Vigilante Read Free

‘Recognise him then?’ he asked. His head was at a slightly sideways angle and she found his face difficult to read.
    ‘That Millar kid. You noticed him too then?’
    ‘I couldn’t remember his name but the face was familiar.’
    ‘What do you reckon? Whoever it was didn’t bother taking his wallet so it wasn’t just a mugging.’
    ‘Drugs? Fighting? Who knows? If you’re sure of the name we should probably get the address and find out if he lives with anyone before word gets around here anyway.’ Cole indicated behind him and Jessica could see faces at windows of the block of flats that backed onto the road, with other people passing by on the other side of the road trying to get a glimpse.
    Jessica said she had confirmed the victim’s name with the officer who had the wallet. ‘Who called it in anyway?’ she added.
    ‘If you had twenty quid on you, who would you put it on?’
    ‘What makes you think I don’t have twenty quid on me?’
    Cole smiled. ‘Reynolds reckons you still owe him a tenner and never bring money to work just so you don’t have to pay him back.’
    DS Jason Reynolds was an officer Jessica shared an office with. She grinned back at the inspector and gave a small laugh. ‘It’s got to be a dog-walker who called us.’
    ‘Bingo.’
    ‘I reckon we need a new way of investigating things like this. In future, let’s just assume the bloke out walking his dog did it and work backwards from there; it’s the perfect alibi.’
    Cole’s smile widened. ‘I’ll call in for the victim’s address. It will almost certainly be around here anyway.’
    * * * * * * * * * * * * *
    Cole got Craig Millar’s last-known address by phoning their Longsight base. It was a flat somewhere nearby but neither of them knew exactly where the place was and, from the records, they weren’t completely sure if the victim lived alone. According to their own files, there were other Millars associated with the address but unsurprisingly no one was on the electoral roll. Jessica knew that anything seeming slightly authoritative would be roundly shunned in this area and doubted there were too many accurate records of who lived with whom.
    Jessica crossed the road and asked the two teenagers in school uniform for directions to the victim’s address. She didn’t give the exact flat number but asked where the block was. The pair pointed her in what she assumed was the right direction without much of a protest and she and Cole set off to find out who actually lived at Craig Millar’s address.
    They crossed back over the road and cut through an alleyway that separated one set of flats from another. Jessica thought the whole area seemed fairly depressing, even with the sun now up and shining. The estate was a mix of red-brick two-storey blocks of flats and small houses. Most of the area was administered by a housing association, with signs all around bearing the organisation’s logo and strict instructions that ‘Ball games are not permitted’. Jessica knew full well from various newspaper reports and word-of-mouth around the station that, even if the association got tough on ball games, they weren’t so bothered about low-level drug dealing and other misdemeanours as long as rent was paid on time.
    Everything looked the same and the small scraps of land that hadn’t been built on had patchy, muddied grass, graffiti littering many fences and walls. They continued walking and Jessica noticed a run-down children’s play park on the opposite side of the road from them. She could see a pair of swings had been wrapped around the top of the frame they hung from and guessed that much of the rest of the equipment was unusable or vandalised.
    It was easy for the police to blame the people who lived here for making a mess of their own estate but Jessica knew well enough a cycle of poverty was hard to escape from. Kids would struggle to get jobs, so sat around bored and hung about in gangs. Then when they were mature enough