Next to Die Page 9

  ‘They come in all guises. That’s what you were saying two minutes ago.’

  ‘Killing your own child is different. That would lead to some kind of darkness. With Ronnie, there’s nothing. He’s scared, because of this case, but he doesn’t seem haunted by anything.’

  Kim didn’t have time to respond because the door behind the raised bench opened and the judge walked in, with his horsehair wig and red sash over his silk clothes, like some extravagant dandy. It was the Recorder, the senior judge on the circuit who supervised all the most serious cases. Joe made a mental note that it was ‘my Lord’, not ‘your Honour’. The words were habit-forming, a way of filling the gaps in speech, but when it resulted in bad etiquette, it gave the judge an excuse to try to make him look small.

  Everyone rose to their feet and waited for the judge to nod that they should sit down. Joe fastened his suit jacket. It was supposed to be fastened, but he always made a show of it, just so the judge spotted his respect. It was the little things that won arguments. Once in his place, the judge looked towards Joe with a scowl.

  They rushed through the preliminary matters. Ronnie’s name. The charge. Ronnie’s plea of not guilty. Joe was able to set out which witnesses he wanted. When it came to fixing a date, they needed to know whether Ronnie would stay in prison. The trial would come around sooner if he stayed behind bars. The judge waved for Kim to stay seated.

  ‘Do you have an application, Mr Parker?’

  Joe understood the shorthand. Don’t waste my time with a bail application. But Joe was more interested in Ronnie’s feelings.

  Joe rose to his feet. ‘I do, my Lord.’

  The judge raised his eyebrows, thick and white under his wig. ‘I’ve read the papers.’

  ‘I’m pleased, my Lord, because the flaws in the prosecution case are obvious.’

  The judge sat back and seemed amused. ‘Please enlighten me.’

  Joe glanced towards the screen. Ronnie was leaning forward, his expression keen. The detectives were sitting back, smirking, thinking that they had the judge on their side. What they didn’t know was that Joe had been first into the courtroom and a warm smile from him had made the court clerk let slip that the judge wasn’t impressed with the case. Perhaps not enough to let Ronnie stay free until his trial, but at least it gave Joe a chance.

  ‘The case is built on three things,’ Joe said. ‘Blood, an argument, and a confession.’

  ‘And two missing people.’

  ‘That’s the crucial word, my Lord. Missing, not dead. What if my client spends months incarcerated and then the deceased walks into the court, his daughter in a pushchair? It has to be a possibility. The blood? We’ve got smears, that’s all. Nothing to age it yet, and his girlfriend lived there too. There was an argument, and not for the first time. It is a real leap to say that he must have killed his girlfriend, and then his own daughter.’

  ‘What about the confession?’ the judge said. ‘He walked into a police station and admitted killing his partner.’

  ‘It depends which confession you mean,’ Joe said. ‘I counted at least three. So which one is it? “I’ve killed her”? “I think I’ve killed her”? Or “It’s my fault, I’ve killed her”? We don’t want another Derek Bentley case of “Let him have it, Chris”, where people lose everything on a nuance. Does the prosecution have it recorded anywhere?’

  The judge turned to Kim. ‘Miss Reader?’

  She rose to her feet, Joe giving way to her. ‘If your Lordship means whether it is captured on CCTV, the answer is no.’

  ‘But three accounts?’ the judge said.

  ‘One account from the person who heard it, and two accounts from people to whom he recounted it. Their recollections may be flawed, but we have an account from the person who heard it.’

  ‘Who might have got it wrong, by the sounds of it.’

  Kim didn’t respond.

  ‘And the blood?’ the judge continued. ‘Can you prove it is recent?’

  ‘I’m told we can age the blood. We will seek to do that, but it is too early in the case to have that evidence available.’

  ‘So at the moment you can’t age the smears?’

  Kim shook her head. ‘No, my Lord.’ A flush developed in her cheeks.

  ‘So we can’t be sure what was said and we can’t be sure how long the blood has been there?’

  ‘No, my Lord,’ Kim said, her voice getting quieter.

