Scarred for Life (23 page)

‘Yes.’

‘As in
Porky
Pomeroy – one of my bosses?’

Garry plonked the cup back down on the table and nodded. ‘Yep.’

27

To say the structure of Greater Manchester Police was complicated would be underestimating quite how convoluted the whole thing was. As well as being split into CID and uniform divisions, everything was then carved up into regions – North, South, East, West and Metropolitan. Individual stations then housed officers based loosely upon geography, so Jessica worked for Manchester Metropolitan CID, based at Longsight, with DCI Jack Cole as the highest-ranking officer permanently on site, and Detective Superintendent William Aylesbury overseeing half-a-dozen stations.

So far, so simple – sort of.

Above that were two chief superintendents, five assistant chief constables, a deputy chief constable and the overall chief constable.

No one Jessica spoke to ever seemed to know quite what the chief constables actually did. Clearly it involved rolling up at civic functions in a suit, quaffing champagne, and guffawing every time the council leader told a rubbish joke. There was definitely an element of turning up if anyone important was in town, or flouncing off to London for a glass of rosé with other chief constables a few times a year. If you were really lucky, you might even get a knighthood if you brown-nosed the right person. What you definitely
did not
do was head into the city centre on a Friday night to help pack drunken revellers into the back of a riot van while simultaneously trying not to get puked on. Not that Jessica did that either, but that wasn’t the point.

Admittedly, she rarely spoke to anyone who wasn’t Izzy, Dave, Archie or, in the old days, DCI Cole, but that wasn’t the point either.

All that could be put to one side, however, because the fact was that Graham Pomeroy was a significant name in the Greater Manchester Police force.

Jessica wasn’t sure what to say and couldn’t get past her first question: ‘Why would he be getting involved in day-to-day police work?’

Garry was looking slightly perkier after the coffee. ‘I thought you might know.’

‘Usually you can’t get that lot off the golf course unless there’s the chance to go on TV.’

‘Have you ever met him?’

‘A few times. Once or twice a year, they’ll host these engagement things to make it look like we’re a part of the community and so on. The thought’s in the right place but no one seems to realise that the only people who come out and get involved are the ones who don’t mind us anyway. We should concentrate on the teenagers and the kids – they’re the ones who are going to grow into adults who can’t stand us. We end up holding these dreadful events no one wants to go to, but if we did something like a football day, or if we hosted a BMX event, that kind of thing, we’d actually get a few of the lads down.’ Jessica sighed – this was an argument she’d made before. ‘Anyway, whenever we have one of these god-awful things, either the chief constable, his deputy, or one of the assistants turns up. They’ll smile, wave, have their photo taken, and then sod back off to the house in the country. Pomeroy usually shows up if there’s a free meal on the go.’

‘He’s
distinctive
then?’

‘If by “distinctive”, you mean “morbidly obese”, then yes, he is.’

‘Do you think whatever’s going on around your station is down to him?’

DCI Cole had said it himself: ‘
Word has come down from above to get the Potter case sorted . . .
’ Had Pomeroy given the call?

Before Jessica could reply, her phone began to ring. She apologised and took the call, then said sorry again after hanging up. ‘I’ve got to go – another woman’s gone missing.’

Everyone knew the drill with missing persons – make sure twenty-four hours had passed, ask if they’d checked the shed in case the person was hiding there. Was there any chance the absentee had simply had a night on the lash and fallen asleep on the bus home?

The reason Jessica drove across the city to the home of Joe Peters was that he lived with his girlfriend Leanne two streets away from the spot where it seemed likely Cassie and Grace had disappeared – and she hadn’t been seen in almost sixteen hours. Joe had read about the other missing girls and persuaded the 999 operator to put him through to someone who would listen.

