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

by Victoria Jenkins

  Dan stood and joined Alex at the screen. She stepped aside to allow him access to the laptop, where he logged his ID number and passcode into the system. Murmurs spread among the team as he accessed his emails and opened the relevant attachment, sending an image to the screen behind him.

  ‘We’re looking at the 1980s,’ Chloe said, studying the screen. ‘Possibly even earlier. Even if the victim had committed a crime back then, there was no recording of DNA on the system at the time.’

  ‘I know,’ Dan said, ‘but look.’ He pointed to the image: two separate patterns that looked like interlocking coils. He felt for a moment like a science teacher in a secondary school. ‘According to the experts at the lab, in genome sequencing half this pattern comes from a person’s mother, the other half from their father. Look.’ He ran a finger along the pattern of the genome sequence on the right-hand side of the screen, stopping part way down. Then he returned the team’s focus to the pattern on the left, stopping again midway. ‘This pattern belongs to the DNA of our body under the patio. The other one came up on the database.’

  ‘It’s a partial match?’

  ‘Yup. Not enough of a match for a sibling, but there’s no doubt we’re looking at a family member, someone still fairly closely related.’

  ‘So who have we got?’ Alex asked.

  Dan turned back to the laptop and accessed the PNC. A moment later, a man’s face was gazing down at the team. He looked young – the stubble that lined his jawline seemed oddly out of place – and the wide-eyed expression of fear suggested this was his first encounter with the police. His record on the database showed he had been arrested almost five years earlier for a driving offence when he was aged just nineteen.

  ‘Dean Williams. He’s definitely related in some way?’

  Dan nodded. ‘Apparently you can’t argue with the science.’

  Alex gave him a grateful smile. ‘Thank you, Dan.’

  It felt as though they were getting somewhere with something, at least. She just wished that the progress had been in the case of Matthew Lewis. Whoever the poor man buried beneath the patio at number 14 turned out to be, they could do little to help him now other than to seek belated justice on his behalf. For Matthew, the passing days mattered much more.

  She turned to study the face on the screen. Scanning the personal details stored in the file, she noted the young man’s address, hoping that they’d find him still living there.

  Twenty-Three

  While Alex went in search of Dean Williams, Chloe was looking for a man named Gareth Lawrence. Feedback from the auctioneers who had listed the farmhouse on Caerphilly Mountain showed Lawrence had been the last person to view the place, just three weeks earlier. As she drove to the property company’s offices in Cardiff, it seemed to Chloe that the team was juggling an impossible workload with the three cases they were currently investigating. The pressures of the last few days – the long hours that had led them down a series of frustratingly final dead ends – had been obvious in the tired faces gathered in the incident room that morning. They needed something positive: something that might offer some hope in the search for Matthew Lewis.

  Yet in her heart, Chloe knew hope was futile. Matthew Lewis was dead. They just needed to find out why he had been killed and where his body was. They needed to find out who that burial ground had been prepared for.

  Lawrence and Wyatt Properties was based in offices on Cathedral Road, a street characterised by imposing period properties that housed orthodontists’ surgeries, solicitors’ practices, hotels and recruitment agencies. There was a bustling energy about this particular route into Cardiff, with the wide expanse of playing fields that lay at its head making it a place where the city met the suburbs; where the busy pubs and coffee shops that sat between offices offered a twenty-four-hour metropolitan energy that made even Chloe, in her sleep-starved state, feel a little rejuvenated.

  ‘Can I help you?’ the woman behind the reception desk asked.

  Chloe showed her ID. ‘I’m looking for Gareth Lawrence.’

  ‘He’s not here today, I’m afraid. He’s not due back in until next week.’

  Chloe surveyed the small waiting room. There were display boards at the window, advertising available properties for sale and rent. The company’s branding and its mission statement had been well considered, its marketing spiel, aimed squarely at young professionals, offering the promise of an affordable step on to the property ladder.

  ‘I thought Lawrence and Wyatt were developers,’ Chloe said, gesturing to the photographs.

  ‘Part developers, part estate agents,’ the woman explained. ‘They’ve probably got goodness knows what else going on too. They’re both incredibly ambitious and driven.’

  Chloe wondered whether the woman was receiving bonuses for her sycophantic praise of the partners who paid her salary. ‘Is Michael Wyatt available?’

  ‘He’s in a meeting at the moment, but I can let him know you’re here?’

  ‘If you could, please.’

  Chloe took a seat and leafed through a property magazine on the coffee table beside her chair. She had always rented and had never seen the need to own her own home, although more recently she had started to understand why so many people felt comfortable with the idea of ownership, even when it resulted in an increase in outgoings. It offered a permanence that Chloe’s life had never had; something she had never strived for or felt she was missing out on. Perhaps that was changing. Perhaps being happy had a lot to do with her sudden change of outlook.

  ‘He’ll be with you in a few minutes,’ the receptionist said, emerging back into the room.

  Chloe offered her an insincere smile. The woman’s tone was indifferent at best; condescending at worst. She wondered if Gareth Lawrence and Michael Wyatt thought as much of themselves as this woman seemed to. Refusing the offer of coffee, she returned her focus to the magazine.

