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

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

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Текущая страница: 48 (всего у книги 56 страниц)

18

‘Nice place you’ve got here,’ Jessica said, climbing out of her car and walking along the driveway towards the front of Leviticus’s house. The top of the drive had a tarmac circle for cars to turn around and there were already three different vehicles parked along the edge, each large and expensive-looking.

Leviticus was waiting by the door as Jessica approached and she turned to point at the other cars. ‘Are these all yours?’

‘I paid for them.’

‘Still got a few quid then?’

He ignored the insinuation as he unlocked the front door. Jessica stepped into a vast circular hallway, with a cold marble-like white floor and huge stone pillars on either side of a wide spiral staircase. Jessica could not stop herself from looking impressed, something which Leviticus noted with a grin.

As she glanced away from the interior towards him, Jessica noticed how grand Leviticus looked. He was well-built but it was muscle, not fat, his broad chest and strong shoulders padding out a perfectly fitted black pinstripe suit. His shoes gleamed in the artificial light, matched by the chunky gold rings on his fingers. Jessica didn’t feel the same sense of trepidation she had experienced when meeting Nicholas. There was a sinister aura of aggression and danger that surrounded the club owner but Leviticus’s cropped, slightly curly, silver hair made him seem grand-fatherly.

Jessica had to keep reminding herself of everything she had read on his record as he led her through to an equally impressive living room that was dominated by an enormous fireplace, with white pillars running floor to ceiling and a firepit built into the wall. ‘I can get this started up if you’re cold,’ Leviticus said, noticing Jessica’s interest.

‘I’ll have a tea if there’s one going.’

‘Are you going to have a poke around while I go to the kitchen?’

For a moment, Jessica said nothing – she had never been called on her trick in the past. ‘Why? Have you got something to hide?’

Leviticus smiled. ‘Milk? Sugar?’

‘Just milk.’

As the man left the room, Jessica had a walk around. The living room on its own took up roughly the same floor space as the entire flat she was living in, while she doubted she would make enough in a lifetime to pay for something as extravagant as this property.

She ran her hands along the pillars, wondering if they only looked expensive, but they were solid stone and had probably been crafted solely for this house. Although there wasn’t a lot of furniture in the room, it didn’t feel empty. There were three large brown leather sofas and two more armchairs made of the same material. Jessica sat in one, bouncing up and down, wondering if that was a good gauge of how expensive it might be. Her feet echoed on the wooden floor, which Jessica noticed seemed cleaner than any kitchen table she had ever owned.

There were strong oak bookcases in the corner but no books; instead each shelf was filled with framed photographs.

‘Do you like what you see?’

Leviticus’s voice echoed as he strode into the room, carrying a tray with two cups, saucers, a milk jug and a small teapot. He placed them on a table in the middle of the room, before walking across to where Jessica was standing.

‘Cute kids,’ Jessica said, pointing towards a photograph of Leviticus with a woman and three boys of varying heights.

Leviticus was beaming and genuinely seemed proud. ‘Whatever you may think of me, they’re why you don’t hear from me any longer. I thought my days of you lot popping over to pay me visits were long gone.’

‘What are their names?’

‘Saul, Josiah and Zechariah.’

‘Biblical kings,’ Jessica replied without thinking.

As she turned to walk towards the table, she saw Leviticus eyeing her, nodding. ‘You know your stuff.’

‘I used to go to Sunday School when I was a kid. We had to learn all the books of the Bible in order and then we moved on to the various kings.’

‘Do you still go?’ he laughed.

Jessica shook her head as Leviticus hunched forward, pouring milk from the jug into one of the cups and then using the teapot to fill each of them. He stood and passed Jessica a cup and saucer. The china was dainty, the exact opposite of what Jessica might have thought someone like Leviticus would have owned.

‘That’s a shame,’ he said, sitting on the sofa opposite her.

Jessica felt uncomfortable, so nodded towards a stuffed head hanging above one of the doors. ‘Is that from a real bear?’ she asked.

‘Indeed, a memento from long ago.’

‘I’ve got a mate who would absolutely love that.’

Leviticus allowed her words to hang, sipping delicately from his cup, the handle of which he held gently between his thumb and forefinger. It was almost laughable but Jessica followed his lead, thinking the cups wouldn’t last five minutes in her possession as they would end up either broken or chipped.

