Vigilante (11 page)

‘I guess…How long has that been going on?’

‘Maybe three years, perhaps a little less. What did you find?’

Jessica explained about the holiday photos, new car and electronic goods. Cole said he would update Farraday because they would have to apply for a warrant to search the house. It seemed likely there would be cash somewhere but whether it would be kept on the property or in some other location only Lee Morgan knew about was difficult to judge. In some ways Jessica hoped they didn’t find anything. She doubted Carla was complicit in whatever her husband had been involved in, even if she had perhaps turned a blind eye and not asked some of the questions she should have. But it seemed overly harsh to not only have her husband taken from her but also his reputation and possibly any financial security she could hope to have.

She hung up and called Adam. He told her they were yet to find much from the prison officer’s body. ‘The Scene of Crime officers didn’t bring in anything specific and so far we haven’t found anything either. I know they’ve been looking for footprints around the area it all happened in but I haven’t heard anything.’

Jessica assured him they were still on for meeting on Sunday, assuming things didn’t get too busy for her, and then ended the call. She took special care not to refer to it as a ‘date’.

Even if the forensic squad didn’t find any specific link to Donald McKenna, it wouldn’t mean the killing of the officer wasn’t linked to the first three. For one, the obvious connection to the prison was there but so was the similarity in the stab wounds.

Jessica checked the clock on her phone and didn’t figure it was worth going back to the station. She had already passed on the information she had to Jack and had again worked comfortably more hours that week than she was required to. She tuned the radio into the local news station. She rarely listened to it, usually preferring a frequency that played rock music. Given Farraday had told her a few hours ago he was going to bring the media in, she felt she should tune in to find out what was being reported.

The station had regular half-hourly updates and Jessica had to listen to an infuriating phone-in show before they finally got to the part she was waiting for. The newsreader’s first words were, ‘Is there a vigilante on the loose?’ with dramatic music in the background. It was sensationalist but the names of Craig Millar, Ben Webb and Des Hughes were all mentioned prominently, which was good. The presenter then gave out a phone number for listeners to call in with information.

But the next few lines were what stood out to Jessica. The reader then mentioned the name ‘Lee Morgan’ and added that, ‘a senior police source told us the officer could have links to corruption within the prison’.

It was clear Farraday believed Lee Morgan had taken back-handers but, having just met the man’s window, Jessica was fuming the woman’s husband been outed with no concrete evidence. If she needed any further proof as to who the ‘senior source’ was, she got it the next morning. She didn’t often buy the
Manchester Morning Herald
but got up early and went to the local shop. She read through their pages at home, half-watching the television news.

The paper’s front-page headline was simply ‘VIGILANTE’. She didn’t recognise the byline on the piece but even she had to admit it was well-written if the aim was to sell papers. On pages two and three, they had a profile of the three victims, pointing out in as many words that the streets were safer without them on it. On four and five they laid out in pretty gory detail what had actually happened to the trio and included the force’s appeal for information.

It was page six that concerned Jessica. The headline was: ‘AS BENT AS A PAPER CLIP’, then underneath, ‘IS DEAD WARDEN VICTIM NO.4?’. The chief inspector wasn’t named – instead that elusive ‘senior source’ was quoted – but the exact choice of words left no doubts who it was that had leaked the information.

From listening to the television news and checking a few websites, Jessica could see the story of the prison officer’s death was inconsistent between the organisations. Some made the link to the first three bodies, some didn’t. It seemed clear to Jessica her boss had given off-the-record briefings to certain journalists in order to muddy the water. If the police found nothing to incriminate Lee Morgan, it didn’t matter too much because the damage had already been done to the man’s reputation. The DCI could point out he had said nothing formal for the media to quote and the organisations themselves were off the hook because you can’t libel the dead.

Jessica felt it was a very sly move that, although making the force look competent and gaining attention for their appeal, would cause maximum harm to Carla, not to mention Craig Millar’s mother. It was all right for the chief inspector to play games from his office but she was the one who had to go out and look the victims’ families in the eye.

Still angry, she first called Cole, making sure she kept her temper in check. She told him that, given the media attention, she was going to return to visit Denise Millar to make sure she was all right and asked if he could pass that on at the station if anyone asked after her. He told her that was fine but said she should try not to take too long. The press office had already phoned him at home because the national media had picked up on the local story and they wanted everyone at the station to deal with the attention.

