Before going to see the woman, Jessica took Izzy to find Rowlands. They eventually discovered him in the canteen with a full plate of chips in front of him. The two women sat in a pair of seats across the table from him. ‘How’s the diet?’ Jessica said.

‘What diet?’

‘Exactly. You should be looking after yourself a bit better now you’re the wrong side of thirty.’

‘I need something to keep me going after all the shite you left me with. I can say this with total honesty – the general public are complete morons. We’ve had every type of maniac calling in over the past couple of days while you’ve been on holiday. Someone reckoned this black cape woman was living in their shed. There’ve been loads more calling in to say their wife, daughter or neighbour owns a cloak a bit like the one in the pictures. It’s like the Salem witch trials or something.’

‘Firstly, we’ve not been on holiday, we’ve spent most of our time sat on trains and in taxis. Secondly, isn’t The Crucible a bit high-brow for you?’

Rowlands screwed a couple of chips into his mouth. ‘I don’t know why you’re so surprised.’

‘Maybe because you have potato stuck to your chin,’ Jessica said. ‘It doesn’t give off a message that says “literary expert”. Anyway, what’s going on with January?’

The constable wiped his chin and swallowed his mouthful. ‘It was a bit of a weird one. Everyone was working as normal and then a call came through from reception looking for you. There was hardly anyone around so I went through to the front and January was standing there with her arms crossed. The guy on the desk didn’t even know who she was because she’d walked in asking for you.’

‘What did she say?’

‘Nothing, she just asked if you were around. I cautioned her then one of the guys took her to the cells. The DCI was upstairs but he said to wait for you, even if it took until tomorrow. She’s downstairs with the duty solicitor. Do you want her bringing up?’

‘No, sod it, she can wait a while.’ Jessica looked at the woman sat next to her. ‘Do you want something to eat?’

‘Anything but chips,’ Izzy replied. ‘For some reason I’ve gone right off them.’

The three detectives sat and ate, catching up on news from the past couple of days. Dave said DCI Cole had sent around an email the previous day reminding everyone about the community engagement programme that would be going on through the summer. Unsurprisingly not too many people had put their names down. Jessica didn’t know when the careers day was but figured it couldn’t be too far off with the schools breaking up soon for the summer. She hoped the chief inspector would realise how busy she was and forget all about it.

Jessica had to admit she was actually quite enjoying working with a small team of people. There was a good chemistry between her and the two constables and she figured they were performing as well as they could do. Any complaining was very much tongue-in-cheek and there was a lot of mutual respect, even if it might not be apparent to other people, given their bickering.

Dave ribbed Jessica about the bridesmaid dress she might have to wear, although she gave nothing away, while Izzy thought up more possibilities for what his tattoo might really say. Most of them seemed to involve words relating to various parts of the male anatomy.

After days of seemingly working non-stop, Jessica felt a lot clearer following fifteen minutes away from the job and, in essence, enjoying a laugh with her mates.

‘I guess it’s time to go see what January has to say for herself,’ she said. ‘Who’s coming in with me?’

‘You go, Iz,’ Dave said. ‘I’ve got some bits to finish anyway.’

‘Great, I thought I was going to have to make you two paper, scissors, stone for it.’

Jessica and Izzy walked through to the interview room and asked one of the officers nearby to bring January up if she’d finished speaking to the solicitor. They had to wait a short while until there was a knock at the door and their suspect was led in along with her legal representative.

January looked remarkably different from the last time Jessica had seen her. She had no make-up on, while brown roots were beginning to appear, clashing with the rest of her long black hair. She wasn’t wearing black clothes and instead had on a pair of jeans with trainers and a hooded top. Someone had set up a desk fan, which was rotating as it blew air around the room.

The woman didn’t look up from the table during the caution and introductions. ‘Are you all right, January?’ Jessica asked.

‘Fine.’ There was a definite tone of resignation in her voice.

‘Where have you been since we last saw you?’

‘Around. With friends. I don’t want to say.’ Jessica thought that was probably fair enough. If people had really been hiding her, they hadn’t broken the law because it wasn’t as if she had absconded from custody and there was no real need to push it considering that wasn’t a priority.

‘Why did you hand yourself in?’

‘I was tired of staying indoors. I’ve not done anything wrong but I realised the longer I stayed away the worse it looked. I know I shouldn’t have disappeared.’

‘Why did you?’

‘All the stuff in the papers at first and after you spoke to me. I was scared because I know how it all looked.’

‘How do you think it looked?’

January sighed. ‘Well, Lewis had gone missing and the only stuff you had was about that person in the black cape thing. Obviously I’ve got one, so you were going to come after me. Vicky was calling me and I couldn’t cope.’

‘You should know, we found a sample of Lewis’s blood on your kitchen floor.’

January looked up from the table to her solicitor and then finally met Jessica’s eyes for the first time. She seemed on the brink of tears. ‘I’m surprised it was only the kitchen. If you look closely enough there’s probably some of mine around the place too. We didn’t have the most normal of relationships.’ She turned her arms over and rolled the sleeves on her hoody up, revealing the scars Jessica had seen a glimpse of before. ‘The only reason I got charged for scratching him was because Vicky made him complain. He hit me too but I never said anything. It was just what we did. He’d tell you if he was here.’

Jessica nodded gently. She had no way of knowing it was true but, as she looked at the young woman’s face, she believed her. She also realised there was a problem brewing because January hadn’t been charged with anything and, given she had a pretty good explanation for why there was blood in her flat, she hadn’t actually committed an offence. When she had been first arrested, she had been given police bail, which only meant she had to reappear at the station at a later date. Not answering that bail wasn’t necessarily uncommon and, if the investigation was still ongoing, a suspect would usually just be sent a letter saying their bail had been extended. January hadn’t turned up when she was supposed to but it wasn’t enough to hold her for very long and, unless they were going to charge her with something relating to the disappearance of her boyfriend, they wouldn’t be able to keep her for longer than maybe a night. The duty solicitor would have told her that.

Because she had surrendered they would simply have the usual length of time to hold her as they couldn’t keep bringing her in for interview without the formal charge. Regardless of any of that, Jessica knew they had nothing on the woman because there was no law about staying with friends for a couple of weeks. Despite their best efforts, they couldn’t connect her to the other victims and, aside from the blood on their kitchen floor, nothing to link her to anything untoward happening to her boyfriend either.

‘I’m going to ask you about some names and show you some pictures,’ Jessica said. ‘Can you tell me if you know the people?’ Jessica had up-to-date photos of Edward Marks and Jacob Chrisp but January said she didn’t recognise either of them. Jessica again thought the woman was being honest.