The DI Hannah Robbins Series: Books 1 - 3 (Boxset) (Detective Hannah Robbins Crime Series)

by Rebecca Bradley

  It was her first big night and Isaac felt anxious, yet he couldn’t say why. He felt troubled as she stood there, looking beautiful in a simple flowing gown, more adult, and more serene than he had ever seen here. He wanted to capture this moment forever, but forever had a diaphanous feel, like if he tried to reach out and imagine it, it would float away from him. Instead he took out his camera, watched as Emma posed, and snapped the moment in time.

  21

  Sean Beers answered the door on the second set of knocks. His unruly brown hair appeared to have grown more ruffled. The sun behind us lit up his face, which was looking pale and lacklustre. Dark circles under his eyes stood out like purple crescent moons. He looked from Aaron to me and back again. Not a flicker of recognition crossed his face. His hand rested on the door handle as his mind fought to place the two people in front of him.

  ‘Mr Beers,’ I went in to help him. ‘DI Robbins from last week at the police station and my colleague, DS Stone.’ His lips parted in an O shape. ‘If we can just come in for another chat.’ I didn’t want to phrase it like a question. I didn’t want to give him the opportunity to come up with an excuse to turn us away. At the minute we were keeping in touch with the family of a suspicious death victim. How this played out remained to be seen. Would he be grieving, a supportive father or something else altogether?

  ‘Honey, who is it?’ A slender woman with bright auburn hair popped up from under his arm somewhere. A bright smile that went all the way to her eyes. Beautiful, even without a trace of make-up on her face.

  ‘It’s the police.’ He found his voice and looked at her. ‘About Lianne.’

  ‘Well, let them in.’ She backed up a couple of steps, forcing Sean to back up with her. ‘Come in. Come in.’ She ushered as we all moved at once. ‘I’m sorry, he’s not quite with it at the minute.’ The woman apologised as we all continued moving in unison away from the doorstep and any prying eyes that might be there. We took a right turn through a doorway following her into a large square-shaped living area. Two three-seater sofas at right angles to each other kept the room in a box shape, but were softened with extra cushions thrown about them in a multitude of colours. Smiling faces in a mishmash of frames shone out from the walls and an overweight, golden retriever lay on a rug on the floor, lifting its head in acknowledgment before dropping to the floor again. ‘Sit, please.’ The woman waved her arm in front of the two sofas, indicating we could take either. Aaron looked down at the dog and sat in the furthest seat facing back into the room. A large oak bookcase loomed behind him. I followed, sitting next to him I sank deeper into the plush cushions than I expected to and put my hands down to steady myself. The woman smiled at me. Sean and the woman, I presumed to be his wife, seated themselves on the other sofa.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Sean’s wife, Janine.’

  I smiled. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Hannah Robbins and this is Detective Sergeant Aaron Stone.’ I paused and looked around, not wanting to say too much if a child was going to walk into the room. ‘Can I ask where the children are before we go on?’

  ‘Yes, Sofia is with my mum,’ Janine spoke again. Sean kept his face turned down towards the floor.

  ‘And Megan?’

  At this Sean looked up but still didn’t speak. His wife was doing it all for him. ‘She’s upstairs, resting. We were up most of the night with her again and she’s worn herself out now. We’ll hear her if she starts to come down the stairs though, so we’re okay to talk.’

  ‘Why is Sofia with your mum?’ asked Aaron.

  ‘It’s a tough transitional time and we thought it best that she be in a stable place as we get through this initial grieving period with Megan. She’s so young.’ I nodded. ‘We’ll get the two girls together more often on a gradual basis as and when we feel they will both be able to deal with the emotional implications of what it means – that they are sisters, on a permanent basis. For Megan that is going to be traumatic and could have some massive knock-on effect towards Sofia, maybe without her even realising it.’

  This woman seemed to have her head screwed on. She wasn’t the woman I was expecting and certainly not quite the woman Sean had drawn her to be.

  ‘How have you explained it to her, Sean?’ His head popped up at the same time Janine’s eyebrows lifted away from bright eyes.

