DS Jessica Daniel series: Locked In/Vigilante/The Woman in Black - Books 1-3 (99 page)

‘No comment.’

Jessica sighed and reached into an envelope, taking out a series of photographs. She selected the one from the CCTV camera in Piccadilly Gardens of the figure positioning the first hand they had
found. ‘Why did you leave this hand?’

The woman picked up the photograph and looked at it before angrily putting it down. ‘It weren’t me.’

Jessica handed her the other photos. ‘What about these hands?’

‘They weren’t me.’

‘It looks like you.’

‘But it weren’t.’

‘Why were you caught robbing from a shop with the exact same outfit then?’

‘No comment.’

Jessica sighed again and leant back in her chair. ‘Do you want to go to prison, Erica?’ The woman said nothing. ‘Right, I’ll assume that’s a “no”. Do
you know the starting point for the type of robbery you committed is four years in prison? With some remorse, a confession and the return of the money you might get away with a year, maybe two on a
suspended sentence so you stay out. If you’ve done time on remand you might not even get that. The reason I say “might” is because, if you don’t start talking,
Jordan’s going to pin all of this on you and that’s not to mention the issue of the hands. We’ve found three so far. Three hands, three people missing, no bodies. That could be
three murder charges. That’s life, probably with little chance of parole.’

Jessica knew the outfit on its own wasn’t enough to link the woman to the hands and in their brief initial inquiries they hadn’t managed to connect her to any of the victims as she
was a different age and from a different area compared to the three people they had identified.

Erica stared at the table and spoke quietly. ‘I didn’t kill anyone.’

‘Right and I believe that but, if you had nothing to do with it, you need to tell me why you’ve been stealing money while wearing a black robe that looks just like this
one.’

The woman sighed and started to cry. Her solicitor passed her some tissues and she took a drink of water. ‘It was Jordan’s idea,’ she said. ‘He’d seen the pictures
on the news of this woman in the cloak and reckoned if we robbed some places it would get blamed on whoever that was. I’ve had the outfit for ages because of this fancy dress thing a few
years back but not worn it.’

‘Didn’t it cross your mind that, if you got caught first, those more serious crimes would be blamed on you?’

The woman continued to dry her eyes and shook her head. ‘I didn’t think of it like that. The first one went so well we didn’t think we’d get caught. We thought it would
be easy money.’

It was pretty much what Jessica suspected. ‘So, just to be clear, are you saying the reason you went in with a knife was because you wanted us to think you were the same person that has
been leaving hands?’

‘Yes.’

‘And is that why Jordan did the initial scouting instead of committing the actual robberies?’

‘Yes.’

Erica’s story was actually remarkably similar to her boyfriend’s with the one key difference that she blamed him for planning the robberies, while he insisted it was her idea.
Jessica didn’t believe either of them was involved in the main case she was working on but a warrant had been granted for a search team to raid their house. Erica said the cash left over from
the first theft was in a box under their bed, which seemed to back up the point neither of them were the sharpest criminals going. The car they had used had also been impounded as evidence after
being found around the corner from the second scene.

In terms of the robberies, Jessica had worked on enough cases to know things should be fairly straightforward. Jordan’s record would probably be enough to get him remanded, while Erica was
likely to get the same treatment because she used a knife. The level of planning, albeit a little unscientific, would go against them too and Jessica thought the pair would spend the months leading
up to their Crown Court date behind bars despite their confession.

Things would still need to be checked and compared to her main case. Their house and car were being searched while some officers had already begun to see if there was a link from either of them
to the missing victims. None of the hands offered any forensic clues as to who left them, so the two suspects’ DNA wouldn’t be any use from that point of view – but they did at
least now have time.

With a regular suspect, they would only have the usual period of questioning before they had to charge or release, which was the problem they had run into when January was in custody. Because
the pair were likely to be remanded, if anything unexpected did turn up when they were trying to link them to the victims, they would at least know where the duo were.

