14

Even though they were both scheduled to be off work, Jessica phoned DI Cole the next morning. He was with his kids but did tell her they had found nothing of note at Lee Morgan’s house. If the warden had large bundles of cash hidden away somewhere, he had taken the location to the grave. Jessica was glad she hadn’t been a part of that raid. Carla had told her how pleased she was with the state of the house and, having just lost her husband, seeing the search team tear her home apart would have been traumatic.

Jessica had bought that morning’s Herald and there was a small article with Garry Ashford’s byline. It was an interview with Denise Millar where she talked about her son and highlighted a few of the good things he had done in the area. Jessica had to admit there wasn’t much but he did regularly help out with a local youth group. The story was buried on page eleven, behind ten pages of speculation about the apparent vigilante and more debate as to whether or not people should be taking the law into their own hands.

The coverage was difficult to get away from. It was leading local and national television news bulletins and had a presence on the front of every national newspaper. Well, except one, which instead had a nearly topless photo of a reality TV star Jessica only half-recognised.

Jessica texted Caroline to see how her friend was doing but their back-and-forth messages fizzled out quickly, as they always seemed to now. She spent the weekend doing very little, which was unusual for her. Frequently she would end up going to the station on her days off, if only for a few hours, or arrange to meet up with Carrie for an evening out or in. Given the way things were going, she felt as if she needed a couple of days away from everything work-wise – Farraday in particular.

She did some tidying around her flat, something else that was out of the ordinary and watched hours of bad television. Jessica wasn’t particularly in the mood for meeting up with Adam but felt even less like cancelling on him. There was no way she was going to be left on her own waiting for him, so she deliberately caught a slightly later bus on her way into the city centre on the Sunday.

Jessica had texted him the address for where to meet and saw him sitting in the window as she walked from the bus stop. The place they were meeting was a nice cafe Jessica knew next to an independent cinema in an area where mainly students lived. It hadn’t been a particularly sunny day but it was at least still daylight as she walked.

Adam seemed a little glum and was staring at his phone pressing buttons as Jessica spotted him. Jessica did that herself when she wanted to look occupied in a public place. As he looked up and saw her through the glass, his expression instantly changed, realising he hadn’t been stood up.

Because of her mood, Jessica thought it would be a decent idea to meet up with Adam in the afternoon, rather than the evening. It made it appear more like a ‘meeting’ than a ‘date’, ensuring she was unlikely to drink too much wine and end up looking stupid.

Jessica entered the cafe and walked over to the stools where Adam was sitting. ‘Hey,’ she said.

‘Hi, I thought you’d changed your mind or something . . .’

‘Nah, just missed the bus.’

‘Oh right, okay . . .’ Adam still seemed a little nervous about looking her in the eye. He was wearing a pair of jeans with a white T-shirt and black blazer. On his T-shirt was an image of a cartoon Jessica remembered from when she was younger. He had clearly made an effort. The stubble from the first time she had met him had been shaved off and his dark hair was clean. ‘Nice place, this,’ he added.

‘It’s not too far from where I lived a while back. I used to come here regularly a few years ago.’

‘Oh, you look nice by the way,’ Adam blurted out. ‘Sorry, I should have said that before . . .’

Jessica struggled not to laugh. The poor guy was clearly so nervous around girls, even the things he obviously planned to say came out at the wrong time. She had made a little effort, with a pair of jeans she still just about fitted in and a black top she’d had since she was sixteen. She had left her hair down too – not having to get dressed up properly was another advantage of meeting in the afternoon.

‘Thank you,’ Jessica replied, making sure she kept a straight face. ‘I was thinking maybe we could have a drink in here and then watch a movie next door? If you’re hungry, there are lots of places to eat around here afterwards.’

‘Great, yeah, that’s great.’

‘What kind of movies do you like?’

‘Oh, everything really.’

‘Even snuff movies and hardcore pornography?’

Adam looked at her, horrified. ‘No, God no. Of course not.’

‘I’m joking, Adam.’

He laughed nervously. ‘Oh yeah, sorry.’

Jessica smiled back at him. ‘Look, if we’re ever going to, er, meet with each other again, I’m going to have to lay down a few ground rules. Firstly, stop apologising. Second, it’s probably fair enough for you to just assume I’m joking about things. Okay?’

‘Yeah, sor . . . er, yeah, that’s fine.’

The cafe had a rack with flyers advertising the films showing next door. The two went over the list together and decided on a documentary about a photographer. It was not the kind of thing Jessica would have gone out of her way to watch but she didn’t fancy a subtitled film. It wasn’t that she had anything against foreign movies, just that her faith in her own eyesight was slowly deteriorating. She wasn’t ready to admit to herself just yet that she was getting too old to be able to read things correctly from a distance and a subtitled film would probably be pushing things a tad too far.

They had half an hour to wait until their showtime, so made small talk while having their drinks. Jessica found herself relaxing more as Adam finally started to overcome his nervousness. ‘Do you go to the cinema much?’ he asked.

‘Not really. I come here now and then but I can’t stand all those big multi-screen places.’

‘How come?’

‘It takes you a few years to realise but eventually you come to the conclusion that most of the general public are just arses. You want to sit there and watch some nonsense film but if it’s not some idiot slurping his drink, then it’s some grossly overweight woman troughing a bucket of popcorn.’

Adam laughed, joining in. ‘Yeah and you get those teenagers using their phones all the time.’

‘Exactly, I once marched up to this lad and hung up his phone for him. He had actually taken a call and was merrily chatting away as if he was in his living room. I had two dozen people giving me an ovation as this little scroat called me every name under the sun. He changed his tune when I pulled out my police ID.’

Adam laughed louder this time. ‘What did he do?’

‘Well, his little girlfriend didn’t seem too pleased when the staff turfed the pair of them out and gave him a bigger mouthful than he’d given me. I left her to sort him out in the end, I think the embarrassment was punishment enough.’

There weren’t too many awkward pauses in their conversation and Jessica found herself laughing a lot more than she had done in a long time. When he relaxed and stopped being so nervy, Adam was a fun guy and clearly very clever. Now he wasn’t too afraid to look at her, she could see his eyes were as big and brown as she had first thought. Jessica also found out he had a working vocabulary of French, Spanish and Italian, which she found very impressive, if a little intimidating. She wondered if that was why she couldn’t place his accent but didn’t openly ask him.

The movie was a lot better than she expected and, given it had not long turned dark after they came out, they decided to get something to eat. Jessica told Adam he could choose, seeing as she had picked the initial location. They ended up eating in a small Italian restaurant right next to her bus stop.