Page 64 of Her Deadly Promise

He pulled her close and kissed her head. ‘Don’t be. Nadia is probably just having some time out from Ed and as for Billie, it had to be one of her clients. It’s sad, I know it is, but you don’t have to worry about anything. Go and wash those cobwebs away and I’ll open a packet of biscuits.’

She didn’t need telling twice. Running up the stairs, she hurried into the bathroom and locked the door. Head against it, she waited for her heart to stop pounding as she fought the urge to smash something up. She pictured herself pulling the sink from the wall and slamming it onto the cold slate tiles but instead, she calmly walked over to the mirror where she cleaned her arm, flattened the frizz in her hair and rammed the note into her make-up drawer. No one need ever know about the note from Ed to Nadia, telling her how sorry he was. Sorry for what, she had no idea, but that hair clip didn’t belong to her. Gavin had taken it and that worried her more than anything. Keeping her family out of all that was happening was proving to be getting harder by the second. Her mind focused on Poppy. She would not mention anything. Her daughter’s future depended on it, and her little girl needed her parents, and she needed them to stay together and at least pretend to be happy.

She flinched as someone knocked on the door. The police had arrived. Wiping the smear of mascara away, she stared at her reflection and smiled. That’s how she wanted to be seen. If the mask slipped, it was game over and that couldn’t happen. She only had one thing to say, and that message would come with relaying the truth of what she’d been told. Serena did it. She killed her sister because she was jealous, and she’s done something to Nadia because the woman was her sister’s best friend. She mouthed the words to herself. ‘Gavin did not hurt Billie. Gavin did not hurt Nadia.’

Voices filled the hallway downstairs. There was no avoiding facing the police.

FORTY-NINE

CANDICE

She calmly walked down the stairs to see Gavin pouring coffee for the detectives. They were sitting at the kitchen table, the man writing in a notebook. ‘Here you go,’ Gavin said as he placed the steaming hot drinks on the table. ‘I’ll leave you to it. If you need me, I’ll be in my office.’ Gavin did a half nod and turned to leave.

‘Thank you for coming.’ Candice smiled, but not too much of a smile. Just enough to put them at ease. She knew the name of the female detective. It was DI Harte, but she couldn’t remember the man’s name. A sudden urge to cough came from nowhere. As she gave in to the nervous tickle, she felt the hair clip slipping ever nearer to her shoulder as it drew her red hair straight. She wanted to wrench it out and sling it across the room into Gavin’s lying face, but he’d left, and she needed to calm down. She should have snatched it out in the bathroom, but her mind had been on everything except the damn hair clip. It was too late now. Then again, only she knew that the grip was a gift from Ed to Nadia. The police knew nothing about it and why would they care. It’s just a hair clip. Calm down, she kept repeating in her head, in the hope that her body would stop humming as blood pumped through her veins. She pictured the fine veins on her pale skin, bulging blue on the sides of her face, and her teeth clenched.

‘Mrs Brent. We’re following up on the call you made about your conversation with Serena Reeves. When did you see her?’

Candice gently slid out a chair and sat at the table opposite DI Harte. ‘I spoke to her this morning. We met at the café on Cleevesford High Street. There’s only one café, I can’t remember the name.’

The DI shuffled in her chair. ‘I know the one. Who arranged to meet who?’

‘It was Serena. She kept messaging me, asking if we could talk so I met up with her. I thought she just wanted someone to chat to, given what happened to Billie, but then she went on to tell me that she moved to Redditch a while ago and that she saw Nadia yesterday. I felt a bit worried, maybe even scared at this point. What if it’s her and she was out to get me next? She went on to say that she’d argued with Billie after finding Billie and Nathan, that’s Serena’s boyfriend, in bed together.’ Candice realised she was speaking at lightning speed. She took a breath and continued. ‘She knew that her boyfriend was cheating on her with her sister.’ Candice shook her head and scrunched her nose. ‘Something else she said set me on edge.’

