The Promise Read online

  ‘Why are we here then?’ Georgie asked, scanning the bare walls, the thick heavy metal door. Wrinkling her nose, unimpressed, as her eyes rested on the toilet cistern in the corner.

  ‘We’re just making some arrangements for you both, Georgie, with Children’s Services. You haven’t been bad. The station is a bit busy tonight; this is just a nice quiet place for you both to sit and wait.’ DI Drayton knew that finding a placement for two kids at this time of night could sometimes prove nigh on impossible, but Children’s Services needed to pull their finger out. The police station was no place for children, especially ones that were clearly traumatised from witnessing a horrific murder.

  ‘Your case-worker is on the way here now; she won’t be long. She’ll be looking after you tonight.’

  The policeman seemed kind, but Georgie didn’t trust him one bit.

  She didn’t trust any of them.

  So far everything her mother had told her about the police was true. They made out that they were going to help you, but then they just took you away.

  So far, they’d taken their mother away.

  Screaming and crying, Georgie had watched her mother being led away in handcuffs. Put in the back of a police car.

  Now Georgie and Marnie were here at the police station too.

  ‘It’s going to be all right, okay,’ DI Drayton said getting to his feet.

  Georgie nodded. He was lying to her again. Trevor was dead. Her mother had been taken away, was going to be locked up in prison for murder. It was never going to be okay again.

  ‘Our mummy is a good person. She only wants to minded us,’ Marnie said through her stifled sobs.

  DI Drayton nodded.

  He could find no words to answer her. From what he’d seen of Josie Parker tonight the woman was anything but a good person. She’d been openly revelling in the fact that she’d just murdered a man in cold blood.

  A gruesome murder, too.

  He was an experienced detective, but even he’d recoiled at the sight of Trevor Pearson splayed out on the girls’ bedroom floor, a claw hammer embedded in his battered skull. Splatters of brain tissue, blood, and skull, splashed up the bedroom wall and all over the children’s nightclothes.

  The most harrowing part of it all had been the way that the perpetrator, Josie Parker, had shown no remorse. She’d been like a woman possessed when they’d arrived at the scene of the crime. A lunatic. Screeching to everyone who was listening that she was glad Trevor was dead. That she was glad that she’d killed him, and she’d do it all over again if she had the chance. Deranged, the woman had even spat a mouthful of phlegm at Trevor Pearson’s corpse as the police had dragged her away.

  Josie was a known heroin user and prostitute. The motive was still unclear, but judging on the amount of alcohol in her blood, DI Drayton was putting his money on it being a drunken domestic that had escalated.

  ‘Right. I’m going to shut the door behind me now, okay, but I’m just going to be right outside this door. I won’t be far. You both finish up your drinks.’

  Closing the door, DI Drayton took a deep breath and shook his head sadly.

  What a bloody night!

  As bad as it had been, the worst for those two children in there was yet to come.

  Who knew what hand fate had played them both now?

  Foster care, children’s homes. A murdering prostitute for a mother.

  Georgie and Marnie Parker didn’t stand a chance.

  Josie Parker, a good woman? Please. Women like her should never have been able to have kids. She should have been sterilised at birth.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Lying on the massage couch of one of his most lucrative business premises in Soho, Delray Anderton was currently sampling the sensual delights of his newest member of staff: the delectable Layla.

  The girl was just Delray’s type; in fact, she was just about any bloke that had a pulse’s type, he thought, taking in the sight of her lean, taut body as she strutted around the couch. His eyes spanning the length of her long, tanned legs that seemed to go on for miles, stopping only at the tiny black G-string that left very little to the imagination indeed.

  He smiled to himself.

  The girls he had working for him these days were something else altogether. They were the crème de la crème. Models, real natural or sometimes unnatural beauties.

  Give this girl her dues though, Layla wasn’t just a nice-looking pair of perky tits and arse, she knew how to give a good massage too. Pummelling the shit out of his back and shoulders with her wide range of moves, Delray didn’t know whether to lie there and submit, or flip her over the couch and show her some of his own moves.

  Hearing his phone go, he was irritated at the interruption. He never got a minute’s peace lately. Business was certainly booming that was for sure. So much so that Delray was going to have to expand his workforce.

  When Delray saw the caller ID he frowned. What did this bitch want? He had half a mind not to answer it, but his curiosity got the better of him.

  Picking up the phone he rolled his eyes.

  ‘What do you want?’

  A few minutes later he put the phone down on the side and smiled to himself as Layla started to remove his boxer shorts.

  Who’d have guessed? Josie Parker arrested. The crazy bitch had only gone and bludgeoned some poor bastard to death. Her boyfriend, apparently; though Delray would hazard a guess that the poor unfortunate bastard had been another one of her punters. Knowing Josie, she’d probably still been pulling work in on the sly.

  He shook his head in disbelief, unable to get his head around it. He’d been right about her all along. The woman was off her fucking rocker. Probably off her face on smack. He was glad that he binned her off when he’d had the chance.

  He didn’t need his name involved in this shit.

