Next to Die

by Neil White

  Joe closed the sliding doors, so that the low hum of late traffic disappeared and all that was left was the fan of his computer.

  He went to his desk and moved the mouse to fill the screen with the desktop picture of a scanned family photograph, his favourite of them all together, taken on holiday in Portugal. They were on a beach, all of them in shorts and T-shirts, the soft sandstone of the Algarve cliffs behind them, his parents grinning, their arms around Ellie’s shoulders, Joe and Sam on either side. It made him pause for a moment. Although he saw it every time he went to his computer, the conversation with Sam brought back the memory of the holiday. Ellie was dead less than a year later.

  He took a deep breath and then clicked on his internet browser. He knew what he was going to do. Sober, he never went there, but when he felt the jangle of booze in his fingers, he went looking for company.

  Internet dating. He had registered but always ignored the requests for a meeting. It just made him feel like he was back in the game, which was what he needed, but he had no desire to commit. He browsed the pages and read the profiles, imagining what would happen if he got in touch, just to feel that tingle of anticipation that had long since disappeared.

  He got up to close the curtains, but as he stood at the window, he paused. There had been a flash of something on the other side of the water, as if the lights along the canal bank had caught the gleam of something metallic. Joe remembered the man outside the office earlier in the day. He clicked off the light so that he got a better view outside, and as he pressed his face against the glass, there was movement – someone moving quickly.

  He stepped away from the glass. Someone was watching him.

  Fourteen

  His sobs blotted out the sounds of the morning. No birdsong, no shouting, no hum of the traffic from outside. Just his own steady moans, his arms over his head trying to keep out the noise of his memories, because they had been coming all night, waves of screams and cries, making sleep impossible. Was this how it would always be, never able to forget? Was it too much to ask that he could wipe away what had happened, so that he didn’t have to be tormented by their final moments? The fear in their eyes, their end incomprehensible. He had wanted to say he was sorry each time, that he had never meant it to be like that, but in those final few seconds it was meaningless.

  So he craved the silence that never came.

  It wasn’t just the memories that frightened him. It was the arousal he felt when his mind dwelled on what had happened. It had taunted him all night, the build up of a few hours looking back on it all, it cheated even that small pleasure from him because it was wrong to be aroused by it. What sort of monster had he become?

  It was his way of dealing with it, though, rooting it in pleasure, but those few minutes trapped in fantasy were always replaced by shame and disgust. He called it the dead phase, when the passion had gone and all he had left was the panic of discovery or the sweep of remorse.

  Instead, he watched the slow spread of daylight across the floor, cold and harsh, the slow finger of judgement creeping towards him. He pulled his bedding over his shoulder and tried to curl up and get some moments of sleep, but as he stared at the wall, he knew the chance for sleep had gone.

  It was all so wrong, he knew that, and so he hoped that his memories would be enough to maintain him, but remembering everything wasn’t the same as experiencing it, where the need for someone new drove him on.

  He closed his eyes and tears tickled at his eyelids, his cheeks burning red. It was there again, remorse, that dark shadow that crept into his thoughts and eroded the pleasure. For every silky feel of hair, he remembered a screech of fear or panic. Struggles against the rope, the terror of the blindfold, until those final muffled moments, the fast thrash of the legs, and then stillness. He clenched his teeth as they came back to him. It hadn’t been about that, it never had, but how could they be allowed to leave when they would bring an end to it all?

  Loneliness would get him in the end, because there was no one to ease his pain, to provide the words that had helped him to function, the inspiration behind it all. Beautiful, tender, passionate love had driven him to it. Didn’t that make it better, that it wasn’t all about him?

  He sat up, let the bedding fall to the ground. He needed to be stronger. This was supposed to be the new beginning.

  The words seemed hollow. He wasn’t strong enough.

  As the strip of daylight widened across the floor, he clamped his eyes shut again and wrapped his arms around his head. He had got it wrong. He couldn’t do this.

