Scarred for Life (3 page)

Izzy had recently been promoted from constable to sergeant on a temporary six-month basis. This was the first proper case she had been assigned. Jessica knew the fact she hadn’t solved it quickly was annoying her.

‘How’s Amber?’ Jessica asked, referring to the sergeant’s young daughter.

‘Growing,’ Izzy replied, not wanting the subject to be changed and lowering her voice to a whisper. ‘I really need to get the job permanently. Mal’s had his hours cut and the extra money . . .’

‘They’re not going to deny you that because there’s some tattoo we’ve not been able to find.’

‘It’s not going to help – especially if this guy keeps holding up shops.’

Jessica couldn’t argue; if the attacks continued then someone higher up the chain would take over the case anyway – likely her. She was about to offer some sort of encouragement and head off when Izzy added: ‘Has the guv still got the arse with you?’

Jessica tried to brush the remark off with a shrug but Izzy wasn’t going to let it go. ‘Did you ever figure out what’s up with him? It’s been going on for months now – ever since that Scott Dewhurst guy was shot.’

Even the sound of his name made the back of Jessica’s neck prickle. That bald head, the thick fingers and his vice-like grip. If she closed her eyes, she would still be able to see him.

‘I don’t think it’s that,’ Jessica replied. ‘Anyway, it’s not just me. I think he’s just getting grumpy in his old age.’

It was true: Detective Chief Inspector Jack Cole
had
been off with her ever since Dewhurst was shot. It wasn’t that he’d said anything specific, more that his replies were always short and that he went out of his way to avoid meetings involving her that weren’t absolutely necessary. Jessica didn’t mind that as such – anything that got rid of extra paperwork and what she considered time-wasting was fine by her – but the fact other people had noticed proved it wasn’t just in her mind. As for why, Jessica didn’t know. She was up with all of her targets and, despite the tattoo robberies, there wasn’t much on their unsolved pile.

Izzy caught Jessica’s eye, nodding towards the door with a knowing grin. ‘Here’s your sidekick.’

Jessica turned to see Detective Constable Archie Davey swaggering towards her. There was no other way to describe the way he walked: knees bent outwards, chest pumped forward, shoulders back. It would be laughable but for the fact that he actually had the presence to pull it off. After being short-staffed for longer than Jessica could remember, Greater Manchester Police had finally got around to hiring some new constables and Archie had been the first face through the door six weeks previously. At barely five foot eight, he was hardly the stereotypical police officer but he had served his dues working for uniform in the Southern district of Manchester.

‘All right?’

Archie’s thick Mancunian accent rarely failed to make Jessica smile. In another life, he would have been the exact type of lad about town they spent half their days trying to catch. With the raise of an eyebrow, he could turn from being a happy-go-lucky constable to looking like he wanted to tear a person’s lower intestine out. He probably could as well. The product of a Stretford council estate, Archie knew the city as well as anyone but had chosen the right side of the criminal fence. On the odd occasion she had seen him in action, Jessica had been surprised at how far a local-sounding voice could get them on Manchester’s estates. He was the perfect appointment. Even at twenty-seven, he sounded like more of a scally, chav or whatever else they were called nowadays, than half the people they arrested. His dark tight curls were gelled back, which, combined with his cocky smirk, had contributed to a few of the females around the station noticing him. His ladies’ man reputation preceded him.

‘You’re with me today,’ Jessica told him.

‘Wanna brew first?’

He really was the perfect appointment.

Jessica nodded. ‘Make Izzy one too and see if the canteen’s got any fried bread on the go. We’ve got a busy day.’

Archie pushed out his bottom lip, spinning to head back the way he’d come. ‘Sorted. They had some barms on yesterday.’

For a moment, Jessica thought he was going to add ‘luv’ but he just about clung onto the final word. During his first fortnight, he’d managed to get himself into trouble by calling almost everyone – male, female, sergeant, inspector and everyone else alike – ‘luv’. It was part of the vocabulary where he’d grown up and he’d kept hold of it through his days in uniform. It didn’t go down quite so well when he told the chief inspector that he’d ‘be there in a minute, luv’. After apologising, when it was just him and Jessica, he blamed the guv for not being up on Mancunian dialect.

