Jessica figured it was best not being seen openly talking to the person she had phoned. She put the handbrake on and switched off the engine, turning to the man sitting next to her. ‘So, Garry,’ she said. ‘How about I tell you what’s really going on?’

13

Garry Ashford shuffled nervously in the passenger seat of Jessica’s car. ‘Hang on a minute, let me get a pen out,’ he said.

He lifted himself up, bumping his head on the ceiling of the vehicle with a muffled clang. He rubbed his skull and fumbled in his trouser pockets before rifling through the ones in his jacket. It was a struggle given the lack of space. Jessica avoided his swinging elbow and intervened.

‘Y’know, Garry, for a clandestine meeting in the middle of nowhere, you’re doing a pretty shoddy job and I’ve not even started telling you what we’re here for yet.’

‘Sorry, you didn’t give me much notice. I was still in bed.’ The man’s straggly black hair had grown since the last time Jessica had seen him and was now a little below his shoulders. He was still pasty and scrawny with a questionable taste in clothes. The journalist was wearing brown cord trousers with a navy-blue jacket that looked like it was made of velvet. Jessica had the urge to touch it but held off.

When she had first called him that morning, she had been pretty angry. Given his outfit and the fact he was a journalist who didn’t even have anything to write with, that fury had evaporated into comical disbelief. ‘Do you want to borrow a pen?’ Jessica reached into the storage area on the inside of the driver’s door and pulled out a blue biro, holding it out towards her passenger.

‘Yeah, that’d be good, thanks.’

‘You do have a pad, don’t you?’

‘Yep, got that.’

Garry took the pen from her and pulled out a notepad from the plastic carrier bag he had brought with him. He tried scribbling with the pen on the front of the notebook, pressing harder and then handing it back to her. ‘Er, this one doesn’t work.’

‘Oh for f— look, do you reckon you can just remember what I tell you?’

‘Yes, sorry. Thanks for your call—’

Jessica cut him off. ‘Did you go to the press briefing yesterday with all the vigilante stuff?’

‘No. We’ve got this new senior crime reporter guy on the Herald. I think he’s some relation of the editor. He was only brought in a few months ago but he always gets sent to things like that now.’

‘What do you do?’

‘Well, since last year, I wasn’t able to get many crime beat stories—’

Jessica cut him off again. ‘How is Dave Rowlands?’

Garry paused for a moment. ‘Who?’

‘I know you went to university together. I checked.’

‘The name doesn’t ring a bell.’

Jessica let it go. ‘Okay, so you were struggling with crime stories. What are you working on now?’

‘Local government correspondent.’

Jessica didn’t mean to but burst out laughing. ‘Oh God . . .’

‘Yeah, I know. It wasn’t my choice.’

‘It sounds awful.’

‘You don’t know the half of it. The reason I was still in bed this morning is that I was at the council chambers until half past eleven last night for some budget vote.’

‘You must have really annoyed someone?’

‘After last year, the stories started to dry up. One of the older guys retired and they moved me over. I get a bit more money but it’s not really worth it.’

Rain started to hammer down on the windscreen and Garry jumped slightly. Jessica thought for a moment about turning on the heater in the car but decided against it. For one, it would take the best part of ten minutes to warm up in any case but she also didn’t trust the battery to start the car again if she tried to use anything without the engine on. ‘You know I shouldn’t really be talking to you so no names, okay?’

‘Of course.’

‘The story you’ve all got this morning is only half of what’s actually going on. The vigilante stuff, that might be true, we don’t really know yet. The corrupt prison officer, that might also be true but again we just don’t know.’

Garry nodded along as she spoke. He had clearly read or seen the news that morning and knew what she was talking about. ‘What you’ve not been told is that we have DNA matches for the first three victims.’

‘You know who did it?’

‘Maybe . . . Sort of . . . Well, not really.’ Garry had a puzzled look on his face and was clearly annoyed at himself for not bringing a pen. He still had the notepad on his lap and was running his fingers along the side as Jessica continued speaking. ‘The labs have tested and re-tested the samples and each time it comes back as a match for someone who is already in prison.’

‘Oh . . . What, like prison prison?’

‘What other types of prison are there?’

‘Er, I don’t know.’

Jessica rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, prison prison. You know that giant great bloody building at Strangeways.’

‘Yeah, sorry. Well, what do you think?’

‘Honestly? I don’t know. We’ve been to Strangeways and spoken to the people there. The prison guard that was killed was the head warden on the person’s wing.’

‘Blimey. Is that why you think he was corrupt?’

‘We don’t know. Perhaps – but the point is all the coverage this morning, it’s just not fair. Four people are dead and that’s been lost with all this stuff about them somehow deserving it.’

‘Do you think they deserved it?’

Jessica had been gazing at the windscreen, watching the water run down the outside of the glass, but stopped and looked directly at the person sitting next to her, waiting for him to meet her eyes. ‘It doesn’t matter what I think.’

Garry nodded as Jessica looked away again, continuing to speak. ‘Craig Millar, the first victim, his mother’s terrific and he’s got a younger brother. Not only have they lost a son and brother but now they’ve got all you lot calling him a shit on the front page. The guard has a wife, Carla. Her husband’s body hasn’t even been released back to her to be buried yet and you are all saying he was bent. It’s not right.’

The two of them didn’t say anything for a few moments, the only noise the echo of the rain falling on the car’s roof and windscreen. Garry broke the silence. ‘Why did you call me?’

‘Because you’re the only reporter I think I can actually trust. I want you to talk to Craig Millar’s mother and ask her about her son. Write something to say these victims are victims.’

‘It’s not my department any longer and, even if it was, I don’t know if my editor would print it. I’m not sure I should really be taking orders from the police either . . .’

‘Fair enough. Look, I’m not trying to tell you what you should and shouldn’t do but you do at least know what’s going on now.’

‘Can you tell me the prisoner’s name?’

‘He’s not been charged with anything so I don’t think it’s a good idea.’

‘Is he going to be?’

‘I don’t know. I doubt it. If you were on a jury would you find someone locked in a prison cell guilty of a crime on the outside?’

‘Good point. So what are you working on now?’

‘Blind hope that someone somewhere will call that number in your paper today and fill the gaps in for us. Craig Millar was walking home with two brothers that night but we’ve ruled them out. We found some drugs when we raided one of their houses. He’s been charged but they’re terrified they could be next. After them, aside from our guy, we don’t really have much. If we can find another link from him to the victims then we could have something to work on. I think the guard could have been that link and maybe that’s why he was killed but I guess we’ll never know.’

Jessica had told Garry everything she had planned to. The journalist said he would try to speak to the first victim’s mother but that there wasn’t much he could do with the prison information at that time. ‘If you’ve not released it and I don’t have anything else to go on, my editor’s going to think I’m crazy if I go in talking about a prisoner being the prime suspect,’ he said.