Next to Die by Neil White

that. Emily had been in the bath, three years old and all curls and smiles, with Amy, just crawling, playing in the room next door. It was normally his favourite time of the day, relaxing with his daughters. He couldn’t even remember how he was the night before.
    ‘I’m not on the squad, but the inspector wanted me to do something, and I didn’t like it. She wanted me to spy on him.’
    ‘On Joe?’ Alice sat up. ‘Why, what’s he done?’
    ‘It’s one of his clients. He’s been charged with murder. He killed his girlfriend and daughter, but we can’t find the bodies.’
    Alice looked shocked. ‘Can you do that, have a murder case without a body?’
    ‘Provided we can be sure the victims are dead.’
    ‘And so what do they expect from Joe?’
    ‘That he’ll talk, breach his client’s confidence just because I’m his brother. He won’t, and I should have known that. If it came out that he’d told me his client’s secrets, he would be struck off.’
    ‘So what about the inspector?’
    ‘I’ll just tell her that Joe won’t talk, that he’s a better man than she gives him credit for, and then it’s back to my little office.’
    Her arm went over his chest, and he felt the warmth of her body alongside him. ‘You’re a good man, Sam Parker.’
    They lay like that for a few minutes, Alice’s breaths getting slower as she drifted back to sleep. Sam tried to join her, but every time he glanced towards the clock, he saw the green light blinking on his phone. A voicemail message.
    His curiosity kept him fully awake and so after five more minutes of sighing and fidgeting he slid away from Alice. He swung his legs out of bed and searched for his clothes, before grabbing his phone.
    He went downstairs to the computer. It was in the dining room, tucked into a corner so that they could pretend it wasn’t there. Alice used it for shopping and looking at houses abroad she dreamed of buying but knew she never would. As the computer started, he scrabbled around for a cable that would connect the earphone socket on the phone to the computer. All the cables were wrapped up neatly in labelled bags to stop them tangling, but there was still a small loose collection in an old biscuit tin. Right at the bottom, he found it. A small black lead, jack to jack.
    He found the microphone socket on the computer and put in the lead. He scrolled through the programs until he found the recording software that came with the computer and changed the settings to get the right input. He was ready.
    He dialled his voicemail to check that it was what he thought it was, and straight away he felt the jolt in his chest as he heard the screams, the pleading. He plugged the lead straight into the phone, pressed the record button on the computer, and then replayed the message. He watched as the meter flickered up and down as it recorded the call, mostly green, but the occasional red peaks were like small stabs to his stomach, until the peaks became longer and he watched the seconds go by. Twenty. Then thirty. He had normally ended the call by then. After fifty seconds, the meter went still so he clicked the stop button.
    Sam unplugged his phone and held it to his ear. The voicemail was going through the options. He clicked to save the sound file. Whatever the message was, he had it on his computer.
    He was tired but the nerves in his stomach stopped him from wanting to go back to his bed, where the warmth of Alice’s embrace would be preferable to what he knew would be stored on the hard drive. He heard the click and whoosh of the central heating as it came on, the summer not yet taking hold. Birds were singing outside, a joyous start to the day, but Sam’s only focus was the hum of the computer fans.
    He sought out some headphones, put them on, and then scrolled through to the music folder, where he had saved the sound file. His finger paused over the mouse button for a second as he readied himself, and then he clicked the play button. He