Next to Die

by Neil White

  ‘You made Nat’s death seem so unimportant, that it was just some argument, how we should be gentle on the person who killed him.’

  Joe didn’t respond. His client hadn’t meant to kill Nat. It was a drunken punch, a routine Saturday night happening. David Roberts hadn’t seen the tears cried by his killer, how he could never really look at Joe whenever they went through how Nat had died, but Joe knew that Nat’s father didn’t want to hear that. Not yet. Joe had made enough apologies for his killer.

  David looked at the ceiling and more tears rolled down his cheeks. ‘Now I’m just like him, that bastard who killed Nat. I was angry. I needed a focus. I can’t get over losing Nat. I never thought being a parent would involve me burying my son, and I don’t know how to deal with it except feel angry, and so I hated you, Mr Parker, for not giving me any kind of justice. It seemed like we were the people who mattered the least.’

  ‘And so you were watching me?’

  ‘I wanted to tell you how it was for me, to let you know what you did to me. What he did to me, your client, and Nat’s mother, and his family. We are just left behind, and I don’t know if I can carry on. Then I found out that you’re doing it again, helping someone else get away with murder. I couldn’t handle it.’

  ‘So why last night?’

  ‘Because I was going to confront you, at last, I was building up to it, just to tell you how I felt, so that maybe you’d understand. Then I saw you drinking and enjoying yourself, like freeing killers is just another day for you, and that people like me don’t matter, the ones left behind. And so I couldn’t stop myself. I followed you in and punched you, but you hit the sink. It was such a crack, and I felt sick, and you didn’t move.’

  ‘You don’t have to say any more,’ Joe said, holding up his hand.

  ‘No, I do, because what I did was no different to what he did to Nat, which makes me just like him.’

  ‘He’s just like you, and me, and like anyone who did something stupid that turned out to be far worse than intended.’

  David wiped his eyes. ‘I understand now, and I’m sorry. I won’t write again. I’ll go to the police and tell them what happened.’

  ‘There’s no need. I haven’t told the police.’ David looked confused, so Joe said, ‘If hitting me helped you understand a little more, and lets you grieve a little easier, then I’m glad you did it. Not as hard, perhaps, but it’s all worked out.’

  David swallowed and then nodded with relief. ‘Thank you.’

  Joe stood up and gestured towards the door to tell him that the meeting was over.

  David moved away from his chair, but then stopped and said, ‘I ought to warn you that I wasn’t the only person watching you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘When I was in the gardens yesterday. I didn’t think anything of it at first, but I saw someone head towards your building, before backing away, as if he had changed his mind. He was pacing up and down. He seemed really nervous, looking up at your window all the time. I knew something wasn’t right.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘Tall, thin, scruffy, except that he wore a blazer with some sort of crest on it. It didn’t look right.’

  ‘A blazer?’

  ‘It looked worn out, but it didn’t suit him, because it looked like he thought he was someone important, some kind of faded war hero.’

  The description was familiar.

  Joe went to his desk and the papers Gina and Monica had left the day before. He pulled out the news clipping of Terry Day, showing him on the Remembrance Sunday march, in his beret and array of unearned medals.

  ‘Is that him?’

  David squinted at the picture. ‘Yes, that’s him. He looks more like a real war hero in that picture, but he didn’t look like that yesterday.’

  Joe thanked him, and once he had the room to himself again, he sat down and pondered on what he had just been told. Terry Day was keeping watch on him, and it seemed like he wanted to talk. Why would he do that? He had learned the answer to one mystery, except that now it seemed like another one had just taken its place.

  Forty-Four

  Sam avoided the hard gaze of DI Evans as he went into the Incident Room. He could see from the greasy bags that had once held hot sandwiches that some of the other officers had been there for some time. He slipped into the chair he had been on the day before and tried to log on, but less than a minute passed before he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  He looked up.

  ‘Talk to me, Sam,’ Evans said, her voice soft, and then she turned away, the signal to follow.