‘Nicholas Long,’ Leviticus said firmly, fixing Jessica with a stare to remind her that he hadn’t always been the kind, cuddly father he now appeared to be.

Jessica took another sip of her tea, refusing to allow him to dictate terms, then reached forward and placed the china on the table. ‘What do you know about him?’

Leviticus eyed her suspiciously. ‘Why are you asking after all this time?’

‘Something’s happened.’

He nodded an acceptance, putting his own cup and saucer on the table. ‘I bet you think we’re just the same?’

‘Your records are similar.’

Still nodding, Leviticus interlocked his fingers and met Jessica’s stare. ‘What’s on paper can be deceptive.’

‘So tell me what he was like.’

Leviticus suddenly seemed uncomfortable, pulling at the lapels of his suit, flicking away specks of dust which Jessica couldn’t see. ‘We both ran similar businesses. Clubs, pubs . . . other things. We might have seemed like natural rivals but we actually worked together for a few years, me from this side of the border, him from Manchester.’

‘How do you mean, “worked together”?’

Leviticus shrugged. ‘Use your imagination. I would help him out with certain aspects of his accounting and he’d do the same for me.’

‘What changed?’

‘I did. Whatever you may think, Nicholas Long is a very different man to me.’

Jessica didn’t disagree but she wasn’t about to say that. ‘You seem pretty alike to me.’ She opened her palms to indicate the rest of the room. ‘Vast displays of wealth, living off money made from the misery of others, violence, drugs and everything in between.’

Leviticus paused, scratching his chin thoughtfully before replying. ‘Just because I welcome you into my home and extend my hospitality to you, don’t think you know me, Ms . . . ?’

‘It’s Jessica but I didn’t hear you denying any of that.’

He said nothing but reached forward, refilling both of their cups. He sat back in his chair, again holding the cup daintily in one hand, cradling the saucer with the other. As odd as it appeared, it also seemed natural.

‘In the type of business I used to be in, there was always an unwritten rule about female family members. As much as you might hate each other, as much as you might compete, you always left people’s mothers and wives out of it.’

Jessica shuddered as a chill went down her spine. ‘What did he do?’

Leviticus sipped his tea, staring towards the ceiling. Jessica could hear the rattle of the cup on saucer before the man steadied himself. ‘My mother.’

He spoke the words in the same tone as Eleanor had told her about Kayleigh the previous day. Before Jessica could respond, Leviticus continued. ‘He’s a ruthless, brutal man.’

‘What did you do about it?’

The delicate clatter of cup on saucer began again as Jessica saw his hand shaking. ‘I was arrested on the night I was going to do something about it.’ Jessica thought of the possession of a dangerous weapon conviction she had read next to the man’s name. ‘I came out a different person,’ Leviticus added. ‘By then, things were different anyway. Most of my businesses had fallen through.’

‘Where does all of this come from?’ Jessica asked, indicating around the room.

‘I’m not a stupid man, I planned for all eventualities.’

Jessica nodded, not wanting to know anything further but Leviticus didn’t give her a moment to interrupt in any case.

‘When you hear of the way he treated his ex-wife, you understand he’s not the kind of man to forgive anything lightly.’

Jessica knew from their files that Nicholas had a former wife, Ruby, but assumed she had simply been traded in for a newer, younger version.

‘What happened?’ she asked.

Leviticus shook his head. ‘Any man who raises his hand to a woman is a coward.’

As she looked around, Jessica realised the room was a tribute of sorts to Leviticus’s family. There were photographs of his wife and children everywhere, not just the bookcases in the corner.

‘How does your wife feel about all of this?’ she asked.

Leviticus peered at Jessica and then turned away, taking in the vast room. ‘She accepts me for who I am – and who I was.’

‘That’s easy to say when you have vast wealth.’

Jessica wasn’t trying to wind the man up but he didn’t seem offended anyway.

‘What would you have me do?’

It seemed a fair question. Jessica thought of the way Nicholas had been using his money to create an illusion of respectability. The authorities had presumably investigated Leviticus at some point and not found anything to indicate they should seize his money or possessions. As if reading her mind, Leviticus added: ‘Not everything I did would have interested you lot.’

He stood quickly, placing his cup and saucer on the tray and pointing towards Jessica’s still-full cup. ‘Do you want that?’

Jessica shook her head.

‘I can get you something else if you want?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Come with me,’ he said.

