Bad Sister(97)

‘That’s it, Dad? What happens now?’ She rushed forward, pulling at his sleeve, forcing him to face her.

‘We ought to get in now, your mother will be waiting. We’ll talk about this another time,’ he said. Then he took hold of her upper arms and looked into her eyes. ‘Don’t worry your mum about any of this, will you? Sometimes you have to make decisions that aren’t going to benefit a lot of people. Maybe just to protect one.’

Connie wiped her eyes. ‘I can’t go in there and lie to her. We have to tell her the truth.’

‘No. There’s no point now – she buried him, she grieved. She went through hell. I can’t undo that. I’m afraid it’ll kill her. She can’t see him, he can’t be part of this family now, it’s not safe for him to suddenly come back. He knows that – why do you think he stayed in the background and didn’t contact you directly? Nothing can come of this – he has to stay dead, Connie.’

What he said made some sense. If her mum knew, she’d go to any lengths to find Luke – possibly putting them all in danger. But Connie couldn’t live with the knowledge he was alive and not tell her mum.

‘Sorry, Dad – but you don’t get to play God and make all the decisions any more.’ She pushed past him, crossed the road and went through the front door of her mum’s house without looking back at him.





CHAPTER NINETY-THREE


Connie


Monday 3 July

Connie stood on the threshold of her consulting room, looking in. It had only been ten days, but the room held a musty odour that she would’ve expected from somewhere that had been shut up for much longer.

Nothing in her room was different.

Yet everything was.

Dropping her bag on her desk, she went to the window and threw it open. A rush of cool, fresher air flooded in. She closed her eyes, allowing it to wash over her face. Voices of people in the street below filtered up to her. They would be her company today, as she didn’t have any clients booked in. The few she had left on her list she’d had to put off while she recovered from the recent events. She hadn’t felt ready to help others through their issues when she was still working through her own.

It wouldn’t be long, though. It couldn’t be. She couldn’t afford to be self-pitying, she had to get back in the saddle and get her consultancy up and running again.

She reached inside her bag and got out the rectangular box, setting up her new aromatherapy reed-diffuser on the small table just inside the door. The immediate scent of orange and grapefruit infused the damp-smelling air. It was called Uplifting. She hoped it wasn’t false advertising.

The ringing phone startled her. She’d let the answer machine take it.

‘DI Wade calling for Connie Summers.’ The tone was light, jokey. Connie smiled and ran to the phone.

‘Hey, Lindsay. Is this an official call, or a checking-up-on-me call?’

‘It’s an official-checking-up-on-you call. I thought you might be feeling, you know, a little … odd. It’s been a weird time, and getting back to work might seem like a good idea to stop you from your constant overthinking and analysing, but only if you have actual work to do. Otherwise you’re just overthinking and analysing everything but in a different location to home.’

‘Some speech.’

‘Thank you. I’d rehearsed it.’ Lindsay laughed. ‘But, seriously, be productive, get on the computer and do some marketing, try and build your client list again. But stay busy. And no googling the case!’

Lindsay had clearly got to know Connie well over the last month.

‘Yes, Boss,’ Connie mocked. ‘Is everything going okay with the case, though – is there enough to take to the CPS?’

‘Connie, please. Enough. Trust that we will do our jobs. You concentrate on getting your life back on track. Leave the likes of Aiden Flynn behind you.’

Connie knew she was right. But she didn’t like loose ends – and there were too many here to prevent her leaving this all behind entirely.

‘I will, Lindsay, I promise. But what about this gang of Aiden’s? What about Brett – where did he really fit in to this? Have you spoken with him since Aiden’s arrest, was he involved, what about Steph—’

‘Okay, okay. I get you have unanswered questions. So do we. I can’t talk about it in detail, but you know a fair bit – Brett told you a lot of it. He was helpful when we questioned him, and there’s nothing to suggest he had any part in Stephanie’s suicide. No witnesses saw her with anyone on Dartmoor prior to hers and Dylan’s deaths. According to his probation officer, Brett’s going back to Manchester now there’s nothing left to keep him here. And, from what we’ve heard so far from Aiden, which I admit is limited, Brett appears to have been spot on. The gang wanted their revenge, had been waiting a long time for it, and supposedly, the catalyst for their actions was finding out that Luke was still alive.’

This had all started because they found out that they’d been duped, then. They’d realised Luke was alive, that the death of Jonny hadn’t, in fact, been avenged. Connie gave a long sigh.

It begged the question – was this really over?

‘Right. Thanks Lindsay. I appreciate you calling, I really do.’

‘Good. Because I’ll be calling again in a few hours. Someone needs to keep you in check.’