Jessica knew the area reasonably well and, for a district where lots of students lived and restaurants were constantly bought and rebranded, this particular place had been ever-present for as long as she could remember.

There was only room for half-a-dozen tables inside and they received a warm welcome as they entered from the man who was presumably the owner. He took Adam’s jacket and led them to a table for two in the bay window. ‘The most romantic table in the house,’ he declared loudly. Jessica and Adam laughed nervously with each other.

The walls were adorned with a mixture of cheesy Italian imagery, such as photos of a man with a moustache, and hanging peppers, chillies and spicy-looking sausages. The smells given off from those and the ones drifting from the kitchen were making Jessica hungry. Despite her earlier pledge not to drink, she ordered a bottle of wine for the two of them to share.

They agreed to split one of the large pizzas but Adam insisted he was allergic to onions, so they opted for a purely meaty one. They had almost finished eating when Jessica asked the question she had wanted to when he had first mentioned it. ‘Are you really allergic to onions or just a bit funny about them?’

‘They give me big stomach cramps.’

‘Oh, so it’s a fake allergy then?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, for me, if you’re not going to keel over dead, it doesn’t really count.’

‘So you’d rather I died as opposed to just having a tummy ache?’

‘Exactly. If you’re going to go around calling something an allergy, I think you’ve got to be able to back that up.’

Adam laughed and Jessica realised he had finally cottoned on to her sense of humour. ‘So where do you live then?’ she asked.

‘I have a house out Salford way.’

‘Do you live alone?’

Adam shuffled in his seat. He finally seemed comfortable with making eye contact but glanced out of the window as he answered. ‘No, with my grandma.’

‘Oh . . .’

Jessica didn’t mean to sound quite so blunt, it just slipped out. She didn’t know exactly how old he was but it was certainly somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties. Living with your parents, let alone grandparents, wasn’t a great image. It could partially explain his awkwardness around girls. It must be hard getting time alone with the opposite sex if you still lived with your family.

Adam quickly jumped in. ‘My parents died when I was a baby and my grandma brought me up. I’ve been meaning to move out for a long time but . . . well, it’s just I don’t want her ending up in a home or anything. It wouldn’t seem fair to leave her after she took me in.’

‘Is it her you get your accent from? It doesn’t sound local.’

‘She’s from the west country somewhere. I guess some of her dialect has rubbed off on me.’

Jessica nodded gently and half-thought about making some sort of cider- or cheese-related joke. Adam had spoken quickly though and there was a strong undercurrent of emotion in his voice. Jessica felt it a little herself. ‘That’s really nice.’

‘No, it’s okay. I know it’s weird.’

‘I think it’s nice. What’s she like?’

Adam grinned. ‘Grandma? She’s . . . different. She’s got to that point where she just doesn’t care what anyone thinks any longer. Whatever’s in her head just pops out. I took her to the supermarket the other week and we were behind this woman in the queue. She had these dodgy leggings on that made her look . . . well, y’know?’

Jessica nodded, knowing exactly what he meant. There were some women who, to be polite, didn’t have the figure to pull off wearing leggings.

‘Most people wouldn’t say anything. You might glance, then look away and think, “That doesn’t look good” or something like that. But Nan’s at the point where she doesn’t have any of those social niceties. She just turns to me and goes, “Adam, do you think that woman’s got a mirror in her house?”’

‘How loud?’

‘Really loud. She’s a bit deaf too.’

‘Oh God . . .’ Jessica found herself laughing in a way she hadn’t done since before Caroline had moved out, really deep belly laughs. There were tears in her eyes as Adam joined in too.

‘Did the woman say anything?’ Jessica asked when she managed to calm herself down.

‘No but you could see her tense up – she must have heard. Then Nan kept going on about why people dress like that in public. I was trying to change the subject but she was oblivious.’

‘Oh, that poor woman.’

‘I know! This other time, she scolded a teenage kid in the local shop for wearing his trousers too low. His mates were all there and she goes, “If you don’t buck your ideas up, you’ll never get yourself a young lady. I didn’t see a young man’s underpants until I was in my twenties”.’

‘What did the kid say?’

‘Nothing much. What could he say? There was some woman in her eighties talking about his boxer shorts in front of his friends. I think he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him.’

Jessica exploded with laughter again and couldn’t stop. On three separate occasions, she thought she had finished but each time, the image of the youth being told off about his underwear by a pensioner popped into her head and set her off again. Even the owner got involved, bringing over a napkin for her to dry her eyes and asking if she was okay.

‘She sounds ace,’ Jessica finally said when she finished giggling.

‘She’s all right.’

‘I’ve got to meet her one day.’ Jessica had blurted it out before she realised what she had said. It was the equivalent of asking to meet someone’s parents.

‘We’ll see. She’s not good with new people. She is always going on about me getting a girlfriend though.’

Adam had clearly said that without thinking too much either as he immediately picked up his glass of wine to stop himself saying any more. For the first time since they sat down to eat, there was an awkward pause between them. Jessica finished her own glass of wine and then broke the silence. ‘Can we talk a bit of work for a minute?’

‘Okay.’ Adam seemed pleased she was changing the subject.

‘I know you said before but do you think the blood and hairs could have been planted?’

‘I doubt it. It looked too genuine, especially the blood under the nails.’

‘What could prove things one way or the other?’

‘I guess the only thing for sure would be a fingerprint. It might be unlikely but you could plant blood or something at a scene. Getting someone’s fingerprint onto a scene they weren’t at would be as close to impossible as you could imagine.’

‘Are you going to find anything on Lee Morgan’s body?’

‘I wouldn’t have thought so. We usually find things pretty early, it just takes time to do the testing afterwards.’

‘So what made you want to hang around dead bodies for a living then?’

‘I don’t know really. I got into it by accident. I always liked science at school and then ended up doing it at university. I didn’t want to leave Grandma so went to the local uni and lived at home. I just fell into the job.’

Jessica nodded. ‘I pretty much fell into the police stuff too. It wasn’t as if I had dreamed of dealing with all this stuff when I was a kid. It just happened.’

‘Do you enjoy it?’

It was Jessica’s turn to look out the window. She was fine with talking to people about what she did but not so good with her feelings. In truth, she didn’t know if she liked her job. She enjoyed some of the people and the teamwork that came with it. She liked it when things went well and bad people were caught. But, overall, she didn’t know. It was a question she tried not to ask herself, especially since her friendship with Caroline had deteriorated. They had been best friends since the age of sixteen and then, whether she liked it or not, it had been her job that had split them up.

She looked out across the street where one of the pubs had a bright neon sign that simply said, ‘Live football’.