‘What was that?’

‘She lied to Nadia, pretending that she wanted a personal training session yesterday but really, she wanted to question Nadia about Billie and Nathan. She told me she blamed us. By us, I mean Nadia, Meera and me. At this point, I felt she could easily have hurt her sister and Nadia. She looked at me funny, got up and ran off. She scared me.’ The detective’s gaze fell on her hair clip. She brushed her fingers over it, sliding it off into her hand in the hope that nothing was thought of the gesture.

‘That’s a lovely hair clip.’

Knees trembling, Candice prised her hand open to reveal the glistening gems embedded onto a silver stick. It was too late to hide it, and something told her the detective knew it was relevant. She glanced out of the window, her mouth filling up with saliva as nausea threatened to overpower her. ‘Thank you,’ she muttered. ‘It was a gift from my husband.’ The room went silent, the type of silent that is purposely inflicted to make a person squirm and Candice was doing exactly that. She pushed the plate of biscuits towards the male detective. ‘Would you like a biscuit?’

‘No, thanks.’ His smile reached his eyes. He was classically handsome, his hair neatly combed. He looked down and scrawled a few notes. Candice tried to read them upside down, but they were too squiggly. She had no chance of reading anything he’d written, then he flicked the page over.

DI Harte’s face reddened, and she took a deep breath. ‘Well, thank you for calling us and if you hear or remember anything else that might help, please do call again. I’d like to speak to your husband before we leave.’

‘Gavin?’

‘Yes, please.’ DI Harte took a biscuit and bit into it. A dusting of crumbs landed on the table.

‘I’ll just go and get him.’ They both watched intently as she left the room. Hurrying out of sight, she ran to his office and almost bumped into the door as she went to push it open. It was locked. She rapped on the wood a few times. ‘Gavin, the police want to speak to you.’ She used her loveliest of voices, just in case the detectives could hear but she doubted they could. Peering through the kitchen, she checked that one of them hadn’t followed her through and was listening at the door. She was safe, they hadn’t.

Gavin pulled the door open, and the air nearly sucked her into the room as he dragged her in. He snatched the gift box from his desk and held it up. ‘Have you been going through my things?’ he asked in a hushed tone, a speck of spittle escaping.

She shook her head. ‘I came here looking for some paper and I spotted the box. It’s lovely, is it for me?’

He threw the box down. ‘You know this room is off limits.’

Shaking, she took a step back. It wasn’t like Gavin to grab her like that. She could still feel the imprint of his fingers on her shoulder. He was desperate, that much she could see. How could she have kept the perfect marriage pretence up for so long? ‘The police are waiting.’

He took a deep breath and ushered her out before locking the door. As they turned back into the kitchen, Gavin stood against the wall. ‘Candice said you wanted to speak to me. How can I help you?’

DI Harte stood. ‘How well did you know Billie Reeves and Nadia Anderson?’

Candice could see her husband’s hands clenching. ‘I don’t know Billie and my wife is always at Nadia’s house. I really haven’t had much to do with them.’ His face had that genuine warm look that most people fell for which was a complete transformation of the one she’d just seen. ‘I really wish I could help as what happened to Billie was awful. My wife has been so worried, haven’t you, babe?’

Candice nodded and a tear fell from one of her eyes. ‘It’s just so—’ Bursting into tears, she sat back at the table.

‘It’s okay.’ Gavin pulled her close and held her and all she wanted to do was run as fast and as far away as she could. She wanted to get Poppy and never come back. Soon she would but for now, Poppy was in the safest place. ‘As you can see, all this is upsetting Candice. It’s been a hard week. First Billie’s murder and now Nadia is missing. Then this morning she got upset again by Billie’s sister. I mean the woman lied about being at uni and then she lied to get an appointment with Nadia, then Nadia goes missing. As far as we see it, my wife had a lucky escape. I don’t trust that woman.’

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