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

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

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Текущая страница: 30 (всего у книги 56 страниц)

‘He’s just so bloody happy and enthusiastic. Everything’s “wonderful”, “great” or “brilliant”. Either that or “fab”. Honestly, anyone that uses the word “fab” without being ironic deserves shooting.’

Jessica felt Adam pull her tighter towards him. ‘There’s nothing wrong with enjoying your job.’

‘Not that much. I don’t trust anyone who isn’t thoroughly miserable when they’re at work.’

She felt Adam’s chest bobbing as he laughed. ‘You’re so weird.’

Jessica snorted. ‘You’re marrying me.’

She felt Adam’s chest calm. ‘Yes, I am.’ He kissed the top of her hair. ‘Not here though?’

‘Nah, he’d drive me bloody crazy. What’s that sash thing around his waist?’

‘It’s a cummerbund.’

‘But why would you wear it to work? The guy’s a lunatic. It wouldn’t surprise me to find loads of people have gone missing from this hotel and their body parts are in his freezer. No one can be that cheery on a Sunday afternoon.’

Adam started laughing again, standing and holding his hand to help Jessica up. ‘Now I know you’re working too hard,’ he said.

Jessica allowed him to pull her into a brief hug, before he released her. ‘I should go and tell him it’s not for us,’ he said.

‘I’ll meet you at the car.’

Jessica began to walk across the car park, taking her phone out of her pocket to find no one had bothered to contact her in the time they had spent looking at – and rejecting – three potential wedding venues. After days with nothing other than confirmation the blaze at Harley Todd’s house had been started deliberately, she thought it could be a distraction from an arson case that seemed to be going nowhere. Reynolds was still having Martin Chadwick’s past looked into but nothing had come up so far.

Jessica sat in the driver’s seat before Adam clambered into the passenger’s side a few minutes later. ‘Was he all right?’ she asked.

‘He didn’t try to kidnap me and shove me into a freezer if that’s what you’re asking.’

Jessica laughed. ‘That’s exactly what I was asking.’

Adam reached across and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Are you all right? It’s fine that you’ve not liked any of the places we’ve been to today but I wanted to make sure you still want to go through with it.’

In the instant he finished speaking, Jessica felt a lump in her throat and blinked furiously to stop herself from crying. She didn’t know how to tell him what she was feeling. She wanted to marry him but, at the same time, something didn’t feel right. Jessica wondered if it was butterflies that anyone might have, or something unique to her that was making her feel that way. She knew Adam loved her more than anyone had or probably would. The problem was that, increasingly, Sebastian was drifting into her mind. A man she had only met properly once. She knew it could be only a physical thing. Did it make you a bad person if you were seeing somebody but were attracted to someone else? It was the type of thing she might have spoken to Caroline about a few years ago, or maybe Izzy if she wasn’t on maternity leave. It felt like the kind of knowledge she should have, given she was a grown adult, but she didn’t remember the ‘How do you stop yourself messing up a relationship’ class when she was at school.

‘I’m just waiting to see the right place,’ Jessica croaked before turning the engine on. She pulled out of the car park and headed onto the main road. Adam hadn’t seemed to pick up on her moment of insecurity and chatted about his week as Jessica made sure to say ‘yes’ and ‘uh-huh’ at the correct moments.

Within moments of joining the M60, Jessica felt her pocket begin to vibrate. ‘Can you get that,’ she said, lifting her hip up from the seat and angling it towards Adam. ‘I forgot to turn the Bluetooth on.’

She felt Adam reach into her trousers and pull her mobile phone out before putting it to his ear. After explaining who he was to whoever was calling, Jessica heard him say, ‘oh’, ‘right’ and finally, ‘all right, I’ll tell her’.

‘Who was that?’ Jessica asked as she heard the beep to signal the call was over.

‘It was Jason. He, um, had some bad news. He said it was all right for me to tell you.’

Jessica felt a rush of adrenaline in her chest, thinking it must be something to do with one of the Chadwicks. She certainly didn’t expect the news he actually had.

Adam gulped, speaking gently and deliberately. ‘Someone called Molly North is dead.’

17

It was only when Jessica saw scenes like the one in front of her that she struggled to conceive how Britain only stopped hanging people in the 1960s. It wasn’t that she had any especially strong feelings for or against capital punishment – she understood the arguments from both sides – simply that being hanged in particular seemed so brutal. If state-sponsored killing was ever brought back, there surely had to be a more humane way to do it.

