Before You Die

by Samantha Hayes

  Lorraine shook her head as they entered the air-conditioned building. If it wasn’t for the worry of Freddie pressing down on her shoulders, she’d have defended Gil and his claims. As things stood, she just wanted to make sure everything was being done to find her nephew.

  ‘Nothing better to do?’ Lorraine said as she eyed all the paperwork laid out on the table in the corner of Burnley’s office. She hadn’t bothered to introduce Adam, or to greet him.

  ‘Sorry to hear about the lad.’ The whites of Burnley’s eyes were tinged with yellow, and he had an aubergine-coloured blister on his lower lip, probably where he’d been biting it.

  ‘The lad,’ Lorraine said, leaning forward across Burnley’s desk, ‘is my nephew. I want him found.’

  ‘I have people going out, as you already know,’ Burnley said, holding up his hands in defence. ‘Are you after special treatment?’

  Lorraine breathed in sharply. ‘I want the techies taking a look at Freddie’s online activity and phone usage. And while you’re at it, get Finance to look into his bank movements.’

  ‘Bit premature, aren’t we?’ Burnley slumped into his office chair. ‘Let’s give the lad a chance to come back when he’s hungry or runs out of money.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘What do you reckon, eight or nine o’clock tonight?’

  Lorraine gave an imperceptible shake of her head. She knew Adam would have noticed. ‘Freddie’s been depressed,’ she said. ‘He’s got a history of self-harm and his mood is currently low. His disappearance is out of character. I learnt earlier this morning that he’s being badly bullied, both at school and online. A witness saw him being intimidated by a group of youths last night as he was leaving the village.’ Lorraine decided not to mention the old man’s statement about Gil. ‘You, of all people, should be particularly concerned about a missing young person’s state of mind, detective. One more suicide around here and I’d call it another spate.’

  ‘Ah, so they are suicides now, are they?’ Burnley shook his head, and Lorraine noticed his jowls wobbling. ‘Everything you wanted to see is over there, by the way.’ He gestured to the table. ‘Help yourself.’

  Lorraine knew he was making a point, that by having her go through his case files and finding nothing wrong it would somehow scratch out the past. ‘Thank you,’ was all she could manage after requesting somewhere private to go.

  The room was small and stifling, but at least it didn’t have Greg Burnley in it. Adam fetched them a couple of coffees from the machine and settled down to join her. There wasn’t much to look through, but since they’d set things in motion with Freddie and were assured that all the appropriate alerts had been put out, Lorraine valued a second opinion.

  ‘Traffic or autopsy?’ she asked.

  They opted for Traffic first and scoured the usual scene evidence from photographic and hand-drawn plans to analysis of the wrecked bike and the officer’s scene report. Dean Watts’ body was ethereal in the floodlights, the blood a bronze colour pooling on the road. Everything appeared thorough and in order.

  Then they skimmed over the scant bike theft details until Lorraine noticed the name of the pub from where the bike was stolen. ‘The Old Dog and Fox. There’s a camera in the car park,’ she said to Adam. ‘I spotted it the other night when we went for a meal. It’s just one of those home-security jobs, but it’s worth a shot.’ She flipped through the file. ‘I can’t see any mention of it here.’

  ‘It’s probably not even connected up,’ Adam said. ‘Even if it is, the recordings will have been long overwritten.’

  Lorraine photographed the relevant details anyway and proceeded to the post-mortem report. It was as she was reading those routine details that her phone rang.

  ‘Hi, Jo, what is it?’

  Lorraine frowned as she listened, hardly able to believe what she was hearing.

  ‘Jo, are you there?’ The line had gone dead.

  She stood up, beckoning to Adam to do the same, and grabbed her bag, leaving the files spread out on the table. ‘We’ve got to get back. Gil has hanged himself.’

  21

  BY THE TIME Lorraine and Adam reached the tack room, Gil had been cut down. Between them, Tony, Sonia and Jo had wrestled his body to the ground.

  ‘It was because of Stella we found him,’ Jo said.

  They were still in the tack room. Tony and Sonia were huddled around Gil. Lorraine surveyed the scene, picking apart the tumbling chatter and trying to make sense of what had happened.

