The Lost Sister (17 page)

As I stepped inside, Kathryn Brown said, “I thought you might be the police. Except maybe for…” She gestured to her own face, meaning she'd noticed my new scars. And who wouldn't?

“The police?” Aye, check the innocent tone.

She led me through to the kitchen. The sliding French doors that led out to the rear of the property had been broken; glass shattered and spread out across the linoleum. “Happened before I came home. Five years I've been here, and no trouble.” She nodded out across the back garden to the silhouettes of the high rises. “Sometimes wonder if the problems are worse in people's heads.”

I said, “Comes to us all sooner or later.”

She nodded. “You're sure you're not the police?”

I smiled. “Used to be.”

She nodded. “You have the walk.” She kept her back to me, started examining the shattered window, assessing the damage. A B&E, executed with no hint of subtlety.

I kept back. Looked around the kitchen. All the utensils were packed away. All the work surfaces sparkled.

Funny thing was, I would have expected more chaos in the wake of a B&E.

When I looked back at Kathryn Brown, she offered me a sad little smile and said, “I think I scared them off when I came home.”

“You saw someone here?”

She ignored the question: “When you mentioned Deborah, I was ready to shut the door in your face.”

“You know where she is.” Not a question. A statement of fact. She couldn't argue with me.

“Who are you again?”

I pulled out a card, laid it on the kitchen worktop. She looked at it, but not closely.

“Unusual job,” she said.

“It pays the bills.”

“Oh? Surprised we don't have more of you, then.”

“Discretion,” I said, “is the key.”

She smiled, picked up the card and slipped it into the inside pocket of her suit jacket. She moved to the sink, grabbed a glass from the draining board and poured herself a water straight from the tap. Let it run for a few moments before placing the glass in the stream.

Splash back bounced off her hand.

“Tell me why you left the police.”

I didn't say anything.

“I mean, what kind of man gives up on that? Goes on to become –”

I had to smile. “Aye, I know the reputation we have. Sleazy. Last resorts. Ray Winstone plays us on the telly as overweight, out of shape and morally dubious. Think the profession would keep going if we were really like that?”

She smiled.

The temperature in the kitchen was close to freezing with that hole in the rear door.

“Really,” I said. “We need to talk about Deborah.”

“I haven't heard from her in fifteen years.”

“Then why did you let me in? I turn up, say I know you're hiding something, and you just let me waltz through your front door?”

“Couldn't have you outside,” she said. “There's a frost lying.” She led me into the living room. The room was lit by standing lamps from Ikea and the television was on
Sky One
. the volume turned low. A repeat of
Stargate
. She looked at the telly and then at me. Smiled uncomfortably and said, “I just like to have something on for the company. Why are you here and not the police?”

“The police never made the connection,” I said.

“And you? How did you make it? What's your interest in any of this?”

“You mean am I just hunting glory?”

“It's a big story. You find the missing girl, it means a lot of coverage and a lot of business.”

I nodded. “Remember the word
discreet
?” Business wouldn't pick up. An investigator's reputation with his clients often relies on their business not hitting the front pages.

She perched on the sofa across from me. Gestured for me to take a seat in the armchair opposite.

“I was looking into Mary's disappearance,” I said. “Working with the police. Not in any official capacity. More as a…consultant.”

She looked at me, one eyebrow raising of its own accord. Aye, what reason did she have to believe anything I said?

Trying not to sound uncomfortable, I said, “I got involved because of a friend. A reporter working the story. He asked me to keep an eye on the situation.”

She nodded. “Hardly noble.”

I shrugged. “What is, these days? I was working the case, figured the connections with David Burns. And then I met a man who told me about your sister.”

She stiffened. Knew who he was before I said anything.

Of course she did.

You don't forget a guy like Wickes.

“He came to me,” I said, repeating myself a little. Trying to force the fact we had no connection. Would I trust anyone who said he knew that bastard? “He's looking for your sister. Get the feeling you know who I'm talking about? Calls himself Wickes.”

