Woman in Black (18 page)

‘If anyone else asks, I’ll deny it to my grave. Either that or pin it on someone else.’

‘What’s the plan for today then?’

Jessica noticed how tired her former office mate was looking. He pointed towards a couple of files on his desk but there were visible bags around his eyes. ‘I thought maybe read through these and then we’ll go see George Johnson this afternoon. I’ll show you what’s on the computer system too. A lot of it is just cuttings though. There’s not much in our files that hasn’t been in the papers – he tends to do most of his talking through the media.’

‘I’ve not really had time to see what’s been on the news. I only know what’s been said in our morning briefings.’

‘Fair enough, maybe you’ll see something we haven’t?’

Jessica wasn’t convinced. ‘Does he know we’re going to see him later?’

‘I cleared it with his PA. I think he likes us visiting his house because a photo ends up in the paper. He asked us around last week even though he had nothing to say.’

Jessica had rarely heard of something so formal. ‘You’ve got to go through a secretary to book time with him?’

‘We could just barge in but we’re never sure where he is. He’s been in London a couple of times this week.’ Jessica was grateful she didn’t have to deal with him as barging into places was very much her style.

She sat in a spare chair and began to read but found it hard to concentrate. As much as she thought it could be a good idea to look at each other’s cases for a day, she couldn’t get her mind away from her own. Her eyes skimmed the words but she found herself drawn to the pictures, almost like a child pretending to read. As the inspector had said, a lot of the items in their dossier were simply cuttings from various newspapers. There were plenty of photos of the MP and his wife together grinning in a posed fashion for the camera. Jessica couldn’t see a single picture that didn’t look staged.

If she hadn’t known who he was but had just been shown a photo of George Johnson and asked to guess what his profession was, Jessica’s first response would always have been ‘politician’. He looked exactly like she expected an MP to look. The man was somewhere in his late fifties or early sixties. He had silver hair that was constantly swept away from his face. Most of the images had him in a full suit but the odd one showed him in an open-necked shirt, presumably showing people he knew how to relax. None of it looked particularly real to Jessica, as if the man’s life was lived through fake smiles and expensive clothing. She hated having her own picture taken but, even given that, there were plenty around of her with food dropped down her clothing and silly faces being pulled as someone took her off-guard.

Some people hated politicians just because of what they were but Jessica had never really shared that disdain for anyone because of their job. She judged people on the way they acted, not on what they did but, even without meeting him, there was something about George Johnson that didn’t sit quite right with her. Jessica tried to put those feelings to the back of her mind as she didn’t want to prejudice her opinion before meeting him but, having skimmed through the newspaper reports, it seemed clear the focus of a lot of what he had been saying was about himself, not his missing wife.

After lunch, Reynolds drove them to the politician’s house. The area wasn’t affluent as such, but the road George Johnson lived on ran between Platt Fields Park and Birchfields Park in the Rusholme area of the city. It was covered by the Gorton constituency he represented and provided an odd mix of large properties set back from the road that were within walking distance of a notorious area where plenty of trouble originated from. As they pulled onto the street, a few teenage girls in school uniform walked past, passing a cigarette between them. A private girls’ school was on the edge of the park and Jessica figured their lunch break must be coming to a close. They were in a marked car and, as Reynolds drove past, Jessica saw one of the girls trying to hide the cigarette behind her back.

Although Jessica knew roughly where the MP lived, she didn’t know exactly which house belonged to him. Reynolds parked just past where the girls had been walking and the two detectives got out of the vehicle. Jessica followed her boss further down the street but soon saw a familiar face sitting in a nearby car.

‘Just give me a minute,’ she said to the inspector, who carried on walking. Jessica knocked on the car’s window, crouching to grin at Garry Ashford through the passenger window. The journalist opened his door and got out before coming around to where Jessica was now sitting on his bonnet.

‘What are you doing here?’ Garry asked.

‘I couldn’t let this new girlfriend of yours have you to herself. I’m here to declare my undying love for you. Let’s go to Vegas and make it official.’

The journalist laughed. ‘I’d rather pay for it.’