She hung up and made another call but it wasn’t to the parent of the first murder victim as she had claimed. Instead, she phoned someone she hadn’t spoken to in over a year. After a quick one-sided conversation, she got in her car and drove to the centre of the city, picking up a passenger and then driving back out again and parking in a quiet area at the back of a supermarket car park.

Jessica figured it was best not being seen openly talking to the person she had phoned. She put the handbrake on and switched off the engine, turning to the man sitting next to her. ‘So, Garry,’ she said. ‘How about I tell you what’s really going on?’

THIRTEEN

Garry Ashford shuffled nervously in the passenger seat of Jessica’s car. ‘Hang on a minute, let me get a pen out,’ he said.

He lifted himself up, bumping his head on the ceiling of the vehicle with a muffled clang. He rubbed his skull and fumbled in his trouser pockets before rifling through the ones in his jacket. It was a struggle given the lack of space. Jessica avoided his swinging elbow and intervened.

‘Y’know, Garry, for a clandestine meeting in the middle of nowhere, you’re doing a pretty shoddy job and I’ve not even started telling you what we’re here for yet.’

‘Sorry, you didn’t give me much notice. I was still in bed.’ The man’s straggly black hair had grown since the last time Jessica had seen him and was now a little below his shoulders. He was still pasty and scrawny with a questionable taste in clothes. The journalist was wearing brown cord trousers with a navy-blue jacket that looked like it was made of velvet. Jessica had the urge to touch it but held off.

When she had first called him that morning, she had been pretty angry. Given his outfit and the fact he was a journalist who didn’t even have anything to write with, that fury had evaporated into comical disbelief. ‘Do you want to borrow a pen?’ Jessica reached into the storage area on the inside of the driver’s door and pulled out a blue biro, holding it out towards her passenger.

‘Yeah, that’d be good, thanks.’

‘You do have a pad, don’t you?’

‘Yep, got that.’

Garry took the pen from her and pulled out a notepad from the plastic carrier bag he had brought with him. He tried scribbling with the pen on the front of the notebook, pressing harder and then handing it back to her. ‘Er, this one doesn’t work.’

‘Oh for f— look, do you reckon you can just remember what I tell you?’

‘Yes, sorry. Thanks for your call—’

Jessica cut him off. ‘Did you go to the press briefing yesterday with all the vigilante stuff?’

‘No. We’ve got this new senior crime reporter guy on the
Herald
. I think he’s some relation of the editor. He was only brought in a few months ago but he always gets sent to things like that now.’

‘What do you do?’

‘Well, since last year, I wasn’t able to get many crime beat stories—’

Jessica cut him off again. ‘How is Dave Rowlands?’

Garry paused for a moment. ‘Who?’

‘I know you went to university together. I checked.’

‘The name doesn’t ring a bell.’

Jessica let it go. ‘Okay, so you were struggling with crime stories. What are you working on now?’

‘Local government correspondent.’

Jessica didn’t mean to but burst out laughing. ‘Oh God…’

‘Yeah, I know. It wasn’t my choice.’

‘It sounds awful.’

‘You don’t know the half of it. The reason I was still in bed this morning is that I was at the council chambers until half past eleven last night for some budget vote.’

‘You must have
really
annoyed someone?’

‘After last year, the stories started to dry up. One of the older guys retired and they moved me over. I get a bit more money but it’s not really worth it.’

Rain started to hammer down on the windscreen and Garry jumped slightly. Jessica thought for a moment about turning on the heater in the car but decided against it. For one, it would take the best part of ten minutes to warm up in any case but she also didn’t trust the battery to start the car again if she tried to use anything without the engine on. ‘You know I shouldn’t really be talking to you so no names, okay?’

‘Of course.’

‘The story you’ve all got this morning is only half of what’s actually going on. The vigilante stuff, that might be true, we don’t really know yet. The corrupt prison officer, that might also be true but again we just don’t know.’

Garry nodded along as she spoke. He had clearly read or seen the news that morning and knew what she was talking about. ‘What you’ve not been told is that we have DNA matches for the first three victims.’

‘You know who did it?’