Joe’s story was depressingly familiar and almost horrifyingly mundane. He and Leanne had argued over what to watch on television the previous night but, instead of compromising or turning the set off entirely, things had escalated into a full-blown barney and she’d stormed out of the house calling him every name under the sun. An hour later and Joe was regretting calling her a ‘fat fucking bitch’, which he insisted was in response to her branding him ‘a small-cocked, weasel-faced wanker’. Joe insisted to Jessica that he wasn’t ‘small-cocked’ but didn’t seem to argue about being ‘weasel-faced’. Either way, Leanne’s mobile phone seemed to be switched off and she wasn’t at any of her friends’ houses, or her mother’s, which meant that Joe had gone into a panic over the fate of the girl whose weight he had lovingly questioned less than a day ago.

It was precisely this kind of pettiness that was the reason why they didn’t usually start to investigate missing people until an entire day had passed – often longer.

Joe sat in an armchair trying to rock their baby to sleep, cooing in the child’s ear that ‘Mummy will be home soon’, while reeling off the list of insults he and Leanne had thrown at each other the previous night.

He placed the child on his lap and began massaging his shoulder with a pained groan, before adding: ‘We’ve kicked off in the past but she always comes back.’

They took a photograph of the missing woman in case they needed to run an appeal – or if a body turned up.

As she left the house with Archie close behind, Jessica noticed a black woman leaning against the front door of the adjacent house, smoking a cigarette. With a side-flick of her head, she beckoned Jessica over. When Jessica and Archie were close enough, she broke into a knowing smile, showing an impressive array of bright white teeth. ‘What is it this time?’

‘Sorry?’ Jessica replied.

‘It’s always something with those two – shouting at each other, swearing at the top of their voices, throwing things. Poor little baby has to sit through it all.’

‘How long have they lived here?’

‘Just over a year. I reckon your lot have been out half-a-dozen times since then.’

That was something someone probably should have checked before they’d decided to prioritise this as a missing persons case worthy of attention.

‘How well do you know them?’ Jessica asked.

The woman finished her cigarette and stubbed it out with her foot. ‘As well as anyone knows their neighbours nowadays. He’s Joe, she’s Leanne – neither of them seem to work, that’s about it.’

‘Have you actually seen them arguing?’

A weary nod: ‘Last summer – well, that one week in July – they were having a barbecue in the back garden. I went over for a sausage to be polite but couldn’t get away quickly enough. They’d invited a bunch of their mates over and it was already rowdy by mid-afternoon. A few more beers and everyone was shouting at everyone else. I was in our back bedroom watching as she went for him with the big tong things they were using to turn the meat over. She was whacking him on the shoulder and calling him all sorts. Then she picked up a garden gnome and hurled that at him too. I was in half a mind to give your lot a call but didn’t want the trouble in case either of them found out.’

With the alternative being that their killer had taken another woman, Jessica hoped this was another argument that had got out of hand.

Back at the station and they were making gentle inquiries into Leanne’s whereabouts without definitively classing her as missing. A small team were checking number plates that had gone into the area the previous evening, with CCTV from the shops at the bottom of the road being looked at just in case Leanne had popped in. Both Joe and Leanne had a string of low-level convictions, mainly for breaches of the peace, and someone was examining their known associates too. All in all, it was quite the farce.

Jessica knew there would be a stack of paperwork waiting for her but didn’t make it to her office before Fat Pat bellowed after her that DCI Cole wanted a word.

Despite apparently requesting her presence, he once again made her wait in the corridor, holding his hand up through the glass windows and then turning his back as he spoke on the phone. If he was deliberately trying to wind her up, then he certainly knew what he was doing. Jessica couldn’t help but wonder if the person on the phone was Pomeroy.

After a few minutes of steaming in the corridor, she finally got the wave from Cole, calling her into his office. He didn’t wait for her to sit before starting to speak: ‘That was a phone call to say that the missing woman Leanne is no longer missing. Apparently she got on a train and didn’t have the money to get back. She didn’t realise anyone was looking for her. Apologies for sending you out there – but better to be safe.’

It wasn’t a complete note of regret, nor had he used the word ‘sorry’ – but it was an apology of sorts, which was more than she’d had from him in months.

‘We can’t go chasing things up every time a couple have an argument.’

‘I know, but there’s something else . . .’ Suddenly the apology didn’t seem quite so charitable. ‘I’m sending you home – it’s late notice but there are all sorts of issues with staff and I need a senior officer to keep an eye on the area Cassie Edmonds and Grace Savage went missing from after dark.’

