As they rounded a corner to head towards where they were parked, Reynolds stretched out an arm and pulled Jessica towards him. When they shared an office, they had been much closer than recently. She rested her head on his shoulder briefly before pulling away. ‘Thanks,’ she said, meaning it.
He smiled. ‘We should share an office again. I miss having someone leaving their mess on my side.’
Jessica laughed wearily. ‘What on earth is going on?’ she asked, knowing her question was as unanswerable as Reynolds’s had been in Molly’s bedroom.
The moment was interrupted as Reynolds’s phone started ringing. He fumbled in his pockets before finally finding it in an inside section of his jacket. He reminded Jessica of her dad and the way he lost his glasses case.
Her moment of amusement didn’t last long as she saw his eyes widen in surprise before he hung up. ‘You didn’t have plans tonight, did you?’
‘No, why?’
‘Someone just tried to set fire to Anthony Thompson’s house.’
18
After the hours she had put in over the weekend, Jessica spent Monday morning sitting around the house having been ordered by Cole not to be at the station – or do anything relating to the job – until lunchtime. She knew he had done it because he wanted her to rest but being in the house she still thought of as Adam’s when she would have much rather been at work wasn’t good for her mood.
When they had spoken on the phone the previous evening as she left Anthony Thompson’s house, the chief inspector’s exact words had been, ‘Get a lie-in’. Whether he was implying she looked as if she needed a good night’s sleep was something that Jessica didn’t want to ask. She knew the answer was ‘yes’ but that didn’t mean she could flick a switch and suddenly start sleeping solidly again. Her late-night thoughts were haunted by Adam and Sebastian as well as Sienna and Molly. With the time she spent commuting and general problems with sleeping, Jessica was finding herself alone with her thoughts far too often.
When she lived on her own, Jessica had long watched late-night reruns of early-morning talkshows. She wouldn’t have admitted it to her colleagues or friends but the family arguments, DNA tests and general confrontational nature of them was something she pretended to hate but secretly watched when it was just her. Since moving in with Adam, she had largely given up her vice but, with the television remote to herself and an empty living room, Jessica allowed the morning show to take her mind away from everything she had going on.
She pictured Anthony Thompson in one of the seats, with Ryan storming on. ‘YOU BURNED MY SON, NOW I’LL BURN YOUR HOUSE’ was the strapline across the bottom, with a DNA test at the end to figure out who the father of Sienna’s baby was.
Just after midday, Jessica left the house and drove to the station, sitting in the car park to ensure Cole would not accuse her of cheating on his demand that she rest. He had scheduled a senior briefing for one o’clock where they could go over everything properly for the first time – including the events of the previous evening.
Jessica walked straight up to his office. Through the glass walls she could already see that Cole was sitting behind his desk, with DS Cornish, Reynolds and Rowlands packed into chairs across from him. Rowlands wouldn’t usually be a part of such meetings, so his presence surprised Jessica as she entered. Because of how closely everyone was sitting, Jessica had to push the remaining empty chair out of the way so she could open the door fully and close it, before manoeuvring the seat back behind the door so she could sit. Realistically, there was only room for the DCI plus two other people to sit comfortably. She winked at Rowlands, who was wedged in between his two supervisors with his arms crossed looking awkward.
‘We have got the good, the bad and the ugly squeezed in here,’ Jessica said as she sat down.
‘Who’s who?’ Cole asked with a smile.
‘Louise is the good, obviously, because she’s female. Dave’s the ugly, because, well, look at him. And I guess that makes Jase the bad.’
DS Cornish laughed, with Rowlands scowling and unfolding his arms, throwing them up in the air in mock protest.
Reynolds replied with a smile. ‘The black man’s always the bad guy, is he?’
‘Well, it’s either that or ugly, so take your pick.’
The inspector looked from Jessica to Rowlands then back again. ‘Fair enough. I’m the bad guy.’
Jessica saw Cole smiling broadly before he quietened them down. ‘Did you enjoy your morning off?’ he asked her.
‘I slept all morning just like you said.’
It was clear from the chief inspector’s raised eyebrows that he didn’t believe her.
‘All right then,’ he said. ‘We have had some information back this morning which will bring everyone up to date on the attack on Anthony Thompson’s house last night.’ He turned to Reynolds. ‘Jason?’
The inspector looked at a set of papers in his hand and pushed his chair back slightly to make sure the others could see him better. ‘Jess was with me last night, so she knows some of this but some of you are new, so I’ll go through it all. Yesterday evening, while Jess and myself were attending to another matter, we got a call to say someone had tried to set fire to Anthony Thompson’s house. The person who lives opposite spotted someone prowling around just after dark. They saw him hanging around Anthony’s front door with something they said looked suspicious. They left their house and crossed the road, which led to the person running off. It was only then he smelled petrol and called us. No fire was started but large parts of the front of Anthony’s house had been covered in it.’
‘Was Anthony inside?’ Louise asked.
Reynolds nodded. ‘Yes but he didn’t hear anything. He was a bit . . . wired.’
‘How do you mean?’
Jessica answered: ‘He’s hard to read. You never know if he’s drunk, high, or just putting it on. Sometimes it’s like a combination of all three. He was there but he seemed oblivious to it all. His neighbour ended up cleaning the door for him.’
Louise seemed confused but Jessica thought she didn’t know the half of it considering she hadn’t met the man. ‘Did we get any sort of description?’ she asked.
Reynolds shook his head. ‘Not really, just a man in dark clothing. Relatively thin, quick at running, that sort of thing.’
‘What about a petrol can?’ DS Cornish added.
‘He ran off with whatever he stored the liquid in. It must have been fairly heavy before he emptied everything out of it, so he might have had a vehicle nearby. We have been going door-to-door this morning but can’t find anyone else who saw it. No footprints or anything else on site either.’
Jessica knew Ryan didn’t drive, but that didn’t necessarily rule him out in her mind. Just because it was heavy, it wouldn’t be impossible to carry.
‘Do we have any obvious suspects?’ Cornish asked.
Reynolds glanced quickly at Jessica before turning back to face the others. He knew she was thinking of Ryan Chadwick. ‘We’re not sure. Not really. Obviously there are connections to both Martin and Ryan Chadwick. I spoke to my source at the hotel they are staying at earlier who told me that neither of the two men were on site as far as they know. They’re not completely sure about Ryan but Martin was definitely away. From what I’m told, he leaves the hotel late morning or at lunchtime every day and doesn’t return until later in the evening.’
Jessica remembered her conversation with him in the back of the van, when he spoke about his drinking. She hoped he hadn’t returned to that and, more than anything, she hoped he had an alibi and wasn’t involved.