Vigilante (25 page)

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?’

THIRTY

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 whoever 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 pretended 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.

The pub was as empty as she could have wished. Aside from a couple of people serving at the bar and a few customers watching football on the other side, there wasn’t anyone else present. It was the type of place that had been done up nicely around a decade ago but hadn’t had anything renovated since. A thin layer of dust came off on her hands from the rail as she continued walking and she wiped it on her trousers until she finally saw Dennis sitting in a booth at the very back of the pub. He was cradling a pint of bitter and stood as he spotted her.

Jessica walked up the three steps to the raised area and slid herself into the booth opposite him. He followed her lead and sat back down. She had only ever seen him before in the standard uniform of heavy boots, dark trousers and a navy-blue jumper but he definitely must have thought she’d consented to some sort of date given the way he was dressed. As he sat down, the lights caught his black shoes which were either brand new or had been recently shined. He was wearing dark suit-type trousers with a light blue shirt, with the top few buttons undone.

Jessica felt slightly sick at the amount of wiry greying chest hair that was poking out of the top. She tried not to look but the way the hairs spiralled was almost hypnotic. ‘I’ve got to be quick, Dennis,’ Jessica said. ‘I’ve got quite a lot on at the moment so only have a few minutes.’

‘Are you sure you don’t want a drink?’

‘Sorry, I’m driving. I never drink on duty anyway.’

It was a little white lie. She didn’t drink when she was driving but pretty much every officer she had ever met wasn’t averse to a quiet drink, even if their shift wasn’t quite over. Dennis’ face fell slightly and his scar seemed ever more prominent, illuminated by the small spotlights overhead. It really did run the entire length of his face from his mouth to the bottom part of his ear. She almost wanted to ask where he got it but the idea of getting into a full conversation wasn’t too appealing.

‘Are you sure you don’t fancy a soft drink?’ he asked.

‘Sorry, I’m really in a rush. You said you had some news about the photo?’

Dennis dug into his trouser pocket and took out the newspaper clipping she had given him. Jessica could see instantly it was slightly torn and a lot grubbier than when she had handed it over. He put the photo on the table between them and pushed it towards her. ‘Who is this guy anyway?’

Jessica had known it was a gamble to pass on a photo from a newspaper because it would indicate it was of someone semi-important. Aside from printing out something from the force’s website where Farraday would have been in uniform, she had no other option. She didn’t know if either Dennis or someone else he showed it to would have recognised the image as being of her boss – he was involved in TV appeals – but, at the same time, if you didn’t know what you were looking for, he was just another face.

‘I can’t really tell you that, Dennis.’

The man shuffled in his seat. ‘I thought he looked familiar but didn’t recognise him directly. I showed him to a couple of the other office guys but they had no idea. One of the late girls reckons he was definitely a regular visitor a few months back.’

From being sceptical about why he had asked to meet, Jessica was suddenly hanging on Dennis’ every word. ‘What do you mean by “late girls”?’

‘Oh, right. Nothing really, just that she does the late shift which is why I don’t always see her. I waited around especially though because you asked me…’

He was waiting for a compliment but Jessica was feeling too impatient to indulge him. ‘What did she say?’

‘She used to work on days up until about three or four months back. Everyone’s shifts got bumped around and I moved from earlies to days and she moved from days to nights. But she reckoned, when she was on days, he was a regular visitor. She said he looked a bit different, like he had a beard or something, but that he used to come all the time.’

‘Why haven’t you seen him then?’

‘She reckons he just stopped suddenly. He went from visiting a couple of times a week to not coming at all. Not long after that we all swapped shifts which is why I didn’t know him.’

‘Doesn’t everyone have to sign in with ID when they come to the prison?’

‘Yeah, if you don’t have your driving licence or whatever, you’re not allowed through reception.’

‘Did you ask her if she remembered the name?’

‘Funny you should say that. I never remember anyone but, as soon as she saw the picture, she knew exactly who it was.’

Jessica could feel her heart pounding in her chest, knowing all the paranoia she had shown was about to be proved correct, that all the sleepless nights weren’t in vain. ‘What was his name?’