A Promise to the Dead: A gripping crime thriller with a brilliant twist

by Victoria Jenkins

  Reaching for the laptop on the desk in front of her, she clicked on the opened file. A close-up of the gunshot wound inflicted on Stacey Cooper was projected on to the screen behind her. ‘We’ve got the post-mortem report back, but unfortunately it doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know. For now, we’re just going to have to work with what we’ve got. These images have been sent to ballistics. They’re also analysing the damage to the windscreen. Hopefully, once the wound and the bullet itself have been analysed, they’ll be able to identify the type of weapon used.’

  She paused and turned away from the image. ‘Look … this is unfamiliar territory for the majority of us. Shootings are thankfully still rare in South Wales. Our priority for now is to find Matthew Lewis. He remains innocent until proven guilty, let’s remember that, please. Keep pressing his friends for information – perhaps they know more than they’re letting on. With regard to who else might have been up on that mountain …’ Alex sighed, surrendering to the limited details in their possession. ‘There’s no CCTV for miles in any direction, so we’ve no chance of tracking any other vehicles that way. The woodland has been searched around the area where the car was left, and so far we’ve found nothing. Both Stacey and Matthew appear to have been popular, so social media might prove useful on this one. Let’s keep the appeals for information regular, please.’

  She stretched out an arm, diverting the team’s attention to another face that looked down from the evidence board. ‘Kieran Robinson. There’s been an update on the CCTV reviews that you should all be aware of by now. Darren Robinson’s van was picked up near the Millennium Centre on the night Kieran went missing. We know Kieran had been working recently with his father as an apprentice builder. On Thursday night, he’d been to a comedy club with a group of subcontractors who’d all been involved in the construction of a housing development in Whitchurch. The evening had been paid for by the development’s owners, Lawrence and Wyatt Properties – an end-of-project bonus, apparently. Darren Robinson didn’t attend – he told everyone, including his wife, that he was in Devon, working on another job. So what was his van doing in Cardiff Bay on the night Kieran went missing? We’ve yet to get hold of him since the CCTV footage has been picked up, but it’ll be interesting to see what he has to say for himself when we do.’

  As Alex brought the meeting to an end and the rest of the team began to return to their desks, she noticed DCI Thompson lingering at the side of the room, waiting to speak to her. Despite the general belief that he would remain in place for a brief time until a permanent replacement was appointed, he was still based at the station in Pontypridd. He had been transferred following the retirement of Superintendent Blake, who had been Alex’s superior for much of her career. With the post having remained unfilled, DCI Thompson had been given little other option than to stay in Pontypridd, which hadn’t at first been met with much enthusiasm. His initial frustration at being removed from his position in Bridgend had been gradually shadowed by a reluctant acceptance that he might be with them for an indefinite period of time, and although the majority of the team continued to find him aloof and a little bit strange, Alex was growing increasingly used to his ways. To claim she either understood or liked the man would have been an exaggeration, but she was at the very least finding him more tolerable to work for than she had just a few months earlier.

  ‘DC Jake Sullivan,’ he said.

  ‘It’s been dealt with.’

  Thompson’s eyes widened. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning I’ve spoken with him and I’m satisfied that the comment he made to Linda Robinson was simply poorly timed and misjudged. I’ll make sure he apologises to the family in person.’

  ‘How long are you expecting to wait before we hear from ballistics?’

  ‘Could be days.’

  ‘You still think Matthew Lewis could be in danger? If he killed Stacey, he could be lying low somewhere.’

  Alex raised an eyebrow. ‘Where?’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t think he’s responsible for Stacey’s death, but he’s the only person who knows what happened up on that mountain. The sooner we find him, the better.’ She realised she hadn’t answered the question directly, exactly what she hated anyone else doing. ‘Yes,’ she added. ‘I do think he could be in danger.’

  ‘But nothing’s come in yet?’

  ‘Nothing useful, no.’