Jessica charged Erica with robbery and the woman was led back to the cells. The two would be appearing in the magistrates’ court the following morning.

She went back through to the main area and found Dave and Izzy, who had been tasked with looking into the pair’s backgrounds. ‘Have you found anything to link them to the
hands?’ Jessica asked after they found a quiet corner.

The two constables shook their heads almost in unison and it was Izzy who spoke. ‘Nope, neither of them are on our college-leavers’ list and they’re both too old anyway. Erica
was brought up out of the area and seemingly only moved here a couple of years ago. Jordan comes from around here but we’ve not got anything that says he knows any of the victims let alone
might have a grievance against them.’

Jessica nodded. ‘I thought we’d probably struggle. There’s no violence on either of their records and they don’t seem the type. To be honest, they’re too
stupid.’ The two constables exchanged knowing smiles and Jessica continued. ‘You are going to have to keep working on this for a little while though. Check everything and let’s
make it official. I don’t want us to miss something and end up looking like fools but I don’t want to waste days looking into something we know is a blind alley either.’

‘How are you anyway?’ Rowlands asked. ‘It’s been a mad few days.’

Jessica nodded. ‘You’re right about that and, because of you, I’ve got to spend tomorrow morning at a bloody primary school talking about careers. I thought it was older kids
until I read the email properly.’

‘Can’t someone else go?’ Izzy asked.

‘Are you volunteering?’

‘No . . .’

‘Jack says it can’t be anyone working on the Christine Johnson case and he wants someone senior. He reckons the super wants it both ways. He doesn’t want any officers taken
from the Johnson inquiry but wants us to keep up this community engagement thing. Did you see the coverage the fete got in the paper the other day? They gave that more space than when we were
trying to get them interested in the severed hands.’

‘I didn’t see you in any of the pictures,’ Dave said.

‘Yeah, sod that. Because I wasn’t in uniform the photographer didn’t realise I was involved. I went and hid next to some of the parents as he snapped away.’

The two constables laughed in unison. ‘Do you have to give a speech tomorrow?’ Izzy asked.

Jessica realised she had no idea. ‘I bloody hope not.’

Their conversation was interrupted by a young out-of-breath constable in uniform arriving and tapping Jessica on the shoulder. ‘Are you all right?’ Jessica asked.

‘Yeah, they want you back. It’s something to do with the Erica Tomlinson woman.’

‘Where is she?’

‘One of the interview rooms. She’s been asking for you but we weren’t sure where you were.’

Jessica quickly retraced her steps and was surprised to see Cole sitting in the interview room as she entered. She looked quizzically at him but he simply nodded towards Erica, who was sitting
next to her solicitor on the opposite side of the table.

‘I hear you’ve been asking for me?’ Jessica said.

‘Yeah, you were saying earlier about being able to stay out of prison for cooperating and that?’

Jessica pursed her lips. ‘Sort of, I said you might get a lesser sentence if you confessed and gave us the details. It wouldn’t be up to us – you still robbed two places
carrying a knife and that means you should go to custody.’

‘What if I had information?’

‘It depends what it was about.’

The woman looked nervously to her solicitor then back at Jessica. ‘What if I told you who arranged for that politician’s missus to go missing?’

One of the first rules of interviewing suspects was to give nothing away but, if it had been a game of poker, Jessica knew full well the whole room would know she had a flush.
She wheeled around to face Cole, who had barely suppressed his surprise either.

‘Sorry, can you repeat that?’ Jessica asked.

‘I know who sorted it for the politician’s wife to disappear. I dunno if she’s dead but I know who paid for it.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘I just know people. You hear them talking.’

Jessica was trying to stay calm. ‘Who did you hear talking?’

‘I’m not telling you that.’

‘Okay, so what do you know? Do you know where she is?’

Erica continued to stare at the table. ‘No, I don’t know any of that. I don’t know who took her either but I know who arranged it and why.’

‘Do you have evidence or is it just something you’ve heard?’

‘Something I heard – but the person won’t be wrong.’

