‘Did you leave at the same time?’

Kayleigh stopped looking at her, instead glancing towards the wall and then the floor. ‘More or less. We’re both around the same age and wanted to do something else.’

‘Did you have another job lined up?’

‘Not at the time. I’ve done a few things since.’

‘You’ve not worked with Eleanor since, though?’

‘El-ea-nor . . .’ Kayleigh rolled the word around her tongue as if it felt uncomfortable. ‘She was always “Ellie” when I knew her . . .’ She tailed off before remembering what she had been asked. ‘Sorry, no, we’ve not worked together since.’

Jessica nodded and took a few final details before reaching around to reopen the door. ‘Okay, well, if you think of anything else, don’t hesitate to get in contact.’

The two officers made their way back to the car in silence. Once the doors were closed, Izzy asked what they were going to do next.

Jessica didn’t know if she should defer upwards but could guess the response would be along the lines of getting on with things as there were no officers free. ‘I’ll take you back to Longsight. There’s not much point in going to see Eleanor – Ellie – until we know some facts. Have a good look into this casino place, let’s find out who ran it and why it shut down, then see if you can find anything else to link these two women together, or to Oliver or his family. Check Eleanor’s maiden name and see if anything else pops up through that. Get Dave involved if you can stop him moping for five minutes. Call me if you find anything.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’m going off to be annoyed by teenage boys.’

Izzy seemed slightly confused but laughed anyway. ‘Fair enough.’ After a pause as if weighing up whether she should ask, she added: ‘Do you want to finish telling me what you were going to say about there being another reason for you not taking Adam’s name?’

Jessica switched on the engine and kept her eyes facing the front. ‘Let’s go.’

Oliver had attended a private school in Worsley on the far west of the city. Jessica had to jump through a couple of hoops in order to be able to speak to the two main friends his parents had told her about. First, she needed their parents’ permission, which had been granted on the condition any interview took place on school property. Because of that, she then had to gain additional permission from the school. If either of the boys had been suspected of anything, it would have been far easier but Jessica was simply trying to get some background from them.

As she drove onto the school’s grounds, Jessica couldn’t help but be impressed. The first thing she noticed was how much green there was. Her school had one playing field at the back that was on a slight slope. Each winter, someone painted the markings of a football pitch while after the Easter term break, they would return to find it had become an athletics track.

Everything around her was a world away from that. She could see a pair of tennis courts on one side, a cricket pitch on the other and what she thought was a running track with a proper synthetic surface beyond that.

She followed the signs until reaching a small car park at the back of a large mock-Tudor building. It was bright white, with black-painted beams running the length and height of it and baskets of bright flowers hanging down. Jessica got out of the car and took a step back to survey everything. It was so far away from her own experiences of education, let alone the comprehensive schools she had visited at various points around the city, that they were barely comparable. Some places had an almost menacing aura about them, where it would have been no surprise to find out there was a murky underworld, even among young teenagers. Here, it felt like an environment where people would be free to learn.

As Jessica well knew, that didn’t mean there wasn’t something under the surface.

She walked into the main reception, where she was met by posters advertising ski trips, formal dances and a weekend visit to see an opera in London. She remembered one of her own school trips to a former cotton mill. It wasn’t even a current working one, instead half an empty warehouse, half a museum. Quite a difference.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the receptionist asking if she could help. After having her identification checked – which included a phone call to the station, a lot of foot-tapping, finger-drumming and plenty of general hanging around – Jessica was finally led through to meet the head teacher.

Although the man was friendly, Jessica could see straight away that he had a presence that intimidated even her, let alone students. His voice was the sort that boomed across playgrounds, scaring the shite out of anyone even thinking about getting up to no good, while he wore a suit which fitted him perfectly and showed off a trim physique despite his grey hair. Of everything, it was the man’s gaze that showed his authority. Jessica knew eye contact could be an important factor when she was interviewing people, but the head took that to the extreme, locking himself into a stare with her and forcing her to look away first.

Despite the intensity, there didn’t seem to be anything untoward about his manner. He spoke of the entire school’s shock at Oliver’s death and explained there had already been a special assembly after he went missing. That would be followed by a second when it came to the young man’s funeral. He told Jessica how the school catered for children of all ages from nursery all the way up to eighteen-year-olds, with the emphasis on creating responsible adults. Still, that’s what they all said. Blah, blah, blah ‘social awareness’-this, blah, blah, blah ‘effective policy’-that. One day, Jessica would stumble across a broken head teacher who admitted, head-in-hands, the kids in their school were sodding awful.

After his own interrogation, he took Jessica through to an empty office and then left, before returning a few minutes later with two young men.

There didn’t appear to be a formal uniform for sixth-form students but both were dressed in smart black trousers, with a dark jumper over the top of a shirt. They sat next to each other, shuffling nervously and not looking up from their smart, highly polished, black leather shoes. Jessica already knew their names but had to clarify which one was ‘Terry’ and who was ‘Richard’.

‘I’m Richard, miss,’ one of them replied.

Jessica tried not to wince at the word ‘miss’. It made her feel old. She didn’t know if she should be correcting them, so let it go. His voice was clearly local but he had lost some of the twang that could make a simple ‘How are you today?’ sound like a threat depending on the strength of the Mancunian accent.

‘I’d like to get a bit of an insight into what Oliver was like,’ Jessica said. ‘I’ve spoken to his parents and the head but I’m guessing you guys know him a little differently than everyone else?’

The two half-shrugged, half-nodded almost in unison and Jessica knew she was going to struggle. She thought it might have helped to bring Rowlands with her. Even though he’d had the hump since breaking up with Chloe, he could still turn on the matey-charm thing with other young men, banging on about ‘the footy at the weekend’ or some stupid video he’d seen on the Internet.

‘How long have each of you known Oliver?’ Jessica asked.

They were both sitting up straight, hands in their laps, with Richard slightly the taller of the two. His brown hair was neatly side-parted, his skin showing a few acne scars. Regardless of upbringing, there was no escaping certain aspects of being a teenager. He peered towards Jessica but stared at a spot just to her right. ‘We’ve been coming here since we were thirteen, so five years.’

‘Is that the same for you?’ Jessica asked Terry.

The second boy had sandier-coloured hair but a posture which perfectly matched his friend’s. ‘I’ve been here since I was nine,’ he said. ‘We became friends not long after Rich and Ollie started, so five years too.’