The Killer Inside: A gripping serial killer thriller (Detective Jessica Daniel thriller series Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

he wanted a few quid.
    He reluctantly agreed that he could spare her ‘a few minutes’ on his Monday lunch break, so she arranged to meet him at his house, a short drive from the station.
    With that, Jessica decided she’d had quite enough of Saturday.

Chapter Six
    T he next morning , Jessica read the Sunday edition of the Herald while sitting in her flat’s kitchen eating some toast. She didn’t usually buy a newspaper but, given the phone call from the reporter the previous day, she had been out to the local shop to pick one up.
    There was a small article under the main story on the front page that basically rehashed the media release she’d helped the press officer write the evening before. It seemed that the paper had played ball and stuck to the details the police had released. Garry Ashford’s name was nowhere to be seen and Jessica concluded he was probably all talk.
    She’d already searched the Internet for Yvonne Christensen’s name, but it hadn’t turned up any news stories of note, certainly nothing relating to the case. At least that meant the department were still on top of things and she wasn’t going to have to explain to the DCI why his television appearance would be upstaged.
    As Jessica was reading, her flatmate, Caroline, ambled into the kitchen in a white dressing gown and fluffy pink piglet slippers.
    ‘Morning,’ Jessica said. ‘I didn’t think you’d be up this early. I tried to be quiet...’
    Caroline could sleep through anything. If there was an overnight alien invasion, she would wake up after eight hours of uninterrupted slumber and wonder who the grey-headed extra-terrestrial with the probe was.
    The reply came through a watery-eyed, yawny smile: ‘If I had the choice of my sleeping superpower or your ability to eat anything and not get fat, I’d rather have yours.’
    Jessica agreed. Saturday fry-ups and regular curries were the norm; she had never really put on weight, even as a child. Now approaching her dreaded thirty-somethings, she had been telling herself she had to start eating properly, but hadn’t yet got around to it.
    ‘Anyway,’ Caroline added. ‘I don’t know why I’m up. I guess I fancied doing something.’
    ‘You’re not turning into a morning person, are you?’
    ‘I hope not. I hate those people.’
    Caroline Morrison was Jessica’s oldest and best friend. Her olive skin, long brown hair and wide brown eyes had always left Jessica feeling pangs of jealousy. Caroline really was pretty, whether she put any effort into her appearance or not. When they’d used to go out regularly – a lot more often than they ever managed now – Jessica had always felt the need to wear more make-up and spend longer on her own hair in order to not be the ‘ugly friend’. Compared to Caroline, she was always likely to be second choice.
    She wasn’t bothered by anything like that now – a sure sign of age. Harry’s stabbing and subsequent downward spiral had matured her in a way she would never have expected.
    She and Caroline came from roughly the same place not far from Carlisle, a hundred miles or so to the north of Manchester. They hadn’t really had any contact with each other until sixth-form college, when they were both sixteen. On the very first day, they had ended up sitting together in a history class. That one small, seemingly inconsequential, decision had had such an impact on the rest of their lives.
    They had discovered that they were both only children and, bonding over this, they had quickly become more or less inseparable. They had spent a year travelling through parts of south-east Asia when they turned eighteen. Caroline had applied to go to university in Manchester and, although Jessica hadn’t been interested in further education, the pair had both moved to the city on their return. They hadn’t lived together at first. Caroline had stayed in university accommodation for her first year, while Jessica found a flat nearby. By the time Caroline