  ‘I just wanted my phone back,’ Stella said. ‘I asked Aunty Jo to call it. If Freddie had it, I thought he might answer. He didn’t.’ She was talking at speed. ‘Then I had the idea of tracking it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Lorraine said.

  ‘God,’ Stella replied, as if they were all stupid. ‘A bit like you do at work, Mum. You just log into your iTunes account and do “Find My iPhone”. It’s easy.’

  ‘I can’t believe we didn’t think of it sooner,’ Jo said with a shaky voice. She was standing behind Stella, who was sitting in one of the chairs at Gil’s pine table.

  Lorraine didn’t bother to comment that they’d already requested a ping on Freddie’s phone in order to find him, but it had proved fruitless so far. Either he’d switched it off or the battery had run out.

  ‘I borrowed Aunty Jo’s laptop and, eventually, I located my phone here, in Gil’s house.’ Stella shifted in her chair, looking very upset. ‘I lost it once before and tracked it this way. It turned out it was in someone else’s locker at school.’

  Lorraine focused on Stella. ‘So the phone led you to the tack room,’ she repeated. Stella nodded. ‘But Freddie wasn’t here when you arrived?’

  Everyone confirmed that he wasn’t, that it had just been Gil hanging from the beam.

  Sonia let out a whimper. ‘I couldn’t believe it when Jo called me,’ she said. ‘I charged round here right away, hoping to find Freddie, but found him instead.’

  She gestured at Gil, who was now sitting up on the floor. He squirmed, covering his face in shame.

  Lorraine felt a sudden chill. She could only begin to imagine how Sonia must have felt when she saw Gil dangling by a rope. She imagined the scene, all of them bursting through the doorway, stopping abruptly at the sight of him, no one quite knowing what to do.

  ‘I’m afraid I screamed rather loudly,’ Sonia admitted.

  Lorraine and Adam listened as Tony and Sonia explained how Gil’s body had been suspended from the gnarled beam that stretched the width of the room.

  ‘I wondered what the hell had happened,’ Tony said, red-faced still. ‘Thankfully I was in the garden and heard Sonia’s cry. I came straight away.’ He went on to tell them how the rope had been attached to an old meat hook sunk into the wood.

  Lorraine noticed the tipped-over chair that Gil had clearly used on the table to reach the beam. The table’s surface was littered with a jumble of pencils and photographs and half-finished drawings, right beneath where Gil must have been dangling. Stella’s iPhone in its pink sparkly case lay right in the middle.

  ‘You did the right thing,’ Adam said as Tony explained how they’d cut him down. Luckily there’d been a serrated knife on the draining board.

  ‘I was only doing my exercises,’ Gil said, removing his hands from his face. He was clearly ashamed at all the fuss he’d caused. ‘I need big muscles so I can get a girlfriend.’

  Lorraine shook her head in disbelief, relieved it hadn’t been a lot worse. When they’d arrived, skidding the car to a stop on the gravel drive, they’d expected to be greeted by an ambulance at least.

  ‘It’s not my fault I got stuck,’ he continued.

  ‘From what I can make out, you’re lucky not to have—’

  Adam stopped there, and Lorraine released her breath. Surely even he wouldn’t be that insensitive.

  But Tony picked up where Adam had left off. ‘A few more minutes and he’d have lost his hold and dropped from the beam. The way you’d got that rope tied round your wa
ist, Gil . . .’ He took a deep breath. ‘Your liver and kidneys wouldn’t have thanked you much if your hands had lost their hold, put it that way.’

  ‘I’m not very good at pull-ups yet,’ Gil confessed. ‘The internet said you should take precautions when exercising so I put this rope on and then I got stuck when the chair fell off the table and then you all came to save me and I am hungry now.’

  ‘Let’s get you into the house, shall we?’ Tony said, slinging an arm around his brother’s shoulder. Sonia followed them, telling the others to come too.

  ‘You needn’t worry,’ Gil said to Lorraine and Adam as he passed them. ‘It’s not like what happened to Simon. That was because he was bad.’

  As they made their way to the house, Lorraine caught Jo’s arm. ‘Wait,’ she mouthed. She and Adam gathered round while Stella checked her messages on her newly found phone.

