‘Where’s Dad?’ Brandon shrugs.
‘Did you forget to draw him?’ He shakes his head.
‘You’re angry with him.’ He nods.
I kneel in front of Brandon and reach out to squeeze his shoulder. Mai comes forward to sit on my lap. ‘We still care for you very much. We both love you lots. But me and your dad can’t live together. That doesn’t mean we don’t like each other. It just means that for now at least, we’re going to share time with you separated from one another.’
‘Do I get two bedrooms like my friend Olivia in school?’
DI Locke offers me a conciliatory smile.
I open my mouth to speak and tilt my head towards the ceiling to prevent Mai from seeing how much it pains me to hear her forthright choice of words. ‘I guess so.’
I force a smile then glance quickly away so she can’t see the silent tears falling down my face.
DI LOCKE
Newport, Wales
Something you learn while training as a detective is to contain your emotions while assessing the startlingly obvious. I suspected Sinead and Gareth were withholding something other than their affair from Aeron, from me. And my assumption is proved correct when the guilt Sinead has been harbouring for the past three years is almost too overpowering to deny and she relents, offloading her secret torturously slowly while the kids – oblivious, in the living room-diner- bedroom – ram biscuits into their mouths, with their eyes set on the television screen, engrossed in a children’s programme.
‘The night Aeron drove to the bridge over the Ebbw River inlet, parked up in a layby, stood on the viaduct, and considered jumping to his death, I was with Gareth in Tredegar House Country Park sipping hot chocolate from the café, watching the sun set. The children were staying with Cynthia for the weekend.’
She’s staring at her feet.
‘Gareth swears he saw Aeron’s van that night. He thinks he was following us.’
‘He might have been. But unless you ask him, I don’t suppose you’ll ever know.’
She sighs.
‘Don’t torture yourself. You can’t control anything but yourself.’
She nods and begins to play with the sleeve of her jumper.
‘How’s DS Maguire?’
‘She’s stable.’
She lost a lot of blood. She had to have two transfusions. And the shell pierced her colon, so she was operated on last night. She escaped having to wear a colostomy bag and being forced into early retirement on medical grounds. She’s lucky the Met carry firearms. Had it been me, here, where officers carry guns only when instructed to, I wouldn’t be alive.
‘Please, take care of yourself, Sinead.’
She glances anxiously towards the door. ‘I guess this is goodbye, for now?’
I reach back, open the door a crack. ‘You’ll hear from the CPS soon. They’ve assigned you a prosecuting barrister.’
I step out into the corridor. Sinead holds the door open for me.
‘I’ll see you in court.’
HONOUR
Croydon, London
I’m in the living room when Kanesha knocks on the door. Carmen is incomprehensible, sniffling and snotty, her arms wrapped around Jerome whose eyes are as red and whose face is as puffy as hers.
It’s the hottest recorded February day. Four months since the events that led to DC Pierce’s demise. Three months since DS Maguire returned to work. And two months since the inquiry into the Croydon branch of the CID from where DI Rawlings once operated.
Kanesha opens her mouth to speak but closes it again and turns into the kitchen. I follow her, my eyes narrowing as she reaches for the kettle.
‘You rarely drink tea.’
She pulls a Lemsip sachet from her large handbag and croaks, ‘Sore throat.’
I nod, point at the bag on her arm. ‘Is that new?’ I’m wondering how she afforded such an expensive bit of leather.
‘Mum bought it me for my birthday.’
‘It’s nice.’
I don’t remember Faith mentioning the hospital giving her a pay-rise.
Kanesha takes a tentative sip of her hot bitter lemon then motions to the doorway, whispers, ‘What happened today?’ She doesn’t add, in court.
‘Atkinson changed his plea to guilty.’ Her eyes widen in shock.
It was Keenan who relented, towards the end of his interview according to DS Maguire. And Rawlings who, facing prison time, backed him up. DC Benson’s statement added credence to their testimonies.
‘Robert Callahan ordered Alex Peters to knock Sinead’s car off the road to appease Marley.’
Carmen shared a sad smile with the ex-detective seated at the other end of the row of courtroom seats, understanding the risks Sinead had taken to discover who’d murdered her son four and a half years prior.
‘Why?’ says Kanesha.
‘He was shit scared of him.’
‘No, why did he target Sinead?’
‘Oh, I see. Because Marley killed Tyrell under Reg Atkinson’s instruction, so when Sinead waltzed into Newell’s Autos and bought a car from Alun, he notified Callahan who ordered Peters to smash his car into hers to make her death look like an accident. Presumably to tidy up loose ends once DS Maguire began to close in on what happened to Steven. Because it would have eventually led her to discover Tyrell’s killer.’
‘And Natalie?’ She motions to the doorway where Carmen and Jerome can be seen through the gap, holding onto one another as though afraid to let go.
‘Atkinson told Callahan to shoot Natalie as a precaution despite the fact she gave detectives a false statement to ensure her boyfriend wasn’t caught.’
Kanesha doesn’t need to know that Keenan admitted driving Leighton in the Volkswagen to the chicken restaurant or that like Natalie’s, his witness statement was falsely supplied.