Jessica followed as he walked past the staircase along a hallway and through a door that was wedged open at the bottom. She blinked as she entered, the brightness of the room a complete contrast to the artificial light from the rest of the house. The kitchen had a row of white worktops along each side, with a huge window that stretched almost from the floor to the ceiling at the far end. Sunlight beamed through, bouncing off the surfaces, making Jessica rub her eyes.

As Leviticus made his way to the sink, which was around half the size of the bath in Jessica’s flat, she rested a hand on the solid worktop, trying to picture just how heavy it would have been to install. Everything she had seen of the house had a similar expensive style.

Jessica glanced up to see Leviticus watching her, drying his hands on a tea towel. Everything about his movements oozed authority – but it was a natural charisma he exuded, as opposed to the forced aura that Nicholas had.

‘Come look,’ he said, nodding towards the window. Jessica walked across the room, running a hand along the full length of the worktop as she did. ‘What do you see?’ Leviticus asked.

Jessica peered through, looking from side to side. There was an enormous lush green garden, stretching in every direction. On one side was a large tree, with a swing tied to one of the branches. A football goal was in the other direction.

‘How old are your children?’ Jessica asked, ignoring his question.

‘Between eight and fourteen. This is all they’ve ever known.’

‘Football pitches in their back garden?’

Leviticus stepped away from the window and leant against the counter top. ‘You’re not seeing it.’

Jessica looked out of the window again, taking in everything she had spotted previously, before finally noticing what he meant.

‘It’s like our own private prison,’ he told her. ‘I’m not complaining, we have an amazing house, cars, a garden I could only have dreamed of when I was young, we go on holidays all around the world – and yet we’re surrounded by massive walls, security lights and cameras.’

‘Is this all because of Nicholas Long?’

‘Among other people. It’s not an easy thing to retire from.’

Jessica didn’t know if he was trying to get her sympathy, or simply defending himself against her assumptions that he had it easy because of his wealth. She didn’t know why he cared about her opinion.

‘Why did you start to operate in Manchester in the first place?’ she asked.

Leviticus drummed his fingers gently on the counter, probably realising she knew more than he had given her credit for. ‘Greed. I wasn’t happy with everything that I had and wanted more.’

Jessica was impressed at his honesty. ‘What made you leave?’

‘There was only one way it was going to end up: with one or both of us dead. I didn’t want that. Ultimately, he was better than me at that side of things. He keeps impeccable records of everything; staff, accounts, who owes him money, the lot. I was never that good at all that. He always had other people to do his dirty work for him. They were always completely loyal for whatever reason. You’d hear about networks of people he had through the city: journalists, police officers, people in the council who dealt with planning and so on. He knew what he was doing in Manc, I didn’t. He may have been everything you’ve read about him but he’s a businessman too and knew how to play the game.’

‘Had you already left Manchester by the time . . . it happened?’

Leviticus nodded. ‘He had already won but that wasn’t enough. It was all about sending a message to me personally. My mother was in her seventies and lived in a bungalow I bought for her. I wanted to get her a nice big house, somewhere to live comfortably, but that was all she wanted. It was on the outskirts of the city in a quiet cul de sac. She was no threat to anyone – she spent most of her day baking for the local kids and then she’d cook chicken once a week when I went around. Cooking was what she lived for as she got older. But one day, they came for her.’

He shuffled awkwardly, taking off his suit jacket and placing it carefully on the worktop. Through his shirt, Jessica could see just how well-built Leviticus was. His chest stretched the material, his biceps were bigger than her thighs. As he turned, Jessica could see vast sweat patches on his back and under his arms and wondered if his confidence in talking to her was more bravado than she first thought.

If anyone should know the signs, then she should.

‘Are you sure I can’t get you something else?’ Leviticus asked.

Jessica knew he was trying to change the subject. She wondered how many other people he had spoken to about his mother over the years.

‘Why are you telling me all of this?’

Leviticus sighed, running his hand through his hair. ‘I assumed that’s why you were here – because you’d heard things too?’

‘What things?’

He tilted his head, squinting towards her, as if trying to work out if she was playing him. ‘I thought you were here to talk about Nicky, his son?’

Jessica knew Nicholas had a son with the same name as him but no one had spent much time looking into the teenager. She tried to shield the surprise. ‘What have you heard?’

Leviticus spoke slowly, clearly wondering if he was making a mistake. ‘That he’s just turned eighteen and is ready to step into his father’s shoes.’