  They were interrupted by one of the DCs, as though he had been waiting around the corner just to prove her wrong. ‘Boss. We’ve had a call in. Someone’s found a body.’

  Nine

  Dear Elise,

  I have something I need to tell you. I am writing this so that when I next see you I won’t need to go through it again. When the time comes, I would prefer to focus on us, if that’s possible – if you can find it in your heart to forgive me. By the time I’ve finished writing, I hope you’ll understand why I’ve done the things I have. There is so much suffering in this world, but you of all people don’t need me to tell you this. I try to help alleviate the pain, though I know they won’t see it in this way – not in the way you will. Yours is the kindest heart I have ever known – your soul is the most forgiving. You see the good intentions where others only see intent, and your outlook on life is something I have tried to learn from, though I’d be lying if I claimed it has been easy.

  I think about you every day. I want you to know that those others mean nothing to me, not in the way you do, but it is hard to undo something that has been done for so long. It is hard to fix something that has always been broken.

  I took a life. There … I’ve said it. Those four short words look so simple when they’re written down like this, as though they weigh nothing, and I suppose it’s true that the load does become lighter over time. There are things I wish I could change, yet regardless of everything that has happened, I wouldn’t change the course of events that led my life to yours. I would do it all again in a heartbeat, all to get to you.

  I’m beginning to ramble, and for this, too, I apologise. There is so much I need to say to you, but finding the right words seems an impossible task, one I need to get right, as much for myself as for you. I am not a bad man. If all that comes from writing to you is your acceptance of this, then I will consider it worth every uncomfortable second, because believe me when I tell you that this isn’t easy for me to do. Despite everything you may be tempted to believe, I need you to believe that I am not a bad man. You’ve had plenty of time to form your own opinion on this and I know there have been occasions when I’ve let you down. Trust me when I say I never meant to.

  Life is complicated, sweetheart – you know this as well as I. Please don’t be too quick to judge me. Give me time and I’ll explain everything as best I possibly can. There were things I couldn’t guarantee you, promises I was forced to break, but this is something I can do for you now with a pledge that everything I say will be the truth, all of it, with nothing left hidden.

  I miss you. I need to be with you again.

  Benny x

  Ten

  At the motorway service station where they had arranged to meet, Chloe found Darren Robinson sitting in McDonald’s drinking coffee from a cardboard cup. In his early fifties, he was dressed in his work gear: black cargo-style trousers, black boots grey with dust, and a short-sleeved T-shirt despite the cold bite of the March weather. Chloe flashed her ID as she took a seat opposite him.

  ‘Will this take long?’

  She didn’t answer the question. The man’s behaviour was odd to say the least: his son had gone missing and his wife was distraught as a result, yet he hadn’t returned home to be with her since learning of Kieran’s disappearance, and he had lied to the police about where he had been that night. Though he had agreed without argument to meet up with Chloe, he was acting as though a conversation with the police was something his busy life simply couldn’t accommodate. Just why was this man being so cagey?

  ‘Your son’s still missing, Mr Robinson.’

  He
sat back and glanced around the room, folding his arms across his chest before returning them to his sides. He looked tired, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep, and Chloe wondered whether the thought of Kieran’s possible whereabouts was keeping him awake at night or whether there was something else preying on his mind; something he was desperate to keep hidden from them.

  ‘I’m aware of that.’

  ‘I need you to explain why you lied to us about where you were on Thursday night. You said you were in Devon on a job, but your van was picked up on CCTV near the Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay.’ Chloe put her phone on the table between them, pointing at the photograph shown on the screen. ‘You can’t be in two places at once.’

  Darren looked briefly at the photo before looking back up at her. His eyes darted to the left as though something had caught his eye, but it seemed to Chloe that the delay was nothing more than an attempt to give himself time in which to formulate his response. With a sigh, he placed his hands on the table, open-palmed, as though this conscious gesture of apparent honesty would be enough to make her change her mind about him. ‘I was going to go to the comedy club, meet the rest of them there, but I decided last minute not to go.’

