Caroline and Jessica came from roughly the same place in Carlisle, a hundred miles or so to the north of Manchester. They hadn’t really had any contact with each other until they started sixth-form college when they were both sixteen. On the very first day, they had ended up sitting together in a history class.
Jessica often thought it was funny how one small, seemingly inconsequential, decision could have such a bearing on the rest of your life.
They were both only children and, since bonding through that, they had been more-or-less inseparable. They spent a year travelling through parts of south east Asia when they turned eighteen. Caroline had applied to go to university in Manchester and, although Jessica wasn’t interested in further education, the pair had both moved to the city upon their return. They didn’t live together at first. Caroline stayed in university accommodation for her first year, while Jessica found a flat pretty close to where they currently lived. By the time Caroline had finished the first year of her course, the two of them moved into the same flat they still lived in.
Caroline had spent three years studying, while Jessica tried to find something she was interested in doing. She applied to the police on a bit of a whim. While a lot of people joined the force because they had a family member who also worked in the emergency or security services somewhere, this was far from the case for Jessica. Her parents managed a post office in their hometown, which was certainly something that did run in the family. Her father’s father had bought the building and started the business almost sixty years ago. There was never really any chance of Jessica hanging around to take the reigns over and both her parents knew it. They never pressured her though and still ran the place, happily looking ahead to retirement in a year or two. Jessica usually found time to visit her parents once every couple of months but spoke to them regularly on the phone.
Perhaps the reason the two had remained so close was that Caroline’s parents had both died within a few months of each other not long after she graduated. It hadn’t been much of a surprise; her mother and father were quite a bit older than Jessica’s parents and her dad had been ill for a while. Not long after he died, her mother did too. Caroline had been devastated but took heart from the fact they had both seen her graduate, the first in her family to do so.
‘So, new boyfriend then?’ Jessica said.
‘Yep’
‘Let’s hear it then.’
‘Do you remember the other week when I went over in those heels?’
‘Of course,’ Jessica laughed. ‘It was really funny.’
‘Thanks for the sympathy; I could have broken my neck.’
‘Honestly, if there was any neck-breaking involved, I would have definitely laughed a little less.’
‘Anyway, I really like that pair, so I took them to that place on Gorton Market where they mend shoes and do a few other odds and ends. There was this lad who worked on the stall…’
‘You dirty tart.’
They giggled again. ‘We had a drink last Thursday and we’re going out again sometime this week.’
‘Well as long as you don’t dump me to move in with this obvious weirdo, then I hope you have a good time.’
‘Weirdo?’
‘Well he went out with you?’
‘Oi.’
They both laughed some more. ‘What’s his name then?’ Jessica asked
‘Randall. Randall Anderson.’
‘Randall? What sort of name is that?’
‘I dunno. I kind of like it. It’s a bit different.’
‘Hmm.... Caroline Morrison-Anderson. Yeah, I guess it does have a ring to it.’
‘Don’t start.’
The fact neither of them had really had time for a serious relationship was perhaps the biggest reason neither Caroline nor Jessica had decided to move into their own place so far. Of course they actually liked living together but, with neither of them having a heavy commitment, there had never been too much need to hunt for a new place to live.
Jessica felt the wine taking hold and, as the final orders bell rang, she pulled her phone back out from her bag. ‘I’m just going to check the Internet to see what’s in tomorrow’s paper.’
She thumbed away at the screen, flicking through her bookmarks before finding the Herald’s news site. The front page loaded and she pinched the screen to zoom in then slammed her free hand down on the table.
‘What’s up?’ Caroline asked.
‘Garry Ashford. Whoever he is, I am going to string him up.’
Sunday night hadn’t ended in the way Jessica thought it would. The top headline on the Herald’s website had read: “MURDERED IN HER OWN HOME”. Underneath that was: “LOCKED DOOR MYSTERY” and the byline: “EXCLUSIVE by Garry Ashford”.