  Fifteen

  Sam was awoken by the buzz of his phone on the small set of drawers next to his bed. He glanced across at the clock. Only 5.30. He rubbed his eyes. Too early.

  He reached for his phone. He was about to click the answer button when he saw that it was another withheld number. He sat up and held the phone in his hand. It vibrated against his fingers. Alice stirred next to him, but still he left it, until eventually it fell silent as it transferred to voicemail.

  He lay back on the pillow and tried to forget about the call. It would still be there when he got up. It might be something else, a cold call about an accident claim or a fake computer virus, but he couldn’t turn his mind away from it, the thought of it like an itch, and the more he tried to resist it, the harder it became to ignore it. So he watched the day get brighter through the curtains, more awake with every minute, Alice’s slow breaths the only sound as he resisted the urge to check his voicemail, to see if it was the same message.

  He turned over and bunched the sheets under his chin, tried to get back to sleep, but his mind went back to the night before. It had ended sourly, but Sam couldn’t stay angry with Joe. They were brothers. That meant something.

  Alice stirred. ‘What’s wrong?’ she said, her voice a drawl.

  He thought about not saying anything, but the way she propped herself up on her elbows, her tangled hair trailing on the pillow, told him that she would keep asking until she got an answer.

  ‘It’s nothing. Just work.’

  Alice didn’t respond for a while, and then she said, ‘Is it something to do with Joe?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You seemed a bit distracted when you came back from work, and you weren’t there long, but I thought going to see Joe would have shaken it off. It was your rest day but you came back even worse. You hardly said a word to me, and even when the girls were playing with you, it was as if you didn’t want to. That isn’t like you.’

  Sam didn’t know what to say to that. Emily had been in the bath, three years old and all curls and smiles, with Amy, just crawling, playing in the room next door. It was normally his favourite time of the day, relaxing with his daughters. He couldn’t even remember how he was the night before.

  ‘I’m not on the squad, but the inspector wanted me to do something, and I didn’t like it. She wanted me to spy on him.’

  ‘On Joe?’ Alice sat up. ‘Why, what’s he done?’

  ‘It’s one of his clients. He’s been charged with murder. He killed his girlfriend and daughter, but we can’t find the bodies.’

  Alice looked shocked. ‘Can you do that, have a murder case without a body?’

  ‘Provided we can be sure the victims are dead.’

  ‘And so what do they expect from Joe?’

  ‘That he’ll talk, breach his client’s confidence just because I’m his brother. He won’t, and I should have known that. If it came out that he’d told me his client’s secrets, he would be struck off.’

  ‘So what about the inspector?’

  ‘I’ll just tell her that Joe won’t talk, that he’s a better man than she gives him credit for, and then it’s back to my little office.’

  Her arm went over his chest, and he felt the warmth of her body alongside him. ‘You’re a good man, Sam Parker.’

  They lay like that for a few minutes, Alice’s breaths getting slower as she drifted back to sleep. Sam tried to join her, but every
time he glanced towards the clock, he saw the green light blinking on his phone. A voicemail message.

  His curiosity kept him fully awake and so after five more minutes of sighing and fidgeting he slid away from Alice. He swung his legs out of bed and searched for his clothes, before grabbing his phone.

  He went downstairs to the computer. It was in the dining room, tucked into a corner so that they could pretend it wasn’t there. Alice used it for shopping and looking at houses abroad she dreamed of buying but knew she never would. As the computer started, he scrabbled around for a cable that would connect the earphone socket on the phone to the computer. All the cables were wrapped up neatly in labelled bags to stop them tangling, but there was still a small loose collection in an old biscuit tin. Right at the bottom, he found it. A small black lead, jack to jack.

  He found the microphone socket on the computer and put in the lead. He scrolled through the programs until he found the recording software that came with the computer and changed the settings to get the right input. He was ready.