‘The knife discovered in Leighton’s sock drawer wearing his fingerprints on the handle had Steven’s blood on the blade.’
She bites her lip and gazes down into her cup.
The prosecution’s working theory is that Atkinson was blackmailing Callahan by withholding the gun used to shoot Natalie but seeing pound signs, greed let him down when Jerome requested the gun that he loaned to me. He didn’t know it was the very weapon used to kill his sister. They also suspect that Callahan was blackmailing Newell who ordered Peters to assist him with Sinead’s hit, by threatening him with legal repercussion due to his procurement of cloned number plates.
If it wasn’t for DS Maguire’s insistence there was one, the dog discovered during the search of DC Pierce’s property wouldn’t have led to such a neat conclusion. The Staffordshire Bull Terrier’s fur sealed the forensic holes in the investigation when it was compared to the fur found on the rear seats of Rawlings’ car and matched. Now it’s simply a case of waiting for justice to prevail.
Kanesha glances up at the ceiling and puts her cup down onto the counter with a clack. ‘I’m just going to use your loo. I’m bursting.’
‘Too much information.’ I wave her away.
I pour myself a cuppa, add milk, stir, drop the tea bag into the bin, and hear footsteps above, followed by the distinct click of the boiler cupboard door closing.
I walk stealthily upstairs, note the shadow move across the gap below the bathroom door. I slam my feet down hard as I reach the carpeted landing, causing the floorboards below my feet to vibrate and Kanesha to jump in surprise as I push open the door.
Kanesha’s guilty expression would have told me enough, were her white-knuckled hand not shaking on the doorknob of the boiler cupboard.
I close and lock the bathroom door behind me, and nod towards her hand, which falls at her side.
‘I gave the money to the police.’
She doesn’t have the audacity to ask me what money I’m talking about, so I continue.
‘The twelve thousand pounds you stole from Leighton. The money he would have killed Steven for had Marley not already ordered him to eliminate Steven from the ga
ng as a warning for DS Maguire to stop digging into Tyrell’s murder. The money that belonged to Atkinson. The money Atkinson sent Marcus to enter my home to retrieve. The money that was used by the CPS to secure Leighton’s conviction.’
She remains statuesque for several seconds. I hadn’t realised I’d walked towards her as I spoke.
‘You’re the witness, aren’t you?’
I have her backed into the cupboard doorframe. She looks terrified and bewildered.
‘You’re the woman who found Steven, who ran into the restaurant and demanded Keenan call the police, who said they saw Natalie on the street corner waiting for Leighton.’
She lowers her head, sniffs, and with her eyes on the floor, sidles alongside the bath.
‘Except we know that last bit’s not true, don’t we? Because DC Pierce told DS Maguire as she lay on the ground with a bullet wound to her stomach that Natalie wasn’t there.’
I reach for her elbows and she retracts, head snapping up to glare at me, lips trembling. ‘So that begs the question why you were.’
When she talks her voice wobbles. ‘Leighton called and asked me where I thought Steven might hide something if he’d stolen it. I said Steven wasn’t a thief but he said I’d be surprised what people were capable of. He said he was meant to be meeting Natalie in an hour outside the chicken restaurant but that he had to speak to Steven first, to find out where the money was and would be late. He sounded angry so I called Steven as soon as I got off the phone and he told me Natalie had called him and told him to go home because Leighton had ordered her to smash up Jerome’s phone, that Jerome was staying in to care for their mum who’d had an MS relapse, and she thought Leighton was planning to do something to Steven. If she hadn’t called Steven to tell him Jerome wasn’t coming, he wouldn’t have known. I thought that if I went to meet him halfway home, I might be able to catch up with him before Leighton and prevent whatever he was going to do to Steven from happening. But I was too late. He was already dead when I got there.’
‘You stole the money Leighton would have killed Steven for had he not already been ordered to.’
‘I’m sorry.’
I hesitate before pulling her towards me, and she reluctantly allows me to fold her into my embrace, crying softly into my shoulder.
‘I’m assuming you thought Natalie was involved in Steven’s murder because she smashed up Jerome’s phone to prevent him from letting Steven know he wasn’t going to be able to meet him, so you blackmailed her into coming forward and claiming to have witnessed Steven’s murder?’
She looks up at me in confusion and shakes her head. ‘I tried, I even told her what to say because Mum had given me some of the details that hadn’t been released to the press, but she refused. It nagged at me until I felt I’d explode so I called the police pretending to be Natalie. I wanted to hurt her for the pain Steven’s murder caused us all because she did what Leighton told her to. She must have relayed enough of what I’d told her to get herself arrested for perverting the course of justice.’ She sniffles. ‘I really am sorry for lying, Auntie. I never thought putting Natalie under the radar of the police would lead to her murder.’
Who would? They’re supposed to protect you, not kill you.
I shush her, feeling her arms tighten around my waist. She coughs another apology, but I push her away and shake my head. ‘We’ve suffered and we’ve survived. Now we must be there for one another and help each other to heal.’
She nods her assent, wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, and follows me out of the door.
