Katerina Diamond: The Promise: The twisty new thriller from the Sunday Times bestseller, guaranteed to keep you up all night

‘Do you know if he’s been to see the bereavement counsellor?’

‘He hasn’t mentioned it, but I’m going to guess not.’

‘See if you can get him to, please. Last thing I need is him cracking up.’

Imogen nodded. ‘I’ll do my best.’

‘Have you given any more thought to the DI exam, Grey?’

‘I don’t know if it’s the right time.’

She should want it, shouldn’t she? Didn’t everyone want to advance their career? The thing was that she was happy with how things were at the moment, or maybe she was scared of change; it was hard to know which. Moving up the ladder had always been the plan, but she just didn’t feel ready. What was holding her back? Was it Adrian? He would be happy for her and she would be happy for him if the roles were reversed, but at the same time, the dynamic was working for her. Having a stable and dependable friend was important to her right now; she liked being on the same level. Besides, after what Adrian had been through recently, losing his girlfriend, she didn’t want to leave him right now. She had to hope this wouldn’t be her only opportunity.

‘Well, there’s an opening and, as I’ve said before, I think you should go for it.’

‘I’ll think about it. Thank you.’ The DCI nodded, and Imogen left her in the house, stepping outside to see Adrian gazing out into nothing again. She got into the car and he followed, that same haunted look on his face. She wanted to hold his hand and tell him that it would be OK, but that wasn’t how they did things. Instead she would continue to be herself, and hoped that would be enough to keep him afloat.

Connor leant his head against the passenger window as his father drove to their new home. He looked down at the gutter as they moved through the streets, most of the roads covered with russet-coloured leaves. Even the trees here were different to the ones back home. He didn’t want to look up at the houses; at least kerbs and leaves couldn’t be that different on this side of the world, could they? There was a sense of unease in him; he figured it came from being on the other side of the car, on the other side of the road, on the other side of the planet.

The smooth sounds of Nina Simone’s smoky voice filled the space around them. At least his father, Jacob, wasn’t trying to hold a conversation with him anymore. Connor felt the car grind to a stop and the air fell silent as his father turned the engine off. He took a deep breath and looked up at their new home grudgingly. They were parked in front of a three-storey red-brick house, with a balcony running across the front and a garage to the side. It occurred to Connor that there wasn’t a chance in hell their car would fit in that tiny space even though it was smaller than their car back home.

Without speaking to his father, he got out of the car and walked around to the boot to grab the suitcases. He may as well get on with it. No turning back now. The door to the left of their house opened and a girl came trudging out, head hung low, carrying a black sack; she put it in the wheelie bin and disappeared back inside without looking up or saying a word. Connor’s father was still getting to his feet. He pulled himself up and surveyed the area, leaning on his cane with a nostalgic smile on his face.

‘Keys?’ Connor said.

Jacob rummaged in his pockets and pulled out a hefty lump of keys, tossing them to Connor – not to where Connor actually was, but further, enough to make him stretch, to make him work for it. Grabbing them, Connor walked up the steps and let himself into the house. It smelled old and empty.

Jacob wasn’t far behind him, the sound of his left sole followed Connor as it gently scraped across the floor with every other step.

‘Get us a beer from the fridge and let’s christen this place.’

‘Is there even any electricity?’ Connor clicked the light switch and the hallway lit up.

‘Uncle Joel came and sorted things out for us, said he put some brews in there.’

Connor noticed his father’s voice changing already; he had always had an accent that was different to him and the people back in California, but now all traces of any American at all had virtually disappeared. As if Connor didn’t feel different enough.

He went into the kitchen, a small and dingy room with a metre square window facing onto a garden that looked overgrown and untouched.

‘What’s outside?’ he asked as his father appeared behind him again.

‘Who knows what the olds did to it. Looks like they let it go though. Dad used to spend hours in that garden, in that shed right at the end; he spent more time in there than in the house.’

Jacob put his hand on Connor’s shoulder, it was a touch full of force; controlling, making sure his son stayed close. Maybe he was trying to stop him from going outside.

‘I wish I could have met them,’ Connor said, knowing that would unsettle his father. Any suggestion that growing up with just a single dad wasn’t enough for him, that somehow he was missing something from his life, was like poking a raw nerve.

Jacob let go immediately. ‘Well, I left for a reason. You didn’t miss much.’

Connor waited for his father to be distracted before grabbing a can of beer. He unlocked the back door and stepped outside onto a decked platform. He then made his way down some wooden steps into a wild and unruly mess that came up past his waist. Everything was washed with a cold blue light as the sun faded behind the rooftops. Hacking his way through the stinging nettles, pampas grass and bushes with his arms until he got to the end of the garden, he looked back at his father who stood by the back door. Connor was grateful for the distance between them as he clocked his father’s disapproving stare.

He pulled on the door of the shed. The wood was swollen and cracked, but he kicked it a couple of times and jarred it loose. Inside, it was dark and dingy not unlike the house, full of stacked boxes and crates. Connor ventured further, the sparse light cloudy and full of dust.

The boxes nearest the ground had been saturated at one point or another and the bottoms were blown, a mulch of paperwork peeking through the holes. He poked around inside one or two. There were some photo albums and a couple of his father’s school reports. He found a small red exercise book, shiny with a black wreath emblem on the front. Inside, some of the pages were stuck together and the words blurred, but he could just about make out that it was a story of some sort. Connor thumbed through it, wondering what his father might have written about in school, what stories he could have possibly told. He couldn’t make out the writing very well in this light and so he tossed it back in the box. The air was thick and the more stuff he disturbed, the more dust he could feel in his mouth. Leaving the shed, he pulled the door behind him. He might come back and look around here another time.

Next to the shed, there was a large tree with strips of wood nailed horizontally to the trunk that went up into the branches.

‘What’s this?’ he called out to his father who had already pulled up a chair outside with a box of beers to the side of him. They had been travelling for a few hours and so it was nice to be outside, even though it was cold. He couldn’t begrudge him that.

‘Is that still there? It’s a tree house. Or it should be. Your grandfather built it. About the only good thing he ever did.’ He knocked back the beer. ‘It’s probably fucked. I wouldn’t go up there if I were you.’

Ignoring his father’s advice, Connor climbed the makeshift ladder, careful not to spill his beer. He couldn’t see his father on the decking anymore. He kept climbing until his hand reached what felt like a platform. He pulled himself up onto it and, sure enough, he was inside a tree house. It smelled musty and there was a hole in one of the corners, but something about it felt good. Connor moved slowly across the floor, unsure how safe it was. There was a window, but it was filthy. Connor pulled off his jacket and tried to rub away some of the thick dirt that obscured his view. He picked up his beer and splashed the window with the liquid, then rubbed hard with his jacket; it was already smelly from the travelling so he didn’t mind getting it a bit grubby as well.