  ‘I … erm, we … erm, said … We told her that her mummy was in heaven, obviously.’ I waited.

  ‘We told her it was an accident and she was going to be living with us in her room here.’ I waited some more.

  ‘How the hell do you think she took it?’ Aah. The response. I felt Aaron shift forward, balancing his elbows on his knees.

  Janine stood. ‘Can I get anyone a tea? Coffee? Water?’

  It was another warm day. ‘I’ll just have water, please.’

  She looked at Aaron.

  ‘I don’t drink in people’s houses.’ She brushed down her jeans and walked out of the room. I took a deep breath, closing my eyes for a moment, then looked back at Sean. He continued to look down at the floor.

  ‘How are you doing, Sean?’ He looked up, as though only just remembering we were still there.

  ‘Shocked. I’m shocked. It’s all hard to take in you know, and then to deal with the girl’s pain, well, it’s … I never thought anything could be this hard.’

  ‘I can only imagine. You have strong support with Janine by the look of it.’

  ‘Yes. She’s been wonderful. I don’t know what I would have done without her.’ He lifted his face to the display of images on the wall and a smile flitted across his lips.

  ‘We need to ask you about medications, Sean.’ At that point Janine walked in carrying a tray with two cups and a glass of water. I waited for her to put it down on the coffee table before continuing.

  ‘Medications?’ she asked. I could see who was more aware in this relationship right now.

  ‘Yes. Is anyone in the family on any heart medication?’

  ‘No. No one. I’m presuming this has something to do with Lianne’s death?’

  I didn’t want to give too much away but I needed to have my questions answered. ‘It’s something that has been identified during the post-mortem but we couldn’t find any in her home.’

  ‘That’s strange. Lianne wasn’t ill, as far as we knew. She would have told us if there was something wrong. She liked to keep in contact with Sean. Too often, if I’m honest. There was no need for the amount of contact she wanted when a schedule was set up for Megan, but every time Megan had a sniffle she let Sean know, she grazed her knee, she let Sean know.’ She paused. I let the silence play. ‘Listen to me. I’m sorry.’ Janine put her hand to her chest. ‘Like I said, no one in our family is ill. We don’t have any of that kind of medication in the house. In fact we don’t have anything other than a basic first aid kit stored.’

  ‘Do you know why she might have some, Sean?’ Aaron asked. Again, it took a moment for him to answer.

  ‘No. No idea. I have to look after my family now though, don’t I? This is my family now.’

  We had no other questions at the point and left without touching the drink Janine had made.

  22

  2015

  The day she came into the house to tell them was a day of sunshine and warmth.

  It was wrong. A contradiction. There was no way the sun should have been shining, the flowers showing their faces upwards in joy or birds singing. The sky should have clouded over in the darkest cloud cover seen. As black as night and as thick as Beijing smog.

  Connie was washing the dishes and he was at the dining table, the two of them making small talk. Connie was chattering about Beryl Kingston down the road who had just had her second hip replacement, a cup circling in her hands, soap suds exploding out of the inner cup as she cleaned, paying little attention. Isaac himself paid even less attention to Mrs Kingston’s medical issues, instead choosing to alternate between reading the sport’s pages and listening t
o his wife’s soft lilting tones rather than the actual words.

  Then it happened.

  Emma walked in. It was a Wednesday afternoon. She wasn’t expected. She should have been at work, at the chemist. But she walked in looking pallid and drawn. Her lips thin and as pale as her face. Her eyes blinking rapidly, her breath quick. Connie turned to see who the visitor was and as soon as she saw Em the cup that was still circling in her hands slipped. It bounced once on the edge of the sink, the handle splitting off before it dropped hard on the tiled floor, smashing in the otherwise now silent kitchen. Connie ignored the mess that was at her feet and in seconds crossed the space between herself and her only child, taking her up in her arms. At once Em broke down. Her handbag dropped to the floor, her arms circling her mother’s waist as great heaving sobs wracked her body. Connie’s arms had, like a reflex, wrapped themselves tightly around her daughter and dropped her face into her hair, one hand gently circling her back to let her know she was there and supported. There were no words uttered, yet the kitchen was filled with a sound that tore open Isaac’s soul. He faltered as he stood. She was his beautiful child, but now an adult crumbling in front of his eyes in her mother’s arms and he felt impotent. Helpless, his daughter breaking before his very eyes and he didn’t understand why. He knew not what he could offer. Knew not what he could do.

