‘I can’t imagine what it must be like to kill both of your parents,’ the chief inspector said, tailing off.

Jessica turned back to the box, pulling out a browner, crustier version of the newspaper article she had read about the baby being left outside the casino. ‘I guess neither of us know what it’s like to grow up not knowing your parents. You must spend all your time wondering who you are.’

Cole didn’t speak for a while but she could guess he was thinking something similar to her – a near-understanding of what Scott had done. He killed his parents because they hadn’t wanted him. Whether he knew his mother had become pregnant as she was trying to pay back a debt was something only he could answer.

Jessica stifled thoughts of what could be inside her as she heaved herself up from the floor, handing the box to the chief inspector.

‘I think it’s time to go pick him up,’ Cole said.

‘We should probably wait until the club is closing and empty. He’s got no reason to assume we know. We’ve got people watching him.’

Cole nodded in agreement. ‘I’ll need to talk to the super anyway, he might want to go in heavy but I will mention the fact there would be lots of people around if he goes in straight away.’

‘I’ll go in,’ Jessica said. ‘I think he’ll probably come quietly if we do it softly.’

‘What makes you think that?’

Jessica shrugged. ‘I don’t know, instinct.’

34

Jessica sat in the hospital’s waiting room staring at the floor. Her response to Cole ran endlessly through her mind. Instinct.

She couldn’t have been more wrong.

Not only that but Liam had told her not once but twice what might happen, at first hinting in the club and then in his flat, telling her to remember what he had said.

‘. . . He has different ideas, dangerous ideas. His dad knew what to leave at home and what to bring here . . .’

She could feel Izzy looking at her from the seat opposite but couldn’t meet her gaze. Instead she focused on a spot on the floor, following the cracks in between the tiles and trying to forget the situation she had been responsible for.

Longsight was one of the rougher areas of Manchester, where gang violence and gun crime were higher than anywhere else in the district, but even so, she had rarely seen anyone other than an officer with a gun and had spotted more officers with firearms in airports than she ever had while on duty. The official report would almost certainly say the chance of Scott pulling out a firearm was minimal but that wasn’t the point – she felt guilty for not foreseeing what could have happened.

Jessica doubted there would ever be a time where she forgot what took place in the reception area of Nicholas Long’s club. Thanks to television programmes and films, you expected a gunshot to be loud but nothing could prepare you for the way the noise seemed to suck everything else out of the room. Your ears were left ringing, the shock clouding your thoughts to such a degree that you weren’t sure if what you saw was real.

The fact the gun had gone off only sunk in when Jessica saw the blood splattering across the bar and wall. Flecks landed on her face, making her shiver with shock.

By the time she had reached to her cheek to wipe it away, everything was over as officers stormed through one door, Liam and Nicky rushing through the other. She could see their lips moving, accusing eyes staring towards her, but nothing seemed to make sense as the echoes of the gunshot bounced around her head.

Jessica blinked back to the present as she heard the nearby doors clunking open. She glanced up hoping to see one face but instead it was Cole who walked through. He had long since lost his tie, and his shirt buttons were half-undone, patches of grey hair spidering through. His face already told the story but he spoke the words anyway.

‘He’s dead.’

Jessica looked up to catch Izzy’s eye but she was staring at the chief inspector.

‘They say he was gone by the time he got here,’ Cole added. Jessica stared back at the floor, even as Cole began to talk directly to her. ‘It’s not your fault, Jess.’

She knew he would say that but it didn’t matter what anyone else told her, she blamed herself.

‘What’s going to happen now?’ Izzy asked as the chief inspector sat on a seat two away from Jessica.

‘There’ll be the usual inquiry,’ he said. ‘Nicky Long will be in serious trouble because of the weapons on his premises. He’s already in custody but not saying much.’

Aside from a couple of people chatting quietly in the far corner of the room, there was a hush as Jessica refused to look up from the floor. It was only when she heard Izzy giggle that she realised there were footsteps nearby. She glanced up, not knowing what to expect, but couldn’t stop herself from laughing at the sight which greeted her. She even thought she heard a gentle snigger escape from the chief inspector.

When it was clear no one else was going to say anything, Jessica figured she might as well take it upon herself.

‘That’s an extreme way of covering a bald patch,’ she snorted.

Rowlands stood in the aisle with a bandage wrapped around his head, his arm in a sling. There was a large red graze across his chin and one of his eyes had blackened. ‘Thanks for your sympathy. You too,’ he added, nodding towards Izzy, who was holding her hand in front of her mouth to stop herself laughing.

‘What have you done to yourself?’ Cole asked sensibly.

‘I’ve broken my arm in two places and the doctor says I’ve got concussion. Is Scott . . . ?’

The chief inspector nodded. ‘Dead before he arrived.’

Izzy was looking at Rowlands. ‘I’m still not entirely sure what happened,’ she said.

He nodded towards Jessica, saying she had the answer.

Although she wasn’t keen on constantly recanting how she had messed up, Jessica figured it was a story she would be telling frequently over the coming weeks to various high-up people.

Rowlands sat next to Izzy with a wince Jessica was convinced he was putting on.

She took a deep breath. ‘I thought Scott would come quietly because he had nothing to gain by not doing so. There was nowhere for him to go. What no one realised was that Nicky had brought guns into the club and there was a shotgun under the counter. As Dave stepped in to arrest Scott, he yanked it out and pulled the trigger.’

Izzy looked at the man next to her, who Jessica noticed was sporting a pained expression. She wondered how long he would be able to get sympathy for it. ‘It happened really quickly but it seemed to explode in his hands. There was this enormous bang and within a blink it was over. Scott was sort of blasted backwards into the fridges. Blood went everywhere.’

‘Ballistics have the gun and will look at what’s left of it,’ Cole said. ‘One of the guys on site said something about it possibly happening if guns aren’t cleaned but I wouldn’t know enough to say.’

‘So what happened to you?’ Izzy asked, nodding towards Dave.

Rowlands looked at Jessica, rolling his eyes. ‘Go on . . .’

Jessica wasn’t particularly in the mood for joking around but she couldn’t look at the bandage around his head without smiling.

‘When the gun went off, there was an enormous noise but I was further away and it wasn’t pointing at me. Dave stumbled backwards and fell over a table. At first I thought he’d been shot because of the way he went down. It was only afterwards I realised he’d jumped because of the bang.’

Rowlands threw his hands in the air. ‘He was pointing a gun at me, I thought I’d been shot!’

Although he had a point, it didn’t stop Izzy giggling. ‘Aww, did the big bang make poor Davey Wavey fall over,’ she teased.