DS Jessica Daniel series: Think of the Children / Playing with Fire / Thicker Than Water – Books 4–6 (62 page)

Jessica knew that much of what he had suggested had already been done. It wasn’t as if they had sat around doing nothing for the past few weeks. She suspected he had said it for her
benefit.

‘Sounds good,’ Jessica said, thinking that it didn’t.

It wasn’t often that Jessica arrived home before her fiancé but, as she opened the front door to a silent welcome, the irony of Adam not being home on one of the
occasions she needed him wasn’t lost on her. The biggest problem was that she knew her growing obsession with Ryan was getting out of hand too. She had felt it festering inside her from the
moment he had looked at her in his house and the way those grey eyes had stared through her. It sent a shiver down her spine at the time and it felt as if it was still happening.

Jessica went into the living room, curling up with her feet underneath her on the sofa. She took a laptop out of a drawer and turned it on. It was one of the few new things she and Adam had
bought together. They’d both had bulky desktop computers, which they each donated to charity, before investing in something smaller.

Before the computer had finished booting up, Jessica’s phone started to ring. She scrambled across the room to pick it up, expecting it to be Adam, but instead Sebastian’s name
flashed. Her thumb hovered over the answer button before she let it ring off, waiting for a couple of minutes before listening to the voicemail. Sebastian sounded breezy, asking if she fancied a
chat, emphasising that it would be for professional reasons, although it didn’t sound like it. Jessica deleted it, trying not to picture his face in her mind.

Back at the computer, she read through the news stories about the attack on Martin, including Sebastian’s on the
Morning Herald
’s website. She never ceased to be amazed at
how the stories got out; whether via hospital staff, the hotel workers, an eyewitness or any number of other people, somehow the things they tried to keep quiet always found their way into the
news.

As she continued to skim through the articles, the front door slammed, with Adam shouting ‘hello’.

‘In here,’ Jessica called. As he entered, she couldn’t stop herself from laughing. ‘How red are your cheeks?’ she giggled, standing up and walking across the room
towards him.

‘It’s cold out there and the wind’s howling.’

‘You look like a bloody robin trapped in his nest. Look at the state of your hair.’ Jessica grabbed some strands that had been blown around and pushed them back into position, before
giving him a hug and nestling her head into his shoulder. ‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ she said.

She gulped as Adam pulled her tight and squeezed. ‘Bad day?’

‘How’d you guess?’

‘That grumpy, moaning look on your face.’

Jessica pulled away and playfully slapped Adam in the chest. ‘Oi, you’re supposed to be nice to me.’

‘I am nice to you. Now where’s my tea?’ Adam grinned widely. Although she had been getting better – and despite a Christmas dinner she had cooked for her friends –
she still didn’t do much in the kitchen.

‘Ha! Cheeky sod. Get your own tea. I’m busy.’

‘Fine. I will.’

Adam went to turn but Jessica reached out and grabbed his arm, pulling him back towards her. ‘Adddddaaaaaaaammmm,’ she purred as seductively as she could manage.

‘What?’

‘Can you make me something?’

Adam laughed. ‘I knew you were going to say that. What do you want?’

‘I dunno. Something.’

‘Well, that narrows it down. You’re a bloody nuisance.’

Jessica grinned. ‘Yeah but that’s why you love me.’

‘All right but if I make you tea, do I finally get to see you in that dress?’

Jessica stared doe-eyed at her fiancé and smiled. ‘Maybe.’

When she and Adam had moved in together, they had had something of a clear-out which largely involved her sorting his clothes into three piles. The ‘stay’ pile was fairly sparse. The
‘okay but I’d rather you got rid of it’ mound contained the bulk of his wardrobe and the final ‘throw it out now, what on earth were you thinking?’ stack was quite
large too. After protracted but rather one-sided negotiations, where Jessica flat-out refused to give any ground at all, Adam relented and disposed of everything she suggested. She suspected it was
because she promised to buy a ‘hot dress’ to sit in the newly cleared half of the wardrobe. She wasn’t a big fan of clothes shopping but Adam had chosen an outfit he deemed
‘hot’ enough during a trip to Manchester city centre one weekend. As she promised, the dress did indeed sit in the wardrobe. But, as she consistently pointed out to him, although she
said she would buy something, she had at no point promised to wear it.

