Next to Die

by Neil White

‘Our landlord. He lives on the top floor. Creepy bastard. Was always hanging around at the front of the house, just watching the street. He couldn’t wait to tell the police he heard us arguing.’

  ‘Don’t call him a creepy bastard in your trial,’ Joe said. ‘You can’t afford to sound vengeful. It’s got to be a wide-eyed plea that it’s all a misunderstanding.’

  Ronnie nodded and said, ‘We shouted at each other, and then I left for work.’

  ‘Where were you working?’

  ‘Why don’t you know all this?’ Ronnie looked across at Monica, and then back to Joe. ‘Didn’t Mahones tell you?’

  ‘I want to hear it from you. I won’t be there to hold your hand in the witness box. You’ve got to do the work.’

  ‘You’re trying to trip me up.’

  ‘You haven’t seen anything yet, Ronnie. Wait until you get into that courtroom and the prosecution barrister rips into you. Pack in the self-pity and tell me the story.’

  Ronnie folded his arms. ‘You don’t believe me, I can tell.’ He turned to Monica. ‘What about you? Do you think I could kill someone?’

  Before Monica could say anything, Joe leaned forward across the table and lowered his voice. ‘It doesn’t matter what we think, Ronnie. I could believe that you were nothing but a cold-blooded murderer and I would do the same job for you. I’m not interested in making you feel better in your cell. I’m interested in defending your case.’

  ‘That’s what the man from Mahones said.’

  Joe got the hint – that the last person to say it lost the case. He got to his feet. ‘It’s time to go,’ he said to Monica, and so she stood as he put the papers into his briefcase.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Ronnie said, his eyes wide.

  ‘If all you want is someone to hold your hand and tell you how unlucky you are, find someone else. You might have a long time to regret that.’

  ‘Wait!’ Ronnie said.

  ‘Don’t start pleading to be believed. I’m interested in defending your case and nothing else.’ He indicated to Monica that they should leave.

  Before they could, Ronnie reached out and put his hand on Joe’s briefcase. ‘Please, don’t go.’

  Joe paused. He’d bluffed and won. ‘Those are my rules,’ he said. ‘You listen to my advice. I’m your lawyer, not the voice of your conscience.’

  Ronnie sulked for a few seconds, and then said quietly, ‘All right, I’m sorry. I was working where I do every day, in a packing factory, on a production line. It doesn’t pay much, which was why we were in that crappy flat.’

  Joe looked at him and then sat down. ‘Keep going.’

  Ronnie stared, his mouth set, and then he said, ‘My line manager said I seemed distracted.’ The words came out with a little more snap.

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  Joe sat back and threw his pen onto the desk. ‘You don’t sound like you’re doing that well here. Go on, tell me what “sort of” means.’

  ‘You sound just like them.’

  ‘Them?’

  ‘The police,’ Ronnie said. ‘I kept on dropping things, that’s all, not getting the boxes on the line in time, so they kept on having to stop the line. We got behind in the order and so the line manager got stressed.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound good. They’re building-blocks for the prosecution, you being distracted.’

  ‘I was upset. We had been shouting at each other before I went to work.’

  ‘I thought you were always shouting. Why was that morning any different?’

  Ronnie looked at the table and rubbed his hands together. His teeth clenched and unclenched. Eventually he looked up and said, ‘I shouted that I wished she was dead and, well, I hit her.’ He glanced at Monica, and then looked away, blushing with shame.

  Joe closed his eyes for a moment. Ronnie wanted to swap because Mahones had told him the same thing, that the prosecution were building a good case, that it was time to tell everyone where he buried the bodies and try to get a manslaughter plea, go for diminished responsibility.

  ‘So it was more than just the usual argument?’ Joe said, opening his eyes again.

  ‘Yes, it was, but I’d never hit her before, you’ve got to know that,’ Ronnie continued, his gaze flashing between Joe and Monica. ‘I’ve said bad things about her, even said that I could kill her, but those were just words. It doesn’t mean that I did it.’

