Текст книги "Scarred for Life"

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Dave nodded but seemed nervous.

‘What’s up?’ Jessica added.

‘Nothing – be quick; I’m busy.’

‘It sounds like Pomeroy’s throwing his weight around – and given the size of him, that can never be a good thing. You’re going to have to keep your head down—’

‘What do you think I’m doing?’

Jessica glanced up from the desk, looking around the rest of the main floor. As she did, she felt a dozen pairs of eyes shoot down towards their desks, pretending they hadn’t been watching. The only person who was still looking in her direction was DI Franks, who had moved to Longsight recently. They had equal rank but Jessica had ended up with her own office largely by accident, while he had to share. They rarely worked together and, if anything, were in a constant silent competition over who had the most outstanding cases. Jessica wasn’t overly competitive – but it was always better to be ahead of the other inspectors.

Franks was a greasy corporate type: all neat side-partings and crisp suits. He’d have been in his element at the press conference that morning and was exactly the kind of person who’d go far. If he ever left the station, then Jessica didn’t know about it. He got on with his job, brown-nosed the right people and had the initiative of a plank of wood.

And he was smirking at her, half-pretending to be reading a document.

Dave was still tapping away on his keyboard and Jessica lowered her voice even further: ‘What’s going on?’

‘I’ve been moved over to work for Franks. There was that raid on the post office van last week and—’

‘Franks the Fanny?’

‘Yes.’

‘Funtime Frankie?’

‘Yes.’

‘Wanky Frankie?’

‘Jess . . .’

‘You’ve got to work for him to stop you working with me?’

‘I didn’t ask – I was told this was what I was doing, so I got on with it.’

Jessica stood. ‘I think I’m going to—’

‘Don’t.’ Dave’s eyes were wide, pleading with her. ‘Leave it,’ he hissed. ‘It’s not going to do any good if you get into some stand-up row with Franks in front of everyone. Why do you think everyone’s watching you? That’s what they’re expecting. It’s not as if this was his idea anyway; this has come from higher up.’

Jessica tapped him on the shoulder, acknowledging he was right – but she also had no doubt that her hastiness in taking him with her to visit Freddy Bunce had brought this on. Bunce had complained to someone, which had led to DSI Aylesbury turning up and laying down the law. There wasn’t an awful lot they could do to her while she was still the golden girl from arresting Timothy Stoddard – so Dave was collateral damage.

She broke into a smile, gave a nod to Franks to show all was well and then whispered the word ‘sorry’, before heading to her office.

The final few hours of Jessica’s shift were a waste of time. The one thing worse than getting to your office to find a pile of messages, memos and emails was getting to your office to find nothing. With Timothy Stoddard in custody, she found herself scratching around for work. Cases had been coming in as ever – it wasn’t as if scroats stopped scroating and thieves stopped thieving – but, for whatever reason, they’d been picked up by, or assigned to, other people around the station. It wasn’t paranoia any longer: Jessica was being marginalised and she knew it. Dave had been looking into the logo for her but there was no way he’d have time to do anything now, while Jessica’s increasing anxiety about her position meant that she was wary of doing anything on her computer that wasn’t one hundred per cent work-related.

For once, Jessica allowed herself to do nothing other than catch up on the paperwork that had been building over the past few weeks. She signed everything she had to, got her unread emails down to the hundreds, rather than thousands, and even risked a sandwich from the canteen. For many, it was the ideal shift; not for Jessica. She hated sitting around, detested doing nothing, bristled enough at the papers she had to file, let alone spending the best part of an afternoon doing it. But she did it anyway – because somewhere there was someone waiting for her to step out of line. The moment she did, they’d come down hard upon her, bringing up every previous transgression or questioning of authority. For now, she had to play their game and follow Dave’s lead: keep her head down and smile.

She finished her shift exactly on time, a little after the sun had set. Mist had drifted in from the coast, hugging tight to the canal and river, bathing the city in its wintry, ghostly grip.

Jessica had spent so much time in pool cars that driving her own felt slightly alien. It was certainly a lot smoother than the clunky gearboxes and loose brakes that the shared cars offered. She waited at the traffic lights around the corner from the station as Manchester’s usual rush-hour traffic hummed angrily back and forth.

