Thicker Than Water (31 page)

‘Do you have to do it tonight?’

Jessica thought of what she had found out that day and who she needed to see next. The photos of Oliver and Kayleigh’s bodies flickered through her mind.

‘I don’t know, maybe.’

‘Can you come and meet Georgia first and do everything tomorrow?’

Jessica kept hold of his hand, thinking of all the times she had run off, prioritising work ahead of Adam and Caroline, not to mention her parents. Adam’s eyes were asking her to put him
first, even if it was just for this one time. As he let go of her hand, Jessica stepped into the lift a moment before the doors pinged closed behind her.

Jessica set her alarm for early the next morning but it was Adam who eventually woke her with a gentle shake and whisper in her ear.

‘What time is it?’ Jessica mumbled, rolling towards him.

When Adam told her, Jessica kicked the covers off, dashing towards the wardrobe.

‘Why didn’t my alarm go off?’

‘It did.’

Jessica had a blouse halfway off the hanger as she turned to face him.

‘You slept through it,’ he added.

‘Why didn’t you wake me?’

‘Because you needed a rest.’

Jessica was ready to protest but knew he was right – everyone had been telling her that and for the first time in weeks, she had slept completely through the night. Even hearing the words
made her feel more alert, as if the realisation she had slept well was more invigorating than the sleep itself.

‘Do you want to talk tonight?’ Adam asked, as Jessica reached into the wardrobe.

‘Maybe.’

‘Last night didn’t go so bad in the end, did it?’

Jessica dressed quickly as she spoke. ‘When is she coming back up north?’

‘I’m not sure. We could visit her?’

Not knowing exactly what the day might entail, Jessica crouched and hunted for a sensible pair of shoes. ‘I’ve never been to Bath.’

‘Me neither but Grandma came from that area.’

‘Aren’t they all farmers around that way?’

Adam laughed and put on a fake accent. ‘Ooh arr. I guess we’ll find out.’

By the time he kissed her goodbye, Jessica was fully dressed, phone in hand, ready for the day.

As Jessica sat in Eleanor Sexton’s living room, she realised she should have been prepared for the questions the woman might ask, instead of focusing on what she needed
to find out. The look on the woman’s face was more one of bemusement than pleasure but Jessica couldn’t have held it against her if she had been pleased.

‘He’s really dead?’ Eleanor said, cradling a mug of tea exactly as she had the last time Jessica had visited.

‘Yes he is.’

‘Did you see him?’

‘Yes.’

Eleanor paused for a moment, thinking, then she smiled. ‘I saw it in the papers and heard it on the news but he was just one of those guys you think can’t die. I know it sounds
mad.’

Jessica understood what she meant. ‘I’ve got one other thing I need to ask,’ she said.

‘Okay.’

‘When you and Kayleigh left Nicholas’s casino, which of you suggested that you needed a way out?’

Eleanor scratched her head, narrowing her eyes. ‘Why?’

‘It might be important.’

‘I don’t know, maybe me?’

‘Really? Think about it. Did Kayleigh come to you to ask for help getting away, or did you see she was in trouble?’

‘I suppose I knew she was in trouble, so I suggested we left.’

‘And it was your suggestion to give her money to pay off the debts?’

Eleanor shook her head. ‘I don’t remember. It might have been the type of thing where she said she still owed him money, so I offered.’

‘But it was her telling you she was in trouble that made you offer?’

‘I suppose . . . but it was my idea after that.’

Jessica knew the key to getting your own way was to make the other person do what you wanted, all the time thinking everything was their idea. She didn’t point out that suspicion but could
not stop thinking about what Eleanor had told her the last time she was there.

‘
. . . With the customers and men, he’d break your bones – or get one of his men to. He’d hurt you, or threaten to hurt you to make you pay. With us women . .
.
’

Jessica asked the only question she needed the answer to: ‘Could she have been pregnant?’

Eleanor sounded shocked. Evidently the idea had never crossed her mind. ‘Kayleigh?’

‘It sounds as if everything happened pretty suddenly.’

‘It did but . . .’

