Next to Die

by Neil White

  Sam looked confused. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know. I couldn’t work it out. I told him about what Terry had said, and he became angry, didn’t want it coming out.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve just been to his mother’s house and she told me something that might link in to Ben Grant.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said that Ben Grant boasted about killing his sister, but it turned out he never had a sister.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well, Ronnie had a sister who died when she was younger.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Slipped and fell in the bath.’

  Sam’s eyes widened. ‘Shit,’ he said to himself, looking down.

  ‘Is that important?’

  ‘Yes, very.’ Sam looked at Joe. ‘You know I’ll pass this on, because if Ronnie had anything to do with this, I won’t protect you.’

  ‘I’m fine about that.’

  ‘But I thought you protected people like him.’

  ‘If Ronnie had anything to do with what happened to you, tell whoever you like.’

  ‘Why the change?’

  ‘You didn’t come to my apartment the other night to save a life or anything honourable. It was just a cheap trick, and you know it, expecting me to blurt out what I knew, just because you were my brother. But you were doing it for the wrong reason, because it was just about using me.’

  Sam didn’t say anything so Joe went to sit on the bed.

  ‘This makes it different,’ Joe said, and pointed towards the bandages. ‘You joined the police because of what happened to Ellie. I know that, because you’ve said it often enough.’

  ‘And you went your way, I know.’

  ‘You think I betrayed Ellie?’

  Sam stayed silent.

  Joe put his head down and closed his eyes. Now was the time, he knew that. What had happened to Sam had some connection to his own case, and a detective was badly injured. Sam had to know.

  Joe thought about how he could broach it, the secret he had kept for fifteen years. It had driven him for all those years, and he wondered whether it would drive him less if he shared it. But it wasn’t the time for self-doubt. It was the time to share.

  He looked up and took a deep breath. ‘I became a lawyer for the same reason you became a policeman – because of Ellie.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I’m going to tell you something now that I’ve never told anyone before. You might not like it.’

  ‘Go on.’ Sam’s voice was quieter now.

  Joe swallowed and wished he hadn’t started, because now there was no turning back.

  ‘The man who killed Ellie,’ Joe begun. ‘I saw him, not long before it happened.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Joe paused as he thought about that day.

  ‘I’d been walking home from school,’ Joe said. All the sounds seemed to get sucked out of the room as he spoke, his voice the only noise. ‘I wasn’t far behind Ellie. She had her headphones on so I couldn’t shout to her, but why would I want to anyway? Who wants to walk home with his annoying little sister? I saw her turn into the path, through the woods. There had been someone hanging around near the end, just further along the road. I don’t think Ellie saw him, because she was looking down, her head nodding with the music. I knew there was something about him that wasn’t right because he was just loitering, as if he was waiting for someone.’

  ‘What did this person do?’

  ‘He followed Ellie. He put his hood up and walked down the path, not long after Ellie had turned down it. I wanted to shout out, because I knew it wasn’t right, but I didn’t. I was scared, because what if I’d been wrong? Why should anything happen to Ellie? It was just another walk home from school.’

  ‘Shit,’ Sam said in a whisper.

  ‘Yeah, shit.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ Sam said.

  ‘Because I was scared. What would people say if they knew I could have stopped it? You can’t even think about the guilt I felt. Still feel. It gnaws away at me every day, the desire to just go back and make it different, to shout out, to stop him. Ellie would be alive. Everything would be different. Maybe even Dad would be alive, because our lives would have been different.’

  There was no sound from Sam. It was as if everything had stopped. There was no longer the hum of the equipment in the room, or the occasional click of the radiator. Even Sam’s gasps of pain had stopped.

  Finally, Sam said, ‘But why did what happened to Ellie make you become a lawyer? I don’t understand.’

  ‘I see his face every day, in here.’ Joe tapped the side of his head. ‘I became a defence lawyer because I thought it was one way I might see him again. Because that’s what I do every day of my life. I look for him. Every time I walk into a police station to see a client, I hope it’s going to be him. If I’m ever in court and a sex attacker is there, I make sure I hang around to see who it is. I call round the police stations every morning and scour the internet for news stories, always looking for his face.’

