Текст книги "Jessica Daniel: Think of the Children / Playing with Fire / Thicker Than Water"

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

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Текущая страница: 27 (всего у книги 56 страниц)

11

As they exited Aidan’s office, Jessica could feel Reynolds’s discomfort. She waited for him to close the door and then he crossed the corridor, standing and staring at her. His dark hair was beginning to grey around his ears and at the front, the colour contrasting with the darkness of his skin.

‘Well?’ he said.

Jessica shrugged. ‘You saw what Ryan was like when we were at the house but you didn’t see the aggression after the fire or the way he talked about Sienna. It’s not what he said, it’s the way he said it.’

‘That doesn’t mean you should let his tutor break the law, let alone condone it.’

Jessica looked away, unable to meet her supervisor’s eye. She wondered how he might have taken her excursion to Anthony Thompson’s house. ‘There’s something not right,’ she said.

‘Like what?’

‘Just . . . something.’ Jessica didn’t know what it was herself. ‘Everything seems to be revolving around him. Did you see the way Aidan shifted around when I mentioned him? After the fire, he shoved Dave out of the way, even though he must have known he was an officer. He didn’t care.’

Jessica didn’t mention the way she had been barged.

‘That still doesn’t mean . . .’

Jessica interrupted before the inspector could finish. ‘What if Aidan has something that says Ryan has done something serious?’

Reynolds looked away, staring down the deserted hallway. ‘I can’t be involved.’

‘What if we miss something?’

The inspector turned to face Jessica, his face stern but his eyes wide. ‘I can’t be involved.’

His implication became clear. ‘Oh,’ Jessica replied. ‘Right.’

As she sat listening to the endless stream of ‘yeah’, ‘y’know’ and ‘y’what’ responses, Jessica remembered why her friend Caroline had been the only person worth hanging around with at school. Teenage girls really were annoying. Well, maybe not all of them but certainly the four she had spoken to so far. Sienna’s ‘clique’ as Aidan had called them didn’t seem to recognise the seriousness of their so-called friend killing herself.

The first young woman Jessica spoke to looked as if she was dressed for a night out rather than a class, her nails almost long enough to be offensive weapons. Her ‘Yeah, it’s like really bad about Si innit, y’know?’ was more or less the most literate thing she came out with.

As Jessica and Reynolds worked their way through talking to the rest of the group, the responses and concern did become a little more apparent – but Jessica had a constant nag in the back of her mind that the girls’ distress seemed to be more for themselves than their dead friend. It all added to her feeling that something wasn’t quite right about Sienna. None of them claimed to know she was pregnant, with all of them edgy about the nature of Sienna’s relationships. They all said she had no boyfriend but admitted she was friendly with Finlay Pierce – the name Ryan had given them. Even more curious was the reaction they gave when Jessica mentioned Ryan’s name. At first they all acted as if he was just a passing acquaintance, concluding that, although Sienna may have been friends with him, none of them really knew him.

Jessica knew Ryan had been in the fast-food restaurant with at least two of the girls when Andrew had taken photographs of them but she couldn’t figure out why they might lie. All she was sure of was that everything seemed to be revolving around him. A thought even ran through her mind that perhaps Anthony wasn’t missing through choice.

As the fourth girl left the classroom, Jessica looked at Reynolds sitting next to her. She lowered her voice as the rest of the room was empty and everything they said seemed to echo. ‘They don’t seem the best of friends, do they?’

The inspector shook his head and smiled wearily. ‘Are all teenage girls like this?’

‘I bloody wasn’t. Last summer I got caught in traffic on the way home because there was some prom going on at the high school. There were limos, horse-drawn carriages, double-decker buses and all sorts trying to pull into the car park. They had these dresses like giant parasols. Do you know what I did after my final day at school?’

Reynolds rolled his eyes. ‘Go on.’

‘I went to the park with a few mates and a giant bottle of cheap cider and we got pissed behind the bandstand. These kids today don’t know they’re born.’

‘Are you about to go off on one about the kids of today?’ Reynolds’s eyes twinkled as his smile widened.

Jessica slapped his arm. ‘You’re older than me.’