‘Maybe…Sort of…Well, not really.’ Garry had a puzzled look on his face and was clearly annoyed at himself for not bringing a pen. He still had the notepad on his lap and was running his fingers along the side as Jessica continued speaking. ‘The labs have tested and re-tested the samples and each time it comes back as a match for someone who is already in prison.’

‘Oh…What, like
prison
prison?’

‘What other types of prison are there?’

‘Er, I don’t know.’

Jessica rolled her eyes. ‘Yes,
prison
prison. You know that giant great bloody building at Strangeways.’

‘Yeah, sorry. Well, what do you think?’

‘Honestly? I don’t know. We’ve been to Strangeways and spoken to the people there. The prison guard that was killed was the head warden on the person’s wing.’

‘Blimey. Is that why you think he was corrupt?’

‘We don’t know. Perhaps – but the point is all the coverage this morning, it’s just not fair. Four people are dead and that’s been lost with all this stuff about them somehow deserving it.’

‘Do
you
think they deserved it?’

Jessica had been gazing at the windscreen, watching the water run down the outside of the glass, but stopped and looked directly at the person sitting next to her, waiting for him to meet her eyes. ‘It doesn’t matter what I think.’

Garry nodded as Jessica looked away again, continuing to speak. ‘Craig Millar, the first victim, his mother’s terrific and he’s got a younger brother. Not only have they lost a son and brother but now they’ve got all you lot calling him a shit on the front page. The guard has a wife, Carla. Her husband’s body hasn’t even been released back to her to be buried yet and you are all saying he was bent. It’s not right.’

The two of them didn’t say anything for a few moments, the only noise the echo of the rain falling on the car’s roof and windscreen. Garry broke the silence. ‘Why did you call me?’

‘Because you’re the only reporter I think I can actually trust. I want you to talk to Craig Millar’s mother and ask her about her son. Write something to say these victims
are
victims.’

‘It’s not my department any longer and, even if it was, I don’t know if my editor would print it. I’m not sure I should really be taking orders from the police either…’

‘Fair enough. Look, I’m not trying to tell you what you should and shouldn’t do but you do at least know what’s going on now.’

‘Can you tell me the prisoner’s name?’

‘He’s not been charged with anything so I don’t think it’s a good idea.’

‘Is he going to be?’

‘I don’t know. I doubt it. If you were on a jury would you find someone locked in a prison cell guilty of a crime on the outside?’

‘Good point. So what are you working on now?’

‘Blind hope that someone somewhere will call that number in your paper today and fill the gaps in for us. Craig Millar was walking home with two brothers that night but we’ve ruled them out. We found some drugs when we raided one of their houses. He’s been charged but they’re terrified they could be next. After them, aside from our guy, we don’t really have much. If we can find another link from him to the victims then we could have something to work on. I think the guard could have been that link and maybe that’s why he was killed but I guess we’ll never know.’

Jessica had told Garry everything she had planned to. The journalist said he would try to speak to the first victim’s mother but that there wasn’t much he could do with the prison information at that time. ‘If you’ve not released it and I don’t have anything else to go on, my editor’s going to think I’m crazy if I go in talking about a prisoner being the prime suspect,’ he said.

Although she realised he was right, Jessica didn’t know what she was hoping to achieve but it was some sort of rebellion against the media campaign her superior had apparently started the previous day. She drove the reporter back to the city centre and dropped him off around the corner from his office.

Over a year ago she had told him not to call her for quotes for his stories any longer but let him know she was lifting the ban. ‘You’ve got my number. Just be discreet if you call, okay?’

Jessica hated driving in the middle of the city on a weekday but the fact it was wet made things even worse. Workers with hoods up and umbrellas being blown from side to side crossed the road with barely a look and the blowers in her car weren’t good enough to keep the windscreen clear. She found herself constantly leaning forwards to wipe steam away from the window and it took her nearly forty minutes to make what should have been a fifteen-minute drive back to the station.

As soon as she turned onto the road the station was on she saw the rows of vans with satellite dishes on top lined up, meaning the rolling news stations were there. She pulled into the station and, although she had seen worse media scrums at the entrance, there were a few reporters being shielded under umbrellas doing pieces to camera.

