‘No, it’s fine,’ Jessica assured her. ‘Can we see upstairs?’

Kayleigh led them back through the house and up the stairs. The Scene of Crime team had taken their time examining the area before removing the body and although there would be photos of how things had been left for Jessica to see, she thought it would be best if she had some idea of what the area looked like.

Cole had asked Jessica to hold off on instantly attending the crime scene when they had received news through of the body find. They knew the house would be cramped with the paramedics, uniformed officers and Scene of Crime team, while recent force policy had been shifting more power into the hands of the science team and away from CID, partly due to one of their colleagues in the Northern division, who had accidentally trampled across a scene, destroying evidence in the process. It was the type of thing everyone who didn’t work in his division found partially funny, relieved it hadn’t happened to them.

‘I opened the window,’ Kayleigh said, holding the bathroom door open for them. ‘Your people took all sorts but it still smelled of . . . it.’ She spoke the final word reluctantly, before adding: ‘He was in the bath.’

Jessica and Izzy entered but Kayleigh refused to move past the doorframe. As happened frequently, Jessica was struck by how normal everything appeared. There were rows of shampoo bottles on a shelf next to the window and a green flannel in the shape of a frog was sitting on a shelf close to the shower head. Jessica could guess the curtain had been taken by the team but, if it wasn’t for that and the faint odour she wished she didn’t recognise, she would not have known anything was untoward.

Jessica and Izzy went through the motions of checking around the enclosed area, although they knew the Scene of Crime team would have already done the same.

As they left the room, Kayleigh was leaning on the banisters at the top of the stairs, nervously biting her lip. ‘Are you all right?’ Izzy asked, placing a hand on the woman’s arm.

Kayleigh stared straight into Jessica’s eyes. ‘How do you do this?’ she asked, before clarifying: ‘You can’t un-see things, can you?’

Jessica felt uncomfortable, as if the woman was asking something she had long not wanted to query herself. It was as true a thing as anyone could have said.

‘We have people you can talk to if you want,’ Jessica replied.

Kayleigh nodded but didn’t want to let it go there. ‘How do you cope though?’

Jessica could feel Izzy watching her too and suddenly felt self-conscious. She mumbled something about having ‘special training’, although she wasn’t convincing herself, let alone anyone else. The truth was, you dealt with it in the only way you could: you got on with it. Some would use alcohol to help, others leant heavily on their partners. Jessica knew DCI Cole made sure he didn’t take work home, instead protecting his family time as far as possible. Jessica’s own way was to immerse herself in work; it was all she knew.

They started to descend the stairs together, with Jessica at the rear. ‘Are you going to be all right here tonight?’ Jessica asked. ‘A support officer will stay with you for a while but we should be able to help if you want to find somewhere else for the night.’

‘I’ll be okay,’ Kayleigh replied, leading them to the front door. She opened it, adding: ‘What happens now?’

‘We’ve got another stop-off, then we’re heading back to the station,’ Jessica said, taking a card from her jacket pocket and handing it over. ‘I’ll call you later if you want. Feel free to contact me.’

Kayleigh turned the card over in her hands, smiling weakly.

‘Are we off to the Sextons?’ Izzy asked as she walked through the door. It was exactly where Jessica was planning to go but, before she could follow her colleague, she heard Kayleigh begin to say something, before stopping herself.

‘Are you all right?’ Jessica asked.

Kayleigh smiled wearily. ‘Yes, it’s just I used to know someone with the last name Sexton.’

It dawned on Jessica that, although she had asked the woman if she knew Owen and Gabrielle, she hadn’t asked about the family whose house the body had disappeared from. ‘What was the first name?’

She already knew the reply before it came.

‘I used to know an Ellie Sexton.’

7

Jessica knew there was no particular reason to have asked about the Sextons but was still annoyed with herself for not doing so. Izzy had stopped and turned and they both realised they had been seconds away from missing something obvious.

‘How do you know Eleanor Sexton?’ Jessica asked.

Kayleigh seemed confused for a few moments, before it dawned on her who this was. ‘Ellie’s involved?’ she said, her eyes widening in surprise.

‘We can go through that at another time,’ Jessica replied. ‘We need to make sure we’re talking about the same person.’

Kayleigh said that Eleanor was married to someone called Cameron; she also knew the woman’s maiden name. ‘We used to work together,’ she added, waving the two women back into the house and closing the door behind them. ‘It was years ago though.’

‘Can you remember how long?’ Jessica asked, leaning against the front door.

Kayleigh took the cue that Jessica was keen to get her answers and go, and didn’t move towards the living room. She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Maybe twenty, twenty-five years back? A long time.’

Kayleigh was only forty-three, so that meant half a lifetime ago.

‘Where did you work?’

Jessica thought she saw the woman wince slightly but it could have been a shiver because of how cold it was. ‘There was this casino thing in the centre. It’s not there any more. We worked on the floor, serving drinks and looking pretty, trying to get customers to stay for longer.’ She smiled wryly. ‘I was a bit younger back then.’

‘Were you good friends?’

‘I guess, I mean as close as you can be with work people. We didn’t hang around much outside of work but we got each other through the days.’

‘How long ago did you leave that job?’

Kayleigh sighed and started counting on her fingers. ‘I only worked there for around a year. I started when I was twenty-one, so I guess that’s twenty-one years?’ She looked towards Jessica to check that her maths was correct.

‘Did you stay in contact much after that?’

She nodded. ‘Sort of. It wasn’t as easy back then of course, we didn’t have mobiles and computers and the like. I lived in this flat and didn’t have a phone, while she was living with her parents. She would write me letters a couple of times a year but I was never very good with that kind of thing. We lived on opposite sides of the city but met for coffee once or twice a year.’

‘Have you been in contact recently?’

‘No, we drifted apart. She started going out with Cameron and her priorities changed.’ Before anyone could speak, she quickly clarified her remark. ‘It wasn’t a problem, I know these things go in cycles. Sometimes you’re really close, sometimes you grow apart.’

‘How long ago was that?’ Jessica asked.

‘Not long after they got married, so maybe ten years ago? I went to the evening thing but you know what it’s like; there are so many people around, you don’t get time to speak to each other. We hadn’t really been friends for a few years and I think she only invited me because we’d once been close. The last time I saw her was on her wedding night.’ She paused for a moment and then added: ‘Is she okay?’

Jessica nodded, wanting to offer reassurance without giving much away. ‘Why did you leave the casino?’

Kayleigh shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I guess it wasn’t what I wanted to do. It was only ever about the money – and even that wasn’t so good.’