‘We thought Lapham was the link.’
‘Do you still think that?’
‘No.’
Harry paused again. Jessica didn’t know if it was deliberate or if he simply didn’t have anything to say. ‘Some people will do anything to get themselves ahead, Detective Sergeant. Or get revenge. Everyone has a dark side. You’d be surprised what can bring it out.’
His statement sounded ominous and Jessica didn’t know how to respond directly to it, so she changed the subject. ‘Do you know I’m in on Tuesday?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you fancy a drink afterwards?’
‘You buying?’
‘Of course.’
‘I’ll see you there then.’
Considering what happened between Jessica, Wayne Lapham and Peter Hunt had occurred behind closed doors, even she was impressed at how quickly the news had travelled around the station when she got in on the Monday morning. As she had walked through reception, it had felt as if all eyes were on her. People were smiling but Jessica found it unnerving. She was so used to the gloomy “It’s Monday and whatever investigation we’ve got going on is in a complete mess” looks that she didn’t know how to react to it all. She didn’t even bother to check in with anyone on the front desk, or visit her own office, she just headed for the stairs and DCI Aylesbury’s floor.
She could see him sitting behind his desk and he looked up to notice her walking past the window before she had a chance to knock on the door. He beckoned her in and indicated towards the seat opposite him. His grey suit for that day looked sharp and newly-pressed, while he had a stern, harsh look on his face.
‘DS Daniel,’ was his greeting, as ever. Jessica sat and waited for her boss to speak. ‘On Saturday, I had a very brief conversation with Peter Hunt. Despite being my day off, I had a further, much longer conversation with Mr Hunt yesterday over the phone and then, today, I came into the station to be given a letter that had been hand-delivered by Mr Hunt for my attention.’ He paused for a moment, ever the showman. ‘Would you like to guess the contents of either those conversations or the letter?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Well, in that case, I should give you some good news and bad news – first the bad. Mr Hunt has alleged that in the interview room on Saturday, you threatened his client, Mr Lapham, with violence. He further alleges that your conduct was completely out of order throughout that interview and that you called him…’ DCI Aylesbury paused, while he pulled a letter out of an A4 brown envelope. He scanned down through its contents then continued. ‘… that you called him a, “shitbag”.’
He looked up from the letter directly at her. ‘How do you answer that, detective?’
She didn’t answer him directly but instead said: ‘What is the good news?’
DCI Aylesbury actually smiled at her and she saw a twinkle in his eye she had never seen before. ‘The good news for you, DS Daniel, is that I have listened to the recording made and, while some of your questioning may have been a little
unconventional
, I certainly could hear no threatening remarks. I have spoken to both DI Cole and Constable McCarthy, who was stationed outside of the room at the time, and neither of them are able to corroborate Mr Hunt’s version of events. Given that Mr Lapham has also refused to make any statement of any kind relating to what did or did not happen during questioning on Saturday, I have informed Mr Hunt that there is very little more I can do.’
It all clicked into place for Jessica. DI Cole had stopped the tape and left the room, while the door was more-or-less shut, so the constable outside heard nothing or was happy to say that. Lapham, meanwhile, would not want any kind of coverage, either public or otherwise, to indicate he may have been intimidated by a female. That meant it was simply Hunt who was left with a problem.
DCI Aylesbury continued. ‘Mr Hunt has indicated in his letter that he would wish to pursue this matter with Detective Superintendant Davies. I spoke with him a short time ago and informed him that I believed there was no basis for any action, especially given the lack of cooperation from Mr Hunt’s own client. I should tell you, however, that the Superintendant has promised to meet with Mr Hunt at some point this week. He will make a final decision as to whether or not Internal will be called in again.’
DSI Davies was all of their bosses but was not based at the station and had been winding down to retirement for a while now. Most decisions he deferred to the local DCI and William Aylesbury was one of his particular favourites. Jessica guessed on this occasion Hunt’s profile meant a meeting had to be held. She hoped it would just be for courtesy and almost allowed herself a half-smile.
