Woman in Black (12 page)

Jacob scratched his head, beginning to look a little nervy. Jessica noticed his dark tattoo circled all the way down from the bottom of his neck to the tip of his little finger. Even though she had never been much of a fan of body art, it was impressive.

‘How badly were they hurt?’ he asked.

Jessica didn’t want to give too much away. If the man did know anything, it was better to keep him on edge. ‘They were just hurt,’ she added coolly, trying to make Jacob look at her.

‘I’m not sure what you want me to say. We were young lads but most of us could get served in pubs and we had a few good times. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?’

‘Again, you tell me. Did anything go particularly wrong?’

‘No…well, not really. The season after that we went on a bit of a tour. You know what it’s like with boys having a bit of a laugh, not everyone likes it, do they?’

‘Who didn’t like it?’

‘A few of the locals where we went drinking. One of the coaches ended up quitting too.’

‘Why?’

Jacob stood, not wanting to talk any longer. ‘I’ve got to get back. I did say I only had my dinner to talk.’

Jessica wasn’t in the mood for being mucked around. ‘You’ll have to be quick then. What happened with the coach?’

‘Nothing. Look, things just got a bit out of hand, some of the team were a bit drunk. They used to wind him up anyway and call him names. As well as coaching, he worked at the school. Anyway, he had that look, do you know what I mean?’

‘No, what look?’

‘You know, like glasses and that, like he was a paedo.’

Jessica tried not to roll her eyes. ‘He looked like a paedophile because he wore glasses?’

‘No, it wasn’t like that. He had this limp too.’

‘So because he limped and wore glasses, you and your friends accused him of molesting children?’

‘No…well, yes.’

Jessica was finding it hard to disguise her contempt. Although Jacob was well-built, his frame had almost shrunk as he stood. He was slumped with his shoulders down and head drooping towards the floor, clearly embarrassed about what had happened at some point in the past.

‘What did you do to this man on tour?’

‘I told you, it wasn’t me. Some of the lads were pissed up and we were staying in this giant hostel place. They stripped him then threw him in a freezing cold shower. After that they tied him to the roof of our minibus and left him overnight.’

‘What happened then?’

‘Well, it was the middle of winter. He ended up in hospital but no one owned up to it and nothing happened. He didn’t grass or anything and everyone was really impressed but he didn’t come back to coaching after that.’

‘I wonder why.’

Jacob was suddenly angry. ‘Look, I told you it wasn’t me. We were only kids mucking about.’

‘I’m sure that’s how he saw it when he spent a night strapped to a bus in the freezing cold.’

Jacob sounded defensive. ‘All right, it’s not like it was yesterday or anything, it was ages ago.’

‘Anything else you want to tell us about?’ Jessica could see in his that he wasn’t going to say anything further, even if there was more to come. It was why she had tried to hide her contempt but the effort had become too much.

‘I’ve got to get back to work.’

‘What was his name?’

‘Who, the coach? You can’t reckon he’s involved? He was only this little skinny bloke.’

‘What’s his name?’ Jessica spoke firmly to show she wasn’t in the mood.

‘I don’t know, it was ages ago. Mr Wright, something like that. Michael I think. Look, what’s going on with people being hurt?’

‘We’re not sure yet but if you see anyone limping who wears glasses I’m sure you’ll know exactly how to act.’

Izzy wrote the man’s name down as they noted the school he taught at was the same one Edward Marks had gone to. If he was a former staff member, his contact details should be on record somewhere. The two women walked back to the car.

‘Do you think we should have given him more information?’ Izzy asked.

‘No, we don’t even know if the rugby team is the link yet. It’s not as if we should be telling him or anyone to be vigilant because we don’t know who the targets are – or if there’s more to come.’

‘What do you reckon about the coach?’

‘Who knows? They sounded like right little shits.’

Izzy hummed in agreement. ‘It’s a bit of a long wait from then to now if it is the coach though, plus it’s a pretty extreme form of revenge.’

‘I know. I doubt it’s him; it’s a bit obvious. Still, it’s someone else to go talk to. Anything that keeps us out of the station.’

