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

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

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Текущая страница: 52 (всего у книги 56 страниц)

26

Despite the length of time they had worked together, Jessica had never been in Cole’s vehicle. He had a 4x4 that was under a year old and drove like Jessica’s mum, which was the worst insult she could think of. Actually, sod that, he drove like her grandmother, who’d been dead for years.

When she was younger, Jessica had always liked going in a car alone with her father but every journey would be prefaced with the words ‘don’t tell your mother’. While her dad would zip around the local country roads and speed up over the humpback bridges, her mum would stick rigidly to the speed limit and obey every road sign. She often wondered if it was this which led to her driving having a bad reputation around the station.

Their journey south into Didsbury was conducted mainly in silence, the tick-tocking of the indicator and the dull poshness of the person on the radio providing a backdrop to a life Jessica knew she had to avoid.

Jessica used to live in the area herself, although Nicholas’s house was in a far more affluent spot. Her flat had been part of a newly built development of townhouses just off the main road but the property they were heading to was a mile past that at the back of a housing estate with a cul de sac to itself. If you hadn’t known it was there, you wouldn’t have found it, with signs sending you off to the nearby rugby and golf clubs and no indication there were any additional houses.

Cole drove steadily, with the air of someone who knew the area well, skipping along a selection of side streets and avoiding the major commuter routes.

There were no huge gates or enormous walls shielding Nicholas Long’s property from the rest of the road as Cole pulled onto the driveway, which itself was an intricate pattern of yellow and red brickwork. Jessica stepped out of the car, peering behind to find the yellow bricks under her feet spelling out an enormous upside-down ‘NL’ when set against the red. She walked along the length of the letters, which curled into each other, showing an intricacy of design which would have been impressive had it been in calligraphy, let alone created with bricks in a driveway.

The house was in a mock-Tudor style similar to the school she had visited, with vast thick black beams offset against bright white walls. Jessica couldn’t see how far the property went back, but there were three wings, as well as a central block that had a huge wooden door, styled to look like a drawbridge. A separate building off to their left had huge garage doors in the same style at the front, big enough to fit at least three cars side by side.

‘We’re in the wrong business,’ Cole muttered as a joke, but he was only half-wrong. For all these years, Nicholas had somehow found a way to stay out of trouble and this was the house he had built with the proceeds. That came on the back of everything Leviticus had, which, despite his protests of feeling trapped in a prison, she knew full well had also been funded partially through the misery of others.

Wrong business indeed.

How to announce their arrival baffled them both for a few moments before Jessica realised the handle hanging next to the door which she thought was decorative was actually a doorbell. It reminded her of flushing the old-fashioned toilets in her primary school but she pulled the chain and they heard a tinkling tune from inside.

Jessica’s stomach was rumbling uncomfortably in the way she had become used to ignoring but after a minute or so, they heard a heavy bolt being withdrawn before the door swung open. A small woman with dark curly hair and a purple uniform stood looking at them quizzically. Her accent sounded Eastern European, although Jessica couldn’t deny she had a better grasp of English than many of the local youngsters they picked up.

She told them to sit on a sofa just across the threshold, carefully bolting the door back into place and disappearing into an adjacent room.

Leviticus’s property had been impressive but it wasn’t a patch on Nicholas’s. The insides kept the same style as the exterior, large dark beams running along the walls, interspersed with fake candles. Everything they could see, from the sofa they were sitting on, to a large table opposite, to the frames around the doors, was made of the same thick heavy-looking wood. Jessica could see why Nicholas employed a maid; keeping everything tidy would be a fulltime job in itself.

‘How much do you reckon this place cost?’ Cole asked as they both took in the hallway.

‘Seven figures? Eight?’

They were interrupted by the clicking of heels as someone Jessica assumed was Tia Long entered the room. She was wearing a short dark skirt with a matching jacket over a tight white blouse. Her black hair was tied tightly away from her face, which was tanned and made up to perfection. Her legs were a similar colour, which certainly hadn’t been gained from the overcast Manchester skies.

She walked with the confidence of someone who couldn’t believe their luck. ‘I’m on the way to visit my solicitor,’ Tia offered as a way of greeting. She insisted there was nothing she could add that wasn’t in her statement, pointing out that, although she had said it was fine for them to visit, ‘I didn’t actually think you’d turn up’.