They were interrupted as the door opened and their final interviewee walked in. Because no one was under any suspicion and they were all eighteen, there was no need for any of the girls’ parents or any legal representation to be present. Jessica had assured the head teacher they were simply looking for background on Sienna. She didn’t mention that she was also trying to suss out Ryan.

The last young woman looked a little different from the four that had come before. Jessica could see it straight away from the way she walked. There was less confidence about her and she was not as dressed-up as her friends. She had short straight black hair tucked behind her ears and was wearing a pair of jeans with a checked shirt over a white vest-top. Jessica noticed a small mole in the dimple of one of the girl’s cheeks and, while she could see how young males might go for the almost airbrushed looks of the other girls, there was something more naturally attractive about the woman in front of them.

‘Are you Molly North?’ Jessica asked, checking the note she had written.

Molly nodded nervously, shuffling from one leg to the other before Reynolds gestured towards the chair. The young woman sat but stared at the table the two officers were seated behind, rather than focusing on them.

‘We wanted to talk to you about Sienna Todd, Molly. I understand you were one of her friends?’ Despite her frustration with the other young women, Jessica used the same reassuring tone she had tried with them.

Molly nodded. ‘Yeah.’

‘How well did you know her?’

‘Pretty well.’

‘We have been trying to find out if there was someone Sienna might have confided in? Maybe one friend she was closer to than anyone else . . . ?’ Jessica was trying to lead the girl, hoping for something other than one– or two-word responses.

Molly shrugged slightly but she appeared far more sombre than the rest of Sienna’s friends. They hadn’t seemed too keen to engage with the officers but the young woman in front of them was at least listening to the questions. ‘We have been friends a long time,’ Molly said. ‘Since primary school.’

‘Did Sienna ever confide in you about anything that could have led to what happened?’

Molly shook her head.

‘And you weren’t out with her on the night everything happened?’

Another head shake.

Jessica paused to think. ‘Do you mind if I say something that might sound a little harsh?’

Molly finally looked up and met Jessica’s gaze. Her eyes were wet but she wasn’t crying. ‘What?’

Jessica tried to sound as gentle as she could. ‘You seem very different from Sienna’s other friends. Perhaps Sienna herself? You dress differently, you walk differently. I don’t see how you fitted into their group.’

Molly laughed with no real joy. ‘You must be really good at your job to see that.’

It was a sarcastic remark but Jessica sensed no real spite to it. She tried to match the girl’s half-smile. ‘Tell me about Sienna.’

The young woman tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, clearly forcing herself not to cry but also suppressing a smile. ‘She wasn’t what you think.’

‘I don’t really think anything about her,’ Jessica said, largely telling the truth. ‘No one seems to know much other than her name and who she hung around with.’

‘Those other girls aren’t really her friends,’ Molly said, without prompting.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Her dad’s rich. He didn’t want Si to come here because he would have rather she went to a private college. They only latched on to her because she had money and didn’t mind spending it on them. That was all.’

Jessica had not met Sienna’s father because a support officer had been sent to tell him about what happened to his daughter. Because there was no murder or suspicious death investigation, she’d had no need to see him since. Despite that, Andrew Hunter had told her that Sienna’s father said he had allowed his daughter to go to a college he didn’t approve of because of her friends.

She wondered if it was one friend in particular.

‘Sienna came here to stay close to you, didn’t she?’ Jessica asked.

Molly smiled and nodded. ‘We were at school together. Best mates and all that. Her dad wasn’t rich then but he left Si’s mum and moved to this house out of the city when he made his money. We were about fourteen or fifteen. Si stayed with him but refused to change schools and then she wanted to come here with me. She was on this beauty course thing, even though she’s not interested in it. She was only doing it do we could carry on being friends.’

‘What course do you do?’ Jessica asked.

‘English lit but it’s on this campus.’

‘Is that why Sienna chose a course to do here?’ Molly shrugged but offered a half-nod at the same time. ‘Why did she hang around with those other girls if they’re not really her friends?’ Jessica asked.

Molly scratched her forehead and wiped her eyes. ‘She liked being liked.’

‘What about you?’

The young woman blinked rapidly and looked towards the door. ‘I liked her.’ The connotations of the ways she used the word ‘liked’ and then emphasised ‘her’ on the final occasion was not lost on Jessica. She didn’t know if it was fair to ask the question but Molly answered it anyway, as if sensing Jessica’s dilemma. ‘Si wasn’t like that if you’re wondering.’

