‘Maybe we can get a few brochures?’ Adam suggested. ‘There are a few nice places up Lancashire way and it’s around halfway towards your parents’, which will help. Perhaps we can go for a drive next weekend?’

‘Sounds good,’ Jessica replied, thinking she would definitely be working the following Saturday and Sunday whether or not she was on the rota.

Apparently happy with her response, Adam shifted his weight, holding his arm out towards her again. Jessica obliged and rested her head on the inside of his armpit, allowing him to cuddle her. She didn’t know what he was watching on the television but, whatever it was, nothing much seemed to be happening except that one woman was very angry with a man. Adam had put on a jumper over his T-shirt and the fabric was soft and inviting. Jessica felt her eyelids beginning to get heavy and she struggled to stop them closing before finally succumbing to the intoxicating lure of sleep.

Jessica didn’t know how long she had been dozing when she felt an arm shaking her awake. ‘Jess, we should go upstairs,’ a man’s voice said. Her mind was fuzzy and unresponsive as her eyes opened onto a room where the only light came from a muted television.

She felt someone kissing her hair as he untwined his arm from her and then the television turned off. Jessica’s body flopped on the sofa before she raised herself up into a sitting position, still feeling dozy. She reached out towards the shape of the other person, who hauled her up from the sofa and put an arm around her, then leant down to kiss her. Jessica responded by chewing on his bottom lip gently and giggling before recoiling away abruptly.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked, clearly confused by her response.

Jessica’s throat felt croaky and dry. She blinked rapidly. ‘Sorry, I’m just tired.’

She gripped Adam’s hand, allowing him to lead her up the stairs. Any sleepiness had drifted from her mind as he opened the bedroom door and she followed him inside. Her thoughts were a mixture of self-loathing and relief that she had stopped herself from saying something stupid for once.

Jessica started to undress, unable to face her fiancé and knowing that, if her mind had taken a second or two longer to wake up, she would have called him Sebastian.

13

Jessica was beginning to think the biggest problem with commuting wasn’t the time she spent sitting in her car watching traffic lights change, cars sit still, or rain fall, it was that she felt trapped alone with her mind. Trying to think through her thought process from the previous evening wasn’t something she wanted to do but she simply couldn’t avoid it. Even with the radio turned on as a distraction, Jessica couldn’t believe how close she had come to saying Sebastian’s name. The only explanation she could come up with was that she had been dreaming about him but that didn’t offer much comfort either. In many ways, the fact he had crept his way into her unconscious made it worse.

She thought of the way he had flirted with her in the car park a few nights before and the cocky charm he possessed. She wanted to dislike him but he had those delicious eyes that made it seem as if you were the only person he was focusing on.

Bastard.

Trying to forget him, Jessica turned up the radio, hoping it would take her mind away from her own guilt. The presenters wittered on inanely and took calls from members of the public who offered their opinions on everything from foreign policy to whether a female celebrity was too old to have children. It was the usual kind of nonsense which drove her crazy – and failed to take her mind away from both Adam and Sebastian. Maybe she should phone the radio station and let members of the public pass judgement on her dilemma?

Jessica arrived at Longsight just as Reynolds was walking out of the doors into the car park. ‘I saw you pull in,’ he said, not breaking stride. ‘We have found Anthony Thompson.’

She put one hand on the still-swinging door as a gesture to show she had actually arrived at work, before turning and following the inspector towards one of the marked police cars.

On the journey he explained that Anthony had been arrested in the city centre the previous evening for being drunk and disorderly. At the time he was too drunk to give his name and had been put in a cell at the Bootle Street police station. This was located just off Deansgate and was about as central as you could get in Manchester. Jessica knew it was where a lot of the overnight drunks ended up before they were either released in the morning or, if they had been particularly abusive, cautioned or charged. The last time she had been here was when she was dealing with a series of magic-related paraphernalia that had been left around the city.

Reynolds said that Anthony had sobered up by the morning but started telling the officer who was ready to release him about how his son had been murdered and that he wanted revenge. That was when they had been called.

‘Where was he picked up?’ Jessica asked.

‘I don’t know, somewhere central. Why?’

Jessica hoped she was wrong. ‘Because Martin and Ryan Chadwick have been put up in a hotel in the centre by an insurance company. What if he was found outside where they are staying?’

The staff at Bootle Street were expecting them and the first thing Jessica did was look through the paperwork. Anthony had been picked up in Piccadilly Gardens, less than a hundred metres from the hotel the Chadwicks were in. It proved nothing as there was a good chance he would have been picked up around there anyway if he had gone to the centre to get drunk. Still, along with the spray paint and petrol can, the circumstantial evidence was building.

Rather than take him across the city, Jessica and Reynolds were given an interview room in which to talk to Anthony. One of the uniformed constables told them their suspect had refused any offer of food and when told officers would be arriving to talk to him, insisted he didn’t have – or want – a solicitor. As he closed the door and assured them he would return with Anthony shortly, the constable’s final words of ‘good luck’ didn’t bode too well.

A security camera hummed in a top corner. Within the last few months, every interview room in Greater Manchester had been fitted with one after complaints from a suspect that he had been assaulted in a station in the north of the city. The police officers involved denied the accusations and there was no evidence but the media outcry didn’t paint them in a good light. And so, the chief constable somehow found funds in a budget that had previously had no flexibility to fit the cameras. Jessica could think of a specific incident in her past that had happened with a suspect called Wayne Lapham that she was pleased hadn’t been caught on camera. It seemed strange that they were still using old-fashioned cassette tapes to record interviews considering they had the newish piece of technology as well.

After a short while, Jessica heard the clanging of doors and then theirs was opened. Anthony Thompson walked in looking slightly disorientated, as if he had just woken up. His face was as red as it had been when she had last seen him and he was wearing the same green jumper. His grey hair had begun to mat together and it hung across his face, partially obscuring his view. Anthony sat where he was told and rubbed his eyes. Jessica wondered if he recognised her. If he did, he certainly didn’t acknowledge it. Reynolds asked if the man wanted a solicitor and if he was feeling okay. Jessica knew he would have been checked for drugs but there was something about the way his eyes seemed to drift in and out of focus that was disconcerting.