  Five minutes later, Michael Wyatt arrived. He was in his mid to late fifties, with thinning grey hair and a pallor that screamed for an encounter with a heatwave. His shirtsleeves were rolled back, revealing an expensive watch. Dan was right, Chloe thought: property development seemed to be where the money was, although if the man’s pale flesh was any indication of his tastes, it appeared that sun-bleached beach holidays weren’t his cup of tea.

  ‘DC Lane,’ he said, offering Chloe his hand. ‘Would you like to come through?’

  Chloe followed him into a narrow corridor that led to his office: a small, sparsely furnished room painted an oppressive dark blue. A series of prints on canvas lined the wall above the desk, each showcasing a property that presumably belonged to the company.

  ‘We’re making inquiries about a farmhouse on Caerphilly Mountain,’ she said, taking a seat opposite his. ‘This place.’ She took her mobile phone from her pocket and found the screenshot she had taken of the auctioneer’s advertisement for the property.

  Michael Wyatt leaned forward and looked at the image. ‘I’m aware of the place. I’ve never been there, but I’m pretty sure Gareth visited for a viewing a few weeks ago. I know he’d mentioned the place to me.’

  ‘The auction company told us he’d been there. Did he say much about his viewing?’

  ‘Not much,’ he said, with a shake of the head. ‘Only that it wouldn’t be right for what we do. It’s got a certain charm about it in the photographs, but I don’t think it lived up to the expectations. That one would be a labour of love, I think.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be right for what you do,’ Chloe repeated. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘We develop housing estates in the main, rather than individual properties. That’s just the way the business has grown over the years. Most of the properties you’ll have seen advertised out front are part of recent projects. A lot of them are affordable for first-time buyers.’

  ‘You’ve done very well for yourselves,’ Chloe stated, with genuine admiration. She respected anyone who worked hard for their success, having learned from experie
nce that it was the only way you could ever be certain of claiming something as truly your own. ‘Do you mind me asking how you got started?’

  ‘Bought a flat, did it up, sold it on. It became quite addictive.’

  ‘Why do you think Mr Lawrence would have been interested in the farmhouse? As you say, it doesn’t seem to fit in with the kind of development you usually manage.’

  ‘He’s always fancied the idea of opening a hotel,’ Wyatt told her with a roll of his eyes. ‘Bit of a boyhood dream he’s not yet let go of, I think. I’m not so keen on the idea myself – I prefer to sell up and move on. I think he liked the location.’

  Chloe wondered what Alex would make of such a proposition. Her own home was just a couple of miles from the road on which Stacey Cooper had been killed, with the site of the derelict farmhouse even closer. From what Chloe had seen of it, the appeal of the place was its wildness, and she doubted men like Gareth Lawrence and Michael Wyatt cared much for nature or landscape, not unless it was within a half-mile radius of their own homes.

  ‘The houses on offer in the window,’ she said. ‘Where are they situated?’

  ‘Whitchurch.’

  ‘You know Kieran Robinson, then?’

  ‘Not personally, but I’m aware of him. I’ve seen his photo on the news, read about his disappearance. His poor family – they must be sick with worry.’

  ‘Have you met his father, Darren Robinson?’

  ‘A couple of times, briefly. We’ve only used him on more recent projects, but I had to take a back seat for the majority of the last one. Family issues.’

  ‘Do you mind if I ask what those issues were?’

  ‘My daughter.’ He stopped for a moment and looked away, turning his gaze in the direction of the office door. When he spoke next, Chloe noticed the lump in his throat rising and falling. ‘She passed away last year.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ She shifted in her chair, uneasy at having made the man revisit his recent loss. ‘Can I ask what happened?’

  ‘She had a rare kidney condition. There was no suitable match for her.’

  Chloe drew in her bottom lip, not knowing what to say. The subject of his daughter’s death was evidently something Michael Wyatt had still not grown accustomed to talking about, and perhaps never would. Chloe had been told a long time ago that time was a great healer, but the bearers of this promise had proven misleading with their assurances. Time hadn’t healed; if anything, it had merely embedded the pain a little deeper into her skin, etching it like a scar that was invisible to everyone else.

  ‘So you’ve not been working as much as usual?’

  Michael shook his head. ‘Family first.’

  ‘Absolutely. You weren’t at the comedy club last Thursday night, then?’

  Michael shook his head. ‘Stand-up isn’t really my cup of tea, particularly not now. The boys like that type of banter, though – Gareth thought it might be their kind of thing.’

  ‘You paid for it all, did you?’

  ‘Not me personally. The company paid.’

  ‘A very generous bonus.’

  ‘Is it? Doesn’t say much for other companies then. Look, truth be told, I’d rather see them enjoy it than the taxman. It might not be the norm, but the boys did a great job in a short space of time. A few things held us up at the start, so the deadlines were tight. Keep the workers happy, I say.’

  Tell that to DCI Thompson, Chloe thought. The man wouldn’t have known a smile if it had jumped out from behind his desk and kissed him.

  ‘Could you let me have Mr Lawrence’s contact details, please?’

