‘Thank you.’
‘Where is Christopher now?’
‘Upstairs, in his bedroom of course.’
‘You need to show me.’
Annabelle clutched the towel around her hand and shoved her chair backwards. ‘Come on, then.’
She led the way out to the hallway and then up the flight of stairs to a wide landing.
As Kay reached the top step, a door at the back of the house opened and Bethany peered out, her eyes wide.
‘What’s going on, Mum?’
‘Nothing. Go back to bed.’
‘Where’s Dad?’
‘Busy.’
Bethany paused for a moment, then turned away, leaving the door open a crack.
‘Which one is Christopher’s room?’
‘This one. At the front.’
Annabelle crossed the thick carpet and knocked on the door. ‘Christopher? The police are here.’
Carys raised an eyebrow at Kay in the silence that followed.
‘Christopher?’
Annabelle knocked once more, and then twisted the door knob and flipped the light switch.
Kay took one look at the woman’s surprised expression and spun on her heel.
As she raced across the landing, Bethany appeared, a thick dressing gown over her pyjamas.
‘He’s outside,’ she said.
‘Outside?’
Her mother’s shrill response made the teenager wince.
‘I saw him.’
‘Where did he go, Bethany?’ Kay kept her voice soft, unwilling to alarm the girl any further.
‘Down the garden. I saw him out the window.’
‘Carys, with me.’
She shot down the stairs, rounded the newel post without stopping and beckoned to the two officers.
‘Give me a torch. Stay there in case he comes back. We’re heading out to the garden.’
She heard the muffled “ma’am” as she wrenched open the front door, and then ran along the gravelled path to the back garden, the landscape unfamiliar in the darkness.
‘Where do you think he went?’ said Carys.
Kay traced the border of the property, her eyes following a large hedgerow that ran from the house and down the right hand side until it petered out near the copse of trees.
She began walking towards the wooded area, and then stopped at the base of the large oak tree and raised her chin.
Above her, up a ladder that looked as if it would fall apart at any moment, was the tree house.
‘He’s up there,’ Kay murmured.
Carys craned her neck to follow her gaze, and then took a step back. ‘Are you going up?’
‘I’d better. Wait here.’
She tucked the torch into the collar of her jacket, gripped the sides of the ladder, and began to climb.
It was higher than she thought.
By the time she reached the top, the wind whipped at her hair and buffeted her against the floor of the tree house.
She pulled out the torch and swept it around the wooden hideaway.
Coal-black eyes stared out of the gloom at her, and she lowered the beam.
‘Christopher?’
‘He ruined it,’ said the teenager, his voice full of anger. ‘He ruined everything.’
The ladder wobbled under Kay’s weight and she held her breath, refusing to look down. If the flimsy framework collapsed, she’d have no way to break the fall.
‘Was it Damien’s idea to steal the copper wire?’ she said.
‘Of course it was. I didn’t even know it was there.’
‘Why did you go?’
‘Because he asked me to.’ Christopher’s voice took on a desperate tone.
‘And you’d do anything for your brother, wouldn’t you?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
It was little more than a whisper.
‘Your mum’s really worried about you.’
‘She never liked Damien.’
Kay grabbed hold of the top of the ladder, his admission catching her off guard.
‘Didn’t she?’
There was movement in the shadows, and then Christopher appeared.
‘You need to be careful. Dad was meant to fix this ladder last summer.’
‘Thanks.’
He shrugged and looked away; a shy tic that broke her heart.
She took the opportunity to hoist herself into the tree house, placed her torch on the floor then turned around and concentrated on the view.
Beyond the woods, the sun was beginning to crest the horizon.
‘Why didn’t your mum like Damien, then?’
‘She said he was ungrateful.’
‘Was he?’
‘No. He was only pissed off because Dad kept screwing things up with the business.’
‘Is that why he didn’t want to take it over?’
‘Yeah. Said it was worthless. No-one wants to work with Dad as it is. Nobody respectable, anyway.’
‘Were you getting bullied at school?’
Christopher drew his knees up to his chin and stared at the floor. ‘Dad always forgets that when he does something, it makes all of us look bad, too. Bethany gets into trouble at school because they’re always picking on her. Girls are worse than the boys. Even Mum was affected. She used to like playing badminton at a club with her friends until about two years ago. She had to quit because Dad owed her friends’ husbands money.’
‘How did Damien know about the copper wiring?’
‘He used to go along to the site meetings with Dad.’
‘How’d you get into the place? It had a security company looking after it.’
‘Turns out Dad wasn’t the only one cutting costs. When we got there, there was nobody around.’
‘No security guards?’
‘No. I guess they were skimming off the profits as well.’
