Locked In by Kerry Wilkinson Read Free Book Online Page B

Detective Constables but in practice, she still took orders and was given only slightly better jobs to do.
    Jessica didn’t want to talk about things any longer. ‘You may as well get off Dave. I’ve got a few things to sort out then I’ll be following you.’
    ‘You sure?’
    ‘Yeah, just sort that bloody hair out when you get home. You look ridiculous.’
    DC Rowlands just laughed. ‘You’re one to talk. It still looks like you only got out of bed twenty minutes ago.’
    ‘Whatever, see you Monday.’
    After the constable had left, Jessica tried phoning Harry to see how he was feeling ahead of the court case. As expected, he didn’t pick up. She had been round to his flat twice in those months too but there had been no answer. Whether he was in or not, she didn’t know. Seemingly he wasn’t in any kind of contact with anyone from the force. She sent him a text message just in case.
    With little else to go on, she thought contacting a locksmith would be a good idea, just to ask how easy it could be to break through a double-glazed door or window without a key. She picked a name from the Yellow Pages classifieds and called. His advert claimed he worked “24/7” – but he said he would only be available to talk to her if she had an actual job that needed doing.
    In other words, he wanted a few quid.
    He did reluctantly agree that he could spare her “a few minutes” on his lunch break on Monday so she arranged to meet him at his house, which was a short drive from the station. Jessica could have kept ploughing through the phone book to find someone who would speak to her today but she just wasn’t in the mood any longer.

SIX
    The next morning Jessica was sitting in her flat’s kitchen eating some toast and reading the Herald. She didn’t usually buy a newspaper but, given the phone call from the reporter the previous day, she had been out to the local shop to pick one up.
    There was a small article under the main story on the front page that basically rehashed the media release she’d helped the Press Officer write the evening before. The officer had been “working from home” so it had been a short conversation but at least the paper had played ball. Garry Ashford’s name was nowhere to be seen either and Jessica concluded he was clearly all-talk. Some of the national papers had a paragraph or two on their websites but there was no way she was going to buy all the papers just to check what had gone in.
    She used her phone to search the Internet for the victim’s name but it hadn’t turned up any news stories of note, certainly nothing that related to the case. At least that meant the department were still on top of things and she wasn’t going to have to explain to the DCI why his television appearance would be upstaged.
    As she was reading, her flatmate Caroline came into the kitchen wearing a white dressing gown and fluffy pink slippers that looked like piglets.
    ‘Morning,’ Jessica said. ‘I didn’t think you’d be up this early. I tried to be quiet, not that it would make much difference.’ Jessica was always amazed by her friend’s ability to sleep through anything. If there was an overnight alien invasion, she thought Caroline would just wake up after eight hours of uninterrupted slumber and wonder who the grey-headed extra-terrestrial with the probe was.
    Caroline laughed. ‘If I had the choice of my superpower of being able to sleep through anything, or yours of being able to eat any old shite and not get fat, I’d rather have yours.’
    Jessica knew her friend had a point; Saturday fry-ups and regular curries were just the start, she had never really put on weight, even as a child. Now in her dreaded thirty-somethings, she had been telling herself she had to start eating properly but hadn’t got around to it.
    ‘Anyway,’ Caroline added. ‘I don’t know why I’m up. I guess I just fancied doing something.’
    ‘You’re not turning into a morning person are you?’
    ‘I