Woman in Black (17 page)

After days of seemingly working non-stop, Jessica felt a lot clearer following fifteen minutes away from the job and, in essence, enjoying a laugh with her mates.

‘I guess it’s time to go see what January has to say for herself,’ she said. ‘Who’s coming in with me?’

‘You go, Iz,’ Dave said. ‘I’ve got some bits to finish anyway.’

‘Great, I thought I was going to have to make you two paper, scissors, stone for it.’

Jessica and Izzy walked through to the interview room and asked one of the officers nearby to bring January up if she’d finished speaking to the solicitor. They had to wait a short while until there was a knock at the door and their suspect was led in along with her legal representative.

January looked remarkably different from the last time Jessica had seen her. She had no make-up on, while brown roots were beginning to appear, clashing with the rest of her long black hair. She wasn’t wearing black clothes and instead had on a pair of jeans with trainers and a hooded top. Someone had set up a desk fan, which was rotating as it blew air around the room.

The woman didn’t look up from the table during the caution and introductions. ‘Are you all right, January?’ Jessica asked.

‘Fine.’ There was a definite tone of resignation in her voice.

‘Where have you been since we last saw you?’

‘Around. With friends. I don’t want to say.’ Jessica thought that was probably fair enough. If people had really been hiding her, they hadn’t broken the law because it wasn’t as if she had absconded from custody and there was no real need to push it considering that wasn’t a priority.

‘Why did you hand yourself in?’

‘I was tired of staying indoors. I’ve not done anything wrong but I realised the longer I stayed away the worse it looked. I know I shouldn’t have disappeared.’

‘Why did you?’

‘All the stuff in the papers at first and after you first spoke to me. I was scared because I know how it all looked.’

‘How do you think it looked?’

January sighed. ‘Well, Lewis had gone missing and the only stuff you had was about that person in the black cape thing. Obviously I’ve got one, so you were going to come after me. Vicky was calling me and I couldn’t cope.’

‘You should know, we found a sample of Lewis’ blood on your kitchen floor.’

January looked up from the table to her solicitor and then finally met Jessica’s eyes for the first time. She seemed on the brink of tears. ‘I’m surprised it was only the kitchen. If you look closely enough there’s probably some of mine around the place too. We didn’t have the most normal of relationships.’ She turned her arms over and rolled the sleeves on her hoody up, revealing the scars Jessica had seen a glimpse of before. ‘The only reason I got charged for scratching him was because Vicky made him complain. He hit me too but I never said anything. It was just what we did. He’d tell you if he was here.’

Jessica nodded gently. She had no way of knowing it was true but, as she looked at the young woman’s face, she believed her. She also realised there was a problem brewing because January hadn’t been charged with anything and, given she had a pretty good explanation for why there was blood in her flat, she hadn’t actually committed an offence. When she had been first arrested, she had been given police bail, which only meant she had to reappear at the station at a later date. Not answering that bail wasn’t necessarily uncommon and, if the investigation was still ongoing, a suspect would usually just be sent a letter saying their bail had been extended. January hadn’t turned up when she was supposed to but it wasn’t enough to hold her for very long and, unless they were going to charge her with something relating to the disappearance of her boyfriend, they wouldn’t be able to keep her for longer than maybe a night. The duty solicitor would have told her that.

Because she had surrendered they would simply have the usual length of time to hold her as they couldn’t keep bringing her in for interview without the formal charge. Regardless of any of that, Jessica knew they had nothing on the woman because there was no law about staying with friends for a couple of weeks. Despite their best efforts, they couldn’t connect her to the other victims and, aside from the blood on their kitchen floor, nothing to link her to anything untoward happening to her boyfriend either.

‘I’m going to ask you about some names and show you some pictures,’ Jessica said. ‘Can you tell me if you know the people?’ Jessica had up-to-date photos of Edward Marks and Jacob Chrisp but January said she didn’t recognise either of them. Jessica again thought the woman was being honest.