  ‘So why not just tell us that on Friday?’

  Darren reached for his coffee, changed his mind and returned his hands to his lap. Chloe noticed he didn’t wear a wedding ring, though this wasn’t unusual. It was possible that he didn’t want to lose it or damage it at work, or that he just never wore one. If it had been any other man than Darren, Chloe might have thought nothing of it, but everything about Darren Robinson was becoming a source of suspicion. ‘I’d been drinking,’ he said, scratching his left ear. ‘I’d been out that afternoon. Finished work early and went to the pub. I’d had too much to drink. I shouldn’t have been driving. I didn’t want to tell you I’d been back to Cardiff – if I’d told you that, I would have had to tell you about the drink-driving.’

  He was lying. Chloe watched him shift in his chair and run his hand across his head before returning to his coffee.

  ‘Why did you change your mind?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘About going to the comedy club,’ Chloe reminded him. ‘You said you changed your mind.’

  ‘Headache. I realised I’d had enough to drink already.’

  ‘So where did you go instead?’

  ‘Stayed at a mate’s in Cardiff.’

  ‘You live in Cardiff,’ Chloe reminded him, unable to keep the sarcasm from the comment. ‘St Melon’s isn’t that far a drive from the Bay, is it? Why not just go home?’

  She waited, but Darren didn’t answer. He’d already told so many lies; she wondered why just one more seemed such an issue for him.

  ‘Your friend would be able to confirm you stayed there, would he?’ Chloe persisted, noting the way Darren twitched and shifted every time he was asked a further question. It was like watching a trapped wasp struggle beneath an overturned glass: frantic at first, then increasingly weary as its energy failed and it accepted the fact that there was no escape.

  ‘She,’ he corrected her. He sat back in his chair and rolled his eyes to the ceiling before glancing over his shoulder as though he was making his confession to a mate down the pub and didn’t want anyone he knew to overhear. ‘Look,’ he said, having gauged the reaction on Chloe’s face, ‘that’s another reason I didn’t want to say where I’d been. The friend I stayed with, I’ve known her for years and it’s completely innocent, but Linda won’t see it that way, will she?’

  Chloe picked up her phone from the table and opened her notes app. ‘I’ll need this friend’s name and contact details,’ she told him, sarcasm once again escaping from her, this time at the word ‘friend’. She waited as Darren retrieved his own phone and read out the woman’s phone number. ‘Why didn’t you go home the following day?’

  ‘I had to get back to Devon for the job.’

  Chloe sat back, scepticism stamped across her raised eyebrow and the curl of her top lip. ‘So you drove all the way to Cardiff from Devon for a night out you didn’t even go on, and then drove all the way back again? ’

  Darren shrugged. ‘I won’t see a lot of the boys again,’ he said casually. ‘Had to make the effort, didn’t I.’

  His words hung in the silence between them for a moment. They both knew there was a chance he would never see his son again. Despite the cliché that people didn’t just disappear, there were occasions on which exactly that did happen.

  ‘Is that everything then?’ he asked.

  ‘How would you describe your relationship with Kieran?’

  Darren studied her for a moment, wary of the question and its possible implications. He looked like a man who knew he was at risk of stumbling over his own lies and was consciously dodging the trip wires he’d strung out for himself. ‘Fine,’ he said tentatively, as though any answer he gave might in some way incriminate him. ‘Good, actually. I mean, I gave him work, didn’t I? I wouldn’t have had him there with me day in, day out if we didn’t get on well, would I?’

  ‘How did that come about?’ Chloe asked, ignoring his question. ‘Kieran studied art at college, didn’t he? Seems a bit of a jump for him to make – art college to labouring.’

  ‘You’re not much older than Kieran. Know anyone who studied art?’

  Chloe shook her head.