  He knew he would do anything.

  23

  2015

  They say the world stops spinning or time stands still when grief this profound hits you. Yet if his world did, stop spinning or stand still, then Em would have no future and he couldn’t recognise a world where she didn’t have a future. It just didn’t exist for him. She had the whole world at her feet so it had to be spinning, it had to keep going. She had plans. She wanted to finish university and train to be a barrister. And Em, Em bless her, he knew, she also wanted the family. Husband and 2.4 kids. She wanted the white picket fence, though she’d only ever seen those in American movies, she was a romantic at heart and thought she could have it all, if she worked hard enough. And she had been working hard enough.

  They had been worried about her of late. She had looked peaky on recent visits but they put it down to studying hard, partying hard and working a part-time job in a chemist on top of that. They’d told her to take things easier. To get some rest. He’d bet his money Connie had told her to get a check-up at the doctors, although he would never have considered it. He knew students burned the candle at both ends. Though how he knew that was through watching movies and documentaries and none too flattering news items, as he’d never been inside a university until the day they started ‘shopping around’ for Em. He’d barely got through school but had managed to get an apprenticeship in one of the local factories in Stapleford. He’d put many good years into it. Times were hard on the businesses in the town and many closed. He’d watched and held his breath as factory after factory closed their doors but they’d been lucky and held on. He’d wanted a better life for Em and she’d gone off and started it. They visited three universities before she settled on Sheffield. It wasn’t too close, but neither was it too far away that she couldn’t come home and visit or get her washing done should she need to. They’d bought her an old run-around Fiesta to take with her so she could make the journey home when she needed to. Though they missed her, they received weekly email updates from her including photographs where she had any of interest to include. Or as he assumed, if there were any she was okay with her parents seeing. Law was a tough subject, so he knew she would be spending a sensible amount of time studying and not just drinking in the students’ bar.

  Until now.

  24

  Finlay watched the brick houses pass. The shops. The takeaways and restaurants. All that made up his hometown of Beeston, with nothing but a barely perceptible interest as Imagine Dragons thumped a beat out into his ears. His slender fingers, nails bitten to the quick, tapping along in time on his rucksack on his lap. The seat beside him empty as it often was. People were nervous when it came to sitting next to him. Snap judgements were made in that split second it took to choose a seat on a bus, even that early time in a morning when they were heading into work and space was tight. They saw a lanky white youth with earrings you could actually see through, bigger than his earlobes and a piercing through his eyebrow and made a decision to not sit next to him. He always laughed to himself. It gave him room to himself and it made his mum howl. She thought they were ‘uneducated judgmental pricks’ – her words. And he loved her for it. She loved to rub his head and try for a cuddle as often as she could, even if it was in front of his mates, much to his embarrassment.

  The thing was, he was nothing like the person others perceived him to be. And he knew what that was. He was actually the boy who would help his mum around the house. Do his nan’s garden on a weekend when it needed it and the boy who pined over April Lacey in class 10C, though he wouldn’t have the guts to tell her.

  His thoughts of April were interrupted as he felt a weight drop down at the side of him. He turned from his view out the window to look at his brave companion and saw the reason he had company was that the bus had filled up while he had been caught up in his own thoughts. His companion was sitting as close to the edge of the seat as they possibly could without falling off the end. A man in a pair of old grey trousers, which matched his hair and a navy bomber style jacket. No accounting for taste.