  ‘Very noble,’ Sam said. ‘And what are you going to do if you see him?’

  ‘Simple,’ Joe said. ‘I’m going to kill him.’

  Sixty

  Alice was quiet all the way home, Joe driving, the daisy chain of streetlights painting moving stripes on her face as they got nearer to her house.

  ‘He’ll be all right, you know,’ Joe said. Alice turned to look at him, and he saw tears on her face. ‘He’ll be fine. He’s made of tough stuff.’

  Alice shook her head. ‘No, he’s not. He’s just had some tough stuff to deal with. That’s different.’

  She turned to look out of the window again, so Joe let her hide away in her thoughts. He wanted to say that Sam was his brother, that they had a bond, blood and family, but he knew that he’d given up the right to have any kind of say when Alice walked down the aisle to Sam on their wedding day. Joe hadn’t even been chosen as the best man. That honour went to a school friend who had hardly been near Sam since the wedding, apart from the occasional Christmas card. The resentment over how he had dealt with Ellie’s murder was palpable even back then.

  As Joe pulled up outside their house, he expected Alice to head inside alone, but she seemed reluctant. Eventually she said, ‘Come inside, if you want. I don’t want to be on my own just yet.’

  Joe turned off the engine and followed Alice into the house, her steps slow, her shoulders slumped. It was quiet inside. She must have realised what he was thinking, because she said, ‘Emily and Amy are with my parents,’ before going to the fridge and pulling out a beer. She passed it to Joe, who raised it in thanks, and then she reached for a bottle of wine that was in the door pocket. It was a screw top, and as he took a sip of the beer, she poured her drink into a glass. Her hand shook and then she drank it like she needed it.

  ‘The girls will be back soon,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what to tell them.’

  Joe knew what she meant, that the other detective’s brush with death had already made it onto the news bulletin, although she hadn’t been named. Any story about Sam being a hero would satisfy them for the moment, but as they got older, the memories of Sam being injured would come back to them during the night and remind them that their father had a dangerous job.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you,’ Joe said. ‘I’ve opted out of parenting so far. I’m sure you’ll do the right thing, though.’

  Alice looked up at him, and Joe saw for the first time that it was more than shock that was making her quiet. There was fear there too. Her eyebrows were pinched together and her breathing was fast. This was the first time that tragedy had almost visited her family, and Joe saw how it had made her realise what he and Sam had discovered fifteen years earlier, that what feels safe and secure can be ripped apart in an instant.

  She sat down and drank from her glass, before saying, ‘He’ll blame himself.’

 
‘I know. It’s human nature.’

  ‘No, it’s more than that. He’ll believe it’s his fault, because he cares too much. I’ve tried to tell him that it’s just a job, that coming home to us should be the important thing, but he doesn’t listen. When a case goes wrong, I watch him as he retreats into himself, often for days at a time, as if he’s waiting for someone to say that it was all his fault. He can’t just shrug it off like most of them seem to be able to do. It’s like a mission for him, that no one must get away with anything. Have you ever heard anything like that?’

  Joe closed his eyes. He knew all of this. He’d grown up with Sam.

  ‘I tell him he’s being stupid,’ Alice said, wiping a tear from her eye. ‘The thing is, he knows that he is, and it isn’t logical, because it is just a job, but his failures gnaw away at him. This will be hard for him to control.’

  ‘His intensity is part of him,’ Joe said. ‘And he joined the police for emotional reasons, you know that, to atone for Ellie.’

  ‘I just wish he could be different,’ she said, taking another drink. ‘I can cope with the little things, like the long silences, but they just get longer each time. And then when the silences end, it’s just draining to listen to him, because every failing is a symptom of a bigger problem. Like if he goes to the shop and forgets something, it’s because he’s working too hard or not coping, and not just because he forgot something, like we all do. He’ll be impossible now, and I don’t think I can take it.’