She sat, watching in silence as the traffic lights across the four-way junction flicked back to orange before changing to red. Ahead of her, cars squealed as the lights for Jessica’s direction changed. Hurry, hurry, hurry. All too quickly they were back to orange and Jessica did what everyone else did – accelerated through, getting across the line narrowly before the lights were red again. She heard car horns blaring behind, wondering who had beeped her, then she realised it wasn’t her they were angry at. She had sneaked through the lights but so had the car behind.

As Jessica drove, she kept an eye on the car in her mirror. It was hard to identify the exact make and model; all Jessica knew was that it was a dark hatchback that appeared relatively new. For a reason that she wasn’t quite sure of, Jessica turned off the main road, heading towards Eccles, rather than her own Swinton home.

The car followed.

As she reached another line of traffic, Jessica turned right without indicating, heading into a quiet housing estate.

The car followed.

Knowing something was up, Jessica eased off the accelerator, staying below the 20 m.p.h. speed limit, passing a closed primary school next to a church and then edging into a slow-moving line of traffic on the parallel main road. She watched her mirror as the hatchback moved into the row of cars two behind her. Cars stop-started along the main road, bright headlights puncturing the growing fog. Jessica turned up the heater to stop the windows from misting but the drop in temperature made her think of Bex, who was out somewhere in this.

Brake-clutch-accelerate.

Slowly, the vehicles moved forward, a car-length at a time, until Jessica reached a four-way junction. She turned right, heading in the direction she actually wanted to go, stamping on the accelerator and powering into the murk. Behind, she heard the roar of an engine. Conditions weren’t overly hazardous but visibility was poor, so Jessica allowed herself only the briefest of glances in the mirror to see that the car had followed. In the gap she had given herself, Jessica could see the number plate, repeating it over and over to herself until it was almost chant-like.

Easing off the accelerator and back under the speed limit, Jessica used her car’s Bluetooth to call Izzy’s mobile. ‘Jess?’

‘Have you got a pen? Write this down.’

‘Hello to you too. Hang on.’ There was a muffled clattering of objects and then: ‘Go on then.’

The car was now too close for Jessica to see the plate clearly but she had repeated it so often to herself that the letters and numbers had a rhythm to them anyway. She read the details out twice, making sure Izzy had them correctly.

‘Is this a normal check?’

‘No – don’t put it through our system and definitely don’t use your own name.’

‘What do you want me to do then?’

‘Don’t get yourself in trouble but I know that you know people. If you can be creative . . .’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Jessica took the most direct route she could towards Swinton, trying and generally succeeding to avoid the Salford traffic and then taking the side streets until she was almost home. All the time, the car stuck close to her, the driver apparently unconcerned that it was obvious he was trailing her. Every now and then, Jessica would catch a brief glimpse of the driver as the street lights cut through the fog. It was definitely a male with a dark beard but aside from his hairy knuckles, the tinted glass and sun visor made it hard to see anything else.

She turned onto her street but kept driving past her house, taking a brief glance at the empty driveway that meant Adam wasn’t yet home. On colder days, he usually drove. Sometimes he took the bus, and if he was feeling particularly unhinged, he’d even been known to walk.

Jessica wasn’t sure what to do. She doubted the car was following her to find out where she lived – they could discover that if they really wanted – but, on the other hand, if it was someone trying to scare her, they were doing a bang-up job.

She reached the end of the street, turned left, then left again, and made her way along the road that ran parallel to hers. When her phone began to ring, she pulled over and answered it.

Izzy’s voice sounded tired: ‘I’ve got it.’

‘You didn’t do anything to get yourself in trouble, did you?’

The car that had been following glided past Jessica’s, the driver not turning his head to look at her. She watched as the red tail lights disappeared into the fog.

‘It’s all fine,’ Izzy replied. ‘Have you got a pen?’

‘Hang on.’ Jessica dug into her door well and tugged out a pad and pen. ‘Go on.’

‘The car is registered to a company that deals with golf course maintenance. The address is an actual course in Northenden.’

‘Aren’t there about five courses out there?’

‘No idea but I’ve got the name.’

Jessica wrote ‘Brooklands Golf Club’, thanked Izzy and then spent five minutes on her phone looking up its details. Apart from using its website to declare the forward-thinking policy of allowing women to become members, and to advertise that the function room was available to hire, Brooklands seemed to be the same as any other golf club: boring and green.

