On the other hand, there was little Liam could do about his brutish appearance. He too was wearing jeans with a T-shirt but his arms were practically bursting out of it. While Leviticus was well-defined, he had a charm about him that Liam certainly didn’t. With a voice that was squeaky and held no authority, Jessica could see why Nicholas had been happy to bring Liam in on work experience. He was someone who could be moulded into something far more useable.

‘How can we help?’ Liam asked in a tone higher than usual.

‘I’m going to talk to you one at a time in the reception area,’ Jessica said. ‘You first,’ she added, pointing at Scott.

She led him through to the porch, sitting on one end of the sofa and nodding for the man to sit at the other.

‘Am I in trouble?’ he asked nervously. ‘I did speak to you yesterday.’

‘I wanted to run through your statement and to clarify a few things about your relationship with Nicholas Long.’

‘Okay . . .’

‘How did you come to work here?’

Scott answered instantly without thinking. ‘Word gets around when Nicholas is looking for someone to hire. He had a bunch of us in on work experience, not here, at one of the pubs he owns out Rusholme way. I helped out with the barrels.’

‘How long ago was that?’

Scott ummed for a few moments, his slight frame shrinking into itself as he glanced at the ceiling, counting on his fingers. ‘Three years or so?’

‘How did you end up working here?’

Scott looked away nervously. ‘I’d been here a few times just for, y’know . . .’ He peeked up to catch Jessica’s nod. ‘Anyway, through that I’d started chatting to Liam. A few months back he told me they’d be looking to take someone extra on and that he’d put in a word with the boss.’

‘Is Liam your best friend?’

‘I suppose . . .’

‘What’s he like?’

Jessica saw a minor look of panic shoot across Scott’s face but she recognised it as the expression most males gave when they were asked to talk about other men, as if admitting they liked someone as a mate meant they were secretly attracted to them too. She stared at him, eyebrows raised, letting him know she wasn’t in the mood for immature blokes on this particular day.

‘I guess . . . he’s a good guy . . . ?’ Scott’s inflection made it sound like a question.

‘Is he or isn’t he?’

Scott squirmed awkwardly and Jessica wanted to shout ‘it doesn’t make you gay’ in frustration.

‘He looks out for you,’ Scott finally replied in what Jessica guessed was about as ringing an endorsement as she was likely to get from him.

‘Talk me through what happened the night before last.’

Jessica already knew from the CCTV that the club had been serving drinks after their licence said they were supposed to have closed for the night. Because it was something Liam should have been on top of – and because it didn’t matter in the bigger picture – she didn’t say anything as Scott told her a white lie about everything being ‘normal’ and them closing ‘on time’.

Aside from those issues, he said they had gone to his own flat after locking up to play computer games until the early hours, something they did regularly. As he pointed out, they worked odd hours.

Liam’s version of events on the night Nicholas had died matched Scott’s. He had been hired in a similar way to Scott, but had moved up quickly in Nicholas’s organisation to the point that he was now some sort of right-hand man. As well as being the bar manager for the club, he worked one day a week as a regional manager, visiting the other pubs and clubs Nicholas owned to ensure everything was running as it should be. Jessica didn’t push what exactly that might mean, although she thought the Serious Crime Division might be paying him a visit sometime soon to ask more probing questions.

The more she spoke to Liam, the more Jessica could see what Nicholas clearly had. He was happy to make eye contact but there was a vulnerability there. He refused to say anything negative about Nicholas, proving his loyalty, but the fact he was comfortable talking about accounting showed he had an intelligence too. Coupled with his physique, it was quite a combination. She wondered quite how deeply entrenched in Nicholas’s other pursuits he might be.

Jessica’s final question was as much for her own gratification as the investigation. ‘Who’s going to be the new boss with Nicholas gone?’

Through their talk, Liam had been leaning forward and using his hands as he spoke, even though it didn’t seem particularly natural for him. As Jessica asked the question, he crossed his arms defensively. ‘I had a phone call yesterday.’

‘Who from?’

‘The other Nicholas, his son.’

Jessica had been wondering how long it would be before the younger Long came up. ‘What did he say?’

‘He wants to meet. I think it would have already happened if you hadn’t have been coming down today.’ Liam had spoken affectionately about his old boss but clearly didn’t have the same feeling towards the man’s son.

‘Have you met him before?’

Liam nodded. ‘Once. His dad brought him in to give him the tour around a year ago. I knew he had a son but he was off at school somewhere and would only come home for a few weeks each summer.’

‘What was he like?’

At first Jessica thought Liam was going to say something derogatory but he stopped himself mid-sentence, perhaps wary of the fact that the eighteen-year-old was possibly going to be his new boss. ‘He’s . . . different.’

Jessica knew Nicky was someone she should try to meet sooner rather than later. And Leviticus Bryan’s earlier assertion that the young man wasn’t too keen on ‘waiting his turn’ was a particularly interesting choice of phrase, given what had happened to his father.

25

Jessica had been wary of spending time alone with Adam recently, even before watching him in the restaurant with the mystery woman. Since then, she had done everything she could to avoid him, although she saw the irony of text messaging him to say she was working late when she instead went and moped in the nearby pub. Far from seeking an explanation, she didn’t want to hear what he might have to say, worried about the effect it might have on her professional life if she let her relationship fall apart while she was still in the middle of a case. She felt she owed it to Kayleigh, Eleanor, Oliver’s parents and everyone else to find out what was going on, then she would figure out the best way to deal with what was happening at home.

The other problem was that the Longsight station was becoming less and less of a respite too. Avoiding Rowlands was hard to do, meaning she either spent all of her time in her office, or made sure she travelled in a pair, walking around with DS Cornish or someone nearby if she needed to go anywhere.

They were still dealing with the fall-out of the Moss Side disturbance too, with half of the cells still full three days after it had happened. The enormous police presence on the morning after had worked in one way, with the media backing rather than criticising them, although even that had an edge to it, the insinuation being they should shoot anyone under the age of eighteen who happened to be on the streets after dark. Jessica knew one or two people within the station who probably shared that view but that wasn’t helping either.

With at least two area taskforces being set up, as well as the shifting of resources to the gang crime unit, few officers seemed to know what they were supposed to be doing. It wasn’t helping that DI Reynolds hadn’t yet been replaced.

What also wasn’t helping was that ever since she had been drawn into the whisky-drinking with Nicholas, Jessica could feel something wasn’t right with her body. For the first few days, she had put it down to her own stupidity but it had gone past that now. The constant tiredness was something she had experienced in the past but her limbs were beginning to ache and she frequently felt hungry, even after just eating. She woke each morning knowing she should visit the doctor but not wanting to hear what he might have to say. At the same time, she feared she would burst into tears and be signed off work with stress.