Cole leant forward and looked at Erica’s solicitor. ‘We’re going to need a few minutes.’ The two officers left the room, shutting the heavy door behind them and crossing
into a nearby room they used for witnesses. It was stifling as they walked across the threshold. The air-conditioning was still not working and, although fans were cooling the interview room, the
room they had gone into had none of that.

Jessica used her hand to fan her face as she spoke. ‘What do you reckon?’

‘She’s never going to get what she wants regardless of what she thinks she knows. If she knew who took Mrs Johnson, why they took her and where the woman is, whether she’s
alive or dead, then maybe the CPS would talk about things. All she says is that she knows who arranged for it and she won’t even tell us who told her. I think she’s seen too much
American TV. It doesn’t work like that here.’

Jessica shrugged. ‘Are you going to talk to the super?’

‘Yes, let’s go back and tell her she’s got no chance first and see if she’s got anything else to add. I don’t know what her solicitor thinks he’s playing
at.’

The two detectives walked back into the interview room and sat down. ‘I think there might be a bit of confusion here,’ Jessica said. ‘If you’re going to confess to the
robberies in court, they will sentence you. All we can do is tell the people prosecuting you that you’ve been extremely helpful. We’ve had a chat and, in all honesty, neither of us are
convinced you’ve got any information you can help us with. Even if you knew where Mrs Johnson was, or who took her, we still couldn’t drop the charges. It doesn’t work like
that.’

The woman glanced at the table then scratched her head before nodding towards the solicitor sitting next to her. ‘That’s what he said.’ Jessica looked at the DCI but, before
they could say any more, Erica spoke again. ‘It was the husband.’ The tone was lower and softer than the woman’s previous words.

‘Sorry?’ Jessica said.

‘It was the husband who wanted rid of her – the one that’s been all over TV. He paid some people to get rid of her. He’s got some other woman somewhere.’

‘Who told you?’

‘I’m not saying. I don’t know anything else, that’s it.’ She looked to her solicitor. ‘Can I go back downstairs now?’

Erica refused to add anything else and, after she had been returned to the cells, Cole called both Reynolds and Cornish back to the station and told them what had been said. The information was
nothing they could use as evidence but, at the same time, the robbery suspect had ended up giving it to them voluntarily. She didn’t have a reason to lie as they hadn’t promised her
anything.

Jessica knew officers had discreetly been looking into a situation such as the MP himself being involved but hadn’t come up with anything. It was an awkward thing to examine because they
would need a warrant to look at items like bank records, phone logs or emails and, at least until the current moment, the situation hadn’t reached that far. Even if they did get that
paperwork, they all knew the politician would have had to be pretty careless to leave a trail. The chief inspector said he would ask DSI Aylesbury what he thought but even that was complicated as
he was apparently friends with George Johnson. The priority was still to track down the red van that had been parked outside the gates. Reynolds said they had a likely make and model, which would
be shared with the media, but that trying to go via the Royal Mail’s own records of vehicles sold wasn’t getting them anywhere as the files were so patchy across the different areas.
All in all, the inspector was undeniably correct when he pointed out that everyone was struggling.

The following morning, Jessica had to go to the school for the careers day. She had found out the previous evening that she was expected to give some sort of talk, which might
have been useful information to have had a few weeks ago.

It was a late-morning start at the school and, just before she was getting ready to leave the station, news came through via the desk sergeant that magistrates had remanded both Erica and
Jordan. In the end, their legal teams hadn’t objected to the refusal of bail, which meant there wouldn’t be any appeal against the decision either.

While that had been going on, it had been more or less accepted that neither were credible suspects to have left the hands. Apart from the cash relating to the first burglary, nothing of note
had been found at their house and no connection had been found between either of them and the missing victims. Jessica left Rowlands working through the list of almost a hundred college-leavers to
find as much information as possible on each one. A lot of the basics had already been discovered, such as current addresses, but there were still a few they hadn’t had time to look into.