‘Why do you think she might have killed herself?’ Jessica asked, trying not to sound overly blunt.

Molly shuffled uneasily in her chair, still looking towards the door. ‘I don’t know.’ Her words sounded shaky and untrue.

‘Did you know Sienna had an abortion?’ The young woman shook her head but Jessica could see it was a lie. The other girls had struggled to hide their surprise but Molly barely reacted. ‘Do you know if Sienna was seeing anyone?’

‘No.’

‘You don’t know or she definitely wasn’t?’

‘She wasn’t going out with anyone.’

The fact Sienna didn’t appear to have a regular boyfriend was at least something all of her friends, plus Ryan, agreed on. From the second-hand information Andrew had passed to her, it seemed that was the impression her father was under too.

‘Did you know Sienna cut herself?’ Jessica asked.

Molly winced slightly and tugged at the sleeve of her own shirt, pulling it down further. ‘I didn’t know,’ she replied, although Jessica couldn’t judge whether the response was genuine.

‘How well do you know Ryan Chadwick?’

Jessica saw the young woman stiffen, her arms locked to her side momentarily and her expression taut. A strand of hair unhooked itself from behind Molly’s ear and drifted across her face. She did nothing to move it.

‘Molly?’

‘He’s one of the lads. Si knew him better than I did.’

‘Was she ever in a relationship with him?’

Molly spoke without thinking. ‘I don’t know.’

‘What do you think of him?’

The young woman pushed out her bottom lip and then sucked it in, chewing on it anxiously. ‘I don’t really know him.’

‘But he hung around with the people you hung around with?’ Jessica had seen similar responses from the other girls but no one seemed to want to give her any further information. She sensed that Molly was close if she could find the right way in.

The woman shrugged and stared towards the door once more. ‘Can I go?’

Jessica sighed. ‘Are you sure there isn’t something else you might want to tell me? About your friend? Or Ryan? Something important? We’re trying to help.’

Molly didn’t reply but Jessica saw her gulp, her eyes blinking furiously. ‘I have to go,’ she eventually said.

The two women stood at the same time, Reynolds continuing to sit. Jessica could sense he felt uncomfortable and she thought how Izzy would have been a much better bet to come along if she wasn’t on maternity leave.

Before Molly could reach the door, Jessica caught her. ‘Hang on,’ she said, taking a business card out of her jacket pocket along with a pen. The printed part included the station’s phone number but Jessica turned it over and pressed against the doorframe to add her mobile number, passing it to Molly. ‘Call me any time – even if it’s late.’

The young woman took the card and pushed it into her jeans pocket, before opening the door and letting herself out without reply.

Jessica turned to face Reynolds, who was now standing next to the table. ‘I’m going back to the car,’ he said. ‘You should come too.’

‘Don’t you see it?’ Jessica asked, stifling her frustration. ‘Everyone has the same reaction when we talk to them about Ryan. There’s something not right with him.’

The inspector shook his head. ‘You’re seeing what you want to. He was aggressive at the house because you tried to provoke him. He was always going to be upset after the fire. Then these girls, they’re telling you they don’t really know him but you’re not listening.’

He didn’t sound angry, more annoyed. If anything, that made it harder for Jessica to judge his mood. She had seen him lose his temper in the past but never with her. She didn’t know if he was genuinely annoyed, or simply trying to give her advice.

‘It’s not just that . . .’ Jessica replied.

When she failed to add anything further, Reynolds shook his head again. ‘I’ll see you in the car. Whatever you do, I don’t want to hear about it.’

With that, he strode past Jessica out of the room.

As the door swished closed in front of her, Jessica rested her head on the doorframe. She wondered if her supervisor was right. Was she really allowing her judgement to be clouded? The truth was, she didn’t know if Ryan was involved in the things that were going on. He just always seemed to be there. A few years ago she had become obsessed with her then-DCI – John Farraday. That had not ended well and, although no one except the former chief inspector knew what had happened, it was still something she thought about on nights she lay awake.

Jessica took a deep breath and then opened the classroom door. The corridor was deserted, although she could hear a low hum of voices coming from the various rooms. Jessica followed her way back through the passageways until she found Aidan’s office, knocking loudly on the frame and instantly hearing a ‘come in’ from the inside.