‘Well, if you hadn’t have broken the air-conditioning, it wouldn’t be too bad.’

‘Oi, that sounds like something Dave might say. Just for that, I’m driving.’

When they were back in the vehicle, Jessica made sure to drive as steadily as she could. She didn’t swear and was extra careful not to be angry with other drivers. While she drove, Diamond checked in with Rowlands. Jessica couldn’t make out much from the one side of the conversation she’d heard but the constable sounded a little excited about something.

‘What was that?’ Jessica asked after the other woman had hung up.

‘You remember the stain you told us about on the floor in January’s kitchen?’

‘It was either blood or gravy.’

Izzy laughed before composing herself. ‘Dave says the labs have been on and emailed through some results. It’s blood and it definitely comes from Lewis Barnes.’

ELEVEN

The morning briefings were really beginning to wind Jessica up because her case was being treated as a distant second priority compared to the disappearance of Christine Johnson. Jessica wouldn’t have minded quite so much if Reynolds and Cornish were actually getting anywhere.

Cole had told them all that the superintendent was on the brink of becoming personally involved in the hunt. Jessica knew DSI Aylesbury from when he had been DCI and didn’t have a clue quite what he thought he could add by interjecting himself. She had drifted in and out of the talk but, from what Jessica had heard, they really didn’t have any ideas what had happened to the MP’s wife. In between the conversation with her husband on the phone and him arriving back from Parliament, she had simply disappeared. There didn’t seem to be anything untoward in the couple’s finances, none of their vehicles had moved, their cleaner hadn’t seen anything and the woman’s passport and other documents were still at the house.

Officers had looked at CCTV feeds from local shops and roads but had seen nothing, there was no sign of anything untoward in her phone records and the movements of the couple’s children, as well as of the MP himself, were all accounted for. Jessica knew a small team of officers were quietly looking into George Johnson’s background to see if he might have been having an affair or keeping other secrets that could have a bearing. Despite everything, and the massive amount of media attention the case had received, they knew as much now as they had when the woman first went missing.

Despite their initial falling out, it really was becoming a baptism of fire for Cornish and Jessica felt sorry for the woman, watching her say nothing during the briefing and wondering if she was regretting the transfer yet. With such scrutiny and a lack of leads, even Cole was beginning to show a degree of strain. Outwardly he was still calm but Jessica knew him well enough to see the worry lines beginning to appear in his face.

By the time it was her turn to update them on her case, the other three officers seemed completely uninterested, not that Jessica blamed them. Cole had been interrupted during the meeting four separate times by his phone going off.

She managed to tell everyone about the rugby team, plus the coach and teacher Michael Wright, but even she had to admit she doubted it was him. By the time the chief inspector’s phone rang for a fifth time, he ushered the other detectives out of his office, giving Jessica the fairly obvious brief that she should put her efforts into finding January.

If she didn’t respect him so much – and if he hadn’t been on the phone – she might have pointed out that giving her some other officers to work with might actually be a help. It wasn’t that she disagreed with him but, while two senior detectives and two-thirds of the rest of the station’s staff, along with other senior figures across the district, were trying to track down Christine Johnson, Jessica couldn’t keep the hunt for January in the news for longer than the initial one day. After that, she simply didn’t have the numbers to go door-to-door while there were still other leads to follow up.

It didn’t help that everyone was on edge because of the heat and humidity inside the station. If Cole knew it was her fault, he hadn’t said anything and she had no intention of letting on to Reynolds or Cornish. The engineer hadn’t been in for two days, leaving a message with the admin department that he was waiting on a part.

After returning to her own office, Jessica called Rowlands and Diamond into sit with her. The two had a mini argument over who got the spare seat before Dave relented, sitting on the corner of the other sergeant’s desk as he had done a couple of days before.