Jessica could tell from the look on his face he was joking. ‘Oi, I seem to remember you asking me out once upon a time. At a funeral, no less.’

‘You must have misheard me.’

Jessica smiled. ‘All right, get yourself a girlfriend and suddenly you’re all confident. What’s going on anyway?’

‘Not much, still sat here waiting for something to happen. Even the editor is getting bored now though. Unless something comes out today, I’m back in the office from Monday. The TV cameras went home a couple of days ago and it’s all winding down. Why are you here?’

‘Job swap for a day seeing as none of our major cases are going anywhere.’

‘Can I quote you on that?’

Jessica snorted. ‘Piss off but thanks for that piece the other day anyway.’

Garry smiled. ‘No worries. I’m just hedging my bets you pull your finger out and do your jobs properly so I can get my exclusive at the end of it all.’

‘All right, don’t worry about me. I’ll see you soon – and say “hello” to Mrs Ashford for me. Hopefully she’ll be released from that mental hospital sometime soon.’

Jessica stood up from the journalist’s bonnet and followed the direction Reynolds had gone in. He was waiting for her around fifty yards down the road next to some huge metal gates at the bottom of a driveway. She saw a nearby photographer taking their picture as the inspector spoke into an intercom box and a side gate buzzed open. The drive arched upwards, looping around a perfectly manicured piece of garden. Parked in front of the property was a sparklingly clean black vehicle that Jessica would have guessed cost more than she earned in a year. The house itself wasn’t as big as the one Charlie Marks was living in but still looked impressive. There was a wide mock-Tudor front door and the window frames were in the same style. Jessica noticed a man on a ladder trimming a hedge on the far side of the grass.

Reynolds led Jessica towards the front door and rang the doorbell. A woman answered after a few seconds and walked them into a downstairs room lined with hardback books. The two detectives were each offered leather-backed armchairs and the woman asked in broken English with an eastern European accent if they wanted tea. After the heat outside, Jessica found the house refreshingly cool but still didn’t fancy a hot drink and they both declined.

As the woman walked away, Jessica met her boss’ eyes and he answered the question she hadn’t needed to ask. ‘It’s the maid. I think she does all the cooking and cleaning too.’

Jessica hadn’t experienced a situation quite like this before. Usually when you wanted to speak to someone, whether they were a suspect or a witness, you simply did it. Making appointments and being welcomed by a maid was far from the norm.

‘Have you interviewed the maid?’ Jessica asked.

‘Yes, her statement is one of the few things that hasn’t ended up in the papers but she didn’t have much to say. When the wife went missing, she was shopping.’ Jessica realised she should really have read that statement earlier in the morning but Reynolds didn’t seem to mind going over what would be old ground for him.

While they waited, Jessica heard her phone’s text tone sounding. It was a message from Rowlands telling her the contents of the envelope addressed to her had been confirmed as a finger that came from Jacob Chrisp’s hand. It was exactly what she’d expected but reminded her of the feelings of being targeted. Jessica sent him a message back to thank him, then put her phone on silent.

A few minutes later, a man she recognised as George Johnson swept into the room. He moved quickly and, even though he was in his own home, was still dressed in a sharp navy-blue suit with a matching tie. The two detectives stood and he offered his hand. ‘Detective Inspector Reynolds,’ the politician said as he shook hands with the inspector, then turned to Jessica. ‘And…’ he added, fishing for Jessica’s name.

‘DS Daniel,’ Jessica replied, also shaking his hand. He squeezed hard, almost as if it were a competition. It didn’t hurt her as such but certainly took her by surprise. Jessica had always been annoyed by people that took firm handshakes to the extreme. She had once worked with a lawyer whose grip bordered on common assault. Not only that but Jessica hadn’t met a single person with a firm handshake who she’d got on with. In her mind there was a direct correlation between how hard you shook someone’s hand and how much of a dick you were.

‘Nice to meet you,’ the politician said but he had already turned away to sit down, looking towards Reynolds. ‘What is it you wanted me for?’