  No one looked up as he threaded his way through the desks, although he could tell what they were thinking from the way they avoided his gaze – that he had blown it. The Major Incident Team expected dedication. A girl was missing and he had rolled in after nine as if it was some kind of quiet shift.

  When he got in front of her desk, she made a show of looking at her watch and said, ‘Explain.’

  Sam had been looking down as he thought about what to say, but when he made his decision to talk, he looked Evans in the eye.

  ‘I’ve got some information,’ Sam said. ‘I went to see Ben Grant yesterday, like you said.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He referred to my sister, Ruby.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I had another sister, Ellie. She was murdered fifteen years ago.’

  Evans went as if to say something but then faltered, before she gave a sympathetic smile. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

  ‘Ruby was born two years after Ellie was murdered. Grant knew about her.’

  ‘Ben Grant is locked up. He will never get out.’

  ‘I know that,’ Sam said, ‘but as you know, these cases are linked to Ben Grant’s case somehow, and Grant mentioned her. Then Ruby came home from school yesterday and said that someone had been following her.’

  Evans tilted her head, surprised, her eyes keener now. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this last night? You could have got my number from someone.’

  ‘Ruby might have just got it wrong. She feels like she’s always been in Ellie’s shadow, so she does things to get attention, and two days ago was the anniversary of Ellie’s death. It had all been about Ellie, and then Ruby made it all about her. I couldn’t be sure.’

  ‘Something has changed,’ Evans said.

  ‘I went there this morning. It’s a quiet path that runs towards Ruby’s school. It was where Ellie was killed.’

  ‘And your sister still goes down there?’ Evans said, her eyes wide.

  ‘It’s not the same to her. She never met Ellie. Anyway, I think she was right. I saw some movement in the trees, just like Ruby said.’

  ‘What time did Ruby think she was being followed?’

  ‘Yesterday. Four o’clock.’

  ‘I’ll call the school and ask them to remind pupils not to go that way,’ Evans said. ‘We’ll put someone down there today, just to see if anyone turns up. It might be just some local voyeur, watching teenage legs from the woods, but whoever it is, I want him in this station to explain himself.’

  Sam nodded, satisfied.

  ‘So you’re still okay to do this?’ Evans said. ‘You’re the link we have between Ben Grant and Ronnie Bagley, through your brother, and as Grant wants you involved, he might spill something.’

  Sam nodded again. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Back to Ben Grant,’ Evans said. ‘Did he say anything useful?’

  ‘For the case, no,’ Sam said, shaking his head.

  ‘Just an ego boost?’ she said.

  ‘Something like that. Like I told you yesterday on the phone, he told me how he started out because his sister used to let him wash her hair, until he killed her.’

  ‘He was wasting your time.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I looked into it after you called. Ben Grant didn’t have any sisters. He was an only child.’ When Sam appeared confused, Evans said, ‘Forget about Ben Grant. He has nothing
to tell us. The link is still there, but it doesn’t seem to be anything he knows about.’

  As he walked away, Sam remained deep in thought.

  Ben Grant might not have had a sister, but the story meant something. He just had to work out what.

  Forty-Five

  Joe sat in his car and dialled Monica’s number. He’d found an old phone in his desk and was able to use his SIM card. Still no answer. He dialled Kim Reader’s number instead. He wasn’t sure if she would answer, because she might be in court, but after a few rings, he heard her say, ‘Joe, I can’t talk properly right now. Not if it’s about this morning when I rang. Look, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.’

  There was noise in the background, and the echo told him that she was on the court corridor. For a moment, he imagined her in her gown and crisp white wings.

  ‘This is a courtesy call, sorry,’ he said. ‘A professional obligation.’

  ‘I recognise your court voice,’ she said, and Joe heard a trace of disappointment in hers. ‘Go on, what can I do for you?’

  ‘Terry Day. I’m about to pay him a visit.’

