Behind the Facade (23 page)

 “You knew you were making a fool out of me.
How could you?” she rasped, her voice cracking.

“I’ve done nothing that you didn’t want,” he replied
coldly. “Didn’t I give you every chance to walk away? I warned you, but you
wouldn’t listen!”

“I never would have knowingly wanted you. Never!”
she averred, vehemently. She didn’t notice the almost imperceptible tightening
of his mouth at her caustic words.

 “This isn’t about you, it never was,” he said
dismissively and turned away, stinging from the surprising pain her
renunciation had caused him.

“Who
is
it about then?” she challenged.
“Brenna?”

He turned sharply back, his face distorted by the
violence of his emotion. He grabbed her arms and shook her fiercely. “How do
you know that name? What do you know about my sister?!” he shouted. If she
hadn’t known better, Kate would have sworn that his eyes glistened with a thin
sheen of tears.

She gaped at him. “I
..
I...,”
she stuttered.

He glared at her, his fingers digging cruelly into
her flesh.

“That was what you said,” she eventually choked out.
“That’s the name you say in your sleep!”

His expression changed to one of shocked bemusement
and he released her. He had assumed it was merely his accent that had betrayed
his identity.

 He rubbed his face briskly and when he looked
at her again he had regained his composure, his face once again a stony mask.
He turned to the dressing table and picked up the gun. Kate watched in growing
dismay as he turned it over thoughtfully in his hands.

He suddenly pointed the gun at her, his bright eyes
as metallic and pitiless as the weapon.

Her face drained of colour.

“My sister was tortured and murdered,” he said, his
conversational tone belying the enormity of his words. “Your father was
responsible. Isn’t it only fair that he be robbed of someone close to him too?”

 Her eyes widened in horror. “No!" she
gasped, repudiating both the threat of the gun and the allegation against her
father.

“You’re also a liability now,” he said. “You know my
new persona. There’s no other option.” His mouth was set in a grim unyielding
line.

He moved closer to her, the gun barrel a looming
black orifice of death. She backed against the wall, her face a petrified mask.
Her lips moved but no sound emerged. Terror had paralysed her vocal cords. Her
heart screamed denial. Her confused and terrified mind found a focus in the
maelstrom of panic-stricken thoughts and clung to it. She closed her eyes and
offered a fervent prayer to God.

Instinct urged her to just keep her eyes shut and
accept the inevitable, but her spirit was suddenly electrified. If he was going
to kill her, she would not make it easy for him. She opened her eyes wide in
defiance, only betraying herself with a solitary tear. She saw the moment when
he resolved to do it and sensed him tense, as his grip tightened on the
trigger. Then his gaze met hers and she saw something strangely like remorse
flicker in his eyes.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered, and pulled the trigger.

* 

Sean sat in his car, his laptop on his knees,
thrumming quietly as it fired up. He could feel his whole body shaking. Tiny
spherules of sweat broke out on his forehead and he squeezed his eyes shut
momentarily, willing himself to calm down, trying to block the image of Kate’s
pale, lifeless face from his mind. He had had no choice. He had done what
needed to be done.

He forced the image of his dead sister to the
forefront of his mind instead. His hands tightened into fists, his nails biting
into his palms. “Your death will be fully avenged,” he whispered. “I failed
you, but I will not fail you now. The man who abused you is dead. Now your
deceivers...your killers...will know what it is to be betrayed, will know what
it is to suffer a terrible, wretched end.”

He opened his eyes, their silver stare as glittering
and determined as steel. He pulled a memory stick from his pocket and plugged
it into the laptop. His fingers moved rapidly over the keyboard. He was soon
finished and he sat back and exhaled, wiping the moisture from his face with
his sleeve. The file was sent, sooner than he’d wanted. The information saved
in it had been automatically encrypted and he hadn’t had time to try and break
the code. He would just have to hope their techies were clever enough to crack
it themselves.

He shut the notebook computer down and dumped it on
the passenger seat. He started the car and began to pull away from the kerb,
but he was unable to resist one last lingering glance up towards Kate’s flat.
If life had been simple for him.
If they
had met under any other circumstances.

He wrenched his eyes away and gritted his teeth,
ruthlessly sweeping all thoughts of her from his mind. Life never conformed to
an ideal and never would. He now had but one mission
and
 if
his life had to be sacrificed for the realisation of that
mission so be it.

Life before had been full, if not fulfilling. He had
concentrated on satisfying himself with many vain and frivolous things. His
sister had simply been another part of his heart he had locked away so it
couldn’t hurt him. He kept in regular contact with her and not having her with
him was something he had conditioned himself to accept. When the news of her
death reached him, it had torn a hole in the carefully constructed shield he
had built around himself. It was a fatal blow to his old egocentric self. The
wreckage of this buried his heart beyond rescue, but it also left a burning
shard within it. This was the desire for justice, upon which he fixed his whole
reason for living. The irony was that he would never succeed because the one
person he held most responsible for her death was himself. He might have been
young when his sister was taken from him but he had allowed his obsession with
a married woman to take precedence. He had fought to get Brenna back but had
soon given up, convincing
himself
that she was better
off with their mother anyway. He should have known better. She’d even broken
the news of his sister’s death to him like another weapon with which to wound
him.

