01x01 - The Third Voice

[bunniefuu]

When we fished Rafe Carey out of the river, he was as clean as a whistle.

He'd been washed clean by the river running over him for five hours.

That shirt of his was as clean as the moment he put it on that morning. Cleaner, probably.

Durridge's, too. Beautifully laundered.

The reason I thought of it, everything I was wearing was laundered.

Suit dry-cleaned, shirt pristine, new boots.

Only, I was alive and he was dead.

The Tweed took him and swept him away and smashed him up and washed him clean.

But he didn't die from being smacked on the rocks and he didn't die from drowning.

He d*ed from a deep s*ab wound just beside his armpit, near his heart.

Near enough bled out.

m*rder - my first day back.

How can Ruth be dead and I'm not? How can that be?

In a way, it would've been better. If one of them had to go, it would've been better...

Might've been better if it was Leo.

I can't believe I said that.

She had to persuade him, Rafe.

She thought I couldn't hear him on the phone to him, but I could.

They love to talk, the middle classes.

The chattering classes.

They think if they talk long enough, the facts will bend round and fit.

That's their experience of life - persuasion, nuance, finesse.

I've got colleagues who try and hector the middle classes in interrogation.

'Prod them and poke them and keep to the point. Wrong.'

Sit back and listen.

Drink that stuff in. I love to listen to that.

Listen to them trying to recast a catastrophe word by word.

Because, as I said before, I go fishing with him.

He's been trying and trying to get me to go fishing with him and then, each time, on the day, I've pulled out, after he's paid out for fishing permits and taken the day off work and whatever.

Wasn't up to it.

Now, finally, I say yes, and Katrina can see I mean it and she couldn't be happier and she's phoned and said, "This time he really means it."

And then, it rains all night and blows a gale and any normal human being would cancel, but she's calling him first thing and asking him not to.

( Thunder rumbles )

"I know it's not the weather for it, but, please, Rafe. For me. For me."

"Please, God." I was thinking, "Please, God, let it go well. "Let this be the start. Please."

Because he can't grieve.

While he's blaming Rafe, he can't grieve.

And if he can't grieve, then I can't grieve.

Sonia's all alone.

And we're all alone.

She ran me there in the car on the way to work.

No time to stop, no time to stop.

She was desperate to get me there.

Get it done.

He asked me to stop halfway there, stop at the cash machine.

I said, "There's no time for that."

I thought, "He's just going to walk away. It's going to be the same thing all over again."

But he came back to the car.

The whole time, I thought, "He's just going to walk away."

But he didn't. He didn't.

I knew then he was really going through with it Which cashpoint? Where?

I could feel the police parts of my brain getting back in gear.

Did they stop at the cashpoint or didn't they?

The cogs starting to grind. She said, "The Bank of Scotland one. The one round the corner from the other two."

She says there's never a queue, that people don't know it's there.

I said, "I'll take the car and drop you at work," but she didn't want that. She wanted to make sure I really went, but also, that we'd go in the same car, me and Rafe.

And we'd be sitting together and we would talk while we drove to the river.

There'd be banter.

I told her once, talking in cars was easy.

She remembered that.

You don't have the eye contact thing and there's stuff going on, other stuff.

Probably she said that to Rafe and that's where he's come up with the fishing idea in the first place.

Same as in the car, sit side by side, not across from someone, and there's things... going on, things in the river or flask of coffee.

Sandwiches, business with tackle, business with the bait.

Before you know it, time's passing, conversation's flowing.

I said, "I told her it was too wild, Rafe, but she won't listen."

I said, "We're never going to catch any fish in this."

He said, "Since when is going fishing had anything to do with fish?"

He put his hand on my shoulder.

He said, "I'm right, aren't I, Leo?"

He was a big toucher, Rafe.

Big hand-on-the-shoulder guy. He touched me. She saw it.

I kept our energy up.

"Try again. We'll have another. We're still young."

And all the time, Rafe was desperate to make amends.

To see us again, to see him.

So I'd say, "You really mustn't blame Rafe. You really mustn't. He feels nearly as bad as we do."