  There was a pause, and then, ‘You can’t do that.’ The warmth had slipped from her voice. ‘He’s a prosecution witness.’

  ‘There’s no property in a witness, you know that,’ he said.

  ‘That’s not the point, and you know that too.’

  ‘And that’s why I’m calling you, to let you know.’

  ‘Joe, don’t be an arsehole,’ she said, anger in her voice now.

  He sighed. He had wanted it to go differently, for her to shrug it off, but he knew she was a better prosecutor than that.

  ‘I’m trying not to be an arsehole,’ he said, his voice softer. ‘I’ll call you afterwards, to tell you if there’s anything you ought to know.’

  ‘Joe!’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got Gina with me. She’ll be a witness, to make sure I can’t be accused of anything.’

  ‘Or so you can both concoct a story to get yourself out of trouble.’

  ‘You know me better than that,’ he said, and then clicked off his phone.

  He stared out of his window for a few seconds, his hand around the wheel, gripping it tightly, knowing that he had created a rift. It wouldn’t last long, professional disagreements didn’t, but it might make their non-professional relationship a little cooler.

  ‘It sounds like the romance is over,’ Gina said.

  When Joe turned towards her she was smiling.

  ‘I’ve always been good at getting it wrong,’ he said, and then reached for his door handle.

  ‘You didn’t have to tell her. You didn’t bother last time.’

  ‘I think this visit might be different.’

  He looked up at Terry Day’s house again as Gina joined him on the pavement. She led the way, her hips swaying as she walked up the steps and pressed the doorbell. They waited a couple of minutes, and were about to turn to go when the door opened a crack and Terry Day’s face appeared.

  Joe smiled and said, ‘Good morning, Mr Day.’

  Terry Day didn’t move at first, just looked between Joe and Gina, only a sliver of his face revealed. When Joe said, ‘I think we need to talk, don’t we?’ Terry stepped back and let the door swing open.

  Terry went towards the stairs, and so Joe and Gina followed. As they went past the first door, the entrance to Ronnie’s flat, Joe made as if to go towards it, blocked off by crime scene tape, when Terry shouted, ‘No!’

  Joe stopped.

  Terry swallowed and then said, ‘The police told me not to let anyone in there, at least until after the trial.’

  ‘Why did they say that?’

  ‘In case the defence want to examine it.’

  ‘I am the defence.’

  ‘No, they meant an expert, bloodstains or whatever. They said that if I don’t look after the scene, it might give the defence something to use, because it makes it look like it’s unfair for them, as they can’t examine it if it’s been spoiled.’

  Joe moved away from the door. It was a reasonable answer. As Terry started to climb the stairs, Joe said, ‘So you’re left all alone now?’

  ‘I like it that way,’ he said. ‘I just wish I didn’t need the rent money.’

  Joe took another look towards Ronnie’s flat and then followed Terry up the stairs and along the first floor landing. The middle flat wasn’t self-contained, so the doors to all the rooms opened on to the landing. Terry hadn’t made many alterations to his house so that he could let it out.

  Terry carried on up the stairs to the second floor, and Joe felt the building close in on him. The daylight through the glass above the front door didn’t travel far up the stairs, and the stairwell to the top floor was much narrower. The door at the top looked makeshift, as if Terry had just pinned a doorframe in between the ceiling and the floor, and so the whole frame moved as Terry went through it.

  He gestured towards a living room on the other side of a small landing and muttered something about making a drink. Joe and Gina went in, and as Terry rushed off to make some coffee, they settled onto a sofa that was low to the floor and covered in a blue cloth, like a futon. The room seemed dingy from the small attic windows, made worse by the dark brown swirls of the carpet and the nicotine tinge to the woodchip wallpaper.

  ‘I’ve got my pepper spray if he walks in with a chainsaw or something,’ Gina whispered.

  ‘All I know is that I’m not drinking whatever he’s making,’ Joe said.

