DS Jessica Daniel series: Think of the Children / Playing with Fire / Thicker Than Water – Books 4–6 (84 page)

Jessica flipped the photos around until she was showing him the one of Oliver’s dead body. ‘How about this one?’

Nicholas didn’t flinch but he didn’t sound angry either. ‘No.’

Jessica put the photos down and then reached across, picking up the card she had left as well as Nicholas’s pen. She flipped it over and wrote ‘Eleanor/Ellie James’ and
‘Kayleigh Pritchard’ in clear capital letters, then offered him the card and pen. He took both but put the pen down, studying the names and downing the rest of his drink. She was
convinced she saw some sort of recognition in his eyes. He didn’t seem the type to forget names or faces of the women he employed.

‘Give me a call when you find out more about them,’ Jessica said.

She started walking towards the door but Nicholas clearly wanted the final word. ‘Ms Daniel,’ he said, his voice now under control again.

Jessica glanced over her shoulder with one hand on the doorknob. ‘What?’

‘If you want to return to see me, you best make sure you either have a warrant or an appointment.’

Jessica gave him her broadest smile. ‘You were lucky this time,’ she replied. ‘I’m not usually an appointment type of girl.’

With that, she left the room, clattering through the door that led into the club. Two men were sitting on stools at the bar and turned to watch as she stomped through the main area. She ignored
Liam, offered a ‘see you soon’ to Scott, who was still sucking his finger, and then banged the front door on her way out into the cool evening air.

She was walking so quickly that it wasn’t until she reached the main square that Rowlands caught her up. ‘That went well,’ he said.

Jessica couldn’t help but laugh, although she didn’t think Cole would agree.

Although she had not expected Nicholas Long to complain, Jessica spent the rest of the week waiting to be called into Cole’s office for a telling off. When it never came,
she realised she had judged the man perfectly. Some rich, well-connected local criminals would instantly get their lawyers on the case the moment the police did anything that wasn’t quite by
the book. Jessica knew Nicholas was nothing like that. For one, she suspected he resented paying a lawyer a penny of anything, let alone for something he would deem unnecessary. Secondly, he seemed
the type who revelled in fighting his own battles. He wouldn’t want someone in a smart suit throwing around accusations on his behalf, he would rather be at the centre of everything
himself.

Jessica had no reason to believe he was involved in anything to do with Oliver’s death but they didn’t have an awful lot else to go on either. Both Eleanor and Kayleigh insisted
there was nothing sinister to them leaving their casino jobs and Nicholas had not come back to them with any further information. She realised the dangers of winding him up, not only because the
Serious Crime Division were looking into him but also there was a strong likelihood he was a very dangerous man. None of that would be obvious, of course, but the force wouldn’t be putting
that amount of time and expense into someone they thought might have been growing cannabis in a back bedroom. The suspicions of weapon trading in particular seemed strong, although nothing had been
proven. She had the feeling people above her would settle for anything, even something tax-related, if it meant getting him off the streets.

With that in mind, she had made the decision to put herself in the thick of things. She hadn’t needed to wind him up but had at least seen the real Nicholas Long up close. It wasn’t
a pleasant experience.

Jessica wanted to keep Izzy away from any direct contact and had asked her to concentrate on finding anything further that linked Nicholas to any of the Sextons, Gordons, or Kayleigh. She felt
sure there must be something under the surface.

In the meantime, all of the test results were back from the scene of Oliver’s disappearance at the Sextons’ house and the break-in at Kayleigh’s. They hadn’t found
anything in the way of fingerprints or DNA from either site that was useable. The only useful lead they had helped generate was the discovery of footprints in the back garden at Kayleigh’s.
Unfortunately, that had only led them back to a delivery driver who had left a parcel at the rear of the house a few days prior to Oliver’s body being discovered. Kayleigh told them it was
something that happened regularly on her estate.