And he'd say, "Rafe is your brother. You're bound to say that. But he doesn't, he goes home every day to that big house of theirs, with three kids of his own, two of Emma's and, maybe, now and then, they think about us and what they did. Now and then."

And I'd say, "What they DID, Leo? But what did they do? Tell me what they did. They looked after our daughter when we were away. They looked after her, but she was ill and she d*ed. Nobody could've stopped that. Nobody. They did their best, they wanted to help. They acted with love and in good faith and a terrible thing still happened. And as long as you keep acting like this was somehow Rafe's fault, then we can't deal with it. We can't deal with it. You and me."

"Here are the rods, the chairs, the keep nets, the boots. Just add water," he said. "We've plenty of that".

He was kind, Rafe.

He was always kind to me.

"He was gung-ho. He was cavalier with our daughter's life. He never feels a moment's doubt, yet he's always wrong. He's got five strapping lads and he doesn't know. He doesn't know what it's like to have one little girl and then, to have nothing. Nothing."

That's what he said.

"Nothing."

( Child laughs )

I'd drop it. I'd go back to keeping him alive.

Three years nearly, keeping him alive when he'd rather have been dead.

Put my own grief on hold for that.

My grief for Sonia.

Still on hold.

Then, last night, it was... it was like not a door had opened, but maybe, a window - a tiny window - and let in some light, some tiny glimmer of light.

And he was just that tiny bit more like himself and I thought, "This is a man who can forgive."

After I dropped him off, I had to stop the car halfway to work and just cry.

It felt like the beginning.

Man: Detective Sergeant Corinne Evans is an officer with an exemplary track record.

Her training and probation were characterised by high marks and extremely positive feedback.

Her career progress since that time has been swift and assured.

She has been in her current post for two years, during which time she has been commended for her initiative and her detective work and received the prestigious Borders Area Police Bravery Award.

Three months ago, her friend Laura McDade was k*lled in a hit and run on the A703.

Detective Sergeant Evans requested permission to investigate the incident, but was refused.

A charge of insubordination and another of criminal damage were brought and subsequently dropped, on compassionate grounds, and Corinne Evans was referred to me for bereavement counselling.

I recommended a course of ten therapeutic sessions, all of which DS Evans attended punctually.

"Frankie! Frankie! Frankie!" Shouts from the river bank.

I could hear the panic in the voice, the concern.

We left the rods and walked upstream a bit, to where the rapids are.

He thought I should take a video of the kingfisher on my phone, thought Katrina would like it.

I could hear three people.

Hear them over the rushing of the river, the roaring of the wind.

Someone the shouter cared about.

Then, the splash.

The sort of shouts you should tell someone about, if you talk to people.

Up. There.

He said the rapids oxygenate the water.

He said you can get a lot of fish there if you know what you're doing.

He did not know what he was doing.

The water was high, high and fast.

It was tearing away the banks.

"It's stupid standing here, Rafe. It's stupid."

I said that.

It had us in the blink of an eye.

It was like being dragged by a powerboat by your ankle.

I knew right away the river had taken him.

The river had us...

'..both of us.'

I like to cover all the bases, because now and then, I get told I'm over-zealous. So, I said to the pathologist, I said, "He was tossed around in the water for hours.

"Could it have been, I don't know, a branch off a tree or a sharp stone? Was it definitely a bladed w*apon?"

He said, "Let me see... It was definitely a bladed w*apon.

"But I suppose it could've been wielded by a big pike or a salmon."

One of those who doesn't smile when he's joking.

Dry type, likes to tug at your blue collar.

I said, "Could it have been something on the river bed?

"A rusty bed frame or whatever?"

He said, "What, you're not following up my salmon lead, Sergeant Evans?"

Making me work for it. Selling himself long.

I get this a lot - you're a copper, so you must be a halfwit.

What I could've said? "I've got a degree, too, you know."

Wasn't in the mood for it. Something about the time off.

I just moved up six inches closer, put a bit of shadow on him.

Clears his throat, says the injury was sustained before he went in the river.

There was barely any water in the lungs.

He sat down on his threadbare little work station chair, not playing any more.

