Page 38 of Her Deadly Promise

Television off and sitting in silence, Nadia flicked the cork from the bottle of wine she’d opened onto the floor. After trying Ed’s phone several times, it was obvious that he wasn’t going to answer. She perked up on remembering that he had a tablet that he always left in the drawer of the sideboard. Maybe he had left it. She could turn it on and see if there were any clues in his online diary that had synched from his phone. Hurrying over to the sideboard, she slid the drawer open and hit it in disappointment. The tablet wasn’t there. As she was about to close it, something didn’t look right. What was missing?

Fishing through the tangled leads and chargers, it hit her. The spare back door key was gone. Ed often left his keys at other offices and used it when needed. He must have come back at some time, or did he take it earlier when he left? She shrugged, not really caring.

She turned her own tablet on and began checking his Facebook and Instagram. The last photo he’d posted was of him in sunglasses outside the Cleevesford office, where he talked about working hard, success, and reaping the rewards. She glanced at his likes that were well into the hundreds. As a Facebook message from Ed popped up, she almost dropped the tablet. It was as if he could sense that she was spying on him.

On way back. Need to grab some toiletries as I have to go back to the Derby office again. The alarm is going off and I’ll probably stay there.

That was a lie. Her mind boggled with who he was staying with. She flinched as she heard a bang coming from the back garden at the same time the security light flashed on. Heart pounding, she hurried to the bifold doors and trembled as she saw the rolling tennis ball come to a stop on the patio. All she could hear was the thumping of her pulse. The messages she’d received flashed through her mind, the one blaming her for Billie’s death and telling her to watch her back unless she wanted to end up like Billie. The one threatening her if she went to the police. It would be so easy if she could call the police and tell them everything but that wasn’t an option. Her life as she knew it would be over. She had to protect William, even if it meant keeping her awful secret. The last thing he needed was a mother in prison.

A tingle shot down her neck as she felt the warmth of a body behind her just before a large hand grabbed her shoulder. That’s when she screamed. She was going to end up like Billie. The messenger wasn’t lying.

TWENTY-FIVE

Lying in bed, Gina ate another jelly sweet, that’s all she seemed to crave now – sugar. Frame by frame, she took her time sifting through the CCTV from the Angel Arms. She watched as Brock sat in the beer garden behind the partygoers, even accepting a glass of bubbly from one of them. She flicked back to Billie’s Facebook page, then to Brock’s. Billie posted her whereabouts and what she had on next every five minutes. There were photos of her and her son outside the school gates. Finding her would have been easy for Brock.

Her phone lit up. She glanced at the time. It was a little past midnight. Her heart began to judder as she grabbed it, not knowing whether to answer Briggs’s call. She dropped the jelly snake onto her bed. ‘Hello.’

‘Gina,’ he said in a hushed voice. The closing of a door told her he’d gone into another room so they could talk.

‘Is everything okay?’

‘I needed to speak to you.’

He’d realised that it was Gina he loved all along, that’s why he was calling. Why else would he want to speak to her in the early hours when he should be in bed with Rosemary? He’d confronted her and found out she was having an affair. ‘I need to speak to you too.’ It was time to tell him how she was feeling and how much she missed him. ‘I don’t know how to be without you.’ A tear slipped down her cheek and it pained her to feel this low and vulnerable. Since Terry’s abuse, she’d been emotionally closed when it came to relationships, scared to let anyone in. A twang of guilt knotted in her chest.

‘Oh, Gina.’

That voice conveyed pity, not what she expected. Her cheeks began to burn.

‘I need to tell you that Rosemary has moved in with me and I don’t want you going on about what you think you saw the other night, okay? I accidentally slipped the news to Jacob earlier when he was talking about his wedding plans so I thought you should know.’

‘Did you ask her about the man?’

‘The man. Here we go again. It was her brother. He’s staying with a friend in town.’

‘That’s not how you touch a brother.’

‘Gina, just stop it. You’re embarrassing yourself. Seriously.’

A tear sprang from her eye. Unable to speak, she hung up on him and lay back on the bed. As far as Gina was concerned, that was it. Nothing to look forward to, no one to talk to any more. She didn’t want to be here, to exist, or face tomorrow. Nothing mattered. She grabbed the sweets and threw them at the wardrobe. He tried to call again but she cut him off. A message pinged through.

Gina. Please, we used to be so close. Can we be friends? We have to work together.

No, she would be his colleague and that was all. She blew her nose and wiped her eyes. The only person in the world who needed her right now was Billie. She needed Gina to find out who killed her. She shook her head. The only person who needed her was a dead woman.

She wiped her eyes. Billie may be a dead woman, but she was brutally killed. Kayden needed her to find out who killed his mother. Kathleen and George Reeves needed her. She didn’t have much to cling onto, but she still had a purpose.

There was still so much footage to get through. Her colleagues had been exhausted by the end of the day, so it fell on her. There was no way she’d get much sleep. Instead, she opened the footage showing inside the pub. As she forwarded to ten in the evening, she saw the side of a woman approaching the bar, hair falling over her face. Brock waved and the woman sat by him. Her back remained to the camera. Gina squinted to get a better look at the grainy footage. If only the CCTV images were better quality, it would make her job much easier. It didn’t help that it kept stopping to buffer and judder, skipping bits of frame.

Later, the woman and Brock stood and walked over to the door as Elouise collected glasses up. People flooded out and they got caught in a small bottleneck at the main door to the car park.

She clicked on the car park footage. People spilled out. A woman fell over and required two of her friends to help her into a taxi. That’s when the woman emerged with Brock, standing to the side. She moved towards a car and Gina could clearly see that it wasn’t Brock’s mother’s car. That was parked on the other side of the car park. She began to hold her hands up and it looked like she was shouting. He went to grab her, but she pushed him away. That’s when her long hair flicked away from her face. Gina recognised the woman straight away. A few seconds later, she drove away leaving Brock alone in the car park. He rubbed his head as he got into his mother’s Fiesta and drove off the premises, only to park up on the road where most of the car was concealed by trees and shrubs. She watched for ages and the car remained in place but was Brock still in it or had he gone somewhere else and disposed of the clothing he wore when he murdered Billie? The footage Elouise had sent went on to seven in the morning and Brock’s car remained in position.

It was still her job to keep Briggs updated. She ignored his last message and typed out another with the latest. O’Connor would have to attend the post-mortem in the morning. There was no way she’d make it with visiting the woman in the footage and interviewing Edward Anderson.

Gina flicked back to the system and clicked on a photo of Billie, one of her in happier times. The mum-of-one had been brutally murdered. Gina made a silent promise to the woman that her killer would be brought to justice. He hadn’t gone home with Meera, but what were they arguing about and why hadn’t she told Gina about her encounter with Brock on the day of Billie’s murder? What was Meera trying to hide?

TWENTY-SIX

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