Page 78 of Her Deadly Promise

‘I hope so. We need them logged in and then taken to the station for immediate processing. I’m not going to mess with anything else here. Forensics need to scour the scene so let’s get out. Time to speak to Mrs Brent.’ She whispered a few words to Jacob, and he nodded in acknowledgement.

As they stepped out, Gina watched as the paramedic closed her kit up and headed back towards her bike.

‘He was going to kill me,’ Candice stuttered. ‘I had no choice. It was him or me. He killed Billie and he took Nadia.’

Gina sighed. Bernard had found a speck of latex amongst some of the smashed items in Billie’s kitchen. The tiniest bit of latex from a glove, not one they used. The colour was wrong, and not one of them would have pierced that glove with their long, chipped, red nails. BenedictCarnY was an anagram of Candice Y Brent. Mr Brent had the username AppGuy. She had been monitoring her husband’s internet use and had come across the Hi There Horny website. She’d used his internet history to see exactly what he’d been looking at, then she’d read his private messages showing him arranging to pay Billie for sex. Billie hadn’t been keen, hadn’t wanted to but Gina remembered all those debt letters piled up. Gavin had offered her double what she charged. That’s when Candice had set up her own account and sent Billie that message. ‘Sluts get what they deserve.’ Why she’d taken Nadia, Gina still didn’t know but she was about to find out.

‘Candice Brent. I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Billie Reeves, the kidnapping, false imprisonment and attempted murder of Nadia Anderson and the attempted murder of Gavin Brent. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’ She paused as she watched a stream of blood and saliva drip from the side of the woman’s mouth. ‘Can someone please get Mrs Brent a tissue?’ The paramedic came back with a wipe and a pack of tissues. Candice cleaned the mess away and left the used tissue on the wall.

‘But it was Gavin and he tried to kill me. I was just defending myself. He killed Billie and took Nadia. It was all him. He kept Nadia here, then he stabbed her, and he took her to the woods and left her to die. He was going to kill me. It was him or me.’

‘You’ll have your chance to tell us everything, down at the station. Please hold your wrists out.’

Candice Brent held them up and Gina slapped the handcuffs on her.

‘I didn’t do it.’

‘Mrs Brent, Nadia wants to make a statement. She was there the whole time.’ Gina knew the woman had been sedated but she was sure of the evidence they did have. It was enough to arrest Candice Brent. Mr Brent wasn’t going anywhere for now. Looking at him, Gina doubted whether he’d last the rest of the day. She glanced at Candice’s car, and she was sure that would tell a story of its own. Her phone buzzed with a message. ‘I need to make a call.’ She glanced up to the police officers and Jacob. ‘Can you make sure Mrs Brent gets into the police car safely and is processed as soon as you get back to the station. I’ll be there to interview her shortly?’

Gina walked past Mrs Brent’s battered car. The bonnet had caved in and one of the lights had been knocked out. She grabbed her pencil torch and shone it in the gap, that’s when she saw the polythene splayed out. The heat and scent of fear made her recoil. She grabbed her phone and called Kapoor. ‘Hi, so what has Nadia said?’

‘She’s awake, guv. She seemed a lot livelier, and she said that Candice took her. Mrs Brent came to her house and attacked her in her garage, then she forced her into the boot of her car. She took her to the unit next door to the one her husband owns in Cleevesford, and she kept her there. She doesn’t know how long as she forced her to take a couple of tablets that made her sleep. She woke up and Candice stabbed her then bundled her into a car. She can’t remember anything after that.’

‘The cherry on the cake. We’ve just arrested Candice.’

As Gina ended the call, she watched as Candice shouted with rage and kicked out at the officers. It was hard to believe she was looking at a murderer. Gina had believed that Mrs Brent was the one in danger, that Gavin was their murderer, not the mumsy woman in front of her.

The forensics van turned the corner and pulled up. Jacob’s face lit up as Jennifer stepped out, her dyed plum hair in a bun at her nape. The look Jacob was giving her was a look that Gina would never again receive from Briggs.

She thought of poor Kayden, his mother taken from him cruelly. She couldn’t bring the young mother back, but she could deliver the justice he’d need, and she wasn’t going to let that little boy down.

SIXTY-THREE

With cuffed hands, Candice Brent took a sip of water and flinched. Jacob stared ahead and the tape was rolling. The duty solicitor looked at Mrs Brent and then said, ‘My client wishes to cooperate fully.’

Gina imagined that Mrs Brent’s broken tooth was causing her a bit of pain. The standard issue track bottoms and T-shirt were a comedown from the pretty blouses and dresses. Gina couldn’t help but stare at the woman’s broken nails. All samples and fingerprints had been taken when she’d been booked in, and it was only a matter of time before that tiniest bit of nail was matched to Mrs Brent’s sample. They had Nadia’s statement and something in it made Gina shiver. Nadia said that someone had been coming into her house and moving items around in William’s doll’s house, they left her wine and a key that had recently gone missing on the kitchen table. A ball that had been in her garden had been rolled outside her bedroom door. She blamed Edward Anderson to begin with.

‘Tell me about the night of Billie Reeves’s murder.’

Mrs Brent burst into tears. ‘I didn’t mean to kill her. We were arguing. I confronted her over Gavin. I’d seen the messages with my own eyes, but she denied it. She denied he’d messaged her or come to her for sex, but I could see it in her eyes. She told me to go but something inside me snapped. This woman ruined my family, my life, Poppy’s life and this rage burned inside me, so I pushed her and called her a couple of names.

‘I remember feeling rushed as I had to collect Poppy from school after her club. It was okay for Billie; Kayden had left early after the school play. I thought that would be it, but she pushed me back and started yelling at me, telling me that it was my fault for putting up with such a lousy husband. I just saw red. The next moment, I’d grabbed a small chopping knife from Billie’s worktop and plunged it into her chest.’

‘The word slut was written on her wall in red marker pen, the same type that was found in your husband’s office. So, you killed Billie and still enraged, you wrote on her wall.’

She let out a couple of choking sobs. ‘I hated her. The pen was in my bag with a load of other pens. Poppy likes to use them to draw with. It was a stupid thing I did in the heat of the moment. All I could see was this woman who had broken my family up. I wanted her to pay but I didn’t go there intending to kill her.’ She paused. ‘It just happened.’

‘What happened after that?’

‘I, err…’ She stared as if she was thinking. ‘I came around the back and I left through the back. I remember taking off my top and turning it inside out to hide the blood spray. Then I panicked, knowing that Billie’s phone and tablet would show that Gavin had paid her for sex. There were too many messages, and I didn’t know if he’d been calling her too. I rummaged through the house until I found the tablet upstairs and two phones in the living room. I nipped home, changed, got Poppy and went to Nadia’s house as planned.’

‘You left her bleeding to death and then went to another friend’s house?’

‘Yes, but I didn’t intend to kill her. I told you. It was an accident.’ The solicitor stared into his hands, knowing that Candice Brent had just lied again.

‘If you didn’t intend to kill her, why did you take latex gloves? You took them with the intent of trying to cover up any fingerprints that would have been left by your visit, didn’t you?’

She shook her head and hiccupped another sob.

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