Molly North’s bedroom reminded Jessica of her own from when she had been a similar age. While Caroline adorned her walls with posters of pop stars and one footballer whom she had a crush on, Jessica left hers plain. Instead, she had rows of books and a mixture of compact discs and cassette tapes shoved onto two shelves next to her bed. Unsurprisingly, she couldn’t see any cassettes in Molly’s room but there were rows of books lining the otherwise clear walls.

The lampshade was upside down on the carpet, with small flecks of blood next to it and a leather belt that had a neat cut mark through it. Although the body had been removed, it was the way the belt had been snipped which had Jessica thinking about her own childhood.

‘What happened?’ Jessica asked Reynolds, who was standing next to her.

‘Her mum and dad went out for Sunday lunch, came home and shouted up to say hello. When there was no reply, her mum came up and found her hanging from a beam in her room. Her dad cut through the belt but it was too late.’

Jessica didn’t know what to say, other than a pitiful-sounding, ‘That’s horrible.’

Neither of the officers moved, silently taking in the surroundings before the Scene of Crime team came in to catalogue everything and take photographs.

‘What are you thinking?’ Reynolds asked.

‘I don’t know. Two suicides, two fires, we don’t even know if they’re connected.’ A thought occurred to her. ‘Was there a note?’

‘Not that anyone has found. The Scene of Crime boys will have a proper look around but you would have thought it would be left out in the open if there was.’

Jessica peered around the room from the doorway but, aside from the lampshade, blood and belt, the only thing that didn’t seem quite right was how tidy it was. She wondered if it was always like that, or if Molly had cleaned her own room before hanging herself.

Reynolds walked across to the window and peered outside, before turning to face Jessica. ‘Do you think she killed herself because of her feelings for Sienna?’

Jessica shook her head. ‘I don’t know. She seemed more savvy than that. Obviously she was upset but it’s a large jump from that to . . . this.’

‘Why else would she do it?’

Reynolds’s question sounded more rhetorical than something for her to answer. Jessica spotted two framed photographs next to the bed. She stepped carefully across the room and sat on the bed before picking one up.

It seemed as if it had been taken relatively recently, perhaps in the last year or so. Both young women were wearing shorts and small T-shirts and appeared to be in a garden or a park. Molly looked exactly as she had on the day Jessica interviewed her. The woman’s short dark hair was tucked behind her ears and she had an arm draped around Sienna’s shoulders. Jessica had only seen pictures of Sienna after her death but had to admit she was truly stunning. In the photo, her T-shirt was tied to expose her stomach with her shorts only just long enough to cover the area where Jessica knew she cut herself. Her long blonde hair fell seductively, framing her face. She had one arm around Molly’s waist and was giving a thumbs-up to the camera with the other. Jessica struggled not to smile at the image. It reminded her of touring south-east Asia with Caroline when they left college. There were all sorts of photographs in an album or a box somewhere that were exactly like the one she was looking at: two young women hugging and grinning with their lives ahead of them.

She put the picture down and shuffled uncomfortably on the mattress, trying to get comfortable. There was a section close to the edge that felt softer than the rest and she had partially sunk into it. Jessica picked up the second photo in which Molly and Sienna were still children, perhaps eleven or twelve years old. They were on a beach but the framing was a lot tighter and Jessica couldn’t see much more than their smiling youthful faces.

As she put down the second picture, for a reason she didn’t want to think about, Sebastian popped into Jessica’s mind again.

‘You know what the news is going to say, don’t you?’ she said.

Reynolds caught her eye from across the room, telling her he knew. ‘We don’t have anything to say there’s any sort of suicide ring going on around here.’

‘I know that but it’s not going to stop them writing it – or hinting and letting people put two and two together. Before we know it we’ll have every parent with a teenager keeping them inside because they think they’re part of some cult.’

‘What can we do?’ Reynolds replied. ‘If we tell the press office to brief against this, it’s going to risk giving the media a story they don’t have. Even after that, there would be nothing to stop them writing it the way they want anyway.’

Jessica thought about his response for a few moments and then changed the subject. ‘Are we going to be okay talking to the parents?’

Reynolds crossed back to where Jessica was standing, walking past her with an implication that she should follow. ‘To a degree. They’ve got a support officer with them. The father wanted to talk earlier but we were waiting for his wife to settle. Ideally we would leave them for a while but if there is anything deeper going on here . . .’ He tailed off without finishing his sentence.

