Behind Closed Doors (Season One: Book 7) (Jessica Daniel) (16 page)

‘Close. Look again.’

The figure stepped nearer but that only made Wayne’s vision blur further. He squinted harder, trying to see what the object was.

‘Is it a pair of pliers?’

‘Very good. How about this?’

The attacker reached across to some sort of bench out of Wayne’s gaze and held something else in front of him.

‘A saw?’

‘Good.’

The attacker showed him two different types of hammer – one with a heavy claw on the back, a pair of garden shears, a machete, a spade. One after the other. Each time Wayne got the answer
wrong, there was a delay until he identified it correctly.

Finally the last item was put down. ‘Do you know why I was showing you those things, Wayne?’

He cowered under the shadow, shivering and gasping, blood dripping from his chin. ‘No.’

‘It’s because you’re going to become very well acquainted with them over the next hour or so.’

Wayne tried to slide away but the figure reached down and pulled him forwards, dragging him along the floor and then kicking him in the back.

‘Look, Wayne, someone’s dropped in to enjoy the moment.’

Wayne stared ahead, wondering what he was looking at. It took him a few seconds to realise it was a mirror that ran the entire length of the wall.

‘It’s me,’ he said.

‘Yes, Wayne. Yes it is.’

He felt another kick in his back, lurching forwards before thrashing backwards as his throat was squeezed and he was pinned to the ground.

Wayne’s eyes darted sideways in terror as he saw a hand reaching towards him, the jaws of the pliers wide and ready to bite.

SEVEN MONTHS AGO

Although she had never been particularly religious, Jessica had always liked hymns. At primary school, they used to sing every morning before assembly, the entire school as one
belting out ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’, ‘What a Friend We Have In Jesus’, ‘Thine Be the Glory’, ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’, or
Jessica’s favourite, ‘Amazing Grace’.

Sometimes she would catch the last part of a programme on television with a hymn at the end and she would be transported back to being six years old, singing at the top of her voice without a
care in the world.

All these years later and they were still embedded in her mind; everything from the tempo to the lyrics. She knew where the organ should pause, where she could breathe. It was as if she was that
little girl again – except that now her daddy was gone.

Jessica stood in the church, not even bothering to mime the words. Around her, people sang out of tune; an apt tribute to her father who would have been sitting at the back hoping his wife
didn’t catch him laughing at how ridiculous it all was. Jessica would have been there with him, smiling out of sight of her mother.

As it was, she had to sit at the front, watching everything from close up. The vicar was the same one who had christened her all those years ago in the beautiful old church that was the
centrepiece of the village. Whether you were religious or not, there was a majesty about this place, the towering steeple, the ancient stained glass, even the way the voices echoed around the
inside.

Jessica hadn’t lived in the village for over fifteen years and yet it would always be home. There might be a few extra houses on the edges, perhaps a field or two which had been sold off
for ugly out-of-place homes, but all the back streets and tight alleyways were the same. In Manchester, there were still times where she struggled to figure out how all the main roads connected
together; here she could get from one side of the village to the other in no time at all, skimming through the maze of cut-throughs without having to think.

She used to skim across the graveyard when she was late for school, dashing across people’s resting places and not worrying.

Now one of them would belong to her father.

The hymn came to an end and Jessica heard the shuffling behind her as the village sat as one. Everyone had turned out because if there was one person they all knew, it was the man who had run
the only post office in the area for the best part of three decades. The village hadn’t even had a cashpoint installed until after Jessica had left, meaning the only way the residents could
get their money was via her father.

The vicar said something about him being a ‘lynchpin of the community’ but to Jessica he was simply her daddy.

‘Jess.’

It took Jessica a few moments to realise it was Adam who was speaking, his whispers lost among the vicar’s voice reverberating around the ancient walls. She felt his hand on top of hers
but didn’t look around.

‘Jess. Are you all right?’

She nodded but couldn’t speak, an emptiness rippling through her.

