‘Jess.’

‘Good job.’ Quietly they walked back to the side door where the cat-flap had been kicked through, taking most of the plastic panelling with it. ‘I take it no one saw you?’

‘Didn’t hear a soul. Like you said, anyone up and about would have only heard the car anyway.’

Jessica reached into her pockets and took out a pair of woollen gloves. ‘I’ll be five minutes. Call my phone if there’s a problem. It’s on silent but I’ll see the light. Just call and ring off.’

She crouched and reached through the gap in the door. Not only had Rowlands kicked the cat-flap through but parts of the white plastic had broken too. It was a tight squeeze but, because of the flexibility in the plastic around where the flap had been, Jessica hauled herself into the kitchen of Benjamin Sturgess’s house.

If she had asked, there was a chance she might have been given the key to the property the police were currently holding. Despite that, Jessica knew there would be a problem if DCI Cole stuck to his guns and refused. This way, if she was careful, the break-in would be blamed on an opportunist. If she had asked to be allowed into the house and been denied, it would have looked incredibly suspicious if someone had then smashed their way in shortly afterwards.

Jessica crept through the property, not bothering to use the light from her phone until she reached the living room. She remembered how she felt when she had been in here the last time. She’d had an almost overwhelming sense of how normal everything seemed. It was only when Lucy spoke to her daughter that Jessica realised the house was anything but regular. Hidden in plain sight was something that she, Rowlands and all the search teams couldn’t have failed to see – except they didn’t know what they were looking at.

Switching on the light from her phone, Jessica entered the living room. The space was a mess, carpet torn up and shoved to one side, furniture piled at one end. Jessica tiptoed across the room to the far wall where she used the light to check the photos hanging on the wall. It was the fourth one she checked that made her stomach lurch. She had spent the last few days wondering if what she thought she had seen was true but, with the evidence in front of her, she was almost disappointed. Jessica hoped she had made a mistake but it was now clear she was right.

She turned her phone around and took a photo of the picture that could only have been left hanging by someone who knew they had got away with everything. The flash went off, illuminating the room for a moment.

As she was about to put her mobile in her pocket, the light on the screen flashed Dave’s name before a second screen appeared to say she had a missed call.

Someone was outside.

33

Jessica could hear voices outside the front door. She dashed to the front window and opened a gap in the net curtain narrow enough to peek through. A uniformed police officer was standing at the door looking at his watch. A few metres behind him on the road she could see a marked police car parked with the passenger door wide open and another officer sitting in the driver’s seat.

She swore under her breath as she let the curtain fall back into place. Jessica didn’t know if someone had heard Rowlands kicking through the cat-flap or if her distraction had been too overt and persuaded someone to call the police. She wondered if the officer outside knew the significance of the property, or if they had just responded to a standard call. Jessica froze, holding her breath until the loud bang on the front door shook her into action. If it was simply a complaint from a neighbour relating to the revving car, the officer wouldn’t be knocking. She walked quickly into the hallway and moved silently up the stairs into the front bedroom.

The search team hadn’t made anywhere near as much mess upstairs and, aside from the open drawers and cupboards, everything else seemed normal. She walked towards the window, opening the curtain a crack. There was still an officer sitting in the car, the one below was out of sight. Jessica sat on the floor under the window and took out her phone. Rowlands’s name was still on the front screen from the missed call. Just in case he hadn’t put his phone on silent, Jessica typed out a text message to him.

‘Where r u? U on silent?’

She pressed her back hard into the wall as the sound of the officer knocking on the front door echoed through the house. She knew that as soon as he walked around to the side, he would see the smashed back door and the game would be up. Her phone flashed once with Rowlands’s name. She pressed the button to answer the call. ‘Dave, where are you?’ she whispered.

Dave spoke quietly making it difficult to hear but Jessica pushed the phone hard into her ear. ‘In the back under one of those plastic sheets the search team left.’

‘An officer is at the front door.’

‘Shit. I saw the car pull up. I didn’t know if they were just here because they had received a complaint. Are you stuck inside?’

‘I’m upstairs. There’s one in the car, one at the front. I don’t think they’ve noticed the side door yet.’

‘How are you going to get out?’

‘I don’t know. You?’

‘No idea.’

Jessica sighed. ‘All right. Look, I’ll think of something. When the opportunity comes, just make sure you run.’

She hung up and leant her head back against the wall. For a second or two she felt defeated but a third bang on the door brought her back to reality. There was no way the officer would knock a fourth time, which meant his next point of call would be the side door.

Jessica stood and looked around the room. On top of a dressing table was a statue of what looked like a small monkey. Jessica walked across and picked it up, weighing it in her hand. She didn’t know what it was made of but it was certainly heavy. Pocketing it, she walked back to the window and peeped through a gap in the curtains. The second officer had switched the car’s engine off and was standing next to it. He began walking towards the house as Jessica heard the other officer’s voice booming through the house, shouting that whoever was inside should come out. She guessed he was shouting through the cat-flap but he wouldn’t necessarily know the person who had broken in was still inside.

With the second officer disappearing out of view, Jessica tried to open the window but it wouldn’t budge. There was a small keyhole in the frame and she looked around the sill just in case but there was nothing there. She dashed across the hallway as quietly as she could into the second front bedroom while the officer downstairs continued to shout. She flung the curtains open and tried the window. At first it stuck in the frame but she gave it a sharp shove, relief surging through her as it stiffly gave way.

Jessica leant out and looked below to see if either of the officers were there. With no one in sight, she had to take the chance they were by the back door. Lowering herself feet first out of the window, she gritted her teeth and closed her eyes as she held tightly onto the frame before letting herself drop.

Only too aware her body had taken a battering in recent weeks, she offered a silent prayer as she landed on both feet without any surges of pain shooting through her. Jessica almost gave a squeal of delight as she ran to the hedge that was furthest from the passage leading to the back of the house, edging along until she was on the road. She glanced at Sue’s house, wondering if she had been the person who had called the police. Everything was still and Jessica quickly scanned the other houses to make sure no one was looking, then reached into her pocket and took out the monkey statue. She took a deep breath and made a promise to whichever god might be listening that she would definitely join a gym if he or she allowed her not to get a stitch this time around. Her silent prayer complete, Jessica arched back and hurled the statue into the rear windscreen of the parked police car.