Page 24 of Her Deadly Promise

Briggs grabbed his notes and left.

Gina kept clicking the pen lid onto the pen until everyone hushed again. ‘Right, O’Connor, have we had any news from Bernard as to when the post-mortem will take place?’

‘Yes, guv. Tomorrow morning, first thing.’

‘Thank you. As DCI Briggs said, as soon as you have that CCTV, let me know. We’re pinning a lot on it. Jacob, did you manage to follow up with a call to Mr Peel, to check on Nathan Merry’s alibi?’

‘Yes.’ Jacob unlinked his hands and sat up. ‘I spoke to the man, and he confirmed that Mr Merry was booked but he couldn’t confirm his presence as he’s never in when his garden is being done. He said his lawn had been mowed, though.’

‘Okay, so we’re looking for witnesses in that respect. It might not have taken long just to mow a lawn, giving him time to still go to Billie’s house. Wyre, could you check with neighbours in the area, see if anyone saw Mr Merry or his van during the time of Billie Reeves’s murder?’

‘Yes, guv. I’ll head over that way next.’

She glanced at the photos that Bernard had sent through. The woman that everyone described wasn’t as happy as everyone thought she was. On the outside everything seemed normal. She was a mother, daughter, sister and friend but no one knew that she was also in such bad debt that she saw no option but to sell her own body to make ends meet. ‘Do we have her phone records yet?’ Gina tried to picture her opening all the red letters and then looking through her bare kitchen cupboards while her son waited for his supper. So many people were struggling with the new cost of living crisis. There were so many other Billies around and they too might be in the same danger.

‘They’re due in anytime now,’ Wyre said.

‘Same as the CCTV, they are a priority. She may have had client numbers or messages stored. We need to find out what was going on in her world. Ideally, we could do with the phone. We need access to everything. Facebook, WhatsApp… this may or may not be a long shot, but can we check the web, see if she uses any sites to find customers locally? Speak to the vice department, they will know of any new or emerging sites that we should look out for.’ She glanced back at the board. ‘We need the late-calling visitor. Either she was killed by a client, or someone is really against what she was doing. Why? Maybe it’s a neighbour who has noticed what’s going on. Maybe she refused a potential client, and it was a revenge attack. Maybe she knows something she shouldn’t know. We don’t have a clear motive yet, just speculation and speculation means nothing. What we need now is some hard evidence.’ Gina rubbed her hands together. ‘Okay, so we all know what we’re doing next?’

A hum of yesses filled the room.

‘Jacob, we’ll go straight to Nadia Anderson’s now. We need to find out what she knows and check out what Mr Reeves said about the party. If her husband, Mr Anderson, was watching Billie throughout the day, we need to know why. Everyone else, if you receive any updates, get them over to me immediately.’

‘Guv, the phone records have just come in.’ Wyre held up her phone with the message open.

‘Great. Everyone, let’s get to it.’ Gina called Jacob and Wyre over to a spare computer in the corner of the room, where she sat, and the others stood behind her. ‘Can we locate the phone?’

Wyre scanned the email quickly. ‘No. It’s completely out of use wherever it is.’

Gina quickly logged into her email and opened the email that Wyre was looking at and clicked into the file, opening the pages of messages and numbers from Billie’s phone. One number kept recurring. She highlighted it with the mouse. ‘We need to find out whose number this is. They called her around lunchtime yesterday and several times the day before.’

Wyre made a note. ‘I’ll check it out before I head to look into Nathan Merry’s alibi.’

‘Great. There aren’t many messages surprisingly.’ Gina scanned down them and most of them were from Meera asking if Billie needed her to pick Kayden up from school, or asking when he was coming over to play with Dev. ‘That’s odd.’

Jacob and Wyre leaned in to read the message.

‘There is only one from her best friend, Nadia, and all she says is “Sorry.” There are no earlier messages. I’d say there are messages but not sent by text. This screams of someone trying to reach out to her and trying all ways possible. She can’t have just stopped at “Sorry.” We really have to find out what was going on and Mr Reeves seemed to think that Nadia’s husband was looking at Billie in a strange way. We definitely can’t dismiss that.’ Gina continued to scan the messages and there was one that stood out.

Let me see him or I’ll swear, I won’t be responsible for my actions.

‘It sounds like Kayden’s father might be closer than we think but we need to be sure it’s him.’

‘And the number matches the one that made all the calls.’ Wyre flicked back to the previous screen.

‘Get everything you can on Shaun Brock. Previous addresses, family, everything. That to me looks like a direct threat.’

SIXTEEN

NADIA

‘Damn, I’ve been called into work.’ Ed hurried past Nadia as she turned the kettle on, his smart jacket complementing his broad shoulders. The overwhelming smell of his aftershave almost made her sneeze. He pulled his phone from his pocket and pressed a couple of buttons. She placed the crocodile toy in the fruit bowl carefully, as if it were Billie herself. She’d need to put it back in the doll’s house before William got back from school.

Nadia wondered who he was texting. ‘But you were having a day off. My friend has just been killed.’

‘Not any more. Something’s come up.’ He scrolled down his phone.

‘Will you be late home tonight?’ She shifted beside him to get a closer look, but he swiftly put the phone back in his pocket before she could see the screen.

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