DS Jessica Daniel series: Locked In/Vigilante/The Woman in Black - Books 1-3 (55 page)

‘Are you both all right to talk?’ Jessica asked. The two parents nodded. They were both somewhere in their early forties but the grief seemed to have aged them, each sporting puffy,
swollen eyes. ‘Do you know if your son was out with anyone last night?’

Arthur and Jackie looked at each other but it was Jackie who answered. ‘We never knew really. He struggled to find a job and seemed to spend all his time out drinking. We knew some of his
friends’ faces but not names. They weren’t the same mates he had back at school.’

‘Do you have any other children?’

‘No, just Rob. That’s why it was so hard when he started getting into trouble . . .’ Jackie tailed off into tears and Carrie picked up a box of tissues from a coffee table in
the centre of the room and went to sit next to her. Arthur was sitting on the other side and put a hand on his wife’s shoulder as she blew her nose.

He picked up the conversation. ‘I know you’ve probably seen the trouble he’s been in but he really is a good kid. It’s just hard around here with the gangs and so on. He
gets easily drawn into things and then he’s the one who gets left behind when his mates make a run for it. He’s always been like that. We thought that when he left school he would get a
job somewhere and sort himself out but there’s nothing about. If anything it made it worse because he started drinking. Some of the older lads around here would buy those big bottles of cider
and stuff like that. We’d given him the odd glass of wine, like you do, but he wasn’t used to it all.’

Jessica nodded along as the man spoke. The story wasn’t entirely dissimilar to the tale Craig Millar’s mother had told her, albeit Robert sounded like much more of a follower than a
leader.

Arthur Graves continued. ‘We tried to get him to stop but what can you do? He’s eighteen years old, it’s not as if you can ground him. He’s bigger than both of us anyway.
We’ve been looking to move into a better area for a while but we can’t afford somewhere else without selling this one. We’ve done our best to get everything tidy but potential
buyers turn up and see the state of the area and aren’t interested. You can’t blame them, I guess.’

Jessica didn’t know what to say. Robert Graves was no angel but he wasn’t a tearaway with an axe to grind against the world because he had a traumatic family life. His parents
clearly cared about him.

‘Do you know any of the people he regularly hung around with or if he was in a gang? Did he ever bring people over?’

Arthur shook his head. ‘I wish I could tell you. I know we should have paid more attention but I don’t know. After he took the car, we didn’t want to know.’

Jessica had already read about the incident in general but figured she might as well hear it from them. ‘What happened exactly?’

Jackie gave another light sob and took a tissue from Carrie. Arthur looked at her and started rubbing her back gently before speaking again. ‘We still don’t really know. It was
stupid because he’s never been interested in driving. Most kids get their provisional licence when they’re seven teen and can’t wait to start learning. We’d pushed him into
getting his first licence because we thought it could help him get a job but he was never really interested in driving itself. Then one day, it was about three in the morning and I woke up because
I thought I heard the car starting. I went to the window and saw it disappearing off down the road without the lights on. The engine was roaring and it sounded like it was in the wrong gear. Jackie
called the police while I ran out of the house to see if I could find out where it had gone.’

‘Where was it?’

‘It had only gone around the corner at the bottom of the road and then crashed into a hedge. I got there as the police were arriving with their lights going and there was Rob in the
driver’s seat with some other kid I didn’t know next to him. They arrested him on the spot.’ He looked at his wife then back at Jessica. ‘They came by the house and asked if
we had given him permission to drive the car. Obviously you don’t want to lie to the police but . . .’

Jackie started speaking over her husband. ‘I told them the car was registered to me and that I
hadn’t
given him permission to take it. I thought the shock might sort him out
but he didn’t speak to me for three months.’

Arthur nodded sadly. ‘He wouldn’t even let his mum go with him to the court. He got a fine but it was added on to the amount he already owes. He doesn’t have any money so
we’ve been paying the fiver a week for him.’