With no sign of the car that had been following her, Jessica drove back around the estate and parked on her drive. Adam’s Smart car was already there, so she blocked him in as she usually did. She turned off the headlights and spent a few more minutes sitting by herself in the dark, watching the mist swirl, breathing the cool air, all the time trying to ignore the relentless, overwhelming sensation that someone in the gloom was watching her.

38

The mist clung on through the night, eating into the fabric of the city until the streets resembled a Victorian postcard. Jessica slept in short spurts, waking every couple of hours and finding herself inexorably drawn to the window where she peered out towards the dim orange glow of the street lamps that were fighting a losing battle against the light-devouring clouds. Each time, she persuaded herself there was somebody close by, watching the house, watching her; each time she spotted nobody. One time she woke convinced there was somebody downstairs, waking Adam and asking if he could hear it too. As soon as he was awake and listening, the sound went away again – he said she must have imagined it but she couldn’t have done.

She wasn’t paranoid.

There really were things going on around her. The dark hatchback had followed her home. DCI Cole had been acting strangely and had isolated her. She had been put on nights at short notice and then the colleagues closest to her had been moved onto other cases.

But then there were reasons too. Perhaps he had isolated her because she’d gone off on her own one too many times. She had let Bones run, she had visited Tim and missed the significance of Mandy hitting him, she had dropped out of a late-night surveillance and gone off on a wild-goose chase after a van because it had a strange logo on it. Then she’d gone and harassed the company’s owner and his wife about it. Those weren’t the actions of someone completely in control of themselves, and especially not those of a competent police officer who was supposed to be supervising other people.

Then there was Holden Wyatt: DSI Aylesbury had a point, didn’t he? How many times had Holden lied to her? He first failed to tell her about the party, then denied knowing Damon, then stayed quiet about all aspects of the initiation and abuse. By his own admission, he’d done awful things to Damon – so why wouldn’t he be prime suspect? Perhaps it was one more piece of hazing that had got out of hand – a drinking game, or some sort of forfeit. Damon had drunk too much, taken drugs, and then Holden had panicked and got rid of the body in a bin that would have been emptied the next day if the bin men hadn’t been on strike. It wasn’t that far-fetched. Yet instead of getting to the bottom of it all, she’d gone off and done her own thing, convincing herself that DCI Cole was against her, despite everything he had done for her over the years.

And now, she couldn’t sleep, climbing out of bed over and over to stare out of the window into the night where no right-minded person would be.

The only thing Jessica had to cling onto was the letter that had come through her door – ‘You’ve got the wrong man’ – and that symbol, whatever it meant. Anyone could have sent that, though. One of Holden’s friends, his family. Even a colleague having a joke at her expense. She’d annoyed enough people over the years.

But what about the candlesticks? They were such stupid things that she and Adam had never used and likely never would. Who even owned candlesticks nowadays? Adam used to joke that if they bought some lead piping, rope and a pistol, then they could take a knife from the kitchen, plus a spanner from the toolkit, and have a real-life Cluedo set. They’d only kept them because there was so little left after the fire that it felt like they shouldn’t be thrown away. Yet someone had moved or taken them – and Jessica didn’t believe it was Bex.

She lay in bed, eyes open, listening as the wind whistled along the passage at the side of the house. She could hear the bins clattering into each other, perhaps tipping over and sending a sprawl of food packaging and other waste onto their driveway. She wasn’t paranoid, was she? The letter and the missing objects proved it – someone was doing this to her. Weren’t they?

Jessica felt the hand gripping her arm, squeezing gently, shaking her.

‘Jess . . .’

Her eyes shot open in disorientation. Where was she? Who was touching her? In a flash, she grabbed the person’s wrist, blinking quickly and trying to clear her vision.

‘Ow, shite, Jess, it’s me!’

‘Wuh . . . Adam?’

‘Who else?’

Jessica let him go, rubbing her eyes and trying to move her legs. It dawned on her that she was in bed – her bed – but her eyes were so heavy that things didn’t feel right at all. Somewhere there was a beeping noise too.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Your alarm’s going off but you slept through it.’

Jessica finally made her legs obey, hauling herself into a sitting position and picking up her phone from the nightstand before fumbling with the screen until the noise stopped.

‘I never sleep through my alarm – not any more.’

‘I know.’

Adam delicately pushed the hair away from her face; his hand was wonderfully warm against her skin. Jessica reached out to pull him towards her.

