Free Locked In by Kerry Wilkinson Page B

for Jessica. The two detectives said their goodbyes and set off back to the station with DC Rowlands clearly trying to suppress a smirk at the term of affection his superior had been called.
     
    The desk sergeant had pulled Jessica to one side as soon as they had arrived back at Longsight. ‘Has anyone told you about what’s happened in court this morning?’
    She hadn’t forgotten that Harry’s case was beginning that day; it had been in the back of her mind all morning. With so much going on, and the fact Harry was still ignoring her, there didn’t really seem much she could do. She was supposed to be acting as a prosecution character witness at some point during the proceedings. It was booked into her schedule that she would appear but she wasn’t completely sure when that would be. Most cases were allocated a set number of days or weeks for a trial and both sides had a rough idea what the order would be. Witnesses had to be booked in, whether civilian or professional but there could sometimes be a day or two’s leeway.
    ‘No, I’ve been out.’
    ‘Harry hasn’t turned up. They’ve delayed selecting the jury for now but, if it goes on much longer, the case is in danger of being dismissed. Apparently they can get through the first day or two without him as they have all the photos and the knife and so on but, after that, if there’s no Harry they don’t really have a case.’
    Jessica sighed and cursed under her breath.
    ‘We’ve sent uniform round to knock on his door but there’s no answer. His phone’s off too so no one knows where he is,’ the desk sergeant added.
    ‘That lawyer guy is going to be furious.’
    She had met with the prosecutor heading up the Crown’s case on a couple of occasions. First he had come to her to ask what she could offer as a character witness for his side then he had returned not too long ago to give her examples of the types of question he would ask her in court. All officers were trained in regards to court procedure but this was a case the CPS really wanted to win. They knew Peter Hunt would be claiming Harry was an alcoholic who had started some kind of fight where Tom Carpenter had simply defended himself against a violent drunk.
    Jessica didn’t have to lie to refute that. Harry did drink, sometimes more than he could handle, but she had never seen him get aggressive with it. In fact the opposite was true. He would calm down significantly and start to tell his stories. He was full of tales from the “old days”. Some of them weren’t very politically correct and certainly not in keeping with the modern police force but he certainly knew how to tell a good anecdote.
    That was what she would say on the stand; he was a good man and, though she hadn’t been present, she didn’t believe he was the type of person to instigate something that would end up with him being stabbed. None of that would matter if they couldn’t get Harry himself to court.
    ‘Hunt can’t believe his luck, of course,’ said the sergeant. ‘Guy I spoke to reckons he’s had a huge grin on him all morning. Been swanning around like it’s already in the bag.’
    ‘Right... great. Any other good news?’
    ‘Well the computer system is down again.’
    ‘Again? What’s happened this time, did someone stop feeding the hamster?’
    ‘The what?’
    ‘Y’know, giant hamster wheel, powering the station...? All right, forget it.’ Her humour was obviously way too advanced for the likes of her colleagues. ‘Is the DCI around?’
    ‘Getting ready for the Press Conference, of course.’
    A few years ago, somebody had decided the force wasn’t open enough to the general public. They wanted the police to be far friendlier with the media, who would in turn get across a better positive message on their behalf to the general public. To do this, some of the ground floor offices had been knocked through, repainted and reassigned as an area where they could host Press Conferences, or bring select