‘I just have one more question to ask, DS Daniel,’ he said, this time giving her the biggest smile she had ever seen him give anyone. ‘Did you
really
call him a shitbag?’
Jessica said nothing for a moment, weighing up her options. She still wasn’t entirely off the hook yet. Given her boss’ demeanour, she replied with the half-smile she had been keeping in. ‘I think it may have been “slimy shitbag”, Sir.’
The DCI laughed much like Harry had two days previous and once again Jessica found herself joining in, albeit it not quite so wholeheartedly as she had with Harry.
‘I would have
loved
to have seen his face,’ the Chief Inspector managed to say in between guffaws. It didn’t take long for the light-hearted moment to pass and DCI Aylesbury looked at Jessica to indicate it was time to be serious again. ‘I should of course point out that behaviour like that will not be tolerated and, if you did say anything out of order towards Mr Lapham, that is exactly the type of practise we do not condone.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
From there it was straight down to business. With Wayne Lapham released and uncooperative about the mysterious man who sold him the stolen goods in the pub, who they both knew probably didn’t exist, they were back to having no suspect.
The morning briefing went much along those lines. They had found one link but there must either be more to it or something else that joined the two victims. Lapham wasn’t entirely off the hook either. His mug shot was on the whiteboard with a big question mark underneath it. Officers would be looking into his banking details and phone records to see if there was anything that could link him to the dates or victims. Jessica thought it likely another minor crime or three would be discovered but doubted he would have much more to do with her actual investigation.
Jessica had resolved to go back to the crime scenes that afternoon. The Scene of Crime team had already been over them with little in the way of positive results. The Christensen residence was still boarded up at the front while the husband, who was still technically paying half the mortgage, decided what to do with the place. It wasn’t going to be easy selling a house where someone had recently been murdered inside. Sandra Prince had been discharged from hospital the previous day and Jessica was also going to pay her a visit. It had been her who had first put them on the tail of Wayne Lapham and maybe she had something else tucked away. Jessica had been in such a hurry to get out of the hospital the previous time when she had found out about the burglary, she could easily have missed something else. She knew the whole of Tuesday was going to be spent either in court or hanging around outside it, so figured it was best to try to make something happen today.
The simmering undertone of the briefing was all about Jessica herself. More officers than ever before had said “good morning” or “hi” to her in the hallways. Everyone clearly knew about her incident, or at least the Hunt part of it, and seemed suitably impressed. She had already been offered six separate “drinks from the machine” which was about as generous as anyone ever got in the station.
The briefing ended and she sent everyone on their way. The investigation was still in somewhat of a mess given the lack of suspect, motive or method but at least everyone was in a good mood. It seemed a silly distinction but sometimes people being positive could make something happen.
People had begun to leave the room when Jessica saw DC Rowlands calling her over by flicking his head and pulling a bit of a face. To others it might seem a somewhat disrespectful way to initiate a conversation with a superior but Jessica didn’t really mind. He was standing near the back of the room, slightly away from any of the other departing officers. She walked over to him, fully expecting some crack about her car, or Hunt or something else that wasn’t very funny.
‘All right?’ she asked.
‘I’ve had a thought.’
‘Well it’s been twenty eight years. It had to happen sometime.’
DC Rowlands gave a half-smile but didn’t take the bait. ‘No, seriously.’
‘Go on then.’
‘Well, there’s this guy I used to go to uni with who is now a part-time magician...’
‘That’s a serious thought?’
‘No, honestly. Listen, I was asking him about how you could get in and out of something that was locked.’
‘Are you taking the piss?’
‘Well we don’t have any better ideas, do we?’
Jessica raised her eyebrows but had to concede they didn’t. ‘What did he say?’
‘Well it was complicated, really. I think he wants to meet you.’
‘You are joking?’
‘No, really. Look, it was just a thought.’
