Find Them Dead

58 Wednesday 15 May

‘It is what it is!’ Nick used to say. All the time.

It used to irritate her, Meg remembered. So damned much. The phrase had gotten into his head like a mantra. The electricity bill’s more expensive this month than last! It is what it is.

It was his answer to any piece of bad news, however insignificant.

Now she would give everything she had in the world to hear him say it one more time. And that was never going to happen.

Daphne, she thought back sadly. A feisty little nine-month-old kitten when Nick and Will died. Only the day before, Will had confessed that he’d never liked cats before Daphne. They’d had a real bond together.

How did you explain death to a cat?

How did you explain to a kitten that its owner had been wiped out by a man in a van busy texting his girlfriend?

You didn’t.

You just got on with life. You climbed back on your horse, your bike or whatever the hell it was you had fallen off and you got on with it. Until another death of someone you loved felled you again.

Who was it — Max Planck — who said, ‘Science moves forward one funeral at a time’?

As life does, too.

But maybe not cats.

There were some days when Daphne sounded like she had been to cats’ choir practice. Even before Meg had reached the front door, she could hear the creature meowing on the other side.

She had been sick with anxiety but trying to pull herself together on her journey home as she mulled over the evidence they’d heard. Sure, that forensic podiatrist had been convincing in the details he had given that it was, beyond doubt, Michael Starr who had entered the premises of TG Law on that November day last year.

But Gready’s diary clearly showed him to have been out of the office at the exact time Starr was supposed to have been in his office. If that evidence was upheld, then despite the forensic gait expert’s evidence, there was no certainty Gready and Starr had met. She was anxious to see how that played out tomorrow, because it seemed to be the first possible chink in the prosecution case. Along with Cork trying to force the point to the jurors that there had been a clandestine meeting between Gready and Starr, which was why it was not in the diary and why no one in the office had been aware of it.

Checking her phone, she was worried there was still no message from Laura. She unlocked the front door and entered, glad to see there were only a couple of flyers on the floor, no post, no bills. Daphne stared up at her, meowing like some tortured creature.

‘Hey, cool it!’ She scooped the cat up into her arms and cuddled her. ‘What’s your problem, little one?’

Daphne began purring as she stroked her head then chest. After a short while she started to wriggle and Meg set her back down, gently.

She dutifully fed all of Laura’s pets and headed back down to the kitchen, hoping a glass of wine would numb some of her fears. She would bung something from the freezer into the oven then have an early night and try to get some sleep. She again checked her phone. Just gone 6 p.m. That would make it 1 p.m. in Ecuador. Laura said they were doing the zip wire in the morning. This morning. And that she would text her straight after. So why hadn’t she?

Meg was about to message her when there was a ping, indicating a new WhatsApp message, on the phone that bastard had left for her.

There was a blank screen with a black arrow inside a white circle in the centre. Hesitantly, she clicked on it.

A jerky video began playing, showing images of Laura and Cassie standing in a queue. They were wearing vest tops and shorts, Cassie with a baseball cap and Laura with a straw trilby-style hat at a jaunty angle. Both were licking ice-cream cones. They turned, almost synchronized, and stared in harmony for several seconds directly at the camera, before turning away, clearly giggling.

Then, from a different angle now, she saw a close-up of a terrified-looking Cassie strapped into a harness. Seconds later, she hurtled down a zip wire towards a gorge, heading towards a platform across the far side. Suddenly, to Meg’s horror, Cassie jerked to a halt and, as if the wire had snapped, she plunged into the fast-moving water. An instant later she rose up, dangling several metres above it, dropped again, disappearing beneath the surface, then rose again and stopped, bouncing up and down, looking utterly petrified.

On the video, Meg could hear screams.

Cold terror squirmed inside her.

She could see, too far away to hear any sound, Cassie dangling like a fish.

She was being wound, slowly, jerkily, back up. After what seemed an eternity, she landed on the safety of a platform and was immediately grabbed by two men, who freed her from the harness.

The burner phone rang.

‘Hello?’

The familiar, calm, male voice. ‘Not a nice video, is it, Meg? Such a relief to see your daughter’s friend safe.’

‘You bastard, did you cause this? What are you trying to do?’

‘Please don’t worry, Cassie is fine, just a little shaken. She’s been taken to hospital, accompanied by your daughter, suffering from shock. She’ll be fine. We just need you to understand what we are capable of — treat this as a little reminder.’

‘You don’t have to do this. They are lovely, innocent people. You’ve already made your point; I understand what I have to do.’

‘I’m sure, Meg. But we just don’t want you getting too complacent. It was a better day in court, today, but there are a lot more witnesses to come. You’ve got your work cut out. The next video I send you might not have such a happy outcome for Laura, if you get my drift.’

‘Your drift?’

‘You know what I’m saying.’

‘Please, I’m doing everything I can.’

‘Oh, we know that, Meg. And we are right with you, doing everything we can, too. You do have a friend on the jury.’

‘Friend, or someone else like me who you are threatening?’

He sounded hurt. ‘We are helping them just like we are helping you.’

‘Helping me? Really?’

‘Trust me, Meg, we are looking after your daughter in a dangerous country. You’ve seen how easily an accident can happen. Look upon me as your daughter’s guardian angel on this trip of a lifetime that I know you are worried about. And you will see tomorrow how we are helping you in other ways, too. We have made your life easier, but so much is still down to you.’

‘How have you made my life easier?’

‘Wait until the morning, Meg. You’ll know then.’

He ended the call.