The Killer Inside: A gripping serial killer thriller (Detective Jessica Daniel thriller series Book 1) (2 page)

I
t didn’t take long
to establish that every window in the house was also secured from the inside. There was no sign of forced entry, none of the locks had been damaged, nothing was broken and no obvious items had been stolen. There was still a flat-screen television on the wall and a laptop on a desk in the living room. That didn’t mean other things hadn’t been taken but, with a standard burglary, something like a laptop – light, mobile and worth a few quid – would have been one of the first things out the door. Yvonne Christensen’s mobile phone was on the nightstand next to the bed, as well. It wasn’t top-of-the-range, but some scrote somewhere would have paid a tenner for it.

Jessica left Cole, who said he was going to have to phone his wife to let her know he wouldn’t be home any time soon. She walked back to the Wilsons’ house, where she asked Rowlands to come outside.

‘Why did you dash off like that?’ he asked.

‘Mrs Wilson said she couldn’t let herself into the victim’s house. I remembered some keys hanging in the hallway, but the front door was locked because we had to smash it down. I figured that, if her friend down the road didn’t have a key, then how did whoever killed her get in? The back door and windows are all locked, too.’

‘So you reckon it was the husband, then?’

Jessica let out a long
hmmm
. ‘Maybe, but that doesn’t make much sense. We don’t know if he has a key any longer but, even if he does, if you were going to kill your partner, you wouldn’t make it obvious, would you? It’s not like it’s one of those old-fashioned doors that locks when you pull it shut; you have to secure it yourself. If you knew you were one of a few people with a way in and out, you’d hide the fact that was how you’d done it. You could fake a burglary – but it’s so clean in there.’

‘Could the victim have let someone in?’

‘Possibly, but how, and why, did they lock the door when they left? The victim’s key is in the hallway.’

‘Maybe whoever did it secured everything to get a few days’ head start? They’re off in the Bahamas.’

‘If they did, then it’s not the husband. I phoned him a minute ago and asked if we could come pick him up. I didn’t tell him his wife was dead. He’s definitely around; he gave me his address.’

She handed a piece of paper to Rowlands, then continued talking. ‘Can you take one of the liaison officers and tell the husband the news – then bring him to the station? Find out which university the son goes to, because someone’s going to have to tell him too. And we’re going to have to find out who has a key for that house.’

Rowlands disappeared off towards one of the marked cars as Jessica walked back to the victim’s house to ask Cole what he wanted to do next. He was ducking under the tape by the edge of the garden as she approached. ‘I was supposed to be taking the kids to the zoo today,’ he said.

‘I don’t know why criminals can’t stick to office hours,’ Jessica replied.

‘I’ve been saying that for years. If you’re going to commit a crime, can you at least have the decency to do it between nine and five, preferably Monday to Friday?’

Jessica gave a short laugh. ‘Dave’s off to pick up the husband. Have they found anything inside?’

‘I don’t think so.’

Forensic tests often gave them their best leads, but could sometimes throw up as many questions as answers.

‘It’ll be someone the victim knows,’ Cole added.

Jessica gave a small smile, but it wasn’t sincere. ‘Any estimated time for results?’

‘If we’re lucky, we might get a formal identification, plus a time and confirmed cause of death by Monday. I’ll phone the chief inspector so he knows what’s going on.’

Jessica nodded. Wait for the autopsy, wait for the SOCO team to report. Door-to-doors. The usual. ‘Back to the station?’

‘Not much more we can do here. Let’s hope someone saw something.’

Jessica turned to look towards the Wilsons’ house. There had been lots of curtains twitching earlier, but she doubted anyone had been watching when it might have been of some use.

T
he journey
to the Longsight station wasn’t a long one in theory, but the traffic had started to back up on the main roads as people woke up and realised that, for once, the sun was shining. Sunny days in the north of England seemed to bring out two types of people: those who hopped in the car and raced to the coast – and those who went to the pub.

When Jessica eventually emerged out of the traffic, she parked at the station. It had been renovated recently, and its sandy brick colour on the outside was now visible, unlike a lot of the local stations where the dirt had long since taken hold. It was two floors high, but also had a basement that housed the incident room, as well as a separate area for the cells. Many officers also worked down there who didn’t have set desks. The top floor was where the chief inspector’s office was, along with a lot of storage and some other administration areas.