I stood there for a bit, scrutinising his bald spot.

He opened his e-mails. Discussion over. I didn't budge.

Decides he has urgent business elsewhere.

Said, "The salmon, then?" He said, "What?"

I said, "The salmon, not the pike.

"The salmon has the bigger leap."

But what about this s*ab wound, Leo?

Can we get back to that?

Your wife's brother's got a hole in him where no hole should be.

The bank gave way.

You say there was no-one else there with the two of you on the river bank.

So you can tell which way my mind's going on this.

If there was no-one else there, there's only you could've done it.

He shut up, then.

Looked like a man put on the spot to recall his wedding anniversary.

His mouth half open ready for words, but none came.

And what about this stop at the cash machine?

You didn't mention that.

Your wife told me that you asked her to stop at the cash machine this morning.

I just didn't want Rafe Carey paying for everything, like he always does.

But we checked, Leo.

You didn't take any money out of the cash machine.

You HAD money, but you didn't withdraw it.

Why go to a cash machine, but not get money?

Do you want to start telling us the truth, Leo, instead of all these lies? You'll feel better for it.

The pathologist tells me Rafe Carey had heads injuries inconsistent with those he got in the river.

Maybe you provided those. Did you, Leo?

We found a £20 note by the river bank.

Did you fight over money?

Did Rafe Carey try to pay for everything again?

Did it make you feel small?

You lost your job, didn't you, when your daughter d*ed?

You were unemployed for over a year.

Did you m*rder Rafe Carey, Leo?

Did you argue with him by the river and k*ll him?

I have seen him blank things out before.

He blanked Sonia out when she d*ed.

Never talked to Rafe about what had happened, never uttered Sonia's name, from that day to this.

I used to say to him, I'd beg him. "Say it, Leo."

"Say Sonia. Say Sonia."

But he wouldn't. He hasn't.

He can't.

And that was what he was doing.

He was blanking it out, shredding it in that head of his.

I said, "Tell me again.

"You were stood on the bank and the bank was swept away."

It was me that made them go and neither of them wanted to.

Say Sonia.

Say Sonia.

Say Sonia.

He might be a lot of things, but he is not a m*rder*r, Frankie.

On the path leading down to the swim, there's three sets of prints, very clear. Two sets of matching rubber boots and a pair of trainers.

Three.

Recorded voice: Frankie! Frankie! Frankie!

Trainer prints match ones found in blood at the scene of an ABH in Carlisle.

Frankie Alder was arrested for the ABH, but not charged.

The trainers were his, though.

Frankie's not to be found at his last known abode, so we contact his social worker.

His social worker is Leo Durridge's wife, Katrina.

It's almost disappointing.

Why would Frankie Alder be there at the river on a day like that?

She said, "You've been his caseworker for nearly three years.

"Would you say that was typical of him? Walked by the river?"

I wouldn't have thought that was his thing, but it is hard to say what is typical of somebody.

People surprise you.

You've got to hang on to that in my line of work, their capacity to do that.

I fell in the water. The clothes are trappings.

That came to me out there.

"Clothes maketh the man." Not me, they don't.

Not now.

The words are trappings, that came true.

Everything you've ever said, a mark against you.

And there's a tally they're keeping somewhere, somewhere I'm not popular.

If there's nothing to say, say nothing.

Think about what you say and what you do say, mean it.

Copper says, "What were you doing out there, Frankie?

"Where you go, trouble follows."

Not this time.

Not next time, either. Not ever again.

"A new leaf, is it, Frankie?"

She's looking into me, trying to.

She's judging.

Don't presume to know me, copper.

You don't know me, just like I don't know you.

You weren't in that river.

You don't know me, deep down.

She says...

"Sure, you know me, Frankie. Deep as you like."

Both: I'm the one that's going to send you to jail.

"What can you tell me about some death threats left on Rafe Carey's answer machine last year?"

Answer phone: ..at a time when you least expect it.

Deceased wife kept the messages.

Sounds a lot like Frankie Alder to me.

She says Katrina Durridge asked her not to call the police, told her that she'd sort it out personally.

