Before You Die

by Samantha Hayes

  ‘Do you have any idea where he might have gone?’ Lorraine pressed. ‘Even if Freddie told you not to tell anyone, it’s really important that you do. You won’t get into trouble.’

  ‘No, sorry,’ Lana said, shaking her head. It was the truth at least.

  Lorraine seemed disappointed. ‘Maybe you have some phone numbers of friends we haven’t already called.’ She pulled a notepad and pen from her bag and handed them to Lana.

  Without saying anything, Lana took her phone from her pocket and wrote down the numbers of three friends she thought might be useful.

  ‘Thanks,’ Lorraine said, staring at Lana for longer than necessary. ‘If you do hear from him, you must let us know, OK?’

  The day was heating up. Residual overnight dew was steaming off the pavements, making the town seem oddly tropical. As she and Lorraine crossed the road together the humid air wrapped around Lana’s throat and face so closely she thought she might suffocate.

  Lorraine waited while Lana got into her car and started the engine.

  ‘We’ll be calling the local police soon,’ she said when Lana wound down the window. ‘It’s been long enough.’

  Lana nodded and put the car into gear. As she drove off, all she could hear were Lorraine’s words ringing inside her head.

  She took a left turn at the mini roundabout then a right at the T-junction, driving without really concentrating. She went straight ahead at the by-pass roundabout, and continued on for several miles. She had no idea where she was going, but as the town turned into leafy countryside and the road petered out into a single-track lane punctuated with cattle grids and passing places, it dawned on her where she was heading.

  With a quick glance in her rear-view mirror, she turned on to Devil’s Mile. She thought of Dean, of Lenny, of Simon. But mostly she thought about Freddie and where he’d gone.

  Another glance behind told her that the old white pick-up was still on her tail, as it had been since she’d left town.

  20

  IT WAS LORRAINE who had decided to organise a proper search for Freddie. Jo had telephoned the Hawkeswells at seven a.m., frantic, hoping and praying that he’d gone to the Manor during the night, been in touch with Lana – anything, she’d said, that might give them a clue about where he was.

  ‘We’ve not seen or heard from him,’ Sonia had assured her after checking with Tony. ‘I’ll come up later and help search.’

  ‘Let’s leave it a bit longer before we call the local police,’ Lorraine had urged her sister when she got off the phone. They were grouped around the kitchen table. It looked as if Jo had aged about ten years overnight.

  ‘Most of them come back, you know,’ Adam had reminded her. He’d made coffee for everyone, having already been out for a run. He’d hoped to encounter Freddie, perhaps curled up in a gateway or lying on a bus stop bench, but there’d been no sign of him.

  ‘Most?’ Jo had responded, pulling her dressing gown around her tightly.

  ‘We don’t have a great deal to go on,’ Lorraine said when Sonia arrived, noticing again how frail she seemed. She was stooping and her arms appeared wisp-like, protruding from a sleeveless vest that was the same grey colour as her skin. Her wet hair was combed back, showing tufts of grey at the temples. ‘Based on experience, this will almost certainly turn out to be nothing more than a hacked-off teenager teaching someone, probably his parents, a lesson.’

  Adam glanced at Jo. She looked away.

  ‘A lesson for what?’ Sonia whispered.

  ‘We have to take this seriously and form a plan for the next couple of hours,’ Lorraine continued. ‘This isn’t our patch so we can only do so much. I’m still certain, though, that before we even get started Freddie will have skulked back with an apology.’

  ‘Well let’s hope so,’ Jo said, just as Stella came into the room.

  ‘Mum, where’s my phone? Did Freddie bring it back yet?’ She was bleary-eyed, most likely having been woken by their voices in the kitchen, even though it wasn’t early any more.

  ‘No, darling,’ Lorraine replied. ‘I’m afraid he didn’t come home last night.’

  Stella pulled the oversized hoodie she was wearing – Freddie’s, by the look of it – around her body. ‘Has he run away?’ she asked. Her eyes were huge.

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ Lorraine said. ‘Did he say anything to you? Even if it didn’t seem like much?’

  Stella pulled a face. ‘Not really. He was always getting loads of texts then going quiet. He seemed a bit . . .’

