Authors: Kerry Wilkinson
C
onsidering
that what happened between Jessica, Wayne Lapham and Peter Hunt occurred behind closed doors, even she was impressed at how quickly the news had travelled around the station when she arrived on the Monday morning. As Jessica walked through reception, it 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. She didn’t even bother to check in with anyone on the front desk, or visit her own office: she headed for the stairs and the DCI’s office.
Jessica could see him sitting behind his desk and he glanced up to spot 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 looked sharp and newly pressed, while he had a stern, harsh look on his face.
‘Detective Sergeant Daniel,’ was his greeting.
Jessica sat and waited for her boss to continue speaking.
‘On Saturday, I had a very brief conversation with Peter Hunt. Despite it being my day off, I had a further, much longer conversation with Mr Hunt yesterday over the phone. 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.’
‘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. He further alleges that your conduct was completely out of order throughout that interview and that you called him…’ The DCI paused, pulling 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 straight at her. ‘How do you answer that?’
She didn’t answer him directly, but instead said, ‘What’s the good news?’
Aylesbury actually smiled: she saw a twinkle in his eye she had never seen before. ‘The good news for you is that I have listened to the recording and, while some of your questioning may have been a little
unconventional
, I certainly could hear no threatening remarks. I have spoken to both Cole and the constable stationed outside 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. Cole had stopped the tape and left the room, leaving the door only slightly ajar. The constable outside had heard nothing – or was happy to say that. Lapham, meanwhile, would not want any kind of coverage, either public or otherwise, to indicate he might have been intimidated by a female. That meant it was only Hunt who was left with a problem.
Aylesbury continued. ‘Mr Hunt has indicated in his letter that he would wish to pursue this matter with the detective superintendent. I spoke with the superintendent 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 superintendent 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.’
DSI Davies was their overall boss, but he was not based at the station and had been winding down to retirement for a while. On most decisions, he deferred to the local chief inspector, and William Aylesbury was one of his particular favourites. Jessica guessed that on this occasion, Hunt’s profile meant a meeting had to be held. She hoped it would just be out of courtesy and almost allowed herself a half-smile.
‘I have one more question to ask, DS Daniel,’ Aylesbury 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 wasn’t entirely off the hook. Given her boss’s demeanour, she replied with the smirk she had been trying to stifle. ‘I think it may have been “slimy shitbag”, sir.’
The DCI laughed, much like Harry had done two days previously, 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 lighthearted moment to pass. Aylesbury’s features hardened once again. ‘I should of course point out that behaviour like that will not be tolerated and, if you
did
say anything out of order to Mr Lapham, that is exactly the type of practice we do not condone.’
‘Yes, sir.’
From there, it was straight down to business. With Wayne Lapham released and uncooperative about the mystery man he claimed had sold him the stolen goods in the pub, they were back to having no suspect.
The morning briefing went much along those lines. They had found one link – the burglary – but there must either be more to it or something else that joined the two victims. Lapham wasn’t entirely in the clear, either. His mugshot 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. It was likely that another minor crime or three would be discovered through this, but it was doubtful that he would have much more to do with the main investigation.
Jessica had resolved to return to the crime scenes that afternoon. The Scenes 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, with the husband, who was still technically paying half the mortgage, left to decide what to do with the place. It wasn’t going to be easy selling a house in which someone had recently been murdered.
Sandra Prince had been discharged from hospital the previous day and Jessica was also going to pay her a visit. It had been Sandra who had first put them on the tail of Wayne Lapham and it was possible she had something else tucked away. Jessica had been in such a hurry to get out of the hospital when she’d found out about the burglary, she could easily have missed something else. The whole of Tuesday was going to be spent either in court or hanging around outside court, so she 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’ in the hallways. Everyone 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 Jessica sent everyone on their way. The investigation was still somewhat of a mess given the lack of suspect, motive or method, but at least everyone was in a good mood.
