Cole nodded, although she wasn’t sure if it was to accept her explanation or simply to shut her up. ‘You’ve got to tell this investigator friend of yours to stop doing whatever he’s doing if it’s on your behalf. We can’t get tied to something like this. Other than that, we’ll just have to dig deeper. You might be right that we’re missing something, so let’s go back to the beginning and look into Martin himself. Jason says his old school burned down – let’s see if we can find any way he could be connected to that, or anything else suspicious he might be connected to. When we’re done with him, we’ll move onto Ryan. If he was in a children’s home, there must be people out there who know him and paperwork to chase. If we can’t come up with anything, we’ll look further afield.’

Jessica knew that much of what he had suggested had already been done. It wasn’t as if they had sat around doing nothing for the past few weeks. She suspected he had said it for her benefit.

‘Sounds good,’ Jessica said, thinking that it didn’t.

It wasn’t often that Jessica arrived home before her fiancé but, as she opened the front door to a silent welcome, the irony of Adam not being home on one of the occasions she needed him wasn’t lost on her. The biggest problem was that she knew her growing obsession with Ryan was getting out of hand too. She had felt it festering inside her from the moment he had looked at her in his house and the way those grey eyes had stared through her. It sent a shiver down her spine at the time and it felt as if it was still happening.

Jessica went into the living room, curling up with her feet underneath her on the sofa. She took a laptop out of a drawer and turned it on. It was one of the few new things she and Adam had bought together. They’d both had bulky desktop computers, which they each donated to charity, before investing in something smaller.

Before the computer had finished booting up, Jessica’s phone started to ring. She scrambled across the room to pick it up, expecting it to be Adam, but instead Sebastian’s name flashed. Her thumb hovered over the answer button before she let it ring off, waiting for a couple of minutes before listening to the voicemail. Sebastian sounded breezy, asking if she fancied a chat, emphasising that it would be for professional reasons, although it didn’t sound like it. Jessica deleted it, trying not to picture his face in her mind.

Back at the computer, she read through the news stories about the attack on Martin, including Sebastian’s on the Morning Herald’s website. She never ceased to be amazed at how the stories got out; whether via hospital staff, the hotel workers, an eyewitness or any number of other people, somehow the things they tried to keep quiet always found their way into the news.

As she continued to skim through the articles, the front door slammed, with Adam shouting ‘hello’.

‘In here,’ Jessica called. As he entered, she couldn’t stop herself from laughing. ‘How red are your cheeks?’ she giggled, standing up and walking across the room towards him.

‘It’s cold out there and the wind’s howling.’

‘You look like a bloody robin trapped in his nest. Look at the state of your hair.’ Jessica grabbed some strands that had been blown around and pushed them back into position, before giving him a hug and nestling her head into his shoulder. ‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ she said.

She gulped as Adam pulled her tight and squeezed. ‘Bad day?’

‘How’d you guess?’

‘That grumpy, moaning look on your face.’

Jessica pulled away and playfully slapped Adam in the chest. ‘Oi, you’re supposed to be nice to me.’

‘I am nice to you. Now where’s my tea?’ Adam grinned widely. Although she had been getting better – and despite a Christmas dinner she had cooked for her friends – she still didn’t do much in the kitchen.

‘Ha! Cheeky sod. Get your own tea. I’m busy.’

‘Fine. I will.’

Adam went to turn but Jessica reached out and grabbed his arm, pulling him back towards her. ‘Adddddaaaaaaaammmm,’ she purred as seductively as she could manage.

‘What?’

‘Can you make me something?’

Adam laughed. ‘I knew you were going to say that. What do you want?’

‘I dunno. Something.’

‘Well, that narrows it down. You’re a bloody nuisance.’

Jessica grinned. ‘Yeah but that’s why you love me.’

‘All right but if I make you tea, do I finally get to see you in that dress?’

Jessica stared doe-eyed at her fiancé and smiled. ‘Maybe.’

When she and Adam had moved in together, they had had something of a clear-out which largely involved her sorting his clothes into three piles. The ‘stay’ pile was fairly sparse. The ‘okay but I’d rather you got rid of it’ mound contained the bulk of his wardrobe and the final ‘throw it out now, what on earth were you thinking?’ stack was quite large too. After protracted but rather one-sided negotiations, where Jessica flat-out refused to give any ground at all, Adam relented and disposed of everything she suggested. She suspected it was because she promised to buy a ‘hot dress’ to sit in the newly cleared half of the wardrobe. She wasn’t a big fan of clothes shopping but Adam had chosen an outfit he deemed ‘hot’ enough during a trip to Manchester city centre one weekend. As she promised, the dress did indeed sit in the wardrobe. But, as she consistently pointed out to him, although she said she would buy something, she had at no point promised to wear it.

‘I know that “maybe”,’ Adam replied. ‘It sounds like “maybe” but it’s actually saying “no”.’

‘How about if I say “perhaps”?’

‘Nah, I’ll just cook my own tea.’

Jessica stuck her bottom lip out in protest. ‘Oh Adddddaaaaaaaammmm . . .’

‘All right, stop moaning. Yeah, I’ll make you something.’

As the evening wore on, Jessica managed to put most of her thoughts and emotions from the day to the back of her mind. If anything, telling Anthony – who was essentially a stranger – that she cared so deeply for Adam made it feel more real. The baby-talk with Izzy was making her think that her previous nerves were down to what other people’s expectations of her might be, as opposed to her own or Adam’s.

After they ate Adam’s stir-fry, they played a game of Scrabble on their phones, which Jessica lost badly, before settling down to watch television. Jessica had her head resting on Adam’s lap as he snacked on chocolate buttons.

‘Are we going to visit some more possible venues this weekend?’ Jessica asked.

‘I’ve got a few more we can look at,’ Adam replied, dropping a button towards Jessica which hit her in the eye.

‘Oi, my mouth’s here,’ Jessica said, as she picked the chocolate from her face and swallowed it.

‘I did have an idea,’ Adam said.

‘I told you we’re not getting married at a bloody sci-fi geek convention,’ Jessica said. ‘And before you ask, no, I’m not dressing up as Princess Leia.’

Adam laughed. ‘Not that – although I’ll bear it in mind. I was thinking maybe we could do something abroad? We’re only going to be inviting your mum and dad anyway. Maybe Caroline and Dave?’

Because she had been avoiding thinking about the potential date, the idea of going overseas hadn’t occurred to Jessica. She reached up and snatched a button from Adam’s fingers and threw it at his face, laughing as it bounced off his nose. ‘Ha. That’s for getting me in the eye. Anyway, yes, maybe? Let’s look at some places this weekend and then make a decision. I reckon my mum and dad would be up for something in the sun.’

‘Have you thought about when? It’s loads of planning. Most people take eighteen months or so.’

It wasn’t the first time he’d asked but this time Jessica was in the mood. She snatched another piece of chocolate and replied as she chewed. ‘Sod that, I’ll put my mum on it. She’ll get people sorted out.’