Things seemed to move in slow motion as the glass cracked with a loud crunch. Jessica turned and ran in the opposite direction, deliberately heading past the passageway where she knew the officers would be able to see her. She heard a shout from behind but knew she would have at least a thirty-metre head-start on whoever was chasing her. She thought of the uniformed officers at Longsight, knowing there were plenty she would definitely fancy her chances against in a race and hoped that whoever was now after her came from a similar mould.

Although she had memorised the layout of the estate so carefully, converting that into three dimensions while running as fast as she could in her old gym shoes was a different matter. Grabbing a lamppost, she used it to swing herself around and headed into a ginnel she felt certain would lead to a second passageway that would hopefully bring her out next to Rowlands’s car. She hoped he had used her distraction to get himself off the property but there wasn’t much else she could do.

She was starting to tire as she hurled herself into the second alley, risking a look over her shoulder but there was no one there and she couldn’t hear footsteps. Instead of slowing, she upped her pace, sprinting for the car while reaching into her pocket for the key. As her fingers closed around the fob, remote central locking seemed like the greatest invention ever. Without breaking stride, she pressed the button and saw the vehicle’s indicator lights flash twice. Jessica grabbed the handle, opened it and hurled herself onto the back seat.

She lay in the foot well barely breathing and not daring to move. It seemed like hours but it was definitely still dark when there was a tap on the window. For a moment, Jessica froze, expecting to look up and see one of the officers peering in. Instead, it was a weary-looking Dave offering a thin smile as their eyes met. She sat up and pressed the button to unlock the door again, allowing him to slide into the driver’s seat.

‘I didn’t know you had such short legs,’ Rowlands said, shunting the seat backwards while Jessica climbed into the front and passed him the keys.

‘They were long enough to outrun those two,’ Jessica said. ‘You got out all right, then?’

‘As soon as I heard that crash, I looked out and they were running off towards the road. I watched them around the corner of the house. One of them went after you, the other got on the radio. As soon as he was facing the other way I legged it. Nice job on the car window by the way.’

‘Thanks, it felt ridiculously good to be honest.’

‘Did you get what you needed?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So you were right about everything?’

‘I think so.’

After seeing the photo, Jessica was as confident as she could be that she was correct. Things had not gone according to plan but at least neither she nor Rowlands was in trouble. In the list of things she had to do, getting access to the picture was the third toughest, so it was hard for her not to feel too relieved as there was so much more to do.

The next night’s task wasn’t as hard but it did need a degree of setting up. Jessica arranged to meet Dave at the allotments at two in the morning but she arrived half an hour early. She jumped the fence and made her way across to plot sixty-one, trying to avoid the muddiest parts in order to not leave any clear footprints, just in case. The moon was particularly bright, making the whole area of land clearly visible, except for where the hedges cast their shadows.

The outside of the plot looked the same as before, with mounds of dirt from the excavation. She approached the door and lifted a set of bolt cutters, squeezing hard and eventually slicing through the thick metal of the padlock.

Jessica’s dad had been keen on DIY when she was younger and always told her it was worth spending a bit more to get the best-quality tools. She had taken that on board at the hardware store earlier that day, buying the most expensive set of cutters, hoping the outcome would be this easy.

Unlike the outside, the interior of the shed was a total contrast to how it had been. The floorboards in the middle of the room had been torn up, exposing the pit underneath, the table and chair removed. Jessica had tried to think of a better place than this for her final confrontation but something about this cramped room seemed right.

Rowlands soon arrived with the items they needed and together they fixed the shed as best they could. It was never going to look as it did before but at least they managed to sort out a solid floor with a combination of the wood Rowlands had brought and the broken floorboards which had been shunted into a corner.

As they left the shed before sunrise, Jessica put on a new padlock and handed Rowlands one of the keys.

Her penultimate task didn’t involve breaking the law but it did call for her to be at her persuasive best. She visited Lucy Martin at a time when she knew the woman would be on her own and asked for Annabel’s contact details on trust alone. The woman was reluctant to pass on the information, especially as Jessica insisted she couldn’t tell her why she needed it. Ultimately, as silly as it might have seemed to an outsider, the bond they had made over a mug of tea was enough to swing it.

Jessica phoned in sick the next day, taking the train to London to meet Lucy’s estranged daughter. Annabel was an essential part of Jessica’s plan, but the years apart from her mother and the bitterness she felt made her reluctant even to listen to Jessica’s idea, let alone help. She kept repeating that she had a new life – she was twenty-seven with a career, a boyfriend and a flat. Everything that happened up north when she was a child felt as if it had occurred in a different lifetime.

Annabel’s passion for making the most of the life she had created for herself made Jessica wonder if she was doing the right thing. As she watched the woman drink her cappuccino, she saw herself, albeit a little younger. Annabel was a person who had left home and gone to find out what a big city could hold. Jessica wondered whether finding out the truth was worth it, but then made a decision she knew she would have to live with for a long time.

Her recent activity involved her breaking and entering twice, committing a burglary and damaging public property. In the next few days she would have to lie and become a thief. As Jessica broke Annabel’s heart by telling her that over half her life had been a lie, there was no doubt in her mind what the greatest crime from that list was.

34

Without Adam to listen to her, Jessica wasn’t sure she would have been able to go through with everything. He met her off the late train at Piccadilly Station. ‘Your chariot awaits,’ he declared with a smile. Jessica immediately burst into tears and told him how she had destroyed a young woman’s life. He didn’t say very much, listening without judging.

After the conversation with Annabel, it was too late for Jessica to retreat from what she had set in motion. In a quiet moment at the station, she told Rowlands that everything was almost in place. She made the phone call to set up the final meeting and, after their shift was over, Jessica and Rowlands made their way to Deborah Sturgess’s house.

The woman welcomed them in, seemingly unaffected by everything that had been in the news about her husband. Jessica noticed that her roots had recently been bleached so that she no longer appeared to be greying. Accepting the offer of a hot drink, they were left alone in the living room while she went off to the kitchen.

As soon as the door closed, Jessica sprung to her feet and stepped across to a side table. ‘Can you see it?’ she hissed.