  ‘Just be there for him,’ Joe said.

  ‘And you? No, you’ll go, because that’s what you do. You just live your life and it seems like no one else matters. Sam can live his life and it will be up to me to pick everything up for him. But what about me? Who looks after me?’

  Joe put the beer on the side. He didn’t want this argument. Perhaps Alice was right. He knew he was about to walk out on her, but the realisation of her truth wasn’t enough to make him want to stay.

  ‘Tell Sam to call me when he’s home,’ he said, and went towards the door. Then he stopped. He was running away. He turned round. ‘Sam isn’t the only person who will have things to deal with.’

  Alice looked up, her cheeks streaked with tears. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He was chasing a case of mine. Ronnie Bagley. He went to that house because of something I told the prosecutor, about how the occupant of that house, Terry Day, could help my client. It was just a case, and there will be plenty more, but I almost lost a brother because of it. Terry Day is dead because of it, and a young woman might still lose her life. All from information I didn’t have to pass on. So tell me now how I’m able to just walk away, because what if I can’t? There’ll be no one like you to catch me. So don’t make assumptions about me.’

  Alice looked into her glass, hurt, angry.

  The ring of Joe’s phone broke the silence. He turned away to answer it. It was his mother.

  ‘Joe, you need to come home.’ She was crying, on the verge of hysteria.

  ‘If it’s about Sam, he’s fine. He’s with his seniors now.’

  ‘No, it’s not about Sam. It’s Ruby.’

  Joe shivered. Alice must have sensed his reaction because she looked up, her mouth open.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he said.

  There was a pause, and when she spoke again, Joe felt the years roll back, to the desperation of fifteen years earlier.

  ‘It’s Ruby,’ she repeated, and then a sob. ‘She hasn’t come home.’

  Sixty-One

  Sam winced as he was shown into the Incident Room, the door banging on his shoulder.

  ‘You could open it for me,’ he said, scowling at Ged, who had simply barged through.

  DI Evans directed him to a seat in the corner, out of view of the windows. As Sam eased himself into it, grimacing, she said, ‘You need to tell us what happened.’

  She pulled out a blank police statement from one of the drawers and put it on the desk. She didn’t have a pen. Sam knew that she would want to know what he had to say before she committed it to paper.

  Sam looked down at the page. ‘Shouldn’t we be looking for Ronnie Bagley?’ he said. ‘Why is this so important now? Or is this just about getting a version of events we will present to the world?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m new to this squad but I’ve been around. I know how it works. You sent us to that house, and so you want to know whether you’re at fault, because all we do is try to deflect the blame in this job. Well, I’m only going to tell it one way, and that’s the truth. If you don’t like that, I’m not in the mood for changing my mind.’

  Evans looked at Ged and then sighed. ‘We are looking for Ronnie, but we almost lost one of our team tonight. We might still lose her. Right now, we want to know why. So tell us, so we can catch whoever did this. That is as simple as it gets.’

  Sam put his head down. He didn’t want to do this. He wanted to go home to Alice and Amy and Emily, take some painkillers and feel sorry for himself. Pain was shooting down his arm and he felt tired, but he knew that Evans was playing it like a copper, and he was expected to fall into line. The one thing he had learned quickly after joining the police was that they exist in ranks, all together, and so if one gets hurt, they all feel it. He focused on Charlotte, and he remembered her groans of pain, how she had been scared as he held her, wondering if she was going to die.

  ‘Like we told you, we were following a trail, a photograph,’ Sam said. ‘We went to all the families of the missing girls, because there was a picture next to Julie McGovern’s computer. A young man. There was something about the picture that troubled me, except I couldn’t think what it was. So we touted the picture around to see if I was right, and we got a hit. It was a fake, a groomer’s front, used by Ronnie Bagley to contact at least two of our victims. But it was something else that bothered me about it, and I still can’t think what it was, because I knew it wasn’t right before we discovered the link with Ronnie Bagley.’

  ‘And where did you say you discovered the link?’