  Josie Parker was on her own now, and for a long fucking time too apparently. The crazy bitch was looking at years behind bars for what she’d done. You couldn’t make this shit up.

  He thought of Georgie and Marnie then, all on their own without their mother. Poor fuckers had been through the mill with that one looking out for them.

  He grinned. Talk about cutting him a lucky break. Turns out his little deal with Hamza Nagi might just go ahead after all. What were the fucking chances of that?

  It looked like he might need to make some use of Javine. He’d need her on-side if his little plan was going to come together.

  Fuck! He hoped that he hadn’t pushed her too far already. He’d been enjoying playing his little games. Javine had had what he would determine as a major wake-up call. All that swanning around London thinking that Delray would buy her whatever she wanted, she hadn’t even contemplated that he might want something back from her in return. That’s how simple the girl was. Making out that she believed in love and happy ever after when all along all she'd wanted was his cold hard cash.

  If he was going to make it up to the girl, get back in her good books, he was going to have to do something pretty drastic. Something that would make the divvy cow hang off his every word. After the week he’d just made Javine endure, it wasn’t going to be an easy task, that was for sure. If anyone could do it though, Delray was certain it was him. He could charm the birds right out from the trees. To him, getting women to do what he wanted was a natural gift.

  Smiling to himself at the thought of natural gifts, he knew exactly what he needed to do. He relaxed a little. For now, he could get back to the job in hand.

  Or mouth as it would seem.

  He could feel Layla caressing the inside of his thighs, the tickle of her hair as she gently made her way up his legs towards his groin.

  Teasing him with her tongue, as she ran her sharp nails up his skin.

  Pleasure and pain, instantaneously; Delray couldn’t get enough.

  The girl was keen, he’d give her that.

  She’d worked every part of his back, easing his aches and pains. Soothing his muscles, now she was
going to give him his long-awaited happy ending. After the phone call he’d just had, it turned out it was going to be a very happy ending indeed.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Making her way up the hallway, Rose Feltham held her breath as she noted the colourful felt-tip drawings scribbled in amongst the mass of black mould that spanned the entire length of the wall. The place was riddled with damp; the walls and ceilings all covered in mildew: no wonder it smelt so bad in here.

  Basic living conditions; that’s what the previous social worker had written on the Parker family assessment. But this flat was in abysmal condition, barely more habitable than an abandoned squat. If it had been down to Rose to carry out the family’s last assessment she would have deemed the place unfit for a dog to reside in, let alone two children. Then, if it had been her that had dealt with the Parker family case in the first place, maybe none of this would ever have happened? Someone in their department had fucked up by not flagging a report in the system. Of course, no one would own up to it though. Whichever one of her lazy, delusional colleagues it had been on the last assessment, six months ago, they had failed to report what was really going on inside this house; their incompetence meant that Georgie and Marnie Parker had slipped underneath the radar. The Parker family hadn’t had any form of supervision or home checks in months. It was simply madness. Especially, Rose thought, after she had read the case notes.

  She’d been shocked at the extent of what she’d learned about Josie Parker: an accident waiting to happen. A repeat drug offender. A heroin addict, and a prostitute. She had several convictions against her name too, for Public Intoxication; Resisting Arrest, and Assaulting a Police Officer. The notes on the file said that Josie had verbally assaulted a few of Rose’s co-workers over the years too.

  Clearly, after brutally murdering a man tonight, the woman had a temper on her. It annoyed Rose that the family hadn’t been made more of a priority seeing as they were so vulnerable. They should have been ensuring that a follow-up appointment had been made; they should have had regular help and support on hand. There had been no emergency assessment. No aftercare, nothing.

  Instead, their last case-worker had simply shoved the vague details of the last visit inside the family’s folder, and the file had somehow mysteriously ended up down behind the filing cabinet.

  Rose was making it her personal duty to do whatever she could to make it up to the two poor kids.

  The press would have a field day once this story broke tomorrow. They’d make a point of publicly beating the department down, pinning the blame on Children’s Services for failing to protect the children under their care.

  The papers loved that, making an example of the flaws in the system, and the system was greatly flawed. The papers would be right too. Those poor children had been failed miserably by them all. The only real victims, other than the deceased, of course, were Georgie and Marnie Parker.

  Lives had been ruined, destroyed – and why? All because someone in her department hadn’t done their job properly and now it was down to Rose to pick up the pieces. Rose accepted the challenge humbly.

  Already tonight she had fought tooth and nail with her department not to allow the girls to be separated. It had delayed getting them a placement in foster care, but she’d managed to get them into a children’s home. A place called Rainbow House. That was something. At least for now. If she could keep them together, they would have some small comfort.

  She’d come to their home to collect some of their belongings, as requested by one of the police officers currently taking care of the children.

  The girls had asked for their pyjamas, and the youngest child had asked for her favourite teddy bear, Mr Snowflakes.

  Reaching the end of the hall, Rose poked her head inside the first doorway – eying the unmade double bed that was strewn with washing. The air in the room the same as everywhere else in the flat: stale, musty. Dirty knickers cast aside on the floor. A mug of tea on the dresser; a thick film of mould settled on its surface.