Before she could leave, Cole added: ‘Is Nicky still around?’

Tia’s snort of ‘yeah but good luck’ did not bode well as she told them he was somewhere in the house and then unbolted the door, letting herself out.

Alone in the hallway, Jessica didn’t get the opportunity to speak before Cole. ‘Let it go.’

‘Let what go?’

‘You know. Just think what you might be like if you were in a situation living with a man like him. You’d be skipping out of here cock-a-hoop too if you found out he’d died.’

Jessica couldn’t deny that but he then answered her follow-up question before she could ask it.

‘We’ll still look into her, don’t worry.’

With the echo of the door closing still sounding around the house, Cole led the way through the door the maid had entered a few minutes earlier. It led into a long corridor with doorways on either side. Jessica could see daylight, following the chief inspector as he walked to the end, which opened into a kitchen.

The maid from before was nowhere to be seen but there was an older woman wearing the same uniform chopping up potatoes on a large worktop in the centre of the room. Her eyes widened in a panic at the sight of people she didn’t know but Cole held up his identification and asked where Nicky was. Her grasp of English wasn’t as strong as the first maid’s. Instead, she shrieked an accented ‘Mister Nicky’ so loud it made Jessica wince.

The reason for the woman’s call soon became obvious as a man with a baseball cap on backwards sauntered out of an adjoining room with a tube of crisps in his hand.

‘Pipe down, would you?’ he said aggressively before noticing Cole and Jessica in the doorway. ‘Who are you?’

Cole introduced himself and Jessica, adding: ‘I thought your stepmother told you we were coming?’

Nicky chewed a crisp with his mouth open, laughing. ‘Yeah right, mate, I don’t have a mum.’

Jessica was trying to place his accent but it was a mixture of everything, part local but with an over-pronunciation she guessed came from his private education. He was exactly how she would have pictured him: short hair gelled forward, expensive clothes and the inbuilt aggression of a pitbull being held on a leash while being poked by a stick. Everything he said sounded like a threat and his body language might as well have been backed by a tattoo across his forehead reading ‘bring it on’.

‘We were hoping to talk to you,’ Cole said politely.

Nicky nodded, chewing another crisp. Without speaking, he strolled past, leading them through the house, past the entrance into the far wing and then opening the doors into a room that was so big it contained a full-size snooker table with a row of sofas on either side. The decor unsurprisingly matched the rest of the house but a large window at the far end filled the room with daylight.

The teenager had the swagger of someone beyond his years and marched up to a rack of cues, picking one out and offering it to the DCI.

‘Fancy a game?’

The chief inspector was clearly flustered in a way Jessica doubted he usually would be by an eighteen-year-old. He stumbled over a reply before declining.

‘Do you know who killed Dad?’ Nicky asked.

‘We’re still bringing all of the information together at the moment.’

‘So no then?’

‘Not yet,’ Cole replied.

Nicky was tapping the cue on the edge of the table but even the way he was holding it made it look like a weapon. He told them exactly what he was intending to do with the cue to whoever it was that had killed his dad.

The attitude to authority was something he clearly shared with his dad but Jessica could see there was something far more reckless about him. Nicholas would never have threatened anyone in front of a police officer, he would keep anything like that behind the scenes, while maintaining his public persona.

‘If you were doing your jobs properly, you would already know who did it,’ Nicky replied after his ticking off, as he picked the balls out of the various pockets and began arranging them on the table.

‘This is why we are talking to as many people as we possibly can,’ Cole said.

Nicky hammered the white ball into the reds he had just arranged, sending them hurtling across the table. ‘Do you think I had something to do with it?’

He hadn’t asked as if he was outraged at the suggestion, more as a challenge.

‘I didn’t say that,’ the chief inspector replied, his voice level in a way Jessica could never have managed herself. It was pretty clear why he had come. ‘But we need to get a full picture of everything, which is why we are currently talking to as many people as possible.’

Nicky smirked at Jessica, letting her know as if she didn’t already that he was trying his best to wind them up. As Jack had pointed out about Tia in the hallway, Nicky was another who most likely couldn’t believe his luck. She didn’t know what type of relationship he had with his father but, from what she had seen of Nicholas, he didn’t seem the type to be close to anyone. Sticking his only child in a boarding school for an extended period hardly gave the impression he was concerned about him. Ruby had told her Nicholas was only interested in winning, not in their son, so it was perhaps no wonder this was how he had turned out.

