Free Vigilante by Kerry Wilkinson

members of the team spoke about ‘Geoffrey Boycott’, a famous Yorkshire cricketer, and then burst out laughing.
    It was all very childish but the chief inspector took it in the spirit it was meant and had even invited everyone who worked in the station to his new house for an introduction party of sorts. He owned a large property to the south of the city in a nice area. The fact he had saved up enough to buy a place such as that hadn’t helped his ‘tight’ reputation around the station. Apparently he had grown-up children but no one had met them, although his wife came across well at the party. Jessica had gone but spent much of the evening hanging around with Carrie and Dave. Rowlands had been rather taken with one of the family photographs that centred on one of their boss’ grown-up daughters. Some of the other officers had made a big joke out of subtly moving items around, even if it was just switching ornaments with each other. Their host had taken a fair ribbing over a framed photo of Headingley cricket ground he had hanging in his hallway.
    As well as that gentler side, Jessica had also seen him bellowing at various officers for perceived misdemeanours. His voice travelled and if someone was in trouble, everyone knew about it. He could be direct and abrasive and Jessica had never figured out if that was a genuine mean streak or just something about his manner.
    The noise that indicated a text message went off on Jessica’s phone. She took it out of her pocket and skimmed through the messages, laughing to herself when she saw it was from Adam Compton.
    ‘Just wondrin if u fancied a coffee or sumthing?’
    Given his clumsiness the previous day, she had wondered if he might contact her for some reason other than a professional one at some point. It seemed typical of his awkwardness that he wasn’t brave enough to ask her out for a proper drink. Coffee? No. Glass of wine? Maybe. He may have been a bit geeky but he wasn’t a bad-looking guy and seemed nice enough. She thought of the ribbing she would get from Rowlands if he found out she was thinking about going out with someone from ‘Virginville’.
    She typed a message back, read it over three times to make sure there were no critical spelling errors or any possible way it could be misinterpreted and then sent it.
    ‘Maybe. Bit busy at mo. Will call u at some point.’
    Jessica figured she would leave him hanging for a while longer. She had only given him her number for work reasons after all.
    She tapped away at her computer’s keyboard and logged onto the internal computer system to search for a phone number. She had left Denise Millar her phone number and only half-expected a call but decided she would be pro-active and contact her again herself. It wasn’t that Jessica believed she could add much more to the investigation, she just wanted to hear how the woman was. Farraday’s lack of feeling had sharply contrasted in her mind with that of the young man’s poor mother.
    She dialled the number into the desk phone and it was answered on the second ring. ‘Is that Mrs Millar?’
    ‘Yes, who’s this?’
    ‘This is DS Jessica Daniel. I visited you a few days ago.’
    The woman had sounded downbeat but the inflection in her voice raised slightly after Jessica had introduced herself. ‘Have you got some news?’
    ‘Not really. I’m sorry if I got your hopes up. I was just wondering how you and Jamie were coping?’
    ‘Oh…right.’ The woman sounded disappointed and Jessica instantly felt bad for inadvertently giving an impression she had something of any significance to say. Mrs Millar continued speaking. ‘We’re as well as can be expected. It’s hit Jamie hard. He’s not been out since.’
    ‘I just wanted to let you know we are working as hard as we can on this…’
    Jessica didn’t finish her sentence before the woman started speaking again. ‘It wasn’t even the main story on the local news. I know he wasn’t an angel but you’d