‘What about Ryan?’

‘We found a little about him – a couple of fights while he was in care but nothing serious.’

‘What about anything found at the house?’

‘Nothing. Because you have a lawn at the front, anything, such as footprints or something, would have been destroyed as they needed the ladder to get you out. People would have walked on it. Your neighbours were all sleeping, as you’d expect.’

‘What about Sienna and Molly?’

‘It’s sort of been sidetracked. Apparently calls to those helplines are up, so the media coverage has had one good effect. There haven’t been any other deaths.’

‘So the world’s still turning without me in the centre of it?’

She heard Rowlands sniggering. ‘We’re all missing you, Jess. Get better and then come back.’

Jessica hung up and rejoined Adam in the living room. She wasn’t used to being off work during the day and, although it was barely lunchtime, she felt at a loss. ‘There was something else which survived the fire,’ she told Adam, kissing him on the forehead before taking his hand.

‘What?’

Jessica led him towards the bedroom. Caroline had come by the previous day with clean sheets and helped her change everything because Jessica knew neither she nor Adam would feel comfortable in someone else’s bed.

‘You know most of our clothes were okay?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘There’s a certain dress I’ve been promising to try on for quite some time . . .’

The bedroom curtains were wide open as Jessica and Adam lay watching the sky slowly darken.

‘It’s better when it’s sunny,’ Jessica said. ‘Caroline reckons that you can see mist forming underneath you on the water on the cloudy mornings. Her exact words were, “It’s beautiful, just bloody cold”.’

‘What are we going to do?’ Adam said, wrapping an arm around Jessica and pulling her closer to him on the bed.

‘We’ll get a place of our own and start again.’

‘What about getting married? We can’t do that and then come back here. Everything’s going to take so long to sort out with the insurance and so on.’

‘You don’t know that,’ Jessica said.

‘Neither do you. I just . . . I want you to be happy.’

Jessica moved her head further onto his chest, being careful not to press too hard. ‘I’m going to be. We will be. At least we both got out.’

‘Do you remember it?’

‘Bits.’

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.’

Jessica wriggled up and straddled herself across Adam’s stomach. ‘It doesn’t matter. If you hadn’t tested those bloody smoke alarms once a week when I was trying to watch TV, neither of us would have got out. It’s as much down to you as me.’

‘It doesn’t feel like that.’

Jessica rested her hands on his chest and began to smooth down the hairs. ‘Ad, what matters is that we’re both out. You don’t have to be a knight in shining armour. You’d piss me right off if you were. You’re just you.’

Adam put his hands on her hips and pulled her into an embrace. ‘You’re so cool,’ he whispered before dissolving into laughter which inevitably became a very unsexy chesty cough.

As Jessica tried to stop herself from joining in, her phone rang, Andrew’s name flashing on the screen. Adam was doubled over and unable to protest, so Jessica answered.

‘What’s up?’

‘You told me to call if I saw Ryan and Lara together again?’

‘Where?’

‘The pub next to the hotel he’s staying in.’

‘I’ll be right there.’

29

Jessica didn’t spot Ryan on her first sweep of the pub but on the second she saw him sitting with Lara in a booth towards the back. Andrew had met her outside and said he would wait around the front in case she needed him.

The booths were circular with an entrance only just wide enough for one person to walk through. A soft seat took up the rest of the circumference with a similarly round table in the centre. Jessica walked directly up to the booth she had seen the pair in, squeezed herself through the gap, and sat next to Lara across the table from Ryan.

‘This is cosy,’ she said as both teenagers eyed her with a mixture of shock and, in Ryan’s case, outright anger.

‘You?’ Lara said, recognising Jessica from the time she was door-stepped.

‘You know each other?’ Ryan exclaimed furiously, seemingly trying to address both women at the same time.

‘Old pals, me and Lara,’ Jessica said with a grin. ‘We have lovely little chinwags all about you, Ryan.’

‘Fuck off, do we,’ the girl replied angrily. ‘What do you want?’

‘Just a little chat.’

Jessica could see Ryan was livid, his arms tense, his fists no doubt balled under the table. ‘How did you know where I was?’ He barely moved his mouth as he spoke.

‘Lucky guess. Your hotel is next door, so I thought I’d drop in and see if you were around.’

‘Weren’t you in the papers yesterday?’

Ryan didn’t exactly sound as if he was gloating but he certainly knew he had something over her.

Jessica didn’t want to let him get under her skin. ‘Don’t go telling me you can read? Or did you just look at the pictures?’

Ryan glanced towards Lara. ‘Can you give us a few minutes?’

The girl leant forward. ‘Seriously? Just tell her to piss off.’

‘Wait over there. I need a few minutes.’

Jessica realised she had never heard Ryan sound assertive until he addressed the woman a second time. He’d been angry and aggressive but now his voice was lower and more serious with a tone she hadn’t recognised before. Jessica slid out to let Lara pass as the teenager gave her the dirtiest of looks and muttered a very audible ‘bitch’ as she walked towards the tables Ryan had indicated.

‘She’s a lovely girl,’ Jessica said, sliding back into the booth.

‘How did you know where I was?’ Ryan asked again. ‘Do you have someone following and taking pictures like before?’

‘Should I? Have you got something to hide?’

Ryan sighed. His arms were no longer tense and he seemed more frustrated than angry. ‘Just tell me what you want.’

‘I want to know who Lara is to you and why you’re giving her money.’

The man’s mouth fell open. ‘How do you know about that?’

‘I just do. Now let’s stop all the bollocks and tell me.’

‘I didn’t nick it.’

Jessica swore. ‘I never said you did. I’m here because I’m sick of everything that’s going on. The fires, the girls dying. All of it. Yes I was in the paper yesterday because someone set fire to my house and tried to kill me and my fiancé. I’m here because I want it to stop before someone else gets hurt.’

Jessica was shaking as she finished speaking. She hadn’t thought any of her words through but something about how Ryan had spoken to Lara made him sound less hostile. She was seeing him in a way she hadn’t before.

‘You think it was me?’ he said, eyebrows raised.

‘Just tell me what the money was about.’

Ryan shook his head and sighed. ‘It was for my little boy. Lara and me, we . . . we have a kid. It wasn’t planned or anything, it just happened. We’re not even going out. She was going on about going to the child-support people and all that, so I gave her some money to shut her up. I don’t know how you know.’

Jessica stared at him, thinking he at least appeared to be telling the truth. She figured there was little point in him lying considering she could just ask Lara anyway.

‘Where did you get it?’

‘I work in a garage.’

‘I know but they can’t pay that much.’

‘No but it’s not as if I spend it, is it? My college is free, I buy a bus pass once a month, the house was mine and the hotel’s paid for by the insurance.’

When she thought about it, Jessica realised he was right. Apart from food and transport, he would have nothing to spend his money on. The stupidest thing was that she and Adam had been in the exact same situation, because he had inherited the house with no mortgage from his grandmother. Somehow she had failed to see the parallel.