  ‘What did Gil mean by that?’ Lorraine asked. Then, when all she’d got by way of response was a shrug, she continued, ‘Everything’s being done to find Freddie, Jo. The local nick’s got all the usual stuff covered, I promise. Someone will be out to see you shortly.’ She glanced at her watch and hoped it was soon. ‘I’m sorry Stella’s phone didn’t lead you to him,’ she added, giving her sister a hug. She couldn’t stand to see her looking so dejected.

  ‘We need to question Gil,’ Adam commented.

  ‘Agreed,’ Lorraine added. ‘He got hold of Stella’s phone somehow. That old chap we spoke to earlier was convinced he met Freddie last night. We need to know more.’

  ‘Did you find anything out at the Justice Centre?’ Jo asked quietly.

  ‘Burnley obliged and let us see the Dean Watts case files.’

  ‘I meant about Freddie, for Christ’s sake,’ Jo said bitterly. ‘Why are you still so obsessed with that suicide when my son’s missing?’

  ‘Lorraine thinks there could be a link,’ Adam responded, almost patronisingly. He took Jo by the shoulders. ‘Freddie’s an adult. He will be fine.’

  ‘I have one more enquiry I want to make regarding Dean Watts,’ Lorraine told her. ‘If that proves fruitless, then I promise to let it go.’

  Jo nodded, although Lorraine could see she was trying not to cry again.

  But if I’m right, Lorraine thought, then I’m more concerned for Freddie than ever.

  Adam agreed to stay with Jo and the others at the Manor while Lorraine made the short walk to the Old Dog and Fox. It was early afternoon, she hadn’t eaten, and the smell of real ale and chips doused in salt and vinegar made her mouth water.

  She went up to the bar. It was cool inside the low-ceilinged building, even on a day as hot as this one.

  ‘What can I get you?’ a young girl about Grace’s age said. She was wearing a cropped T-shirt and skinny jeans. A tea towel was slung over one shoulder.

  ‘I’d like to see the landlord if he’s around,’ Lorraine said.

  ‘He’s upstairs,’ the girl replied. ‘Asleep.’

  Lorraine held out her warrant card.

  ‘Oh,’ the girl said, staring at Lorraine as if she didn’t believe her. She turned, went round the corner of the bar and opened a latched door. It was small and creaked as she pulled it open, revealing a narrow twisting staircase behind it. ‘Da-ad!’ she yelled up it. ‘It’s the police!’

  Heads turned in Lorraine’s direction, but she kept her eyes fixed on the rack of optics in front of her, not wanting to cause a stir. Jo would hate that.

  ‘He’ll be down in a tick,’ the girl said. ‘He gets tired.’

  Her father emerged through the small doorway five minutes later wearing an untucked white shirt and black trousers. His grey hair, swept to one side, was clumped in misplaced strands across his crown.

  ‘Sorry to bother you,’ Lorraine said, and introduced herself.

  The man came out from behind the bar and they sat at a small oak table beside the unlit fireplace.

  ‘I noticed you have a CCTV camera in the car park,’ she said. ‘Is it operational?’

  ‘That old thing?’ he said, shaking his head. ‘It’s just meant to scare ’em off. Doesn’t seem to work though. But if people will leave valuables in their cars.’ He wiped his hands down his face.

  ‘I’m here about the stolen motorbike last month.’

  ‘Thought you were done with all that. I told them back then the camera wasn’t real, that they ought to speak to Jim across the street.’

  ‘Jim?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s at number forty-two across the way. Place is like Fort Knox.’

  ‘And did they ask Jim?’ Lorraine said.

  ‘No idea,’ the landlord said. ‘Ain’t going to bring that poor lad back though, is it?’

  ‘No,’ Lorraine said, standing up to leave. ‘It’s not.’

  Jim was partially deaf. ‘It’s why I have all this stuff,’ he said, silencing the screeching alarm as Lorraine stepped across the threshold of his bungalow. ‘You can’t be too careful these days, even in a place as sleepy as Radcote.’ He was yelling until his wife told him to quieten down.

  Lorraine asked if any of his cameras – she’d seen at least three on the front of his property – caught footage of the pub car park opposite.

  ‘Not really,’ he answered. ‘But I get a bit of the road between my drive and the pub’s.’