  He dialled his voicemail to check that it was what he thought it was, and straight away he felt the jolt in his chest as he heard the screams, the pleading. He plugged the lead straight into the phone, pressed the record button on the computer, and then replayed the message. He watched as the meter flickered up and down as it recorded the call, mostly green, but the occasional red peaks were like small stabs to his stomach, until the peaks became longer and he watched the seconds go by. Twenty. Then thirty. He had normally ended the call by then. After fifty seconds, the meter went still so he clicked the stop button.

  Sam unplugged his phone and held it to his ear. The voicemail was going through the options. He clicked to save the sound file. Whatever the message was, he had it on his computer.

  He was tired but the nerves in his stomach stopped him from wanting to go back to his bed, where the warmth of Alice’s embrace would be preferable to what he knew would be stored on the hard drive. He heard the click and whoosh of the central heating as it came on, the summer not yet taking hold. Birds were singing outside, a joyous start to the day, but Sam’s only focus was the hum of the computer fans.

  He sought out some headphones, put them on, and then scrolled through to the music folder, where he had saved the sound file. His finger paused over the mouse button for a second as he readied himself, and then he clicked the play button. He closed his eyes. If he was going to listen to it properly, he had to blot out everything else.

  It was the sobbing he heard first, but it wasn’t through misery. It was wretched, part pleading, part terror. Then the first scream came. He flinched. The scream was cut short, as if there had been a gag, because the struggle he could hear was muffled. Then another scream, louder this time, higher-pitched, more desperate.

  He threw the headphones onto the desk. His hands were trembling. Sweat flashed across his forehead and he felt the tingle of goosebumps over his body. The screams were real, he knew that. It was no film soundtrack, where a scream is just a loud noise, a one-note pitch. You can never properly replicate that fear, because it comes from deep within, something uncontrollable.

  He couldn’t avoid it though. He had to listen again. If it was something real, it was being sent to him for a reason. He was a cop, but he was about money and frauds and secreted accounts. This was something different, violent.

  As he placed the headphones on his head once more, he focused his mind on staying with the call. He clicked play and put his head down. The sounds were just the same, the first scream hitting him like a jolt of electricity. He clenched his jaw and carried on listening. There was the gagging, the muffled gasps, but he could make out something else, like a second voice, and small shuffles, like the sound of a struggle, before the second scream burst into his ears. It made him sit bolt upright, his eyes wide, as if he was feeling the terror himself, transported away from the corner of his dining room to wherever it was taking place.

  There was the rumble of an engine. Near a road? But it was moving slowly. A noise too. Like a regular beep.

  The call ended and Sam put the headphones back onto the computer desk. His chest was rising and falling with the pace of his breaths and his mouth was dry. The call meant something, and it was aimed at him.

  He knew it was going to be a bad day.

  Sixteen

  Joe cupped his hand over his mouth and blew. Stale booze. He had bags under his eyes and his mind felt lethargic. He should have eased off with the drink, but it had been his birthday. He had to get his head together for the court hearing. Judges can tolerate poor advocates. What they can’t tolerate is a lawyer who isn’t prepared, so he had to appear sharp.

  The clicks of Monica’s heels were loud as they marched through Crown Square, the noise only partly drowned out by the loud whirring of the street cleaner as it swept up the debris from the Swiss restaurant in the centre. He looked around as he walked, checking behind him. Nothing suspicious. Just the suits whose breakfasts came as coffee in foam cups and small groups of people gathered near the entrance to the court, huddled and nervous, families and supporters, the defendants obvious in their suits that didn’t quite fit, pulling hard on cigarettes.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Monica said. When Joe looked at her, she blushed. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to speak out of turn. You just seem a bit on edge.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, I’m fine,’ he said, smiling reassurance, although he remembered the man outside his office, and the feeling that he was being watched the night before.

  They were heading for the Crown Court. It was within sight of the Magistrates Court, but it was a whole different legal world. The Magistrates Court was chaotic, all the low level crime dealt with at high volume, where a court appearance was nothing more than an interruption to many people, carried out with a relaxed swagger. The Crown Court was the serious court, where the lawyers wore wigs and gowns and people went to prison for a long time. Even the regular players loitered nervously.