Pretty much all the details were there, the victim’s name, the fact the house was locked and that the police had taken two days to respond to Stephanie Wilson’s concerns. That sounded bad straight away. The journalist had also spoken to Mrs Wilson, who had blabbed pretty much everything she had already told them.
Worse than that, he had quoted her: “Detective Sergeant Jessica Daniel insisted she had no extra comment to make.” There was even a complimentary line about her being: “…trusted to head up the enquiry”. That write-up almost certainly meant her bosses were going to think she was the leak. They were going to hit the roof and, seeing as the journalist had phoned her the day before, if Internal Investigations were involved, they would see his phone number on her records.
Jessica still had Garry’s details in her mobile’s previous callers list and, figuring she could be in enough trouble already, phoned him back as she left the pub to walk home. She wasn’t sure whether to go straight in with the full barrage of swear words or to build-up to a particularly obscene crescendo. Afterwards, she couldn’t quite recall the full details of the one-sided conversation but definitely remembered promising to do something not at all pleasant with his lower intestines and quite possibly inventing a host of new swear words.
She had arrived at the station earlier than usual on the Monday to be greeted by a hard copy of the paper sitting on the reception desk in front of that morning’s desk sergeant. The headline was the same on the print version as it was online, except the article itself was even more terrible than she thought. Jessica saw that, in the absence of any photos of the victim, they had used a picture of her. Worse still, it was a horrible passport-type photo the Press Office had taken to use on the force’s website.
Under a big banner headline about a murder, she was there grinning like an idiot. Just as she thought her morning couldn’t get much worse, Jessica saw DCI William Aylesbury bounding through the big double doors into reception.
Most people called William would have the good grace to let you call them, “Will” or “Bill”. A huge majority would even prefer it but not the DCI. She called him “Sir” of course but, when he introduced himself to anyone, he would pronounce every last syllable of Will. I. Am. Ay. Les. Bury. He would roll the letter “r” as if he were royalty.
He was certainly one of those types who followed the family trade into the police force. His father and grandfather had been senior officers in the Met, while his son had recently joined Greater Manchester Police’s uniformed ranks based at a different station. She had no doubt he would be Superintendent in no time with the current one, DSI Dominic Davies, well-known to be retiring in under twelve months.
He was in his early-fifties with short grey hair but could have passed for someone ten years younger given the way he looked after himself. He was tall and imposing when he wanted to be and almost always perfectly turned out with expensive-looking suits.
‘Been making friends with the Press, then have we?’ he said, indicating the paper in Jessica’s hand that she hadn’t been quick enough to put down.
He beckoned her into a meeting along with DI Cole and the woman in charge of Press relations. Jessica told them she had spoken to Garry Ashford on Saturday afternoon but only because he had called her. She explained she had not given away any details and didn’t know how the information had appeared in that morning’s paper, although pointed out there were plenty of people who had been at the crime scene.
She was pretty sure DI Cole believed her but DCI Aylesbury was far too hard to read and the Press Officer definitely didn’t buy it. The woman stared daggers throughout the meeting but, given she was outranked by everyone present, that was about as much dissatisfaction as she could get away with. Jessica’s opinion of the DCI improved a tiny amount when he dismissed the Press Officer and told her and DI Cole he would tell Internal Investigations there was no need to be involved.
They had the powers to start an inquiry regardless of what the Chief Inspector thought but seeing as nothing had been leaked that was likely to compromise the enquiry – and that he was backing her for now – it seemed probable they would listen to his advice.
That meeting led straight into a second one with the three of them, which was how her morning would have started if it wasn’t for the newspaper story. The next discussion was about how the case would run. The DCI confirmed DI Cole would lead operations from the station, while Jessica would report directly to the inspector who would report back to him.
