Next to Die (21 page)

That made Sam whirl round. ‘What did you say?’

‘Little Ruby, although she isn’t that small now, is she? All long legs and hair. Sweet.’

Sam felt the blood rush through his head, had to fight against the clench of his fists, the need to attack Grant, to see some fear in his eyes, some pain. His heart was hammering, sweat on his forehead.

The door opened and Sam rushed through. As the door started to close slowly on its hinges, Grant shouted, ‘Don’t forget to mention me to your wife. She’ll give you the time of your life.’

As the door finally closed, Sam set off at a jog, just to get away as quickly as he could, but all he could hear was the sound of Grant laughing, loud and manic.

Thirty-Six

Joe checked his watch as he got back to the office. Five o’clock. It was time to meet Kim.

He had gone to his office to drop off his dictation machine. It had recorded the café meeting, just in case. He checked his reflection in the glass of a picture frame. There were dark rings under his eyes and some sag to his cheeks, but it was the end of a long day. It was the best he could do.

He headed for the door when Gina burst through, Monica just behind her.

Gina checked her watch. ‘It’s early for you, Joe.’

‘It’s been a long couple of days,’ he said. ‘Sometimes you can only read the same words so many times.’

‘I’ve found a blood expert,’ Gina said. ‘He does blood spatter normally, but he can age it to some extent. Bloodstains get a black border round them after a couple of months, and this border will increase in size all the time, until it gets to about nine months old.’

‘And we can prove Carrie and Grace were alive more than two months ago,’ Joe said. ‘So if we can show a black border, we can eliminate it from the morning of the argument?’

‘Exactly,’ Gina said.

Joe grinned. ‘I like it.’ He turned to Monica. ‘How were Terry’s neighbours?’

‘Interesting,’ Monica said. ‘Terry Day isn’t popular on that street.’

‘Tell me more,’ Joe said. He had gleaned that himself, but had been lacking in detail.

Monica opened the notepad she had taken with her. ‘He’s awarded himself the job of some kind of neighbourhood warden. Except that it isn’t anything official, and the hardest thing is finding out any facts about his background, because it’s all gossip. Most people haven’t been there very long. It’s turned into a rental area, and there’s a high turnover of tenants. The gossip is that he has lived there all of his life. The house used to belong to his parents, but when they died it was too big for him. He retreated to the top floor and let out the other floors, and it appears that he wasn’t a great landlord. Most of his tenants used to bitch about him to the neighbours.’

‘About what?’

‘About being creepy. One of the neighbours across the road used to be one of his tenants, until another flat came free. She moved out because he was odd. When she first started renting, he used to let rooms, like in a shared house, but he wouldn’t allow them use of the kitchen. He put a small stove in each room, like a camping stove, and they had to wash their plates in the bathroom sink. She said that wherever she turned, he always seemed to be there, just watching. After that, people kept on leaving and so he turned them into flats.’

‘What does he do for a living?’

‘Nothing, it seems. There are rumours that he lives off a big inheritance. He cycles into town and just hangs around cafés and pubs. When he’s not doing that, he bangs on neighbours’ doors, harassing them about some problem or other. Bikes left on the pavement, a late party, things like that.’

‘A local oddball. Nothing wrong with that,’ Joe said, pacing now, knowing that there was something extra.

‘How about a deceitful fantasist?’ Monica said.

Joe stopped. His eyes widened. ‘Go on.’

‘He had a reputation as some kind of war hero,’ Monica said. ‘He used to go to the Remembrance Sunday marches every year, in his blazer and his beret. No one else on the street has been there long enough to remember him as a young man, and so they thought he was a Falklands veteran or something. He’s, what, mid-fifties? So he used to walk round, ordering people about, and they put up with it, because he had that military bearing.’

Joe started to smile. He could see where this was going.

‘You’re right to smile, Joe,’ Gina said, taking up the story. ‘It all came crashing down for him. I met a few people like him in my police days, those who lied about their exploits just for the attention. They’d get a weekend in the cells, until we found out they had nothing to do with the crime. The problem is that they get greedy with their fantasies, because even they get bored with the one they have created for themselves. That’s what happened to Terry Day. He enjoyed his fantasies but boasted too much about his adventures and started to wear too many medals. And none of it was real. All he had was a blazer and second-hand medals, but someone took a picture of him and sent it to the paper, wondering about this local war hero with a chest full of glory. He was everyone’s favourite veteran for a couple of days, until some real soldiers saw it and realised he was a fake.’

