to five years in prison but, given time on remand and apparent good behaviour, he would be out in a few months. He would have served just over half his sentence.

From the outside, the building appeared like a castle with its massive imposing cylindrical walls at the front. There was still an enormous, heavy set of wooden doors at the opening too, which all added to the structure’s intimidating appearance.

The taxi dropped them both off outside and they walked into the reception area. It was a smallish office off to right of the main front. They showed their credentials and were searched. The fact they were detectives meant they were given a lot more leeway than most but everyone had to go through the metal detectors and be patted down regardless of who they were.

The Governor himself had come down to meet them both. He was a strict-looking man in his late-forties or so with a short, tight haircut and fierce-looking eyes. He had a voice that, even with his Yorkshire accent, was a little too high-pitched and didn’t quite fit him. He introduced himself and shook both of their hands then said he was taking them to the visitors’ centre. He told them it wasn’t visiting hours yet, so it would just be the two of them plus Shaun Hogan and the guards in the room.

He walked them across the main yard, explaining that was where prisoners were first brought in, then took them through two sets of lockable doors before they emerged back outside into another yard. He told them about the facility itself and pointed them to the various wings as he did so, explaining where the old buildings ended and the new ones begun. It obviously wasn’t an inspection of any sort but the Governor clearly wanted to impress the two detectives. They crossed a second yard and went down a concrete walkway towards a separate building. He told them that it was him who had told Shaun the news about his mother on Saturday.

‘How did he take it?’ Jessica asked as they walked side-by-side.

‘Didn’t even react. Just nodded and asked if he could return to his cell.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Didn’t seem upset at all.’

‘How has he behaved since he’s been with you?’ DI Cole asked.

‘Exceptionally. Not been in trouble, he’s done any jobs assigned to him and, according to the tutors, worked hard in class too.’

‘Is that normal?’ Jessica asked.

‘Usually. You sometimes get the odd one but most people who want to cause trouble end up at Wakefield or one of the other Category A places.’

The Governor led them into a building that was clearly newer than a lot of the prison and up a flight of stairs before it opened out into a large visiting area. The room was enormous, with vending machines lining the sides interspersed with posters that had words like “Respect” and “Think” written in large letters across them. There were large banks of white strip lighting across the ceiling, while all the windows were high on the walls with metal bars across them. There were banks of grey and red plastic tables bolted to the floor, with two chairs on either side of each. Everything looked very tidy and Jessica wondered if it had been cleaned for their benefit.

They were led to one of the tables near the front, while the Governor nodded to the two guards who were standing next to a separate door at the front. One of them unclipped a radio from his belt and spoke into it while the Governor said his goodbyes and left through the door at the back they had come in through. DI Cole took out a notebook and pen and moments later they heard the door at the front being unlocked and a man entered with two more guards behind him.

Prisons would often have their own interview room setups similar to a police station’s but Shaun Hogan wasn’t a suspect for any crime and they were simply talking to him to hopefully gain some background on his mother. Because of that, speaking to him in a more informal environment such as the visiting room, as opposed to an interview room, could get him to open up a little more.

The prisoner was wearing a grey sweatshirt and slightly darker tracksuit bottoms. He had short almost shaven dark hair but no other particularly distinguishing features. Jessica knew from experience you could look at some people and know they had spent time inside. They would have things like tattoos or scars and sometimes even the way they walked made them stand out from the rest of society. Jessica saw none of those giveaway signs in Shaun Hogan as he was ushered to sit in front of the two detectives, while the four prison guards stood back by the door again. ‘Shaun Hogan?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘My name is Detective Sergeant Daniel and this is Detective Inspector Cole.’

‘Are you here about me mum?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m not sorry she’s gone y’know.’ The prisoner looked at Jessica, not in a threatening way but fixed enough to let her know he meant it.

‘Why’s that?’

‘Do you know she never once came to visit me in here?’

‘Is that why you’re not upset?’

Shaun ignored the question again but looked away from them towards the bank of windows high up the walls. ‘Have you spoken to Em?’

‘Your sister? Yes we have.’

‘She’s been a few times, y’know. Even talked about helping me when I get out.’

‘That’s nice.’

‘Yeah, it is. She’s done well since she got away. I guess she told you all about mum’s
job
.’

‘Yes.’

Jessica didn’t know what she expected to get from the conversation with Shaun that she hadn’t already heard from Emily and Kim, especially as he hadn’t seen his mother for over two years but she felt she had to keep prodding him. With a lack of other leads, he was at least someone who may have an insight. ‘Why did you move out here?’ she asked.

Shaun shook his head then rubbed his forehead with his hand. ‘I just wanted to get away. A few years ago mum had moved out of our house ’cos she had no money and set up in that flat. She was always drinking and there was no room anyway. Em was a bit older and moved out straight away. There wasn’t much there for me, so I went too. Some kid I knew from school that I still knocked about with reckoned there was some building work out here and it’s not like I had anything better to do.’

‘How old were you?’

‘Sixteen or so. I ended up bunking in this disused pub for a few months. We had a great time; the work was easy and we got paid cash. No one really said anything.’

‘Was that the last time you saw your mother?’

‘Nah, I went back a few times but she was still in that flat with Kim and she’d moved on from the drink...’

Jessica let his answer hang for a moment. ‘How did you end up in here?’

‘It was my own fault. I’d been to visit mum earlier in the day and we ended up arguing. I was doing okay then, actually, earning a bit of money and had my own place out here. It was nothing special but it was good enough for me. I’d said something about her having to sort herself out for Kim’s sake. I know Emily had been saying it too.’