She landed on the local news to find Canary still running. The newspaper editor involved was a director at a different channel, one that had barely touched the story. She watched as they played footage of DCI Lesley Clarke, the public face of the investigation, dodging reporters as she left Lloyd House.
“We did all this in the press conference yesterday. Just let us do our job.”
Lesley had never enjoyed dealing with the press. She was old-school, and preferred to get the job done rather than talk about it. But David Randle had insisted she run the press conference, and now her picture was everywhere. A meme was going around on social media, Lesley’s face on the body of Helen Mirren in her Prime Suspect days. It figured.
The front door slammed. Zoe put her coffee down and waited to see if Nicholas would come in the living room. If he would be alone.
“Oh. You’re back.”
“Don’t sound so happy about it.” She gave him a gentle smile. Don’t overdo it.
He grunted and headed for the kitchen. Their two-up-two-down Selly Oak terrace had two rooms knocked together and a tiny kitchen at the back. It spilled out onto the table in the so-called dining room, a room more often used for homework and case files.
“Good evening?” Zoe asked. “Go anywhere nice?”
He slumped onto the armchair opposite her and opened a can of cheap lager. He wasn’t eighteen, not for another five weeks. But she knew that banning him from drinking at home would only mean he did it more when he was out.
“Fine. Grabbed a Balti with Sid and Morgan. I’m stuffed.” He rubbed his stomach. “Time for bed.” He shoved the phone he’d been scrolling through into his pocket and stood up. She never ceased to be shocked by the way his rangy frame filled their poky front room.
“Night.”
“Yeah.” He swigged the beer and traipsed upstairs.
Zoe listened to her son moving around, thinking of the nights when he’d been small and she’d longed for an evening without him summoning her to his room. If it wasn’t a nightmare, it’d be tears about something another kid had said to him at school. But now, he communicated with her only through the medium of food.
The bathroom door opened and closed, and his bedroom door slammed. Zoe winced and reminded herself he didn’t do it deliberately.
Her phone buzzed on the side table. Mo. She grabbed it. And a second text from her mum. That could wait.
“Hey, Mo,” she said. “Bit late for a chat, isn’t it?”
“Hey, boss. I take it you’re sober?”
Boss. She was still getting used to that. “Course I’m sober.”
“Good. We’ve had an urgent call and you’re the closest member of CID who hasn’t been drinking.”
“What kind of call?”
“A body.”
She straightened in her chair.
“Murder?”
“We don’t know the details yet.”
“OK.” She grabbed an envelope containing an overdue council tax warning and started to write on the back of it. “What’s the address?”
“Farquhar Road.”
“Nice.”
“That’s not all. It’s Bryn Jackson’s house.”
She stopped writing. “The Assistant Chief Constable?” She thought of him looking her up and down no more than two hours ago. You look after yourself, girl.
Jackson had kids. Two of them, if she remembered correctly. How old were they?
“Who’s the body?” She held her breath.
“It’s him. It’s Jackson.”
Chapter Five
The city was quiet, brake lights bunching up at the traffic lights along the Bristol Road and quickly being released again. A squad car passed Zoe as she turned off towards the University. She considered giving it a wave but they would have no idea who she was in her green Mini.
Passing the university, she jabbed the brakes as two girls dressed in matching fur jackets and skinny leather trousers stepped out in front of her. She blew out a long breath as they decided whether they’d cross in front of her or stay on the pavement.
“Come on, come on.” She drummed her fingertips on the steering wheel then wiggled her fingers and smoothed them on the leather. Chill, she told herself. He’s not coming back to life.
Her first case as DI. If she was first there, to secure the scene, to start the process, she might be made Senior Investigating Officer. She felt her chest tighten at the thought. She pushed away the reminder that this was the ACC. No ordinary murder.
The two girls decided on the pavement. They laughed and waved at her and she gave them a tight-lipped smile in return as she floored the gas. This car might be compact but it had punch.
Zoe kept her eyes open as she neared the Jackson house, alert for unusual activity. In an area like this, anything after midnight was unusual activity. Unlike her own street in Selly Oak, there’d be no students staggering back from the pub. The streetlights were few and far between and the only signs of life were a taxi passing and a fox slipping from the shadow of trees.
She parked a few houses along, a distance that would have accounted for four times as many homes in her own neighbourhood. The house would have a vast driveway, no doubt, but she didn’t want to contaminate any aspect of the scene. She sat for a moment, scanning the road for movement and signs of CCTV. A house opposite had a burglar alarm with a camera mounted beneath it. That would need checking in the morning. But the rest of the houses were obscured by mature trees and dense shadows. She shivered at the thought of living somewhere so lifeless.
She stepped out of her car and closed the door quietly. She pulled forensic gloves and shoe covers out of her pocket, slid on the gloves and made her way to the Jackson house. Two vehicles flanked the driveway on the street out front. An ambulance and a squad car. The ambulance had its back doors open but no one inside. Zoe stopped to look at the house, wishing she’d grabbed something warmer than her leather jacket.
It was a vast, white-rendered building with ornate window frames and steep gables, like something from an Agatha Christie novel. An ACC salary would be generous, but maybe not quite this generous. Maybe she’d underestimated the beige woman she’d seen with Jackson earlier.
The front door opened and a paramedic hurried past the two cars in the wide driveway. A Jaguar SUV and a Vauxhall Corsa. So, the wife didn’t have a high paying job.
Zoe stepped forwards, hand outstretched. “DI Zoe Finch, Force CID. What can you tell me?”
The man stopped walking and looked at her. He had deep circles under his eyes and bloodstains on his uniform. He shook his head. “We couldn’t save him. Karina – my partner – she’s in there now, wrapping things up.”
Zoe gritted her teeth. Paramedics tramping all over the crime scene made things ten times harder. “I need her to stop whatever she’s doing. Keep the crime scene as clean as we can.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Where were you when the guy was dying in front of me?”
She straightened her shoulders. “Do you know who that guy is?”
“Bryn Jackson. Sixty-five years old.”
“Assistant Chief Constable Bryn Jackson.”
“Now I get why you’re so sniffy. If we’d been called earlier…”