‘Are you okay?’ he whispered.

‘I think so. What time is it?’

‘It’s only half seven. I was downstairs and heard the beeping. I thought you’d be up and about but it kept going on, then I realised you hadn’t woken up.’

Jessica clung to him tightly. She constantly teased him about how thin he was but it wasn’t because he under ate, it was simply his natural build. When he was beside her, it made no difference because he was still warm and could hold her the way she needed, her face slotting into the crook of his shoulder as if it was a missing puzzle piece.

The paranoia of the early hours had now dissipated but it was still there in the darkest parts of her mind, niggling away, making her question herself.

She couldn’t believe she’d slept through the alarm. When she was at school, she’d needed her father to come and shout at her that it was time to get up. When she moved to Manchester and lived with Caroline, her sleeping patterns were all over the place – sometimes she’d sleep through an entire day without knowing she’d done it; other times she’d sleep for a couple of hours here and there. Caroline could sleep through anything but Jessica never had that blessing. More recently, she would always wake up exactly four minutes before her alarm went off, regardless of when she set it for. She even started playing around with the time, moving it forward and backwards by a single minute to see if it would affect her body. Instead, every time without fail she would wake up those four minutes early.

To go from that to not hearing her alarm at all was unfathomable.

Adam started patting Jessica’s back gently, letting her know that he wanted to release her, but Jessica wasn’t ready and began kissing his neck instead. She could feel his hands hesitating on her shoulders before tapping her again as he pulled himself away.

Jessica felt stung. ‘Are you—?’

‘I have to go into work early. Sorry.’

‘Oh.’

‘We’ve got time for a really quick breakfast together if you want.’

It wasn’t what Jessica wanted but it was marginally better than nothing. She quickly got dressed, and then joined Adam in the kitchen. He had poured himself a giant bowl of Coco Pops and was shovelling heaped spoonfuls into his mouth. It was his usual pick-me-up but didn’t exactly leave her tingling with affection, or particularly hungry.

Sod him if he didn’t want to kiss her back.

Jessica made herself some toast in a huff and sat eating in silence until Adam broke it: ‘Are you worried about her?’

The question took Jessica by surprise. ‘Who?’

‘Bex. I know you didn’t want to talk about it, but . . .’

‘It’s fine.’

Adam stood, crossing to the sink and rinsing his bowl and spoon, before picking up the empty cereal box. ‘Anything else for the recycling?’

‘I don’t know why you’re so picky over it – everything ends up in the same landfill. It’s just a giant council-run scam.’

‘If it is a scam, then what do they get out of it? Surely it’s more expense to pick everything up separately and then dump it in the same place?’

Jessica ignored him and his stupid logical reasoning, angrily biting into her toast. Bloody smart-arse.

Adam shrugged at her lack of reply and unlocked the back door. He’d only been outside for a few moments when Jessica heard him calling her name. Did he really need help putting the bins out? For crying out loud.

Jessica ate her final mouthful of toast and crossed to the back door, standing in the frame, stunned at the scene of utter carnage. All their bins were lying horizontally, plastic, paper and rotting food in a stinking heap on the ground. The dew had mashed the magazines she’d thrown out into the concrete. Jessica could see scraped remains of meals she’d eaten, bills she’d shredded and thrown out, a skirt she’d decided she was never going to wear again, tissues, some oranges that had gone off, a picture frame that had fallen off the wall and broken. Fragment after fragment of her life over the past fortnight sodden and left on the ground.

Adam was standing a little off to the side holding his hands out in confusion. ‘What on earth caused this?’

‘It was windy . . .’

‘Not hurricane-windy.’ He pointed towards the other side of the street where their neighbours had left their wheelie bins on the side of the road. ‘It hasn’t happened to anyone else’s.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Could it be a fox?’

‘I . . . suppose.’

Jessica had only ever seen one fox in Manchester and that was when she lived in a flat that backed onto a wooded area and a golf course. There was nothing like that around here.

‘I’m going to need some gloves or something . . .’

It was only when Adam stepped back towards the house that Jessica saw the glint close to his feet. She pointed – ‘look’ – but Adam had seen them too. In among everything they had thrown away were their missing candlesticks.

Jessica and Adam exchanged a confused look. It was pretty much the only place they hadn’t checked, but then why would they? Jessica had begun to believe that the unlocked back door was simply Adam’s mistake but now it appeared as if someone had let themselves into the house while Bex had been out, picked up the two shiniest things, and put them in the bin. The only reasoning was that they had done it to mess with her mind – but who would do that?