Gina looked towards Monica, who responded by pulling a sheet of paper from an envelope she had been holding in her hand.

‘We went to the local library,’ Monica said. ‘They remembered the story, because in towns like Marton, they remember the gossip. They found the back issue of the local paper and let me copy it.’

She put the piece of paper on the desk.

Joe picked it up to read.

The main photograph was a picture of the man he had disturbed earlier in the day, except that he was more smartly dressed. The Terry Day he had met had been in scruffy jogging bottoms and his hair unkempt. The Terry Day in the photograph wore a sand-coloured beret with a dagger and flames insignia and a smart navy blazer, pride burning in the set of his jaw and the stare of his eyes through dark-rimmed frames. Across the breast pocket was an array of medals, and it looked impressive, a testament to bravery that was in excess of the men marching behind him. Old men wearing poppies, their expressions a mix of pride and sadness, the day about remembering those less lucky than they had been.

Underneath the picture was a list of medals worn by Terry Day. They ranged from the South Atlantic Medal to the NATO medal, along with medals for distinguished service and meritorious service, and many others. Seventeen in total, all lined up. Marton’s own war hero.

‘None of it is true,’ Monica said. ‘He was trying to impress a woman in the next street and it seems like he got carried away, began to enjoy the attention. He made up war stories in the pubs and cafés, but once everyone found out, life got pretty tough for him. He was shunned. He goes to the same pubs, but he sits on his own.’

‘This is good,’ Joe said.

‘But being a liar doesn’t make him a murderer,’ Gina said.

‘No, it doesn’t,’ Joe said. ‘It makes him untruthful though.’

‘So we keep on looking into Terry?’ Monica said.

‘And don’t stop until there’s nothing left to know,’ Joe said, looking at the piece of paper again, smiling. The case had just got a little better.

Thirty-Seven

Joe looked around as he got close to the pub. It wasn’t a usual meeting place for him, but he didn’t want to go any place where he would be seen. He was in The Ox, a white-painted corner pub near the Science Museum, so that the street was filled with tourists and school groups, not the lawyers and accountants who fleshed out the pubs along Deansgate.

Kim Reader was already in the bar when he walked in. She was sitting in front of the window, the light blocked out by dark stained glass, which made the inside of the pub look gloomy. There were tables outside, filled with some of the after-work crowd, but it seemed that Kim had thought the same thing he had – that it was better not to be seen together.

Kim was staring down at the table, drinking from a bottle. When he slid in alongside her, squeaking on a burgundy leather bench, she looked up.

‘I thought you were standing me up,’ she said, and then she smiled.

‘No, never,’ he said, grinning. ‘Do you want another? You can put it in your hospitality disclosure book, if you want.’

Kim thought about that, and said, ‘Why not?’ before draining it.

When he returned from the bar, two bottles in his hands, he said, ‘So how was your day?’

‘The same as all of them,’ she said. ‘Not enough time to do what I’d like to do.’

They talked through their day for a while, each of them avoiding Ronnie’s case. For Kim, it was all office politics. Who had upset her over something trivial, the pressure to do more as staff numbers went down. For Joe, it was talk of business worries, of how getting paid for being a criminal lawyer was getting harder each year.

Then Kim said, ‘Let’s get it out of the way. It spoiled last night. We might as well deal with it now. Ronnie Bagley.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It will come up, it is bound to, so let’s talk about it now. Then we can have a drink as old friends. Nothing goes beyond this table though.’

‘That depends on what you tell me,’ he said. When Kim frowned, he added, ‘You can’t expect me to hold back something that will help Ronnie.’

‘Okay, I understand, but don’t worry, there’s nothing I know that you don’t or won’t.’

‘Let me try this then. Do you think he’s guilty?’

‘I’ve never prosecuted anyone I didn’t think was guilty.’

Joe raised his eyebrows. ‘Never?’