  Finlay started to feel hot. He leaned his head onto the cold glass to get some relief and closed his eyes. Time slipped by. His eyes snapped open as his chest tightened hard. He pulled his fists up quickly and gasped. As he opened his mouth, he vomited. He couldn’t stop and he was trapped in his window seat. His chest was being squeezed, his insides being torn apart. His body was betraying him. The pain across his chest and the feeling that he was being shredded from inside confused him. He had never felt so bad. He hoped someone could see and would assist. Through the music still ongoing in his ears he could hear shouting and feel movement. He pulled on his earphones and tried to ask for help but could hear someone yelling at him. Calling him a druggie? He needed help. Someone, help. Pain clenched its grip around his chest again and in its fury Finlay jerked forward, banging his head hard on the metal bar of the seat in front. The pain stopped as the world passing by suddenly went black.

  25

  His position in the seat could suggest he couldn’t be arsed; head at rest on the bar in front, his hands in his lap. If it wasn’t for the vile-smelling puddle of puke on his lap covering his hands and trailing down over his black skinny jean-clad knees, onto the rucksack that was partway to the floor between them, you would never have known. Most people would probably have ignored him and left him here for heavens knew how long. Male youths asleep or in distress on public transport wasn’t uncommon and they didn’t engender support or sympathy. This boy however had made his death loud and ungainly, which made it difficult for his fellow passengers to ignore and in turn made it difficult for the driver to not call it in. So here we were, Aaron and me, stood side by side in the narrow walkway of the bus, looking down at the boy on the bus. A sad, early start to Friday morning.

  All the passengers who were still around when we got there and hadn’t rushed off to work before police arrival were now off the bus and had been herded into a local coffee shop by Martin so he could contain them. He needed to obtain details and accounts of what they saw, regardless of which level of the bus they were on. The boy was on the top deck and even lower deck passengers were needed, as they might have seen him getting on or seen someone else that we needed to talk to.

  If it wasn’t for the gang shooting in Bestwood last night, another team would have been drafted in to deal with this, but as our only current job – Lianne Beers – wasn’t yet identified as a homicide, we were told in no uncertain terms that this one was ours as well. Budget cuts were eating away at staffing and that meant we all had to take on more to provide the same service – or not the same service but a better service, be
cause that’s what the government was promising, while at the same time it cut millions from public services.

  A couple of uniforms were helping Martin keep the unhappy witnesses in one place and the gawking non-witnesses in another – which was further away from the bus and from us.

  ‘So suicide, accident or murder?’ I asked Aaron.

  ‘I don’t think we can tell just from looking at him, can you?’

  I looked from the boy, to Aaron. ‘No, I suppose not.’ And at that moment, Jack made a timely appearance.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t my favourite Detective Inspector and Detective Sergeant. How the jolly well are you today? Made any headway with our digoxin toxicity job yet?’ he asked as he dropped his medical briefcase to the floor of the bus, making, I imagine, anyone downstairs think the ceiling was about to cave in.

  ‘Hey, Jack.’ I smiled. Aaron nodded and moved up the bus slightly to allow Jack better access to the boy, his Tyvek suit rustling as he moved. ‘Slow going on Beers so far, but we’ll let you know if anything significant comes up. Today we seem to have another odd one. No obvious external signs of trauma, and witnesses said it was pretty sudden, so I thought we’d better bring you down to the scene to have a look in situ.’

  Jack pulled on his blue medical gloves, hitched his white paper trousers up at his knees, providing a flash of his striped orange and pink socks, and crouched down in the walkway to the side of the boy and peered up at him from his lower vantage point without touching anything.

  ‘He’s got a nasty bruise to his forehead, but from how he’s resting. I imagine that will be corroborative with witness statements of him bashing his head against this bar he’s up against.’

  I looked out the window. To my side, I could see a woman waving her arms around wildly at Martin, her face turning a shade of puce I hadn’t seen on a live person before. Martin stood stock still, his hands resting low and relaxed on his belt buckle with his pocket book and pen in his hands. I tuned back to Jack who was talking about vomit colouring and smell. I looked at Aaron who was paying rapt attention. I could rely on him to catch me up.