Vigilante Read Free Page B

Millar.’
    Someone would have to formally identify the body but, given the wallet with his name in it and the fact Jessica recognised him, there was little point in making the poor woman suffer any longer.
    She shook her head, taking half a step back. ‘He’s what?’
    Jessica put a hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m afraid he’s dead.’
    Craig Millar’s mother took the news surprisingly well. Jessica sensed it was something she had probably had in the back of her mind for a long time given the lengthy list of her son’s crimes. She introduced herself as Denise Millar and invited them into her kitchen, offering Jessica and Cole seats at a round dining table. The inside of the house was well maintained. The hallway was clean and decorated with school photographs of Craig and another boy. The kitchen was small but as tidy as the hallway. The table was at the centre of it, with worktops running the length of the room’s sides. Apart from the door they had come through, there was another leading towards what looked like the living room.
    Denise explained that her other son Jamie was still asleep. He had finished his GCSEs a few months ago but didn’t want to stay on at school and hadn’t managed to find a job. ‘I just didn’t want him going the same way as Craig,’ his mother said.
    The woman carried on as if nothing had happened, making the three of them a cup of tea. Neither Jessica nor Cole had said they wanted one but Denise had made one for them in any case. As she sat sipping from her mug, she asked the officers how it happened. Jessica replied that they wouldn’t be sure for a few days but it looked as if her son had been attacked.
    Denise nodded as if it was the most natural thing in the world. ‘He wasn’t always bad,’ she insisted. ‘He got in with the wrong people at the wrong time. I knew some of the things he got up to but he was my son. I couldn’t just kick him out. There was nowhere for him to go. He promised me he wouldn’t bring any of it home with him but I don’t know what he got up to outside of here.’
    Jessica realised the ‘it’ could mean anything but didn’t think it was worth pushing the point at that exact time. ‘Do you know anyone who might want to hurt him?’ she asked.
    The woman snorted and put the mug down on the table. ‘Christ. You tell me. He’d only been back out of prison for a few weeks. I didn’t want to get involved with anything he did. I stopped asking for rent because I didn’t want to be associated with wherever he got his money from.’
    Jessica didn’t know he had been in prison quite so recently. She wasn’t surprised but there was a wide range of community punishments people like Craig Millar seemed to end up on that kept them out of jail.
    ‘What was he in for?’
    ‘Some assault or something, he was on remand. It didn’t go to court in the end so they let him out. He told me he didn’t do it but then he always said that.’
    ‘Do you know who he was out with last night?’
    ‘No, I’d never remember the names anyway. I’ve got two kids with one always in trouble and a father that pissed off years ago. It all blurs into one in the end.’
    Jessica nodded as Mrs Millar picked up her mug and took it over to the sink, washing it up. Jessica made a token gesture to sip some of the three-quarters of a mug she had left. ‘Would Jamie know any of the names?’ she asked.
    Mrs Millar had her back to them but Jessica saw her freeze momentarily before turning around. ‘He better not.’
    ‘Could you ask him anyway?’
    She met Jessica’s eyes. The look told her that Jamie probably did know who his older brother had been out with but that his mother still hoped he was innocent and unaffected by the trouble Craig had consistently been in.
    ‘I’ll get him up and you can ask.’
    Denise returned to the hallway and they heard her knocking on a door, then two muffled voices speaking. A few moments later she came back into the kitchen, her son trailing