Jessica hadn’t completely understood how devoted Liam was to his former boss until the way he phrased his final sentence. He was clearly still full of admiration for Nicholas, with Nicky an inconvenience he hadn’t got around to walking out on yet.

‘I may as well go say hello,’ Jessica said, standing up.

‘He doesn’t usually like visitors.’

‘I couldn’t care less, I’m supposed to be making sure there’s not going to be any more trouble so let’s go.’

Jessica marched towards the door, even though she didn’t know the code. Liam hurried after her, pushing in front and shielding the numbers with his hand as he unlocked it and held it open for her.

‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ he muttered.

Jessica crossed the hallway and pulled the door handle down on Nicholas’s old office, shunting it open. In contrast to the rest of what she had seen, this area looked identical to before, the familiar row of filing cabinets on one wall and the framed newspapers on the other. Nicky had been facing away as she entered, not watching the monitors as Liam had suggested. As the door opened he spun around, swearing loudly at her to get out. Unlike when she had visited Nicholas, Jessica wasn’t trying to be provocative but the first thing she noticed was that Nicky was wearing an identical suit to the other two men. He was covering his mouth with his hand, eyes wide and panicky.

‘Are you all right?’ Jessica asked.

Nicky looked angry but didn’t take his hand away. ‘Yes, piss off,’ he shouted, although it was muffled.

Jessica was about to turn when blood began dripping from Nicky’s hand onto the desk.

‘Get out,’ he shouted again, although that only sent more blood spitting across the desk. When it was clear Jessica wasn’t leaving, he eventually reached across to pick up a tissue, revealing a mouthful of blood.

Nicky dabbed inside his lips with the tissues, eyes full of anger that she hadn’t left.

‘What did you eat?’ she asked.

Nicky threw a blood-covered tissue towards her. ‘Eat? You stupid bitch. I didn’t eat anything, I’ve just got bleeding gums. Now get out, you’re not supposed to be here.’

As he threw another tissue at her, Jessica walked backwards out of the room, closing the door and moving into the main part of the club.

Liam was sitting on a bar stool. ‘I did warn you,’ he said.

Jessica shook her head. ‘He was bleeding.’

Liam shot up, about to rush to the door, but Jessica held out a restraining hand.

‘Nothing’s happened, well, I don’t think so. He says his gums are bleeding.’

Liam eyed her suspiciously before sitting again. ‘His dad was the same. He’d get nosebleeds all the time and sometimes there would be dried bits of blood around his mouth. At first I thought he was eating all sorts of weird stuff. It’s not the kind of thing you’d ever ask about but it got to the point where you couldn’t ignore it.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Not much, he said he had some disease.’

‘What disease?’

Liam stuck out his bottom lip, puffing loudly. ‘Von something or other. I couldn’t tell you.’

‘Did he say what it did?’

He shook his head dismissively. ‘You met him, would you have wanted to ask? Do you think that was what killed him?’

Considering he’d been suffocated, Jessica didn’t think that at all but she did have an idea that made Liam’s question not quite as stupid as it sounded.

She said goodbye and hurried to her car, taking her mobile phone out of her pocket and wishing she could think of a better way to get things done. Adam answered on the second ring with a cheery ‘Jess’.

Jessica didn’t bother with niceties. ‘Do you know any doctors at the university who might specialise in blood disorders?’

‘Why? You’re okay, aren’t you?’

‘I’m fine, it’s not about me – I just need to speak to someone quickly.’

‘We’ve got a couple of people who might be able to help. If you drive over to the uni, I’ll see if I can get someone to talk to you.’

‘Great, text me the names so I can go straight to them.’

‘Don’t you want to stop by for a coffee?’

‘I don’t have time, sorry.’

Jessica was about to hang up but Adam said, ‘Jess?’

‘What?’

‘We’ve not had an evening together in ages . . .’

‘I’ve been busy.’

‘Are you going to be home later?’

‘Why?’

She heard him take a deep breath before responding. ‘I think we need to talk.’

Jessica knew it was the moment she had been waiting for. She swallowed hard, told him it was fine, then hung up.

The academic Adam had set Jessica up with ticked every stereotypical box you could hope for if you were trying to picture a professor. He had black velvet patches on the elbows of his brown corduroy jacket and wild grey hair which seemed to be in a constant battle to prove the laws of gravity didn’t actually exist.

She didn’t know what Adam had told him but by the time Jessica arrived in the reception of the university, a man was already waiting for her, springing to his feet and shaking her hand vigorously. He introduced himself as Professor Kenyon, although he assured Jessica she could call him Ken. Jessica wondered if that was a nickname relating to his surname or if he was genuinely called Kenneth Kenyon, then figured she didn’t want to know the answer.

Ken led her to the cafe and insisted on buying her a coffee, despite her protests. She didn’t know the technical term, especially as he was the supposed medical expert, but her layman’s opinion was that he was slightly mad.

He did at least appear to know his stuff though. After finally settling at a table, Jessica sipped her coffee as he enthused about the jam roly poly and custard he had bought himself. As soon as she mentioned a blood disorder that was called ‘von something’, the man’s eyes lit up.

‘Von Willebrand disease,’ he said matter-of-factly, shovelling a spoonful of custard-covered cake into his mouth.

He started to speak about a Finnish scientist but Jessica hurried him on to what concerned her. ‘What actually is it?’ she asked.

Ken spoke far too quickly and, before she knew it, he was talking to her about platelets. She interrupted, asking him to put it into language she could understand.

Unperturbed, he took another spoonful of custard, before having another go. ‘When you get a cut, the blood clumps together and forms a scab,’ he said, which Jessica nodded along with. ‘When you have von Willebrand’s, your blood doesn’t clot in the same way, which means you continue to bleed for longer.’

‘How long?’

‘It depends on how serious it is.’

‘How do you catch it?’

‘It’s usually inherited from a parent.’ Ken used the spoon to slice himself another piece of cake, blowing on it, before putting it in his mouth.

‘So if your dad has it, you’ll get it?’

Ken shook his head, still chewing. ‘Not necessarily, it’s about a fifty per cent chance.’

‘So if one child has it, another one won’t?’

He looked at her sideways as if she was a student who had asked a stupid question, although the smear of custard around his lips didn’t give him the gravitas he was perhaps trying for. ‘Not at all, it’s like tossing a coin. Each time you flip it, it has half a chance of coming down tails, regardless of what happened last time.’

‘So two children could both end up with it?’

Ken picked up the final piece of cake. ‘Exactly, but not just two. You could have ten children and all of them inherit it – or none of them. It’s an equal chance every time.’

Jessica nodded, fairly sure she understood, and watched while the man finished his dessert before glancing towards the food-serving area, presumably wondering if there was any more.

‘I met someone who I think had it,’ Jessica said. ‘He got this bad nosebleed.’

‘Sounds about right.’

‘Would it be right that his son’s gums could bleed?’