Her gaze hadn’t shifted but Wayne’s had. He had shunted his chair backwards slightly, looking towards his speechless lawyer. Neither Jessica’s tone nor eye line had wavered. ‘The thing is, Wayne, it’s not about how you throw those punches, it’s where you target them. For instance, if you punch someone hard in the windpipe, that would crush their larynx. They would go into instant shock. But, because they’d be in shock, they wouldn’t quite be aware of how to fight back. Do you know punching someone in the nose isn’t really an effective way of breaking it?’

She used her left hand to rub her right palm but otherwise didn’t move. Hunt was frozen to the spot, his client desperately looking from side to side. ‘The best way to truly put someone out of action is to use the base of your palm to hit upwards through their nose. As well as a crushed larynx, their nose will shatter.’

Jessica finally moved backwards, albeit only half a step. There was silence. Hunt hadn’t moved and Wayne was staring back at Jessica not knowing what to say. ‘So there you go, Wayne. You think I’m a goer, how about you fucking try me?’

Jessica saw a visible bead of sweat appear on his forehead. She held out her hand towards him. ‘Just touch me and let’s see what happens, shall we?’

18

Jessica was in the ladies’ toilets at the station. She locked herself in a cubicle after checking the rest of the facility was empty and sat on the closed seat. Her heart rate had only just started to drop and she felt a complete mess. Her day-old clothes were beginning to get uncomfortable and she had an overwhelming feeling of being trapped. Something had come over her in the interview room that had never happened before.

She sat with her head in her hands and sobbed silently to herself. Jessica didn’t even remember everything she had said or done with Wayne Lapham. It was less than five minutes ago but already she could see only flashes of the incident. It was as if she had watched herself from the corner of the room, an out-of-body experience of sorts. She remembered Peter Hunt shouting for an officer and calling her ‘out of control’. She remembered Cole returning and looking bemused as she stomped out of the room, past the uniformed officer and down the hallway into the toilets she sat in now. The parts between Cole leaving the room and him returning were patchy.

What on earth had happened? She didn’t even know where all that stuff had come from. She had never hurt anyone like that in her life. You got basic combat training in the force but they didn’t go out of their way to hurt anybody. She had read a few guides on Internet sites and knew how to look after herself, while Harry had given her those tips about targeting people’s windpipes and noses if you were in trouble. She could only assume that, as her emotions had got the best of her, the things she had absorbed had all come out in the most venomous way she could have managed. In some ways it could be fearfully impressive but that wasn’t how she felt.

Jessica heard the main bathroom door open and someone enter. She held her breath and lifted her feet off the ground, though didn’t really know why she was doing it. She listened to the other person enter one of the cubicles next to her and waited for the flush and the sound of water gushing from the sinks. Eventually the door went and she was alone again.

Jessica had never really been an emotional person. The last time she remembered crying was when Caroline’s parents had died almost a decade ago. Caroline’s devastation had affected her significantly but helped them bond. Jessica genuinely felt her friend’s pain and they had cried together at the funeral. They were such good friends but also such opposites. Jessica generally didn’t get attached but Caroline would cry at everything from videos on the Internet, to movies at the cinema, to articles in the paper and even, on one occasion, an advert on television. While Jessica was fiery and easily angered, Caroline was consistently cool and very little fazed her. They constantly ribbed each other about things. If they were watching some TV show with an animal in, Jessica would throw a box of tissues at her friend ‘just in case you go off again’. Caroline, meanwhile, had devised a sliding scale of Jessica’s moods, ranging from ‘a tad sweary,’ to ‘particularly sweary’, to ‘volcanic sweary’. Who knows what she would have made of her friend’s mood in the interview room?

It was all in good humour but Jessica sat wondering if perhaps her temper had become too much of a problem. She was also struggling to figure out why she was crying. Was she upset, embarrassed or even fearful for her future after what had happened? And why had she let Wayne Lapham wind her up so much?

Jessica took a deep breath and stopped to think. In truth, she didn’t believe Wayne was the man they were looking for. His list of crimes was long but didn’t have anything on it that indicated he was capable of two brutal murders. She also believed his life was as pathetic as visiting the pub and going home, probably with a little bit of criminality on the side. He didn’t seem intelligent enough to set up the scenes either. Someone had very cleverly and deliberately covered their tracks by not only making sure they left no trace of themselves with the bodies but also hiding the very way the murders had even been conceived.

Could Wayne Lapham really have figured out a way to get into a house and out again undetected? He was a thug and a bully and Jessica had no doubt he’d broken into those houses a year ago. Sneaking in through partially open windows was his style. Subtlety was something she doubted he could spell, let alone pull off.

That left her wondering about her own behaviour. Why had she threatened him? Whatever the reasons and whether she had simply lost it, she had at least achieved one thing. She had seen it in Wayne’s eyes as he panicked and looked to Peter Hunt for assistance. He hadn’t touched her, he wouldn’t have dared. He was the most scared person in that interview room and, despite his bravado, he was no murderer.

Jessica dried her eyes and unlocked the cubicle’s door. She checked herself over in the mirror, smoothed her hair down and retied it into a ponytail, thinking it was definitely getting too long. She straightened her suit and left the room.

The hallway was unnervingly quiet. It was a weekend but, even so, the silence boomed in Jessica’s ears. She wasn’t due to be in that day but, given the nature of her job and the case itself, was pretty much always ready to come in at short notice. She walked down the hallway towards her office, wondering if she should go home or if there was anything else she could do. Lapham had been released and there would be paperwork to go with that.

As she rounded the corner that would take her to her office, she almost walked straight into Cole. They both stepped back. ‘You okay?’ he said.

‘Yes, I’m fine.’

‘What happened in there? Hunt was fuming. He practically ran up to see the chief inspector and then stormed out with Lapham a few minutes later.’

Jessica had pretty much expected that would be the lawyer’s reaction. ‘Not much. We exchanged words.’

Cole gave her a sideways look as if to imply he knew it must have been much more than that but he said nothing. ‘I think the DCI wants a word.’

‘Right.’

Jessica went to head towards the stairs but, as she half-turned, Cole added: ‘Do you reckon he’s our man?’

She looked back towards him. ‘Do you?’

Neither of them said anything but Jessica could tell from her superior’s look that he was thinking exactly what she was: ‘No’.

She made her way up the stairs and could see Aylesbury in his office through the window. She knocked and he waved her in. ‘DS Daniel,’ he said, indicating for her to sit down. She did but said nothing. They looked at each other as if waiting for the other to talk first. He eventually broke the silence. ‘Is there anything you want to tell me?’