  ‘A bit what?’ Jo said, sitting forward.

  ‘Am I allowed to say pissed off?’ Stella asked, glancing at her dad.

  Jo slumped back. ‘Tell me something new.’

  ‘Someone needs to get in touch with Freddie’s friends,’ Lorraine said, looking at her daughter. ‘Close mates first, followed by acquaintances.’

  ‘Yeah, I can do that,’ Stella offered. ‘I can contact his friends on Facebook. They’d probably be more willing to talk to someone their own sort of age.’

  ‘Thanks, love,’ Lorraine said.

  ‘But I’m going to need to borrow a laptop because Freddie’s gone off with my phone, hasn’t he.’

  ‘We’ll sort something out, darling,’ Adam said.

  ‘I’ve already paid a visit to Lana at New Hope,’ Lorraine continued. ‘She gave me some of Freddie’s friends’ names and numbers. We could go and see them after we’ve done a local search.’

  ‘Yes,’ Adam said with authority, ‘a local search. I’ll tackle the surrounding area in the car, question people in shops, bus drivers, the ticket office at the station and suchlike. Jo and Sonia, seeing as you know the villagers best, you should do a door-knock search. Lorraine will go with you. Ask memory-jogging questions relating to last night – anyone taking dogs for a walk, going to the pub, collecting in the washing, that kind of thing. Someone must have seen Freddie.’

  ‘I think that’s enough to be going on with,’ Lorraine said, giving Jo a hug. ‘Don’t worry. He’s my nephew and I’m not going to let anything happen to him.’

  As she walked along the deserted lane running through the centre of Radcote, it hardly seemed possible to Lorraine that Freddie was missing. She fought down her fears. What Stella had mentioned about texts and Freddie seeming upset fitted perfectly with Lana’s revelation about the bullying. She had no idea how to break the news to Jo.

  They’d decided to start with the outermost houses in the village and work inwards, Sonia from one side, Lorraine and Jo from the other.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Jo said, going up to a woman coming out of her house. ‘I’m looking for my son.’ Her voice was thin and anxious.

  The woman stared at her, her hand on the car door handle, a frown on her face, as if they were about to make her late for something. Jo pushed her phone at her and showed her the picture of Freddie she’d taken only days before at Kenilworth Castle. His face was stretched into a fake smile, his disgust at being out on such a trip easily visible.

  ‘Sorry, not seen him,’ the woman said after a cursory glance, opening the car door and chucking her bag on to the passenger seat.

  Jo continued to hold the phone out. ‘Take a proper look. Please.’

  ‘No, don’t know him,’ the woman insisted, having barely taken another glance. She got into her car and Jo and Lorraine had to move out of the way as she backed out and drove off.

  The next house also proved fruitless. No one was home in the next one, so they moved on to the adjacent property in the row of terraced council houses. Most were now privately owned though they still bore the telltale classic grey stucco so popular in the fifties.

  ‘Hello,’ Lorraine said, giving Jo a break. ‘We were wondering if you’ve seen this lad. His name’s Freddie. He lives in the village. He didn’t come home last night. We’re very worried.’

  The man, in his mid-forties, stared at Lorraine scornfully, probably wondering what kind of mother allowed that sort of thing to happen.<
br />
  ‘I know you, don’t I?’ he said, turning to Jo. ‘Your other half, he play darts?’

  ‘He used to,’ Jo stated meekly. ‘In the Old Dog on a Thursday night. Have you seen my son?’

  She held her phone up to his face and the man squinted at the screen, shielding his eyes.

  ‘Nah, it’s no use without my reading glasses,’ he said. He glanced back at his front door. ‘The missus’ll be mad if I don’t get a move on. She wanted milk from the shop. But hang on, let me get them and see if I can help. Any boy of Malc’s . . .’

  He went inside and returned a moment later with his glasses.

  ‘Just like his dad, eh?’ he said after taking a good look at the photo. ‘Handsome lad. You must be very proud.’

  Jo turned her head away. Only Lorraine could see the tear on her cheek.

  ‘Did you see him last night?’ Lorraine said. ‘Maybe walking through the village, getting a lift, catching a bus, anything?’

