‘Why?’

‘He said it was something to do with endurance and showing how differently the mind could work when it was put under stress but I think it was more to impress a girl.’

‘Did it?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Great, not a weirdo at all then.’

Garry Ashford was only a couple of days away from being fully back in his editor’s bad books. ‘If it bleeds, it leads’ had been the media’s motto for years and the Herald’s recent sales had borne that out. The day of Garry’s first exclusive had seen sales double. The attacks on the police force had helped keep the numbers up, while Garry’s second big story about the ‘Houdini Strangler’, which was his editor’s headline, had seen numbers almost triple.

It hadn’t all been good news for the reporter though. His colleagues had pretty much ostracised him, wondering how the hell some scruffy kid who had done nothing previously had suddenly managed to stumble across such good stories. On the other hand, his editor had been talking of awards, promotions, pay rises and all sorts of other positive things. Garry was fully aware he hadn’t yet been elevated, or given any extra money, and wondered how long he could keep his run going.

It was now Monday and it had been made abundantly clear by his editor that he had to come up with something good. His boss had questioned him about his source and asked if there was any more information they could use. It was all very polite on the surface but there was definitely an undertone.

That left Garry with something of a problem. He wasn’t going to just make things up and, while he had sent a text to his source’s unregistered number, he had not had any response yet. The last time they had spoken, his contact said they would have to talk sparingly and that information would be a little light on the ground for a while.

His meeting with DS Daniel the previous week had gone better than he expected. That said, anything that hadn’t ended with him being sworn at and threatened with varying degrees of physical violence would have been better than his previous phone calls with her. She had now slated his dress sense and name, so he thought his actual looks were the only thing she had left to go after him for.

He was supposed to be off over the weekend but received a call from the news editor on Friday evening asking what he knew about Wayne Lapham. He knew as much as anyone else, seeing as he had seen the same media releases and photos as the rest of the office when the police had put out the request for help finding him. Somehow, he had still been told to spend his Saturday getting some background on the investigation’s prime suspect. There seemed to be some assumption that he would know what he was doing.

He didn’t.

Lapham didn’t appear to exist on the electoral roll or in the phone book, which was unsurprising. Garry had texted his source for help but, with no reply, had ended up doing what all journalists hated doing: door-stepping. As part of their appeal, the police had put out information that Lapham had last been seen in the Prince of Wales pub in Moston. Garry didn’t really know the area but had found the address of the place on the Internet and taken two buses to get there. He kept the tickets, hoping he would at least get expenses, and armed with a copy of that day’s Herald – which had a photo of Lapham on the front, had marched into the pub hoping someone would be willing to point him in the right direction.

The barman, who Garry assumed was also the landlord, was a large bald-headed man with intimidating accusing eyes and a deep voice. Garry showed him the paper’s front page and started with a polite, ‘Hello, I was wondering if . . .’ but the barman finished his sentence for him.

‘. . . you were wondering if you could buy a drink? Yes, you can.’

Garry had ordered a coke and asked for a receipt. That would be going to the expenses department too. That first drink had got him the information that Lapham had been in the pub the day before and that ‘your lot’ had been on the phone all morning.

The second drink uncovered the fact that Lapham was often in the pub but wasn’t at that exact moment. Garry could see that for himself.

The third coke and first packet of crisps had helped Garry find out that Lapham didn’t live too far away and that this place was his local. With each ordered drink, the barman’s smile got wider and wider. Garry had always had a weak bladder and needed two trips to the men’s room already. In some ways, he thought, it was a bizarre type of torture that he was paying for the privilege of.

Garry’s first beer of the day, ordered out of exasperation, and second packet of crisps had finally prised out that Lapham lived in a row of flats not too far away.

‘Dunno more than that I’m afraid, mate,’ the barman told him after Garry had finished that final drink. Garry thought the word ‘mate’ was something of a subjective term.

After a third trip to the toilet on his way out, Garry followed the barman’s instructions to the row of flats where Lapham apparently lived. He had no answer from the first door, while the man behind the second looked at him as if he had two heads then slammed it in his face. After a rather sweary inquiry as to his identity from the woman behind the third door, he was surprisingly informed this was Lapham’s house and that the female was his ‘fiancée’, Marie Hall. Even more astoundingly he was invited in, with the woman promising to tell him how the police were ‘stitching up’ her partner.

The woman was still in her dressing gown, a particularly peach monstrosity. She invited him into her kitchen and chain-smoked throughout their conversation, which was more of a one-sided rant. Garry thought his flat was a mess but Lapham’s made his look like a hospital ward.

Despite the swearing, lack of cohesion and seemingly baseless accusations, Marie had at least given him some useful information. She said some officer had not long been sent back from her place because her fiancé had handed himself in and was currently at the police station being questioned. That was the first Garry knew of it. She reckoned the police had nothing on him and were ‘dredging up old things ’cos they’ve got it in for him’. But she gave him plenty of background on her fiancé and even let Garry borrow a photo ‘as long as you bring it back’. From what she said, Lapham was a misunderstood soul whom the police delighted in picking on.

Garry thought that, although those claims seemed unlikely, behind the bravado, Marie actually did care for Wayne Lapham and was genuinely worried for him. She certainly didn’t like the police and more than once went off on a tangent about ‘that posh bitch officer forcing her way in here’. Garry didn’t push the point but had an idea about who the ‘bitch’ could have been.

He thanked her for her time and caught the buses back to write the story up. By then news had come out that Wayne Lapham had been released. Garry linked everything together and turned it into something of a profile piece about the investigation’s prime suspect. His editor had called and said the piece was okay but sounded disappointed his reporter hadn’t got more. Quite what he’d expected, Garry wasn’t sure.

It was that tone which had continued into the Monday meeting but perhaps all that was about to change. On Garry’s phone was a text from the pre-pay number he had memorised.

‘Call me. It’s good.’

Garry phoned the number, feverishly taking notes throughout the call. It was good. Good enough to wreck the career of a certain detective sergeant.

20

Jessica’s day hadn’t been too productive. She had first taken Rowlands with her to Yvonne Christensen’s boarded-up house. They were let in through the back by the victim’s ex-husband, Eric, who had been given his son’s keys. Jessica didn’t know what she thought she would get from the visit and hadn’t expected a flash of inspiration where she discovered something others had missed. Things didn’t work like that.