Jessica initially assumed Cole had come along to stop her saying anything stupid under provocation but, after a little more back and forth, he mentioned something she hadn’t expected.

‘The other reason we came was to ask you for a favour,’ he said, as straight-faced as he had been throughout.

Nicky put the cue on the table and looked up, half in amusement, half bemusement. ‘Are you having me on?’

‘Not at all.’

Nicky looked towards Jessica, making sure it wasn’t a joke, but she had as little idea of what was going on as he did. ‘Go on then, Grandad,’ he said.

‘I take it you saw everything that happened in the city centre a few nights ago?’

Nicky grinned. ‘Did you have fun?’

‘We were hoping that, given all the good work your father did for the area, you might be able to come to the community centre later today to talk to some of the local young people. I’m sure a lot of them would look up to you.’

Jessica couldn’t believe what she was hearing, doubting Nicky had ever been near the estate his father came from. He certainly hadn’t spent any time living there.

Nicky took off his cap, smoothing his hair forward. There was a grin apparently fixed to his face as he left them hanging. ‘What’s in it for me?’ he eventually asked.

‘We were hoping that with everything your father helped to create that perhaps you would want to build on his good work?’

Jessica knew Jack must be annoyed at the sycophantic way he was being forced to grovel and realised orders must have come from the chief superintendent or higher. It was no wonder he hadn’t left it to her as she would have stomped in and told Nicky he was going to do it, or she would find a way to make life difficult for him.

He would have laughed in her face.

‘I’m a bit busy tonight,’ Nicky said. ‘There are a few things on TV, or I might take one of the cars out for a drive. They are mine now, after all.’

He winked at Jessica, as if expecting her to laugh along.

‘We can’t force you to, all I can say is that it would be very much appreciated. We’ll make all the arrangements to pick you up if you want, we don’t need you to talk for long, it will just be to a lot of people roughly your age. I suspect they’re looking for someone new to lead them.’

Jessica sensed Cole had chosen the word ‘lead’ carefully enough to insinuate there was status to be gained, knowing full well Nicky would never have the gravitas his father had managed to buy for himself.

Nicky’s stance didn’t change but Jessica could tell he was going to agree moments before he did. The DCI promised someone would be in touch within an hour or two but, as they turned to leave, Nicky called them back.

‘You do know I’m taking over, don’t you?’

He spoke confidently, picking the cue back up.

‘Regardless of what Tia thinks, or anyone else says, this is why Dad brought me back. I’m taking over the clubs, the pubs, the lot.’

Cole didn’t respond and Jessica wouldn’t have trusted herself to. Instead they walked out of the house to the car and drove away.

They were barely at the end of the road when Cole pulled over to the side, leaving the engine idling. He looked at Jessica. ‘Thoughts?’

‘I wouldn’t have been so diplomatic if it was me.’

‘I know. What else?’

‘Someone’s going to have to keep a very close eye on him.’

‘Exactly.’

27

Although it wouldn’t have been her way of doing things, Jessica had to admit that bringing Nicky onto their side, at least temporarily, had somehow done the trick. His speech outside the boxing club his father paid for, along with the myriad of arrests, had calmed things far more than she could have guessed. After a week of recriminations and accusations, it also meant the police’s day-to-day workload was more or less back to normal.

That didn’t mean they had got anywhere.

No useable fingerprints had been recovered from the sink and the fire door had provided them with nothing either. Hours had been put into scouring the local CCTV footage and, although they had a few hooded figures hurrying around the surrounding streets during the early hours when Nicholas had been killed, there was nothing specifically to say they were anything other than people heading home after a night out.

Jessica stared at herself in the washroom mirror, thinking how everything from the past few weeks had aged her. She had even started wearing make-up to cover the paleness under her eyes, knowing she should visit a doctor soon. The nausea wasn’t easing and she felt tired all of the time. Each day, she kept telling herself she would go tomorrow.

‘No Adam?’ Izzy asked chirpily.

Jessica hadn’t heard her enter. ‘I thought it was a work-only thing.’

It was a lie but that was what she had told him.

Izzy tilted her head to the side and Jessica knew she wasn’t fooling anyone. ‘Mal’s at home with Amber anyway. This is pretty much the first night I’ve been out on my own since having her.’