  ‘Tell me about you hitting her.’

  ‘I lost it, that’s all I can say. She was screaming at me, and so I punched her, on the nose. Blood flew all over the place. On the wall. On the fireplace.’

  ‘Did you clean up the blood?’

  ‘Yes. I had to go to work but I did it anyway. I was ashamed of what I’d done. When I came home, she wasn’t there.’

  ‘No note or text?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Does anyone else live in the building?’

  ‘No, just the landlord. He lives on the top floor. The flat between us is empty.’

  ‘What did you do when you got home and saw that she had gone?’

  ‘I just thought she’d gone out, or gone to her mother’s or somewhere. She did things like that, would take off. But I suppose things were different. I’d hit her.’

  ‘So what did you do to find her?’

  ‘Nothing at first. I was ashamed. Then as time went on, I got more worried. I couldn’t find her. I rang her friends, her mother.’

  ‘How long after she walked out?’

  ‘Three weeks. She had Grace with her and I didn’t know how she would cope with her. I started getting all worked up, and when I get all worked up, I don’t think straight. I imagine stuff, and I start to convince myself about the things that scare me. So I started wondering…’ He paused to take a deep breath. ‘I started wondering whether I had done something, about whether I had left work earlier than normal and that I had killed her.’

  ‘Why do you think that?’ Joe said. ‘Do you forget things? Have a history of black-outs?’

  ‘Sometimes. It’s just the way I get when I panic. I get gaps in my memory.’

  ‘Have you ever been violent during these black-outs?’

  ‘I don’t think so, and killing someone is way out there, but what if I had but blanked it out? And so I was worried about Grace, about where she might be. So I did something stupid.’

  ‘I get the impression I’m not going to like this.’

  ‘I went to the police and told them I’d killed Carrie.’

  Joe couldn’t hide the surprise from his voice. ‘You did what?’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking straight, like I told you. I didn’t know if I had or not. It was all just so…’ He shook his head.

  ‘Can you remember what you said?’

  Ronnie exhaled loudly. ‘Not really. It’s a blur. Something like “I might have killed my girlfriend”.’

  Joe sat back. ‘So the evidence against you is that you were shouting the odds in the morning, how you wished Carrie was dead. You left her blood in the flat and then acted strangely at work. You didn’t do anything at first, and then you walked into a police station and confessed to murder.’ He held out his hands. ‘Have I got that right?’

  ‘That’s about it, yes.’

  ‘I’ve heard enough,’ Joe said.

  ‘What, you don’t want the case?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. I need time to read the case properly, that’s all.’

  ‘I need you,’ Ronnie said, his voice more pleading now. ‘I didn’t kill anyone. I know that now. It looks bad, I know, but you’ve got to help me. I thought I could handle prison, but I can’t.’

  Joe looked at him, and for a moment saw the desperation in his eyes. Joe realised how draining the case was going to be. The big ones were always like that, because they consumed him.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow in court,’ Joe said. ‘All I can say is keep your head down.’

  A guard appeared in the corridor that ran between the glass booths.
Ronnie got slowly to his feet. A tear ran down his cheek. It was either guilt or grief, and it would be some time before Joe knew which one.

  Just as Ronnie left the booth, he turned to Joe and said, ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

  That made Joe pause. ‘No, I don’t. Should I?’

  Ronnie shrugged. ‘I suppose not.’ And then he was gone.

  Eleven

  Sam Parker found himself driving past the station where he worked, more modern than the one used by the Murder Squad: a long brick building that shouted its police credentials with bright blue window frames and fencing, high and spiked to keep out those who fancied some revenge. It was on one of the routes out of Manchester, opposite an open patch of grass dominated by a grey stone church, although the view was spoiled by tower blocks that popped up on the horizon. He decided to call in. The visit to the Murder Squad had put him in work mode, but as he went inside he knew his mood wasn’t right, still angry and embarrassed that he had been wanted for just one reason: his brother.