Jessica walked through the station to the canteen. It didn’t have the greatest choice at the best of times, but there was never any hot food available on a Saturday, so she crouched in front of a vending machine before settling for the sandwich that seemed to have the least curled-up corners.

Cole was already setting up the recording equipment in one of the two interview rooms. Eric Christensen wouldn’t be under arrest, but he would be cautioned and interviewed.

Jessica swallowed a mouthful of sandwich. ‘We must be the only organisation in the world keeping the manufacturers of cassette tapes in business.’

Cole jammed the final tape in the machine and looked around at her. ‘I know! We’re supposed to be getting video cameras rolled out.’ He pointed up to the empty corner of the room, where there most definitely was
not
a video camera.

Jessica nodded at the tape device. ‘I can get a better quality recording on my phone than on this thing.’

There was a knock at the door. Rowlands entered, with two men following a little behind. Jessica recognised one as a duty solicitor, meaning the other had to be Eric Christensen. He was tall and blonde, casually dressed in a pair of jeans and loose-fitting shirt. He didn’t seem particularly upset, considering he had just heard of his wife’s death, but then it was hard to tell for sure.

Cole gave Eric Christensen the standard caution and the rest of the interview went pretty much as Jessica had anticipated. Christensen said he was shocked by his wife’s death and insisted he would never have meant her any ill will. Their divorce was going to be a formality. They had separated five months ago, after having simply drifted apart over the years. Now that James had gone to university, they no longer saw the need to stay together for his sake. There had been nothing spiteful about their separation.

Christensen was seeing someone new, who lived in Bolton. He said he had been out with her on Tuesday night, playing snooker with friends on Wednesday, in with his partner on the Thursday, and then out again the previous night. He said he didn’t have a door key to his old house and, as far as he was aware, Yvonne and James were the only people who did.

James Christensen was at Bournemouth University. It was a nine- or ten-hour round trip from Manchester and his father reckoned he had gone that far to get away from them, explaining that James had fallen in with the wrong crowd a few years before, when Eric and Yvonne had been arguing all the time.

He asked if he could be the one to tell his son about Yvonne’s death. Jessica told him that was fine – but explained that an officer from the local area was going to need to speak to James as well, if only to make sure he still had his door key.

When the room was empty except for the two officers, Cole looked to her and raised his eyebrows. ‘What do you reckon?’

‘His alibi will check out. He was too specific for it not to.’

‘I know. The son seems unlikely, too. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find that he took out a huge life insurance policy in her name last week?’ Cole winked at her. ‘Nice juicy motive.’

‘He didn’t give us much else to go on, did he?’ said Jessica.

Cole was already starting to tidy up the room. ‘Are you heading home?’ he asked. ‘I wouldn’t have called you in if we weren’t short. Add it to time owing.’

Jessica gave him the sideways glance.
Time owing
? She was never going to get that back.

‘Is there anything else you want me to do?’ she asked.

‘No, I’ll call the higher-ups then get off myself. We’ve got officers going door to door and we’re not going to get any results from the labs through until Monday at the earliest. There’s not much more we can do.’

Jessica said goodbye to the desk sergeant and asked him to call her mobile if anything interesting happened. And by ‘interesting’, she meant aliens invading. Anything less than that was not a reason to disturb her Sunday off.

Her phone started to ring as she headed out of the station on her own. She figured it was the desk sergeant having a laugh.

There was no name displayed, only a mobile number she didn’t recognise. She jabbed at the screen to answer. ‘Hello?’

The man’s voice on the other end was slightly shaky. ‘Is that Detective Sergeant Jessica Daniel?’

‘Yes, who’s this?’

The person paused for a moment. ‘I’m calling to ask about the dead body you found this morning.’

G
arry Ashford had already drunk
a third of his pint when his friend Mark slid into the booth, plonking a full glass of beer on the table between them. They were friends largely because they lived close to each other. The pub was only two minutes’ walk from Garry’s flat and usually full of locals. Because it was away from the main street, the tourists didn’t really see it, though most would have opted for a significantly posher bar anyway. It was a mile or so away from the student district and whenever he went for a drink, Garry was convinced he was the youngest person there.