‘I wouldn’t get too excited.’

The constable waved her hand dismissively. ‘Aah, stop moaning. You’re the only one who hasn’t got dressed up.’

‘I was busy at the station and only got here a few minutes ago.’

It was a half-truth; she had only just arrived but, instead of being busy at the station, she had deliberately waited around in order not to have to go home.

‘You look nice,’ she added quickly, changing the subject.

Izzy did a twirl and was clearly delighted. ‘It took me ages to find a dress the same colour as my hair.’

‘You are very purple,’ Jessica conceded. ‘But you do know the worst thing to do in a comedy club is stand out?’

‘Really?’

‘Everyone who comes on stage will single you out.’

‘We’ll have to sit near the back then. What time’s your friend on?’

‘Hugo? I don’t know, last I think.’

Izzy stepped into a cubicle and locked the door behind her. Jessica was ready to leave when she heard her friend shouting over the top. ‘Dave said he’s really funny.’

‘It depends on whether you mean funny-weird or funny-ha-ha.’

‘Have you seen his act?’ the yelled reply came.

Jessica realised her friend was happy to conduct a full conversation, regardless of where they were. It was the exact kind of thing she would have done as a teenager with Caroline. She peered closer into the mirror, rubbing her eyes.

‘Hugo’ was the stage name for a friend named Francis she had met through Dave. ‘Not this act,’ Jessica said. ‘But pretty much everything he does is a sort of act.’

‘How do you mean?’

Jessica untied her hair, letting it fall behind her, then combed it with her fingers, trying to pull out a few of the knots. ‘He’s a bit different. You’d really like him.’

‘Do you like him?’

‘In small doses.’

As she pulled out a loose hair, Jessica could hear Izzy laughing from the cubicle. ‘Like Dave then?’ Jessica didn’t share the enjoyment. Possibly taking her lack of an answer the wrong way, the constable added: ‘Cheer up, it could be worse, we could be at a different club tonight.’

After his talk at the boxing club, Nicky had launched himself into his father’s business as he had promised. Jessica had no idea if he had any experience, but knew Liam was sensible enough to show him the basics. Driving to work a couple of days previously, Jessica couldn’t fail to notice the huge banner hanging across the road advertising the ‘grand reopening’ of Nicholas’s club. There were tackier versions on posters around the city with a silhouette of a half-naked girl and an unfunny play on words, which Jessica knew would attract younger men, and they were also offering buy-one-get-one-free on all dances. Business-wise, Jessica had no doubt it would be a big success but there was something monumentally distasteful in the women’s services being offered as if they were a supermarket product. With the business front being relaunched, Jessica couldn’t help but wonder how much of his father’s other activities Nicky might also be involved in.

Just as Jessica was beginning to feel uncomfortable, she heard the toilet flushing and the cubicle door opened. Izzy breezed towards the sinks and washed her hands. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘You’re not yourself.’

There was so much Jessica could have told her but instead she shook her head, offering a conciliatory, ‘I’m just a bit tired.’

Izzy put an arm around her shoulders and led her out of the bathroom, where Jessica gasped in surprise.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, as Caroline approached and hugged her.

Jessica hadn’t seen her in a couple of months, with most of the text message conversations they had revolving around the flat. Jessica insisted she didn’t want to keep being a burden, with Caroline saying she didn’t mind.

‘You invited me,’ Caroline replied, as Jessica returned the hug.

Caroline was looking as dressed-up as she always did when she went out, wearing a tight bright blue dress exposing her exotic olive skin, her dark hair hanging loosely.

‘Did I?’

Caroline stepped back and put her hands on her hips in mock indignation. ‘It’s nice to be wanted. You emailed a few weeks back, saying you were all going out. You asked if I wanted to catch up.’ Jessica suddenly remembered doing just that – it was at a point when she thought Adam would be coming to see Hugo’s show.

‘Where is Adam?’ Caroline asked.

‘He couldn’t make it,’ Jessica blurted out, before realising she had told Izzy a different lie.

‘Aw, that’s a shame, I’ve just been catching up with Dave.’

Caroline placed a hand on Rowlands’s chest in a way Jessica didn’t appreciate. She then said hello to Izzy.

‘Is anyone else coming?’ she added.