I thought he was doing it for me.

I spoke to him and it stopped.

I thought he was doing it for me. I never thought that...

They have met.

Whether either of them would remember, I don't know.

To give him his due, he doesn't deny being there.

I've been in the river and I'm out.

I'm out.

Maybe he likes a walk on a wet and stormy day. Maybe it frees his head.

I said, "Were you unaware that one of the two men you must've seen there was your social worker's husband?"

"Oh, I presumed she was a lesbian," he says.

I was with Leo in town and Frankie walked past.

He was smoking a cigarette, so he held it up to my face, so I could see that it wasn't marijuana.

He was a wee bit aggressive.

So Leo said something like, "There's a time and a place."

That was quite bold for Leo.

I was expecting a bit of comeback from Frankie, but he just walked away.

Detective wanted to know if I'd mentioned Frankie's name to Leo.

She asked me that more than once.

Or if Leo had asked his name? I couldn't remember.

If he'd asked it, I would've told him.

It's not like it's client confidentiality.

People know Frankie, anyway. It's a small town and... he's highly visible.

I felt sorry for him. He was a beggar.

I don't think he was a beggar, but he would beg, if he was desperate.

He'd sit beside the cash machine and ask if you had any spare change.

He said, "You're a lucky man."

Maybe six months back, I'd been going to walk past.

He said, "Married to her."

I recognised him, then.

"Keeps you on the straight and narrow," he said.

"And a pretty face, as well. Sorry about your kid."

I gave him all the money I'd taken out of the machine.

She kept leaving me longer than I needed for my answers, trying to get me to say more.

I use the same technique with my clients.

She was asking me, without asking me... whether I thought Leo might've approached Frankie... to hurt Rafe.

Maybe she was also asking whether I might've done that.

( Music plays )

I want my lawyer. I fell in the water.

It was a while before that word got into my head - trappings.

It was there waiting, I just didn't know what it was.

It knew me, though.

I couldn't have told you what it was before that.

I couldn't have written it down.

It needed me naked and nowhere and nothing to eat.

It needed me chewed up and spat out by the river.

It needed me not to be me.

Then, there it was.

Like if you're sat somewhere really quiet and you're maybe gouging out and a mouse comes out from the skirting.

And the both of you are still as statues.

Trappings. Stuff that you live your life with.

The stuff that defines you. Your stuff, your possessions.

Maybe your normal routine.

The things you do, the things people do to you.

The f*cking every day is the f*cking same grindstone of sh*t that makes up your life.

Trappings.

Probably if I knew words or had Miss McNaughton here, my old English teacher, which I wouldn't, because she's a f*cking bitch and a liar, she'd say, "That sort of trappings, that has nothing to do with trapping, Frankie, with being trapped."

It goes back to William the f*cking Conqueror and what it means is that she'd be wrong.

I've thrown it off, the trappings.

I'm free in here, in this little box.

They might think they've got me locked up, but they haven't.

I'm like some yogi guru guy in an ashram in India, who lives inside his head and only speaks once a year and says something short and sweet that no-one gets or people just pretend to.

"The heather is springy today."

And all his followers are analysing that for a year, until he says something new, like, "Forget what I said last year. That was bollocks. Forget it."

There's a kitchen Kn*fe set in that hostel where he lives and, wouldn't you know it, the six-inch Kn*fe's missing.

Mind you, the place is a sh*thole.

Four out the six knives are gone, so...

It's gone... It's all gone.

Whatever it is I was, I'm not any more.

I've thrown it off. It's gone.

The river took it.

The river saved me.

The man won't speak. He won't speak and he won't wear shoes.

He'll hear the question. His expression might change, but nothing will he say.

We've got the £20 note bearing the fingerprints of the deceased and the footwear impressions on the path. That's it.

No m*rder w*apon, no forensics. The river took the lot. I tried concern.

"People like you aren't supposed to do things like this and we worry about your state of mind, about what you might do to yourself."

Nothing. I tried small talk.