Aidan was sitting in the same spot he had been in a little over an hour beforehand. On the desk in front of him was a cardboard folder. Jessica motioned to sit but the teacher simply held out the wallet for her to take.

‘Can I trust you with these?’ he asked before releasing his grip.

‘Absolutely,’ Jessica replied, taking the documents. For a moment she thought Aidan was going to add something but he stayed silent as she lifted the flap and pulled out five sheets of paper.

She skimmed through the contents, her eyes widening with each turn of the page, before Aidan cleared his throat. ‘As well as being their form tutor, we run a formal social education module over the two years,’ he said. ‘They have to hand in three essays a year on various subjects but, for this subject only, we require them to write their work by hand as opposed to type. It’s our way of ensuring they have a degree of literacy.’

‘And this is Ryan’s?’ Jessica asked.

‘Yes.’

‘How long ago did he write it?’

‘Maybe two months ago? Not long.’

Jessica flicked back to the first page. The sheet was covered in untidy blue ink but it wasn’t the words she was interested in. Through the margins of all five sheets, Ryan had apparently been unable to stop himself doodling. Footballs and three-dimensional cubes were on the first two pages but it was the final three which concerned Jessica. Crudely drawn daggers and knives littered the third, with the fourth and fifth littered with a mass of spiky horizontal lines that was undoubtedly meant to be a wall of flames.

12

Jessica waited at the station after her shift had finished, not wanting to sit in yet more queuing traffic for her journey home. She hadn’t mentioned the drawings to Reynolds but couldn’t resist flicking through them as she sat in her office by herself. Jessica tried to see a way that the final sheets could be anything but flames but there was no mistaking them.

The memory of how she used to constantly draw along the bottom margins of her exercise books when she was younger was at the front of Jessica’s mind. She would doodle hearts and elephants. She couldn’t draw anything else with any amount of accuracy but the hearts were easy and, for whatever reason, she had a vague talent for sketching an elephant which actually looked like one.

As for Ryan’s art, she might be able to accept the knives because of their simplicity in the same way that she used to draw hearts. The fire seemed too close to home considering what his father had done, not to mention his own house had burned down. The thought had crossed her mind that maybe he had set the fire, although the reasoning made little sense.

Jessica put the papers back into the cardboard folder, wedging them underneath a stack of files on the edge of her desk, not knowing what to do with them. Reynolds didn’t want to know about what she had and, given where they had come from and the grey area – at best – surrounding data protection and confidentiality issues, Jessica wasn’t sure she should take them to Cole, especially since he knew about her trespassing. On their own, the sketches proved very little.

After making sure the document folder wasn’t exposed, Jessica made her way out to her car. From what she had been told, very little else had happened while she had been at the college. Anthony hadn’t been found and initial tests on the paint tin and petrol can revealed nothing except for fingerprints they could test against Anthony’s when they finally found him. Not that it would matter if they couldn’t connect the objects to the scene. The team going door-to-door on the Chadwicks’ street had failed to come up with any suspicious sightings or information about who could be responsible for the arson. Depending on how the Crown Prosecution Service saw things, it could even be attempted murder.

Jessica had timed her journey well and cruised home so easily that the lack of red traffic lights was almost unnerving. The stop-start nature of commuting across the city was incredibly frustrating but was always there in the same way that grey skies were.

As she walked through the front door, Jessica could smell something intoxicating drifting from the kitchen. She walked through the door ahead, where Adam was standing with his back to her facing the cooker. Even from behind, she could tell exactly which T-shirt he was wearing. It was the crimson one with an enlarged head of a comic-book character printed on the front. She’d known he was a bit of a nerd for cartoons before she moved in but only realised what she was letting herself in for when it was too late. At least a third of all his tops featured some sort of character she either didn’t recognise or hadn’t seen since she was a child.

‘You’re late,’ he said, without turning around.

Jessica strolled across the kitchen and put her arms around his waist, snaking them up around his chest until she was hugging into the back of him. His straggly shoulder-length black hair tickled the side of her face as she replied playfully, ‘Whatcha cooking?’

‘Nothing for you.’

Jessica hugged him tighter as he stirred a pot of what looked like dark red sauce. ‘That’s a lot for just one person to eat.’