Officers had begun to leave the room when Jessica saw Rowlands calling her over, flicking his head and pulling a face. He was standing near the back of the room, slightly away from any of the other departing officers. She walked across to him, fully expecting some crack about her car, 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.’
Rowlands huffed out a breath but didn’t take the bait. ‘No, seriously.’
‘Go on, then.’
‘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. We use psychics sometimes – and it can’t be any worse than that. I was asking him about how you could get in and out of something that was locked.’
‘Are you taking the piss?’
‘We don’t have any better ideas, do we?’
Jessica raised her eyebrows but had to concede they didn’t. ‘What did he say?’
‘It was complicated. I think he wants to meet you.’
‘You
are
joking?’
‘No, really. It was only a thought.’
‘A shit one.’
She instantly felt bad about saying that. Rowlands was a cocky so-and-so, but as she spoke, 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 but the intent behind it was the same: try to think around a problem rather than go for it directly.
‘All right, fine…’ Rowlands said.
‘Sorry – I’ll tell you what. I’m in court tomorrow, but come with me to the houses later today. If we don’t get anything from that, 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.
‘I’ll give him a call.’
‘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?’
‘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.’
G
arry Ashford was only
a couple of days away from being fully back in his editor’s bad books. ‘If it bleeds, it leads’ was his editor’s motto – and the
Herald
’s recent sales had borne that out.
The day of Garry’s first exclusive had seen sales double. The editorial attacks on the police force had helped keep the numbers up, while Garry’s second big story about the ‘Houdini Strangler’ – his editor’s headline – had seen numbers almost triple.
It hadn’t all been good news, 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. On the other hand, his editor had been talking of awards, promotions, pay rises and all sorts of other positive things. Garry was fully aware, though, that he hadn’t yet been promoted, or given any extra money, and he wondered how long he could keep his run going.
It was now Monday and it had been made abundantly clear by his editor that he had to come up with something good. His boss had questioned him about his source and asked if there was any more information they could use. It was all very polite on the surface, but there was definitely an undertone.
The editor’s questions left Garry with something of a problem. His source hadn’t yet been back in contact. The last time they’d spoken, his contact had said they would have to talk sparingly and that information would be a little light on the ground for a while.
However, Garry’s meeting with DS Daniel the previous week had at least gone better than he’d 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 his actual looks were the only thing she had left to go after him for.
He was supposed to have been off over the weekend but had received a call from the news editor on Friday evening, asking what he knew about someone named Wayne Lapham.
Garry knew as much as anyone else: nothing. 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 Garry knew 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. 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 know the area but had found the address and taken two buses to get there. He’d kept the bus tickets, hoping he would at least get expenses. Armed with a copy of that day’s
Herald
– which had a photo of Lapham on the front – he’d marched into the pub, hoping someone would be willing to point him in the right direction.
The barman, who Garry assumed was also the landlord, was a large bald-headed man with intimidating, accusing eyes and a deep voice. Garry showed him the paper’s front page and started with a polite, ‘Hello, I was wondering if—’ but the barman finished his sentence for him.
‘You were wondering if you could buy a drink? Yes, you can.’
Garry had ordered a coke and asked for a receipt. That would be going to the expenses department, too. That first drink had got him the information that Lapham had been in the pub the day before and that ‘your lot’ had been on the phone all morning.
The second drink uncovered the fact that Lapham was often in the pub, but wasn’t there at that exact moment. Garry could see that for himself.
The third coke and first packet of crisps helped Garry find out that Lapham didn’t live too far away and that this place was his local. With each ordered drink, the barman’s smile got wider and wider. Garry had always had a weak bladder and had already needed two trips to the toilets by this point. It was a bizarre type of torture, for which he was paying.
Garry’s first
beer
of the day, ordered out of exasperation, and second packet of crisps, finally prised out that Lapham lived in a row of flats not too far away.
‘Dunno more than that I’m afraid, mate,’ the barman told him after Garry had finished the final drink. Garry thought the word ‘mate’ was something of a subjective term.