As they made their way downstairs, Jessica thought she would never have known anything untoward had happened in the house if it wasn’t for the items on the floor of Molly’s bedroom. The hallways and stairs were covered with a thick, fluffy pink carpet and pictures of Molly and adults Jessica assumed were her parents lined the walls. It was very suburban, very normal.

Reynolds led Jessica into a living room where a support officer and two uniformed officers were sitting on chairs facing the people who Jessica had seen in the photographs. Reynolds introduced himself and Jessica to Molly’s parents and apologised for their regular clothes. Jessica had dropped Adam at home before heading to the house still in the jeans and jumper she had been wearing all day. The inspector was wearing something similarly casual but the young woman’s parents, who introduced themselves as Peter and Nicola, waved away their apologies.

The other officers left the room and closed the door as the Scene of Crime team arrived. Reynolds had already told Jessica they were running late because of a large traffic accident involving a lorry and a shop front in the city centre.

The paramedics had transported the body but the bedroom still needed to be examined.

Jessica was struck by how much Peter North looked like his daughter. He was somewhere in his forties but they shared the same facial structure and had a dimple in the same spot on their cheeks. Nicola looked older than her husband but Jessica put a lot of that down to the trauma of what had happened. Her eyes were red and swollen.

Peter did much of the talking, telling them more or less the same as what Reynolds had already spoken about upstairs. It was the little details that struck Jessica. He mentioned that they always went to the same pub for Sunday lunch because of the way they cooked the roast potatoes. He said they were ready to leave but met a couple they knew. Because of that, they stopped for an extra coffee they might not usually have had. Nicola hadn’t looked up from the tissue she was holding until her husband said that, at which point she blew her nose loudly and burst into tears.

Reynolds caught Jessica’s eye to say they would have to be quick in getting anything else they needed because the woman clearly wasn’t up to it. As he comforted his wife, Peter explained that Nicola had gone upstairs when Molly hadn’t responded to their arrival home. He rushed up after her when the screaming started.

‘It was my belt,’ was all he could conclude. Jessica knew that single detail would be something that would stay with him. What if he had worn different trousers and needed that belt? What if they hadn’t stopped for the extra coffee? She knew there was nothing she could say that would make either of them feel any better.

‘Did you have any reason to think she might be unhappy?’ Jessica asked as tactfully as she could manage.

Peter shook his head. ‘She was upset over her friend Sienna. They were so close. They had been friends for ages. Sienna used to sleep over here and then Molly would stay at theirs. Well, not recently. Not since her dad left her mum and bought the new house.’

‘Do you know if the two girls had fallen out?’ Jessica asked.

Peter went to answer but Nicola spoke across him. Her voice was throaty, dry, and sounded painful. ‘They used to fall out when they were younger, much younger. But they grew out of it like most girls do.’

Jessica directly addressed Nicola. ‘Do you know why either Sienna or Molly might want to do something like this?’

Nicola’s bottom lip started to wobble again at the mention of her daughter’s name. She shook her head. ‘No.’

Peter stood and walked behind where they were sitting. The daylight had almost gone and he twisted a cord which closed the blinds before returning to sit next to his wife.

‘Were there any other friends Molly was close to?’ Jessica asked.

Nicola shook her head again. ‘There were some girls she used to hang around with but that was because they were Sienna’s friends. I know she didn’t think much of them.’

As his wife tailed off, Peter spoke. ‘I kept expecting her to bring home some boy I inevitably wouldn’t like. At first it was a bit of a joke but then I just left her to it. You’re not supposed to like your daughter’s boyfriends, are you? I was always waiting for one not to like.’

Jessica watched the man gulp and wipe his face with the back of his hand. She glanced at Nicola, who caught her eye. It was only for a moment but Jessica could tell that Molly’s mother knew exactly why her daughter hadn’t been bringing home boyfriends. Jessica nodded a fraction to acknowledge what the woman was saying without words and, in that silent understanding, Jessica felt a lump in her own throat.

She blinked furiously, fighting back tears she didn’t understand. She’d had the same feelings in the car with Adam earlier in the day but that was over a different issue and Jessica couldn’t fathom why she was struggling to deal with her emotions. She had been able to put a brave face on most things through her career but, perhaps because they reminded her so much of herself and Caroline at that age, she was feeling attached to the two teenage girls.