Soon there was more movement and Jessica’s mother was on her feet, sliding along the pew and walking carefully towards the front, shuffling papers in her hand. In the few weeks since they
had been in the hospital, it was as if she had become a different person: older, greyer, quieter. Before she’d had a vibrancy to her but that had been replaced by aching hips and stick-thin
legs that could barely take her weight.

Jessica knew she wasn’t looking after herself too well, either, sometimes going entire days forgetting to eat. Still, at least she had Adam to harangue and remind her that it wasn’t
just herself she had to look after. As the days went by, she could feel Marcus growing inside her, each small grumble of her tummy filling her with the hope that perhaps he was about to kick for
the first time. The nurse had told her it would probably be around four to five months until she felt anything and then, wonderfully, it had happened.

Now she was beginning to show properly, having to wear bigger clothes, noticing those looks from colleagues who didn’t know yet, wondering if she was getting fat or if she was actually
pregnant. It was her little game, ignoring the way people stared at the gentle bulge around her midriff and waiting for them to ask, pausing for an awkward few seconds and making them think they
had insulted her before revealing that she was indeed pregnant and hadn’t simply been attacking the doughnuts for the past few months.

They were perhaps her only moments of enjoyment she had around the station but even they had worn thin as pretty much everyone knew now. Instead they gossiped about whether she would ever return
to work and who the new DI would be if she didn’t get the job.

Jessica cupped a hand around her abdomen, more for her own reassurance than anything else. At the front of the church, her mother had taken her place behind the lectern, still shuffling her
papers and clearing her throat.

‘Thank you, everybody,’ she said unsteadily, her eyes not leaving the papers. She went on to speak about how she and Marcus had met at a dance in a neighbouring village. She laughed
gently through her tears, admitting she had been there with another boy when her future husband had caught her eye across the room, winking at her and then promptly being ejected for smuggling in
alcohol. A week later, she had received a letter in the post signed by ‘that idiot from the dance’ asking if they could meet up some time. Within a year, they were married.

‘I never did find out how he discovered my name and address,’ Jessica’s mother added tearfully.

Jessica thought that was that but then her mum moved on to the next sheet. Without trying, she had the church in the palm of her hand.

‘. . . And then our little miracle came along,’ she added.

Jessica gulped away a sob, realising what was coming as Adam’s hand closed around hers.

‘I wasn’t supposed to be able to have children,’ her mother said. ‘The doctors said there was something wrong but then, one day, I just knew and along came our little
Jessica.’

Jessica felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, knowing all eyes were upon her. She wanted her mum to stop speaking but she had finally composed herself, talking more clearly than she
had done before.

‘Many of you here knew Jess as a child; some of you taught her, some of you grew up with her. Most of you were probably pestered by her at some point.’ She stopped to laugh, which
was matched a little disconcertingly by others around the church. Jessica even saw the vicar smiling.

‘Jessica was always the apple of her father’s eye but that’s because they were so alike. He would take her out in the car, driving deliberately quickly to make her shout and
scream when he thought I didn’t know. He’d push her high on the swings, he would cheat at Monopoly to make sure she never beat him—’

Jessica interrupted, unable to stop herself snorting a mixture of laughter and tears. She’d always known he was doing something to stop her winning but had never worked out what. The fact
she consistently cheated to ensure Adam rarely beat her at board games simply meant it was another thing they shared.

Her mother smoothed a loose strand of hair behind her ear, composing herself again, blinking quickly and staring upwards. ‘When Jessica was a little girl, we were redecorating our spare
bedroom. I say “we” but it was mainly Marcus, fitting new cupboards and painting. My only job was to keep Jessica away. I took her to the park but it started to rain so we had to go
home. I was trying to get her to sit and watch television but every time there was a bump or a bang from upstairs, her eyes would shoot upwards, wanting to join in the fun she thought she was
missing.’

It was one of Jessica’s earliest memories, wanting to be with her father and help him out.