"The two of you are brothers-in-law. Did you get along? Did it annoy you that your wife stuck by him, that she didn't feel the same way as you? You'd have liked him out of your life, but she wouldn't do that, would she? What did that feel like, Leo? Like a betrayal?"

"How many times have you met Frankie Alder? Your wife tells me she introduced the pair of you. Did he come looking for you or did you go looking for him?"

"One of your work colleagues tells me she saw you eating lunch with Frankie on a bench in Victoria Park. Saw that more than once. And your phone records show calls to an unregistered phone normally present in the vicinity of where Frankie Alder stays. The calls form a pattern. They've been preceded by cash withdrawals of £250 from your current account. You usually withdraw no more than 100. There are three of these withdrawals, Leo, in the last six months, all before or after calls to that number. Were you paying Frankie Alder, Leo? What for? To frighten Rafe Carey? To thr*aten him? Vandalise his property? What else? I said, did you pay Frankie Alder to m*rder Rafe Carey? Because that's still m*rder, Leo. First the death threats, then the damage to his property, then k*ll him. Is that it?"

It's like he's in another room, listening to the conversation. It's intriguing, it's very intriguing, but it's not his concern. I asked him, just to be sure, I said, "Can you hear my questions, Leo?

Can you hear me?

Laura?

"You told us the bank collapsed and the river took the both of you, but that's not what happened, is it?"

Diddly squat and he's not squirming, not at all.

A lot of people find it uncomfortable, not answering questions. It's not polite.

They'll look down at their hands and their lap or they'll keep coming out with that oxymoronic, "No comment." But not him.

And he's not ignoring me. He's looking at me.

He's engaged, he's interested, but it's academic, it's not about him.

And then what I did, I mimed a question, I mouthed it.

Kept the eye contact, kept the searching expression, just... mouthed it.

And he leant forward, just ever so slightly.

And that gave me my answer.

He was hearing the other ones, he must've been, otherwise why lean forward for the one he couldn't hear?

Had to describe it for the tape, of course, what I was doing.

I said, "What if I mimed all my questions, Leo?

"That wouldn't get us very far, would it?"

Silence. Wouldn't get us very far.

I hit him with the big one.

I said, "I've been talking to Rafe Carey's wife, Leo. To Emma.

"Your sister-in-law."

"Can you tell me about Sonia? Can you tell me about your daughter? Is that what this is about? You blamed Rafe Carey for that, didn't you? He and his wife looked after her, while you and your wife were in Rome. And she had meningitis and she d*ed. And you never talked about it or let him explain or..."

"It was Rafe Carey's idea, is that right? To go away, by yourselves. Time to patch things up. He paid for that trip, didn't he? A present to Katrina."

Nothing.

Nothing.

Corinne Evans is a bold woman. A woman not easily deterred.

If you like to feel a woman could grab a situation by the scruff of the neck, if the need arose... Corinne could.

If you like that type.

The firefighter type, the tough police officer.

Someone that hasn't had to look too deep into herself and then needs to and then comes calling.

If you do.

I'll front up to anyone, but there's only so long you can say so much and the other person say so little.

Your questions start coming back at you, start preying on your own mind, instead of theirs.

It spooked me, after a bit.

It spooked me quite a lot, in fact.

The room was very small and just the one of us speaking.

I had to get out of there, in the end.

I talked to the medic about the blood on the stone.

Got the diagnosis.

So, I can't say I can't talk.

He watched me go, scuttling off with my little blank cassette tape.

Laura.

Laura.

I saw my wife. She said she thought I was dead.

I suppose it's a mixed feeling.

You think someone's dead, then you see them and they say they're not, but they will be soon.

Maybe you think, "Now I've got to go through all that again."

I saw her in town.

It reminded me why I don't go there.

I went to the police station, to tell the detective about the shouting.

She drove me back to the river bank.

She asked me if I'd heard other voices or just that one.

I said, I heard three.

"Frankie! Frankie! Frankie!"

They were shouting.

Three.

I was on the opposite bank, in the trees... sorting my traps.

I couldn't see... but I could hear.

There was three of them.

One of them said the other was a junkie.

They were fighting. I could hear it in his voice.

Struggling.