Reynolds didn’t peer towards her but it felt as if he was aware of her feelings as he took up the questioning, clarifying a few things they needed for their records and checking to see if the names of Molly’s friends matched the ones they already had.

When he had finished, Reynolds stood and shook hands with Molly’s parents. Jessica followed suit, again locking eyes with Nicola. She felt like hugging the woman instead.

Both officers left contact numbers in case either of the parents thought of anything else they might need to know. The support officer re-entered and Jessica could hear the investigating officers working upstairs.

She walked alongside Reynolds down the pathway towards their respective cars. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘Sorry, I don’t know what came over me. I just . . . I don’t even know what to say. It seems like such a waste.’

As they rounded a corner to head towards where they were parked, Reynolds stretched out an arm and pulled Jessica towards him. When they shared an office, they had been much closer than recently. She rested her head on his shoulder briefly before pulling away. ‘Thanks,’ she said, meaning it.

He smiled. ‘We should share an office again. I miss having someone leaving their mess on my side.’

Jessica laughed wearily. ‘What on earth is going on?’ she asked, knowing her question was as unanswerable as Reynolds’s had been in Molly’s bedroom.

The moment was interrupted as Reynolds’s phone started ringing. He fumbled in his pockets before finally finding it in an inside section of his jacket. He reminded Jessica of her dad and the way he lost his glasses case.

Her moment of amusement didn’t last long as she saw his eyes widen in surprise before he hung up. ‘You didn’t have plans tonight, did you?’

‘No, why?’

‘Someone just tried to set fire to Anthony Thompson’s house.’

18

After the hours she had put in over the weekend, Jessica spent Monday morning sitting around the house having been ordered by Cole not to be at the station – or do anything relating to the job – until lunchtime. She knew he had done it because he wanted her to rest but being in the house she still thought of as Adam’s when she would have much rather been at work wasn’t good for her mood.

When they had spoken on the phone the previous evening as she left Anthony Thompson’s house, the chief inspector’s exact words had been, ‘Get a lie-in’. Whether he was implying she looked as if she needed a good night’s sleep was something that Jessica didn’t want to ask. She knew the answer was ‘yes’ but that didn’t mean she could flick a switch and suddenly start sleeping solidly again. Her late-night thoughts were haunted by Adam and Sebastian as well as Sienna and Molly. With the time she spent commuting and general problems with sleeping, Jessica was finding herself alone with her thoughts far too often.

When she lived on her own, Jessica had long watched late-night reruns of early-morning talkshows. She wouldn’t have admitted it to her colleagues or friends but the family arguments, DNA tests and general confrontational nature of them was something she pretended to hate but secretly watched when it was just her. Since moving in with Adam, she had largely given up her vice but, with the television remote to herself and an empty living room, Jessica allowed the morning show to take her mind away from everything she had going on.

She pictured Anthony Thompson in one of the seats, with Ryan storming on. ‘YOU BURNED MY SON, NOW I’LL BURN YOUR HOUSE’ was the strapline across the bottom, with a DNA test at the end to figure out who the father of Sienna’s baby was.

Just after midday, Jessica left the house and drove to the station, sitting in the car park to ensure Cole would not accuse her of cheating on his demand that she rest. He had scheduled a senior briefing for one o’clock where they could go over everything properly for the first time – including the events of the previous evening.

Jessica walked straight up to his office. Through the glass walls she could already see that Cole was sitting behind his desk, with DS Cornish, Reynolds and Rowlands packed into chairs across from him. Rowlands wouldn’t usually be a part of such meetings, so his presence surprised Jessica as she entered. Because of how closely everyone was sitting, Jessica had to push the remaining empty chair out of the way so she could open the door fully and close it, before manoeuvring the seat back behind the door so she could sit. Realistically, there was only room for the DCI plus two other people to sit comfortably. She winked at Rowlands, who was wedged in between his two supervisors with his arms crossed looking awkward.

‘We have got the good, the bad and the ugly squeezed in here,’ Jessica said as she sat down.

‘Who’s who?’ Cole asked with a smile.

‘Louise is the good, obviously, because she’s female. Dave’s the ugly, because, well, look at him. And I guess that makes Jase the bad.’

DS Cornish laughed, with Rowlands scowling and unfolding his arms, throwing them up in the air in mock protest.

