He stood quickly, placing his cup and saucer on the tray and pointing towards Jessica’s still-full cup. ‘Do you want that?’

Jessica shook her head.

‘I can get you something else if you want?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Come with me,’ he said.

Jessica followed as he walked past the staircase along a hallway and through a door that was wedged open at the bottom. She blinked as she entered, the brightness of the room a complete contrast to the artificial light from the rest of the house. The kitchen had a row of white worktops along each side, with a huge window that stretched almost from the floor to the ceiling at the far end. Sunlight beamed through, bouncing off the surfaces, making Jessica rub her eyes.

As Leviticus made his way to the sink, which was around half the size of the bath in Jessica’s flat, she rested a hand on the solid worktop, trying to picture just how heavy it would have been to install. Everything she had seen of the house had a similar expensive style.

Jessica glanced up to see Leviticus watching her, drying his hands on a tea towel. Everything about his movements oozed authority – but it was a natural charisma he exuded, as opposed to the forced aura that Nicholas had.

‘Come look,’ he said, nodding towards the window. Jessica walked across the room, running a hand along the full length of the worktop as she did. ‘What do you see?’ Leviticus asked.

Jessica peered through, looking from side to side. There was an enormous lush green garden, stretching in every direction. On one side was a large tree, with a swing tied to one of the branches. A football goal was in the other direction.

‘How old are your children?’ Jessica asked, ignoring his question.

‘Between eight and fourteen. This is all they’ve ever known.’

‘Football pitches in their back garden?’

Leviticus stepped away from the window and leant against the counter top. ‘You’re not seeing it.’

Jessica looked out of the window again, taking in everything she had spotted previously, before finally noticing what he meant.

‘It’s like our own private prison,’ he told her. ‘I’m not complaining, we have an amazing house, cars, a garden I could only have dreamed of when I was young, we go on holidays all around the world – and yet we’re surrounded by massive walls, security lights and cameras.’

‘Is this all because of Nicholas Long?’

‘Among other people. It’s not an easy thing to retire from.’

Jessica didn’t know if he was trying to get her sympathy, or simply defending himself against her assumptions that he had it easy because of his wealth. She didn’t know why he cared about her opinion.

‘Why did you start to operate in Manchester in the first place?’ she asked.

Leviticus drummed his fingers gently on the counter, probably realising she knew more than he had given her credit for. ‘Greed. I wasn’t happy with everything that I had and wanted more.’

Jessica was impressed at his honesty. ‘What made you leave?’

‘There was only one way it was going to end up: with one or both of us dead. I didn’t want that. Ultimately, he was better than me at that side of things. He keeps impeccable records of everything; staff, accounts, who owes him money, the lot. I was never that good at all that. He always had other people to do his dirty work for him. They were always completely loyal for whatever reason. You’d hear about networks of people he had through the city: journalists, police officers, people in the council who dealt with planning and so on. He knew what he was doing in Manc, I didn’t. He may have been everything you’ve read about him but he’s a businessman too and knew how to play the game.’

‘Had you already left Manchester by the time . . . it happened?’

Leviticus nodded. ‘He had already won but that wasn’t enough. It was all about sending a message to me personally. My mother was in her seventies and lived in a bungalow I bought for her. I wanted to get her a nice big house, somewhere to live comfortably, but that was all she wanted. It was on the outskirts of the city in a quiet cul de sac. She was no threat to anyone – she spent most of her day baking for the local kids and then she’d cook chicken once a week when I went around. Cooking was what she lived for as she got older. But one day, they came for her.’

He shuffled awkwardly, taking off his suit jacket and placing it carefully on the worktop. Through his shirt, Jessica could see just how well-built Leviticus was. His chest stretched the material, his biceps were bigger than her thighs. As he turned, Jessica could see vast sweat patches on his back and under his arms and wondered if his confidence in talking to her was more bravado than she first thought.

If anyone should know the signs, then she should.

‘Are you sure I can’t get you something else?’ Leviticus asked.

Jessica knew he was trying to change the subject. She wondered how many other people he had spoken to about his mother over the years.

‘Why are you telling me all of this?’

Leviticus sighed, running his hand through his hair. ‘I assumed that’s why you were here – because you’d heard things too?’

‘What things?’

He tilted his head, squinting towards her, as if trying to work out if she was playing him. ‘I thought you were here to talk about Nicky, his son?’

Jessica knew Nicholas had a son with the same name as him but no one had spent much time looking into the teenager. She tried to shield the surprise. ‘What have you heard?’

Leviticus spoke slowly, clearly wondering if he was making a mistake. ‘That he’s just turned eighteen and is ready to step into his father’s shoes.’

Jessica nodded but he wouldn’t say anything else until she was looking into his eyes. ‘Nicky’s an animal,’ Leviticus warned solemnly. ‘And I’ve heard he’s not too keen on waiting his turn.’

19

There had been no reason for anyone to look into Nicky Long’s background but that didn’t stop Jessica ploughing through every piece of information they had on the teenager. His age was the key thing; as a youth with no criminal record, there had been little cause for any of them to investigate beyond his father. Even with Izzy’s help, all Jessica had been able to establish was that Nicky had finished at a private boarding school a few months earlier, had turned eighteen, and was now apparently living in Manchester with his father and stepmother. Jessica noted that Nicholas’s current wife, Tia, wasn’t that much older than Nicky. His actual mother was Nicholas’s former wife, Ruby, who had been a teenager when she had Nicky.

The more Jessica found out about Nicholas, the more she marvelled at the fact he had kept himself out of prison for as long as he had. Perhaps even more remarkable was that, despite the long line of people he had apparently crossed, he was still going strong. She thought of her own anger at him for the way he’d behaved towards her, not to mention the fury she felt having heard about the things he had done. She almost admired the restraint someone like Leviticus had shown after being released from prison, although wondered how different things might have been if he hadn’t been picked up for weapon possession all those years ago.

Jessica knew there was going to come a time where she’d have to share everything she knew with Cole but he was so distracted because of the lack of a DI and everything else that needed doing, for now she was getting away with pretty much what she wanted. Before that point came, Jessica wanted to put as many of the pieces together as possible.

‘Are you ready?’ Jessica asked Rowlands, who was in the passenger seat of her car.

The constable had been silent for the entire journey, something that was beginning to annoy Jessica. He blinked rapidly, as if just waking up, and then put a hand on the door handle. ‘I’m fine.’