  Sam worked from a small office along the middle floor, sandwiched between two report-writing rooms, with a view over the car park at the rear. The road outside was quiet as he climbed the stairs, where he could see through the windows that went to the height of the stairwell, so that it felt exposed and vulnerable. The view would be much different in an hour, when it would be just a nose to tail drag for those who lived on the east of Manchester.

  The window was open in his office, to let out some of the heat, and so the vertical white blinds knocked against the glass in the light breeze. He tapped on the open door with his fingernails. Helen, one of the financial investigators, looked up. She had been poring over spreadsheets, her wire-framed glasses falling down her nose, as always, so that her reading became a constant twitch of her glasses being pushed back. As Sam looked in, he saw it for what it was: a nerd’s refuge.

  Helen was surprised. ‘I thought you were on a rest day.’

  ‘I am,’ he said, and was about to tell her about his meeting with DI Evans, but then decided against it. It had amounted to nothing. ‘I was passing, that’s all, and I remembered that there was something about the bus case that was bothering me.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it have waited?’

  ‘Probably,’ he said, and then went to his desk. He looked at what was there. A cup filled with pens. A photograph of his wife and two daughters in a frame. Everything was safe, ordered and neat.

  ‘And how is your bus case?’ Helen asked.

  ‘As dull as yesterday,’ he said.

  He didn’t turn round to look at the files, lined up neatly on the shelf behind him. He had come into the office to remind himself of the career he had ended up with. He was good at it, he knew that, but he got the cases no one else wanted. No blood, no interest, that’s the mantra for most cops, and so anything that involved accounts and forms and paper trails landed on his desk. His bus case was like that – a dreary case involving fraudulent claims of fuel duty rebates, where the owners of a bus company overstated the route mileage to claim more fuel duty than they were due. It was a collection of forms and accounts, and then a pursuit of the money so that it could be claimed back if convicted.

  The only positive side was that he had his own desk, a space for his things, but he hadn’t joined the police to pursue money trails.

  He looked at Helen, and for a moment saw himself how others saw him: bookish and quiet. The longer he stayed where he was, the more he would end up like Helen. That wasn’t what he wanted.

  He felt his resolve grow. That was why he had gone to the office, to check whether he preferred this, the paperwork, the dullness, or whether he wanted more, even if it meant doing what DI Evans had asked.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ he said.

  ‘What, about your bus case?’

  ‘Yes. I can save it for another day. It’s my brother’s birthday. I ought to say hello. He shouldn’t be on his own tonight.’

  And then he smiled as he turned to go. As the door closed behind him, it felt like a metaphor for his career – that he was moving on. He went down the steps more quickly than he had come up, and when he burst out into the car park, he felt determined. He would do what he needed to impress Evans, because the Murder Squad was where he had always wanted to be.

  It was his time.

  Twelve

  Joe’s thoughts were on Ronnie Bagley as he walked into the gardens near his office. There was enough evidence to justify an arrest. Enough to persuade the prosecution to charge him with murder. And enough for a judge to keep him locked up until his trial.

  He felt that churn of self-doubt, the one he kept to himself. He knew it was the wrong day for a case like Ronnie’s, because the anniversary of Ellie’s death had made him think too much of lives stolen too young. He tried to shake it away. Ronnie was entitled to a chance. That was the system he had been trained into, the bargain he had made with himself, that he would help, not judge.

  He glanced over at Monica walking beside him, looking for a distraction. ‘It’s not as glamorous as you think,’ Joe said. When she looked confused, he added, ‘I know we only saw a couple of corridors, but I could see the way you looked around as we walked through.’

  ‘The prison?’ she said, and laughed. ‘I wasn’t thinking it was glamorous. It was just something new.’

  ‘I used to find it exciting, like I was on the sharp end of all the cut and thrust, dodging the police.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Just a big building full of broken lives. Some perhaps got heavier sentences than they deserved, and perhaps some are even innocent, but you can bet that most of them in there have got away with more than they have been caught for.’

  Monica blushed. ‘You make me sound naive.’

  ‘I don’t mean to, but you’re from a nice background, different to the people in there. It’s bound to seem exciting, but glamour on the inside is just crime on the outside.’