‘I feel like I’m babysitting sometimes,’ Jessica said, shaking her head. ‘The DCI wants us to focus on finding January. He’s so keen on that happening, he’s given us no extra staff and zero extra resources. As usual, it means it’s just us. The good news is we’re all going to get out of this oven today. I’d like you guys to go back and doorstep everyone Dave spoke to the other day. If you can find any other friends or relations January may have, get onto them, else just harass the same people. We all know she’s not started living on the streets somewhere – so someone knows what she’s up to. Take some officers with you, even if you don’t have a use for them. If we don’t use them, they’ll only spend the day around here being used by Jason and his crew.’

‘Where are you off to?’ Izzy asked.

‘I’m going to go talk to this rugby-coaching-teacher guy. I doubt he’s involved but maybe he’ll know some other things the team got up to. I still don’t know if the link is the school, the team or something else but I’m not going to sit around in this heat all day. Did you see the temperature on the news this morning? Twenty bloody nine degrees. They reckon it’s the driest June for thirty years.’

‘Typical, it rains eleven months of the year and now we’ve got a hosepipe ban,’ Rowlands said.

‘Why does that affect you? What are you doing with a hosepipe?’ Jessica asked.

‘Nothing, it’s just the principle.’

The two women exchanged looks before Jessica continued. ‘Right, you guys head off. Call me if anything happens and I’ll check in later anyway. Iz, if Dave tries to flirt, you’ve got my permission to arrest him with as much force as you deem necessary. Dave, if she calls you a “knob” more than three times you can put in an official complaint.’

Rowlands had an outraged look on his face but Jessica knew full well he had been waiting for an opportunity to try it on with the fiery red-head, whether she was married or not. In some places it could be seen as some sort of sexual harassment but he was so clumsy with his words – and the female officers were generally pretty tough anyway – so it wasn’t as if there was any harm done. Everyone knew there was a fine line between professional banter and something more serious and no one thought the constable crossed it.

After they had left, still bickering, Jessica checked the information she had on Michael Wright. Jacob had remembered the name correctly and Jessica suspected he recalled things a little more clearly than he wanted to let on. Izzy found his details the previous evening between a mixture of old school records and the electoral roll. Jessica called and asked if he was free to talk. She hadn’t told him exactly what about but he said he was retired anyway and invited her over.

Jessica had spent large parts of the last few days driving around the city to visit various people and was getting tired of navigating Manchester’s roads while the sun shone. Her car blowers were bad enough when it was cold and she needed the heat to clear the windscreen – but they weren’t much better when it was baking hot and she set to cool. The device seemed to have three settings; off, really hot or really cold. Even on a scorching day, the ‘cold’ setting somehow managed to make things feel arctic but the heat of the sun through the window was too hot to switch them off. The weather forecasters had predicted no end in sight for the current heatwave and people didn’t seem sure how to deal with it. When it rained everyone knew where they stood, that was just what it did in the city. A day or two of sun had everyone wondering why it couldn’t be like that more often but, after two weeks without rain, Jessica thought the locals, including herself, seemed to be walking around a little bemused.

She didn’t think she’d had one conversation in the last week that hadn’t involved the weather in one way or another. Jessica’s parents lived further north and she spoke to them once a fortnight or so. She had spoken to them the previous night but all they wanted to talk about was the weather. ‘I like it hot,’ her mother had said. ‘But not
this
hot.’ Considering her mum had spent large parts of the winter saying how cold it was, Jessica wondered if there was a magic temperature where it was just fine. Half a degree hotter or colder and it would be too far the other way again.

Before she knew it, Jessica had arrived at Michael Wright’s house. She knew where it was as the place wasn’t too far from where she used to live when she first came to the city with Caroline. As she got out of her car, she realised that would have been roughly the same year the rugby photo was taken.

Jessica rang the man’s doorbell and, before the chime had finished, the door was yanked inwards. Jessica thought of the way Jacob had described his former coach and, as much as she hated herself for thinking it, it was hard to disagree with the picture he had painted. Michael Wright was shorter than she was and wore black thick-rimmed glasses. As he stepped backwards to let her in, he had a clear limp, as if one leg were shorter than the other. He was completely bald and stammered as he spoke. ‘Can I, I, I see your identification please?’