  The building was modern on the outside, trapped into a seventies frame, with plenty of concrete and a high glass front, so that people outside could always see who was on the corridor. Not every courtroom entrance was visible from Crown Square, but there was enough exposure to take away someone’s privacy. Once inside the courtrooms, though, it turned traditional, windowless and wood-lined.

  Joe went straight to the computer terminal so that he could book himself in for Ronnie’s case.

  ‘Who’s prosecuting?’ Monica said. ‘I’m going to have to get to know these people.’

  Joe checked the screen. ‘Kim Reader, same as yesterday,’ he said, and he couldn’t help but smile.

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Just an old friend. It’s her case.’

  ‘Does that help?’

  ‘No. There are no favours here. Kim fights hard so don’t be fooled by her friendliness. She is ambitious, and she’s good, and if it helps her case, she will make you look small in front of the judge.’

  ‘Has she done that to you?’

  ‘Oh yes, and I soon learned not to be taken in by her. She plays it straight, but don’t expect her to ignore a weakness.’

  ‘You sound like you know her pretty well.’

  Joe tried not to give away how well he had got to know her when he said, ‘We were at law school together, that’s all, but she has her sights set higher than I do.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ve still got your head filled with the law, I can tell. I was like that. Your job is not about the law now. Once you’ve finished all your training your job will be to make money for the firm. It’s as simple as that. Kim Reader is different. She’s a prosecutor, doesn’t do anything else, and so she can think about being a lawyer. She’s got a weakness though.’

  ‘Which is what?’

  Joe smiled. ‘She’s all about control. Kim will want to do the trial herself.’

  ‘Can she do that?’

  ‘She can, but she will only get
the trial as junior. A QC will handle the trial strategy, but she won’t back away from the tough stuff. And that control thing means something else: she doesn’t like losing. She will fight hard, but if she thinks the case is a loser, it’s gone. Not all prosecutors are like that. Some like to hang on for a slim hope of something. Sometimes that works. Most often, it doesn’t.’

  ‘What about you?’ Monica said. ‘Will you do the trial yourself, as junior?’

  Joe shook his head. ‘I got my higher rights last year, but I haven’t done enough trials to do a murder case. This is serious stuff, not an ego trip. Come on, let’s go find Kim.’

  They went to the robing room, just another plain door along a corridor, but the numbered keypad gave it away. Joe paused before he went inside. This was where the hardest fights were won, where the right attitude could rescue a settlement from the battle lines. This was also an arena for old-fashioned class war, with solicitors slowly but steadily taking over from barristers, who once enjoyed exclusive rights to practise in the higher courts, so that the old guard gathered in cliques, with their cigar-stained wigs and faded black cloaks, a dirty and ragged badge of honour against the pristine outfits of the solicitor-advocates. It meant the Crown Court had gained some street sense but lost some of its refinement.

  The people inside turned to look at him as he opened the door. Most turned away. He didn’t mind that. It was what he expected.

  The room was long and narrow, with lockers on one side and shelves of law books on the other. Desks ran the length of the room, and most of them were occupied, papers spread in front of the barristers, their horsehair wigs next to them, dancing a delicate balance between protecting their own interests and not pissing off those who sometimes instructed them. Except that Joe had heard them talking, whenever they thought no one else was there, about how people like him were interlopers, superfluous, just intermediaries, without the craft and guile that a well-trained barrister brought to a case. There was some truth in that – a good barrister is worth every bit of their bill – but Joe had seen too many cases thrown away by those who thought trials were there just to build up a fee and then plead it away. If Joe wanted a fight, he expected a fight, and the side that was going to give up wasn’t going to be his, because it was Joe who’d had to deal with the day-to-day moans of the clients, about delays or seemingly inconsequential things, like prison food.