Authors: Kerry Wilkinson
T
he drive
back to the station seemed to take an awfully long time and Cole’s coolness was beginning to wind Jessica up. She was still buzzing, the excitement of finally finding the link they had been waiting for almost too much to take – both victims had been burgled.
Every red traffic light, every queue at a roundabout and every time Cole stopped to bloody well give way made her clench her teeth and bite her tongue. If she had been driving, she would have had the sirens blaring and the lights flashing as she tore down the Stockport Road to get back to the station as quickly as possible.
She had already told Rowlands to get all of the information they had relating to the burglaries either on her desk if they had a hard copy, or on her computer screen if they didn’t. When they finally arrived back at the station, Jessica barely waited for Cole to park before she had the passenger door open and was striding towards the main building. She bounded through reception, past the desk sergeant and down the hallway into her empty office.
As she began to scan through the information, Jessica could see that the burglaries of the Christensens’ and the Princes’ houses had been linked to those of three others that happened in the same area, within a week of each other, this time the previous year. In theory, the crimes were unsolved. Having looked through each of the five incidents and cross-checked with the relevant notes, Jessica felt it was pretty clear the police
had
found their man, however.
Wayne Lapham was a name with which Greater Manchester Police were very familiar. As a fifteen-year-old, he had been sent to a young offenders’ institution for setting fire to an empty office building. He had spent the past twenty-five years in and out of prison and on probation schemes for various offences, including drug possession, thefts, assaults, drunk and disorderly and threatening behaviour. Every eighteen months or so, he would be picked up for a new offence and either sent back to prison or handed over to probation for another spell of supervision.
The offence that most interested Jessica was his most recent. A little over a year ago, police had been called to a pub in the Levenshulme area of the city, a little south of Gorton, where the five burglaries had taken place. A man had been attacked with a pint glass but, in the course of investigating that attack, the police had ended up searching Lapham, who had been in the same pub. Having seen his record, there was a very good chance the officers had recognised him and had searched him because of who he was. He would have been given a vague reason so that he couldn’t press charges of harassment, but everyone knew how it worked.
They’d found a laptop and two mobile phones in his rucksack. He had first claimed they were his but, after police had been given a warrant to search his house and found the rest of the items taken in the five burglaries, Lapham’s story had changed. He claimed he had bought everything in a pub for £300 a few nights previously, from a man he had never seen before or since.
Jessica smiled as she read that bit, shaking her head. Because
most
people would happily hand over £300 to a stranger in a pub. The police had delighted in picking holes in his story and the fact he had already changed it once. They’d charged him with burglary and handed the case over to the CPS for it to go to court. Given his record, he had been denied bail and had been left sitting in a jail cell for three months as he waited for the full Crown Court trial.
That was where things had got complicated. Although he had been caught with every item that had been stolen, there was no forensic evidence linking him to any of the scenes. Each burglary had been committed in the same way. Given the unseasonably warm weather the previous year, Lapham – or whomever – had prised open an unlocked and slightly ajar window – then made off with anything remotely valuable.
With evidence linking him to the stolen goods but not to the scenes of the crimes, and the CPS nervous over whether they would get a conviction, they’d offered Lapham’s lawyer a concession on the morning of the trial. If his client pleaded guilty to handling stolen goods, they would drop the burglary charges. It was exactly the kind of thing that infuriated the officers who worked hard on cases, not to mention the victims, who wanted justice. The one thing it did do was keep conviction rates up, meaning the CPS hit their own targets. Lapham, of course, hadn’t been able to believe his luck. He’d pleaded guilty and walked free that afternoon, after the judge ruled the time he had spent in prison on remand was sufficient punishment.
It couldn’t be a coincidence, Jessica felt, that two of the houses that had been burgled had now seen murders happen inside them. Regardless of whether or not Lapham had been found guilty, he was the man they needed to bring in. Jessica checked the address they had, printed off a copy of his mugshot, went to tell Aylesbury what was going on, and then set off to pick up their only suspect.
This time, she would drive.
U
niformed officers had been sent
to check on the three other burglary victims from the previous year. There was no obvious motive for a burglar to return to the scene of their crimes and kill the person who lived there, but they didn’t have much else to go on. It was seemingly the only link between the two murder victims.
Cole had thought it best they didn’t take marked vehicles to pick up Lapham, given his likely attitude towards the police. That meant Jessica taking her own car, along with Rowlands and a uniformed officer. Cole was also driving his vehicle – a spotlessly clean silver 4x4 – along with two other regular constables. Six officers might seem a bit over the top, but no one knew how Lapham would react to the police turning up at his door, especially given his history with the force. A marked car would also be sent behind them so they could transport their suspect back to the station when they had him. They would radio for the driver to move in when ready.