‘I know that “maybe”,’ Adam replied. ‘It sounds like “maybe” but it’s actually saying “no”.’

‘How about if I say “perhaps”?’

‘Nah, I’ll just cook my own tea.’

Jessica stuck her bottom lip out in protest. ‘Oh Adddddaaaaaaaammmm . . .’

‘All right, stop moaning. Yeah, I’ll make you something.’

As the evening wore on, Jessica managed to put most of her thoughts and emotions from the day to the back of her mind. If anything, telling Anthony – who was essentially a stranger –
that she cared so deeply for Adam made it feel more real. The baby-talk with Izzy was making her think that her previous nerves were down to what other people’s expectations of her might be,
as opposed to her own or Adam’s.

After they ate Adam’s stir-fry, they played a game of Scrabble on their phones, which Jessica lost badly, before settling down to watch television. Jessica had her head resting on
Adam’s lap as he snacked on chocolate buttons.

‘Are we going to visit some more possible venues this weekend?’ Jessica asked.

‘I’ve got a few more we can look at,’ Adam replied, dropping a button towards Jessica which hit her in the eye.

‘Oi, my mouth’s here,’ Jessica said, as she picked the chocolate from her face and swallowed it.

‘I did have an idea,’ Adam said.

‘I told you we’re not getting married at a bloody sci-fi geek convention,’ Jessica said. ‘And before you ask, no, I’m not dressing up as Princess Leia.’

Adam laughed. ‘Not that – although I’ll bear it in mind. I was thinking maybe we could do something abroad? We’re only going to be inviting your mum and dad anyway. Maybe
Caroline and Dave?’

Because she had been avoiding thinking about the potential date, the idea of going overseas hadn’t occurred to Jessica. She reached up and snatched a button from Adam’s fingers and
threw it at his face, laughing as it bounced off his nose. ‘Ha. That’s for getting me in the eye. Anyway, yes, maybe? Let’s look at some places this weekend and then make a
decision. I reckon my mum and dad would be up for something in the sun.’

‘Have you thought about when? It’s loads of planning. Most people take eighteen months or so.’

It wasn’t the first time he’d asked but this time Jessica was in the mood. She snatched another piece of chocolate and replied as she chewed. ‘Sod that, I’ll put my mum
on it. She’ll get people sorted out.’

‘Are you sure you don’t want to do more of the planning? Most brides go a bit crazy as the day approaches.’

‘Yeah, I’m not most brides though, am I?’

Adam laughed. ‘I don’t think you’ve ever said anything more true.’

As the show they were half-watching finished – and Adam had finished picking up chocolate buttons from the surrounding furniture – he heaved Jessica to her feet. ‘Come on,
let’s go to bed,’ he said.

‘Are you going to carry me?’

‘Not after all the chocolate you’ve just put away.’

Jessica jumped up from the sofa and stuck her fingers just below Adam’s ribcage in the spot she knew he was most ticklish. He squirmed away from her. ‘Oi, that’s
cheating,’ he protested.

‘I told you, I’m a cheat.’

‘You lost at Scrabble.’

‘Maybe you’re a bigger cheat?’

Jessica reached out to try to tickle Adam but he grabbed her arm and picked her up. ‘Ah, so you are going to carry me upstairs,’ she declared.

‘Yeah, if it’ll shut you up.’

Jessica wrapped her arms around Adam’s neck as he opened the living-room door with his foot and steered her around the corner. ‘Watch my head,’ she reminded him.

‘Stop wriggling.’

Jessica grinned and locked her hands behind his neck. As Adam hoisted her higher and said that he loved her, Jessica couldn’t help but hate herself for the thoughts of Sebastian which
filled her head.

As her mind slowly drifted awake, Jessica coughed slightly. She had the beginnings of a headache which was pounding in her head. At first she wasn’t sure if the throbbing
was something she was dreaming, or it was real. She opened her eyes as little as she could get away with in an attempt to look at the numbers on her alarm clock. Instead of the red glow, the area
it should have been in was dark. Jessica reached onto her bedside table and picked up her phone, pressing a button on the side that made it light up and show her that it was 3.31.

The bright white stung her eyes and she quickly closed them again, putting the phone back on the table and coughing gently a second time. She wondered whether there was a problem with the clock
or if they had simply had a power cut.

