‘I guess some things don’t change regardless of what school you go to,’ Dave said, as one of the boys shoulder-charged the other to the floor. The teacher dived in to try to separate them.

Jessica didn’t reply, watching in silence as the adult pointed and shouted at both of the students before sending them towards a building on the far side of the pitch.

‘It wasn’t Chloe,’ the constable finally said.

‘So what was it? You’ve been weird ever since the fire.’

Even though she wasn’t facing him, Jessica could hear Rowlands gulping. ‘Exactly. I saw it all, Jess. I was at your house when they put you in the ambulance. Your face was covered in black stuff and you weren’t moving. Everyone had gone to focus on Adam and I thought you were dead. I thought they’d given up on you.’

Jessica waited for a moment, the broken memories of that night running through her mind. When she replied, her voice cracked and didn’t sound like hers. ‘I know you told me Jack, Jason and everyone were there but I guess I didn’t know that meant you.’

Outside, the game was descending into farce, with players sliding in the mud as the teacher stood in the middle of the field, blowing his whistle and bellowing.

Dave didn’t take his eyes from the game as he replied. ‘There was this paramedic who asked if I was all right and it was only then I realised you were off to the hospital. Jack told me to go, so I raced away. I was driving like such an idiot that I caught the ambulance up.’

‘You stayed with me the whole day.’

‘Yes.’

‘You held my hand.’

‘You gobbed on my shoe.’

Jessica laughed. ‘I don’t remember that.’

Dave snorted too, although his voice was faltering. ‘I didn’t know if you’d wake up, Jess. All this back and forth we’ve had over the years, all the arsing around and taking the piss out of each other . . . I was sitting in the room wondering what might happen if you didn’t wake up.’

‘But I did.’

The constable didn’t reply as they watched the match come to an end. The rain was falling so hard that it looked like a wall of water instead of individual drops. Over the top, they heard the teacher’s whistle blaring as everyone, including him, turned and ran towards the building on the far side.

‘My old PE teacher would have left us out in that,’ Dave said. ‘He used to wear the same tracksuit every day, this horrible blue and white shiny thing. He was called Mr Haythorn, but we called him Mr Gaythorn when he wasn’t around.’

As childish as it sounded, Jessica couldn’t stop herself giggling.

‘He was a right bastard. If you ever turned up late, he’d make you run a full lap of the field. If you didn’t do it quickly enough, he’d make you do another one. He made us play rugby on an icy pitch once. Everyone was getting injured but he didn’t care.’

Jessica waited until all of the players had reached their building.

‘That doesn’t explain why you’ve been weird with me ever since,’ Jessica said, just loudly enough to be heard over the noise of the torrent hitting the roof.

At first, she thought the constable hadn’t heard her. ‘I’m glad things are working out for you, Jess,’ he finally said. ‘Adam’s a good guy.’

Jessica felt the lump returning to her throat that had never been far away in the past week. She tried to swallow but instead it made her feel worse. ‘It’s not as rosy as you might think,’ she eventually managed to say. ‘Something’s going on with him but I don’t know what.’

Rowlands didn’t move, staring out at the now-empty field. ‘Some of my friends got married and said the first few months were awkward as they got used to each other.’

Jessica bit her lip. ‘Just tell me what’s wrong.’

Dave finally turned away from the window. They were barely a foot apart, staring at each other. His eyes were a mixture of sadness and determination and she realised that she rarely looked at him directly. With suspects or witnesses, she would draw eye contact, sometimes waiting in silence until they gave it to her. With her friends, she rarely did that, assuming she knew what they were feeling.

His voice croaked awkwardly. ‘It’s you, Jess.’

‘What’s me?’

The rain continued to hammer on the top of the building as Jessica raised her eyebrows to query what he was saying.

‘As I sat next to you in the hospital, holding your hand, not knowing if you were going to wake up, I knew it was you.’

Jessica saw his throat begin to bob and realised he was moments away from tears. Placing a hand on his shoulder, she struggled to know what to say, feeling drawn into the emotion of the moment. ‘I woke up . . . I’m here. I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me.’

Dave placed a hand on her chin, stroking it gently, and she finally figured out what he was trying to say. By the time the words came, she had already taken a half-step back in shock.

‘I love you, Jess.’

21

Nicholas Long surveyed the piles of cash in the club’s safe with a grin. It was one of his biggest pleasures, something he always did himself. The increase in people paying with cards annoyed him, although, because of the type of club he ran, there were still plenty happy to pay in cash in case the name of his establishment appeared on their credit card statement.

He had spent the past forty-five minutes bundling the notes into neat even piles to count the day’s takings, slowly drinking his way through a bottle of gin. Some of the people in the circles he kept preferred to stick to one type of drink but he liked the variation.

When he was happy that everything added up from the bar, Nicholas walked through to the reception area to take the entrance money. Before doing so, he went along the corridor to the front door to check that Liam had locked up properly. It was no surprise that he found the door secured as it should be; his bar manager had never failed him before in anything that had been asked of him, let alone with menial things such as shutting the club up. When he was done, Nicholas would leave via the fire exit in the way he always did.

After emptying the final till, he pushed everything into a money bag and then, suddenly feeling out of breath, turned and sat on the sofa. Nicholas could feel sweat on his head and wondered if he had eaten something dodgy. If it was Tia who had been at fault, he would make sure she knew about it the following day. He grinned at the thought of yanking her out of bed by the hair when he got home, demanding to know what she’d done to him.

Grunting as he stood, Nicholas felt a sharp pain in his chest. His eyes were drawn to the blinking light underneath the security camera in the top corner of the room, angry at his awkwardness being documented. Staggering as quickly as he could manage, he went back through the doorway into the main part of the club, using the edge of the bar to keep himself upright.

Nicholas’s mind wandered to the detective who had visited him a few days beforehand. He stared at the stool she had been sitting on, wondering what exactly it was that she wanted. There was the obvious thing, that the police had been trying to take him down for years, but she had something about her. At first, his plan had been to see how far he could push her, although he had been surprised at how she stood up to him. Still, that wasn’t anything that couldn’t be put right if it ever came to it. He always took much more pleasure from quieting those who thought they could go toe-to-toe with him.

The pains in his chest began to fade as Nicholas tried to remember what she looked like. He let go of the bar and walked as steadily as he could towards his back office. As he passed through the first door, he flicked the latch, locking it to ensure the main part of the club was sealed. The hallway felt colder than usual, although it had an almost sobering effect as Nicholas blinked away the confusion.