Despite Rowlands’ complaints about the sound of her exhaust tipping the suspect off while they were still a mile away, Jessica roared down Alan Turing Way towards Oldham Road on their way out to Moston. It was late afternoon and the Friday traffic had reached its peak, with everyone heading off towards the motorway and home. They had barely got out of the station when Jessica left Cole far behind. He gave way at the junction next to the station’s exit as she put her foot down, probably cutting up the guy behind – who beeped his horn – and then accelerated away through a traffic light that was
definitely
still on amber. Well, probably.
If the roads had been clear, the journey would have taken around twenty minutes, but Jessica did it in less than that, regardless of the traffic. As she pulled up outside the grubby block of housing-association flats in which Lapham was supposed to live, Rowlands admitted he had been impressed, if mildly terrified, by her driving. The uniformed officer in the back didn’t say anything, but his pale face and relief at getting the seatbelt off when she put the handbrake on told the story well enough.
‘Should we wait—?’ Rowlands started, but Jessica already had her door open and was making her way around the front of the car.
The three of them found the flat quickly enough; it was on the ground floor and they established there was no back door. Jessica sent Rowlands towards the rear of the building anyway, in case Lapham tried to make a run for it out the window.
After Rowlands gave her the message to say he was in position, Jessica, with the uniformed officer by her side, knocked on the door. The wood felt thin and the colour of the paint was hard to distinguish. It had probably been blue at some point but it didn’t look like it had ever been cleaned. There was no answer to the knock, but they could hear a television on inside. Jessica knocked again, louder the second time. They heard a female voice from the behind the door, then it was opened.
The woman standing in front of them had grimy brown hair tied back into a ponytail, secured with a ludicrously big, flowery pink tie that certainly didn’t match the rest of her appearance. She was wearing a peach-coloured dressing gown with matching slippers, holding a smouldering cigarette in her left hand, with the right one poised on the door.
‘Who are you?’ the woman said to Jessica, looking her up and down, before noticing the officer in uniform. ‘Oh for—’ she began.
Jessica talked over her. ‘Nice to meet you, too.’ She pulled out her warrant card. ‘Is Wayne in? We’d like to have a little chat.’
‘Don’t you pigs ever leave him alone? What do you want this time?’
‘Is he in? He does live here, doesn’t he?’
‘He’s not here.’
‘You sure? We could come in to have a look around…’ Jessica motioned to put a hand on the front door but the woman pushed it back against her.
‘If you’ve not got a warrant, you ain’t coming through. He’s not here. Now piss off.’
The woman went to close the door but Jessica stopped her. ‘If he’s not here, then where is he?’
‘I don’t know. The pub? The snooker? I don’t know where he gets to.’
‘
Which
pub?’
‘Don’t take that tone with me—’ the woman started, but Jessica was losing patience. She pushed the door fully open and squared up to the woman standing in the doorway. Jessica was a couple of inches taller than her, and the woman took a step back.
‘I’ll happily stand here while my colleagues get that warrant. Are you
sure
there’s nothing dodgy inside? Now, tell me, where is he?’
The woman was fuming, banging her hand into the door. Much of what Jessica had said was bluster, and she was gambling that Lapham’s girlfriend wouldn’t know that.
‘Fine,’ the woman spat. ‘He goes to that Prince of Wales pub over on the main road.’ She motioned the direction with her hands, but Jessica knew where the place was because they had driven past it on the way in. The woman took a step towards Jessica in a clear effort to show she wasn’t intimidated. ‘Now get out of my house, you posh bitch.’
Jessica did precisely that, thinking it was the first time she had ever been called ‘posh’. As they got back to her car, Cole was parking his wagon behind them. If he was annoyed they had got there first and were on their way back from the flat empty-handed, he didn’t mention it. ‘Not in?’ was all he said after opening his driver’s-side window with an electric hum.
‘Prince of Wales pub around the corner,’ Jessica said. ‘Let’s walk it, then we’ll get the marked car to park outside when we know he’s there.’
It must have seemed an odd sight, three people in suits and three in uniform walking the few hundred yards to the pub. Jessica showed all of them the mugshot so they knew who to look for. The pub was on a main road with a car park at the back. Jessica sent two of the three uniformed officers to wait there, leaving Rowlands and the other uniform at the front. She and Cole entered through the heavy wooden door.
The pub looked as if it hadn’t been renovated in Jessica’s lifetime. Despite the smoking ban having been in effect for years, Jessica could still smell stale cigarettes, and the ceiling was covered in the brown and black stains that had seemed so familiar before the law had changed. On the walls were framed photos and prints of various local football teams.
It was exactly the type of hole Harry would have loved.