Lydia Daniel peered down towards Jessica, a gentle smile on her face, her eyes red and puffy. ‘Eventually I couldn’t take her whining any longer.’ Her lips twitched. ‘I
took her upstairs and told Marcus he’d have to look after her because she was driving me crazy. He tilted his head to the side, and with that special grin of his, he handed Jess a paintbrush
saying that he had a job for her. I went back downstairs and got on with whatever I was doing but then I realised how quiet it was. I crept up the stairs and opened the door only to see Jess sat on
her father’s lap, making hand prints on the wall.’

She stopped to wipe her eyes but she wasn’t the only one. Jessica could hear people shuffling behind her, quietly blowing their noses and choking back their own emotions.

‘They hadn’t heard me and I stood there for ages just watching them talk and play until there was an entire patch of the wall covered in her little hand prints. And that’s how
I’ll always remember Marcus, sitting on the floor with our Jess on his lap covered in paint as if they were the only people on earth.’

She paused, glancing up to the sky, whispering ‘I love you, Marc’, before stepping down and walking slowly back to her seat. The people around her patted her on the back and put
their arms around her. Jessica could do nothing but stare towards the front.

The vicar had no chance of following it, rushing through a reading before finishing with a hymn. Jessica stood and listened but didn’t feel herself. As everyone turned and started to file
out, Adam took her hand, walking in silence as everyone consoled her. She hugged her mum, thanking her for the story, but she felt removed from the scene, as if she was watching herself. The words
were meaningless, an endless stream of people saying they had missed her around the village and that it was a shame they had to see her again in these circumstances. ‘Thank you’ became
a catchphrase, as if she could say anything else when people kept telling her what a wonderful father she’d had.

It was Caroline who saw it first.

The wake was taking place in the village hall and it was as packed as Jessica had ever seen it. She had spent the evening failing to avoid people, sitting in the corner with Adam and then by
herself as he got called away to do family things on her behalf.

‘Are you all right?’ Caroline asked, sliding behind the table next to Jessica.

‘It’s just been a long day.’

Caroline rested an arm around Jessica’s shoulders, pulling her closer. ‘You look tired.’

‘I’ve not been sleeping. With everything here, the baby and work . . . it’s just hard.’

‘When do you go off on maternity?’

‘I don’t know. A few months yet. I’m trying not to think about it.’

Caroline paused but Jessica knew what she was thinking. There were only so many ways and so many times you could ask a person if they were okay. Caroline was her best friend, someone she’d
known her entire adult life. They both knew this village as home. She could tell as well as anyone when something wasn’t right.

‘How’s Hugo?’ Jessica asked, deliberately changing the subject.

‘He’s fine. He wanted to come but I didn’t know if it was best. You know what he’s like.’

‘He’d have been fine. I took him to your wedding, remember?’

‘I remember.’

Jessica realised she shouldn’t have brought it up. Caroline’s marriage had fallen apart in less time than it had taken them to get together in the first place. Jessica didn’t
know if she was formally seeing Hugo now and didn’t want to be nosey enough to ask. She and Caroline didn’t have the relationship they once did, plus she doubted Hugo could ever
entirely commit to anyone given the chaotic nature of his life. His combined act of comedy, magic, puppetry and who knows what else was beginning to catch on more than just locally.

Jessica had watched him on television a couple of weeks ago. He seemed utterly oblivious to the cameras being there, mooching onto set in the same scruffy clothes he always wore before dazzling
the presenter, the audience and most likely everyone at home by pulling off some sort of trick which resulted in the presenter’s tie and watch disappearing without him noticing. By the time
he reeled off the first names of everyone in the front row, despite not having met any of them before, there was almost a riot as a cackling band of middle-aged women shouted their approval.

Jessica had seen it all before.

‘He’s doing something in Edinburgh this weekend,’ Caroline added. ‘He was going to come back but I told him not to.’

‘It’s fine. I’m glad you came.’

‘As if I was going to be anywhere else. We should do something soon, before you have too many other things going on.’