Locked In (23 page)

‘Yes. I work at a practice in the centre. Only passed out a few months ago. Was lucky to get a job so quickly really.’

‘So you like animals then?’ Stupid question, Jessica thought to herself instantly. She would have been embarrassed if she had asked something so silly in an interview room.

‘Yeah, it kinda comes with the job.’ They both laughed.

‘How long have you been with the police?’ he asked.

‘Seven, eight years or so. Two and a bit in uniform, two training as a detective, then three or so since then.’

‘Enjoy it?’

‘I don’t know. Sometimes.’ Jessica felt vulnerable admitting that. A chill went down her back. She did enjoy it, of course. She enjoyed the wins, the results, the convictions. She didn’t enjoy the inertia and frustration, the acquittals and failures. She wasn’t having fun at the moment.

She could feel Ryan looking at her, almost analysing her discomfort. It was broken by Caroline’s voice from the kitchen. ‘Tea’s up.’

The dining table was fairly small for four of them but the meal was fabulous. It certainly made a change to Jessica’s usual routine of takeaways and microwaved food. The first course was some type of potato balls with a tomato sauce. The main course was a fish and rice dish, while dessert was a fully homemade cheesecake. It was a truly terrific effort. They all thanked Caroline for her work and Jessica volunteered to do the dishes. It wasn’t something she would usually do but, seeing as her friend had put so much energy into the evening, whereas she had simply come home and been a bit grumpy, she felt it was the least she could do. Caroline and Randall went to relax in the living room. Jessica had now taken to calling her friend’s boyfriend “Randy” now she knew about the nickname. The poor guy seemed a little embarrassed but it was all in good humour.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ryan hung around in the kitchen to help out too. She found herself not minding. ‘Your mate can’t half cook,’ Ryan said

‘Yup, she’s always been a top chef.’

‘Can you?’

‘Cook? Yeah. Beans on toast or pot noodle and there’s no one better.’ She gave Ryan a grin. At some point during the evening another button on his shirt had come undone, possibly deliberately. Maybe it was the wine but Jessica seemed to think his chest hair had grown during the evening. His chin stubble certainly seemed to have done. His eyes were dark and friendly.

Jessica washed the dishes, while Ryan dried before they realised it was a pretty silly order of doing things seeing as the guest didn’t know where anything went. Jessica was fully aware that, given her lack of skill in the kitchen, she wasn’t entirely sure where all the pots went either but she at least had a better chance of getting it right than Ryan did.

They made more small-talk and giggled to each other. Jessica finished another glass of wine and opened another bottle from the selection they kept under the sink. “Emergency alcohol” they called it. As they finished, Jessica took the bottle and went into the living room with Ryan. Randall was still sitting in the recliner, with Caroline cuddled across his lap, her short dress riding around her thighs. Jessica refilled her friend’s glass, then went and sat on the sofa next to Ryan. She wasn’t complaining this time.

‘So you two getting on well, then?’ Caroline asked with a twinkle in her eye. Jessica and Ryan looked at each other and giggled but neither answered.

‘We’re going to go off to bed,’ Caroline said. ‘Thanks for the company this evening.’ She climbed off her boyfriend’s lap and helped haul him to his feet. ‘See you tomorrow, Jess. Have a
fun
night.’ As she went to leave the room, she leant over and kissed her friend on the cheek, before departing hand-in-hand with Randall.

Jessica fumbled for the remote and turned the television on. Her late-night talkshow rerun was just beginning. ‘Ha, you watch this too?’ Ryan said.

‘Not really.’

‘No, me neither.’

They both laughed and Jessica edged closer to their guest on the sofa. ‘So do you reckon he’s the father?’ Ryan asked.

Jessica smiled. ‘Course he is.’

They joked and enjoyed the show together but Jessica spent more and more time watching Ryan. He had a little crinkle around the corner of his eye when he smiled and he seemed to smile a lot. The show got to the final advert break and Ryan turned to look at her. ‘I’m gonna have to go, the last bus goes soon. Could get a taxi I suppose...’

