‘I’ll get him up and you can ask.’

Denise returned to the hallway and they heard her knocking on a door, then two muffled voices speaking. A few moments later she came back into the kitchen, her son trailing behind her. From what his mum had said, Jamie was sixteen years old but looked a little younger. He was pasty and skinny, while only wearing a pair of boxer shorts. He had what would be spiky brown hair when styled but for now it jutted out at random angles. His mother must have told him about his brother because there were tears in his eyes, although he was clearly trying hard to force them back.

He sat in the chair his mum had been in and she went through the other door into the living room. Jessica guessed she didn’t want to hear whatever her youngest son might have to say but legally they couldn’t speak to a child without their guardian present. Cole realised the problem so followed after Mrs Millar.

It was the two of them left at the table. ‘Are you Jamie?’ Jessica asked.

‘Yeah.’ The boy wouldn’t meet her eyes and didn’t look up from the table.

‘I want to ask you a question or two if that’s okay?’

‘Fine.’

Cole and Mrs Millar returned and stood in the doorway. Jessica’s colleague nodded to indicate he had told the mother why they needed her back. ‘Okay, Jamie. I only really need to ask you two things. First, do you know of anyone who might want to hurt your brother?’

‘No.’ The reply was short and Jamie didn’t look up from the spot on the table.

‘Do you know who he would have been out with last night?’

Jamie finally glanced up from the table over to his mother in the doorway. She was looking at the floor herself. ‘Maybe.’

‘If you know their names, we can look into it if you’re not sure. No one has to know it came from you.’

Jamie nodded slowly to himself as if weighing up his options. ‘There’s this guy Kev who he hangs around with, then Kev’s brother Phil.’

‘Do you know their last names or where they live?’

‘Wright. Kev and Phil Wright. They live at opposite ends of the estate.’ Jamie didn’t know the exact addresses but had given them enough information so they could find out for themselves. If the Wright brothers were anything like Craig, the police would have plenty in their records.

They had all the information they could realistically need for now. Jessica told Denise they could arrange for a uniformed officer to come around if she wanted. The woman shook her head and Jessica said she would be asked to do a formal identification at some point in the near future. The woman shrugged and Jessica took out a card, turning it over and writing her mobile phone number on it, before handing it over.

‘Call me if you want to talk,’ she said.

Usually, she would leave a card for professional reasons if anyone remembered anything further relating to the case. In this instance, she thought the woman might simply need someone to talk to. There would be a family liaison officer appointed, as was the case in any killing, but Jessica genuinely felt for her.

‘Poor woman,’ Cole said softly as they walked out of the flat back towards the stairs. Jessica didn’t reply but she was thinking the exact same thing. Craig Millar was clearly a right piece of work. He might have brought plenty of misery to the people he dealt drugs to but he had surely brought no greater unhappiness than to his own mother.

Another call to the station had established that Kevin and Phillip Wright did indeed share lengthy criminal records in common with Craig Millar. Jessica asked the officer she spoke with to read her the highlights of Craig’s run-ins with the law too. She had remembered most of his record pretty well but there was a handling stolen goods she hadn’t known about. She also checked why he had been in prison. As his mother had said, he had been remanded on suspicion of grievous bodily harm but charges were dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service because potential witnesses hadn’t cooperated and the victim didn’t want to give evidence in court. With someone who had a record like Craig, likely a well-known figure on the estate, it was no surprise that people stopped cooperating with the law. No one wanted to be seen as a grass, even if they’d had their face smashed in.

Kevin and Phillip, meanwhile, had two separate addresses but both were on the estate where Craig Millar’s body had been found. Neither of them were necessarily suspects but they were apparently the last people to see Craig alive and would be arrested and taken to the station to be interviewed under caution.

Jessica and Cole made their way back to the murder site where the Scene of Crime team looked as if they were finishing up. Jessica went with one of the uniformed officers in a marked car to arrest Kevin, Cole going with a different officer in another car to pick up Phillip. They would both be spoken to separately. It was only a short journey and Jessica sat in the front of the car as the uniformed officer drove. Jessica knew the constable’s first name was Jonny but didn’t really know him.

They made small talk as Jonny weaved around the parked cars. ‘One less for us to worry about,’ he said, clearly talking about the body of Craig Millar. Jessica had never really been one of the laddish types at the station. Some of the females were and the gender boundaries had certainly blurred in recent times compared to the kind of stories some of the older officers would tell.

If there were any doubts as to her attitude regarding catching Craig Millar’s killer, they had disappeared as Jessica sat with his mother. Regardless of what her son was like, his mum deserved the truth. Jessica didn’t reply to Jonny’s jibe. She just nodded.

Jonny clearly took her silence with the intent it was meant – she was his superior after all – pulling the car up outside a row of flats that looked almost identical to the one Jessica had just left. Kevin Wright’s apartment was on the ground floor. The two of them went to the front door and Jessica rang the bell before knocking loudly. She was ready to start hammering for a second time when the door opened.

A man stood in the door in his underwear, smoking a cigarette. He had a shaven head and was fairly well built with broad shoulders and tattoos across his chest. ‘Oh for f—’ he started before Jessica interrupted him.

‘Are you Kevin Wright?’

‘Yeah, look, I ain’t done nothing wrong, okay?’ he said. There was a hint of aggression in his voice but he sounded more exasperated than anything else.

Jessica gave the standard caution she had given to people hundreds of times over.

Kevin interrupted her throughout. ‘Craig? He’s dead? What? I didn’t do it.’ Jessica would hate to admit it but she already believed him.

The interviews with both Kevin and Phil had thrown up very little of use. Jessica hadn’t really thought they would. The fact both men had been picked up in their own flats the morning after the killing was a fairly safe sign neither of them had done it. If they had stabbed their friend, it was unlikely they would have hung around for the police to come knocking the next day. Their records showed they were clearly thugs but they were not idiots.

They shared the same solicitor. Jessica knew him well as one of the cheaper ones from the centre of the city. He was a frequent visitor to the station and an apparent favourite of the low-lifes who lived in the area. That meant they had to be spoken to one at a time, so Jessica handled both interviews with Cole. Each brother was clearly stunned that Craig had been killed the night before and Jessica believed most of their respective stories with both versions matching up fairly well. They each said they had spent the previous evening with Craig but insisted they had just been playing computer games at Phil’s house, before spending the early hours hanging around chatting on the streets. There were very minor discrepancies around exact timings and Jessica strongly suspected there was a decent chance they had been up to no good while out and about but ultimately there was nothing they could hold either of them for in relation to the murder itself. Phil said he had left the group first and Kevin conceded he was probably the last person to see Craig alive. Both claimed they knew nothing about the death, with Kevin especially vociferous. Jessica had no reason to doubt them.