  ‘Exactly. That’s ’cos there’s no jobs at the end of it. He was twenty-three and bloody clueless … his qualifications weren’t worth the paper they were printed on. No one else would give him work ’cos he had no experience. I tried to help him, that’s all, like any father would.’

  ‘Was twenty-three?’ Chloe repeated, picking up on the man’s use of the past tense.

  Darren’s face changed instantly, darkening as he held her eye. There was a challenge in his stare that she realised was intended to be intimidating. ‘Is,’ he corrected himself. ‘Look,’ he said, his voice sharpening, ‘I know what you’re trying to do. You think it’s strange I’ve not been home, and maybe you’re right, maybe I should be with my wife, but this is hard for me as well, you know. We’ve all got different ways of coping with things.’

  He continued to hold her gaze, his face softening as though in an effort to make Chloe believe that his words were genuine. Darren Robinson might be no fool, she thought, but neither was she. She had seen enough men like him to know not to believe a thing he said.

  He looked away as a young family passed them, a newborn in a baby carrier screaming with all the force of its tiny lungs, an older child competing for attention above the din, proudly letting anyone within a half-mile radius know that he needed to use the toilet.

  ‘Are we done then?’

  ‘You haven’t drunk your coffee,’ Chloe pointed out.

  Darren stood. ‘Gone off the idea.’

  He pushed his chair back and made his way towards the exit, Chloe watching him as he left the building and returned to his van. She was certain of one thing: nothing Darren Robinson said was to be taken at face value.

  She searched her phone for Alex’s number, waiting just a few seconds before the call was answered.

  ‘He’s a liar,’ she told her. ‘He’s not quite as skilled at it as he likes to think, though. I just can’t work out what he’s lying about.’

  ‘Everything, perhaps?’

  Chloe’s mouth rose at the corner. ‘Maybe. Where are you?’ Their conversations tended to be punctuated with the background buzz of passing traffic; Alex was often in the car, where she complained she seemed to spend half her life, but the only sound now was her voice, hushed to little more than a whisper. While she’d been staying at Alex’s house, Chloe had shared lifts to work with her. The journeys had given them time to talk, free from other distractions. Though her move to Pontypridd, a few streets away from the police station, had been just what she’d needed, Chloe missed those chats. In truth, she missed Alex. For reasons she was remaining tight-lipped about, her colleague hadn’t been herself recently.<
br />
  ‘Thornhill. A body’s been found in a garden.’

  ‘Not Matthew Lewis?’

  ‘I don’t know anything yet. I’ll keep you updated.’

  Eleven

  The semi-detached house was on an estate that dated back to the 1960s. Ongoing building work was evident, with piles of bricks and plastic sheeting filling a drive that was barely wide enough for a single car. Crime-scene tape had already been secured around the property, and the sight of the police car pulled up outside on the pavement had been enough to ensure that the obligatory throng of rubberneckers had congregated in the street, whispering among themselves and pointing questioning fingers at number 14. So far, the police had been able to withhold the fact that human remains had been found in the garden.

  If shock had a face, it would have been that of the woman standing in the hallway as though she had stumbled by mistake into a stranger’s home, a stranger’s life. She was in her late thirties and was wearing a fitted grey skirt that hugged her hips and a pair of scuffed court shoes that added three inches to her height. She had been brought home from work by the call she had received from the builder over an hour earlier, and was yet to take off her coat, having lingered in the hallway with a uniformed officer, neither really knowing what to say to the other to fill the silence while they waited for the detective’s arrival.

  ‘Ignore them,’ Alex said, closing the door on the sight of the neighbours cluttering the road. ‘Is there somewhere we can go?’

  Without a word, Natalie Bryant went into the front room, where the curtains were still pulled closed. The room was a mess: pieces of furniture were piled on top of one another, a TV unit was propped precariously on a sideboard, a bookcase was crammed so full with DVDs and board games that it looked as though it might topple over at any moment.