Jessica nodded but he wouldn’t say anything else until she was looking into his eyes. ‘Nicky’s an animal,’ Leviticus warned solemnly. ‘And I’ve heard he’s not too keen on waiting his turn.’

19

There had been no reason for anyone to look into Nicky Long’s background but that didn’t stop Jessica ploughing through every piece of information they had on the teenager. His age was the key thing; as a youth with no criminal record, there had been little cause for any of them to investigate beyond his father. Even with Izzy’s help, all Jessica had been able to establish was that Nicky had finished at a private boarding school a few months earlier, had turned eighteen, and was now apparently living in Manchester with his father and stepmother. Jessica noted that Nicholas’s current wife, Tia, wasn’t that much older than Nicky. His actual mother was Nicholas’s former wife, Ruby, who had been a teenager when she had Nicky.

The more Jessica found out about Nicholas, the more she marvelled at the fact he had kept himself out of prison for as long as he had. Perhaps even more remarkable was that, despite the long line of people he had apparently crossed, he was still going strong. She thought of her own anger at him for the way he’d behaved towards her, not to mention the fury she felt having heard about the things he had done. She almost admired the restraint someone like Leviticus had shown after being released from prison, although wondered how different things might have been if he hadn’t been picked up for weapon possession all those years ago.

Jessica knew there was going to come a time where she’d have to share everything she knew with Cole but he was so distracted because of the lack of a DI and everything else that needed doing, for now she was getting away with pretty much what she wanted. Before that point came, Jessica wanted to put as many of the pieces together as possible.

‘Are you ready?’ Jessica asked Rowlands, who was in the passenger seat of her car.

The constable had been silent for the entire journey, something that was beginning to annoy Jessica. He blinked rapidly, as if just waking up, and then put a hand on the door handle. ‘I’m fine.’

Before he could open the door, Jessica touched him on the arm. ‘I need you to be on form today. You’re here for a reason – and it’s not your sad but partially impressive knowledge of “Star Wars”.’

She was hoping for a laugh which didn’t come. Instead he opened the door and got out, waiting for Jessica as she rounded the vehicle and checked the address on her phone. ‘I bet this isn’t what she expected when she married one of the richest businessmen in Manchester,’ she said, looking each way before crossing the road.

Ruby Long lived in the middle of a row of terraced houses in the Wythenshawe area. The house next to hers had a skip outside and there was a smell of burning as Jessica noticed a bonfire in the field at the end of the road. The houses were all red-bricked with sloping brown-tiled roofs and small front yards barely wider than the adjoining pavement. Ruby’s property was filthy on the outside, with black soot-like dust splattered across one of the downstairs windows. Jessica could hear a cross between a giant bumble bee and a jumbo jet zipping along the road parallel to where they were. Before approaching Ruby’s door, she waited as a boy who couldn’t be older than eleven or twelve turned the corner at the end of the road, dropping one leg to the ground and spinning a moped around before speeding towards them.

Against her better judgement, Jessica stepped off the pavement, standing in the centre of the road and holding an arm out to make it clear she wanted the biker to stop. The groaning of the engine was almost deafening as the youngster skidded to a halt next to her.

‘Where’s your helmet?’ Jessica asked him, wondering which of the various offences being committed in front of her eyes she should mention first.

Up close, the boy looked even younger, although his voice had broken and he had an angry inflection in his voice. ‘Who the fook are you?’

Jessica pulled the keys out of the bike’s ignition and told him she was from the police, rolling her eyes as the expected mouthful of abuse arrived. After establishing that he was apparently ‘eighteen’ and that his licence was ‘at home’ – although he couldn’t remember where he lived well enough to tell her – Jessica spent fifteen minutes waiting for a local patrol car to come.

When the uniformed officers arrived, it was clear they were already very familiar with the boy who had spent the time in between calling Jessica a lot of words she was pretty sure she hadn’t known when she was his age – even if he did turn out to be eighteen.

As one officer placed the boy in the back of the patrol vehicle to return him home, the other tried to figure out what they were going to do with the bike. He offered Jessica a ‘thanks’ that didn’t seem overly genuine, pointing out the biker was ‘twelve, maybe thirteen’. Jessica’s joke about the lad having two kids by two different mothers was met by a stony-faced agreement that she probably wasn’t far wrong.