Together, Jessica and Adam cleaned up the mess in virtual silence. If Adam suspected there was anything else amiss then he kept it to himself. Sometimes he understood her so well.

When they were finished, they had a quick wash-up and then Adam gave her a kiss goodbye and left through the front door.

‘Jess . . .’

This time when Adam called her name, Jessica shivered. She could sense it in his voice: a confused, worried tone that wasn’t usually there.

She made her way out of the front door, not wanting to see what was waiting for her. When she got over the doorstep, all she could do was stare. It should have made her angry but Jessica felt only justification because this confirmed she wasn’t imagining things.

Adam knew exactly what to say again: ‘I suppose this proves it was done by someone who knows you.’

Jessica laughed, feeling a single tear run down her cheek at the same time. She reached out and took his hand, pulling him to her as they both stared. If anyone else had said it in any other context then she would have been hurt, angry, or both.

‘Is someone out to get us?’ Adam whispered, seriously this time.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Bex?’

‘No.’

‘At least they know how to spell.’

Jessica smiled but there was a lump in the back of her throat and another tear. She hadn’t imagined everything: the proof was in front of her, spray-painted along the side of her car in capital letters.

‘BITCH’.

39

Adam said he would take the car to a garage to have it resprayed but Jessica didn’t want to let him do that for her. Instead, she drove just over a mile to the workshop closest to them and sat in the car by the side of the road waiting for the mechanic to turn up while passing pedestrians stared at her. A few cars even beeped their horns in recognition – ‘wahey, there’s a bitch we can taunt’.

Jessica called the station and told Pat she was going to be late due to ‘car trouble’, which wasn’t even a lie – even if he did cough to show how suspicious it sounded. Either that, or he choked on a piece of pastry.

Shortly after half past eight, the mechanic turned up, rubbing his chin with a wry grin. He was younger than her, stubbly, cute. Jessica got out of the vehicle knowing she looked a mess: she’d not had time to sort herself out properly before getting in the car, while there had been a mixture of tears and self-said pull-yourself-togethers. Jessica wasn’t even sure why she was upset; she’d been called far worse and had terrible things happen to her but somehow this felt more targeted.

The mechanic glanced from Jessica to the car, and back to Jessica again. He had dark eyes matching his hair and a grin that she guessed he usually kept for casual lean-ins on the bar when he was trying to chat a girl up. Ten years ago Jessica might even have gone for it.

He finally settled on Jessica, lopsided smirk on his face. ‘So, whose boyfriend did you shag?’

It was so inappropriate that Jessica couldn’t stop herself from laughing. That inevitably brought more tears, which the handsome mechanic with the rough hands was only too happy to indulge with a friendly grin.

Sometimes it was nice to feel wanted, even if it was by a too-young man who likely thought you were a total slapper.

After a bit of what she assured herself was most definitely not flirting, Jessica caught the bus to the city centre and then a second bus out to Longsight. Pat made a point of checking his watch as Jessica finally arrived at the station; her only comfort was that it wasn’t raining. She was about to head past reception towards her office when he got to the point: ‘You’re wanted upstairs.’

Jessica had half-expected it and refused to give Pat the satisfaction of scowling in front of him as she headed up the steps.

This time, Cole didn’t make her wait, waving her in while somehow managing to be utterly dismissive at the same time. ‘Car problems?’ he said, not getting up from behind his desk.

‘I had to take it to the garage.’

He nodded but she couldn’t work out if he believed her. ‘After yesterday’s . . . events . . . Superintendent Aylesbury and myself have decided that your talents would be better used away from looking into Damon Potter’s death. We’ve brought an inspector in from the North district to start all over again. It was thought that a fresh set of eyes might bring a fresh perspective.’

He paused, waiting for Jessica’s reaction, but it was only an official confirmation of what had been going on unofficially for days. ‘Since when?’

Cole didn’t even look up as he replied tersely, ‘About an hour ago – when your shift started.’

When she said nothing, he picked up a printout of an email: ‘We’ve had something come in overnight which you can work on.’

He handed the sheet across and then turned away and began typing. Jessica read through the details of the case – something menial that a DC could do with their shoelaces tied together.

‘Any problems?’ Cole asked, not looking up.