The ringing of the phone had pierced his head like a
knife. He should have known it was going to be bad at such an hour. He’d over
indulged as he did on most weekends in both booze and sex and his mood was not
pretty when he grabbed the receiver. He threw aside his latest bed–mate’s arm
and answered the phone with a gruff, “Who is it? It better be bloody worth
disturbing me at this bloody hour.” 

When he heard his mother’s voice on the other end it
hit him immediately, like a shot of adrenalin.  He forgot his banging head
and sat up, fully alert. There was only one reason his mother would be ringing
him and it wouldn’t be to exchange pleasantries. She never called. Something
was wrong with Brenna. His mother’s words bristled with recrimination. Whatever
had happened, it was his fault of course. He tried to break through the torrent
of abuse.
“Mother!
Just tell me what the hell has
happened? Where is Brenna?”

“She’s dead!” his mother screamed back at him. “You
killed her!
Giving her fancy ideas about herself.
Making her think she could be better than she was! She ran away from me and now
she’s dead!”

Sean dropped the phone as if it was on fire. He
didn’t need to hear any more. He just had to get there. There must be some
mistake and he had to rectify it. The girl beside him was awake by this time.
Her tousled head emerged from the bed clothes and she turned languorous brown
eyes on him. “What’s the matter, babe? Are you leaving?”

“Yes,” he bit out. “Go back to sleep.”

Pulling on clothes, he shoved underwear and other
essentials in a bag and headed out, flagging a taxi to the airport as soon as
his feet hit the sidewalk. He’d taken the next flight to London, heedless of
cost. Sitting on the airplane, he’d pulled his phone from his pocket, anxious
to distract himself from the sickening dread that was pulling his nerves to
pieces. He could at least arrange a hire car at the other end and in doing so
propel himself more quickly to his destination. Before he could turn it on, the
flight attendant, having noticed his state of agitation, offered him a drink.
He gladly accepted, especially as he was keen to silence not only his restless
mind but the screaming hangover that had begun to reassert itself. He downed
the whisky in one and another quickly followed. The rest of the flight passed
in an anaesthetised haze.

 Reality stepped in before long and gave him a vicious
kick. The moment he saw his mother’s accusing face, he knew there could be no
mistake, but still he had to see her. He had to see Brenna. He demanded it,
cutting through his mother’s continuing vituperation. Shocked by this, she
started to berate his unfeeling attitude towards her. He’d ignored her as soon
as he had the information he wanted, making straight for the police morgue.

When they pulled back the sheet and he saw her
lovely face, bereft of the vitality and luminosity that had so defined it, it
was then that he broke down. Even the morgue attendant, who was used to
displays of extreme emotion, had felt his skin prickle when he heard the
anguished sounds coming from the man he had just admitted. He couldn’t help
backing up a step when he went to escort the girl’s brother from the room and
was faced with a desolate, yet
fulgid
, stare, the
ferocity of which he had never encountered before. In the end it had taken soft
persuasion to move him, as force had proved futile.

When a police detective informed him that they were
confident they knew who his sister’s murderer was, he was ready to break down
every obstacle to get to the bastard. Learning that the man had committed
suicide and had thus escaped his vengeance, the knowledge had almost unhinged
him. With no outlet for his emotions and no object for his hate and anger but
himself, he’d considered ending his own life. Only for him it would not have
been the coward’s way out but rather a fitting punishment. The only thing that
stopped him was the funeral. His sister deserved to be honoured by someone who
had truly loved her, no matter how undeserving that person might be. He didn’t
speak to his mother at the wake and Brenna’s friends were too scared to
approach the tall, stony faced brother who brushed off every tentative
expression of sympathy.

 He watched the single, perfect white rose,
fall onto her coffin and saw, rather than felt, the single tear that followed
it. He swiped at his eye angrily. He had no right to tears. Not when she must
have shed so many and in her darkest hour cried out to him without answer. This
thought suddenly stimulated him into action. What if she had, literally, tried
to call him? Digging his phone out of his pocket, which he’d purposely left off
to avoid any business calls or distractions, he turned from the grave. He
listened through the numerous voicemail messages that had been left for him.
When he heard someone who mentioned Brenna’s name, his face drained of blood.
Why hadn’t he thought of checking his phone before? She’d needed him and he’d
let her down.
Again.
God damn him! What had the caller
said again?

He listened carefully to the re-play. It gave him a
jolt to hear the man state his name. It was Charlie Hughes. The murdering son
of a bitch had even introduced himself! His voice had been nervous but he’d
sounded ridiculously sincere. Why the hell would he call him? And what was this
company he’d mentioned? Bespoke Cars? He seemed to be accusing this company of
“selling” Brenna to someone? Damn it, the message had been cut off before the
piece of shit had properly explained
himself
. He’d
have to take this to the police.