And then, the other one, shouting, "Frankie! Frankie! Frankie!"

Then, the splash.

Then, the silence.

I came out of the trees. The bank was washed away where they'd been.

And further up... the chair, the rods.

The lines were still in the water.

But there was no-one left.

She wanted to see my boots, the detective.

Asked if I'd found any money lying about.

Asked my shoe size.

Wanted to know if I owned a Kn*fe.

She wanted to look around in here.

Oh, it smells.

I mean, I can't smell it, but it does.

Smells rank. Smells... mortal.

Still, she sat down and then, she didn't alter.

She pretended she didn't notice. Didn't say anything for a while.

I got the sense that she was weighing up whether to ask me something.

"Do you hear things, living way out here all alone?"

I said, "I hear lots of things."

"Voices, maybe?"

I said, "Voices, like by the river?" She said, "No."

I said, "Rarely then, voices.

"Unless, of course, you'd count the cries of the birds and the animals as voices."

"I lost someone," she said.

"Recently. Someone dear to me."

This didn't seem to request a reply.

Silence fell.

Eventually, she got up to go.

I said, "In the normal run of things, I don't talk to the police, "but I'm turning over a new leaf."

She said she was glad to hear it.

Frankie found out where I worked.

Maybe Katrina mentioned it.

I came out one lunchtime to get a sandwich and he started walking along beside me.

He wanted more money.

He didn't exactly say that, but I didn't want him walking along beside me.

I stopped to ask him what he wanted. He said, "You know what I want.

"The question is, what do you want?"

I grew up with my brother's arm around my shoulders.

If I'm honest, no man has ever matched him.

That was hard for Leo.

I tell him over and over. I say, there was no competition, that a brother's a brother, a husband's a husband, that Rafe is Rafe and Leo is Leo.

But he could tell that, in some way, Rafe was the archetype for me, for what a man should be.

It was well known what happened to... what happened to Katrina and me.

Frankie must've made it his business to find out more and... the way his mind worked...

For a time, I thought about nothing but k*lling Rafe Carey.

I'd plan it in detail, lose myself in it.

I hid from other thoughts in that one and nursed it and fed it and, after a while, it bust my mind.

If other thoughts intruded, I used it to sweep them away.

I woke up with that thought.

Wherever I went, I took it with me.

I slept with it, when I slept. And when I slept, I dreamt it, too.

k*lling Rafe Carey.

For my birthday, Rafe got us tickets to Rome. Two tickets.

Leo joked that Rafe just wanted Sonia to himself.

I could've k*lled Rafe Carey with my eyes closed.

I could've k*lled Rafe Carey with one hand tied behind my back.

I could've k*lled him without a second thought.

But, of course... I couldn't.

Frankie saw that.

Frankie monetised that.

I bought him a mobile phone, bought him trainers, gave him money.

He called it Operation X.

He said I wasn't alone any more.

He said we were a team.

I wasn't alone.

People come to me because they want to hear from the dead.

But Corinne Evans hears too much from the dead.

"Is it real?" she asked. "Is it Laura or is it just me?"

She's written everything down in her police notebook, everything Laura says to her, like it was evidence.

Pages and pages of it.

Pages and pages and pages.

Is it real?

Is it things she's told me that I don't remember her telling me?

Is it just in my head or is she speaking to me?

Is she speaking to me, Isabel?

She's gone through her e-mails, her photos.

She's asked Laura's mother for her diary from when she was a little girl.

What was the name of the horse she rode?

Who taught her piano? How do I know these things, Isabel?

"Tell me what it's like for you," she said, "when they come".

"They're bullies," I said. "They crowd you and corner you."

They give you no choice.

We sat here.

We held hands across the table. I think she expected it.

There's no other side.

Someone dies and they've passed over.

They're on the other side.

There's no other side.

The living thrash about on the surface and the dead swim below, in darkness.

They breathe water.

There's no other side.

Corinne Evans knows that.

But she doesn't know she knows it.

A particular concern to Sergeant Evans was her friend's parents - their grief in relation to hers.

She'd read that losing a child often results in marital break-up and she didn't want that to happen to them.