Reynolds replied with a smile. ‘The black man’s always the bad guy, is he?’

‘Well, it’s either that or ugly, so take your pick.’

The inspector looked from Jessica to Rowlands then back again. ‘Fair enough. I’m the bad guy.’

Jessica saw Cole smiling broadly before he quietened them down. ‘Did you enjoy your morning off?’ he asked her.

‘I slept all morning just like you said.’

It was clear from the chief inspector’s raised eyebrows that he didn’t believe her.

‘All right then,’ he said. ‘We have had some information back this morning which will bring everyone up to date on the attack on Anthony Thompson’s house last night.’ He turned to Reynolds. ‘Jason?’

The inspector looked at a set of papers in his hand and pushed his chair back slightly to make sure the others could see him better. ‘Jess was with me last night, so she knows some of this but some of you are new, so I’ll go through it all. Yesterday evening, while Jess and myself were attending to another matter, we got a call to say someone had tried to set fire to Anthony Thompson’s house. The person who lives opposite spotted someone prowling around just after dark. They saw him hanging around Anthony’s front door with something they said looked suspicious. They left their house and crossed the road, which led to the person running off. It was only then he smelled petrol and called us. No fire was started but large parts of the front of Anthony’s house had been covered in it.’

‘Was Anthony inside?’ Louise asked.

Reynolds nodded. ‘Yes but he didn’t hear anything. He was a bit . . . wired.’

‘How do you mean?’

Jessica answered: ‘He’s hard to read. You never know if he’s drunk, high, or just putting it on. Sometimes it’s like a combination of all three. He was there but he seemed oblivious to it all. His neighbour ended up cleaning the door for him.’

Louise seemed confused but Jessica thought she didn’t know the half of it considering she hadn’t met the man. ‘Did we get any sort of description?’ she asked.

Reynolds shook his head. ‘Not really, just a man in dark clothing. Relatively thin, quick at running, that sort of thing.’

‘What about a petrol can?’ DS Cornish added.

‘He ran off with whatever he stored the liquid in. It must have been fairly heavy before he emptied everything out of it, so he might have had a vehicle nearby. We have been going door-to-door this morning but can’t find anyone else who saw it. No footprints or anything else on site either.’

Jessica knew Ryan didn’t drive, but that didn’t necessarily rule him out in her mind. Just because it was heavy, it wouldn’t be impossible to carry.

‘Do we have any obvious suspects?’ Cornish asked.

Reynolds glanced quickly at Jessica before turning back to face the others. He knew she was thinking of Ryan Chadwick. ‘We’re not sure. Not really. Obviously there are connections to both Martin and Ryan Chadwick. I spoke to my source at the hotel they are staying at earlier who told me that neither of the two men were on site as far as they know. They’re not completely sure about Ryan but Martin was definitely away. From what I’m told, he leaves the hotel late morning or at lunchtime every day and doesn’t return until later in the evening.’

Jessica remembered her conversation with him in the back of the van, when he spoke about his drinking. She hoped he hadn’t returned to that and, more than anything, she hoped he had an alibi and wasn’t involved.

Louise had been working on a different case but Jessica assumed she had been brought in to listen to everything as a fresh set of ears. ‘Do we have anything we might be able to bring him in on?’ she asked.

Reynolds waved towards Cole. ‘I don’t know. We were talking about this earlier. The guy was released from prison and served his time so we have got to be careful. In essence, he has no connection to Anthony Thompson, other than what happened in the past. It’s circumstantial that he wasn’t at the hotel. We could see if he has an alibi but we don’t want to be seen to be harassing him.’

He glanced at Jessica before continuing, clearing his throat. ‘That said, I’ve had people looking into Martin’s past and his old school was burned down a year before he was arrested for the fire that killed Alfie Thompson.’

It was the first Jessica had heard about it. ‘Seriously?’ she blurted out.

Reynolds nodded. ‘Yes. He was never a suspect and, other than the fact he went there, there’s nothing to link him to it. It’s just something to bear in mind.’

‘Let’s not forget his house was burned down too,’ Jessica reminded everyone.

All five officers looked at each other as if searching for inspiration. ‘We’re clutching at straws,’ Reynolds said. ‘Maybe someone’s trying to set Martin up? Maybe someone’s out for revenge on him or Anthony? If any of you have any theories, they would be most welcome.’

Again, no one said anything and Jessica could only think of Ryan.