In all, Jessica was not having the best of times at work and Adam was certainly acting strangely at home. It wasn’t a massive deal but, in the past, he would regularly leave his mobile
phone on the arm of the sofa when he did things like go to the toilet. Now he carried it with him everywhere. Jessica didn’t need to use any of her skills to know something was going on but,
at the same time, didn’t want to accuse him of anything. In some ways it was worse because he acted perfectly fine with her and joked around in the same way he always did. He even arranged
for them to have a house viewing and, as much as Jessica had been willing for something to come up at work to get her out of it, the active cases they were working on stayed frustratingly
immobile.

For Jessica, buying a house – especially with another person – was perhaps the final aspect of admitting she was definitely old. Well, that and having kids, which was something that
was certainly not on her agenda. She had always rented up until a few months ago when she moved into Adam’s. Even though that never felt like her house, it did at least allow her to convince
herself Adam was the grown-up, not her.

The estate agent was clearly annoyed to be working on a Sunday, which Jessica wouldn’t have minded if he wasn’t trying to disguise it with an over-the-top cheery voice. People who
clearly hated their job she could take, happy people she could not – especially if they were putting it on.

Adam knew her well enough to realise her frustration and squeezed her hand as the estate agent fumbled with the front door and led them inside. The man’s spiky hair reminded her of
Rowlands from a few years ago and his breath smelled of mint, which Jessica told herself was to cover up the amount of alcohol he had no doubt had the night before.

‘This is the living room,’ he said enthusiastically, showing them into what was, quite obviously, a living room.

‘I was wondering,’ Jessica mumbled loudly enough for Adam to hear.

‘As you can see, the room does need some work but obviously that’s reflected in the price. How about I give you a few moments alone and then I’ll show you the
kitchen?’

Adam nodded an acceptance as the agent left the room while Jessica stared at the wall. ‘“Needs some work”? There’s a bloody hole in the wall.’

‘The ad did say, “needs modernising”.’

Jessica crouched and put her hand into the gap in the brickwork where there was a small feathering of insulation. ‘Did it say, “needs a bit of building”?’

Adam laughed. ‘It’s just an old fireplace that’s been taken out. It’s easy enough to fill in and re-paper.’

‘Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I generally prefer to buy houses that don’t have large holes in them.’

‘How many houses have you bought?’

Jessica couldn’t stop herself from giggling. ‘I don’t know. I can’t keep count, seven or eight? I’ve got a holiday home in Barbados.’

The rest of the tour went largely the same way, with a sink that was hanging off the bathroom wall by a pipe being described as ‘in need of some plumbing work’, and exposed
electrical wires where there should have been a light fitting ‘something that will need to be looked at’. Jessica would have been only half-surprised to find there was no roof,
something the estate agent would surely have called ‘a minor inconvenience’.

She wondered if they should get him involved with their own destroyed property. The fact large parts had burned down and others had collapsed would no doubt provide ‘a unique living
arrangement’.

As Adam offered a degree of interest, Jessica switched off from the tour. She was thinking of ways the agent could come and work for their press office, where he could call dead bodies
‘life-impeded’ and describe stab victims as ‘vulnerable to pointed objects’.

Before she could come up with anything further, she found herself standing at the top of the stairs with both men staring at her. It was obvious one of them had just asked a question.

‘Sorry?’ Jessica said, looking from one to the other.

She saw the moment of recognition in the estate agent’s eyes as he figured out her ‘aah’s and ‘ooh’s of the past ten minutes had not been genuine.

‘I was simply wondering if this might interest you, Mrs Compton,’ he repeated.

Jessica looked at Adam, then the man. She felt Adam squeezing her hand. ‘It’s not Mrs Compton.’

The agent stumbled over his reply. ‘Oh, right, sorry, I just assumed . . .’

‘We’ll let you know,’ Adam interjected before any further damage could be done.

Jessica didn’t need to answer Adam’s ‘I take it you don’t fancy it?’ question as they reached the end of the driveway – she couldn’t think of too many
worse ways to be spending a weekend.

