Next to Die (37 page)

‘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 involved. 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.

‘It wasn’t Ronnie Bagley who attacked us,’ Sam said. ‘Because whoever attacked Charlotte wasn’t a
him
. It was a
her
.’

Sixty-Two

Joe ran to his mother’s house without locking his car. The street was quiet, just the vague outlines of some kids hovering at the end of the street, and his mother spotlit on her step, a lone sentry, clutching a tissue.

‘Joe, you’re here,’ she said as he got closer. She looked like she wanted to be hugged, looking up at him, expectant, but Joe bristled. He hadn’t hugged his mother since that afternoon when Ellie was murdered.

‘Talk to me, what’s happened?’ he said as he went inside, his mother behind him, shuffling slowly. He could smell the booze on her.

‘She didn’t come home from school,’ she said, tears coming now. There was a slur to her voice. He checked his watch. Nine o’clock. It was around the time the day got blurred for her.

‘Are you sure you haven’t just forgotten something, that she told you she was going to a friend’s house?’

‘Why would I forget?’

Joe marched through to the kitchen and picked up the bottle of vodka. It was a small one, as if it was some kind of disguise, hiding the problem, because Joe knew there would be more small bottles in other cupboards. ‘This?’

‘Don’t shout at me, Joe,’ she said, and then turned away to sit down on a chair in the other room. Her head went into her hands, and Joe felt the hot stab of guilt.

But he didn’t apologise. Instead he ran upstairs, into Ruby’s room.

It had been a while since he was last in there – he left the whole family thing to Sam – and her room was more grown up than he remembered. There were hair products lying on their sides on the floor, and her clothes spilled out of drawers. Joe noticed a cigarette lighter on a desk by the window. He rummaged for cigarette papers with strips torn from the boxes, to be used as roaches for joints, a hint of drug problems, but there weren’t any. At least she had avoided that route so far.

There were pictures of film stars around the walls, although Ruby went for the old ones. A young Marlon Brando on a bike, James Dean leaning against a barn. Just nostalgic cliché shots. He turned on her computer and, as he waited for it to boot up, he looked around the room. It seemed like he didn’t really know her, as if she had grown up without him noticing. He realised that he didn’t know anything about her. Where she went. Who her friends were.

He went to the stairs and shouted down, ‘What time does she normally get in?’

A pause, and then a tear-filled shout of, ‘Depends. Sometimes after six. But never this late.’

‘And where does she go?’

‘Just to see school friends. She doesn’t really say.’

Joe clenched his jaw and went back to Ruby’s room. How had they come to this? Some pretence of family life, with birthday cakes and collective mourning, when in reality it was broken, so that everyone just lived in their own bubble.

The computer had finished its whirr and chatter and so Joe went to the internet. He went to her browser history and saw the entry for her social networking site. He clicked on it and let it load.

Pictures of Ruby flashed onto the screen and he saw a girl he hardly recognised. Flirtatious, grown up. He went to the messages, looking for something that would give him a hint. It was worse than that. There were messages asking where she had gone, because her friends hadn’t heard from her that evening. It was Thursday night, the build up to the weekend.

Joe typed some responses, explaining who he was, and wanting to know if anyone knew if she had anything planned. He paced the room for a few minutes until he saw the screen change. There had been a reply from one of her friends. No. Evythg ok?

He rubbed his face with his hand. He realised then that everything really wasn’t okay.

Joe looked around again, for any hint that made it more sinister. Her phone wasn’t there, so he guessed she had planned to be out, but then she had been to school, so perhaps she always had it with her.

He saw a photograph on the small dresser near her bed, propped up against her radio-alarm. A young man, a teenager, good-looking.

He went to the stairs again. ‘Does Ruby have a boyfriend?’

A pause, and then, ‘She hasn’t said anything.’

‘Okay,’ he said, and then went back into her bedroom. He went to Ruby’s list of friends, looking for the person in the photograph. He scrolled down her list, wondering how she could know so many people, until near the bottom, he found him.

Joe clicked on his profile. It was the same picture. He looked at his page, and it struck him that there were only a small number of friends. Seven. He knew how the networking sites worked, that once you started, people dragged you in, and soon your page was filled by people you hardly knew. Friends of friends of friends.

