‘A new car too . . . ?’

‘Yes. Lee always wanted a brand-new vehicle. We always had old ones that kept breaking down. I never learned to drive, so it was all down to him.’

‘How did you pay for the car?’ Jessica tried to ask the question in as innocuous a way as possible.

‘I don’t really know. Lee always wanted me to stay at home and he took care of the money.’

‘Didn’t you ever ask questions?’

Jessica could see that the penny had dropped for Carla. The woman spoke slowly, deliberately choosing her words and shuffling nervously in her chair. ‘Why are you asking?’

‘Because I have to, Mrs Morgan.’

‘Why?’

‘Because we are trying to find out why your husband was killed and these things could all be important.’

Jessica knew she had lost the woman. She did ask further questions but everything was met with one- or two-word answers. She wasn’t going to get any further worthwhile information and didn’t see the point of pushing a clearly upset widow any further. After saying goodbye to Carla and the family liaison officer, Jessica called Cole when she got back into her car.

She asked if he had dug up anything on the family’s finances. ‘Sort of,’ he said. ‘It’s not what’s in the accounts that’s odd, it’s what isn’t there.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, you can see Lee Morgan’s monthly salary going into his account but the only bits that come out are large things like money for a holiday that was paid off in one go. The items you or I might pay for, groceries, petrol, even things like household bills, there’s no sign of that at all.’

‘So you think they’ve been using cash?’

‘Yes but there are no actual withdrawals from the account. No credit cards, no loans and no outstanding debts, either. Most people would owe some amount of money but there’s nothing. Their current account acts as if it’s for savings because, aside from the odd large purchase, the money is rarely touched.’

‘No direct debits or standing orders?’

‘No but you can pay things like electricity bills in cash at the post office, can’t you?

‘I guess . . . How long has that been going on?’

‘Maybe three years, perhaps a little less. What did you find?’

Jessica explained about the holiday photos, new car and electronic goods. Cole said he would update Farraday because they would have to apply for a warrant to search the house. It seemed likely there would be cash somewhere but whether it would be kept on the property or in some other location only Lee Morgan knew about was difficult to judge. In some ways Jessica hoped they didn’t find anything. She doubted Carla was complicit in whatever her husband had been involved in, even if she had perhaps turned a blind eye and not asked some of the questions she should have. But it seemed overly harsh to not only have her husband taken from her but also his reputation and possibly any financial security she could hope to have.

She hung up and called Adam. He told her they were yet to find much from the prison officer’s body. ‘The Scene of Crime officers didn’t bring in anything specific and so far we haven’t found anything either. I know they’ve been looking for footprints around the area it all happened in but I haven’t heard anything.’

Jessica assured him they were still on for meeting on Sunday, assuming things didn’t get too busy for her, and then ended the call. She took special care not to refer to it as a ‘date’.

Even if the forensics squad didn’t find any specific link to Donald McKenna, it wouldn’t mean the killing of the officer wasn’t linked to the first three. For one, the obvious connection to the prison was there but so was the similarity in the stab wounds.

Jessica checked the clock on her phone and didn’t figure it was worth going back to the station. She had already passed on the information she had to Jack and had again worked comfortably more hours that week than she was required to. She tuned the radio into the local news station. She rarely listened to it, usually preferring a frequency that played rock music. Given Farraday had told her a few hours ago he was going to bring the media in, she felt she should tune in to find out what was being reported.

The station had regular half-hourly updates and Jessica had to listen to an infuriating phone-in show before they finally got to the part she was waiting for. The newsreader’s first words were, ‘Is there a vigilante on the loose?’ with dramatic music in the background. It was sensationalist but the names of Craig Millar, Ben Webb and Des Hughes were all mentioned prominently, which was good. The presenter then gave out a phone number for listeners to call in with information.

But the next few lines were what stood out to Jessica. The reader then mentioned the name ‘Lee Morgan’ and added that, ‘a senior police source told us the officer could have links to corruption within the prison’.

It was clear Farraday believed Lee Morgan had taken back-handers but, having just met the man’s widow, Jessica was fuming the woman’s husband had been outed with no concrete evidence. If she needed any further proof as to who the ‘senior source’ was, she got it the next morning. She didn’t often buy the Manchester Morning Herald but got up early and went to the local shop. She read through their pages at home, half-watching the television news.

The paper’s front-page headline was simply ‘VIGILANTE’. She didn’t recognise the byline on the piece but even she had to admit it was well written if the aim was to sell papers. On pages two and three, they had a profile of the three victims, pointing out in as many words that the streets were safer without them on it. On four and five they laid out in pretty gory detail what had actually happened to the trio and included the force’s appeal for information.

It was page six that concerned Jessica. The headline was: ‘AS BENT AS A PAPER CLIP’, then underneath, ‘IS DEAD WARDEN VICTIM NO. 4?’. The chief inspector wasn’t named – instead that elusive ‘senior source’ was quoted – but the exact choice of words left no doubts who it was that had leaked the information.

From listening to the television news and checking a few websites, Jessica could see the story of the prison officer’s death was inconsistent between the organisations. Some made the link to the first three bodies, some didn’t. It seemed clear to Jessica her boss had given off-the-record briefings to certain journalists in order to muddy the water. If the police found nothing to incriminate Lee Morgan, it didn’t matter too much because the damage had already been done to the man’s reputation. The DCI could point out he had said nothing formal for the media to quote and the organisations themselves were off the hook because you can’t libel the dead.

Jessica felt it was a very sly move that, although making the force look competent and gaining attention for their appeal, would cause maximum harm to Carla, not to mention Craig Millar’s mother. It was all right for the chief inspector to play games from his office but she was the one who had to go out and look the victims’ families in the eye.

Still angry, she first called Cole, making sure she kept her temper in check. She told him that, given the media attention, she was going to return to visit Denise Millar to make sure she was all right and asked if he could pass that on at the station if anyone asked after her. He told her that was fine but said she should try not to take too long. The press office had already phoned him at home because the national media had picked up on the local story and they wanted everyone at the station to deal with the attention.

She hung up and made another call but it wasn’t to the parent of the first murder victim as she had claimed. Instead, she phoned someone she hadn’t spoken to in over a year. After a quick one-sided conversation, she got in her car and drove to the centre of the city, picking up a passenger and then driving back out again and parking in a quiet area at the back of a supermarket car park.