  ‘Will Ronnie get out?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  They walked past the flowerbeds, late lunchers filling the benches, and as they crossed the road to the office, he said, ‘What do you think of Ronnie?’

  ‘I don’t know. He didn’t seem threatening or like he had done something bad, which surprised me. He seemed pathetic, really.’

  ‘Pathetic people are murderers too.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ She smiled. ‘Go on then, what did you notice?’

  ‘Grace,’ Joe said.

  ‘The baby? What do you mean?’

  ‘He hardly mentioned her,’ Joe said. ‘If you think about it, there can be only one of two truths. He either killed Carrie or he didn’t. If he killed her, then he must have killed Grace too, because she can’t survive on her own. So think what he would be like if he hadn’t killed her. What he knows is that Carrie is nowhere to be found, and so neither is Grace. Wouldn’t you expect him to be a little more frantic? His child has been taken away; he might never see her again. But we didn’t get that. Just self-pity and confusion.’

  Monica was silent for a moment and then said, ‘So you think he did it.’

  ‘What I think doesn’t matter.’

  ‘But it does matter.’

  ‘Does it? Do you think justice means truth?’ Joe shook his head. ‘Justice is an outcome, that’s all, and all I have to think about is what outcome I can get for Ronnie. That’s the deal you make with yourself when you become a criminal lawyer. You help wicked people get away with awful things.’

  Monica didn’t respond to that, and Joe knew that the hard truth of his job stripped away a little more of his humanity every day, and it had become just a challenge, a way to test the system, because as far as Joe was concerned, the system had failed him and his family. More importantly, it had failed Ellie.

  ‘Ronnie seems to think you ought to remember him,’ Monica said.

  ‘I’ve had a lot of clients. He’ll get over the hurt.’

  ‘It’s not just that though.’

&
nbsp; ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I know where you live, and you do live in a swanky apartment.’

  ‘Why is that important?’

  ‘Because Ronnie knew that you did. He said you would go back there tonight.’

  Joe paused and then gave a small shake of the head. ‘A lucky guess,’ he said, although he started to wonder if there was something he wasn’t quite seeing.

  They slipped into the building by a side door. The firm specialised in commercial work and family law, but kept a crime practice out of habit. The clients who paid the private fees used the double oak doors that sat between white pillars at the front, the reception tiled in black and white. It had been built for grander times, not for the daily grind of a city centre law firm, except that the main entrance wasn’t for his clients. The criminal department had always been the poor relation, made to work out of a side entrance, so that thieves and sex offenders didn’t share the main waiting room with businessmen and sobbing divorcees.

  ‘Have I missed anything?’ Joe said to Marion, the receptionist, a woman in a smart business suit with a sharp tongue, who let clients know what was acceptable banter and what wasn’t. No one got past Marion if she didn’t want them in the building.

  ‘It’s been quiet,’ she said. As he headed for the stairs, she added, ‘Happy birthday, Mr Parker.’ When he turned round, she was smiling, even blushing a little. ‘I always remember, you know that.’

  Joe returned the smile and then went quickly up the stairs that curved to the first floor and to a corridor filled by doorways, each office small, remnants from the day when the buildings were designed to be grand houses. Honeywells occupied two buildings next to each other, four storeys tall, knocked through into one complex of corridors and small rooms.

  ‘So what do I do now?’ Monica said.

  ‘You must be hungry; you missed your lunch. Take a break.’

  Monica looked deflated by that, as if she wanted to stay with him, but Joe turned away. He needed some time to himself.

  As Monica left, he settled into his chair. The green leather cushion felt familiar and comfortable, and for a moment he closed his eyes. He should persuade Monica to do something else. No one came into crime anymore. Not anyone with any sense, anyway. There was still some money to be made, by learning all there was to know about road traffic laws and hoping you got clients rich enough to pay your bills, but for most young lawyers, it was all graft and no reward. He should treasure Monica’s enthusiasm and then send it elsewhere, for her sake.