Dave and Izzy had already left for the day, as had Cole. Jessica would usually run ideas past at least one of them but, after looking around the station, she returned to her own office. DS Cornish was sitting at her desk and it was the first time Jessica had seen her in their office for a while.

‘How’s things?’ Jessica asked.

Louise sounded tired. ‘Slow and painful. I’m seeing red vans in my sleep.’

‘No luck finding out where it came from then?’

‘We’re getting there but not easily. We thought that once we had the make and model it would be a fairly small list – but Royal Mail’s records aren’t great. Instead of having a small list of vehicles it could be, we’ve got a long list of vans it isn’t. The DVLA are their usual shambles too – they really are the most incompetent, useless bunch of idiots I have ever known. We’ve got a couple of leads.’

Jessica walked around her colleague’s desk and sat at her own, turning to face the other woman. ‘What about looking into George Johnson himself?’

‘I’ve been left out of that a little but it’s fine by me,’ Louise said. ‘The superintendent has been talking to a few people. We’ve gone over his bank records and there are a few cash withdrawals that don’t seem quite right but they could be innocent enough. At some point we’ll interview him about them but there’s so much more we want to look at first. We had to jump through hoops but we’ve got a warrant for certain emails now too. You know we wanted to do it without him knowing? That created all sorts of problems but we’ve got tech guys looking over things.’

‘Expecting much?’

The sergeant sighed, adjusting one of the photos on her desk to make sure it lined up with the others. It was the longest conversation Jessica had had with her since the other woman started working at the station. ‘Who knows? Some people think that if they delete emails, there’s no trace of them. Some are too stupid to delete them. Others don’t send emails at all and our lab teams could spend the next few days looking over the dullest memos imaginable. I think it will come down to the cash that’s now not in his account and whether we can prove he’s done anything untoward with it.’

Jessica blew through her teeth. ‘You’ll struggle. It could have gone on secret love-children, mistresses, cocaine, hookers or a giant stuffed teddy bear just for the hell of it. He’s not obliged to keep receipts and all we can do is ask the questions.’

‘I know. There’s a steady amount of cash he takes out every month which might or might not be legit but there was one larger withdrawal last month and one the month before. We’ll ask him but only after we’ve gone over his emails. I think his attitude could turn then too because so far he’s been the confused husband. If it gets leaked he’s in the frame there really will be a shit-storm.’

Jessica wasn’t exactly shocked by her colleague’s language but it occurred to her it was the first time she’d heard the woman swear. As their conversation petered out, she spun her chair around to look at her computer monitor, then pulled up the file of the rugby team she was so familiar with to make sure neither of the two faces from the holiday photo matched the other players. They didn’t, which left her without an obvious way of finding out who the people were.

As she was thinking, Louise spoke out of the blue. ‘I’m sorry by the way.’

Jessica looked across. ‘Pardon?’

‘I’m sorry for being a bit of a cow. I know you weren’t having a go about me working. It was just a bit of a sensitive issue at the time.’

Jessica was a little taken aback as the statement was so out of the blue. ‘No, look, it was my fault. Sometimes I blurt out any old nonsense without thinking and it comes over wrong. It’s not a surprise I also have a problem of not being able to control my own facial expressions.’

Louise nodded and smiled. ‘I’ve been wanting to talk for ages but I always miss you; either I’m here and you’re not or presumably you are and I’m not.’

‘I know; if it wasn’t for the morning briefings every now and then I wouldn’t know you still worked here.’

‘How are things with your case?’

‘Moving but not exactly quickly.’ Jessica walked over to the other sergeant’s desk to show her the holiday photo. She pointed to the four young men. ‘I found this at one of the victim’s houses. These are the people the four hands came from. I have no idea who these two are. I’m hoping one of the other relatives does or we’re going to be stuck with putting it in the papers and our website with an “Is this you?” request.’

‘Those types of thing always look pretty desperate.’

Jessica returned to her own desk and phoned Vicky Barnes. Matthew Cooper’s brother and Jacob Chrisp’s parents could be visited at a later date if necessary but she figured she may as well start with the one person she’d had the most contact with. The woman was pleased to hear from her and invited her around that evening. Jessica was going to ask about visiting in the morning but it wasn’t as if she had anything else on.

She didn’t know exactly where she was going but the woman’s house was in the Abbey Hey district, just a few minutes away from where January and Lewis lived. Given the short distance between them, Jessica thought it was no surprise January was so annoyed at her boyfriend’s mother if she frequently came round. It was early evening as Jessica drove but there were still groups of children on the roads of the estate. Some seemed innocent enough as they kicked a football around in the late day’s sunshine, others had a more sinister look. If she’d been driving a nicer car, she might have felt wary of parking on the street but someone trashing her vehicle could give her the proverbial kick – and insurance payout – needed to get something better.

After parking a few doors down from Vicky Barnes’s property, Jessica thought about leaving the car unlocked, almost willing someone to at least attempt to steal it. Ultimately, she turned the key and walked to the woman’s house.

If the Markses’ was a mismatched property, this whole area was a disjointed estate. Jessica had driven past some properties with stale old mattresses and other items of furniture dumped in their front gardens, next to immaculately kept houses.

The Barneses’ fell somewhere in the middle; there was nothing on the front but the lawn had been allowed to grow out and it looked very tatty. Jessica rang the doorbell and a cheap-sounding version of ‘God Save the Queen’ played. Vicky Barnes opened the door looking almost exactly the same as the last time Jessica had seen her, wearing a tight cream crop top that was far too small for her and leggings that looked painted on. The biggest difference was that her hair was no longer greying and had been dyed a strange mix of purple and brown that definitely didn’t work.

‘You all right, love?’ Vicky said. ‘Come on in.’

Jessica walked into the house, following the woman into a living room. As she sat on the sofa and Vicky disappeared to get herself a drink, Jessica took the room in. Half of the area seemed to be a shrine to Lewis. There were photos of him from all stages of life, as well as various certificates and awards that had all been neatly framed and put on display. Jessica read the words on a certificate that must have been twenty years old and simply said the recipient had completed a ten-metre swim. Jessica was sure her parents had something similar from her childhood but it would likely be in a box somewhere, certainly not on a wall so long after its award.

She was beginning to see January’s point more than ever. Jessica knew Lewis was an only child because of their files. There were no pictures of anyone except for him on display and, if you assumed from that the father wasn’t present, it was a pretty sad situation for everyone. On the one hand you had a son who wouldn’t have wanted to leave his mother on her own but did want to move in with his girlfriend. Then you had the girlfriend who Vicky would never have thought good enough for him, no matter who she was. Finally, you had the mother who was missing her son but was, to be kind, a little overprotective.