‘So why were you meeting again tonight?’ Jessica asked.

Ryan was scowling. ‘Nothing. None of your business.’

‘No, you’re right, sorry. It’s just . . . those other girls.’

‘Who?’

‘Molly and Sienna.’

Ryan was clearly struggling to comprehend what she was saying. ‘What about them? Do you think they were something to do with me?’

Jessica felt as if she were drowning. She knew that, to an outsider, between the two of them, Ryan would seem like the rational one.

She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. It’s just from the moment we first met, you were so angry and then everything spiralled from then. The fires, the suicides – and you’re central to everything.’

Ryan looked away and bit his bottom lip. ‘If I’ve been angry, then don’t you think this could all be why? When we first met, I was pissed off because you lot weren’t going to do anything about those threats against my dad. And I was right, wasn’t I? Look at what happened. Why didn’t you have someone protecting us?’

‘That wasn’t my decision.’

‘Fine, but why pick on me after everything? Of course I was fuming. Someone had tried to kill my dad and you were standing around chatting.’

Jessica knew that wasn’t exactly true but, now he said it, she could understand why he had viewed it that way. Rowlands’s ‘why is it always you’ comment was bouncing around her head because she could see so much of herself in Ryan. The first impression he gave of being abrupt and combative was likely the way lots of other people viewed her. The parallels were almost too embarrassing for her to think through.

‘I’m sorry for slapping you.’

Ryan reached up to his lip. ‘You can’t half hit for a girl.’

Jessica didn’t know if she should take it as a compliment. She knew she was in the wrong. ‘Thanks.’

‘When I got in that night, I was all for reporting you but then . . .’

‘. . . you didn’t want to admit you’d been hit by a girl,’ Jessica said, finishing his sentence.

Ryan smiled. ‘Exactly, so I let it go. Why were you following me?’

‘I don’t know, instinct. It was the night after one of the fires and I was keeping an eye out.’

He picked up what was left of the pint of beer he had on the table. ‘Do you at least believe that it’s not me now?’

Jessica looked into his eyes but she already knew the answer. ‘You don’t help yourself. You never had an alibi . . .’

Ryan sipped the drink. ‘I was with Lara those nights. She can probably tell you. Well, maybe not you but someone.’

‘I thought you weren’t going out?’ Ryan raised his eyebrows as a response that Jessica read clearly. ‘Oh, it’s like that.’

‘So can I ask you some questions?’ Ryan said.

Jessica shrugged. None of the conversation had gone the way she had expected.

‘Why would I burn my own house down?’

‘To implicate Anthony and get the insurance money?’

‘I suppose but that’s a lot of hassle.’ Jessica laughed but Ryan continued. ‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘I’ve got better things to do than all of that.’

‘People have gone through much more “hassle” than that to get revenge.’

‘What do I want revenge for? Some dick telling a newspaper he’s got it in for my dad? All I wanted was for you lot to warn him off.’ Jessica nodded, willing to accept his explanation. ‘Why do you keep mentioning Sienna and Molly to me?’ he asked.

‘You called Sienna a slag, you said she was filthy. There was so much anger there. Why do you think I was associating you with her? She had just died and you were effectively saying you hated her. Meanwhile I had a photo of her sucking your fingers as if you were involved. Those are some pretty mixed messages.’

Ryan shrugged and nodded. ‘Sienna was all about mixed messages.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well she hung around with a lesbian for a start.’

‘Molly?’

‘Yeah, everyone knew about it.’

‘What’s wrong with that?’

Ryan smiled but there was nothing cruel about his expression. ‘How old are you?’

Jessica felt compelled to answer. ‘Thirty . . . something.’

The teenager laughed. ‘I don’t know about you being at school or college or whatever but what do you remember the kids being like? Did you ever have a lesbian at your school? Or someone gay? Or someone really tall? Or short? What happened to them?’

Jessica couldn’t believe she was being lectured by an eighteen-year-old but she knew exactly what he meant. To her, it wasn’t significant if people were of different races or sexualities. To a teenager, especially an immature one, it was something to pick on.

‘You think they were bullied to death?’ she said.

Ryan stared at her as if she had overlooked the most obvious point. ‘Of course not. Sienna was the one everyone looked up to. All the lads wanted to f—, go out with her and all the girls wished they were her – especially because her old man had money.’

Jessica still didn’t understand. ‘Right . . . what am I missing?’

‘Sienna loved the attention. She would snog you and let you touch her tits and so on. It was just the way she was.’

‘But why were you so aggressive about her if that was the case?’

Ryan sighed. ‘Will you get me another beer?’

‘I thought you had money?’

‘I do but surely I deserve something for all of this?’

Jessica motioned to stand, nodding towards Lara. ‘All right but send her home. I can’t take any more of her staring me out from across the room.’

A few minutes later Jessica returned with two pints and slid in across from Ryan. ‘How’d she take it?’ Jessica asked.

‘How do you think? She’s only bothered about the money now she knows I have some. I just want to see my kid. My name’s not even on the bloody birth certificate.’

‘Why not?’

Ryan glanced sideways. ‘Let’s just say there were a few candidates and she didn’t know whose it was at first.’

Jessica wasn’t surprised. ‘Does your dad know?’

‘Not yet. I didn’t tell him straight away because I wanted it to be a surprise when he got out of prison. After the bricks and the fire, the hotel, the attack and everything . . . I got used to keeping it a secret.’

Jessica nodded in acceptance and sipped the froth from the top of her glass. ‘So why were you so aggressive about Sienna?’

Ryan looked at the table before picking up his drink and downing half of it in one. ‘Because I liked her. I thought when she was teasing me and leading me on that it was because she actually liked me. Then she would do it to my mates in front of me too. You got used to the way she was.’

‘But it didn’t stop you liking her?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Did you ever sleep with her?’

Ryan shook his head and drank some more. ‘Some of my mates said they had shagged her but . . . I don’t know. I think she was too much of a tease to actually go through with things.’

Jessica thought about the self-harm marks on the insides of the girl’s thighs and knew that if she had been sleeping with a host of boys, they would have been mentioned by someone at some point. She doubted they were the type of scars Sienna would have been happy with other people knowing about.

‘Do you know she was pregnant?’ she asked.

‘Only because you asked some of the girls about it. They came into class and told us all.’

‘Why?’

‘I dunno. You tell me. Women are weird.’

Jessica suspected the answer was that, as Molly had suggested, the other girls weren’t really Sienna’s friends and were simply clinging on because of the wealth of her father. With that gone, it didn’t matter if they gossiped a little.

‘Do you know why she might have killed herself?’ Jessica asked.

Ryan shook his head, wiping his eye, although Jessica couldn’t see any tears. ‘No.’

‘What about Molly?’

The teenager shrugged. ‘I dunno. Everyone said she was trying to cop off with Sienna.’

Jessica already knew that but it seemed a big leap to make from Molly’s secret crush killing herself to Molly doing the same.