‘You all right, mate?’ Mark asked.

‘Not too bad, work and that.’ Garry’s tone gave his actual mood away.

Mark had picked up his drink but put it back down to avoid spilling it as he laughed. ‘Blimey, it can’t be that bad?’

‘Bad week. You remember that reality TV girl who slept with that guy? The presenter bloke? It was all over the news.’

Mark looked blankly at him and shook his head. ‘That could be anyone.’

Garry shook his head. ‘Anyway, I went to interview her. She had a book she was supposed to be promoting but she talked in one- and two-word answers. If that’s how she spoke then God knows how bad the writing was. Aside from her own fingernails, she wasn’t interested in anything. After fifteen minutes of not answering questions, she was whisked off to some other appointment by her PA.’

‘Good looker?’

Garry smiled. ‘Orange.’

‘You’re too picky.’

‘It’s not like we were out together; I was asking her questions about her new dog.’

Mark finished another mouthful of his drink then laughed again. ‘Get a better job.’

‘You don’t know the half of it,’ Garry continued. ‘Most of the time I get stuck talking to councillors. They could send a caffeine addict to sleep. I’ve worked at the
Manchester Morning Herald
for eighteen months now, and how many front-page stories do you reckon I’ve had in that time?’

‘No idea. I don’t look at papers. Twenty?’

‘Two – and both of them were about how often people’s bins get emptied.’

‘Big-time!’

It was Garry’s turn to laugh. ‘It’s mad out there. People will put up with most things: gangs on the streets, pot holes in their roads, rising crime rates, you name it. But stop emptying their bins every week and it all kicks off.’

‘My dad was moaning about his bins the other week.’

Garry flailed his arms around and banged his pint on the table as if to emphasise the point. ‘See what I mean? These are the people I’m out talking to every day.’

‘What’s your worst encounter, then?’

After a drink to calm himself, Garry responded. ‘You remember how freezing it was last winter with all the snow and everything? On the coldest day for six years, I got sent out onto the streets to ask people their views on local government reform.’

Mark spat half a mouthful of beer back into his glass.

‘That’s not even the worst bit,’ Garry continued. ‘Most people told me to eff off or whatever, or ignored me. It was about eleven in the morning and there were these kids who I’m sure should have been in school. They were about thirteen or something. Anyway, they were standing across the street shouting “kiddy-fiddler” and “paedo” at me.’

‘What did you say back?’

‘Nothing. I mean, what kind of funny comeback is there to that?’

‘Good point.’ Mark seemed to be in a perpetual state of laughter. ‘Why don’t you quit and look for something else?’

‘There’s not much out there,’ Garry replied. ‘Besides, I keep telling myself it’s going to get better. I don’t want to end up having to move back in with my mum and dad.’

‘If your mum’s anything like mine, at least you’d get your washing done for free.’

‘That’s one thing, I guess.’

‘You know what you need? A girlfriend or a big story – or both.’ Mark stood up after downing the rest of his drink and shook his glass. ‘You want another?’

‘Yeah, go on. Same as usual.’

Mark headed off to the bar and Garry slumped back into the seat, thinking about his parents. He came from a small town not far from Ipswich, the kind of place that was great to live as a kid. All his mates had lived within a few minutes of his house, and there had been loads of wide-open spaces to kick a ball around and to hang about in, getting into trouble. But it was also the type of area that became decidedly duller as you got older.

Garry had escaped to study journalism at Liverpool. He’d made a few good mates, who he was still in contact with, and had got a decent degree at the end of it all. He’d even had an on-off girlfriend for a few months, although the “off” part had definitely been her choice.

Near the end of his course, he’d responded to an advert to become a junior reporter on the
Herald
and, miraculously, hadn’t messed up the interview. After eighteen months, though, he was gradually coming to the conclusion he had made a huge mistake.

Garry looked over to see Mark still standing in line at the bar, and then heard his phone ringing. The number wasn’t one with which he was familiar, but he answered anyway.

It only took a short conversation for him to realise he might have a non-bin-related front page on the way.