After that the three of them went downstairs for the main team briefing. They were standing at the front of the station’s large meeting room. There was no natural sunlight in the basement hall, with the only illumination provided by bright white strip lighting. Sometimes on the night shift, officers would come to sit in this room just to be kept awake. The whole of the station’s force had been called in to be told what was happening, including most of the uniformed officers. A couple of detectives from neighbouring districts had been loaned to the station, as often happened with murder enquiries. In all, there were between twenty and thirty people sitting on uncomfortable-looking plastic chairs, or standing near the doors at the back, sipping on cups of coffee, waiting to be filled in.
Behind the three of them were two huge whiteboards pinned to the wall. At the top in the middle of the left-hand one was an enlarged photo of Yvonne Christensen’s neck wounds, next to a recent photo to show how she looked. Her name was written underneath in marker pen, along with the husband and son’s in smaller writing under that.
Jessica thought DCI Aylesbury sounded quite impressive as he spoke, despite his over-pronunciation. He started by reminding everyone of their responsibilities in not talking to the media without prior permission, then thanked everyone for being there and said he had every faith they would catch the person responsible. He told them DI Cole would be their link person at the station and then handed the floor over to her.
He gave her a full introduction for the benefit of the visiting officers but they would have known exactly who she was because of the ridiculous photo of her gurning on the front of that morning’s paper. Jessica thanked her boss, while ignoring the murmurings of amusement from the officers standing in front of her then explained how the house had been found locked up.
After that, she moved on to the morning’s developments. ‘We’ve got the initial results back from the labs but there’s not an awful lot to go on. We know Yvonne Christensen was killed sometime late on Tuesday night or in the early hours of Wednesday which all fits in with Stephanie Wilson’s timings. She was strangled with some type of steel rope or wire but we don’t have anything more specific on that. They have been running tests on the bed sheets and the body but so far they haven’t found any samples that don’t belong to the victim.’
‘Do we know why she was in the bedroom?’ someone asked.
DI Cole answered. ‘Probably. If you were being strangled, the obvious thing you would do is try to pull away the other person’s hands or the rope but there are no cuts to the victim’s fingers. Given that and the estimated time of death, it seems likely she was throttled in her sleep. If she did wake up, it would have been too late.’
Jessica nodded along then carried on speaking. ‘Obviously this makes it more difficult to figure out what actually happened. Even if the victim had let someone in we wouldn’t know how he or she got out but, because of the forensic findings, it seems very unlikely the killer was a person she opened the door to. The obvious answer is that either her estranged husband or son was involved. As far as we know they are the only family members still alive but there are no life insurance policies in place and no other obvious motive.’
Jessica paused for breath. ‘Since Saturday, we have been able to pretty much rule out the husband Eric and son James. Confirming their respective alibis was complicated because of the sheer amount of time between the time of death and the body being found. James is at university in Bournemouth and, given the distance along with everything we’ve been able to verify, there simply aren’t any gaps long enough for him to have come up here and been able to return again.’
Jessica looked at DI Cole and raised her eyebrows. He took the hint and picked up the story. ‘James does at least have a set of keys which he showed to our colleagues down south but he insists they are kept with his other keys and are always on his person or somewhere nearby. Eric Christensen, on the other hand, says he gave his set back to his wife when he moved out. We don’t know if this is true or not but his alibis for the past few days certainly do check out.’
He looked back to Jessica, who turned again to face the floor and spoke. ‘Essentially, with the lab teams not coming up with anything and the only family members we know of unlikely to be involved, we don’t have an awful lot to go on. We’re not even sure how the killer got in and out, let alone who it was. We’ve examined all the usual things and know there is no basement, while the attic is full of junk. There was certainly no one hiding up there waiting for us to clear out.’
‘Can you cross over from the attached property?’ someone asked from the floor.
‘No, good thinking though. It is semi-detached but the brickwork goes all the way up to the top. It was one of the last things we checked.’
Jessica asked the assembled officers if anyone had any suggestions for how someone could have managed it. One constable got a laugh by putting forward the name of a popular TV magician, while a sensible suggestion was to look at the previous owners. It had already been established the Christensens had lived in the place for just over five years but theoretically the previous owners may have kept a key. It seemed unlikely but it was something that should be formally ruled out.