Jessica didn’t let him finish the sentence. She leaned forward and kissed him. It was gentle at first but he kissed her back strongly and she let him. It felt good. Before she knew what she was doing, she had her hand inside his shirt on his chest. He motioned to push back into her, pressuring her back on to the sofa but she stopped him by pulling away from the embrace. He looked a tad confused for a moment but, as Jessica got to her feet, she made it clear why she was stopping. She held out her hand and led him to her bedroom.

Jessica slept well, thoughts of faltering investigations and dead ends as far from her mind as they had been in weeks. She woke in the early hours but it was nice to have someone next to her. She didn’t make a habit of inviting strangers, or anyone for that matter, into her bed but she’d had a great evening. She closed her eyes and let herself drift back asleep. It only seemed moments later but she awoke with something of a start. She opened her eyes as the light poured through the still too thin curtains. She was alone on the bed. ‘Ryan?’

She didn’t say it very loudly but he clearly wasn’t in the room. She opened her eyes fully and figured she would go see if he were still in the flat or not. She picked up a large jumper off the floor and put it on over the nightie she didn’t remember putting on the previous night. It was a little chilly. She opened her bedroom door and walked out into the hallway before first checking the empty kitchen. She couldn’t hear any voices but headed for the living room anyway.

As she opened the door she saw Ryan sitting on the sofa in his boxer shorts reading Yvonne Christensen’s police file.

‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’

Ryan’s head spun around and he dropped the file on to his lap, where the second file, Martin Prince’s, lay. ‘Jess. Sorry. I, erm, sorry. They were on the table, I was curious.’

‘What gives you the right? Do you get your kicks from this kind of stuff? From seeing dead bodies?’

‘No, no. Sorry, I just wondered what they were.’

Ryan stood up and dropped the files on to the coffee table. But Jessica’s raised voice had obviously stirred Randall and Caroline. Caroline might normally have slept through the noise but Randall must have heard it. The two of them came into the living room, Caroline at the front wearing an unfastened dressing gown it looked as if she had hastily grabbed. Randall was just behind her, clearly half-asleep and wearing just a pair of boxer shorts. ‘What...?’ Caroline went to start speaking but Jessica was still glaring at Ryan and cut her off.

‘Get out now. You’re lucky I don’t arrest you.’

Jessica didn’t even know what she would have arrested him for. She was annoyed at herself as much as anything. Taking the files out of the station could be a disciplinary matter, especially if you were as careless with them as she had been.

Ryan quickly moved past Jessica, Caroline and Randall. ‘Sorry, yeah. I’ll just get dressed.’

Jessica immediately picked the files up from the table and went through them, making sure everything was still in there. As well as the private information the police had on the victims and their families, there were photographs of the crime scenes and details of the interviews they had done. The link to Wayne Lapham was clear with both files. Most details were kept on the central computer system but, with the bigger cases, they still used hard copies. ‘What did he do?’ Caroline asked.

‘And what did you two think you were trying to pull last night? I told you I wasn’t interested in meeting anyone.’ Jessica almost spat the words out at her friend.

Caroline was clearly taken aback by the venom in Jessica’s tone. ‘Sorry, I just thought.’

‘Well don’t.’ Jessica stomped past the two of them, files in her hand, back into her room where Ryan was still only half-dressed, still looking for his shirt.

‘Get OUT.’

‘Sorry, I’m going, I’m going.’ Ryan finally found his shirt and snatched it from the floor before leaving the room with a final “sorry”. Jessica slammed the door behind him.

Her mood hadn’t cooled by the end of the day. She had deliberately stayed at the station after hours then gone to the pub with a few of the other officers. She knew she wasn’t great company and didn’t even have the willpower to take the mickey out of DC Rowlands. The talk of the station that day was that the new girl had finally dumped him. That news had cheered her up a small amount but she was still in a bad mood.

She was annoyed at herself more than anything, aggravated she had let her guard down enough and not sent Ryan packing in his taxi last night; she didn’t even know his last name. Jessica wondered during the day if she had overreacted or not. At first she thought it could be true he had just picked the files up through curiosity then she remembered she had left them underneath her bag and shoes on the floor, not on the coffee table. He had actually gone out of his way to look through them.

