She had no takers. Most coppers avoided them like the plague. If she was honest with herself, if it wasn’t Ted Wallis conducting it, and he wasn’t her dad, then she probably wouldn’t attend either. She dismissed the briefing group and made a quick fresh coffee before she left. As she waited, she googled Jamie Robbins on her phone, but this time instead of concentrating on his business history and his impressive CV and climb to power, she searched his private life. Lovers, escorts, socialites, artists.
His family. They’d picked up a few details from witnesses, and they knew he’d spent his early life in care. Wikipedia pages were always sanitised versions of true life, but Kelly read between the lines. He was born in Slough, and his parents were civil servants, but they’d died in a car crash when Jamie was seven years old.
Then, bingo.
He had one sister, but there was no name, so she googled ‘Jamie Robbins’ sister’.
A single photo popped up, with a name. Jamie looked so young in the image, and he had his arm around a young woman with black hair, who stared at him adoringly.
They looked ecstatically and unapologetically happy and Kelly felt a sudden gut-sapping punch of grief as she stared into the face of Angelina Robbins.
The caption said it was a photo of the ‘business entrepreneur’ Jamie Robbins with his sister, Angelina, at Nobu, three years ago, celebrating the takeover of FairGro by Hampton-Dent for twenty million pounds.
She marched back into the incident room and called everyone together. She connected her phone by Wi-Fi to the whiteboard and brought up the snap of Jamie and his sister, Angelina.
‘What do we think?’
‘Holy fuck, that’s her,’ Kate said, speaking for all of them.
A searing muteness caught them unawares until Emma said quietly, ‘That’s Water Nymph.’
Jamie Robbins’ autopsy could wait. Kelly needed to get over to the Old Man Guesthouse in Skelwith Bridge.
Chapter 18
‘How’s Lizzie?’
Kelly drove and Fin kept her company. It was his turn to support the boss. Her morning plans had just changed dramatically, and they headed to Coniston. It was a good opportunity to check in with Fin and make sure he was content with their new arrangement but her mind was on Angelina Robbins and why two siblings had met violent ends a day apart.
She’d resisted introducing her daughter to Fin for months, but it had been a chance meeting in Keswick when she’d been out with Ted that had finally led to it. Lizzie had been toddling along talking about dogs and ducks – the most important topics to a toddler on a day out to a lake – and Fin had happily chatted with her. In fact, he seemed to get along with her daughter better than he did her in the end, despite saying he didn’t like kids. His irritation was perhaps a ruse to protect himself from commitment, she decided in the end.
She concentrated on the road. ‘She’s good.’
She filled him in on the milestones her daughter had reached and bored him with the details of mushed-up food and hilarious mishaps that had happened since they’d called it a day.
‘You know you can come and see her anytime,’ she said.
‘Yeah, I know. I always think of it and then I get another shift at work. My boss is a bitch.’
‘Is she now?’ She side-eyed him.
They were comfortable in each other’s company. It had always been that way. It was calming listening to his southern Irish lilt. He had a beautiful voice. He was handy to have around for a tricky arrest. He always knew how to disarm even the most aggressive pricks they had to deal with. His size helped too.
They chatted about other cases, and he filled her in on the timings of expected results from the labs they used around the area. They were spread far and wide across Cumbria depending on what they required. It wasn’t every day that they sent forensic evidence off for testing – that process was wildly expensive – but sometimes, to progress an investigation, they had no choice. All departments were surviving on the skins of their bare arses, but until Carleton Hall shut her down, she’d carry on investigating the way she’d been taught.
‘Have you seen many suicides, Fin?’
‘My fair share, like. Fecking selfish if you ask me.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, I get that it’s awful and tough for somebody with nothing left, you know, but it’s worse for those poor bastards left behind.’
They heard a notification ping, and Kelly recognised it as her email.
‘Can you check my phone? I’m waiting for the passport office to get back to me about Angelina Robbins.’
Fin reached into her bag, and she told him her password.
