‘What about Jason? Is he still suspended?’

Jessica paused to think, wondering if it was a good idea to bring work home. She sighed. ‘I spoke to him last week and he’s not coming back. Even if they find in his favour, he’s done.’

‘Because he gave information to the papers?’

The exact ins and outs were more complicated than that but, at its core, that was exactly why the inspector had been asked to stop coming to work. The fact he had been right to do it, certainly in her mind, didn’t really matter when it came to the wrath of their bosses. You could be as incompetent as you wanted – as long as you didn’t make them look bad.

‘Something like that. He’s going to sit it out on full pay and then quit before he gets pushed. He hasn’t told anyone else yet.’

‘What’s happening with you, then?’

Jessica thought for a few moments before responding: ‘Building.’

‘Huh?’

‘I-spy.’

‘Oh right, no.’

‘Buggy?’

Adam leant forward. ‘Where’s a buggy?’

‘I don’t know, it begins with B.’

‘All right, no, not a buggy.’

Jessica nodded at the bottle by his foot. ‘Beer?’

‘Nope.’

Taking a deep breath, Jessica put her feet down and picked up the bottle by her own feet, taking a swig. ‘I don’t know if I want to go for the job. It’s a bit more money but it’s a lot more faffing. I don’t think I can be arsed.’

‘You can’t want to be a sergeant forever?’

‘Bird?’

‘Nope.’

Jessica swilled the liquid around and had another drink. ‘I don’t know if I want to do this at all forever. Do you want to be in a lab all your life?’

‘I don’t know,’ Adam said. ‘Maybe. I’ve not really thought about it.’

Jessica wished she could be like that. ‘Blonde?’ she said, nodding towards a tower block across the way from them. She could clearly see the woman’s hair colour as she shook a rug over the railing.

‘Nope but thanks for pointing her out.’

Jessica whacked him playfully with the back of her hand. ‘We’ll see. They want to interview me.’ It was a conversation they’d had before and Jessica didn’t know if he was asking to see if she had changed her mind or because he thought she should go for it.

Adam picked up his own beer. ‘How’s Izzy?’

‘She’s just Izzy. Happy being a mum, happy being at work. Now she’s had the baby, she’s back to having bright red hair and scaring some of the higher-ups. It’s good to see her around.’

Jessica clinked her empty bottle on the railing and turned to face Adam, raising her eyebrows. ‘I’m not getting up,’ he said, reluctantly passing across his half-full bottle.

Jessica took it and grinned. ‘I knew you’d give me yours.’ She took a swig, adding: ‘Balloon,’ nodding towards the horizon where a hot-air balloon was taking off.

‘No, that wasn’t there before.’

‘Bus?’

‘Nope. How’s Dave?’

‘Still being annoying. He’s trying to sort us all going to see Hugo later in the month. He has this residence thing at a comedy club. Are you up for that?’

‘Definitely.’

‘Breeze?’

‘You can’t see the breeze.’

‘Yeah but I can’t think of anything else beginning with B.’

Adam pulled his hat down over his ears and Jessica wondered if he was going to finally admit he was cold. She could see the goosebumps on his arms. ‘Have you told any of them yet?’ he asked.

‘I almost told Izzy but not yet. They were all so busy congratulating me on the wedding and everything that I didn’t have the heart to tell them.’

‘That doesn’t sound like you.’

Jessica finished the beer, then picked up her original bottle and stood. ‘Come on, let’s go inside before you turn blue while still insisting you’re not cold.’

‘I’m not cold.’

Jessica rubbed his arm. ‘What are these, then? Anyway, what’s your B?’

Adam pointed towards a flat on the building next to theirs where the washing was hanging over the rail. ‘Bra.’

Jessica opened the door and stepped inside. ‘Predictable.’

‘You didn’t get it.’

‘That’s because I’m not a perv.’

After sliding the door closed, Jessica took off her coat and hung it over the handle. She walked into the kitchen and opened the cupboard under the sink, dropping the two empty bottles inside. As she was about to close it, Jessica noticed a cardboard envelope which had been ripped in half. She took the pieces out and held them together, seeing Adam’s name and his work address written in black felt-tip.

‘What’s this?’ she called across the open-plan room.

Adam was looking at his phone but, when he peered up, Jessica could see his surprise, even from the opposite side of the room. ‘Er, nothing. Just work stuff. I don’t know why I brought it home.’ Jessica took another look at the envelope and was about to put it back in the bin when Adam offered another guilty-sounding: ‘It’s nothing.’

Although he had been nervous around her when they had first met, it had been quite some time since he had stuttered his way through a conversation, let alone been openly evasive.

Jessica crossed the room and sat next to him on the sofa. ‘What’s going on?’

Adam put his phone in his pocket. ‘Nothing, it was just a letter, I was in a hurry so I brought it home. It’s uni stuff.’

Jessica had no reason to think anything different, despite his odd behaviour. ‘You were a bit of a geek at school, weren’t you?’ she said.

Adam seemed grateful for the change of subject. ‘Well, I wouldn’t put it like that . . .’

‘But you were . . .’

‘Liking science doesn’t make you a geek.’

‘What does it make you, then?’

‘I don’t know, someone who likes science.’

Jessica snorted. ‘Whatever. Anyway, what types of things did you get up to with your mates when you weren’t being scared of girls or trying to steal their underwear?’

Adam took off his hat and ruffled his wet hair. ‘I don’t know. We just hung around. We watched rubbish old horror movies and thought about making our own. One of my mates had a games console which we used to play on. I wasn’t very good but we’d play a bit of football in this other guy’s garden. I did my homework too, unlike some people.’

He dug Jessica playfully in the ribs and she squealed. ‘Get off.’

‘Why are you asking?’

At first, Jessica wasn’t going to say but she figured Adam could only help. ‘There’s this kid we’re looking into. Everyone says he’s just normal. He likes astronomy, he plays games, hangs around with his mates and watches television. Everything normal that you’d expect. But then he went missing, before turning up dead. No one seems to have a clue why him.’

Adam rested a hand on her back. ‘Could it just be he was in the wrong place at the wrong time?’

‘It probably is. I guess I just want to think there’s something more to it than that.’

Adam kissed the top of her head and then stood. ‘I’m going to go dry off and then sort some clothes out for tomorrow.’

Jessica watched him walk into the bedroom, wondering what she should do with the evening. Izzy had refused to give her any further details on the casino owner, saying they had to check a few additional things and that there was going to be a team briefing in the morning. Whatever it was, it didn’t bode well.

She reached under the sofa but couldn’t find what she was looking for, so checked the cabinet underneath the television. At a loss, Jessica walked through to the bedroom, where Adam was leaning into their joint wardrobe. ‘Where’s the laptop?’ she asked.

Adam poked his head around the door and nodded towards the dresser at the bottom of the bed. ‘I was using it in here earlier.’

‘I’m going to email my mum while I’ve got nothing else on. She keeps going on about how I never call her – but then when I do I can’t get off the phone because she’s busy telling me about how Gladys in the village is finally having her hip fixed or how she saw someone making a quiche on TV, or something like that. She’ll try to talk me through it and then it’s onto whether or not I’m eating properly, how you are, how I am, how Dad’s doing. By the time I get off, it’s a week later. Emailing’s easier.’