She wanted them to have the best chance they could at standing together on this.

She wanted them to have the full picture, so they could face what they had to face.

She used that expression a number of times - "the full picture".

I asked her what she meant by it. She didn't elucidate.

( Music plays )

She had a bit of a cold before we left, but Rafe said it was nothing.

The flu.

He's a GP, so obviously when he said it was flu, that's what we thought she had.

Crying: By the time that he realised it wasn't, it was too late.

We were in Rome and she was here.

She was so far away.

You think of white as white, but it's not.

When I went to the shop and asked for white, they showed me the shades on the colour chart.

And it was a good question. Which shade exactly?

I took the chart away and I was... I was going to ask Katrina, but she didn't want to paint the room.

It was my decision.

I went back out to the car park and sat in the car and looked at the colour chart... and it was obvious, once I sat and thought about it.

The white of our hotel room in Rome.

That was where we'd been. That was what it had to be.

I did think about going back there or phoning the hotel and asking them what paint they used, what white it was, but their English wasn't good and my Italian was non-existent.

I learnt the phrase from Google Translate, though.

"What shade of white are the walls in room seven?"

Quali tonalit di bianco sono le pareti de la stanza sette?

That was the white I wanted for her...

That was the white I wanted for her... for...

'Say Sonia.'

That was the white I wanted for her...

'Say Sonia.'

I paid Frankie Alder to k*ll Rafe Carey for...

'Say Sonia.'

I paid Frankie Alder to k*ll Rafe Carey for... for my daughter.

For my daughter.

Not guilty.

Guilty.

Guilty, he says.

The rest is just quibbling.

Not a word of what or how or who. Just guilty.

Nothing else matters.

Not the truth. Nothing.

Not if it will get him Sonia back.

He's guilty, so it's 17 years.

I stood by him... but he's walked away.

He's guilty.

17 years.

Gone.

They're all gone.

Guilty's not a confession. Guilty's a f*cking cover-up!

Guilty's not good enough.

One of those two put the Kn*fe in Rafe Carey. Which one?

That's a confession.

Which one of you did it?!

Guilty, what's that? It's nothing. Nothing but lies Leo Durridge told.

Lies, then nothing.

Lies, then silence - that's all Leo Durridge had to offer.

Then, guilty.

Well, f*ck you, Leo, sitting in your prison cell, penitent.

It's not good enough.

Get down off your f*cking cross! We need the wood!

This kid's up in court with a bullshit story that only you can contradict.

My client, Frankie Alder, took money from Leo Durridge and said he would k*ll Rafe Carey.

But he never had any intention of doing it.

He conned him.

End of story.

End of story.

Guilty, that's all he'd say.

He'd spooked me with silence, but this was worse.

I'd ask a question, he'd answer, "Guilty."

"It's time you told me about Frankie Alder, Leo."

"Guilty."

"The two of you conspired to k*ll Rafe Carey, didn't you?"

"Guilty."

I said, "We've got a witness heard you shouting his name."

"You were in this together, Leo. Just admit it."

He went to the river bank where Durridge and Carey were fishing and demanded money with menaces.

He had a Kn*fe.

Basically, Your Honour...

Frankie Alder is stupid.

Stupid and wilful and unreflective.

He thought, if he went to the river and waved a Kn*fe at Rafe Carey, he'd secure the final payment promised him by Leo Durridge in relation to the proposed m*rder.

He didn't know how Carey would react.

He hadn't given any thought to that and he ended up in the river, as a result.

Now... if we look at the evidence of the late Mr... the late Mr Desmond Tiernan.

He heard Leo Durridge shouting, "Frankie! Frankie! Frankie!"

Heard three shouts and a splash, in that order.

But if we look at the weather that day and its likely effect on the acoustics at the scene... and if we take into consideration what we know about his extremely poor health and his wife's comments on his state of mind... how sure can we really be of exactly what he heard?

Isn't it more likely that the splash came before the last of the shouts?

That Frankie Alder ended up alone in the river, as he claims, and as Leo Durridge also confirms, leaving Durridge and Carey on the bank?