  ‘And so all you have is an argument and two missing people.’

  Joe felt a glow of anticipation that the case was turning his way. The judge paused and looked up at the television, at Ronnie craning forward, anxious.

  Joe scribbled on a piece of paper and slid it along the desk to Kim.

  Kim glanced down and read it. Agree bail and I won’t say anything else about the evidence. Let it go to trial. She took a couple of deep breaths and turned to the back of the courtroom, to the detectives who were now leaning forward, their arms over the brass rail of the public gallery. She looked at Joe, who winked. He knew his words were still in her mind, that he could try to get the judge to dislike the case from the start.

  ‘My Lord, the prosecution haven’t asked for the defendant to be remanded in custody,’ she said. Her voice was quiet, and she blinked at the sound of the two detectives walking briskly out of court, their moods discernible from the thumps of their hands against the door. ‘Bail would be appropriate, with conditions, if your Lordship approves.’

  ‘Does he have any convictions?’

  ‘A minor assault a few years ago.’

  ‘And does he have somewhere to live?’

  Joe rose to his feet. ‘He can stay at his mother’s address, in Marton. She is at the back of the court.’

  The judge nodded to himself. ‘So be it,’ he said eventually. When Joe bowed his gratitude, the judge added, ‘I hope this man’s partner walks into a police station soon, but if any bodies are found, the prosecution will succeed in getting your client’s bail revoked.’

  Joe bowed his gratitude again. ‘I hear you, my Lord.’

  He swivelled round to Monica, who was beaming her admiration, and when he looked at Ronnie, his mouth was open, shock on his face. Ronnie was getting out.

  As Joe looked around, his eyes went to the back of the courtroom. Whoever the man was who had been watching, he had gone.

  Nineteen

  Sam was confused. ‘Ben Grant wants to speak to me?’ he said to Evans. ‘Why me?’

  ‘Because you caught him, is my guess,’ Evans said. ‘He knows who you are, and your importance to the case, although he might think you’re still a uniformed constable and so you’ll be a soft target, be taken in by him. Ben Grant is all about his ego.’

  ‘I’m okay, I can deal with him,’ Sam said, nodding.

  ‘Good, I’m glad to hear it. I’m not going to rush it though, because what Grant will hate is being ignored. He might tell us more if he gets desperate to tell us. So familiarise yourself with these four missing girls. Know all about them, read everything, get the facts in here.’ She tapped the side of her head. ‘Places, dates, so that if he says something that you know is plain wrong, we can discount it, put it down to what we think it will be, Ben Grant being grandiose, but if he tells you something that we haven’t released, then you’ll know it’s important. More than that, he might tell you something we don’t know.’

  ‘I can do this,’ Sam said.

  ‘You mustn’t share anything with him though. You are not going to see him so that he can indulge in sick fantasies, something for when he’s on his own in his cell. The flow of information is going one way only.’

  ‘I understand, but there is something I don’t get.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘The coincidence. You drag me in because of Ronnie Bagley, because my brother became his lawyer, and now Ben Grant wants me too. I can’t understand why I’ve become so popular.’

  Evans drummed her fingers on the desk for a few seconds and then sighed. ‘It’s
no coincidence.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There is a link with Ronnie Bagley’s case, although not an obvious one,’ Evans said. ‘Bagley killed Carrie Smith, his partner, along with their child. That’s our case, except that Carrie is something significant to Ben Grant. Does her name sound familiar?’

  Sam curled his lip as he thought about it, and then said, ‘No, it doesn’t.’

  ‘Carrie used to work with Ben Grant,’ Evans said. ‘Her name came up a few times in Grant’s case, because there were rumours he had a girlfriend, except he wouldn’t admit it.’

  ‘And the rumours pointed to Carrie?’

  ‘Yes, and guess what: in the last five years, Carrie has been visiting Grant in prison. She was the only person he ever allowed to visit.’

  Sam was surprised. ‘Why would anyone want to visit Ben Grant? Girlfriend or not, he raped and killed children, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘I don’t know, and we’ll never find out now, because we think Ronnie killed her, but she’s another link to Ben Grant, and we haven’t found her body either.’