Jessica breathed out heavily but tried not to make it sound too much like a sigh. ‘Do you know of anyone who might wish to harm your son?’

‘I’m sorry, we hardly know anything,’ Arthur said. ‘If you want to go through his room or anything like that then there might be something but he was out all the time and
only slept there. We stayed up last night waiting for him to come in. We were going to phone you to report him missing but I know it’s got to be twenty-four hours or something like that and
it wouldn’t have been the first time he didn’t come home all night. Even when I heard the knocking on the door in the early hours of this morning, I thought it was because he’d
lost his keys but then it was one of you.’

At that point, Arthur started crying too. Jessica knew there wasn’t too much more she could hope to get from Robert’s parents. Someone would be sent to search their son’s
possessions, while the labs already had his mobile phone and could check that for any recent contacts. She offered her thanks for them talking to her and gave them her card.

Arthur led her and Carrie back to the front door. They were about to walk out when he lowered his tone to ensure there was no way he could be heard by anyone other than the two officers.
‘Do you think he was killed by the vigilante? I know he’d been in trouble . . .’

They exchanged a look and Jessica answered. ‘I’m afraid we don’t know that yet, Mr Graves.’ The man nodded, trying to hold back more tears.

As they left, Jessica handed the car keys to her junior. ‘You drive. I’m not in the mood.’

The journey back to the station was fairly sombre. Both of them had clearly been touched by the interview. Carrie did try to lift the mood while they waited at traffic lights. ‘How did you
go last night?’

Jessica had almost forgotten about her evening with Adam given everything that had happened since. ‘It was good.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Adam. But don’t tell anyone.’

‘You know I won’t. Is it true he works in the labs?’

‘Yes. He was a bit shy at first but quite fun when you get to know him. How’s your bloke?’

‘He’s all right too. We’re still keeping it low-key for now.’

Jessica wasn’t in the mood for a talk about relationships and was saved by her phone ringing. It was Adam and she hoped he wasn’t calling to talk about the previous night.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi, Jessica, it’s Adam.’

‘I know. Are you okay?’

‘Yes, look, someone will be calling your station soon anyway but I thought I’d let you know first. I take it you know about the body from last night, Robert Graves?’

‘Have you confirmed for sure it’s him?’

‘Yes, but that’s not why I’m calling – we’ve found something else on the body.’

Jessica felt a tingle down her spine. ‘What?’

‘We’ve got a fingerprint.’

Jessica could barely get her words out quickly enough. She could feel her heart racing. ‘Whose is it?’

‘We don’t know yet. It’s not a full print, so we’re having to do some work with it. There’s a specialist who works freelance who’s on his way in now. If it
belongs to someone on file, we should be able to match it this afternoon.’

‘Have you got anything else?’

‘Bits, it’s hard though. There’s lots of blood but we haven’t found anything that doesn’t belong to the victim at the moment.’

‘That’s brilliant. Will you call me if you get anything else?’

‘If I can.’

Jessica hung up. Things had suddenly become interesting. She still didn’t know if Robert Graves was connected to the other victims but they might finally be able to build a case if the
fingerprint came back as Donald McKenna’s.

When they arrived back at the station, things were still frantic. With the e-fit being shown on every news bulletin, calls had been coming in throughout the morning with members of the public
suggesting the person’s identity. Everyone would have to be checked and eliminated. News had also spread internally about the fingerprint and most of the officers seemed convinced the
cracking of the case was just hours away. Jessica hoped so but kept her thoughts to herself.

She went up to DCI Farraday’s office to let him know what Robert Graves’s parents had said. He had calmed down from when she had seen him earlier that morning but was still convinced
everything was linked together. She nodded along as he gave her the official news that a fingerprint had been found, not knowing Adam had told her first.

Jessica took some time to help Rowlands sort through the list of leads that had come from the phone calls. They were stuck between two different types of investigating. On the one hand they were
waiting for lab results that could either help or hinder their case but, until those came back, they were using a more traditional method – assessing the phone calls. A couple of specialist
officers would also be going to the Graveses’ house to look through Robert’s possessions, although Jessica wasn’t convinced they would find much.