  ‘Gilly Henderson, the barrister’s daughter. I spoke to her sister, Rachel, and she recognised him, told me how he had tried to befriend her, but she knocked him back. Gilly must have been less choosy.’

  ‘We can’t find Ronnie Bagley,’ Evans said. ‘We are looking but we’re coming up with nothing.’

  ‘I think he was Grant’s accomplice,’ Sam said. ‘Grant was taunting us, because he was describing Ronnie Bagley, not himself. It was Ronnie’s sister who died in the bath, not Grant’s. It’s Ronnie Bagley with the hair fetish, not Grant.’ Sam grimaced. ‘This might all be my fault.’

  Ged shook his head on the other side of the room and muttered in agreement.

  ‘How the hell can it be your fault?’ Evans said, flashing Ged a glare.

  ‘Because Grant said that he had been betrayed, and when I arrested him, he might have had someone with him, like an accomplice, and I’ve never said anything.’

  Evans looked surprised. ‘When did you know this?’

  ‘I never really knew. I was just never sure. It’s something I’ve thought about through the years, because I’ve always had this worry that I’d missed something back then. Ben Grant didn’t try to run or fight. He went to his knees and let me arrest him. I kept my whole attention on him all the time, and so I don’t know if there was someone else there, in the bushes, because I was watching him, no one else. And when we visited Ben Grant, he taunted us, told us how he killed his sister, and that he had some obsession with hair, but he was really talking about Ronnie Bagley. And then he said something that struck me as strange.’

  ‘Does this have a point?’ Ged asked.

  ‘I don’t know, and that’s the whole point,’ Sam said, getting tetchy. ‘Ben Grant was trying to tell me something, I could tell, but it was all wrapped up in cryptic messages and a life story, but then today, he was more direct. He said he was betrayed, and told us how the real thrill was getting someone else invo
lved. He used a phrase, said that the newly converted are often the most enthusiastic.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Yes, but what do you think he meant by that? I’ll tell you. An accomplice. And you know what, I can’t rule it out. Which means that if there’s an accomplice behind all of this, then it is my fault for not being sure enough back then. Instead, all I had was a nagging doubt. Nothing I knew or could pinpoint, just a doubt. So that is the point.’ He sat back in his chair, deflated.

  ‘But it was Carrie who was Grant’s friend, not Bagley,’ Evans said.

  ‘Carrie was drawn to Grant,’ Sam said. ‘Was Carrie drawn to Ronnie for the same reason as she was drawn to Grant? Was he the next best thing? But was she about to expose him? Is that why she died? It’s one thing lusting after some warped dream, but not quite the same when your partner comes home with blood on his hands. It makes it too close, too real.’

  ‘If we are sure Carrie is dead,’ Evans said. ‘Terry Day didn’t think so.’ She sighed. ‘This is a real mess.’

  When no one tried to argue, she took a pen from her pocket and said, ‘Take me back to Terry Day’s house. I want to know what happened.’

  And so Sam told her. About them walking into the hallway and finding it in darkness. The noises, some sense that they were not alone. The slow creep upstairs, and then Terry Day appearing at the top of the stairs, before his body was thrown towards them.

  Evans tapped her pen on the blank statement, still nothing written down. ‘So if Ronnie Bagley is the link, was it Ronnie Bagley who attacked you?’

  Sam didn’t respond at first, as if he was thinking about it, and then shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘How do you know? Have you met Ronnie Bagley?’

  Again, another pause, and then Sam sat up straight, his eyes wide, wincing as his shoulder reminded him of his injury. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I haven’t met him, but I know it wasn’t him.’

  ‘How?’

  Sam’s mind flashed back to the dark landing. The crumple of Terry’s body down the stairs, slow and heavy, and then the faster movement behind. The attacker was skinny and light, but fast and strong. And there was a smell, light and fragrant, like flowers, but musky. It was perfume. The shoulders were slender, and the jawline, visible in silhouette, just flashes against the glow from the phones, was delicate, fragile.