  ‘But if she is another missing woman connected to Grant, couldn’t she be another victim of the same person who has made the others disappear?’

  ‘Perhaps, but we don’t think so. She’s a different type of victim. She’s a lot older, for a start. And there is other evidence linking Ronnie to her murder. The blood. A confession. Threats. Carrie is different from the others because she was actually connected to Grant. The other missing girls are just connected to people who put Grant away. A barrister. A detective. A crime scene investigator. A juror. It seems almost as if they are some kind of revenge for Ben Grant. Carrie’s murder is different.’

  ‘So what can Grant know? And who would do it for him?’

  ‘Sam, cast your mind back to when you discovered Grant, in those bushes. You are the only person who can know the answer to this, because you were alone when you caught him.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You said in your original statement that you were totally focused on Ben Grant.’

  ‘I was. I just knew something dangerous was happening. I was watching him totally. I’ll admit it, I was scared.’

  Evans looked Sam in the eye. ‘Think carefully, Sam. Could there have been someone else in the bushes?’

  He was surprised, but his mind went back once more. Dark greenery, with only his torch to illuminate the scene. He had kept it trained on Grant. There were noises, soft swishes. ‘I heard something, but no voices, no shouting, no one running. Just some movement, like rustling. Are you thinking that he might have had an accomplice?’

  ‘Maybe. These four missing girls aren’t copycat, because the bodies haven’t been found, but it is connected. They all have relations connected to the Ben Grant case. Now his most frequent visitor is missing, presumed dead.’

  ‘More than presumed,’ Sam said. ‘Someone is charged with her murder.’ When Evans didn’t answer, he asked, ‘Are you thinking that Ronnie Bagley was his accomplice?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  Sam thought about it. He had followed the Ben Grant case, because of his interest in it, and Ronnie Bagley’s name had never come up. ‘But if Ronnie was on some kind of revenge mission for Ben Grant, why would he kill Carrie? She was his girlfriend, the mother of his child.’

  ‘We’ve asked ourselves the same questions. It might be just a coincidence. Ronnie’s case looks like a domestic killing, an attack in their flat, and perhaps it is just one of those things that Grant’s most frequent visitor was murdered at a time when these girls were going missing.’

  ‘Do you believe that?’ Sam said.

  Evans shook her head. ‘No good copper likes a coincidence. Which is more likely, that it is pure chance, or that it means something? Carrie knew Grant. She was his confidante. Is that how she got to know Ronnie, because of his connection to Grant? Was she was going to expose him as Grant’s accomplice? Had Grant told her something that no one else knew? Had Ronnie been attracted to Carrie because he could keep in touch with Grant through her? There are so many scenarios that we don’t know where to start. So go and see Grant; your job is to make him desperate to share.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ Sam said, although as Evans nodded her approval, he wondered how he would deal with meeting someone who had done just what someone else had done to Ellie, fifteen years earlier. It wasn’t something he relished.

  Evans smiled. ‘Good to have you on board.’

  Sam thanked her. This was his chance.

  Twenty

  Joe stood and waited by his car outside Strangeways, Monica next to him, with Ronnie’s mother still sat in the back, her bag on her knees, confusion in her eyes, just like she had seemed at court. His car was parked awkwardly, so Joe had one eye on the prison gate, the other on the traffic patrols, hoping not to cop a ticket. It was a rare thing for Joe, because it wasn’t his job to give prisoners lifts home, but then again, Ronnie was a murder suspect so he got special treatment.

  ‘Can I ask something?’ Monica said. Her voice seemed hesitant.

  ‘Yes, anything,’ Joe said.

  ‘I don’t mean to be rude, and I’m sorry if you think I am, but, well,’ and she smiled nervously, ‘I like you and I think I can talk to you.’

  Joe returned the smile. ‘Just say it. You won’t offend me.’