  Michael Wyatt waited for Chloe to unlock her phone before reciting his business partner’s number from memory. ‘We’ve worked together for over two decades,’ he explained, reacting to the impressed look she offered. Memorising phone numbers wasn’t something she was familiar with; the only number Chloe was able to recall was her own.

  ‘Can I help you with anything else?’ he asked.

  She shook her head. Her phone had started ringing as she held it in her hand. ‘Sorry,’ she said, swiping the call to answer. ‘I’ll see myself out.’

  Pausing Jake mid sentence, Chloe waited until she was outside the building and on the street before prompting him to continue.

  ‘Where are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Lawrence and Wyatt’s offices in Cardiff.’

  ‘Lawrence there?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘I’ve got Darren Robinson’s phone history here,’ Jake told her. ‘His messages make for interesting reading. Looks as though he’s been trying to blackmail Gareth Lawrence.’

  Twenty-Four

  The woman who answered the door was in her early to mid fifties. She had shoulder-length light-brown hair that curled at the sides of her neck and was flecked with only the slightest signs of grey, and she was smartly dressed in a pair of tailored trousers and a knee-length cardigan. With a bag slung over her arm and her car keys in her hand, it was evident that she had been about to go out.

  Alex introduced herself and showed the woman her ID. ‘I’m looking for Dean Williams,’ she explained. ‘Does he still live here?’

  ‘No.’ The woman’s grip on her bag tightened at the mention of the name. ‘Why, what’s he done now?’

  Alex wondered why the reception of the young man’s name was so frosty. As far as his police record was concerned, his first misdemeanour had been his last.

  ‘You know Dean then?’

  ‘For my sins,’ the woman said with a sigh. ‘He’s my son. He moved out about a year back. Why are you looking for him?’

  ‘Your son has done nothing wrong, Mrs Williams,’ Alex reassured her.

  ‘That’s a first. And it’s Barrett now,’ the woman corrected her. ‘Nicola Barrett. I divorced Dean’s dad years ago.’

  ‘Do you think we could go inside to talk?’

  The woman hesitated, her unease growing increasingly apparent. ‘I’m sorry, I was just on my way out. I’ve got an appointment in town.’

  ‘I won’t keep you long.’

  Alex followed Nicola Barrett into the house. The woman stopped in the hallway, waiting for Alex to close the front door behind her.

  ‘Does the address 14 Oak Tree Close mean anything to you?’

  Nicola shook her head. ‘Should it?’

  Alex reminded herself that she needed to tread sensitively. This woman’s son was a relative of the person whose body had been buried beneath the patio, meaning that she too would be connected to the man, perhaps even more closely than her son was. It was likely that whatever arrangements Nicola Barrett had made for that day, the news that Alex was about to deliver might force her to postpone them.

  ‘Ms Barrett, we’re making inquiries into a possible missing person.’

  ‘A possible missing person?’ the woman repeated, noting Alex’s specific choice of wording. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Is there anyone in your family who’s been reported as missing?’

  The woman’s face changed, her eyes glazing over almost instantly. ‘My brother. He went missing a long time ago now, though. 1981. I was just a kid at the time. Please tell me what’s going on.’

  Despite the decades that had passed, Nicola’s reaction made it apparent that her brother’s disappearance was as raw now as it had been all those years ago. Alex looked to her left, into a living room, gesturing for Nicola to lead the way through. She did so without question, sinking on to the end of a corner sofa and looking at Alex expectantly as the detective took a seat at the other end.

  ‘I’m afraid a body has been found, and the DNA retrieved from the remains is a partial match with your son. It’s very likely therefore that the body is that of your brother.’

  Nicola nodded steadily as she stared at the carpet, absorbing the information with a quiet acceptance. ‘Okay.’

  Alex waited, but the woman offered nothing more. ‘What was your brother’s name?’

  ‘Oliver. Oliver Barrett.’ Nicola
stood and went to a set of drawers at the far side of the living room. Crouching to the bottom drawer, she rummaged among its contents, removing a handful of photographs. ‘I don’t have many of these,’ she said. ‘We never used to take them like we do now, did we?’

  Handing the photographs to Alex, she sat down again. Alex studied them: some of Oliver on his own, some of him with Nicola; one of the two children with their parents. There was an obvious similarity between the siblings and Alex wondered what Oliver would have looked like now, whether he would still bear such a close resemblance to his younger sister.

  The photographs were mostly from the late 1960s and the 1970s, though in one, Oliver was an older teenager: a serious-looking boy with dark eyes, a pair of thick-rimmed glasses resting on his nose. The last photograph showed brother and sister posing together on a beachfront – Oliver in ill-fitting shorts and a striped T-shirt, Nicola in a summer dress – both pulling faces for the camera.

  ‘I knew he was dead,’ Nicola said, her eyes fixed on one of the photographs. ‘After all this time, you give up hope of anything else.’

  She paused and looked away, her lips thinning. ‘You know, I’ve imagined this day so many times over the years. Each time different in some way. I thought I’d know how I would feel, how I would react, but … I don’t know. I don’t know what to feel.’

  She stood and took the photographs back. ‘This address,’ she said, still maintaining her composure. ‘Why did you ask me if I recognised it?’