38

The mist clung on through the night, eating into the fabric of the city until the streets resembled a Victorian postcard. Jessica slept in short spurts, waking every couple of hours and finding herself inexorably drawn to the window where she peered out towards the dim orange glow of the street lamps that were fighting a losing battle against the light-devouring clouds. Each time, she persuaded herself there was somebody close by, watching the house, watching her; each time she spotted nobody. One time she woke convinced there was somebody downstairs, waking Adam and asking if he could hear it too. As soon as he was awake and listening, the sound went away again – he said she must have imagined it but she couldn’t have done.

She wasn’t paranoid.

There really were things going on around her. The dark hatchback had followed her home. DCI Cole had been acting strangely and had isolated her. She had been put on nights at short notice and then the colleagues closest to her had been moved onto other cases.

But then there were reasons too. Perhaps he had isolated her because she’d gone off on her own one too many times. She had let Bones run, she had visited Tim and missed the significance of Mandy hitting him, she had dropped out of a late-night surveillance and gone off on a wild-goose chase after a van because it had a strange logo on it. Then she’d gone and harassed the company’s owner and his wife about it. Those weren’t the actions of someone completely in control of themselves, and especially not those of a competent police officer who was supposed to be supervising other people.

Then there was Holden Wyatt: DSI Aylesbury had a point, didn’t he? How many times had Holden lied to her? He first failed to tell her about the party, then denied knowing Damon, then stayed quiet about all aspects of the initiation and abuse. By his own admission, he’d done awful things to Damon – so why wouldn’t he be prime suspect? Perhaps it was one more piece of hazing that had got out of hand – a drinking game, or some sort of forfeit. Damon had drunk too much, taken drugs, and then Holden had panicked and got rid of the body in a bin that would have been emptied the next day if the bin men hadn’t been on strike. It wasn’t that far-fetched. Yet instead of getting to the bottom of it all, she’d gone off and done her own thing, convincing herself that DCI Cole was against her, despite everything he had done for her over the years.

And now, she couldn’t sleep, climbing out of bed over and over to stare out of the window into the night where no right-minded person would be.

The only thing Jessica had to cling onto was the letter that had come through her door – ‘You’ve got the wrong man’ – and that symbol, whatever it meant. Anyone could have sent that, though. One of Holden’s friends, his family. Even a colleague having a joke at her expense. She’d annoyed enough people over the years.

But what about the candlesticks? They were such stupid things that she and Adam had never used and likely never would. Who even owned candlesticks nowadays? Adam used to joke that if they bought some lead piping, rope and a pistol, then they could take a knife from the kitchen, plus a spanner from the toolkit, and have a real-life Cluedo set. They’d only kept them because there was so little left after the fire that it felt like they shouldn’t be thrown away. Yet someone had moved or taken them – and Jessica didn’t believe it was Bex.

She lay in bed, eyes open, listening as the wind whistled along the passage at the side of the house. She could hear the bins clattering into each other, perhaps tipping over and sending a sprawl of food packaging and other waste onto their driveway. She wasn’t paranoid, was she? The letter and the missing objects proved it – someone was doing this to her. Weren’t they?

Jessica felt the hand gripping her arm, squeezing gently, shaking her.

‘Jess . . .’

Her eyes shot open in disorientation. Where was she? Who was touching her? In a flash, she grabbed the person’s wrist, blinking quickly and trying to clear her vision.

‘Ow, shite, Jess, it’s me!’

‘Wuh . . . Adam?’

‘Who else?’

Jessica let him go, rubbing her eyes and trying to move her legs. It dawned on her that she was in bed – her bed – but her eyes were so heavy that things didn’t feel right at all. Somewhere there was a beeping noise too.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Your alarm’s going off but you slept through it.’

Jessica finally made her legs obey, hauling herself into a sitting position and picking up her phone from the nightstand before fumbling with the screen until the noise stopped.

‘I never sleep through my alarm – not any more.’

‘I know.’

Adam delicately pushed the hair away from her face; his hand was wonderfully warm against her skin. Jessica reached out to pull him towards her.

‘Are you okay?’ he whispered.

‘I think so. What time is it?’

‘It’s only half seven. I was downstairs and heard the beeping. I thought you’d be up and about but it kept going on, then I realised you hadn’t woken up.’

Jessica clung to him tightly. She constantly teased him about how thin he was but it wasn’t because he under ate, it was simply his natural build. When he was beside her, it made no difference because he was still warm and could hold her the way she needed, her face slotting into the crook of his shoulder as if it was a missing puzzle piece.

The paranoia of the early hours had now dissipated but it was still there in the darkest parts of her mind, niggling away, making her question herself.

She couldn’t believe she’d slept through the alarm. When she was at school, she’d needed her father to come and shout at her that it was time to get up. When she moved to Manchester and lived with Caroline, her sleeping patterns were all over the place – sometimes she’d sleep through an entire day without knowing she’d done it; other times she’d sleep for a couple of hours here and there. Caroline could sleep through anything but Jessica never had that blessing. More recently, she would always wake up exactly four minutes before her alarm went off, regardless of when she set it for. She even started playing around with the time, moving it forward and backwards by a single minute to see if it would affect her body. Instead, every time without fail she would wake up those four minutes early.

To go from that to not hearing her alarm at all was unfathomable.

Adam started patting Jessica’s back gently, letting her know that he wanted to release her, but Jessica wasn’t ready and began kissing his neck instead. She could feel his hands hesitating on her shoulders before tapping her again as he pulled himself away.

Jessica felt stung. ‘Are you—?’

‘I have to go into work early. Sorry.’

‘Oh.’

‘We’ve got time for a really quick breakfast together if you want.’

It wasn’t what Jessica wanted but it was marginally better than nothing. She quickly got dressed, and then joined Adam in the kitchen. He had poured himself a giant bowl of Coco Pops and was shovelling heaped spoonfuls into his mouth. It was his usual pick-me-up but didn’t exactly leave her tingling with affection, or particularly hungry.

Sod him if he didn’t want to kiss her back.

Jessica made herself some toast in a huff and sat eating in silence until Adam broke it: ‘Are you worried about her?’

The question took Jessica by surprise. ‘Who?’

‘Bex. I know you didn’t want to talk about it, but . . .’

‘It’s fine.’

Adam stood, crossing to the sink and rinsing his bowl and spoon, before picking up the empty cereal box. ‘Anything else for the recycling?’