‘How often did you see her in the year or so after you left the casino?’

Jessica could see the pieces falling into place as Eleanor took her time before responding. ‘Not much. We stayed friends but it was usually through letters. We met a few times but not that
often.’

Jessica nodded and stood to leave before Eleanor asked the obvious question. ‘If she was pregnant, where’s the baby now?’

As Garry Ashford held the lift door open for Jessica, she told him her one demand. ‘Keep that Ian guy away from me because if he looks me up and down, even from a
distance, I might just punch him repeatedly until his stupid face is no longer shiny.’

‘I would pay to see that,’ Garry replied.

Jessica didn’t smile, raising her eyebrows to tell him she was serious.

‘All right, fine,’ he conceded. ‘But he does work here and you don’t.’

‘I’m on official police business.’

‘Really?’

‘Officially unofficial. Either way, keep him away from me.’

As they emerged onto the main floor of the
Manchester Morning Herald
’s newsroom/bomb site, Garry led Jessica around the edge, telling her to wait in an office. Five minutes later,
he returned to say Ian had been dispatched to an address on the far side of the city ‘that may or may not exist’ to interview a woman ‘who also may or may not exist’.

‘Either way,’ he added, ‘you’ve probably got an hour and a half before he gets back.’

Garry showed Jessica to a store room at the farthest end of the floor. At first, she thought it was packed with junk, but her heart sank as he announced this was the paper’s official
archive.

The room smelled of wet shoes and the brown colour of the stacks of newspapers seemed to have somehow seeped into the dull, faded yellow walls. A fan whizzed overhead but the sound was more of
an annoyance than the breeze was a help. Everywhere Jessica looked, there were either unlabelled boxes, heaps of papers, or tables piled on top of each other. It was the sort of place you ended up
visiting when someone had died three months previously and no one had noticed.

‘Are you going to help?’ Jessica asked.

‘I’m pretty busy.’

‘I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.’

‘Haven’t we done this before?’

Jessica grinned as she had been thinking the same. ‘Not quite, I’m only after one thing, I even have a roughish date for you. I can call you my sidekick if you like?’

Garry cracked: ‘It could be anywhere – and that’s if we even have the correct issues. This place isn’t complete, it’s just what moved with us when we switched
floors.’

‘All the more reason for you to help . . .’

He rolled his eyes but Jessica knew he was going to give in, offering him her most girly ‘thank you’.

After Garry returned from delegating work, she told him exactly what she was after and they began checking through the piles. Some were in date order, others had seemingly been stacked on
whatever surface was closest. Jessica instantly discounted anything that looked too new, trying to be careful not to make too much of a mess. Within fifteen minutes, Garry had identified a heap of
around two hundred papers from the relevant time period. Jessica helped him clear a space on the floor and they sat opposite each other, flicking through them one at a time.

‘This is a bit like a fort I built when I was a kid,’ Garry said.

Jessica was sitting cross-legged but looked up at the newspapers towering above her, the gap they had created just wide enough for one person to fit through.

‘How old are you?’

Jessica took a newspaper from the stack and scanned the front page before turning inside. Although she was fairly sure the story she was looking for would be on a front page, she didn’t
want to take the chance and have to check everything again. Garry was flicking through another issue, skimming his hand along each page before turning.

Not looking up, Jessica spoke softly. ‘Can I tell you something?’

‘I guess . . .’

He didn’t sound sure.

‘Dave told me he loved me.’

Garry stopped, holding the paper open as Jessica felt him staring at her. She continued skimming, not looking up.

‘Dave Rowlands?’

‘Yeah, your mate.’

It had been a point of contention between them that Dave had been Garry’s source for a series of stories a few years before. The journalist had never officially told her that they had been
friends but Jessica had dug into their university records to discover the pair of them – plus Hugo – were all students together.

‘I suppose it took him long enough.’

‘You knew?’

Garry took another paper from the pile and opened it. ‘Everyone he hung around with knew.’

Jessica thought of the looks between Dave and Izzy and the way Chloe had questioned her the previous Christmas over whether they had ever had a relationship.

‘Everyone?’