The door opened up into what was essentially one large room, with the bar to their right. Jessica scanned the room and Cole did the same. There were only around half a dozen people in the whole place, and she couldn’t see Lapham. Cole said, ‘No’ quietly, to indicate he couldn’t either. He went to check the men’s toilets, which were next to the bar, as Jessica sat on a stool in front of the barman.
The big and bald server towered over her. He had already been eyeing the pair of them suspiciously as they walked in – and the fact a potential customer had gone to use the toilets without buying a drink was no doubt causing him concern.
‘Can I get you…?’ he started, as Jessica flashed him her warrant card. She also removed the photo of the suspect from the other pocket and held both items up for the barman to look at.
‘Have you seen him?’ she asked.
‘Wayne? Yeah, he was in here up until a minute ago. He took some call on his phone then bolted out the back. He left half his pint.’ The server indicated a half-finished glass of bitter on the table a few feet away from Jessica. ‘I didn’t clean it up ’cos I thought he might be coming back.’
Jessica slammed her hand on the bar, startling not only the barman but at least two of the other customers, who looked over towards her. ‘That cow tipped him off.’
A
s Cole emerged
from the toilets, Jessica dashed for the front door and was quickly halfway down the road they had just walked along. Cole, Rowlands and three uniformed officers trailed behind. To anyone driving past it must have seemed like a bizarre sitcom scene.
Jessica bounded past Cole’s vehicle and her own car, hurdled a hedge and charged towards Lapham’s flat. Rowlands arrived, out of breath, a little after Jessica had finished pounding on the front door. She would have shouted out the woman’s name if she knew it. She continued to bang on the door as everyone else arrived. Adrenaline was flooding through her and the only emotion she felt was blind fury.
‘She tipped him off,’ Jessica gasped to Cole, repeating herself in case anyone was in any doubt as to why she was acting so erratically.
With no answer at the door, but no warrant either, she turned to Cole. ‘Can we break it down? Harbouring a suspect and all that?’
Cole ummed, so Jessica turned to the biggest officer in their party. He was the only one in uniform who didn’t look as if he was going to keel over after the run. ‘Break it down.’
The uniformed constable was comfortably over six foot and looked as if he could smash through doors like this for fun. He ushered them to one side, took a step back and had just readied himself to put the full force of his boot through the door, when it opened suddenly.
In the doorway stood the woman from before, but this time she was fully dressed. The slippers and dressing gown were gone and she was wearing dark blue tracksuit bottoms and a hooded top with the over-the-top hair tie. She looked at the officer who had his foot half-raised, and then at Jessica.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’
Jessica was not in a mood to be mucked about. ‘Where is he?’
The woman gave a small grin, yellowing teeth on show as she goaded the officers. ‘Who?’
Jessica ignored the taunt and barged past the woman, who let out a ‘Hey!’ as she was sidelined. Jessica opened the first door on her right, which was the bathroom. The whole house was full of varying degrees of junk. Broken computer keyboards and other electrical items that didn’t look as if they worked littered the hallway. Jessica went into the kitchen, directly opposite the front door. The draining board was piled high with dirty plates and pans and there was more random scrap on the floor. She moved into the living room, still hearing the protests of the woman going on behind her.
There was no sign of Lapham.
Jessica made her way back through the living room and kitchen into the hall, where she noticed a door she had missed the first time around. In her haste to barge past the woman, she hadn’t seen an opening opposite the bathroom.
The woman was arguing with Cole and Jessica could hear the words ‘my rights’ being shouted. She ignored the noise and went through the door into a bedroom. An enormous flatscreen television hung on the wall facing the bed, which hadn’t been made. A bright purple duvet cover was on the floor and nothing could be seen under the bed. Jessica got down on her knees and hurled the covers aside, fully expecting to see Wayne Lapham underneath.
He wasn’t there.
She moved to the built-in wardrobe and pushed the doors aside, shoving the clothes on the rail out of the way. He wasn’t there, either. Jessica swore to herself and then made her way out to the front door, where the woman was screaming at the officers.
The woman jabbed her finger into Jessica’s chest as she pushed past her.
‘I’m going to have you. You can’t do that. I know my rights,’ the woman said.
‘You know that aiding a criminal is an offence you can go to prison for?’
‘What are you on about?’ the woman said.
‘You know we can check your phone records?’
That statement rattled the woman, whose confident expression changed instantly.
‘Where is he?’ Jessica asked. ‘I’m not going to ask again.’
One of the officers unclipped the handcuffs from his belt with timing Jessica couldn’t have asked to be better. The woman turned from the constable holding the cuffs back to Jessica. Her face fell, the snarl finally removed.
‘I don’t know. He said “thanks” and hung up.’
Cole spoke next, and Jessica wondered why he hadn’t said anything before. ‘Do you have any idea where he might have gone?’