‘You’re putting me on nights?’

‘For Friday and Saturday. Take the rest of today off and don’t come in until late tomorrow evening. Take Sunday off too and then we’ll look again at next week. I’ve checked things over with HR and Patrick, plus there’s a bit of flexibility in the overtime budget if there’s anyone in particular you want to take out with you.’

Jessica bit on her top lip, thinking of how best to reply. There was no polite way. ‘Am I being picked on?’

Cole’s face folded into a frown but his tone didn’t soften. ‘Why would you think that?’

Jessica wanted to ask him why he’d been off with her for months, plus who was putting pressure on him and why. Instead, she gave the only answer she could: ‘No reason, Sir.’

28

Jessica sat in the small waiting area of the Indian restaurant trying to keep her temper. ‘I just don’t understand why you book a seat for half seven if you’re here at half seven and all the tables are full. Doesn’t that defeat the very purpose of making a booking?’

Adam sipped his pint of Cobra and patted her infuriatingly on the knee. ‘They’re just busy – it’s fine. We’ll get to eat.’

Jessica mumbled something about him backing her up for a change, going somewhere else, not wanting to be rushed, wondering why that waiter kept leaning against the doorframe not doing much, and then realising it was because he was trying to chat up the group of women in leather trousers.

All those things annoyed her, but none so much as the fact that she knew she
was
being picked on. It wasn’t the first time she’d been switched to lates at short notice and likely wouldn’t be the last – but the timing was fishy. Was it because they wanted a different officer to find something to pin on Holden Wyatt while she was off during the day, or were they trying to get her out of the way for another reason? The actual shifts wouldn’t inconvenience her that much – she rarely slept for longer than a few hours at a time and being off during the day might give her a chance to get up to no good away from prying eyes. That still didn’t stop her feeling marginalised – and even though she’d never met him properly, Graham Pomeroy’s enormous frame was surely casting a shadow over her life.

In an attempt to put it all out of her mind, Jessica had told Adam she was taking him out for tea to wherever he wanted to go; the only proviso was that it had to be exactly where she wanted and if he could pretend that it was where he wanted to go as well, then she’d be really grateful.

Luckily, Adam was a good actor and a far more patient person than she was.

Jessica peered up at the clock again – quarter to eight. They should have sat down to eat fifteen minutes ago. She nudged Adam with her knee. ‘Are you going to say something?’

‘Of course I’m not.’

‘Why?’

‘Because we’re in a restaurant. Do you really think the best thing to do is piss people off
before
they make your food?’

Fair point.

Fifteen minutes later and Jessica was working her way through a stack of poppadoms and tray of pickles as Adam leant back in his seat and watched her. ‘It’s nice to be out.’

‘It’s nice not to have to cook.’

‘Since when do you cook?’

‘I did you Pot Noodle on toast last week.’

‘Find that one in a celebrity chef book, did you?’

Jessica dug a slice of poppadom deep into the mango chutney, not daring to look up from the food because she didn’t want to catch his eye. ‘Sorry about, well, everything. Being late, sleeping on the sofa, being on nights . . .’

Adam sounded convincing, but then he’d had a lot of practice. ‘It’s fine – I’m going to pop over to Georgia’s flat tomorrow.’

Jessica hadn’t seen Adam’s sister in months. ‘How is she?’

‘That’s what I’m going to find out.’

‘Oh, right . . .’

Adam reached forward and dipped his finger in the onion chutney. ‘We should talk about Bex.’

‘What about her?’

‘Who is she?’

‘I told you.’

‘You said she’d stolen your purse and that you weren’t sure why you invited her into our home. She’s there now – it’s fine, I trust you – but there has to be a point to all of this.’

Jessica finished off the final poppadom and drank some of her wine to give herself a few moments to think. Luckily, the waiter trotted over and began clearing the remains of the food away, giving her a few more seconds. Eventually, she gave her reply: ‘I don’t know what I’m doing.’

‘She’s seventeen, Jess.’