"Why don't we go through everything that happened that day? Why don't we start again, right at the beginning?"

"Guilty. Guilty, guilty."

I said, "Break it up for us a bit, will you, Leo? It's getting samey."

"Guilty. I said, "If..."

He didn't even let me finish. "Guilty," he said.

Looked me in the eyes.

"Guilty."

I opened my mouth again to say... "Guilty!"

Plus, Leo Durridge has come here from prison today, has come here voluntarily from prison today, to confirm my client's story.

I opened my mouth again, to say... "Guilty."

Accusation.

He was accusing me.

Everything I did or said, "Guilty."

I had a lot of questions I needed to... but the words hitting me, that word hitting me.

Knowing it was com...

It started to...

I didn't want to put my que... because I didn't want...

It was like a twisted...

Guilty. All I was hearing was...

Tears welling up in me.

For Christ's sake, I'm stifling a sob.

If I opened my mouth, there is going to be... emotion. There is going to be... big emotion. There's going to be...

I'm a professional. I compartm...

Laura over here, death here.

Here.

Here.

Here! This death now over here, Rafe.

There's no over... this one and Laura, none.

Except they're both dead and shouldn't...

They can't start without me and I'm not there.

They met at 16.

Inseparable, besotted.

Those were her words.

Sometimes, Laura tells her she was trying to help a fox at the side of the road that had been hit by a car.

She says she's sorry. She had to help the fox.

It was crying out in distress.

Other times, she tells her she'll meet her there, at the spot where she d*ed, which Corinne takes to mean the place itself, the road where the fox was, the place where Laura pulled over.

I asked her, "What will you say to her, if she comes?"

Her mum and dad bring food, photographs of Laura, old school books, swimming certificates, her diary from when she was nine.

But she wouldn't say.

And we talk about her. "What's she said this time?"

They say, "We'll look it up. Check. We'll know if it's her."

I want to say, "It was over between us, can you not see?"

I was too much of a coward to tell her, but...

I can't... I can't do it.

I can hardly hear them, even, hardly even... see them.

All I can see is her.

I'm on the other side already.

If there was any actual attempt at m*rder, in relation to my client, it was upon him by Rafe Carey... who pushed him in the river...

All: ..despite his vulnerable protestations... that he couldn't swim.

People are surprised when I say I won't visit.

And then they say, trying to rationalise it, "Well, he did k*ll your brother."

I say, "Oh, did he? Has he told you that?"

"Well, the other man, he got off."

I only mean he's never told me.

I think he planned it so that it never happened, planned it so that it couldn't.

It wasn't about k*lling Rafe. It was about Leo and Frankie.

A red sticker on a cash machine?

That anyone might've removed before Frankie even saw it? No.

And then walking five miles in the rain, k*lling a man for the promise of £250?

Frankie Alder?

It meant that Frankie got money in his pocket and Rafe got to live and Leo got to tell himself that he tried and failed to k*ll him.

( Eerie music plays )

What's this?

What do you want, son?

Don't speak.

I'm only asking what you want.

You're standing there with that big Kn*fe I want you not to speak.

You want money? Here. We have money.

Shut up.

You stupid f*ckin' junkie bastard!

I watched him launch himself at Frankie, smacking his fat head into Frankie's face, grabbing at the Kn*fe, casting everything asunder, to have his way.

Frankie! Frankie!

Everything I wanted to know and could never ask about my daughter.

Flying back from Rome, not knowing whether she's alive or dead.

Or called out for us or what she might've said.

My daughter, my...

My daughter.

( Music plays )

And I shut him up forever.

Forever.

And then the bank gave way.

Everything I wanted to know, but could never ask, about my daughter.

Flying back from Rome, not knowing whether she's alive or dead or called out for us or what she might have said.

My daughter. My...

My daughter. My...

My...

My daughter - mine and Katrina's.

Tossed away by him... who always knows best.

What I wanted to know, Rafe knew.

And where I wanted to be, Rafe was.

With her.

With her.

With Sonia.

The river's a crazy place when you're in it.

It's a mad place.

It's not a place at all, is it?

Well, it's a river.