‘Where he always goes,’ the woman replied. ‘A pub somewhere.’
T
he officers made
their way back to the station in convoy, with Jessica following Cole and the marked car they had waiting. Jessica realised she still didn’t know the woman’s name, or even who she was. Presumably she was a girlfriend? They could have arrested her for aiding Lapham’s escape, but then again she could have made a complaint about Jessica ransacking her house without a warrant. Besides, arresting her wouldn’t have done too much good in their attempts to find their suspect. One of the uniformed officers had been left with her in case Lapham returned. She hadn’t been too pleased, but Cole had told her they wouldn’t press charges if she cooperated.
It had been Jessica’s mistake. If she hadn’t charged in without waiting for Cole to arrive in the first place, somebody could have been left to keep an eye on the woman. That would have made a lot more sense than all of them taking a leisurely stroll to the pub. She phoned the station to say they were returning without their suspect and that the press office should try to get a photo of Lapham onto the evening news and in the next day’s newspapers if possible. At least that way they could get the whole city looking for their guy. With any luck, if the woman was right about him propping up a bar somewhere, he would return home at closing time and the uniformed officer would have him in custody that night.
The traffic had all but cleared; for most people, it was officially the weekend. Jessica was not looking forward to returning to the station to explain what had happened. She drove steadily, following Cole, waiting when he waited and giving way when he gave way.
Back at the station, to his credit, Cole backed her when they went to see Aylesbury. He made no mention of Jessica going in ahead of him and he certainly didn’t try to push any blame onto her, even though she felt she deserved it. In fact, the whole incident didn’t turn into the mess she’d thought it would, largely because the DCI was ready to go on the television news that evening to appeal for help in finding Lapham. It was as if he couldn’t quite believe his luck that it looked like they had their man.
Aylesbury dismissed the two of them and made his way downstairs to wait for the cameras.
‘Thanks,’ Jessica offered to Cole.
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘Have a good weekend,’ she added.
C
aroline had gone
out with Randall for the night, so Jessica was free to watch the evening news at home on her own. They had invited her out, but she didn’t fancy it. She had been finding reasons to avoid the flat for the past couple of nights. The previous evening had been the first time Randall had stayed over, but they had spent most evenings in together that week. Jessica was glad her friend was happy, but the lovey-dovey stuff drove her mad. She didn’t want to say anything – and at least she could now have an evening by herself.
She flopped onto the sofa, feet curled underneath her, and watched the news on one local channel before flicking to the other. Aylesbury was in his element. For the first piece, he was outside the station as the sun set. He had his best ‘this is serious stuff’ face on, speaking about the need for the public to be vigilant. He said that some press reports had been wildly inaccurate, added that people shouldn’t panic, and then went on to say that the police were looking for Wayne Lapham to help with their inquiries. He didn’t once mention the word ‘suspect’. The channel then showed the mugshot of Lapham with his name underneath.
Jessica changed the channel to some reality show spin-off. She wasn’t particularly interested in watching it but was happy to sit through anything that would take her mind off the day’s shambles. The sun had almost set, and even with the flat’s curtains open, the room was dim. She was still wearing her work suit but she felt warm and a little sleepy. She put her head on the armrest of the sofa and sank further into it, before closing her eyes for a moment.
J
essica awoke
with a jump what she thought was a few seconds later. There was noise coming from somewhere.
Ugh.
The television was off and there was light spilling into the room. She looked at the analogue clock on the wall above the TV but couldn’t take in what it was telling her. Disorientated, she tried to sit up; a blanket that had been covering her fell to the floor. The noise stopped and she rubbed her eyes to get a better look at the time. It was five past nine. Had she really slept all night? Caroline must have come in and switched the set off and put the blanket over her.
She shook her head, trying to wake up, and went to look for her phone. Her bag and shoes were on the floor next to the living-room door as they always were – but her phone wasn’t in her bag. Jessica hunted around the room, looking under the pile of magazines on the coffee table and then under the table itself. She eventually found the device beneath the sofa. She thought she had left it in her bag but had long since failed to be surprised by where her phone or keys ever ended up. She had once found her keys in the fridge. Anything was possible.
Jessica thumbed a few buttons and saw she had a missed call from the station.
The desk sergeant’s familiar voice answered. ‘I wondered what you were up to. Big night, was it?’
‘Not really. What’s up?’
‘Want to guess who walked into the station half an hour ago?’
‘Lapham? Really?’
‘Yep. It’s not him you’ll have to worry about, though. Guess who he was with?’
Jessica started to rack her brain but was still too half asleep for a guessing game. ‘Go on.’
‘He’s downstairs with everyone’s favourite lawyer: Peter Hunt.’