Katerina Diamond – The Promise: The twisty new thriller from the Sunday Times bestseller, guaranteed to keep you up all night (страница 9)
‘Come in!’
She had left the door on the latch; even though he had a key, she knew he wouldn’t use it. She stayed on the sofa, waiting.
When she looked up, he was standing in the doorway. He smiled at her, a wide grin, like the time she had first met him, not the broken man she had said goodbye to all those weeks ago. That smile hit her like a hammer. The chemistry was still there.
‘Hey stranger.’ He smoothed his hair back nervously.
She stood up and walked over to him. Trying to read him was always impossible. He was such a contradiction, so completely open, but full of secrets. She could see up close how nervous he was; he was waiting for her to make the first move and she couldn’t bear to think of him in pain. She leaned up and kissed him on the lips; immediately, he pulled her into him, kissing her as though she were a tonic he needed to stay alive.
‘I missed you.’ She pulled away. ‘How are you?’
‘Better now. I just needed some space. I’m sorry. I know it wasn’t fair of me to disappear like that.’
She waved dismissively, she didn’t want to cry and make him feel bad. She wouldn’t have been crying because she was upset that he’d had left her, it was more the sheer relief of him being back. But she had a problem and she knew it. Essentially nothing had changed; he was still an ex-con and she was still a police officer. This was still completely unworkable. She couldn’t afford to not address that anymore. It really was him or the job.
‘We need to talk, Dean,’ she said.
‘Already? Don’t we even get today?’
‘We’ve had too many days. I just can’t ignore this anymore.’
He moved past her and sat on the sofa. She couldn’t quite believe she was about to do this. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the key to her place and put it on the table.
‘You don’t have to say it. I know.’
‘You can’t not be you, you tried. The truth is I love you for who you are. I don’t think you can change and if you did, I’m not sure I would feel the same,’ Imogen said, hoping he would tell her that she was being silly, that it would all be fine. Even if she knew it wasn’t true, maybe they could pretend.
‘Conditional love?’
‘That’s not it. Do you want me to change?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Well there you go then. One of us has to.’
‘It’s not because of what you know about me now?’
‘What do you mean?’ she said. She had found out a lot of questionable things about him during her last big case, just before he’d left. She’d discovered horrific things about his childhood, growing up in care home after care home, being abused by the owners. He had even admitted to killing someone for her. None of that changed how she felt about him.
Dean took a deep breath before speaking. ‘The sexual abuse.’
‘No! God … no, of course not.’
‘Not everyone wants to deal with someone who’s been broken in that way.’ He looked down.
‘You’re not broken! Don’t say that! Please don’t think that.’ The tears sprang out with as much surprise to her as to him. She hated the thought of him thinking of himself that way.
He patted the sofa next to him and she sat in the hollow. Putting out his arm, he pulled her towards him and they just sat there for a moment. Wondering what happened next. She felt heavy with sadness; knowing that this couldn’t continue was a feeling she was used to, but actually ending it was a different matter – she didn’t think she would have the guts. Part of her had wished he had never come back, so this moment could never happen.
‘What happens now?’ he asked, stroking her hair.
‘We go on with our lives, I suppose.’
‘Just like that?’
‘I kept thinking maybe you were right. Maybe if we had some time apart, then it might work out or at the very least all of this would be easier.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Dean said, his voice strained.
‘For being you?’
‘For not being able to change.’
‘I don’t want you to change. I need you to keep being you, just the way you are. There is something very perfect about you. I’m jealous, if I’m honest. Jealous that you can just be … so sure of who you are.’
Dean caught his breath for a moment before speaking, trying to stay in control of his voice. ‘Don’t be jealous of me.’
She looked up and saw a vulnerability she had never seen in Dean before. He looked so lost, maybe this is how he always looked when no one was watching. She kissed him again before sliding her hand across his chest, igniting the fire in both of them instantly. Almost immediately he pushed her back onto the sofa and climbed up so he was looking down on her. They pulled at each other’s clothes and forgot about thinking for a little while. Maybe they could have today after all.
