Scarred for Life (25 page)

She’d tried to follow but Bex hadn’t got by for the length of time she’d been on the streets by being careless. She had headed into the narrow alleyways that ran along the back of the houses opposite Jessica’s and disappeared. Jessica knew a little about where Manchester’s homeless community congregated but doubted Bex would be appearing there any time soon; not to mention the fact she had to work late that night.

Together, Adam and Jessica hunted through every room of the house but the silver candlesticks that had belonged to his grandmother had definitely gone. Adam asked if they could have been burgled but the more obvious things thieves would have taken – the television, the laptop – were exactly where they always had been. Jessica didn’t own much jewellery, certainly nothing expensive, but they checked the bottom drawer of the dresser on Adam’s side of the bed. As well as a pendant she’d had since she was a child, it was where they kept their passports and paper driving licences. Everything was there, but Adam insisted things weren’t right, saying he’d left them stacked in a different order. Jessica didn’t know either way, but he was anal about things like that so she had no reason to doubt him.

The obvious conclusion was that Bex had been through their things but Jessica didn’t believe it. Why would she? As for the candlesticks, neither Jessica nor Adam knew if they were worth anything; they’d been kept as a reminder of everything they’d lost in the house fire and almost as a joke because they were so archaic and unlike anything they would otherwise own. Jessica had never lived on the streets but she knew the type of thing that would be sold for cash – and there were enough items around the house that Bex could have got money for if that’s what she wanted.

All of that left the disturbing question of what exactly had gone on. Whoever had put the letter with the symbol on through her door knew where she lived – but Jessica had no idea who had left it, nor what they might have broken into the house for. Jessica knew she should tell Adam about it but it was another example of the job following her home and she was carrying too much guilt about that as it was.

The final part of the puzzle was revealed as they checked the doors and windows – the back door was unlocked, even though Adam insisted he’d locked it. That was something that couldn’t be pinned on Bex because she’d only ever had a front-door key.

Someone, somewhere had it in for them. Or, perhaps more specifically, her.

Jessica twiddled the dial on the side of the passenger’s seat and jolted the rear of the seat backwards until she was as horizontal as she could manage.

‘Ow!’ DC Archie Davey squealed from behind her, hastily trying to yank his legs out from underneath her seat.

‘I told you I was going to have a quick kip.’

‘You didn’t say you were going to slam your fat arse into my legs.’

In the driver’s seat, DC Rowlands sniggered childishly.

Jessica twisted around in the seat, tying herself up in the seatbelt and nearly strangling herself. ‘
Pardon?
’

Archie was still shuffling onto the other side of the back seat, rubbing his knees. ‘Nothing.’

Their unmarked CID pool car was parked in the shadows of a side street leading away from the main road that was still blocked by roadworks in the area where Jessica suspected Cassie and Grace had disappeared. It didn’t look as if the workmen digging up the road had done anything since the last time Jessica had been there.

Jessica closed her eyes but the glare of the constantly changing traffic lights from the other end of the street still burned through her eyelids.

A woman’s voice crackled across the police radio. ‘It’s sodding freezing out there.’

Without opening her eyes, Jessica pressed the button to respond. ‘It’s November in Manchester, what do you bloody expect?’

A second woman’s voice erupted from the speaker: ‘I honestly think I might lose a nipple if I have to keep walking around in this. Can I borrow a coat?’

Jessica still didn’t open her eyes. ‘Will you all stop moaning?’

In fairness to the three constables chosen to walk along the main road, the mercury wouldn’t have been bothering many, if any, numbers above zero. Each woman strutted along the quarter-of-a-mile stretch beside the area that was dug up, turning left into the next street and then looping back to the unmarked van at the beginning, where a cup of tea and a bloody huge coat awaited them. Then it was the next woman’s turn. Between the three of them, they were wearing enough material to completely clothe one of Fat Pat’s thighs.

Each of the three was wired up, primarily so their complaints could be piped directly back to the car containing Jessica, Archie and Dave, and to the backup van with two constables, a sergeant and the driver.

‘Easy for you to say,’ one of the constables shot back, ‘you’re not the one traipsing up and down with your arse hanging out of a skirt.’