She parked and dashed across the car park through the station’s front doors. The television that sat in the reception area was usually turned off but was currently tuned into one of the news channels. Across the bottom of the screen were the words: ‘Vigilante: good or bad?’. There seemed to be some sort of debate going on between the host and a couple of guests about whether or not it was ever acceptable to take the law into your own hands. To Jessica it wasn’t that much different from the trashy talk shows she pretended she didn’t watch – except for the fact this was actually masquerading as something high-brow.

The whole of the entrance was wet where people had walked in dripping from the rain. There was a yellow plastic triangle sign on the ground saying ‘caution wet floor’. Considering it was back by the desk, Jessica thought it was probably redundant as you would only have seen it after you had already walked through the puddles. The thought ran through her mind that she could fake a slip and make some spurious no-win no-fee claim about the sign not being in the right place. The few thousand pounds she would hope for could at least tide her over while someone else sorted out this mess.

Dismissing the idea, she nodded to the desk sergeant and made her way through to the main floor, looking for Rowlands. He wasn’t at his desk but DC Jones was sitting at hers. Jessica walked over and sat on the corner of the desk. ‘Have you seen Dave?’

‘I think he’s in the canteen.’

Jessica went to stand up but the constable continued speaking. ‘Hey, is it true you’re off out with some guy from Bradford Park?’

‘I really don’t know how these things get around.’

Jessica had inadvertently given a half-smile though, which her friend had clearly noticed. ‘I hope it goes all right. Are you gonna text me afterwards?’

‘I’ll think about it.’

Jessica walked out of the room, back towards reception and then along the corridor to the canteen.

She saw Rowlands eating at one of the tables opposite one of the female uniformed officers. She sat next to the woman and coughed, making eye contact with the constable, who took the hint. ‘Give us a minute, yeah?’ he said to the officer opposite him. The other female stood up and moved to sit a few tables away.

‘It’s not what you think,’ Rowlands said.

‘Whatever. Look, Dave, let’s just say that hypothetically you had been talking to a certain journalist last year that you shouldn’t have been. Let’s say that I had put a stop to it even though neither you nor that fictional journalist reckoned you had any knowledge of each other. Well, let’s now say that the ban that was in effect has now been lifted.’

Rowlands put down the fork and looked at her. ‘I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about but, let’s say that I did, is there a particular reason why you have changed your mind?’

‘That doesn’t matter but you should definitely choose what you talk about a little more selectively than last time.’

Rowlands nodded, picking his fork up again and scooping another mouthful.

‘You should be careful eating in here,’ Jessica added. ‘Jason reckons he was once out of action for a week after a dodgy lasagne from this place.’

Rowlands patted his stomach. ‘Yeah, but he doesn’t have my abs. Body’s a temple and all that.’

‘Maybe one of those temples that got bombed during the Blitz. What have they got you working on?’

‘After the briefing this morning, they put most of us doing shifts on the phones for people calling in. The chief inspector has made us take staggered breaks so we have enough people working. I was on for two hours this morning.’

‘Get anything useful?’

‘Mainly just people calling in to say we should give the vigilante a job, rather than try to stop him.’

Jessica sighed. ‘Typical.’

‘There was one woman who asked if we could send whoever the vigilante is round her way to take care of some neighbour causing her problems.’

‘Next thing you know we’re going to have people dressing up as superheroes and patrolling the streets.’

‘As long as it’s one of those girls with the big boots and low-cut tops I’m all for it.’

Jessica shook her head and stood up. ‘Do you know if the DCI is upstairs?’

‘Dunno. He was pretty hyper at the briefing. I’ve never seen him like that. He was bloody smiling.’

‘Christ, the end of the world must really be nigh.’

Jessica left the canteen and went up to Farraday’s office. She could see he was inside through the windows but he was on the phone and held his hand up to indicate she should wait. After a few minutes, he put the receiver down and waved her in. ‘Daniel. How was your morning out?’

‘Okay, Sir. I just thought I should double-check a few things.’

Her superior nodded. ‘Good thinking. I take it you saw all the coverage this morning?’

‘Yes, Sir. It was pretty hard to miss.’

He grinned unnervingly at her. She had seen him laugh and smile before but it didn’t happen often and was particularly out of place considering they had a serious investigation going on. ‘We’ve got a warrant for the bent warden’s house and will be going in shortly. Cole is with that team. I spoke to the labs this morning but they’ve not come up with anything from the body.’