  Josie’s room, she guessed. She shook her head. The woman clearly couldn’t even look after herself, let alone two children. The saddest thing of all was that the state of the flat wasn’t by any means a rarity. Rose had seen homes like this one a thousand times over. This was just the way some people lived. The harsh reality for many. Just another slum riddled with poverty and neglect. She didn’t know how people did it – how they could live like this, with no electricity, no heating or hot water. The cupboards all bare. Perhaps they had no choice in the matter. This was all they had known. All they were capable of.

  Making her way to the second bedroom, she pushed the bedroom door open and immediately covered her nose and mouth with her hand. The body had been moved now, the forensics had been and gone, but the smell in the room was still horrendous.

  Rose had passed an officer on the front door who had told her that he was waiting for the crime scene cleaner to arrive; he had warned her about the amount of blood on the floor, but what he’d failed to mention was the strong stench of urine. It was so overpowering that it physically forced her to step backwards out of the room, as if trying to physically get away from it. Her eyes watered at the pure strength of the ammonia that hit her. Keeping her hand firmly in place, over her mouth, Rose stepped inside the room.

  This was definitely it. Georgie and Marnie’s bedroom. The sight of the place, the stench, made Rose want to weep. Looking around this hovel, she couldn’t help but wonder what hope those two kids ever had with this as their only form of sanctuary.

  The two beds in the room were filthy. The flimsy bedding on each one was saturated with yellow watery stains. The floor was worse. The carpet was sodden, making clear to Rose where the stench of urine was coming from.

  Her eyes going straight to the large dark stain in the middle of the floor, she shuddered. This was the spot that Josie Parker had smashed the victim’s skull wide open with a claw hammer. Right here in her daughter’s bedroom in front of her two children.

  The girls would need years of therapy to help them get over this. If they ever did.

  Diverting her eyes away from the harrowing scene where the man had met his gruesome demise, Rose spotted the teddy bear tucked down between the bed and the wall.

  The thing was filthy. Once fluffy and white, she imagined, now it was tinged with grey. Blackened by dust and dirt just like everything else here.

  Stepping around the edges of the room, careful not to tread anywhere near the bloodstained floor, Rose pulled open a drawer in the dressing table. Scanning the clothes inside. She just wanted to get out of here as quickly as she could.

  Rooting through the chaos of clothes, all rammed into the small drawer, screwed up into balls – dresses, socks, jumpers – she pulled out a pair of purple fleece pyjamas dotted with yellow stars, and other stuff too; dried bits of food, a hole in the top, the tatty hem around the ankles, frayed.

  She shoved the clothes back into the drawer. Her mind made up. She wasn’t even going to run a request through via her department, fuck it. She was going to pop into the all-night supermarket down the road and grab the girls some new clothes. This one would be on her.

  She couldn’t bring the girls any of these rags; they were going to have a hard enough time settling into their new place of residence as it was.

  She’d buy a new teddy bear too for the youngest one, Marnie.

  Kicking the filthy teddy bear under the bed, she took one more look around the room before turning on her heel, and closing the door loudly behind her.

  Rose Feltham was going to do right by the two girls, no matter what.

  It was about time somebody did.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  ‘I don’t understand. Why do we have to come to a children’s home?’ Stepping into the bedroom behind Rose Feltham, Georgie folded her arms tightly across her chest, a permanent scowl fixed across her face. Her guard was well and truly up as she looked around the bedroom.

  Two beds side
by side and a small dresser in-between. No windows, she noted.

  ‘I can look after Marnie myself. We could have stayed at home. We would have been fine on our own,’ she said, making no excuses for the fact that she really didn’t want to be here.

  She wanted to be at home with Marnie and their mother too. Rewind time to before everything bad happened.

  ‘You know you can’t be at home on your own, Georgie. You’re here because right now it’s the safest place for you,’ Rose said as she placed a hysterical Marnie down gently on one of the beds.

  ‘Come on, Marnie, this place isn’t that bad, really. I promise you. Isn’t it nice that you at least get to stay with your sister?’ Rose was at a loss how to soothe the child. Marnie had been crying inconsolably since she learned what was happening.

  Georgie pouted, eyeing the woman with disdain; she watched as Rose tried but failed to calm her sister down. The woman clearly had no idea that once Marnie went off on one of her meltdowns there was nothing anyone could say or do to stop her. Only Georgie knew how to do that.

  The social worker was just like DI Drayton, the policeman at the station,. She was acting all nice to them but Georgie knew it wasn’t real.

  This was all part of their plan.

  What did her mother always call them? That’s it: Jobsworths and Do-gooders. She said that they were always poking their noses in, always trying to pick faults and cause problems for people like them. It was all just talk. All these empty promises that Rose was making them. About doing everything in her power to make sure the girls were safe and looked after. It was just an act. A lie, to try and get the girls to talk. To confide in her.

  Georgie knew better than that. She’d already told Marnie so too. They weren’t to trust Rose no matter what she said, and Georgie had no intention of liking the lady either.