Archie sat up straighter in the back seat, trying to peer around Jessica towards the deserted main road, knocking the back of her seat in the process.

Jessica shot him a dirty look. ‘She only said the word “skirt” – it wasn’t an invitation.’ Dave’s head had bobbed up like a startled meerkat’s too. ‘It’s only Joy Bag,’ Jessica added. ‘You see her every day at work.’

‘There’s that new one too,’ Dave replied, turning to Archie. ‘What’s her name?’

‘All right,’ Jessica interrupted. ‘It’s not a fashion show. We’re supposed to be here looking for some nasty bastard, not gawping at anything female with a pulse.’

There was a short pause before Dave replied. ‘If that’s the case, then why are you trying to go to sleep?’

‘What might appear to your untrained eye to be an attempt to sleep is in fact a careful refining of my thought process. Anyway, that’s why we’re a team – you do the looking out for nasty bastards, I do the careful planning.’

‘With your eyes shut?’

‘Exactly.’

A couple of minutes passed with only the merest complaint from Jane as she set off for her lap of the estate. Just as Jessica was beginning to relax, Archie cut the silence. ‘You know what the problem is, don’t you? Our lot aren’t slutty enough. Northern girls are tough – they’re not walking home in skirts and tops, half of them are out in their underwear. It’s all the rage nowadays.’

‘He’s right,’ Dave said.

Jessica hoiked her chair back into position and jabbed a finger in Dave’s direction. ‘As if you know what girls are wearing nowadays. When was the last time you went out on the pull and didn’t end up home alone? The only crush you’ve got is on him.’ She poked a thumb towards Archie in the back seat to prove her point. ‘Now – can you please all stop talking because you’re steaming up the windows and I can’t see a bloody thing.’

Jessica wedged her head into the gap between the seat and the window and closed her eyes again but she could sense Archie and Dave exchanging a look.

She was trying to focus by thinking of anyone who wasn’t Bex. Somewhere in the frozen city centre, the teenager was trying to find a safe spot to sleep. No wonder she kept a knife close to hand.

More complaining over the radio – this time because the heels were making Jane’s feet hurt.

Jessica blinked her eyes open. ‘What time is it?’

Dave’s phone lit up the front seat. ‘Twenty to ten.’

‘Have you got any money on you?’

‘Dunno, maybe a fiver?’

Jessica sat up straighter and held her palm out. ‘Let’s have it.’

Dave delved into his coat pocket and pulled out a scrunched-up note. ‘What for?’

Jessica grabbed it and reached towards the back seat. ‘Arch, you awake?’

‘Aye.’

‘I’ve got a really important job I’m going to trust you with – take this money, head directly down the road, second left, first right and keep going until you see the row of shops. Ignore the pizza place and first row of shutters, then follow your nose. I think I saw a chippy down there. I’m large chips, battered sausage and gravy, Dave’s small chips, and get whatever you want.’

‘With a fiver?’

‘I’m sure you’ve got a few quid on you. Whatever you do, don’t forget my sausage and don’t let them scrimp on the gravy. Now – chop, chop; most places around here close at ten so get a move on.’

Archie grumbled his way out of the back seat, complaining that he hadn’t spent all the years in uniform and training just so he could end up on the chip run but Jessica told him to stop moaning, else she’d get him tarted up in a short skirt to patrol the estate and see how he liked it.

Icy air whooshed into the car as Archie opened the door, only for him to be shouted at for making Jessica cold.

When it was just the pair of them, Dave angled himself in the driver’s seat until he was facing her. ‘You’re on one tonight . . .’

‘It’s been a week for it.’

‘I’ve not had time to look at your symbol since we last spoke.’

‘Don’t worry about it – we’ll get there. Izzy said the day crew have been snowed under today too. They’ve been interviewing everyone at the rowing club’s party for a third time, making sure they’ve not missed anything. They’ve also had someone trying to sort out the number plate thing for this case but Hamish has been out in his taxi today, so every time he’s out picking up a passenger, his number plate flashes up on our system. There are so many places you can buy a plate from nowadays that it’s not as if we can narrow down when our guy might have cloned it.’

‘Basically, we’ve got nowhere?’