Because it had been a nice-looking morning, Adam had convinced her to walk to the viewing. As they cut through a selection of alleyways, Jessica wanted to ask him what was really going on with
his phone and their laptop but couldn’t bring herself to completely believe there was a problem. Instead they walked in an uncomfortable silence until they reached the entrance to a park that
linked the estate to their destination. The early morning sun had been replaced by the usual grey haze which so often seemed to hang over the city, a breeze whipping along the paths. Jessica was
regretting not bringing her pilfered jacket and was about to suggest heading for a nearby shopping centre where they could catch a taxi, when she saw a boy leaning up against the fence.

Jessica had always been terrible with children’s ages unless they were babies, and she barely knew the difference between a seven-year-old and a thirteen-year-old. In general, they were
just small, probably annoying, people.

As they passed the child, he caught Jessica’s eye and she could see that, although he wasn’t crying, his eyes were red. There were dirty scuff marks on the palms of his hands and
smears of mud on his arms.

‘Are you all right . . . mate?’ Jessica asked, not knowing how to approach a child. Was calling someone ‘mate’ considered grooming according to police guidelines?
Probably – most things were. She remembered her mother constantly telling her when she was young not to talk to strangers. Now she was the stranger.

His brown hair was ruffled and dirty and Jessica could see an additional mark over one of his eyes as she crouched onto one knee. ‘Where’s your mum?’

‘I don’t know,’ he replied, his eyes filling with tears.

Jessica was feeling more and more uncomfortable. ‘Did you come here with someone?’

The boy nodded.

‘Where did you last see them?’

He turned and pointed towards a small play park a few hundred metres away. ‘I was playing there and Mummy said she would be waiting by the gates.’

Although Jessica felt confident dealing with most situations, the one thing that always panicked her was children. She looked at Adam, making sure the child couldn’t see her, and pulled
her best ‘I don’t know what to do’ face, trying to raise her eyebrows in a ‘have you noticed he’s a kid?’ way, just in case that wasn’t apparent.

Adam took the hint and crouched next to her. ‘What’s your name, pal?’ he asked. Was ‘pal’ more of a grooming word than ‘mate’? Either way, Jessica
thought it was a good question, something she certainly would have asked if he had been an adult. She wondered why it had eluded her.

‘Corey.’

It didn’t sound particularly Mancunian, but Jessica assumed at least one of his parents had picked it up from an American or Australian television show. It was one step away from
‘Chad’, ‘Bubba’, ‘Buddy’, or something with ‘the Third’ on the end of it.

‘How old are you, Corey?’ Adam continued.

‘Seven.’

‘Right, shall we go find your mummy?’ Adam held out his hand for Corey to take and then started walking towards the play park.

Jessica felt a little embarrassed at not having thought of the obvious solution herself. As they walked across the grass, Adam kept the boy talking, asking what kinds of things he was interested
in and whereabouts he lived. If he offered the kid sweets, she’d probably have to arrest him.

‘What happened to your hands, Corey?’ Jessica asked.

‘I fell off the swings.’

‘Is that when you went looking for your mum?’

The boy nodded, before Jessica realised Adam was trying to steer the conversation away from anything that could further upset him.

The play area wasn’t full but there were a few dozen children running around. Adam walked around the edge with Corey, looking from side to side and asking if the boy could see his mother.
After one lap, it became clear she wasn’t there. The child had told them his mum had ‘yellow’ hair and was wearing a red coat. Adam suggested that one of them stay with Corey,
while the other went off to check the car park and security office. For a moment, Jessica thought he was going to suggest that she stay but, maybe thanks to the panic on her face, he said he would
wait.

Jessica first checked the car park but, aside from a group of men in football kit changing their shoes, there was no one else around. The park’s office was on the far side of the field,
leaving her navigating around the wettest parts. To make matters worse, after she finally reached the other side, a large sign next to the door read ‘Closed on Sundays’ and the only
person anywhere near her was a man walking a dog.

Jessica used the path to return to the park which was technically a longer route but took less time because she wasn’t having to walk around the squelchy parts of the field.

Any hopes that things would already be resolved were dashed as she arrived back at the play park to see Adam waiting just inside the gate with Corey at his side. She gave a slight shake of her
head as he noticed her but, unfortunately, the child saw it too. Jessica watched his face fall as Adam crouched and rested an arm on his shoulder.