Jessica sat next to him, watching her breath evaporate into the air as Cole turned to face her. ‘I think my marriage is over, Jess,’ he said.

It was perhaps the last thing Jessica expected him to say. While most of the members of the team had relationship problems in one way or another, Jack Cole had made sure his relationship with his wife and children was strong above anything else. Even though he rarely talked about them, and certainly didn’t bring them to any official events, everyone knew he used his free time to be the father and husband his family deserved.

Jessica did not know how to reply. All she could think was that if a relationship such as his could fall apart, then what hope did anyone else have? She answered with a pitiful-sounding, ‘Sir . . . ?’

Cole shrugged. ‘It’s been on the cards for a while, probably since I took this job. It was easier to manage the shifts in the past but you never get away.’ He held his hands up as if to indicate the time of day. ‘I’ve been in the spare room for around four months. Obviously the kids know there’s something wrong . . .’

Jessica had never had anything even approaching such an intimate conversation with the man before.

‘I’m sure it will be all right,’ she said, thinking it sounded like the type of thing she should say and wondering quite what had happened in the previous few days that made children and adults alike think she was a sensible person to bring their problems to. Sarcastic remarks: fine. Useful advice: there were definitely better people.

‘I know you’ve just got married,’ he continued, making Jessica feel even more uncomfortable. ‘Don’t listen to me, it really is great. I think I lost focus on what was important. One day you’re off at the zoo with the kids, the next you’re making phone calls to say you’re stuck at work because of too much paperwork. It hasn’t helped since Jason left.’

It wasn’t strictly true that Reynolds had ‘left’ but Jessica knew what he meant; it had put an extra strain on everyone.

‘We all think you’re doing a good job.’

Jessica had not seen eye-to-eye with the man in a while but that wasn’t because she lacked respect for him, more that she didn’t agree with certain things he had to do.

‘It’s so easy to slip into a routine,’ he replied. ‘At first it’s just staying for an extra half-hour to get through things, then it’s coming in half an hour early. Then you realise thirty minutes isn’t long enough. Before you know it, you’re taking work home.’

Jessica knew she couldn’t talk as she did all of those things when circumstances required. It was part of the job.

‘It was one of her co-workers who called us,’ Cole said. Jessica was momentarily confused before she realised he was finally answering her question about how they had found the body. ‘Kayleigh had returned to the supermarket she works at yesterday but didn’t turn up for today’s shift. A lot of her colleagues were worried, so they tried her phone but no one answered. One of them lived locally, so tried knocking on her door but there wasn’t a reply. I think she may have looked through the letterbox and then called us.’

‘What time was that?’

The chief inspector checked his watch. ‘Late, I suppose. Either way, one of our entry teams went in because the address matched the previous crime scene. I’ve not been to bed yet. I got the call late last night and was waiting to hear what happened.’

He rolled his sleeve back down and put his hands into his pockets.

‘I probably shouldn’t have called you, especially as we’re going to be waiting for results anyway.’

‘I’m glad you did.’

Cole offered a thin smile. ‘You should be at home with your new husband, Jess. Go get some sleep, you look worse than me.’

‘Thanks.’

He smiled. ‘You know what I mean. You head out and we’ll catch up again tomorrow.’ After a second, he corrected himself. ‘Not tomorrow, later.’

‘Are you going to be okay?’

The chief inspector stood, then began walking back to Kayleigh’s front door with Jessica a few steps behind. ‘I’m going to go back to Longsight anyway. There’s going to be all sorts to pull together – and that’s before we get any results back.’ Jessica was about to return to her car when he added, ‘How did your car reg thing go, by the way?’

Although Jessica did not want to involve her supervisor too much, she had asked him for permission to trace the details of the two cars. She had access to do it herself but there had been a recent tightening of rules in regards to who could check what because a colleague in a neighbouring district had used their access to find out details of a former partner. Cole had not asked for anything other than the most basic of details.

‘All fine,’ Jessica said. ‘Exactly what I expected.’

Circumventing various agencies was an awkward thing to do at the best of times but Jessica knew someone who worked as a family liaison officer for Greater Manchester Police. She had passed on the details of Corey and his mother and mentioned that the woman could be worth a closer look. There was nothing on her record in terms of child abuse but there were convictions for assaults and threatening behaviour which did not bode well. Jessica was at least pleased with herself for leaving it in the hands of people who could deal with it if there were a problem.

As for the mystery man, his number plate matched that of someone who most definitely was not married to Corey’s mother and, from everything she had found, was still supposed to be in a relationship with someone else. Although she had toyed with a bit of playful meddling, Jessica had held off, thinking there were perhaps things she might not want to know about her own life if the situation was reversed.

Jessica returned to her flat but knew she wasn’t going to get any sleep. Instead of trying, she sat in the living room, flicking through the television channels in the hope that something would take her mind away from Kayleigh, Adam and everything else that was going on. Instead, it made it worse. She had long since given up following anything other than her own cases on the rolling news channels and her secret pleasure of watching late-night reruns of early-morning talk shows was diminished by the topic of ‘Your boyfriend’s sleeping with me, now deal with it’.

She switched off the set and entered the bedroom quietly, looking for a warmer pair of shoes to wear out onto the balcony. Adam stirred but did not wake as she crept around to her side but Jessica’s attention was drawn to the blinking light of his phone on the bedside table. She stood silently staring at the LED as it flickered on and off, wanting to summon the courage to pick it up but knowing once that line was crossed that there was no going back.

Jessica’s eyes were feeling too heavy to keep awake but her mind was strangely alert as she sat in the incident room in the basement of the Longsight station. She knew exactly what she was going to be spending part of the afternoon doing, even if she wasn’t going to tell the chief inspector. Before that, she did want to find out what had happened since the early hours.

Because they were now in what looked like a double murder investigation, officers had been brought in to help and press officers were having private briefings with the DCI and superintendent about ‘strategy’, making it feel more like a website relaunch than the end of someone’s life.

The briefing did reveal plenty of details but nothing Jessica couldn’t have figured out by herself. Despite extensive door-to-door inquiries that morning, none of Kayleigh’s neighbours had apparently seen or heard anything untoward. Given they had also failed to hear anything to do with the break-in, Jessica wasn’t really surprised – it didn’t seem like a particularly caring, sharing district, somewhere the estate agent would describe as ‘socially unique’.