Jessica re-checked the details of her boyfriend’s disappearance but ultimately January had nothing to add. She either genuinely knew nothing or was very good at hiding it. She certainly wasn’t evasive and when her solicitor went to step in on a couple of occasions, the woman bypassed him, answering anyway.

Jessica had reached the end of anything she could reasonably hope to get from the interview and January had replied to everything without complaint. ‘Is there anything you want to add?’ Jessica asked.

January shrugged. ‘Just that I miss him.’

Jessica said nothing and the woman was escorted back to the cells.

‘Are we going to charge her?’ Izzy asked when it was just them left in the room.

‘With what? Being in a mutually abusive relationship? Knowing someone who went missing? We can’t prove she’s done anything wrong.’

‘So are you going to let her go?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll talk to Jack but it’s not as if we have anything to take to the CPS. Conspiracy to wear dark clothing isn’t going to cut it.’

‘Only with the fashion police. What do you think about her?’

‘Wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time who just happens to have a similar taste in clothing to whoever we are looking for. We already had her in without charge before she skipped out and we can’t keep arresting her. She seemed happy to cooperate this time and we didn’t find anything except that dried blood at her house. Considering the two of them lived together, it’s not necessarily a surprise. If you’re chopping carrots in your kitchen, accidentally nick yourself and drip blood on the floor, it doesn’t prove much, does it?’

‘So we’re screwed basically?’ Diamond said.

‘Exactly. I’ll go upstairs and see what Jack reckons, then have a chat with the custody sergeant. You may as well nick off. The last few days have just blended into one. I don’t even know what time it is.’

Jessica walked back through the station, taking her suit jacket off. After going from the interview room where there was a fan back into the main areas, the heat felt stifling again. She walked up the stairs hoping Cole hadn’t gone home for the day. She could see through the window of his office that he was still sitting in his chair. As he waved her in, she could see in his face how things were weighing on him. The worry lines across his forehead seemed to have deepened and he looked older than he had a few weeks earlier. She thought all the years of staying calm whatever the circumstances were finally catching up with him. Sometimes everyone needed a sweary five minutes to get it out of their system.

He obviously knew January had handed herself in but they were both in agreement they had nothing they could take to the CPS to ultimately charge her with. Cole suggested keeping her in overnight on the off-chance anything else came in from the phone calls. The custody sergeant would likely agree, simply because she had disappeared, but they both knew it was unlikely something would turn up and they would end up releasing her in the morning anyway.

‘Are you okay, Sir?’ Jessica asked. The chief inspector looked very tired.

Almost as if on cue, he yawned. ‘Yes, thanks for asking. Just lots of pressure from above because of Christine Johnson. We’re really struggling, if I’m honest.’

‘Anything I can help with?’ Jessica didn’t really mean it seeing as she was busy enough but it sounded like the right thing to say.

‘Um…maybe.’ Jessica’s heart sank, realising she could have talked herself into more work. ‘How about tomorrow, you spend the day with Jason. I know you get on well. Just go over everything. I’ll get Louise to have a look over your things. Maybe it all just needs a fresh pair of eyes?’

Jessica wasn’t overly pleased with the idea but thought it couldn’t do much harm if it was only for a day. Maybe he was right and a new viewpoint on each case could get things moving.

‘All right, I’ll come in tomorrow and bail January, then trail Jason for the day. If anything happens, though, I want someone to call me straight away.’

‘Of course. I’m not suggesting anything permanent. It’s Friday tomorrow then we’ve got the summer fete thing the day after.’

‘That’s this weekend?’

Cole yawned again. ‘Yes, I put it all in an email. Didn’t you see it? The super’s big on the community engagement thing. I said you’d all get the time back.’

Jessica tried not to sound too annoyed ‘Isn’t that the kind of thing we have officers in uniform for? No one’s going to want to talk to me.’

‘I don’t know, you have all this crime scene stuff on television nowadays. I think you’ll be surprised. Thanks for signing up for the careers day thing too.’

