‘Rhys?’ she calls.
My heart bangs against my chest. I need to get out the back door before she comes out. She can see the front path out of her bathroom window. I carry on down the stairs not making a sound until I reach the hallway. Holding my breath, I pick up the pace as I reach the back door and open it.
‘Rhys, is that you? I know you’re there,’ she calls. I exhale as I dart out of the back gate. She can’t see me, not yet. I scurry off into the distance as the neighbour’s dog pounds against the fence, barking like it’s the end of the world.
My phone lights up.Oh, hello.
Nineteen
Gina pulled up on the drive of the new townhouse, right behind the caravan. ‘This is a nice new estate, guv. I see myself living somewhere like this in a few years, wife, couple of kids, nice garden.’
‘You hate gardening and you’re not that keen on kids either.’
Laughing, Jacob leaned down and grabbed his satchel from the foot-well. ‘You know something, you’re always right. Big mistake that would be. It wouldn’t be so bad if kids came with a volume button.’
Gina glanced up at the house as they stepped out of the car, heading up the drive, taking care not to brush against the newish Land Rover Discovery. The new build, three-storey, end of terrace semi was neatly finished with a Juliet balcony on both upper floors. The curtains at all of the windows matched the lead-grey colour of the front door. Window boxes finished the look off beautifully. The parked up caravan looked to be a little older than the car and house but it was large and clean.
Jacob pressed the doorbell and a woman answered.
‘Dawn Brown? DI Harte and DS Driscoll.’
She nodded and stepped aside. Gina inhaled the smell of new house as they entered the airy hallway that led to the bright kitchen. All other doors were closed. Dawn knew exactly what she wanted them to see. Calculated move or did she simply value her privacy?
‘I have all the names for you. Here you go.’ She slid a handwritten list of names across the island in the middle of the kitchen.
Jade and Noah Ashmore.
Aimee Prowse and Rhys Keegan.
Maggie and Richard Leason.
Myself (Dawn Brown) and Steven Smithson.
Gina gasped for breath as she took a step back. She needed air. Jacob’s gaze met hers as she opened the back door.
‘Can I get you something, Detective?’ the woman called.
Gina shook her head as she practised her breathing exercises that the counsellor had taught her to do. ‘I’m fine, thank you. I just swallowed the wrong way down. I’ll be okay in a moment.’ A small lie that would buy her a few seconds until she could expand her contracting airways. Breathing in through her nose, she held and then exhaled.
‘Excuse me a moment.’ Jacob left Dawn and followed Gina into the garden. ‘What’s going on, guv?’
She couldn’t hide the fact that she was shaking or that she was in a mild panic. Sweat glistened on the end of her nose. She felt her neck burning up and knew full well that she was reddening.
‘It’s nothing. I just recognise a name on the list, but I’m okay now.’
‘Which one?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ She took a final deep breath and smiled. ‘Let’s go back in. That woman must think I’m barmy.’ She stepped back into the kitchen. ‘I’d love a glass of water, Ms Brown, thank you.’
As Dawn ran the tap and reached for a glass, Gina tried to match her with Steven. They weren’t a match in her head. Steven had always gone for much younger women, normally with a naivety about them. Dawn looked like a mature, independent woman and certainly didn’t come across as a pushover. Steven, her ex-brother-in-law, the man who knew what she was like back then, when Terry was alive. The man who knew her old self, the woman she’d tried so hard to escape and forget. The woman he’d enjoyed taunting and keeping in her place, watching on as Terry abused her, knowing and encouraging his brother to continue. She’d once been so fearful of them both.
Dawn placed the glass in front of Gina. Her ash blonde bob, bouncing as she walked. Her green eyes searching for some kind of reassurance that Gina wasn’t going to possibly throw up on her gleaming kitchen floor.
‘Thank you.’ She gulped down the water and smiled. ‘That’s better. One of our detectives spoke to you on the phone so you’re fully aware of why we’re here.’
She nodded as she fidgeted with her jeans, the ones that were at least a size too small. ‘It’s about what happened on the night of the party. I don’t really know what I can tell you. We had a party at mine, everyone left before midnight and that was it really.’
‘We know about the party,’ Gina said, hoping that Dawn would be prompted to say more. If Dawn thought she’d be able to fob them off with neighbourly wine and nibbles, she had another think coming. ‘You also know that one of your friend’s was brutally murdered on the night of your party.’