‘Of course not, Sir.’

‘Excellent – then we’ll talk again later in the day. You can let yourself out.’

Jessica said nothing, spinning and walking out of the room. Her first thought was to tell Dave or Izzy what had happened overnight but she knew Rowlands would be under Wanky Frankie’s thumb – hopefully only his thumb – and that Izzy would be busy. Too many people around the station knew they were friends and she didn’t trust anyone other than Izzy, Dave and . . .

‘Archie, my old pal – how are you doing?’

Jessica accidentally slapped him on the back harder than she meant, making the constable partially regurgitate a bit of sausage. Given he had bought it in the station’s canteen, that could only be a good thing.

He coughed up a bit more and then struggled to down a mouthful of water in between splutters. ‘Give over, Jess.’

She had a quick glance around to make sure there was no one nearby and then crouched to whisper in his ear: ‘My office, five minutes.’

Four and a half minutes later and Archie peered around Jessica’s door, eyebrows raised in curiosity.

‘Shut the door,’ she said. ‘And lock it.’

Archie did as he was told. ‘Yaright?’

‘Did you just ask if I was all right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Only a Manc could turn four words into one – “Are you all right?” Anyway, I’ve got a job for you.’

‘Okay.’

‘But it needs to be between you and me.’

‘I won’t say owt.’

‘How’s your memory?’

‘I can tell you who scored the goals at any United match I’ve ever been to. Go on, test me.’

‘No, thanks. I’m going to give you a couple of names but I don’t want to write them down, email them, text them or anything. They also can’t be connected back to me. Are you still up for it?’

Archie was rocking on his heels again in the way he had been when he was ready to square up to Holden. He was excited, thinking it was proper police work for once. ‘Aye, it’s sound.’

‘First one is a person – Freddy Bunce. He owns some building companies, so does his wife. There’s next to nothing about him in our system or in any news archives but I want you to try to find something that links him to Brooklands Golf Club in Northenden. Perhaps he’s a silent partner somewhere, or whoever owns the course used to be a neighbour. Something like that.’

‘Freddy Bunce and Brooklands Golf Club – no worries.’

He turned to leave.

‘Don’t you want to know why?’

Archie turned back, looking surprised. ‘Sorry?’

‘Don’t you want to know why I’m asking you to look into things for me?’

He shrugged. ‘Don’t matter, does it? If you’re asking then there’s a good reason. If you want me to do it quietly, then fair enough. I’m chuffed you’ve asked, to be honest.’

‘It’s because other people might be keeping a close eye on Dave and Izzy. It had to be you.’

Archie sniggered, knowing Jessica had said too much – she could’ve just let him think it was because he was the chosen one but that wasn’t the style of either of them. ‘You don’t have to explain. I’ll sort it. Shall I call you?’

‘No . . . I just . . . I’m probably overreacting but best not. Come and find me if you need to.’

‘Sound – but if you could not go around slapping me in public, it’d be appreciated.’ He rolled his shoulders forward. ‘Gotta reputation to uphold an’ all that.’

Jessica skimmed through her notes, trying not to feel as if this was a job someone else should be doing. ‘Right, Mr, er, Naismith, I’d just like to go back over what you’ve told me, if that’s okay?’

The man lying face down in the hospital twisted his head to face her and mumbled something that sounded a bit like ‘yeah’, although it could have been ‘ow’. Given what had happened to him Jessica didn’t know which, but she carried on anyway – more to double-check that she could read her own handwriting.

‘So you were at home last night with your girlfriend, er, Kylie.’

‘Right.’

‘And you own a house together?’

‘Yes.’

Jessica made an extra note, before continuing. ‘You were watching television and having tea together when, and I’m quoting here, “she went mental with the fork”.’

A grunt.

‘I know you’ve already told me once but I do think I should probably ask you to confirm for a second time exactly why she, ahem, “went mental”.’

Michael Naismith propped himself up slightly, until he was in a yoga-like position: on his front, legs and hips flat against the bed, chest thrusting upwards, neck arched. ‘We were watching this midweek singing show thing – it’s like a preview to the weekend, so you catch up with who’s singing what and how rehearsals are going; that kind of thing.’

‘Right.’

‘Do you watch them?’

‘Er, no . . .’

Liar.

‘Okay, well anyway, there’s this girl on there – Jenga or something like that—’