It took a few calls but she eventually pulled together everything she would need for the rest of the day. The prison visit was definitely off for now, given they might have a new crime to ask McKenna about.

She went to find Cole to pass on the news and he was back in his office. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘What did the DCI say?’

‘He didn’t seem too fussed and reckoned it was two less troublemakers we were going to have to deal with.’

‘I spoke to Ad . . . the guy from the labs.’ Jessica repeated the details Adam had told her and then the report from the snooker club. ‘There are two men who were beaten up. Both are at North Manchester General Hospital. One is in intensive care but the other apparently looks a lot worse than he actually is. The local boys up there were going to talk to him this afternoon but now we are. I had to go through Northern CID but they didn’t seem to be too bothered about handing the case over. I think they see it like the DCI does – two more criminals off the street.’

‘How do you see it?’

‘That three people have been murdered, possibly by the same person, possibly by Donald McKenna or someone connected to him.’ Cole nodded but Jessica couldn’t tell if it was because he agreed with her or because he was acknowledging what she said. ‘The northern boys say that wallets and IDs belonging to the two snooker-club victims had been found on Hughes and Webb so I don’t think there’ll be much doubt where the blood on the knuckles came from. They’re going to pass that on to the forensics team, which might speed things up a little.’

‘I guess it shows Hughes and Webb weren’t mugged either if phones and wallets were found on them,’ Cole added.

‘Exactly, just like Craig Millar.’

‘Are you off to the hospital?’

‘Yeah, aren’t you coming?’

‘No. Farraday wants me on some other bits for now. His exact words were, “scum killing scum isn’t a priority today”. He wants to wait for the test results to come back before we go back to the prison too.’

There wasn’t much Jessica could add to that. She was still clear to go to the hospital but her boss’s attitude was starting to wear her down.

She went through to the main floor and made her way over to Rowlands’s desk. ‘Oi, grey head. Get your coat, you’ve pulled,’ she said, clipping him round the ear.

‘I’m not that desperate,’ he replied, swatting her hand away.

‘Neither am I but we’ve got a hot date with an assault victim at the hospital.’

‘Which hospital?’

‘North Manchester.’

‘That’s miles away. You’re not driving, are you?’ Jessica’s skills with a vehicle were widely questioned around the station. She would describe her driving as ‘specialist’, others used the word ‘reckless’.

‘Well, Detective Constable, you have two choices. One, you can come with me or two, there were two more bodies found last night that may or may not relate to our case. If you want, I can get you drawing up a list of names connected to those two and then cross-checking everything back with what you’ve already done.’

Rowlands stood up quickly. ‘Fine, I’m coming but I hope someone’s checked the seatbelts. I don’t trust your capricious driving.’

Jessica looked at him again, narrowing her eyes. ‘Capricious?’

‘I told you, I’m raising the level of conversation around here.’

‘Did the letters in your alphabet spaghetti spell that out last night or something?’

‘Jealousy isn’t your best trait, you know.’

Jessica and Rowlands spent the rest of the day putting the pieces together. First they had been to the hospital where they spoke to the only one of the two snooker-club victims who was capable of talking. He told them he had been hit over the top of his head with a snooker cue. There was a large gash and he had a black eye, plus two broken ribs where he said he had been kicked on the ground. He had got off lightly compared to his friend though. The second victim was on life-support in the intensive care ward. He had swelling to his brain and the doctors weren’t sure if he would survive or not. Jessica had shown the man some mug shots and he had identified Webb and Hughes as the culprits.

‘Are you going to arrest them?’ he asked.

‘It’s a bit late for that,’ Jessica replied before telling him of his attackers’ fate.

The two had lengthy records with a slightly more serious edge to them than Craig Millar. Hughes had been in jail for possession of a firearm plus he had a string of assaults to his name. Webb didn’t have the weapons charge but most of their records matched up. They clearly worked as a pair. Interestingly to Jessica, they had both only been released from prison in the past year, meaning all three victims – plus Donald McKenna – had been in the same jail at the same time.

After leaving the hospital, they had gone to the snooker club where the emergency call had come from. They spoke to the owner, who told how he had been terrorised the previous night. He said he was too scared to intervene in the assault but had at least given a full description to officers the night before. Samples had been taken from the club and sent through for analysis but the local police hadn’t connected that incident to the two murders at the time. Jessica texted Adam just in case but felt pretty sure someone else would have already told the labs about the link.

The owner didn’t know Hughes and Webb personally but said he recognised their faces from the club. They hadn’t caused him trouble in the past but, given their records, Jessica thought they were an accident waiting to happen once alcohol was thrown into the mix.

It was becoming clear that the three victims’ links to Donald McKenna would be extensive. At first Jessica had set Rowlands to look for direct connections between McKenna and Millar but the link seemed to be the prison itself.

They arrived back at the station late in the afternoon. Jessica typed up her notes from the day and then went through the lists Rowlands had compiled. The names that linked McKenna and Millar were simply other known criminals. Some of them would have no doubt been in prison at the same time as Hughes and Webb too, which would be something to start with. She checked through the computer records and narrowed the list further but none of the names jumped out at her. They were all petty troublemakers, each of them a nuisance, but no one who she would have bet had the inclination, let alone motive, to kill three people.

With links to organised crime also seeming unlikely, as Cole had pointed out, it meant their only firm connection was still Donald McKenna, a man behind bars.

Jessica shut the computer down and walked into the reception area in preparation to head out towards her car. She had stayed at Longsight for forty-five minutes longer than she needed to but it wasn’t as if she had anything to rush home to. With dismay she saw the bright autumn day had given way to grey skies and drizzle and what little summer they’d had seemed to be over for another year. She stood in the doorway of the station looking across the fifty or so yards to her car. She hadn’t brought an umbrella or coat to work in the morning, trusting the way the skies had looked when she left her flat earlier on. It was always a foolish assumption to make in Manchester but she never learned her lesson.

She fumbled around her pockets for her car keys and held them at the ready before ducking her head and making a run for it. Rowlands had pointed out to her a few months ago that the force had started hiring recruits that were younger than her car. It was red, rusty and unreliable and Jessica didn’t really know why she hadn’t upgraded to something better. She could afford it if she wanted to but there was something sentimental about the vehicle and she had resigned herself to keeping it until it literally fell apart.

Jessica thought remote central locking would have been nice as she tried to force the key into the car’s lock and ended up accidentally scraping a bit more paint away from the area around the key hole. There were enough scuffs and scratches for her to not worry too much as she eventually fell onto the driver’s seat and shut the door behind her.