Before the silence could last too long, Cole interrupted. ‘Moving on for now, I’ve got an update on our two suicides.’ He picked up a folder from his desk, before shuffling some papers around and picking up the one he wanted. ‘I think you all know the details about Sienna Todd, the first victim. Jason and Jess visited the parents of her friend, Molly North, yesterday after a second apparent suicide. We have the early results in, which basically say all the signs point to suicide.’

‘Did Molly have any self-harm marks?’ Jessica asked.

‘Nothing,’ the DCI replied. ‘No note found either, nothing untoward at the scene.’ He turned to face Rowlands. ‘David?’

Jessica hadn’t expected the constable to speak but she realised he must have been given her duties from the morning.

He looked apologetically towards Jessica for a moment and then spoke. ‘I talked to Sienna and Molly’s friends earlier this morning. To say they were no help would be an understatement.’ He nodded towards Jessica. ‘I know Jess and Jason spoke to the same girls at the school but I couldn’t get anything from them either.’

As if reading Jessica’s mind, Cole cut in, speaking to her. ‘I asked Dave to do the interviews because I thought they might have felt drawn to someone male who is a bit younger than myself or Jason.’

‘Did you get anything at all?’ Jessica asked.

Rowlands shook his head. ‘Nothing really. They all said they only knew Molly through Sienna. None of them seemed to think either of the girls were particularly depressed or anything like that.’

‘Do you think it could be some vow of silence?’ Cornish asked. ‘Like a cult or a club or something like that?’

‘I honestly don’t know,’ Rowlands replied.

Jessica thought of herself at that age and the way she and Caroline pretty much kept themselves to themselves. There were other friends they might do things with, but their secrets and worries were only shared with each other, if at all. Although she had found the other girls’ attitudes hard to fathom, she could just about understand why they might not know the intimate details of each other’s business.

‘I don’t know if it’s relevant,’ Jessica said softly. ‘But Molly was most likely in love with Sienna. She might have killed herself because of that.’

‘Did you question the parents?’ Cole asked, slightly surprised as it was the first he had heard of it.

‘I think her mother knew but her father didn’t. It’s not fair to any of them to bring it up now. If Nicola – the mother – chooses to tell her husband then it should be her decision.’ Jessica spoke firmly enough to make it clear to the others that it shouldn’t be negotiable.

For a moment, no one said anything, as if digesting her words, before Cole spoke. ‘With the coroner’s verdict confirmed on Molly North, I think we’re all aware of what tomorrow’s headlines might bring. Dual suicides of young girls and the like. I’ll liaise with the press office about what to do if we end up with the worst type of coverage. We absolutely cannot allow people to think there’s some sort of suicide cult.’

‘What if there is?’ Louise asked, quite reasonably Jessica thought.

Cole shook his head. ‘Then we’ll still tell them there isn’t.’

Jessica had rarely seen him angry but he appeared close to losing his temper before composing himself. ‘Because everything has been happening at once, we haven’t yet put together a concrete plan of who should be doing what. I know that’s my fault but let’s sort this now.’

‘Are we ruling out the possibility that everything is linked?’ Jessica asked, knowing it wouldn’t go down well.

She saw Reynolds and the DCI exchange the briefest of glances to confirm her suspicions that they had already talked about her while she wasn’t there. ‘I wouldn’t say we’re ruling it out,’ Cole said, ‘but we don’t have any reason to think they might be connected. Obviously, there was a fire at the house of Sienna Todd’s father but that could be bad timing.’

‘Or it could be relevant,’ Jessica replied, trying not to sound too aggressive. The inspector and DCI exchanged another glance, infuriating Jessica, who suddenly found herself raising her voice. ‘Look, I’m not just picking on him but you’ve got to admit there’s a link to Ryan in all of this. He knew Sienna. Molly and the other girls were nervous talking about him. He was angry over Anthony’s interview.’

There were a few moments of silence before Cornish spoke. ‘Why would he set fire to his own house? And what about the suicides? Are you saying he was somehow involved?’

Jessica’s anger dissipated as quickly as it had erupted. She slumped into her seat. ‘I don’t know. I just think we’re missing something.’

More silence.

‘What are you suggesting, Jess?’ Reynolds asked gently. She knew the inspector was trying to be delicate but she didn’t like the idea of her colleagues trying to patronise her. ‘We can’t just follow Ryan around,’ he added to emphasise his point.