Izzy answered: ‘Jason was going to but ended up saying it wasn’t his thing, my husband is looking after our baby, Jess says Adam couldn’t make it, Dave’s perpetually single, so, unless you’re bringing anyone, I think this is us.’

Caroline nodded, grinning. ‘Right, who wants a drink?’

Dave went for his usual pint and Izzy asked for a glass of wine. Caroline suggested they get a couple of bottles but Jessica said she only wanted a soft drink.

Jessica had only agreed to come because of Izzy. She certainly hadn’t fancied an evening with Rowlands, but then it was just as awkward hanging around Adam. The fact Hugo had asked her to watch his new act was a draw too. He had been doing various magic shows around the city regularly since they had met but had never asked her to attend anything. Now he had a regular night at the comedy club on Deansgate Locks, she figured she owed him at least one.

The upstairs bar had largely emptied, everyone making their way down to the lower levels as the show was due to begin. Because they were running a little late, it at least brought about Izzy’s wish that they could sit at the back, hopefully out of harm’s way.

The place was built into the arches underneath a railway bridge and, although the bar at the top was on street level, the comedy club was underground. It was arranged with the stage at the bottom, tightly packed seats stretching up and around to form an amphitheatre. Jessica had never been before but it took some getting used to as the entire building shook every time a tram passed overhead.

Izzy’s theory that sitting at the back wouldn’t get them noticed hadn’t worked too well as there was a row of dim spotlights above them, which only made her purple dress seem shinier. The compere had certainly noticed, first trying to chat her up from the stage, then joking about her ‘grumpy friend’, which Jessica didn’t appreciate.

Although the early acts were funny, Jessica couldn’t bring herself to laugh in anything other than a forced way. Caroline seemed to be enjoying herself – a bit too much when the host was joking about Jessica – and Izzy was definitely having fun.

A row of women at the front who Jessica assumed were part of a hen party were shrieking by the time Hugo stumbled onto the stage.

For the whole time she had known him, Jessica had never been able to figure out how much of him was an act, and how much was simply him. His hair was long and tied back into a short ponytail and he was wearing a brown striped suit with a blue trainer on one foot and a red one on the other. It would look ridiculous on anyone else but, on Hugo, it kind of worked.

Jessica knew he was a talented magician but the first part of Hugo’s act consisted of him getting tricks drastically wrong. He asked a woman a few rows back to choose a card at random from a pack he offered her. As he shuffled nonchalantly with one hand, he dropped the whole deck and then, after she had chosen, he ripped open his shirt to reveal a T-shirt with a three of diamonds on the front. The woman held her queen of spades up for everyone to see.

After that, he asked a man towards the back to think of a number between one and a thousand, then took off his shoe to reveal a number printed on the bottom of his sock which read ‘666’, even though the man had chosen ‘243’.

Finally, he gave a pad and a pen to a woman in the front row, telling her to draw any animal she wanted. After a bit of back and forth, he took off his other shoe to reveal a picture of an elephant drawn in biro on the bottom of his foot.

It would have been terrific if it wasn’t for the fact the woman had drawn a turtle.

At first there were huge amounts of laughter, largely because of his confused facial expressions, but it soon reached the point where the audience were becoming restless, wondering if he was genuinely that bad.

At the rear of the stage was a table that had been there since the start, with a yellow-headed puppet that had massive eyes, wild spiky hair and a large flapping mouth sitting on top of it. Hugo crossed to the back and launched into a ventriloquist act with the puppet he told them was named Dom. Hugo soon showed how funny he could be with lightning-quick responses from Dom tamely insulting audience members and almost always making himself the butt of the joke. It drew huge laughs and Jessica couldn’t stop herself from chuckling, mainly because of the ridiculous sight of the puppet talking in a broad Mancunian accent as Hugo shifted seamlessly from that into his own.

Hugo eventually returned to the front of the stage where he bowed and took the applause, although Jessica hadn’t been overly impressed with the actual tricks. As he was about to leave the stage, Dom’s voice shouted loudly: ‘Oi, dickhead, we’re not done yet.’

Even though Hugo was nowhere near it, Dom’s mouth flapped open, leading to gasps and laughs in equal measure. Hugo’s lips weren’t moving but the voice was coming from the direction of the puppet.

Hugo played it straight and Jessica knew from experience that she shouldn’t have doubted him. The pair argued back and forth, before Dom demanded someone competent be brought onto the stage. He continued to insult various people with their hands up, before finally settling on ‘the purple one at the back’.