‘Welcome to Wythenshawe,’ Rowlands said as Jessica finally got around to knocking on Ruby’s front door.

The inside of Ruby’s house wasn’t as dirty as the outside but there was something unerringly familiar about it. The carpet was the same shade of red as that in Nicholas’s club and the decor of bright, glittery tat felt similarly forced and fake. Rowlands noticed it straight away, pointing out the wooden border that ran along the walls.

Ruby herself wasn’t exactly happy to see them. Although Jessica had called to arrange a time when they could talk, she opened the door with a ‘I wondered where you lot were’ and then turned, walking through the house, shouting ‘and take yer fooking shoes off’ over her shoulder. Nice to see you too.

Jessica slipped hers off easily but Rowlands hopped from one foot to the other, nearly overbalancing as he tried to untie the laces on his boots. Six months previously, she would have playfully nudged him with her shoulder but she wasn’t sure if they had the same relationship nowadays.

‘Over, under, in and out, that’s what tying shoes is all about,’ she said. ‘Just do that backwards.’ After what seemed like an inordinately long time, the constable finally dropped his boots to the floor, revealing socks with cartoon characters on.

‘You’re worse than Adam,’ Jessica said, walking in the direction Ruby had headed in.

She found the woman sitting in an armchair in a living room that was as garish as the hallway. The walls were painted red up to the border and then a slightly off-white above it. There were at least half-a-dozen mirrors and a haze of smoke hanging around the ceiling. Jessica remembered the way Eleanor had described the casino and couldn’t help but wonder if Ruby was somehow creating her own low-rent version.

Ruby scowled at the officers, cradling a cigarette in her hand. Her expression only told part of the story as her face was brown bordering on orange, her skin wrinkled and leathery, making her look far older than the mid-thirties that she was. Jessica could only assume that was what a lifetime of cigarettes left you with.

She took another drag, before stubbing it out on an ashtray balancing on the windowsill. Jessica sat on the sofa, with Rowlands next to her. ‘I was hoping for a bit of background on your former husband,’ Jessica said.

Ruby shrugged, reaching into a handbag by her feet, pulling out a packet of cigarettes and taking one out. She offered the pack towards them in a gesture Jessica hadn’t expected, although she did seem pleased when they both turned her down.

‘I’ve not seen him in years,’ Ruby said, hunting around the floor before realising she had left the lighter on the windowsill next to the ashtray.

‘What about your son?’

Ruby didn’t look up as she lit the cigarette. ‘Him either.’

‘How long ago did you split up?’

She breathed in deeply, holding the smoke in her mouth before finally exhaling as her eyes closed in pleasure. ‘Ten years ago when he hooked up with that tart he’s married to.’

Nicholas certainly liked his women young. Jessica knew that Ruby had been eighteen when she’d had Nicky – and they were already married by then. Meanwhile, if Tia was now in her late twenties, that meant she was also a teenager when she had got together with Ruby’s then-husband.

Jessica was roughly the same age as Ruby and it seemed creepy that the woman in front of her had a son who had just turned eighteen. She barely felt old enough to have a child now, let alone having one who was already an adult.

‘How often have you seen Nicholas since?’ Jessica asked.

Ruby shook her head dismissively. ‘Not much, maybe once a year?’

‘Do you have any contact with your son at all?’

The woman held the cigarette close to her mouth but didn’t touch it to her lips. ‘What’s it to you?’

‘We’re looking into a few things surrounding your former husband.’

Ruby smiled, exposing yellow teeth that somehow fitted with her skin tone, like a womble with a crack habit. ‘Anything that could get him sent down?’

Neither officer replied but Ruby got the message that it would be a good time to tell them anything she knew.

‘How did Nicholas get custody of your son?’ Jessica asked, being careful to use the word ‘your’ instead of ‘his’.

The smile disappeared from Ruby’s face as she puffed heavily on the cigarette. ‘You’ve not got a clue, have you, love? Have you ever met him?’

Jessica nodded.

‘Well then, you’d know that if he wants something, he gets it. The minute he said he wanted custody, he was always going to get it. If I’d gone up against him in court, he would have found a way to get to the judge. If he couldn’t do that, he’d go through Nicky, promising him all sorts to tell people I’d done things I hadn’t. If all of that failed, he would simply make me disappear. There was no point me even opposing him – at best I’d lose, at worst, I wouldn’t be here now.’

