Lucy was cradling her mug of tea, interlocking her fingers through the handle and holding it close to her chest. She nodded slowly, taking in the words. ‘Why do you think it’s him?’

‘He taught at your son’s school. I read all of the paperwork from the time and, although his name was mentioned, there was absolutely nothing to properly connect him to Toby’s disappearance. The team back then did everything they could.’

‘Why did he take the child this time?’

‘I don’t know. I’m not sure we ever will.’

‘Did he . . . touch him? Isaac?’

‘No.’

Jessica wondered how long the woman had wanted to know the answer to that question with regard to her own child. Lucy nodded the slightest of acknowledgements.

Before either of them could say anything else, they were interrupted by the sound of the front door opening. Jessica heard young girls’ voices from the hallway before the children from the photographs came skipping into the room. The younger of the two, Natasha, stopped for a moment when she saw Jessica before stepping shyly towards her mother, sitting next to her on the sofa, and hiding her face behind Lucy’s shoulders. Olivia was a little bolder but also sat next to her mum.

Neil walked into the room behind them. When he saw Jessica, he raised his hand in a half-wave. ‘Hi . . .’ It was as if he realised mid-sentence what her appearance might mean. His expression changed, with his eyes widening. ‘Oh . . .’ Jessica shook her head slightly to answer his unasked question, while not letting on to the children that there was anything wrong. Neil was halfway through a word in reply but stopped himself and turned towards his family on the sofa. ‘Have you told your mum what you got up to today, Olivia?’

Jessica couldn’t stop herself from smiling as Lucy grinned widely. ‘What have you done today, dear?’

Olivia reached into her bag and pulled out a sketchbook, opening it to show her mother something she had drawn.

‘What was that?’ Jessica asked, suddenly curious. Olivia smiled and turned the book around to show a drawing of a house with a row of people outside. The figures had oversized heads and no shoulders but made Jessica smile.

The young girl could barely contain her excitement as she pointed from one character to the next. ‘That’s Mummy, that’s Daddy, that’s Tasha and this is me.’

‘Wow, that’s really good,’ Jessica said but it wasn’t the drawing she had been asking about, it was what Lucy had said. She paused for a moment, considering the previous few seconds, then stood. ‘I’ve got to go now.’

Lucy stood too and escorted her out to the front door. ‘Thanks for coming,’ she said. ‘Is it all right if I tell Neil everything you told me? He won’t tell anyone.’

‘Yeah, it’s okay.’

Unexpectedly, Lucy held out her arms and hugged Jessica, who didn’t know how to react. Before she could feel too uncomfortable, the other woman released her.

Jessica walked out into the chilly winter afternoon wondering if Lucy had just solved their case without knowing it.

32

Jessica drove back to Longsight going over what she thought she knew. It was one thing to have a theory but she needed a way to prove it – without involving Cole or Reynolds. Apart from the odd word in passing, she had not spoken to the chief inspector since their argument before Christmas and didn’t want to risk being shot down until she had some evidence. If she talked to Reynolds, it would simply put him in a difficult situation.

By the time she arrived at the station, the sun had almost set, even though it was barely four o’clock. Jessica parked on the road outside the main gates and phoned Dave. She asked him to make whatever excuse he had to in order to get out, then come and join her.

As he sat next to her complaining how cold it was, Jessica told him everything. There were still gaps in her theory but she indicated who she thought the accomplice was, and another person she believed was indirectly involved, a stranger she had never properly met whose help they would need, and why she had to break the law to prove it all.

‘I don’t mind if you go back inside and forget we ever had this conversation,’ Jessica said. ‘I know it’s not fair to ask you to help me but I can’t ask Izzy because of the baby and I can’t take it higher.’

Rowlands didn’t hesitate in his reply. ‘Let’s do it.’

Jessica knew it would take at least a couple of days to put everything in place. Before she could do anything, she realised she had one other responsibility to fulfil. That evening, she cuddled up to Adam on the sofa at his house and told him everything that had happened over the past few weeks. Then she told him what her plan was. Like DC Rowlands before him, Adam listened to everything she had to say before replying. ‘Is it dangerous?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Can I help?’

‘No.’

‘Are you going to get into trouble?’

‘Probably.’

Adam held her tight and kissed the top of her head. ‘I love you.’

‘So you should.’

The next part of the plan involved checking the facts. Jessica had already read everything they had in the files but sometimes mistakes could be made. She and Rowlands avoided Izzy, who was clearly suspicious of what they were up to, and went through every piece of information they had access to. None of it offered enough evidence to prove that Jessica was correct – but it didn’t disprove her theory either.

With the easy jobs out of the way, Jessica again asked Rowlands if he wanted to change his mind before they went any further. Secretly she was almost willing him to say he did but, if anything, he seemed more determined than before to help her out.

On a cold January night just before three in the morning, Dave and Jessica got out of the constable’s car and walked the few hundred metres through the deserted estate until they reached the front of Benjamin Sturgess’s abandoned house. The official police search had been completed before Christmas but the place was now empty, secured by the officers.

Jessica was wearing a pair of old gym trainers to avoid making a crunching noise on the frost that surrounded the property. Without speaking, they moved around the side of the house, stopping by the side door. She crouched and gently pushed the cat-flap she had noticed on their previous visit. It had been locked from the inside but that was what she expected.

‘Are you ready?’ Jessica whispered.

Reynolds nodded. ‘Just don’t crash my car.’

Jessica could barely see his features in the gloom. The street lights were too far away, the only illumination coming from the bright white moon above them. She touched him on the arm. ‘If anything happens, just run.’

She spun and walked quickly back towards the car. After readjusting the seat and mirrors, she drove slowly and carefully until she was outside the house next door to Sturgess’s. She left the engine idling with the handbrake on and checked her phone before taking a deep breath and then she pressed her foot down on the accelerator, increasing the rev count to the maximum. The enhanced exhaust which so annoyed her roared into life as Jessica kept her foot on the pedal, watching the clock on her phone count twenty seconds. As soon as time was up, Jessica removed her foot from the accelerator, put the car in first and eased the vehicle away as steadily as she could. She had done her homework, memorising the layout of the estate and drove in a loop, parking it two streets away, before walking as quickly as she could back to the side of Sturgess’s house.

As soon as she arrived, she could see in the moonlight that Rowlands had been successful. She walked around to the rear of the house where he was pressed against the wall. ‘Dave?’ she whispered.