After a while, she left the constable to it and returned to her office. She was desperately hoping her phone would ring with news from Adam but spent her lunchtime skimming through Internet news
sites. Some of the coverage was based on fact but a few of the opinion pieces infuriated her. There was one in particular that caught her eye on the
Herald
’s website.

Martin Coleman was a name and face she recognised. He was a local councillor who seemed to have an opinion on everything. Jessica could remember a story recently where he had been campaigning
against the implementation of a slower speed limit on a local road. She couldn’t remember the exact details but searched his name through the site. It soon became apparent why he was so
familiar; he really did get himself around. Over the last couple of years, he had been in the news for everything from backing cuts at the local hospital to explaining why some school fields needed
to be sold off.

Jessica had never been interested in politics and figured he was entitled to campaign for whatever he wanted but the comment piece he had his name on that morning really annoyed her. Under the
headline ‘WHY VIGILANTE HAS THE RIGHT IDEA’, he had written hundreds of words about how crime was out of control, eventually reaching a conclusion that said, if not explicitly, that
perhaps whoever the killer was had the right idea.

Jessica made a quick phone call and then stormed out of her office. This was one chat she was definitely going to enjoy.

Jessica had deliberately shown her identification as many times as she could in the council chamber’s reception area while asking for Martin Coleman. Over the phone, she
had established he was in the building but hadn’t bothered to actually ask for a meeting. Instead, she turned up, parked the pool car she had taken on double yellow lines outside the building
and bounded in asking everyone from the security guard to the receptionists to other people in suits if they knew where she could find the councillor.

She knew full well she could have just asked once at reception but, by flashing her identification around and mentioning his name as often as possible, people would put two and two together and
make five. Rumours would be circling around the building in no time about a local detective asking after a prominent councillor.

Jessica figured that if she had tried to make an appointment, she would have had to wait for a few hours, if not days. Within five minutes of her throwing her weight around, Martin Coleman
walked forcefully into the reception area. At first he spoke to one of the security guards to ask what was going on. As soon as she spotted him, Jessica made sure she was standing directly in front
of the reception desk where there was the maximum number of people within hearing distance.

The councillor’s greying hair was swept back tidily. Jessica guessed his suit cost more than her car, although admittedly that wasn’t saying much. His shiny expensive-looking shoes
echoed on the hard floor as he walked towards her. It was clear to Jessica he was furious but, with council staff and members of the public present, he was desperately trying to hold things
together.

‘Can I help you with something, Detective?’ he said as sweetly as he could, forcing a smile and offering his hand for her to shake.

She ignored it. ‘I just need a few minutes of your precious time, Councillor.’

‘I’m pretty busy. You could always have made an appointment . . .’

‘I’m afraid I’m in the middle of a
multiple murder
investigation, I didn’t really have time to jump through hoops.’ Jessica made sure she emphasised the
words ‘multiple murder’, just in case anyone nearby couldn’t hear.

The councillor looked quickly from side to side. ‘Right, right. I think we should probably do this somewhere more private. Do you want to come with me?’ He led Jessica out of the
main hallway, up a wide flight of stairs and down a couple of corridors into a wood-panelled room with an enormous ceiling.

He sat behind a large desk and pointed to the seat on the other side of the table. Jessica ignored him, standing next to the chair instead, looking down upon him. ‘Why is it so important
you had to speak to me now?’ he asked.

Jessica walked over to a window and looked out onto the street below. ‘Nice view you’ve got.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Nice view. Nice office too.’ Jessica paced back towards the desk and started fiddling with a lamp, twisting the top part around towards her and then turning it back again.

‘Detective?’ The man sounded as much confused as he did angry.

Jessica finally stood up straight and looked him directly in the eyes. ‘“Endemic incompetence”,’ she said.