Jessica saw that the inspector met the man’s gaze. ‘Nothing in particular, Mr Johnson, we just wanted you to go over a few of the key details again.’

‘Is this actually leading anywhere?’ The politician wasn’t exactly angry but he wasn’t hiding his disdain for them either.

Reynolds kept a calm tone. ‘I can assure you we’re completely focused on finding your wife. Sometimes going over things witnesses have already told us can help clarify things in their own minds as well as ours.’

‘You do realise I’m a very busy person?’

Reynolds started to speak but Jessica got in before him. ‘You do realise your wife is missing?’ Both the inspector and the MP stared at her but she defiantly met the politician’s gaze. She didn’t know why she had spoken but most people whose partner had gone missing could have only dreamed of the type of attention the man in front of her was getting. Jessica thought of Vicky Barnes and the way she had struggled to get the police to focus on her son’s disappearance. George Johnson had almost their full department at his disposal and was complaining because he was busy.

He clearly wasn’t happy about Jessica’s tone of voice but, instead of showing any anger, he let his face fall. ‘Of course, excuse my abruptness.’

She thought his change in approach seemed very forced but nodded, letting Reynolds pick the conversation back up, having felt his accusing stare after her outburst.

Although the two officers had shared an office, they had rarely worked directly on anything together. Because they had held an equal position as sergeants at the time, they tended to deal with their own cases rather than work with each other. She guessed he might have been regretting allowing her to come with him.

Reynolds went over most of the key facts of the case with the MP and Jessica figured a lot of it was for her benefit. The man reiterated that he had spoken to his wife while working in London but by the time he returned to the family home the following day, there was no sign of her. He insisted they’d had no fallings-out and had enjoyed a twenty-seven-year marriage and were very proud of their children. Any leads that could have come through the offspring were non-starters as one was at university in Paris, while the other worked for the European Parliament.

Given the woman had gone missing while the maid was shopping and her passport and other key documents were left at the house, there wasn’t much else to go on. As the inspector had finished going over things, Jessica did have a thought. ‘Do you have a private security system, Mr Johnson?’ she asked.

The man hadn’t acknowledged Jessica since her previous outburst but turned to face her. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m not sure – it’s a big house. I’m sure a lot of people have internal video systems or alarms. I was just wondering if you had anything like that?’

Although she had only skimmed through the files, she hadn’t seen anything mentioned about a security system being present on the property and hadn’t seen any cameras herself. Given the obvious wealth on display, and the fact the man spent long periods of time away from the house, she thought there was a good chance there could be something. She noticed Reynolds lean forward in his seat, as if it was something he didn’t know the answer to.

‘We have an alarm but that’s only set at night,’ Mr Johnson said. As he spoke, the maid returned with a tray holding a large jug of water and three tumblers. She placed it on a table in between them.

‘What about cameras? Even just one watching the entrance or the front gate?’ Jessica asked.

‘Not that I know of.’ As the maid poured water into the glasses, ice cubes tinkled while she moved from one to the other.

‘What other security measures are there?’ Jessica went on.

She was taken by surprise as the maid looked at her and spoke. ‘There is a camera.’

The three men stared at the woman who finished pouring and put the jug back down. ‘I’m sorry?’ Jessica said.

‘What camera?’ Mr Johnson added.

‘A video machine that points at the gate.’ The maid seemed confused, stumbling over her words with her accent more pronounced. ‘The other Mr Johnson put it in?’

‘My son?’

‘Yes. The other Mr Johnson.’

‘When? Why don’t I know this?’ Jessica couldn’t figure out if the man was angry or just confused.

The maid continued nervously. ‘Mrs Johnson was worried about who might come. I don’t know when.’

‘Where is your son?’ Reynolds asked.

The politician seemed stunned, his calm demeanour forgotten. ‘In Luxembourg. He’s been out there for five months now.’

‘Why didn’t you tell us this when we spoke to you before?’ the inspector asked the maid.

The woman looked confused and shrugged her shoulders. She used her hands while she spoke, as if constantly searching for the correct words. ‘You didn’t ask. I didn’t know important.’ She looked back to her boss. ‘Am I in trouble?’