She made a mistake, mixing with the wrong crowd. But if stealing money from a drug-dealing thief is the worst thing that she’s done I must ensure it remains that way. I want her to know she has my love, support, and understanding. I don’t want her thinking she needs to join a gang to feel included.
I don’t know what the future holds for any of us, but no matter what we must face, I’d rather we did it together than alone.
Kanesha enters the living room ahead of me. I steer her towards the sofa. Carmen looks up at me and forces a smile.
She had an MS flare-up a couple of days before the trial began. We’re in and out of each other’s houses so often now that we’re practically living together. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Author’s Note
The premise of this title, like many of the plot outlines for my novels emerged from initial experience. I bought a second-hand car from an excellently rated dealership just a fortnight before moving into my new home. From the day I drove it away I was honked at, flashed at, yelled at, overtaken, and almost driven off the road: a steep country lane. The final time was with my children in the rear of the cabin.
The seed was planted.
I wrote down a description of the drivers and the vehicles, presuming the previous owner of my car had either been well-known and disliked or bore an uncanny resemblance to me. And as a precaution I took the vehicle to two garages to get it checked over, only to be informed that there was nothing wrong with it.
The sapling grew shoots.
Having a creative and inquisitive mind I theorized. What if the incidents (there were a total of twenty-four) were the result of a case of mistaken identity or my car had been cloned, having previously been driven by a drug dealer who owed someone money or had earned themselves a name with a violent reputation and had upset the wrong person?
The plot thickened, and I picked up a pen and began scribbling down a synopsis.
What if I wasn’t the target, but my vehicle was because it was presumed someone else was driving it?
What if the previous owner of my vehicle had recently been released from a prison sentence and was now a target from a rival gang member?
What if I bore an identical appearance to a notorious drug lord’s wife involved in a highly organised criminal network?
What if is the basis for every book I write. I may have been irrational, paranoid even, to think that someone might want to harm me because of the car I’d chosen to buy, but I had a good idea for a story. One that developed while I reshaped another title that I was working on, which involved a teenage boy living in south-east London. A member of a gang, who because of the choices he makes, the lack of opportunities afforded him, and the society in which he is developing becomes embroiled in a dangerous cultural underworld war that sadly results in his demise.
I wanted to explore the adverse effect Steven’s murder would have on his family, friends, and the lead detective investigating the case.
Sinead is a complex, feisty, but flawed woman, who must learn the consequences of her mistakes. I wanted to explore the after-effect that telling lies can have on an average family. And how our past behaviours, or in this case our chosen careers, can shape our future.
Steven and Sinead’s stories merged, and I found a way to interweave them. But as with most of my characters they often led me down dark alleys, leaving me to navigate my way out alone.
DI Emma Locke made an appearance working alongside DI Silver in What I Never Told You and refused to stay quiet as I wrote Buried Sins and again while I decided who would fit the job for my new Welsh based procedural.
My aim is always to elicit the same emotions within my readers that I felt while writing the characters within my novel’s narratives. I hope you have enjoyed getting to know Emma better while travelling this journey with me.
Acknowledgements
I’d like to say a huge thank you, firstly, to my long-suffering husband Michael, whose encouragement and advice are unconditional.
A huge thank you to my commissioning editor Rhea Kurien for taking a chance on me and to Dushi Horti and Claire Rushbrook for polishing this title to a fine gleam. And to team Aria for all the hard work you put into creating such fantastic reads.
A special mention must go to the men and women who work for or with the police, putting their lives on the line each day to protect the public in their fight against crime. I would not have been able to do t
his without the selfless detectives working within or alongside both the Metropolitan Police Service and Blaenau Gwent Police.
I received invaluable advice from several professionals whose areas of expertise included: detectives (independent complaints against police officers, drug enforcement within densely populated areas); forensic science (advances in DNA indexing and fingerprint analysis); and pathology (reviews to the Home Office’s policies on the publicization of post-mortem examinations and coroner’s inquests). I also drew upon professional experience working within clinical forensic psychology pathways (personal consultancy, grief and bereavement following violent death, assessing personalities, suspect identification, interviewing vulnerable witnesses, and analysing organised crime) to ensure the procedural and medical aspects of this title were written as realistically as possible.
With thanks to Eliza Rebeiro, the founder of Lives Not Knives, for the amazing work you do to support young people.
The charity campaigns against knife crime, re-educates youths on the dangers of carrying weapons, and provides practical assistance by introducing young people to training opportunities in the hope of reducing the lure of gang culture. For more information, please see:
www.livesnotknives.org
For the support they offer hybrid authors like myself, I must thank the entire blogging community who review and promote my titles. I am extremely grateful. I couldn’t do it without you. I would especially like to thank Christine Stephenson, Helen Phifer, and Richard Stone who, from a distance, supported me through a difficult time during the initial stages of writing this book.
I must thank my early beta readers for their objective honest literary criticism which continues to inspire my writing.
And lastly, I offer a huge thank you to my readers all over the world who have purchased my titles and for believing in me. Reviews help other readers to find my work, so please share your thoughts, and recommend this title to a friend.
I Know You (DI Emma Locke) Page 28