Garry took it all in his stride, saying the logo seemed familiar but he didn’t know what it was, before taking a photo of it on his phone.

Knowing she was under scrutiny at the station, Jessica had to be careful about the type of searches she ran but Garry and Dave had done the work between them.

Dave was skim-reading the top sheet of paper on his pile, before catching Jessica’s eye. ‘You know you said last night that you didn’t know why the website belonged to just a normal building company? That isn’t quite true. Bunce ’N’ Builders was only set up in the last two years and is owned by a guy named Freddy Bunce – except that he’s also involved with at least three other building companies in the area. Triple-A Builders and One-Stop Builders are in the name of his wife, with him as a director, and FB Builders seems to be entirely owned by him.’

Dave fanned the pages out so that Jessica could see what he’d found.

‘Is that some sort of tax thing?’ she asked.

‘Probably, but there’s also a branding thing when you look at the four individual websites. The Bunce ’N’ Builders name seems to be more down-to-earth. They advertise saying there’s no job too small and I think it’s mainly subcontractors. That’s not what’s interesting, though.’

Dave nodded at Garry, who had his own pile of papers. ‘Freddy Bunce is a name that’s vaguely known in news circles,’ he said, passing Jessica a printout of an article. She read the top few paragraphs and then snorted in surprise.

‘I suppose that explains why he’s got such a big house.’

‘Exactly,’ Garry replied. ‘Nine months ago he was given a contract by the council to build a new housing estate for them. No one would reveal the exact amount but we know from freedom of information requests that the council have put in a seven-figure sum; then there’s private financing and central government funding too. In all, it’s going to be eight figures comfortably. That comes on the back of him building up the original company – FB Builders – from scratch. He was a self-made millionaire before this new money.’

‘Do either of you actually know anything about him?’

Garry and Dave were both blank. ‘I found his name in Companies House but that’s it,’ Dave said. ‘That’s when I called Gaz.’

Garry nodded. ‘Apart from the obvious use of his name in the company’s name, there’s hardly anything about him to be found. The council made a big thing of their social housing push and so they had to use the builder’s name on the press release but I couldn’t find anything about him at all. That’s not necessarily a surprise – there are all sorts of people with money around here who you wouldn’t know the name of unless they made a big deal of it.’

‘So we still don’t know anything?’

Two shrugs. ‘No.’

Jessica turned to Garry and raised her eyebrows. She didn’t want to ask out loud but the journalist nodded anyway and told Dave everything about Graham Pomeroy and the phone calls he had made to the newspaper. They all agreed that it was unlikely that the Herald was the only place the assistant chief constable had contacted, trying to force the agenda over Holden Wyatt. Dave had never met him; the only scrap of knowledge he had was the fact that the man’s nickname was Porky.

Spotting the logo on the van had left them with one more mystery – how did it connect a millionaire builder to a tattoo that a dead student wanted, to a letter put through Jessica’s door? And what role, if any, did their assistant chief constable have in it?

Dave packed his papers away, adding Garry’s to the stack, but there was a general sense of confusion. ‘There is one thing you could do,’ Dave said.

‘What?’

‘Ask.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Phone up the number on the back of Freddy’s van, say you like the logo and ask where it comes from.’

Sometimes the simplest solutions were the easiest to overlook.

Jessica took her phone out, checked the number on the website and then called it. A woman answered after one ring: ‘Bunce ’N’ Builders, how can I help you?’

Jessica cupped a hand around the mouthpiece, trying to drown out the sound of the screaming children. ‘Can I speak to Freddy, please?’

‘Freddy who?’

‘The owner, Freddy Bunce.’

‘Oh, Mr Bunce – he doesn’t work Saturdays.’

‘Do you know when he’ll be back in?’

There was a pause and some tapping on a keyboard. ‘Can I ask who’s calling, please?’

‘I’m from the council . . .’ Jessica shrugged at the two men, who were clearly unimpressed at her feeble lie.

The female voice on the other end suddenly sounded more attentive. ‘The council? Right, I . . . er, hang on.’

The line went dead, but Jessica covered the mouthpiece again just in case, whispering: ‘It was the best I could think of.’

‘Why didn’t you say you were a customer?’ Dave asked.

‘I don’t know – I wasn’t thinking.’

There was a pop and then the woman’s voice blurted out again: ‘Sorry – I’ve just checked and he’s going to be in the office on Monday. I can book you in for an appointment, or perhaps there’s something I can deal with?’

‘I’ve got a really busy day on Monday. Perhaps if you can remind me of your office’s address, then I’ll see if there’s a time I can drop round.’

The receptionist gave Jessica an address in Prestwich and then hung up.

Jessica turned to the two men. ‘Did either of you know they had an office?’

Two head shakes. ‘I assumed they worked from that house,’ Dave said.

‘At least it gives us somewhere to go on Monday.’

‘Are you really going to ask him about the logo?’

Jessica smiled. ‘If I can’t think of anything else. It’s not as if I can ask the DCI. If we’re going to look into this, then it has to be us.’

They were interrupted as one of the boys who had tried to mug Dave screeched past their table, making a nee-nar siren sound before clattering into a chair and going flying elbows first across the polished floor. Before anyone else could move, the woman in the leggings was on her feet again.

‘Kevin, what have I told you about running?!’

She shuffled from her seat towards her stricken son and helped him to stand. Jessica thought Kevin was upset at falling but there was a twisted fury in his face. As his mother brushed some dirt from his arm, he reeled back and punched her hard on the shoulder.

‘Ow! What did you do that for?’

Kevin started to run off again but his mother held his wrist.

‘What have I told you about hitting people?’

The boy was still snarling. ‘What?’

She released him, wagging a finger in his face: ‘Look at this.’ She rolled the sleeve of her jumper up, revealing a mass of purple, blue and black on her shoulder. She was practically pleading with him. ‘You don’t realise how much you’re hurting Mummy. It’s painful when you hit people – do you understand?’

Kevin’s brow was furrowed, body still tensed. ‘Yes.’

‘Really? Look at these.’

She pointed at her shoulder again and her son peered in, his stance softening a little. ‘I’m sorry.’

His mum rolled her sleeve back down. ‘Are you really?’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay, come here.’ She pulled her squirming son towards her and hugged him, before leading him back to the table.

Dave and Garry looked at Jessica blankly. ‘What was all that about?’ Garry asked.

Jessica was fairly sure she knew the answer: ‘If you grow up seeing one person hit another person regularly, then you think that’s normal.’

‘You think she’s got someone at home who beats her up?’

Jessica shrugged. ‘She wouldn’t be the first. There’s not a lot we can do unless she comes to us, or something happens in public and it’s reported.’

Garry was peering over Jessica’s shoulder towards the woman, who was now going through the menu with her sons. ‘I’ve never understood why people stay with someone who hits them. It’s not love, is it?’