Shuffling sideways, Jessica reached out towards Adam and wondered why he never seemed to wake up at the silly times she did. She rested a hand on the base of his back before realising the pulse
in her head wasn’t just a headache, there was actually something making a noise below them. Jessica rolled onto her back and sat up, staring towards where the clock should be glowing.

She had never been the best morning person but her head felt woozier than usual and her throat was dry. She reached out and took a drink of water from the glass next to her. ‘Adam,’
she mumbled, reaching out to touch him again. When he didn’t stir, she shook him gently. ‘Adam, there’s something making a noise downstairs. The power’s off.’

Again he didn’t move, so Jessica swung her legs out of the bed and stood up. Her bare feet brushed across the carpet but, despite the fact she was only wearing a pair of shorts and a large
T-shirt, she didn’t feel cold. She breathed in, coughing heavily again. Although she sometimes got the sniffles and minor colds like most people, there was something that felt different as
she breathed in and tried to clear the dryness in her throat.

Jessica stumbled towards the door and flicked the light switch up and down but nothing happened. There was still a noise coming from below but she wasn’t awake enough to understand what
was happening.

‘Adam, where’s your fuse box? The power’s off,’ she called but he didn’t move.

She turned back to the door and, in the fraction of a second it took to open it, she found herself falling to her knees as thick smoke poured through the gap into her lungs.

Jessica collapsed onto her back and kicked the door closed. She wanted to scream at Adam to wake him but her throat was so dry she couldn’t swallow. In the dimness of the
street lamps shining through the curtains, she could see a thin cloud of smoke billowing above her.

It seemed so obvious now that the beeping was the smoke alarm placed on the living-room ceiling directly below them. To begin with, her drowsy brain hadn’t made the connection. Jessica
stared at the ceiling, desperate to move but struggling to clear her head and breathe. She rolled away, pushing her face into the carpet and inhaling slowly and as deeply as she could. She
spluttered slightly but the mildly stale taste of the floor was preferable to the smoke drifting around the room.

With her head marginally clearer, the warmth of the floor suddenly became obvious. She knew there was a fire burning directly below her.

Feeling weak, Jessica crawled along the floor before reaching out and taking a large gulp from the glass of water. She knew she had to get out of the house but staying calm and trying to breathe
slowly was the only way she was going to be able to manage it.

She picked up her phone and switched on the torch, sending a bright white light onto the ceiling. Jessica looked up again, where she could see the remnants of the swirling smoke she had let into
the room. She shone the light around until it was pointing at the door. Thin wisps of dark mist were cascading under the frame and drifting airily upwards.

Jessica swung the phone around and reached up onto the bed, breathing slowly but deeply and closing her eyes before pulling as hard as she could until the duvet fell on the floor. Her eyes felt
heavy, her arms ached, but she used her feet to push the duvet across the carpet until it was blocking the gap under the door. She shone the light around the rest of the frame and, although
fragments of smoke were seeping through at the top, the bed linen was blocking most of it.

Clambering onto the bed, Jessica rolled Adam over on his back. She shone the light across his closed eyes while shaking him as hard as her weary arms would allow. ‘Adam,’ she hissed
into his ear but he didn’t respond.

She felt tears in her eyes again as she slapped him across the face. Her arm felt limp but, despite the lack of force, she knew it should have been enough to wake him. She held the light close
to his face and lifted one of his eyelids, not knowing what she was looking for but hoping he would respond in some way. His pupils had rolled back into his head and Jessica allowed his eyelid to
droop. She rested her head on his chest, feeling it rise and fall ever so faintly, wanting to cry but knowing she had to get out of the house first.

Still resting on Adam, she flipped her phone around and dialled 999. She spoke quietly, thinking it might conserve more oxygen if she didn’t raise her voice. The female operator took her
address as Jessica said she was a police officer, hoping the woman would contact someone at Longsight.

Jessica’s voice was croaky and, although the operator said she would wait on the line, she hung up, wanting to use the torch again. She kissed Adam on the forehead and climbed across his
body until she was at the window. Her legs felt weighed down from the effort of moving and she knew the way she was trying to conserve the oxygen could only last her so long. Her brain seemed alert
but her limbs were languid and sore. She lay on the floor, reaching up and pulling open the curtains slowly from the bottom.