Izzy got a big cheer as she carefully made her way to the stage. Hugo asked her to tell the crowd her name and then got scolded by Dom for touching her bottom – even though he clearly hadn’t.

Dom continued to insult Hugo, with Jessica trying to see if there was anyone else behind the table, or if there were strings somehow controlling his mouth. The puppet said Izzy was making him feel ‘hot’ and asked her to help him out. Jessica could tell the constable was nervous, but also finding the epilogue hilarious, as, on command, she removed Dom’s shirt and shoes to reveal the queen of spades stitched into his chest, the number ‘243’ on one foot, and a turtle on the other.

The grand finale coincided with a tram thundering overhead but the applause was far louder as Hugo bowed. Izzy made her way up the steps beaming and clapping, while Dom called her a ‘fat cow’ as soon as her back was turned. Hugo walked to the curtain and took a final bow, only for a pair of pink knickers to fly over the top of his head. He picked them up and gave a thumbs-up to the crowd, pocketing them and walking off.

The compere could barely make himself heard as he wished everyone a good night since it was clear who had stolen the show. Izzy couldn’t stop laughing, telling everyone around them that she had no idea how Dom was managing to talk, let alone how Hugo could have possibly brought off the rest of the trick. Caroline kept saying it was the best thing she had ever seen.

‘Do we get to meet him now?’ Izzy asked Rowlands excitedly.

‘Jess?’ Dave said, raising his eyes, and speaking to her for the first time since they had been in the classroom together.

‘Lead the way,’ Jessica replied, largely because she suspected Izzy would have bashed the door down to get to him anyway.

Rowlands had clearly been before and led them through a side door after swapping a handshake with the security officer, who knew his name. They didn’t have to worry about where to find Hugo as the half-dozen women who had been in the front row were hammering on a door at the far end. Dave reopened the side door and told the security officer, who radioed for help, leading to a scene Jessica wouldn’t have believed if she hadn’t watched it herself – seven burly men physically having to eject six middle-aged women from the building, as they thrashed and kicked in an effort to get through the dressing-room door.

As the security officer came back and told them they were clear to see Hugo, Jessica touched his arm to get his attention. ‘Were they groupies?’ she asked.

The man laughed. ‘They come here every week. Why do you think I have to stand here? After the show, they went all the way upstairs, then went through the staff toilets to get back down here. They’ll be waiting out front when you all leave.’

‘Really?’

The man laughed again. ‘Whatever you do, love, don’t walk out of here holding his hand, they’ll tear you to pieces.’

Jessica had no intention of walking out holding Hugo’s hand but the fact he had fans who were so devoted they couldn’t bear to see him with another female was astounding. Caroline, who had met him at her wedding and a Christmas meal, seemed star-struck. But it was Izzy in particular who could barely contain her excitement as Dave knocked on the dressing-room door and Hugo welcomed them in.

Hugo seemed oblivious to the attention and was sitting cross-legged on a table watching a cartoon on the television while playing with an abacus. Jessica’s gaze was drawn towards Dom, who was sitting on top of a guitar case in the corner. He was lovely and soft as she picked him up, searching for anything that could have made his mouth move independently. As she turned it around, Dom’s voice snapped: ‘Oi, get yer hand out of my arse’. The puppet’s mouth hadn’t moved, but Jessica still jumped, looking around to see everyone, including Rowlands, grinning at her.

‘Very clever,’ she said, crossing the room and playfully punching Hugo on the arm.

As she knew he would, Hugo shrugged his way through Izzy and Caroline’s questions, as if the entire act had been something that had just happened, continuing to focus on the abacus.

Just when it seemed as if no one was going to get any sense out of him, Hugo hopped up and took his shoes off before moving across to the sofa in the corner.

‘I’m going camping next weekend,’ he said with no prior indication that might be what was on his mind. ‘Who fancies it?’

Dave shook his head, although said he might another time. For a moment, Jessica thought she was going to have to remind Izzy she was married, such was her apparent infatuation, but she reluctantly said she had a child and husband at home. Caroline, on the other hand, was more than up for it and was talking about what she should pack when Hugo looked across the room. ‘Jess?’

‘I don’t do camping.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I have a perfectly good roof to live under.’