There was a pause, and then, ‘Well, that depends on how you look at it, because there are different ways to believe in a case. Sometimes you have got to trust what the witnesses say. If they are telling the truth, then yes, I believe someone is guilty. Put another way: I’ve never prosecuted someone I thought was innocent.’

‘What about during a trial? I’ve lost cases I thought I had won.’

‘You’re talking about innocence, not guilt.’

‘No, you are,’ Joe said. ‘I didn’t use the word “innocent”. I’m talking about whether you think someone can be proved guilty.’

‘That’s your conscience speaking, Joe,’ she said. ‘It’s how you rationalise what you do. To you, guilt is a concept, that if we can’t prove that a person did something bad, then it is some kind of moral vacuum, but real life isn’t like that. Guilt is an emotion, not a verdict.’

‘So you prosecute emotionally?’

‘It’s hard not to.’ Kim leaned closer to Joe, her elbows on the table. ‘Let me tell you about something you won’t see, and that is how many times we have to say no to cases against really bad people just because we know that we won’t get it past a jury, because a witness won’t get involved, or because we can’t get funding for a crucial forensic report. Those are the cases that keep me awake, not the Ronnie Bagleys of the world, where at least we have a go. Juries sometimes get it wrong. Hell, sometimes we do, because we miss something or don’t spot a defence tactic, but at least we tried.’

‘So you think Ronnie is guilty?’

‘Yes, absolutely, and I mean guilt as in he did it, not whether we are sure to convict him. What about you?’

‘Just between us, never to leave this table?’

‘Of course.’

Joe smiled. ‘I’ve got my work cut out, I know that, but I just don’t think he killed them both. I don’t see that shadow around him. The evidence tells me that he’s guilty, but sometimes the evidence is not what it seems.’

‘What do you mean?’

Joe took a drink. He wondered whether he should say anything about Terry Day. He would have to disclose what he had discovered at some point, as the law doesn’t allow surprise attacks anymore, but was The Ox the right venue for it to happen?

Or he could find out whether Kim already knew.

‘What about Terry Day?’ he said.

Kim paused as her mind flicked through the witness list. ‘The landlord? What about him?’

‘How do you know he didn’t do it? He’s alone in the house with her all day. She used to drink a lot. Perhaps he did it.’

‘The landlord’s in the clear,’ Kim said. ‘He’s got no record. A decent man.’

‘So you’ve nothing to show that he isn’t always truthful? Some man living on the top floor of some rundown building, a bit of an oddball?’

Kim sat back. ‘Have you got anything to show that?’

Joe had got the answer he needed, that Kim didn’t know what the neighbours saw, and he didn’t want to let his client down by spilling secrets because he was faced with the long lashes of an ex-girlfriend.

‘Just a notion,’ he said, and then, to change the subject, ‘It was good to see you last night.’

‘Yeah, you too.’

She flushed, and there it was. Unfinished business. Joe saw it in the small flare of her eyes, the dark shadow of her pupils.

‘There is one thing though,’ he said. ‘I don’t mess around with people in relationships.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What I said.’

Kim tapped the side of the bottle with her fingernail. ‘Can I be honest with you, Joe?’

‘I want you to be.’

‘You’ve always been about bad timing. I know for you we were perhaps just a couple of fun times, notches on your bedpost, but I don’t give myself up easily. I did for you, and, well, it was a big deal. Then I had to watch you carry on as if we were just drunken moments. Maybe we were the right people but at the wrong time.’

Joe was surprised. ‘Yes, maybe,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know you felt like that. I’m sorry.’

‘Knowing doesn’t matter. If you didn’t feel it, there was no point in knowing it.’ She patted his hand and took a drink. ‘Don’t worry, I’m no stalker. I knew we would both meet other people. I was with someone when you turned up in Manchester, and then you were with someone when I was single. It’s just the way things are. This is how we turned out. I thought of you though, more than I should have done.’

‘How do you know I didn’t think of you?’

Kim gave him a look of reproach. ‘I don’t mean something you could use when you felt horny and alone. I mean something more than that. Something in here,’ and she patted her chest.

‘It’s not that though,’ Joe said. ‘It doesn’t matter what you feel; if you were happy with Sean, none of it would matter.’