  The man’s eyes flicked to the sky. He squinted again. ‘Can’t say I did. Although . . .’

  ‘Yes?’ Jo’s gasp of hope was palpable.

  ‘I’m sure Jan said there was a group of lads hanging around the lane last night, down where she walks the dog. She said they were, well, you know . . . a bit nasty-looking. She felt rather intimidated. I’ll get her to look at your photo.’

  Less than a minute later a woman wearing a dressing gown with her hair wrapped up in a towel was studying Freddie’s face. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, he was definitely down the lane last night, about nine-thirty. He was with some other lads, about three or four of them.’ She tapped Jo’s phone screen. ‘I’ve seen him around the village, but I didn’t recognise the others. They were a bit unsavoury. I gave ’em a wide berth.’

  ‘Where was he exactly? Did he seem OK? Did he seem sad?’ Jo was gabbling. ‘What were the other boys like? Can you describe them? Where did he go?’

  Lorraine placed a hand on Jo’s arm to calm her. ‘Anything you can tell us will be very useful.’ She took out her warrant card and showed it to the woman.

  ‘They looked a bit intimidating, if I’m honest. They were gathered around your lad. At first I thought they were all hanging out together, but then it became clear they were giving him a hard time. They were smoking and had bottles of beer.’

  ‘Can you describe them?’ Lorraine said.

  The woman sighed and shook her head. ‘A couple were white but they had their hoods up. Another was black, I think. He was tall and skinny. They made some comment about my dog as I went past. He only has three legs, you see.’

  The towel slipped off her head, revealing damp, dark blonde hair. It fell on to her shoulders.

  ‘Were they hurting Freddie?’ Jo asked in a croaky voice.

  ‘I got the impression there’d been an argument and that by walking past I’d stopped it. They were clustered in a field gateway, the one I usually climb over to take a short cut to the canal towpath. Midge likes to swim.’

  Lorraine tried not to think about the feasibility of a three-legged dog swimming in a canal. ‘What made you think there’d been an argument?’

  ‘I heard raised voices and yelling as I approached the gateway from round the corner. They were in a tight huddle, your lad in the middle, but when they spotted me they broke up. One of them shoved him.’

  Jo let out a little whimper. ‘Why didn’t you call the police?’ she said. ‘Or help him?’

  ‘What, and have them turn on me? Anyway, I saw your boy again later.’ She seemed confident about this. ‘I was half a mile along the canal, where it runs close to the road, and he was walking along it. He’d got some speed on.’

  ‘Are you sure it was him?’ Lorraine asked.

  ‘Yes. He was carrying the same backpack as before. Orange and green. It was bright, that’s why I noticed it.’

  Jo was nodding. ‘Freddie has a pack like that.’

  ‘So he was heading north-ish,’ Lorraine noted, although she knew the road forked soon after that, one way leading back towards Radcote, the other towards Wellesbury.

  ‘I suppose he was,’ the woman said. She rubbed at her head with the towel. ‘Look, I got to do my hair. I hope you find him, OK?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Lorraine said. ‘And thanks for your help.’

  The woman turned and went back inside. Her husband, without them noticing, had already left for the shop.

  Lorraine reported their findings to Adam, who told them he’d not had any joy with his wider search, which made them believe – hope – that Freddie was still in the vicinity.

  Jo needed to sit down so they paused at the bus stop. ‘What if they hurt him?’ she said. ‘They might have followed him and—’

  ‘Jo, don’t let your thoughts run away with you.’ Lorraine didn’t know what else to say. Were these boys the bullies who had been harassing Freddie? All she could think of was Freddie’s expressionless face the last time she’d seen him. ‘Adam’s going to phone the local police now.’

  Jo’s face crumpled, and she began to cry openly. ‘You’ll be involved, won’t you?’ she asked Lorraine through her tears. ‘I want you working on it.’

  Lorraine nodded. ‘Of course,’ she said, knowing that wouldn’t necessarily be the case.

  The heat was really building now as the sun swept higher into the sky above the row of houses lining Back Lane. The forecast of a scorching few days was proving correct.