  After a few minutes, Terry came back into the room carrying a tray, with three cups and a small plate of biscuits. Joe took a cup and placed it on the floor. Gina did the same.

  When Terry sat down, he pointed at Joe and said, ‘What happened to your eye?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  Terry looked confused. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ve been following me around, keeping watch on me.’

  ‘No I haven’t,’ Terry said, although his cheeks flushed.

  Joe nodded slowly. ‘Yes you have. Someone saw you. So I want you to tell me why. What do you want to tell me?’

  Terry looked at his drink cradled on his lap, and Joe let him sit out the silence. Eventually, after a slow few minutes, Terry looked up and said, ‘I’m not supposed to talk to you. They told me not to.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘The police.’

  ‘If there is something you know that will help me, I’m entitled to know.’ Joe reached into his pocket for his voice recorder. He held it up so Terry could see it and said, ‘You need to talk.’

  Terry’s finger scratched at his cup but he stayed silent.

  Gina leaned forward. ‘Mr Day, if you know something, you need to tell us.’

  He looked at her and then at Joe, then took a deep breath.

  ‘All right, I’ll tell you. It’s about Carrie, and the little girl.’

  ‘Go on.’

  He swallowed and then straightened his shoulders as if to brace himself. ‘They’re alive,’ he said.

  Joe’s eyes widened. ‘Alive? How do you know?’

  ‘I’ve seen them.’

  Forty-Six

  Sam was left on his own. Everyone else shared small talk and worked their way through whatever paperwork landed in front of them. There were some officers on the telephone, chasing down whatever new information had come in, just to see if there was anything useful, but most calls ended with a polite thank you. The focus was on finding the last person who saw Julie alive, except that no one seemed to know where she had gone once she left her parents’ home.

  Sam was going back through the files relating to the other missing girls. He was trying to find any reference to a feeling of being watched, hoping to see a similarity to what Ruby had reported, to what he thought he had seen earlier that day. Or, rather, hoping that he wouldn’t find anything, so that all he had was a cry for attention from Ruby and someone innocently running away from him in the woods – kids messing about
.

  Julie’s bedroom kept on coming back to him, though. There was no reason why it should, he’d only had a brief look and skimmed through her computer, but something niggled him, like a scratching sound at the back of his head that told him there was something he had overlooked.

  He closed his eyes and tried to shut out the disruptions in the room. The tap-tap of fingers on keyboards, whispered discussions, mumbles of telephone chatter. He tried instead to replace it all with Julie’s room.

  The bed had been to one side of the room when he walked in, with posters on the wall. Some pop stars and animal pictures. If Julie wasn’t found, the room would stay like that: a time capsule.

  As he walked the room in his head, the next thing along was the dresser, covered in perfumes and powders and photographs, the toy ballerina in the middle. Next, there was a bookcase, and then the computer desk, with a small monitor and a base unit on the floor. There were schoolbooks on the desk, textbooks and dog-eared exercise books. There was an MP3 player to one side.

  Was that important? If she didn’t have her MP3 player with her, then it reduced the chance that she was snatched silently when she was wrapped up in the music from her headphones. So why hadn’t anyone reported hearing her scream or a fight?

  Sam took a deep breath. There was something else.

  His mind kept on going back to the computer monitor, but it wasn’t something on the computer itself. He had read the emails. There was nothing that had jumped out at him. No, it was something on the computer.

  Sam went over to the corner of the room, where a young female detective was going through all the items seized from Julie’s bedroom. Her adolescence had been turned into a collection of clear plastic bags clustered around a desk.

  The female detective looked up. She was mixed race, with exotic dark curls tumbling onto her light grey suit, and when she saw Sam, she smiled. ‘Hello. I’m Charlotte.’ She checked around, as if to ensure that no one else was listening in, and then said, ‘I liked what you did to Ged yesterday, about the coffee,’ and she pointed towards Ged, who was staring at a screen, his pen tapping on the desk.