‘A shit one.’
She instantly felt bad about saying that. DC Rowlands was a cocky so-and-so but his face fell ever-so-slightly before returning to its previous state. In the briefings, they constantly encouraged people to “think outside the box”. That phrase was beyond a cliché now but the intent behind it was the same; try to think around a problem rather than just go for it directly. A situation like this, where they genuinely had no idea how the murders had been committed, was exactly the kind of times that type of thinking could hopefully come up with a solution. Besides, she knew full well forces in other areas of the country used psychics in their investigations. From her point of view illusionists and psychics were more or less the same, except that magicians were up front with their deception.
‘All right fine...’ DC Rowlands said.
‘Look, I’ll tell you what. I’m in court tomorrow but come with me back to the scenes later today. If we don’t get anything from that then we’ll go see your mate on Wednesday. If you tell anyone that’s what we’re doing, you’re on your own.’ Jessica didn’t want it getting out that she was seemingly desperate enough to stoop to this line of thinking.
‘That’s great. I’ll give him a call.’
‘Right, whatever. He’s not a weirdo is he?’
‘At university, he once nailed his trainers to the ceiling of his room in halls. He then set up a webcam and hung from the roof all the while streaming the whole thing over the Internet.’
‘Why?’
‘Well he said it was something to do with endurance and showing how differently the mind could work when it was put under stress but I think it was more to impress a girl.’
‘Did it?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Great, not a weirdo at all then.’
Garry Ashford was just days away from being fully back in his Editor’s bad books. “If it bleeds, it leads” had been the media’s moniker for years now and the Herald’s recent sales had pretty much born that out. The day of Garry’s first exclusive had seen sales double. The attacks on the police force had helped keep the numbers up, while Garry’s second big story about the “Houdini Strangler”, which was his Editor’s headline, had seen numbers almost triple.
It hadn’t all been good news for the reporter though. His colleagues had pretty much ostracised him, wondering how the hell some scruffy kid who had done nothing previously had suddenly managed to stumble across such good stories. His Editor on the other hand had been talking of awards, promotions, pay rises and all sorts of other positive things. Garry was fully aware he hadn’t yet been elevated or given any extra money and had wondered how long he could keep his run going.
It was now Monday and it had been made abundantly clear by his Editor that morning that he had to come up with something good. His boss had questioned him about his source and asked if he had any more information they could use. It was all very polite on the surface but there was definitely an undertone to what he said.
But that left Garry with something of a problem. He wasn’t going to just make things up and, while he had sent a text to his source’s unregistered number, he had not had any response yet. The last time they had spoken, his contact had said they would have to speak sparingly and that information would be a little light on the ground for a little while.
His meeting with DS Daniel the previous week had gone better than he had expected. That said, anything that hadn’t ended with him being sworn at and threatened with varying degrees of physical violence would have been better than his previous phone calls with her. She had now slated his dress sense and name, so he thought his actual looks were the only thing she had left to go after him for.
He was supposed to be off over the weekend but had received a call from the News Editor on Friday evening asking what he knew about Wayne Lapham. He knew as much as anyone else, seeing as he had seen the same media releases and photos as the rest of the office when the police had put out the request for help finding him that day. Somehow, he had still been told to spend his Saturday getting some background on the investigation’s prime suspect. There seemed to be some assumption that he would know what he was doing.
He didn’t.
Lapham didn’t appear to exist on the electoral roll or in the phone book, which was unsurprising really. Garry had texted his source for help but, with no reply, had ended up doing what all journalists hated doing: Door-stepping. As part of their appeal, the police had put out information that Lapham had last been seen in the Prince of Wales pub in Moston. Garry didn’t really know the area but had found the address of the place on the Internet and taken two buses to get there. He kept the tickets, hoping he would at least get expenses and, armed with a copy of that day’s Herald – which had a photo of Lapham on the front – had marched into the pub hoping someone would be willing to point him in the right direction.