  Lorraine and Jo spoke to the postman, who wobbled to a halt on his bicycle. They soon discovered he knew nothing. They called at six more houses, accosted numerous people on their morning errands, spoke with the village shopkeeper, a lad working at the Old Dog and Fox as he stacked barrels in the pub’s car park, as well as several passers-by. Only one was able to help.

  ‘Yes, I saw Freddie. He always gives me a wave and a nod.’ The old man’s fond chuckle ended in a tight smoker’s cough. A cigarette smouldered between his fingers. ‘I was just going in for my pint last night and he was off for a stiff walk. I think he’d just been given a bit of a fright by our Gil.’ He laughed again.

  ‘Gil?’ Jo said weakly.

  ‘I had to give him a warning, I’m afraid. He was yelling and dancing about, waving his fists at Freddie like a savage. I couldn’t hear what he was saying as I’m a bit deaf these days, but it sounded threatening.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Jo whispered.

  ‘Then Freddie walked off with them things in his ears they all wear nowadays.’

  ‘Earphones,’ Lorraine said, and thanked the old man. She wanted to get on, knock on a few more doors before returning to Jo’s house to see if Sonia had come up with anything.

  Adam had already called the local nick by the time they got back. Sonia hadn’t run into a single person who’d seen Freddie, he told Lorraine, so he’d already sent her home.

  ‘How do you fancy a trip to the Justice Centre?’ Adam said quietly to Lorraine.

  ‘You read my mind,’ she said. Her shoulders felt warm, almost burning, from the heat of the sun. ‘Did you speak to Burnley?’

  Adam nodded. ‘They’re sending a couple of uniforms out though couldn’t say when. Then I spoke to the great man himself. Just for old times’ sake.’

  ‘I hope you didn’t forget to call him DI Burnley,’ Lorraine quipped.

  She gathered up her bag and keys. They could go in her car and he could fill her in on the way.

  Lorraine had become involved with Greg Burnley in 2005. It was just after the weekend of the Lozells riots and she’d been working non-stop for days when her boss dumped the internal investigation on her.

  Weeks of work revealed that Burnley had written off a young girl and her family as if they were nothing more than rubbish. She remembered the look on Burnley’s face as he slammed his office door, leaving Lorraine to sort out the mess.

  ‘Botched, sir,’ she recalled telling the super after only half a day on the job.

  His face remained blank as he’d instructed her to assemble a team t
o ‘un-botch’ it.

  It had all started with Farida, a fourteen-year-old in the wrong place at the wrong time – a purse full of birthday cash and a shopping trip to the Bullring with her best friend. Her attackers, two nineteen-year-olds, one of whom slipped a blade into the small space between two of Farida’s cat-like ribs to get her money, got off thanks to Burnley’s deliberately inept policing – lost CCTV footage, unfiled witness statements, time-wasting arrests, and lack of what was obvious forensic detail.

  In exchange for his calculated blunders, Burnley got the names of the trafficking gang the youths occasionally worked for, while they walked free with total anonymity and a press blackout. Burnley made sure no one cared about the dead girl. She was small fry by then. He made two dozen arrests, ripped down the UK division of a Europe-wide network that dealt in drugs, young female sex workers and, more recently, foreign slaves. He got all the glory.

  Lorraine worked relentlessly on the case after Farida’s mother came to see her, begging for justice. She spent weeks trawling through files, going over fabricated statements, sifting out the truth, picking apart the non-existent forensics reporting, the lack of protocol – all of it overseen by Burnley.

  ‘You deserve a fucking medal,’ Lorraine had told him as he cleared out his desk. His suspension was routine.

  She remembered how he’d stared back at her.

  In the end there was no retribution for the girl or her family. Their only compensation was Burnley’s swift and silent transfer to the neighbouring force. Not far enough away, as far as Lorraine was concerned.

  ‘Just watch you don’t make an . . .’ Adam said, as they strode up the steps of the Justice Centre. He paused, thinking better of it.

  ‘Watch I don’t make an idiot of myself, you mean?’ Lorraine shook her head.

  ‘Burnley mentioned the files you wanted, but Freddie should be our main focus now. All this stuff about someone else being on the bike and that visor, well, don’t read too much into it, Ray. I’ve met Gil now. I wouldn’t give too much weight to his story.’