  ‘Have you still got footage from a month or so ago?’

  ‘Of course,’ Jim said, riffling through a well-organised book of labelled CDs after Lorraine had told him the date of Dean’s death. ‘I keep it all, you know. They call me obsessive, but you never know when something will come in handy.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Lorraine said, glancing round the room. His wife had made her a cup of tea, balancing it on the edge of a dresser that was crowded with meticulously organised miniature china houses. The whole place seemed to be brimming with neat clutter.

  ‘Right, let’s see . . .’ Jim plucked out a disc and inserted it into the drive of a desktop computer. A few moments later a grainy black and white image of his front drive was flickering on the screen. ‘Late evening, you say? I can fast-forward it from here.’

  Lorraine watched as the evening in question played out before them. The pub seemed busy and she could make out customers coming and going by the slowing of cars and the flaring of indicator lights as they turned into the car park, even though the camera had captured only the lower half of the vehicles, being mainly aimed at Jim’s front garden. The legs of a few pedestrians, some with dogs, some in groups, were also visible as they walked past at top speed. The evening flashed past in minutes, turning from daylight to dusk to darkness. A couple of cats shot across the front garden.

  ‘Stop,’ Lorraine suddenly said. ‘Go back a bit, will you?’

  Jim rewound and played the footage again, this time at normal speed. A motorbike went into the pub car park. There was one person on it.

  Jim sped the footage up again.

  ‘Right, there, go back again.’

  Jim did as he was instructed, his wife looming over his shoulder. They both seemed pleased to help.

  Lorraine watched as the same motorbike slowly left the pub car park.

  ‘Is the clock display set correctly?’ she asked.

  Jim nodded.

  She told him to rewind and play it even slower. There it was again, the motorbike being stolen, at 11.12 p.m. She squinted at the screen, trying to improve the grainy resolution. There was no doubt about it, she could see two pairs of legs on the bike – a male wearing shorts sitting at the front, and a slim female, also with exposed legs, sitting to the rear.

  ‘I’ll need to take this with me,’ Lorraine said.

  Jim ejected the disc and slipped it into its protective sleeve.

  As she was leaving, thanking them both, she said, ‘Out of interest, have the police ever asked you for this footage before?’

  Jim and his wife shook their heads decisively.

  ‘Thanks again,’ Lorraine said, thinking how much she despised Greg Burnley. />
  22

  FREDDIE HAD EXHALED with relief when they’d all left Gil’s cottage earlier. He’d hidden himself beneath the pile of old clothes, bedding and curtains that had been dumped in the far corner of Gil’s mezzanine sleeping area. It was a tip up there, but that had worked to his advantage: if anyone had peeked up, he’d have been well concealed within the mess. Every cell in his body had buzzed from lack of oxygen – he reckoned he’d pretty much not breathed properly the whole time they were there. His fingers had crept out first, reaching out from under the fusty fabric. Once he was fully out he’d stretched his back, cat-like, and pulled his pack out of the nest. He had no idea where Gil had gone, but was just glad that the place was finally empty after all the fuss.

  Now, an hour later and still alone, Freddie was sitting on the edge of Gil’s low bed. He took a bottle of water from his bag and drank half of it.

  On the one hand, Gil had been a saviour, taking him in earlier, giving him food, keeping quiet when everyone had burst into the tack room. But on the other, he’d been a liability, causing such a commotion with his ridiculous antics. Freddie had thankfully already been upstairs when it happened, snoozing, exhausted from the goings-on. He’d heard all the fuss and had been about to go downstairs to help Gil, but quickly retreated at the sound of someone running outside, and then Sonia had come bursting into the cottage, followed not long after that by the others. They’d immediately got Gil down, not realising Freddie was nearby. It would only have taken one wrong or careless word from Gil to reveal his whereabouts. He couldn’t get caught yet.

  After he’d left New Hope, he’d sat in an anonymous greasy spoon café at the other end of town, drinking tea and wondering whether running away was the answer. He’d spent the next two hours ambling back towards Radcote, but as he approached the village he’d ducked into a field and hid behind a hedge. That gang of lads was hanging out again, the same lot from the previous night. Were they waiting for him? He’d watched as they smoked weed, sitting on a gate.