‘So, what do we know so far?’ Adrian asked for the third time in as many minutes. His focus was a little off these days.
‘We found no technology whatsoever in her place, but her colleagues told us she had Facebook and Twitter and all the other gubbins online so the chances are whoever was in her place took it for some reason,’ Imogen said.
‘Can we get access to her social media accounts?’ Adrian said.
‘We’re trying. Her sister doesn’t know any of her passwords. We can only see what’s available to see by the public or friends. Her sister let us look from her account.’
‘What about the post-mortem?
‘It’s happening right now, I believe. I could go and check it out.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Adrian said.
Imogen flashed him a look. He knew what she was thinking. She thought he couldn’t handle it. She thought the sight of a dead body would send him careering into an abyss of depression. He could still do his job, even despite what had happened to Lucy.
A journalist who had worked on their last case, a journalist who Adrian had very much fallen for. He hadn’t even been with her for very long, he reasoned, so the idea that his whole world had fallen apart now she was gone was ludicrous. Things had changed for him, there was no denying that. The biggest change was the fact that his ex, Andrea, and his fifteen-year-old son Tom had moved in with him following the death of her partner, Dominic – who had been exposed as corrupt at the end of Adrian’s last case. Adrian had given Andrea the bed and been sleeping on the sofa for the last two months. It was good to have them around. The first few nights after Lucy died were crippling, having other people move in most likely saved him from himself. He worked late most nights and got into work early most mornings. If nothing else, he was scoring some major brownie points with the DCI, if not his own sanity.
Adrian watched as Imogen thumbed through the post-mortem report. She handed the pages to him but he shook his head.
‘Just give me the bullet points.’
‘Looks like she might have been on a date, she had traces of white wine and oysters in her stomach.’
‘Right,’ he said.
‘It’s not clear whether she was sexually assaulted – she definitely had intercourse before she died, and there is some minor tearing, but it seems as though it could have just as easily been vigorous consensual sex. Her genitals were washed with bleach, presumably after death which could mean any number of things. Maybe it was an accident and he was trying to remove any traces of himself, or maybe this is part of a larger ceremony that isn’t accidental at all. I’ve not really dealt with anything like this before.’
‘Right, anything else?’ He didn’t want to verbalise his disgust just yet.
‘She has also got some half-moon marks on her neck from her nails, consistent with her trying to fight back, pulling at whoever’s hands were there. She basically scratched herself.’
‘Oh God, poor thing.’ Adrian shuddered involuntarily. ‘Do you think it was kinky sex gone wrong? Erotic asphyxiation? Breath control or whatever you call it?’
Imogen frowned. ‘I suppose that’s a possibility, but there’s a certain level of calm around the scene. Don’t you think? The way the body was redressed – that’s confirmed now by the way; she was definitely dressed after death. Something a bit ritualistic about the whole thing.’
‘You think it was planned?’
‘It just seems too neat not to be.’
‘Yeah. Maybe.’ Adrian took the sheets of paper from Imogen and glanced through them. ‘Says here that they couldn’t find any DNA on or in the body. The bleaching wouldn’t get rid of fluids, but it would get rid of trace evidence, right?’
‘So, what do we think then? Random or targeted? The underwear she had on suggests that she was on a date, coupled with what she ate.’
‘Let’s find out which restaurants serve oysters then, there can’t be that many places around here. Maybe someone saw her on the night.’
DCI Kapoor came over to Imogen’s desk; Adrian could feel her eyes on him all the time, waiting for him to snap or something. It was getting tiresome.
‘Did you find out anything from Erica’s work colleagues?’
‘She was single, she had a cat, a few crap relationships but all pretty short-term, most of them guys at work.’
‘Where does she work?’ DCI Kapoor said.
‘Recruitment agency in town,’ Imogen said.