He scanned the personal information. Billy Bridge. Likes football and music and fun. Doesn’t like authority and being told what to do. Just a normal young man.

Except he didn’t seem like a normal young man. There was something not right about it. There were no posts on his personal page, hardly any friends, and no real information.

He tried calling Sam. He had been with Ruby the night before, when he thought she was being followed. It rang out. When it went to voicemail, he left a message. ‘Sam, it’s me. Call me. It’s urgent. We don’t know where Ruby is.’

When he clicked off and the room returned to silence, he felt the darkness descend, and the memory of that day fifteen years earlier rushed at him once more.

Sixty-Three

Sam couldn’t see Alice as he walked up the path to his front door. The drive was empty, his car still near Terry Day’s house, where he and Charlotte had left it.

He went into the kitchen and saw a beer bottle on the side, only half-drunk. He opened the fridge. The wine had been opened, although he couldn’t see the glass.

Sam looked for a glass for himself, and as he poured himself a drink, he heard footsteps on the stairs.

Alice walked in, her glass in her hand, and Sam saw that she had been crying. ‘Are you all right?’ he said.

She came towards him, and so he held out his good arm, the hand holding the glass. ‘No hugs, please,’ he said, grimacing.

She took his hand and kissed it instead. ‘The girls are at my parents’ tonight. I don’t want them to see you like this.’

‘It won’t have gone by tomorrow so they’ll have to get used to it.’

‘It’s not just that, because I can’t protect them from what might happen to you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I used to worry about you when you were patrolling. But then you were doing the financial cases and so it seemed safe. You’re doing this now and so I’ll go back to wondering whether I’ll get a phone call one night to say that you’re never coming home. People die doing your job. I can’t cope with that thought.’

‘It’s what I am,’ he said. ‘I can’t change that.’

Alice went to the fridge to refill her glass, then stared into her wine for a few seconds before saying, ‘So it was a false alarm about Ruby?’

Sam faltered as he raised his glass. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you’re here, so it must be all right.’

‘What are you talking about?’ He put the glass down.

‘Ruby,’ she said. ‘Joe was trying to call you.’

Sam was confused, but then he remembered. ‘I turned my phone off when I went into hospital.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled it out, turning it on.

‘So you don’t know?’ Alice said, and as Sam shook his head, she put her hand to her mouth.

His phone buzzed. Voicemail. He listened. It was Joe. He didn’t call often. Then what he said made his hand tremble.

‘Sam, it’s me. Call me. It’s urgent. We don’t know where Ruby is.’

He clicked off his phone and headed back out into the night.

Ruby looked over at the man in the driver’s seat. Billy’s dad, so he said. She didn’t like the way he kept leering at her, looking at her hair, then at her legs. She wished she’d worn trousers.

‘Where is Billy?’ she said. She knew she sounded sulky, but they had been waiting a long time, the delay broken only by a fast food meal.

He glanced over. She drew her knees together and folded her arms. He made her uncomfortable. Her fingers played with the door handle, but it was locked. He must have heard her do it because he said, ‘He won’t be long. His gym class must have overrun.’ He smiled. ‘He’ll make it up to you.’

She didn’t believe him anymore. Something wasn’t right. She was in the middle of Manchester to meet someone she had only ever talked to on the computer, and it was getting dark.

But she was being paranoid. She had seen Billy’s pictures, his history. No, everything was all right. Billy just needed to get there.

It wasn’t a nice place to sit though. The van smelled of old cigarettes and sweat. Billy’s dad was smoking again. She wanted to open her window to let some air in, but he had refused when she’d asked. So she had to put up with the smell of his cigarettes seeping into her clothes and hair.

She glanced across. He looked dirty. His eyes looked tired, surrounded by dark rings. He had strange markings on his hand, like small lines tattooed at the end of his thumb. Six of them.

The thought of Billy kept her there though. They had shared so much. Her secrets, her thoughts, her desires, and he had shared his own. They had been building to this, she knew that, although it had come quicker than she expected. She was excited but nervous, impatient and restless. She didn’t want to leave the van. It looked threatening outside, with the orange streetlights lighting the shiny redbrick of the viaduct arches, just the occasional rumble from the railway lines to break the gloom.

Billy’s dad craned forward. There was someone ahead, moving quickly. ‘Almost here,’ he said.