Kay swivelled herself around so she was facing Christopher in the low light from the torch.
‘How did you get in?’
‘Damien had a spare key. He must’ve got it cut without Dad finding out. I asked, but he wouldn’t tell me. He was angry with me by then.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I wanted to know who he was going to sell the copper wire to. He told me to stop asking so many questions.’
‘Did he hit you?’
Christopher lowered his eyes, and then nodded.
Kay sighed. ‘What happened when you removed the underlay to get to the copper wire?
Christopher swallowed, his face devoid of any colour. ‘Damien pulled the boards up. We weren’t talking much by then. I think he was wishing he hadn’t asked me to help him. I don’t think he was paying attention. When we first got into the building, he’d told me not to press any of the light switches because the power was on.’ He shivered. ‘I turned my back – only for a second. I was looking for another torch so we could see into the gap.’
A solitary tear ran over his cheek. ‘I thought I’d reminded him about the power, really I did.’
‘What happened next?’ said Kay.
Christopher used his shirt sleeve to wipe at his eyes. ‘There was a sound. Like a gasp, then a thud. All the power went off. I just stood there. I don’t know how long for. I was too scared to turn around and look. And then I realised I had to move. I had to do something.’
‘You covered up the death of your own brother,’ said Kay.
Christopher nodded.
‘Why didn’t you report it?’ she said. ‘Why did you hide his body?’
‘Because I panicked. I didn’t know what else to do. He-he was dead, there was no power in the building, and so I dragged Damien across the floor until he fell inside the cavity and sealed it back up.’
‘What were you planning to do in April when he didn’t show up?’
‘I suppose he could’ve gone missing out there. People do, all the time, don’t they? Just disappear without a trace.’
‘What did you do with his bag?’
In reply
, a scraping sound reached her ears as he turned and pulled a canvas holdall from the corner of the tree house.
‘He told me to hang on to it while he went and bought some cigarettes before we went into the building,’ he said.
‘Didn’t your sister wonder why it was here?’
‘Bethany doesn’t come up here anymore.’
‘Why not?’
‘I told her the place was infested with spiders.’
Kay swallowed. ‘Is it?’
‘No. I only told her that to keep her out of here.’ He rested a hand on the bag. ‘I didn’t know what else to do with this.’
‘Shove it over here.’
Kay stopped the bag with one hand, and then unzipped it and shone her torch inside.
Copper wire glinted in the light from the beam, and as she delved underneath it, she pulled out a passport.
‘You didn’t sell the copper wire.’
‘No.’
Kay re-zipped the bag. ‘Look, I’m not too good with heights,’ she said. ‘Do you mind if we finish this conversation somewhere at ground level?’
‘Am I in trouble?’
‘I’m not going to lie to you. I’ll do what I can, but—’
She watched as he shuffled awkwardly across the planks of wood that made up the floor of the tree house and then pushed his legs out in front of him.
‘I didn’t mean to. I was scared.’
‘I know you were. Now, do you mind showing me the best way to get down from here? I really wasn’t kidding about the heights thing.’
Five minutes later, Kay stood at the base of the tree as a uniformed officer led Christopher across the lawn towards the driveway where a patrol car waited.
‘What will happen to him?’ Annabelle called out from where she stood next to Carys.
Kay joined them. ‘I told Christopher I’d do what I can, Mrs Brancourt, but it’s possible the Crown Prosecution Service might pursue a charge for involuntary manslaughter. There’s also the matter of hiding Damien’s body – the charge they’ll likely raise is called denying the coroner a body. Depending on how they view the circumstances leading up to Damien’s death, they may well charge him with attempted theft as well.’
‘Two sons,’ whispered Annabelle. ‘Now who will John pass the business on to? We’ll be finished.’
Kay’s attention was caught by movement at a window on the ground floor of the house, a curtain dropping back into place.
‘You have a daughter,’ she said. ‘Maybe once this is all over you could have a think about breaking with tradition and passing it on to her.’
Annabelle wrapped her coat around her shoulders and kicked at a loose stone in the path. ‘Do you have a daughter, Detective Hunter?’
Kay turned so the other woman couldn’t see her face, and then began to walk away.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I lost her.’
Forty-Nine
Kay climbed from the passenger seat of Adam’s four-wheel drive vehicle, the wind whipping her hair into her face and making her eyes sting.
The next gust flushed out the sound of bells from the small church in Shepway, celebrating the mid-morning wedding service they had passed on the way.
She’d received a phone call from Barnes an hour ago, updating her from the incident room with the news that the Crown Prosecution Service had confirmed they would be charging Christopher Brancourt for concealing the truth about his brother’s death, and that Sharp had sent the remainder of the team home for the weekend to ensure they were fully rested before what was expected to be a busy week ahead while they pursued an investigation into Mark Sutton’s business affairs.