  ‘You’ve been quiet ever since we left court. I just thought you’d be happier, because you did your job well. You got Ronnie out of prison when most people wouldn’t. Is it because he’s accused of murder so you worry you’ve done the wrong thing? I need to know how I’ll be able to cope with things like that, helping people who’ve done bad things.’

  Joe was surprised. He hadn’t realised he had seemed distant, although he had been brooding. The stranger at the back of court had unnerved him, the same person who had been outside his office the day before. It meant there were things happening that felt out of his control. He didn’t like that.

  But he didn’t want to share any of that with Monica.

  ‘It’s a responsibility,’ Joe said. ‘There are no guarantees when he leaves prison. He has promised to turn up for his trial and keep out of trouble, but empty promises are easily made.’

  He was saved from any further discussion by a noise, a creak of hinges. A small grey door opened, next to the large steel ones where the white prison vans drove in. A guard looked out first, a bald head and bright white shirt, and then Ronnie stepped into freedom.

  Ronnie blinked and shielded his eyes at first. He looked around, shocked, as if he hadn’t expected his day to turn out like that. When he saw Joe he waved, although it seemed hesitant.

  As he got closer, Joe said, ‘How are you feeling?’

  Ronnie took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know. Pleased to be out of there, I suppose, but it’s not over yet.’

  ‘So you need to do whatever I say,’ Joe replied. ‘If the trial goes badly, you’ll be back in there, except this time with no privileges.’

  ‘I want a drink.’

  ‘You’ve time for that later.’

  ‘No, now, just one,’ Ronnie said. ‘I’ve had a rough night. I deserve one.’

  Joe sighed. He needed to speak to Ronnie anyway. Getting clients in for their appointments was one of the many challenges the job created, because they lived chaotic lives and didn’t go by a normal clock. Every day was just another hard slog to get through, and so a meeting a week later was often nothing more than a niggle that they knew they had somewhere to go that day. He hoped it would be different with Ronnie, but he wanted to avoid the possibility.

  ‘All right,’ Joe said, ‘but then straight to your mother’s afterwards.’

  ‘Is she in there?’ Ronnie said, nodding towards the car.

  ‘She’s the key to your freedom,’ Joe said. ‘If she hadn’t turned up today, you wouldn’t have got out.’

  Winnie put her face to the car window. There was no gesture from Ronnie, no smile or wave. He wa
lked round to the other side and climbed in alongside her. She turned to say hello but Ronnie just mumbled in reply. When Joe climbed in, he looked into his mirror and said, ‘So where to, Ronnie? Your call.’

  ‘Can you take me to Marton?’ When Joe agreed, Ronnie said, ‘Good. I’ll tell you when we get there.’

  Joe exchanged a curious glance with Monica, but it was Ronnie’s freedom, not his. The least Joe could do was let him choose where to drink his first pint.

  Marton was a small town outside of the Manchester ring, one of the last stops before the sprawling moorlands of the Pennines. The journey started as inner city clutter, with adult shops and bargain off-licences, before it opened out into semi-detached suburbia and then the small towns just outside the motorway that looped around Manchester. The journey was quiet, with Ronnie’s mother silent all the way there, and Ronnie either looking out of the window or down at his phone, which had been in his hand ever since they left the prison.

  The nearer they got to Marton, the greener it became, with the last part of the journey a long climb lined by low stone walls and trees that grew over the road. The branches clattered against buses and made shadows across the tarmac, and the hilltops were just barren glimpses between the trees.

  The mood changed as they drove into the town. The redbrick of Manchester was replaced by the grey stone of the Pennines, where the doorways were smaller and the streets ran much steeper. The sun tried to give it some rustic charm, reflecting brightly against the polished steps on the rows of cottages that fronted up to the road. But up here the winds blew hard, and even on the warmest days a grey cloud always seemed to be nearby, ready to take away the brightness.

  Joe checked his mirror to look into the back seat. Ronnie was staring forward, at Monica, suddenly less interested in his surroundings.

  ‘So where are we having this drink, Ronnie?’ Joe said, as the houses gave way to shops.

  Ronnie peered through the windscreen and then pointed. ‘There. The Brittania, near the station.’