She did regret the way she had spoken to her friend that morning though; Caroline was only trying to cheer her up after all and, aside from a little clumsy matchmaking, hadn’t actually done anything wrong. Jessica was an adult and made her own decisions. She had certainly made the choice to let Ryan stay the night. It wasn’t Caroline’s fault but the worst thing was Jessica knew she was too stubborn to say sorry. As usual, she would wait for Caroline to apologise first then make a big deal over accepting it.

When she got home that evening, the flat was empty. There was a note on the coffee table for her that just said:

“Sorry. X”

Caroline was obviously staying at Randall’s that night. In contrast to the day before, Jessica had a terrible night’s sleep, waking up frequently before finally giving up and going to watch the rolling news on television in the early hours.

It was a Saturday the next day and, even though she could have had the day off if she wanted, Jessica didn’t want to be in the flat if Caroline returned. She wanted to make her friend suffer a little longer, even though she knew she didn’t deserve it. Jessica had already been up for hours and got dressed to go into the station. She was going to have to go in at some stage in any case, having left her car there the previous day because she went to the pub after work. She knew some officers who would have just driven home after a couple of pints, safe in the knowledge they were unlikely to be turned in by their colleagues. Everyone knew the ones who did it and, while most didn’t approve, they didn’t want to be the one who said something. Breaking the law in such a blatant way as that was a line Jessica hadn’t crossed and didn’t want to.

The station was only a bus ride and five-minute walk away and she figured that, if she was dropping in anyway, she may as well put a few hours in. When she arrived not long after nine in the morning, reception was busier than it usually was on a weekend. All the drunks and troublemakers from the night before would be in the cells under the station and things were usually fairly steady by this time.

She asked one of the uniform officers what was going on. ‘Nothing much, missing person, probably. Call came in last night. We’re just off to support the tactical entry team.’

‘Why?’

‘Don’t know really. You now know all I do.’

Jessica went to check in with the desk sergeant, who seemed to be the bearer of all knowledge. She checked the details with him. ‘Yeah, that’s pretty much it,’ he said. ‘Call came in from a woman last night who said she’d not seen or heard from her mother in a few days. Not answering her front door while the daughter reckons she can hear her mum’s mobile phone going off inside.’

‘Why doesn’t she just let herself in?’

‘Dunno. Doesn’t have a key I guess.’

‘Why didn’t you call me?’

‘Well, it’s just a missing persons thing. They come in all the time.’

‘Maybe. I’m going with them.’

‘You’re not in today anyway, are you?’ Jessica didn’t hear him and was already off to get the address from one of the men in uniform. Something seemed a bit too familiar. Missing people reports
did
come in all the time but how many left their phones at home and locked the door before going missing? If you wanted to disappear, you just did it.

She got in her own car and headed out towards the address. She knew roughly where it was but not exactly. It was generally in the same area as the first two victims but on a main road where you wouldn’t want to be out after dark. The street was notorious for street prostitutes and kerb-crawlers and there had been a couple of vicious assaults in the past year or so. Jessica found the address fairly easily, given there was a police van parked outside.

It was a ground-floor flat on the end of a row of dingy-looking shops. The main door was next to another one on the side of the building which backed on to what seemed like some sort of delivery yard for the shops. Beyond that was a patch of grass and some wasteland. Jessica went to talk to the two members of the tactical entry team. She introduced herself and showed her badge, while the officers said they were under instructions to wait for the uniformed officers to arrive. It wasn’t usual policy but Jessica soon saw why; a girl who certainly looked like she was still a teenager came storming up to her, pointing a finger towards her. ‘You in charge?’

‘Er, no.’

‘Well who is?’ The girl looked back towards the tactical entry officer. ‘Why can’t you just hurry up and go through the bloody door? My mum could be hurt in there.’

Jessica weighed the situation up pretty quickly. Tactical had arrived ready to go in but, given the daughter’s hostility, had called in for uniform to escort them just in case. There was another woman stood on her own not far from the flat’s front door smoking. She was quite a bit older, certainly in her fifties or so. Jessica first went to try the door handle for herself. It was clearly locked then she walked over to the other woman. ‘Hi,’ she said.