‘Take the day off, Kay,’ he’d said. ‘I’ve got it under control. Spend some time with Adam – you’ve hardly seen each other these past few weeks what with this case and everything else.’
Kay had tried to argue with him, but the detective sergeant was having none of it. She smiled at the memory – Barnes was a good friend, and she respected him as a colleague, too.
And, she had to admit, he had a fair point.
She slammed the door as Adam joined her, a bouquet of flowers in his hand.
‘Take these, I’ll get the secateurs,’ he said.
She inhaled the sweet scent from the brightly coloured carnations as Adam rummaged under the seats before extracting himself and locking the doors.
‘Shall we?’ He wrapped his fingers around hers and chuckled under his breath. ‘Freezing cold, as always.’
‘I should’ve worn gloves.’
Despite the mid-morning hour, her breath fogged as she fell into step beside Adam, their boots crunching on the gravelled surface of the car park. Weak sunlight gave the sky a washed-out hue and Kay shivered as she tugged her scarf up over her coat collar to shield herself from the chill breeze.
Adam’s thick black hair ruffled in the wind, and for a moment she fell silent, content in his company and relieved that he was here to accompany her.
She knew she wouldn’t be able to do this on her own, not today.
The grief ebbed and flowed within her, a dull ache that clutched at her chest on some days and reduced to a steady hum the rest of the time. She accepted that it would never fade completely, and in fact dreaded the thought that she would ever stop feeling the pain.
As if sensing her thoughts, Adam squeezed her hand, the warmth from his fingers enveloping her.
He said nothing, the words unnecessary.
When she had recovered, when she had first returned to work to find herself thrust into a nightmare of a pursuit to find a killer before another teenage girl died, he had finally told her what had happened.
Kay had pushed the less painful memories away, and the rest were lost to a mind that refused to contemplate what might have been.
Adam, on the other hand, had been the one holding her hand in the back of the ambulance, refusing to let the emergency workers take her away without him.
Adam had been the one who had curled up on the floor of the hospital waiting room, exhausted and unsure whether his partner and child would live.
Adam had been the one who had collapsed with relief tainted with a desolation that had wracked him for months when the surgeon had found him at three in the morning to tell him Kay had lived, but their daughter had not.
In time, they had healed together, the loss of their daughter a burden they had borne like so many other families before them.
Kay stopped in her tracks, pulling Adam to a sudden standstill.
He turned to face her. ‘What is it?’
She stood on tiptoe and kissed him. ‘Love you.’
He pulled her into a hug, burying his face in her hair. ‘Love you, too.’
She pulled away, wiped at her stinging eyes, then reached for his hand once more. ‘Come on.’
The colder weather had stunted the growth of the cemetery’s lawn, and a path was easily found between the stone markers of loved ones lost to time.
Kay held her breath as she drew nearer, the weight on her chest wrapping its way around her heart as the plain stone of her daughter’s grave came into view.
The council-employed gardeners had kept the weeds at bay and removed the spent stems from previous bouquets, and Adam bent to pull out an errant clump of couch grass that obscured her name.
Elizabeth Hunter-Turner.
‘I’ll fill this up with water,’ said Adam, holding the metal vase that had been at the head of the grave. ‘Will you be all right on your own for a moment?’
‘Yes.’
She gave a small smile as he walked away towards a standpipe at the end of the line of headstones, then turned back to her daughter’s grave.
‘Hello, Lizzy.’
A ragged sigh escaped her lips as she crouched beside the stone and ran her hands over the smooth surface.
She wondered what it would have been like to run her hand over her daughter’s hands, what it would have been like to brush her hair, the fun they would have had as a family.
Instead, she and Adam were bereft; childless.
‘God, it hurts,’ she whispered.
She sniffed as the sound of footsteps reached her, and then Adam crouched beside her and replaced the now-full vase on its base.
He gave her a gentle nudge. ‘I’ve seen what you’re like with knives. Do you want me to cut the flowers?’
Kay choked out a laugh. ‘Yes. Go on.’
She removed the elastic band from the stems and held them out to him while he snipped at the ends and then between them they arranged the flowers, working in silence.
When it was done, Adam pulled her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her.
Kay snuggled into the warmth of his chest, grateful for his closeness.
‘We’re going to be all right, Kay,’ he said. ‘We’re going to be all right.’
* * *
THE END
From the Author
Dear Reader,
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Thank you for picking up a copy of Bridge to Burn to read. I hope you enjoyed the story.
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Rachel Amphlett
Bridge to Burn Page 20