The matter-of-fact way she spoke was horrifying and Jessica didn’t doubt for a second that what Ruby had told her was true.

Ruby must have seen the realisation on Jessica’s face because she smiled again. ‘Don’t worry, love, he’s like that with everyone. He didn’t even want Nicky – he sent him off to some boarding school to get rid of him – it was only ever about making sure I couldn’t have him.’

As if sensing what she was thinking, Ruby glanced from Jessica to Dave, then back again. ‘Up until about a year ago, I was living with this guy. We’d been together for eighteen months or so and things were going okay. We were talking about getting married – but then he didn’t come home one day. Then he wasn’t here the next day either, or the day after that. I called you lot but nothing ever came of it, he just disappeared.’

Jessica felt Rowlands glance towards her, which Ruby clearly saw. ‘It’s not what you think,’ she said, nodding towards him. ‘I got a call at three in the morning about a month later. You never know what it is when the phone rings at that time, do you? But it was that fat fuck, he was pissed as always, giggling. He asked how my relationship was going and kept laughing. I was going to hang up but then he said I shouldn’t worry. I asked what he meant and he said I should take heart that it took a six-figure sum to make him go away.’

‘Nicholas paid your fiancé to leave?’ Jessica couldn’t believe she was asking the question but Ruby finished off her cigarette before stubbing it out.

‘That’s what he does. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t want me any more, he doesn’t want anyone else to either. He thought it was hilarious that I’m living here on benefits while he paid someone else that amount to leave me. It’s the way he works.’

‘We’re looking into a few things,’ Jessica said, wanting to offer the woman some hope.

Ruby shook her head. ‘You’ll never get him for anything, you must know that? He’d rather go down shooting and take a couple of you lot with him. That’s the type of vindictive bastard he is.’

Jessica tried not to take the image literally. ‘What was it like living with him?’ she asked, although she could guess the answer.

Ruby reached forward and took another cigarette out of her bag, lighting it and sucking the smoke deep into her lungs before holding it in and eventually breathing out. ‘Everything you can imagine and worse.’ She twisted her body around and lifted her shirt, showing them an area at the bottom of her back around her kidneys. Even from the other side of the room, Jessica could see a patch of skin far whiter than the tanned brown of the rest of Ruby’s body.

‘That’s where he held an iron on me because I wasn’t ready to go out on time.’

She allowed her shirt to fall and then bent her ear forward, pulling her hair out of the way to reveal a zigzag-shaped mark. ‘I’d gone shopping one Saturday and missed the bus. I got home forty-five minutes later than I said I was going to. This was before the days of mobile phones, so I had no way of letting him know because the only money I had was for the bus, not for a payphone. He would only ever give me an exact amount for things. When I got home, he refused to open the front door at first.’ Anticipating Jessica’s question, she added: ‘He never let me have a front-door key.’

Ruby paused for another puff of the cigarette. ‘He eventually opened the door but when he was halfway through, he smashed it back into me. I fell backwards and this side of my face got caught in the door. At first, because I was in the way, he couldn’t shut it but, as I was lying there, he looked down at me and slammed it as hard as he could. My ear was caught in the door and was torn off.’

Jessica couldn’t prevent herself from wincing but Ruby seemed unperturbed, pointing to the inside of her thumb. ‘When I was pregnant with Nicky, we were hosting this dinner party for some people he knew. I wasn’t feeling very well and kept being sick but he barricaded me in the kitchen and told me to get on with it. I didn’t know what happened but I guess I fell asleep for a moment because I was woken up by the fire alarm going off. It was nothing serious but something under the grill had burned. He came storming in, saying I was trying to kill him by burning the house down. I was so tired, I didn’t even know what was going on – but he grabbed my hand and forced it onto this red-hot ring on top of the cooker. I was screaming and could smell my own hand burning but he was shouting in my face, telling me I’d regret trying to burn his house down.’

Ruby paused to have another smoke, although Jessica had the feeling she could have catalogued many more injuries.

‘Surely there were questions from the hospital?’ Jessica asked, knowing how naive she sounded. It was a human reaction, not a police officer’s.

Ruby exhaled and smiled thinly. ‘Let’s just say I fell down the stairs a lot. If you went to a different casualty unit each time, no one even noticed.’

It was far from the first story of domestic abuse Jessica had heard but, coupled with everything else she knew about Nicholas Long, a genuinely terrifying picture was emerging.