She got away with it, sure. But got away with what?
She had regrets, certainly. Before she disappeared, she had received a couple of knockbacks from the BBC. Her confidence had been dented. Bethany had begun to think she would never make it, would never get out. That made the ten million, the new life, even more tempting. But maybe she should have stuck it out? Look at what happened with Fiona Clemence. But Bethany didn’t have Fiona’s confidence. Didn’t have Fiona’s looks either, although she resembles her a little bit more since the surgery. She could have toughed it out, but an opportunity came her way and she chose to take it. Mike had told her to keep fighting, told her she would make it, but she was too young to know that was true.
And Mike is the worst of all. The regret that still wakes her in the night. It would kill Mike to know she had left him voluntarily. She knows that, and she knew Pauline would know that too. She could have stuck around, been brave. She could have brought Andrew Everton to justice, could have risen through the ranks, enjoyed her career, popped in to visit Mike for a drink whenever she was in the area. That’s what she could have done.
But her mind keeps coming back to the bullet. The bullet, with the name scratched into the side, sent by Andrew Everton. Designed to scare her, no doubt, but a bullet that ultimately cost him ten million pounds.
After that Bethany really had no choice. She has the bullet in front of her now. She weighs it in her hand, just as she had done that night many years ago. Beware the bullet with your name on it.
And the name is what had finally made her mind up. Because the name scratched into the bullet was not ‘Bethany Waites’. She could have handled that.
The name was ‘Mike Waghorn’.
87
Mike Waghorn scrolls back through his emails. Every year, on the anniversary of Bethany’s death, viewers send him their condolences. Not many, and fewer and fewer as the years ticked by, but enough to make a difference.
This year, there had been just four. Three from regular correspondents, and one from an account he had never identified. With a ‘no-reply’ email address. It got lost among the throng for the first few years, but it is very visible now. The message would always comprise just a single red rose. Mike had never really thought anything of it.
They had never found Bethany’s body. All sorts of people had told him why, tides and so on, and Mike had accepted what he was told. There were plenty of similar cases if you looked into it, and Mike had looked into it.
Then they were told that Bethany had been buried in Heather Garbutt’s garden. But, despite the digging, the body has not been found there either. Andrew Everton continues to protest his innocence.
So what if? Mike has begun to think. What if?
Mike looks at the email with the red rose. He searches back. Same email every year. All from the same no-reply email address.
What could the red rose signify? Love, for one. Lancashire? That was a stretch. But Bethany liked to stretch things. Liked to tease him. ‘Absolute dynamite’ indeed. As if he were ever going to be the one to work that out.
Of course, the emails are not from Bethany, of course they’re not. They are just roses from a well-wisher. But it’s a nice fantasy. The idea that Bethany wasn’t dead, but living it up somewhere, perhaps on the proceeds of the VAT fraud? No one else seemed to have the money, and even Henrik has said that at some point the money seemed to just vanish. Had it vanished with her?
Would Bethany really have left him without saying goodbye?
For ten million, why not? It was foolish, and it was greedy, but who hasn’t been foolish and greedy in their life? Mike had been foolish his whole life, until Bethany had shown him the truth. He wishes Bethany could have hung around long enough for him to return the favour.
Maybe the emails are from Bethany. Mike can choose to believe it if he wishes. And, if they are, he hopes she saw the broadcast the other day. The tribute he paid her. He hopes she knows, wherever she is, up above, down below, or somewhere in between, that he loves her.
Mike pours himself a cider straight from the plastic bottle now. Why not? He raises his glass.
‘To absent friends.’
88
Joyce
A few days have passed since all the excitement. I should probably fill you in on everything that’s happened since.
I finished my short story. It is no longer called ‘Cannibal Bloodbath’. Instead it is called ‘Life is but a Dream – A Gerry Meadowcroft Mystery’. I sent it off to the Evening Argus, and they immediately responded to say that my submission had been received. I replied to say thank you, and to wish them a nice weekend, but that email didn’t get through. I haven’t heard anything back since.
I have started a new story in which Inspector Gerry Meadowcroft goes to Morocco. I have never been to Morocco, but I watched a Rick Stein documentary in which he went to Marrakesh, so I am basing a lot of the descriptions on that.
Andrew Everton is in prison. Belmarsh, high security. For his own protection as much as anything, I think. He’s been charged with the fraud, but they are still investigating the killings of Bethany, and Heather. It’s interesting that, in any normal case, the livestream video we did would have prejudiced the trial, but the reaction to it was so huge I think even the authorities worked out that justice was going to have to be seen to be done. Andrew is still protesting his innocence, but, whatever happens, he’ll be going to jail for a long time.
The irony is his books are now huge bestsellers. Top of the Kindle charts, and some publishing company is rushing out real, physical copies too. Netflix have bought the TV rights. It’s true what they say about publicity. He’s not seeing a penny of the money, though. It’s all being held by the court until he pays back the ten million he stole.
I don’t think they’ll ever charge him with the murders. Where’s the evidence? They dug every inch of the garden and the woodland behind Heather’s house, and found no body. What they have found is many more guns, piles of cash, fake passports, stolen goods, everything you could think of. It seems that every time Jack Mason dug a hole over the years, looking for the body, he hid something in it before filling it back up again. The first gun we found, the assault rifle, had never been fired, and the hundred thousand was from a Post Office robbery in Tunbridge Wells.
I went shopping in Tunbridge Wells recently; Carlito took us all up there in the minibus. I had read in a book somewhere that Tunbridge Wells had a Waitrose, but it didn’t. It had a lovely big Waterstones, though, and I bought a book by Stephen King called On Writing, and a new Marian Keyes.
The biggest news is probably Mike Waghorn. The world and his wife watched his tribute to Bethany, and he says the phone hasn’t stopped ringing since. He’s signed up to do a series on ITV called Britain’s Most Notorious Serial Killers. He co-hosted The One Show – my favourite – for a week, and they’ve asked him back. And next week I’m going up to Elstree again to watch him on Stop the Clock – Celebrities! Elizabeth has a prior engagement apparently, so Pauline is going to come with me.
Fiona Clemence is taking us all out to dinner afterwards, as well she might, given she now has eight million Instagram followers and is about to film an American version of Stop the Clock.