‘Precisely – that’s why we’re here.’

Over the radio, Jane announced that she was back in the van, as one of the other constables asked if she really had to go out in the cold. Jessica’s reply was an unsympathetic ‘stop whingeing’.

‘Do you really think we’re going to get anything doing this?’ Dave asked.

‘Of course not. It’s probably the superintendent panicking that we’ve not made any progress so he needs us to look pro-active.’

The radio sparked to life again, the constable speaking quietly: ‘Bloke in a hoody looking a bit weird on the other side of the road.’

‘Probably Archie,’ Dave mumbled.

They waited for a few seconds until she added: ‘It’s all right; he’s just taking a piss in someone’s garden.’

It really had come to something when that was considered ‘all right’, but it wasn’t as if they could go charging in and arrest him for it when they were trying to remain in the shadows.

‘How’s it going with your granny?’ Jessica asked.

‘I told you before—’

‘Yeah, yeah, she’s not a granny. Anyway, how’s it going?’

‘She broke it off. It was probably for the best. With her further up north, neither of us fancied the travelling and it wasn’t really worth it. We had a good time. Don’t worry, I’m not going to jump you if that’s what you’re worried about.’

‘I’d be more worried about you jumping Archie with the way you make eyes at him.’

At the other end of the street, the traffic lights flicked from green to amber back to red again, bathing the car in a bright chestnut glow.

Jessica closed her eyes again. ‘Where is Archie with those chips?’

‘He’s only been gone a few minutes.’

‘He could’ve run. I’m starving here.’ Jessica expected a comeback regarding the size of her arse but it didn’t happen. When she glanced sideways at Dave to make sure he was listening, his face was pressed against the misty glass. ‘You’re not licking the windows again, are you?’

Dave frantically rubbed the condensation away and pointed to the end of the street. ‘Can you see that van?’

‘I had my eyes fixed, remember?’

‘Look at the logo on the side.’

Jessica leant across the handbrake, pressing her elbow into his thigh accidentally and squinting into the night. ‘Is that . . . ?’

Jessica wasn’t sure but Dave sounded certain: ‘It’s your logo.’

31

The traffic lights changed to green and the van surged forward, sending a cloud of exhaust fumes hurtling into the air.

‘What are you waiting for?’ Jessica shouted, trying to untangle herself from the seatbelt again. ‘Follow that van.’

Dave was clumsily trying to turn the key. ‘What about Archie?’

‘He’s going to have a lot of chips to eat. Go – quickly – they’re getting away.’

Dave stalled the car, much to Jessica’s annoyance, and then finally made the engine squawk to life, before bunny-hopping away from the kerb and accelerating to the end of the street, then turning onto the main road. In the distance, the van was racing away from them at a speed well above the 30 m.p.h. limit.

Jessica was straining against her seatbelt, trying to get a better view of the van. ‘You do know the accelerator pedal’s on the right?’

‘I’m on it! It’s not my fault the car’s shite.’

‘Do you need to swap seats?’

‘God, no. I’ve not recovered from the last time.’

‘So put your foot down then.’

Dave did just that, shutting Jessica up as the back of her head bounced off the headrest and he raced across a junction. Being Manchester, Jessica’s agitation was entirely misplaced as the van quickly ground to a halt at another set of traffic lights. Dave eased off the pedal and Jessica radioed the backup vehicle to say they had been called away to follow up an alternative line of inquiry. She consoled them by saying that she had specifically asked Archie to treat them to sausage and chips and that they could thank her later.

Just as they eased in behind the van, the lights turned green and it accelerated again. Jessica reached forward and wiped the condensation away. The rear door of the van had once been white but the lower half was now covered in a grimy layer of filth. Someone had fingered the words ‘Your mum’s dirtier than this’ into the muck but the top half was almost clean, the three-pronged logo stencilled clearly into the upper corner. In crisp, dark letters, a company’s name was equally clear next to it: ‘BUNCE ’N’ BUILDERS’, along with a website and a phone number.

Jessica picked up her phone and started tapping away, complaining about the reception, and telling Dave to make sure he followed the van without making it look like they were following it.

‘It was only a minute ago you were telling me to floor it,’ he complained.