Izzy was smiling as Jessica turned back to her. ‘He’s going to get himself into trouble one of these days.’

‘He’s all right.’

‘Only because we know him. Dave’s got a man-crush on him.’

It was Jessica’s turn to smile. Detective Constable David Rowlands had spent the past few weeks barely concealing his admiration for the new DC. Jessica figured it was because Dave believed Archie was a younger version of him. The difference was that, with Archie, the casual boasts about girlfriends were actually confirmed by other officers. With Dave, even when he’d been younger, they had always been questionable to say the least.

‘Where is Dave?’ Izzy asked.

‘Bin duty with Jane and a couple of the others.’

‘Joy Bag?’

Jessica nodded. Jane’s unfortunate nickname was also something that preceded her around the station, a product of finding a pile of used condoms under a flower pot during another fingertip search.

‘She’s going to have it in for you even more than before,’ Izzy said. ‘Still, “Bin Boy” and “Joy Bag” have quite the ring to them.’

‘If you have no luck catching our tattooed robber, you have my permission to spend the day trying to get that to stick.’

Izzy laughed. ‘What happened with your pickpocket thing?’

Jessica had almost forgotten about it. The crimes were so minor that they weren’t high on their unsolved list. She shrugged. ‘No luck – it was only a long shot. Adam moaned all evening about having to dress up.’

‘You should’ve taken Archie – he’s up for anything that gets him out in public where there might be girls.’

That was true – but Jessica hadn’t exactly treated the Piccadilly stake-out seriously. ‘Did I ever tell you the first thing Arch said to me?’

‘No.’

Jessica grinned. ‘Someone had just introduced me as an inspector, so he shakes my hand, looks me in the eye and goes, “Are you a red or a blue?”’

‘What did you say?’

‘I thought he was talking about politics and said I don’t vote for any of those bastards. He looked at me as if he’d just eaten lasagne from the canteen, then said, “I meant footy. City or United?” I sort of shrugged and said I wasn’t into football. For a moment he seemed confused, as if he couldn’t believe it, then he nodded and said: “At least you’re not a bitter.” That’s a Man City fan, apparently. The next week, he was asking if I could swing the rota so he was off for a United game.’

‘I said he was going to get himself into trouble.’

As Izzy finished speaking, Archie waltzed through the door again, carrying a grease-soaked paper bag and three polystyrene cups with steam seeping through the lids. Jessica wanted to disagree but from the way Archie nodded towards the car park, she couldn’t help but feel that it was only a matter of time before he was too casual with the wrong person.

Manchester’s weather was continuing to be predictably unpredictable. After the coldest May and wettest July on record, this November was unseasonably warm. Jessica skirted through the streets of the city in a creaky pool car as Archie glanced through the passenger’s side window at various women wearing low-cut tops.

‘Will you stop doing that?’ Jessica said.

‘What?’

‘Doing an impression of the Exorcist girl every time we pass a woman.’

‘It’s not my fault the sun’s out. I’m only looking. There are blokes for you, too.’

Jessica glanced across to where Archie was pointing. An overweight man wearing jeans and muddy boots had his shirt off and tucked into his back pocket. ‘Are you joking? He’s got bigger boobs than me.’

Archie puffed between his teeth dismissively. ‘What I don’t get,’ he said, ‘is why this Damon kid was at Salford Uni. His parents live out in Wilmslow, so they must have a few quid about them. He could’ve gone anywhere but he chose Salford. One of the
Manchester
ones, maybe, but
Salford
?’

Jessica wasn’t sure if his annoyance was due to his Manchester bias and the fact that Salford was a separate city, but he had a point. Salford wasn’t a bad university – but if you had money and a choice, it probably wouldn’t be the first one.

They got their answer fairly quickly after meeting Damon’s father. Francis Potter had made his money building up a haulage firm and was a director for four other companies – all based locally, all full of cash. Not that his large house and three cars on the driveway made up for the loss of his son. Francis, clearly devastated, told them that Damon had gone to the University of Salford to study Business and Management because their family was committed to the area. He had an accent more profound than Archie’s. The plan had been for Damon to complete his degree, work for a master’s, and then to set up his own company with his father’s help. From everything Francis said, his son’s career path had long been mapped out, with grades less important than the fact that Damon was studying locally.