Jessica couldn’t be bothered telling him it wasn’t her who had done so. ‘No worries. Will you pass all the messages on to Jason and Louise about plans for tomorrow?’

‘Yeah, believe me I think they’ll be grateful to get away from it for a day.’

Jessica said goodbye and left. After the grind the week had turned into, she really didn’t mind having one day to think about something else. She wondered how Louise might react to Dave and Izzy’s bickering and sent them both text messages to let them know what was going on.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

The next day she arrived at the station with a plan to check the phone calls from the night before and then put January out of her misery. A night in the cells would have hopefully taught her a lesson that she should cooperate with them in future. As she arrived, there was a small van parked outside reception belonging to the Scene of Crime team. They were a common sight at crime scenes but not usually at the station. Jessica walked into reception and asked the desk sergeant what was going on.

‘DCI’s down at the HR office.’

Jessica didn’t need a fuller answer than that to have a pretty good idea what had happened. She rushed through the corridors until she saw a small crowd of officers at the entrance to the station’s main admin room. Cole was there and saw her coming.

‘Ah, I didn’t want to call you in especially,’ he said.

‘We got another package, didn’t we?’

‘Yes.’

‘Does it look like the other ones?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was it addressed to me?’

The chief inspector didn’t say anything, nodding instead. Jessica felt a chill ripple down her back – someone had sent her a finger that most likely belonged to Jacob Chrisp.

‘Have they opened it yet?’

‘No. Someone from the department flagged it up and they’re going to take it back to Bradford Park.’

Jessica thought for a moment. ‘If it turns out to be something I bought off eBay, can I have it back?’

Cole burst out laughing unexpectedly. ‘I’ll ask.’

‘Did you see from the postmark when it was sent?’

‘Some time yesterday afternoon. It looks like it was put in a post box too like the others.’

Jessica nodded, knowing that was what he was going to say. ‘That rules January out then – she was in the cells downstairs while whoever did this was mailing me a present.’

SIXTEEN

It was hard for Jessica not to feel targeted as twice now somebody had sent her a finger directly. She knew they could easily have got her name through the media coverage but that wasn’t the point. One of the things drummed into you through training was not to take things personally but it was hard not to when someone was addressing body parts to you. She wondered if the person was actually watching her, or if they knew where she lived.

The one thing she did feel grateful for is that nothing had yet been sent to her flat. She wasn’t sure how she might take it if something like that happened. One of the ways you coped with the horrific things you sometimes had to deal with was to try as best you could to keep a separate home and work life. If a person crossed that line it wouldn’t be the kind of thing she would be able to put to the back of her mind. It seemed obvious whoever was leaving the hands and sending her fingers wanted her to put the pieces together to figure out whatever point they were making but, if that was true, why couldn’t they make it more obvious?

Cole asked if she was all right and Jessica said she was, even though she didn’t really feel it. It didn’t take long for the lab team to leave with the package. The fact it had been sent while January was in custody didn’t entirely show she had nothing to do with it as she could have an accomplice but, given everything else they knew, it seemed they could let her go and pretty much rule her out of their immediate investigation.

As January was being re-bailed, Jessica gave the woman her card and asked her to get in contact if she could think of any new information.

After the morning’s events, Cole said Jessica didn’t have to work with Reynolds if she didn’t feel like it but, seeing as they would have to wait for results on the package from the laboratories in any case, Jessica figured not much else had changed.

First she went to talk to Cornish who was sitting in their office for the first time in what seemed like a long while. She still seemed a little frosty but they were at least cordial to each other. Jessica handed over the hard-copy files and showed her colleague where things were on the computer system. The sergeant thanked her, then Jessica went to Reynolds’ office. Somehow he had managed to get himself a large fan that was propped up against a filing cabinet. Jessica thought the room must have been the coolest in the building.

‘How’d you get your hands on that?’ she asked, nodding towards the fan.

The inspector laughed. ‘Pure and simple theft.’

Jessica reacted with mock horror. ‘In a police station?’