There was a tap on his car window just as he was
about to leave the cemetery for the police station. He’d successfully avoided
all attempts to detain him as he’d marched from the grave-site. He looked up.
It was no-one he knew. This was all he needed. Letting down the window,
intending to get rid of the fellow as quickly as he could, he barked, “Sorry, I
can’t stop. I have to be somewhere urgently.”

The man put his hand on the top of the window to
prevent him from closing it. He had long blond, almost white, hair and fair
skin, which was reddened and blotchy. He had obviously been crying, as his
eyelids were swollen and his eyes were still bright with tears. “I won’t keep
you, I promise,” he said. “I can’t get my head around any of this. I’m so sorry
about your sister but please know that my Charlie could not,
would
not
have murdered her.”

Sean was anxious to be off but this man’s words
prodded him in a place that was too newly sensitive. So this guy had known the
bastard and couldn’t see that he was guilty? It was funny how the closest
people to such monsters never recognised them for what they really were. In
anger and impatience, he pushed the door open and grabbed him.

Pushing him up against the side of the car, he spat
into his face. “Friend of his
were
you? Do you know
what he did to my sister? He didn’t deserve to die. Death was too good for him.
I hope he burns in hell! Now get out of my sight before I decide to send you
after him.” With that he released him.

The man buckled but held his ground and snatched at
Sean’s arm as he made to re-enter his vehicle. “Please,” he pleaded, “you don’t
understand. I was more than his friend. We were lovers. Charlie cannot have
done all the things they say were done to her. Aside from being the gentlest
person I knew, he wasn’t even interested in girls.”

“So he managed to fool you as well as my sister,”
Sean responded, dismissively. He barged past him and slammed the car door in
his face, as he regained his seat. Gunning the engine savagely, he drove away,
gravel spitting angrily out from beneath the tyres.

Sean had just finished speaking on the phone to the
police. He had been to the station and had told them about the voice message.
He had even left his mobile with them. The constable he had just spoken to had
thanked him for the information but they had investigated further and could now
confirm that they were not looking for anyone else in connection with his
sister’s homicide. Since the caller had been Charles Hughes, the man they
already blamed for her death, his message had simply served to corroborate
their original conclusions. The time of the call had come close to the time she
was admitted to hospital. He had likely regretted his actions and obtained
Sean’s number from Brenna in some belated bid to make amends. The fact he’d
mentioned Bespoke Cars must just be a mistake. Perhaps he’d been confused or it
was an elaborate attempt to pin the blame elsewhere? The evidence against
Charles was just too overwhelming to justify wasting precious time and
resources on what they believed was
a false lead.  The
police knew that she had been incarcerated somewhere other than Charles flat,
as there had been no evidence of her having been in his home, and they still
had no clues about where that may have been but, as far as they were concerned,
the case was wrapped up. Charles had not topped himself for nothing. They’d
found her blood all over his car. He was the obvious culprit and they had other
far more pressing, unsolved cases requiring their attention.

Sean had been far from satisfied. There were too
many unanswered questions. In a backhanded slap at him, rather than with any
intention of helping, his mother had revealed that Brenna had left home over
three months before her death. She’d had some notion of becoming a model. His
mother blamed him, not only for giving her nonsensical ideas like this but for
Brenna’s clearly stated desire to earn enough money to follow him to America.
It troubled him that she’d made no mention of this to him. Her emails had
always been full of news about college but she was a teenager and all teenagers
had secrets. Had she decided to run off with some boyfriend and the modelling
had just been her cover story?

He was asking around her college about boyfriends
and whether anyone had heard her mention Charles Hughes or Bespoke Cars, when a
girl called Stacey had approached him. Stacey was fairly sure that Brenna
hadn’t had any serious boyfriends. Clearly still distressed about Brenna’s
death, she’d got choked up talking about the last time she’d seen her, blaming
herself for not sticking with her. When she’d mentioned a modelling
interview she’d accompanied her to, this had verified his mother’s story. With
Stacey’s help, he’d returned to the place where she was interviewed but it was
just an empty office, available for temporary rentals. This discovery sent an
inexplicable trickle of dread slithering through his guts. Anyone could have
rented it and, unfortunately, Stacey couldn’t remember the name of the agency.
He then trawled every modelling agency he could find, but no-one knew of her.
He’d reached a dead end but was not prepared to give up now. He suspected that
this strangely untraceable modelling job was somehow
key
.
She’d crossed paths with Charles Hughes at some point, so he started to look at
him more closely.

He was stunned when, after only superficial enquiries,
he discovered that Charles Hughes had been a very popular, well liked person
and openly gay. Maybe it was still plausible for him to have targeted and
killed her.  But was it really possible that such a man could sexually
assault her in such a brutal fashion? When he’d gone back to the police with
his concerns, they’d been curt and even a little impatient with him. For them
there was little need to establish the man’s motives or to deduce how Brenna
had met him. They appreciated he wanted answers but he had to accept these
might never come. The perpetrator and his victim were dead. Charles had even
left a letter of confession but no-one would ever know quite why he’d done what
he did or what had transpired. If the police would do nothing, it was left to
him to work alone. This raison
d’etre
 at least
helped to blunt the claws of
his own
raging
guilt.