‘It’s for on-time people.’

She kissed the back of Adam’s neck in the spot she knew would make him giggle. Jessica felt his body crease from his hips upwards until he turned to face her with a large smile on his face.

‘That’s cheating.’

Jessica grinned back. ‘What can I say? I’m a cheater.’ She pulled him into her and hugged him tightly. It was her way of telling him she had not been having a good day at the station. Jessica always felt cagey sharing her work thoughts with anyone and she could see Adam had learned over the short while they had been living together that she would tell him things if she wanted to. Other than that, he never asked about how everything was going.

‘What’s it like working a four-day week?’ she asked as he released her and turned back to the stove.

‘Good. What’s it like working a seven-day week?’

Jessica laughed. ‘I don’t work seven days.’

‘It seems like it.’

It didn’t take any of Jessica’s skills for her to know there was a lot of truth in Adam’s words.

‘How is the job?’ she asked, trying not to dwell on what he had said.

When they had met, Adam worked in the laboratories which served the police force. Almost a year ago, when they weren’t seeing each other, he had applied for a job working for the science department at Manchester Metropolitan University. After hearing nothing, he had forgotten about it until they called him unexpectedly a few months previously asking if he was still interested and, if so, whether he could start in the new year. It was a research-based job with a small amount of support teaching but Jessica was convinced he had it easy because he worked four ten-hour days and always had weekends off.

‘It’s hard work,’ Adam replied, not turning around. ‘I’m going to have to start bringing stuff home soon because we’re working on a big project. It could be worth millions to the university.’

Jessica asked for more details but he replied with a string of science-sounding gobbledygook. ‘You’ve just made those words up, haven’t you?’ she said.

‘It’s not my fault I have an education, Jess,’ Adam replied with his standard argument whenever she accused him of being a ‘science geek’.

The gnocchi and meatballs Adam prepared were quite a treat and Jessica even suggested sitting at the dining table in the living room, as opposed to eating from their laps, in order to do the meal justice. Adam said they could open a bottle of wine but Jessica didn’t feel like having any. She wondered if he knew her well enough to realise she was refusing because she wanted to be able to drive just in case a call came through that something else had happened. If he did see through her, he didn’t complain – but then he rarely did.

In some ways, that annoyed Jessica more. She wanted him to be angry with her and object to the way she left her phone on and how she stayed at work late. He would offer little digs every now and then but he was too nice to really have a go at her.

After the meal, Jessica did the dishes, which seemed only fair, before cuddling up to Adam on the sofa to watch something on television that neither of them were particularly interested in.

Jessica curled her feet underneath her, resting her head on his shoulder. ‘How’s Caroline?’ Adam asked.

‘She’s all right. She sent me one of her long emails at work yesterday, saying how the divorce is all sorted but they’re going to rent out the flat over on the Quays that they own. They don’t want to make a loss selling. She was going out with this other lad but I don’t think it’s going anywhere.’

‘You should invite her over.’

‘I have. I think she’s still a bit embarrassed about the divorce. After that, it was a bit awkward when we were living together again.’

As Jessica was talking, her phone began to ring. She unwrapped herself from Adam and reached to answer it. Mouthing a ‘sorry’, she pressed the button to answer Andrew Hunter’s call.

‘Been following any more young girls around with cameras today?’ she asked jokingly, walking out of the living room.

‘Good evening to you too,’ he replied.

‘What are you after?’

‘A bit of information perhaps?’

Jessica climbed halfway up the staircase, before turning around and sitting, resting her head against the wall. ‘You know there isn’t much I can tell you about anything.’

‘I told you everything I knew about Ryan, Sienna and Harley,’ Andrew insisted.

‘That’s because I work for the police and you had to!’

Jessica could hear Andrew laugh at the other end of the phone. ‘Yeah, I didn’t think that line would work but figured it was worth a try.’

‘Go on, what are you after?’ Jessica put on a deliberately weary voice as if to tell the investigator she was going out of her way to even listen to him.

‘I was wondering if Sienna’s death had been confirmed as suicide?’

Jessica knew she shouldn’t technically give any information away but Andrew had found the body and she had the feeling he was more affected by it than he was willing to let on.