‘Everyone.’

It was Garry’s turn to keep his eyes to the floor as Jessica stared at him. He had a large grin on his face as he continued to look through the paper. ‘What’s so
funny?’

‘Like I said: I’m surprised it took him this long.’

Jessica felt confused. To her, the constable had always been a mate, someone she would joke around with, take the mickey out of, and go out for a pint with. She had never seen him as anything
more.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

Garry stopped and looked at her. ‘It’s always been you, Jess. Even when we’d be in the pub, he would be going on about work, but it was only ever you, not the job. At first it
was “She’s given me all this stuff to do”, then it was “She’s always off doing her own thing” and then, gradually, it became “She’s the only one who
bloody does anything” and so on.’

Jessica was too shocked to speak because she could suddenly see it too. She could remember a boy at primary school whom she had spent three years tormenting – but the only reason she had
done it was because she liked him. At that age, there was never anything serious in it. To an adult, she could see it was different. For her, winding Dave up was a part of friendship, for him it
was clearly more.

‘I never knew . . .’

Garry put the paper aside and picked up another. He sounded more serious when he spoke again. ‘You shouldn’t hold it against him if you don’t feel the same. He’s a good
guy.’

Jessica said nothing, not knowing how to reply, turning her attention back to the paper in front of her before reaching for another.

‘Do you remember a few years ago,’ Garry went on. ‘You were in trouble at work and I wrote that profile piece that ended up getting you off the hook?’

‘You did all right out of that too,’ Jessica pointed out. Garry’s byline had been everywhere and he ultimately got a promotion from it.

‘Who do you think asked me to write that?’ Garry replied.

They both reached for a new paper at the same time, watching each other. Garry clearly saw what she was thinking and fell silent. Jessica didn’t want to respond.

With the two of them working quickly and the papers stacked in something approaching a logical order, she was surprised by how easily they found what she was after. The enormous photograph on
the front page helped, Jessica noticing it upside down as Garry took it from the pile.

‘That’s it,’ she said, dropping what was in her hand. She shuffled around until she was sitting next to him on the floor. The date of the paper was just under seven months
after Kayleigh and Eleanor had left the casino.

They read the article together before Garry turned inside. ‘Is that who you’re after?’ he asked, reaching the end.

‘I suppose so.’

‘“The Casino Kid”,’ Garry said, reading the headline. When Jessica didn’t respond, he asked the question she already knew the answer to. ‘Who would leave a
newborn baby outside a casino?’

Jessica thought of her own circumstances, wondering how she might act if her suspicion turned out to be true. ‘Someone who didn’t want to get pregnant in the first place.’

‘I wonder what they called the baby,’ he continued, although Jessica had a pretty good idea.

She stood gingerly, paper in hand, trying not to complain about the ache in her back.

‘Have you got what you need?’ he asked.

‘Yes and I found out one of the things I couldn’t figure out – how he knew who his father was. The place where he was left was enough for him to eventually put two and two
together.’

Garry seemed confused but he knew Jessica wouldn’t give him specifics. As she headed for the door, he called one final question after her: ‘Are you going to let him down
gently?’

For a moment, Jessica thought he was talking about their killer, but then she remembered there was more than one bloke she had to deal with.

Jessica took a deep breath, feeling as nervous as she ever had.

‘Are you all right?’ Cole asked.

Jessica tried to act calmer than she felt. ‘I’m fine.’

She didn’t know exactly why she was so on edge but she suspected it was because of the secret she had told DCI Diamond and what it could mean. She had tried her best to convince herself
that it was simply tiredness or illness.

Maybe it was.

‘We’ve got other people who can do this,’ the chief inspector added.

Jessica thought of Adam and hesitated for a moment before responding. ‘I’m fine.’

He didn’t seem convinced, but Cole nodded, turning his attention to Rowlands. ‘And you?’

‘I’m fine,’ Dave said. ‘We go in, tell him “You’re nicked, son”, then come back out and go for a pint. Easy.’

Jessica was hoping it would be that simple, even though the voice in the back of her mind was telling her something would go wrong.