Jessica waited for Cole to arrive and told him where things were up to before going to grab either Dave or Izzy to take with her. Both constables were looking a little the worse for wear after the night before – but had clearly caught up on the news about the final two faces from the photo. Izzy looked marginally less hung-over, so Jessica left Rowlands to dig up any other information about the car crash which had killed Barry Newcombe, while the two women went to meet Steven Povey.

Jessica was a fierce defender of her car whenever colleagues wanted to give her stick about its age and the volume of the exhaust but she never trusted it to get her much further than from her flat to the station. She certainly didn’t want to risk it on the motorway and so asked Izzy if she fancied driving. The other woman’s vehicle was only a couple of years old and was definitely a lot less likely to break down. As it was, Jessica needn’t have worried, not that it gave her any comfort. There had been a major accident north of the city on the M60 ring road. A tanker carrying diesel had spilled across the carriageway and not only were large parts of the throughway closed, but traffic was backing up into the city centre.

What should have been a simple forty-five-minute journey up the motorway turned into a two-and-a-half-hour inquest into everything that was wrong with the country, the police force, their colleagues and, eventually, life in general as they sat in largely stationary traffic. After they finally got onto the M61 to take them north, the pair had pretty much come to the conclusion they were the only two sane people left on the planet.

After they left the motorway, it had taken a lot longer than Jessica would have thought to get to their destination. On the online map she’d looked at, it wasn’t a long distance to Steven Povey’s house but the single-track lanes with high-banked overhanging hedges took a while to negotiate because there wasn’t always room for two cars to pass each other and Izzy frequently had to pull over.

As they drove into the village, the scene almost seemed to spring into colour. A large bank of flowers that spelled out the name of the place welcomed them, with baskets of plants hanging from seemingly every house. The properties were all detached, with large driveways and patches of grass around them.

A sign proudly told visitors the village had won a ‘Britain In Bloom’ award for eight years running, another informing them the village’s summer fete would be taking place on the following Saturday.

It was the kind of location Jessica figured people from overseas pictured when they thought of Britain because of the television shows that had been sold abroad through the years. If it wasn’t for the smattering of satellite dishes and brand-new cars, it could almost have been as if they had travelled back in time forty or fifty years.

Although it was just a few centimetres on the map, the whole area felt a world away from the city. Ultimately Jessica knew people were prone to the same mistakes and cruelties regardless of where they lived. She wasn’t sure whether she preferred the honesty you might expect from residents on a rough estate or the apparent tranquillity you would probably get in a village like the one they were in.

There was only one main road through the village but, without a satellite navigation device, neither of them were entirely sure which of the side roads the house they were looking for was on. Izzy pulled over next to where a man was sitting having a lunchtime pint on his own outside a pub. Although she had lived in the north-west of England her entire life, Jessica found his accent hard to decipher but, between the two of them, they eventually worked out where they should be going.

Back in Manchester, a lot of the buildings were a mismatch of styles as diverse estates had been put up at different times, while other properties had been renovated or built by various people working independently of each other. All of the houses in the village seemed to have been either built at the same time or at least created with an eye on the tone of the rest of the area.

Steven Povey’s house was no different and looked strikingly similar to the rest of the surrounding properties. There was a low stone wall at the front, edging onto the side road he lived on. There were tidy neatly trimmed grass areas on either side of a concrete path leading to the man’s front door. The house itself was made of grey stone with an old-fashioned authentic-looking wooden edge to the windows and door frames. The door was painted bright red, perfectly matching the shade of the rest of the trims. On the front was a heavy black metal knocker, which Jessica used. A man soon answered. He had black hair swept away from his face with a small amount of equally dark designer stubble. He was wearing a T-shirt, three-quarter-length trousers and a pair of brown sandals.

He looked nervous as they introduced themselves and he invited them in, confirming he was Steven Povey. He asked if they wanted to sit outside and led them through to his back garden. There was a black metal table already set up, with four matching chairs around it. The grass was as tidily cut as it was at the front and went back a lot further than Jessica might have guessed from looking at the front of the house.

Steven was still edgy as he sat opposite them. Aside from confirming his identity, no one had given him the full details of why they wanted to speak to him, except for the fact it related to something from the past. He was clearly trying to force a smile as he looked from Izzy to Jessica. ‘How can I help you?’

Jessica took out the photograph of the six men on holiday from an envelope. It was a copy of the original she’d taken from the Markses’ house. She had spent the last few days almost memorising the features of the unidentified duo in the photo and it had been clear to her straight away that the man in front of her was one of the two. She pointed to the image. ‘Can we confirm this is you, Mr Povey?’

He picked the photo up, staring at it. Jessica carefully watched his reaction and there was an obvious flicker of recognition. ‘It was taken a long time ago but it is me.’

‘Do you know the other five men with you?’

‘I suppose . . . but it’s been years since I last saw any of them. I lived next door to Barry and he knew one of the other lads.’ Steven pointed to Lewis Barnes. ‘This guy is Lewis, I went around his house a few times but I only remember that because his mum was a bit weird. I can’t really remember the names of the others. They were only sort of my friends.’

‘Where was it taken?’

‘Faliraki, I think. It was the first time I’d gone abroad without my parents.’

‘Can you remember who took the photo?’ The man shook his head, so Jessica rephrased the question. ‘What I’m asking is if there were six or seven of you who went away? Was it one of your friends behind the camera or a stranger?’

‘Oh, right. No, there were just the six of us. I don’t know who took the picture.’

‘How long ago was it taken?’

The man shook his head. ‘Maybe ten years? Eleven? I think I’d just turned eighteen.’

‘Why did you go if you didn’t really know them?’ Jessica asked.

‘It was through Barry. Someone he knew was organising a lads’ holiday and they were looking for people to go because it was cheaper if you had more. He asked me and I thought, “What the hell”. I don’t really remember all the details. It was such a long time ago.’

Jessica nodded as everything he said pretty much backed up what they already knew, or at least thought they knew. The next set of questions was where things would begin to get complicated. ‘What happened while you were away?’ she asked.

Steven shuffled in his chair. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Just that. You went on holiday with a group of lads you didn’t really know, so what went on?’