He answered the rest of their questions but didn’t seem to know much about his son’s current life, perhaps not a surprise as Damon had chosen to live in student accommodation rather than at home.

Jessica and Archie left the house knowing little more than they did before arriving. As they were heading for Salford, her phone rang with the cause of death. Damon had choked on his own vomit and had cocaine and high levels of alcohol in his system. From the initial examination, there was no sign of a struggle but it had likely happened sixteen to twenty hours before his body had been found.

It seemed such a waste. He wasn’t the first young person to die in such a way and wouldn’t be the last – but if it was simply a case of an accidental overdose, then why would someone go to the hassle of dumping the body in a bin?

4

Jessica and Archie’s next visit was to the head of Business and Management at the University of Salford – a thrilling job that someone had to do. Professor Robert Harper was what Jessica considered to be a stereotypical lecturer: cord jacket, elbow patches, balding, barmy. The strands of what was left of his hair appeared to be independent of each other, jutting off at unrelated angles like the straws in a game of KerPlunk. His office made Jessica’s look as if there was actually order to it. Hers might have files, papers, crisp packets and who knew what else strewn around the floor and desk but his had the contents of at least one rainforest. Books were piled on top of each other, covering an entire wall, with extra shelves running around the rest of the space overflowing with more tomes. The computer keyboard on his desk was buried under a pile of papers, with a printer burring in the corner, spitting page after page into a plastic tray.

After insisting they call him ‘Bob’, Robert invited Jessica and Archie into his office, muttering about how awful everything was regarding Damon’s death. The body find had led the local news that morning, even though the exact details of the location hadn’t been revealed. Officers would be flooding the campus that morning to talk to classmates and anyone else who might have known Damon – but Jessica wanted to talk to a few key people herself.

‘Very bright, very bright,’ was the professor’s first assessment after being asked what he thought of the dead student.

‘How long have you been teaching here?’ Jessica asked, taking a seat but being careful not to move too much in case it brought the nearby tower of books crashing down upon her. Death by hardback would be one unforgettable way to go.

Call Me Bob sucked on his teeth and glanced up to the ceiling. ‘Let me think . . . I was at City, then I did two years at John Moores, then I came here, so that’s eight, nine, twelve years here; a bit over twenty in total.’

The printer in the corner finally stopped spitting pages out, leaving a moment of silence before Jessica filled it: ‘Roughly how many students do you teach a year?’

Apparently unaware of the meaning of ‘roughly’, Call Me Bob started hunting through the papers on the keyboard, holding up the lists of students before giving Jessica an exact number, then explaining that he didn’t teach all of them, simply that he was head of department. Jessica could feel Archie tensing next to her; she didn’t think down-to-earth Mancunians and erratic university lecturers would ever be the best of bed-fellows.

As she glanced across to him, Archie caught Jessica’s eye, leaning in and whispering into her ear behind the back of his hand. ‘Who the fook’s called Bob nowadays?’

Jessica nodded knowingly, as if he’d raised a good point. In many ways he had but she still wondered what he was up to.

Call Me Bob’s eyes flickered between the two of them, wondering what had been said.

‘If you don’t teach all of the students,’ Jessica said, peering back at the professor, ‘how come you know who Damon is?’

Leaning back into his chair, Call Me Bob stroked his chin. ‘When you’re head of course, you tend to know the students at the very top and very bottom. Those who do exceptionally are the ones the staff always talk about, of course, but there are also the students who miss classes, deadlines, or end up dropping out. The others, who turn up regularly and get middle-of-the-range grades, are the ones you tend to gloss over and perhaps don’t know the details of.’

‘Was Damon at the top or the bottom?’

The professor nodded enthusiastically. ‘Oh, the top, definitely. His father is well known in business circles around the city, so it was a name that jumped out when I saw this year’s admissions list. He was immediately one of the exceptional students, though. I was getting reports back straight away to say he was one to watch. I teach the introduction module – something to keep my eye in each year. All the students take a test in their first fortnight. It’s nothing too serious and has no bearing on their final mark; it’s more to assess their initial knowledge. He had one of the highest scores since we brought the test in.’