Find Them Dead

43 Saturday 11 May

Meg stood in the kitchen, staring at the photograph, still holding the planted phone. Laura and Cassie.

At the far end of the world, it seemed at this moment.

She was shaking. Shivering. The room felt icy as if a ghost had entered. Rain tapped hard on the windows and the glass of the conservatory off the kitchen. Her eyes darted around.

Someone had been in here. They might come back at any time. She hurried, stumbling up the stairs and into her den. Then she googled ‘Hotels in Brighton and Hove’.

Twenty minutes later, having fed the animals, Meg left the house with a few things in an overnight bag, including her own phone and the new phone, and checked into a budget hotel she had found just off the seafront, a mile from her house. The interior was as gloomy as the exterior was drab, the room furnished with a small double bed, a side table, an ancient television, a clock radio and a Corby trouser press, and there was barely enough light from the feeble bulbs to be able to read.

She sat down on the hard bed with her things beside her, shaking and crying, a terrible sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. What to do? God, what to do? Go to the police? And risk Laura’s life?

She had never missed her husband more than at this moment. What would her lovely sensible Nick have done, she wondered?

So often he used to quote an old saying of his father’s — that life could turn on a sixpence. He was also fond of quoting, ‘Live every day as if it’s your last, because one day you’ll be right.’

And he had been right. The day their lives had turned on a damned sixpence, or rather on that sodding van driver’s mobile phone screen, and whilst he would be out of prison in just eighteen months, for causing death by dangerous driving, she and Laura were doomed to a life sentence.

Yes, my darling, darling Nick, you were so right. And, God, I need you here now so badly. I need to talk to you. I need your advice. What would it have been? You were always so wise, you’d have found a solution, the one I hadn’t thought of. I know you would.

She eventually undressed and went to bed, but sleep for a long while was impossible. The clock radio filled the room with a green glow and there was a loud, persistent drip-drip-drip from a broken pipe or gutter just beyond her window.

The night ticked by, one slow minute at a time. Finally, she dozed off, only to wake with a start and a terrible feeling of dread.

3.38 a.m.

Then 3.39 a.m.

What to do? What the hell should she do?

She and Nick had tried to instil in their children always to do what they felt was the right thing, despite what anyone might think or say to the contrary. Will and Laura had been very close. He had been a huge champion of the issue of climate change, which was why Laura now, bless her, had become almost messianic in her zeal to stop the use of plastic bags and any single-use plastic items, among other things she tried to do for the environment. She cared, really cared, about her fellow human beings and all animals, and Meg loved that about her. She was proud of the kind and thoughtful young woman Laura had become.

But now she was faced with a dilemma she just could not get her head around. A dilemma that so wracked her with fear she struggled to think straight. It felt as if her brain was revolving like a tombola drum, tossing all her thoughts around like the raffle tickets inside. The only good way out of this situation would be if Terence Gready was so obviously innocent of all charges that the verdicts on every count could not be in doubt.

And what were the chances of that? She’d be better able to assess the trial after the next couple of days, when they’d heard the prosecution’s opening case on each of the counts, and the defence’s response. But they were very serious offences, and she doubted she’d ever have received that phone call if the defence had felt truly confident.

Earlier in this endless night she’d done an internet search to see how juries worked, and found out that a majority jury verdict of 10–2 would normally be accepted by a judge. So, regardless of the evidence, she was going to have to coerce at least nine of her eleven fellow jurors into giving the verdicts she needed on each count.

Just how morally wrong was it to potentially let a major criminal, whose drugs probably killed dozens of people every year, according to the indictments, go free? In order to save her daughter? And in doing so to go against every principle she believed in and had instilled in her kids?

And she knew exactly how Laura would react if she knew. She’d be livid if she believed her mother was prepared to do anything to pervert justice. Which was why, if she succeeded — and at this stage, God only knew how — Laura must never ever find out. This dilemma she faced struck at the heart of her conscience and her very being. What would anybody do in this situation?

She so badly needed someone she could talk to, confide in.

You tell any friend or go to the authorities and you will find them dead.

4.01

4.02

Through the curtains, the sky was now starting to show the first signs of daylight. Outside, the first tentative chirrups of the dawn chorus began, like first arrivals in an orchestra pit tuning their instruments.

You tell no one. No one at all. You don’t breathe a word to any of your friends. We will know, trust me.

Was he bluffing or would they really know?

If so, how?

The man who had put the photograph on the kitchen table had been in her house, and she had no idea for how long. It could have been less than sixty seconds, or he could have spent hours there. Perhaps with colleagues? Planting bugs in every room? In her computer? In phones?

Meg reached for her own phone and went to the Google app. Was it dangerous typing anything? Would they have some way of knowing what she was looking for? Was even just doing this putting Laura’s life in danger? But she had to do something. And, she reasoned, her mind suddenly very clear, the power Terence Gready’s people had over her at this moment was the threat to Laura. If she did something that angered them, they would let her know. They weren’t going to harm Laura all the time there was a chance she would comply with their request.

She entered: How to find hidden electronic bugs.

After she had done that, she did another search, this time for local locksmiths.

Then she made the decision that she could not stay here, it was too depressing. And besides, what could she achieve by becoming a fugitive from her own home?