‘It’s not a hundred per cent but it seems almost certain,’ she replied.

There was a long pause at the other end of the line, except for Andrew’s breathing. ‘Why did she do it?’ His question sounded almost desperate.

‘Are you asking for personal or professional reasons?’ Jessica asked. ‘We haven’t been able to go back to her father with anything concrete yet. He’s not asking through you, is he?’

‘No, sorry. I know I shouldn’t be asking. Honestly it’s nothing to do with Harley. I don’t know why I called.’

Jessica had a feeling he was being genuine. ‘We don’t know why she did it. I went to talk to her school friends but none of them appeared to know very much. Her father didn’t seem to know enough about her and one of the other officers questioned the boy you saw her kissing. He insists he’s not her boyfriend and that he couldn’t have got her pregnant because they had never slept together.’

Jessica didn’t know why she had used the word ‘boy’ to describe Finn, who was eighteen. Despite their age, something about the behaviour of them all seemed immature. Hanging around fast-food restaurants and having a snog in a dark corner weren’t the types of thing she associated with adults.

For a few seconds, she could only hear Andrew’s breathing before he finally replied. ‘Thank you.’

‘What are you doing now?’ Jessica asked.

‘It’s complicated. Harley is still paying me. I’ve told him there isn’t much I can do because it’s a police investigation but he says you’ll never get to the bottom of it. He can’t fathom why his little girl might have killed herself. He’s desperate to know who got her pregnant. I guess he thinks the person could be involved with what happened.’

‘If you do find out, you’d better tell me first.’

Jessica was serious. She hadn’t met Harley but she didn’t want to risk him getting hold of the young man before she did if he was as suspicious and angry as Andrew made him sound.

Andrew didn’t reply at first and only half-answered the request when he finally did. ‘I won’t do anything stupid.’

‘Have you got anything else?’ Jessica asked.

‘No, but . . . can you tell me when you get a final verdict about Sienna?’

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘Thanks.’

Jessica ended the call and made her way down the stairs, clutching her lower back. Although the carpet was comfortable, the position she had twisted herself into ultimately was not. She had been feeling a few twinges in her back and legs in recent months and didn’t want to admit to herself that it could be age-related. Adam knew better than to suggest anything along those lines.

Jessica made her way back to the sofa but Adam had changed the way he was sitting, making it uncomfortable for her to cuddle into him. She didn’t know if it was deliberate.

‘Everything all right?’ he asked.

‘Just work stuff.’

Adam didn’t say anything but she knew he was annoyed, even if silently so. She thought he would sit quietly watching the television but instead he surprised her. ‘Do you think it’s time to set a date yet?’

It was the first time he had mentioned it in around six weeks but Jessica knew then that it would come up again. They had got engaged months previously and he bought her a ring – even though it had been her who’d popped the question. Since then, nothing had happened.

At first Adam seemed keen to look for venues and start thinking about dates but Jessica had stalled, saying she was busy at work, which was partly true. She still liked the idea of marrying him, just not everything that went with it. The dress, the cake, the tearful parents, the negotiations over guest lists and the rest of it seemed like things other people did. Things that adults did.

She also didn’t know how to tell him that she wanted to live somewhere else. This house had belonged to his grandmother and he had inherited it after her death. She knew that meant he felt a connection to it and didn’t want to take that away from him. As she lay awake at night, scenarios would run through her mind of the best way to bring the matter up but she had never been good at talking about serious issues or explaining her feelings to anyone. She had grown closer to Adam than anyone she had ever known, including Caroline and her parents, but, for whatever reason, she couldn’t bring herself to confide her latest insecurities.

‘Maybe the summer after this one,’ Jessica replied, thinking it was vague enough to not commit her to anything.

Adam had also inherited some money when his grandmother died. It wasn’t a huge amount but he insisted it should be used to pay for the wedding. After becoming engaged, Jessica was all for telling her parents over the phone in order to play it down as much as possible. They lived around a hundred miles north in the Lake District and Adam was adamant they should tell them in person. She agreed to do things his way and, after mockingly getting down on his knees to thank Adam for taking her off his hands, Jessica’s father said he wanted to pay for the ceremony too. That all meant money wasn’t a problem, leaving Jessica’s own feelings the only obstacle in their way.

‘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.