She nodded. Still didn't say anything.

Who was to tell her I wasn't working with Wickes?

I tried not to sound too much like I was begging for her belief. “He gave me some story about how your sister kidnapped her daughter. I don't think it's entirely true.”

“He's unstable,” she said. “A head-case, you know?”

I almost said, “He says the same about her,” but caught myself in time.

Did this mean she believed me, or that she was testing me?

She looked at me with a flat expression.

I nodded. Reached up and touched the new scars on my face. “I guessed that one.”

“You got off lucky,” Kathryn Brown said. “He's a killer.”

I nodded. Sat forward in my seat. Said, “Tell me.”

She hesitated.

“He's looking for your sister,” I said. “If Wickes is as dangerous as I think he is, and half as smart, then he's going to find her. She can't keep running.”

I paused for a moment, let that one sink in. “I guess you already know that. She can't do this alone. You can't do this alone. Let me help you. Let me help her.”

“And Mary,” she said. “More than any of us.”

Take three statements from three people and they'll all differ.

Sometimes in minor ways, but there'll always be a different emphasis, a different focus.

Sometimes all three will lie to aggrandise or diminish their own part in proceedings. What you do – as an investigator – is you take all these stories and pull them apart; find the kernel of truth in each one.

No one can lie convincingly without incorporating some element of truth into what they say.

Wickes hadn't lied about the surrogacy. The obsession, from a certain point of view, was also true. And the intimidation. That part, he had dead on.

The rest, according to Kathryn, was warmed-over shite.

“Deborah was looking for help. Someone to get Burns to cool off. The police were no help. Even when those bastards assaulted her. When they…” She broke off. What had happened the night those thugs broke into Deborah's room?

Wickes had been fuzzy on details.

Deborah's sister was avoiding them.

Maybe I already knew, but I hoped to Christ I was wrong.

“The police didn't do anything?”

“Didn't take her seriously. Kept giving her this shite about Burns being nothing more than a businessman.”

Aye, try getting them to say that today.

Back then, it had been the end of the honeymoon for coppers and organised crime. No more backroom deals or attempts at negotiation. Zero tolerance.

Both sides coming to terms with the end of an era.

I said, “You remember the name of the officer she talked to?”

Kathryn shook her head. “It was a long time ago.”

What was the bet…Bright?

Christ, and why not? He couldn't go down any further in my estimation, right?

“If you people had just done your job, maybe we wouldn't be here, now.”

You people
.

I wasn't a copper any more. But I still carried their sins.

The job of an investigator is often nebulous; our precise areas of interest fuzzy and undetermined. More often we can say with certainty what we can't do rather than what we can.

The
Britain's second police force
slogan sometimes feels like just that. An empty collection of words designed to inspire faith without actually saying anything of value.

People come to us to track down missing persons, gain evidence on other's activities and sometimes to hire muscle.

The intimidation game.

A no-no for anyone on the ABI register.

Wickes had done that kind of work. In the old days, most people in the profession wouldn't have thought twice about it.

These days, the lines are defined more clearly.

“All she wanted was someone who could get these people to leave her alone.”

The way Wickes told it, she came to him looking for a saviour. That had been where his story made the connection between us: who could refuse that kind of request?

“He told her it would never happen. What she needed to do was run.”

Kathryn nodded. “When she came and told me that it was better to run away than to fight, it sounded sensible. Given…the situation. And the authorities' lack of interest.”

“But he persuaded her to run away with him. He offered her the protection she needed. Or thought she did.”

“That's what I didn't like. This man – this man she barely knew, barely trusted – offering her a way out.”

Talk about your deals with the devil.

There were conditions to the arrangement. A whole book of them. The one that worried Kathryn the most: Deborah was allowed no contact with her old life. She would have to leave everything behind.

Including her sister.

“And she just went along with that. Always Deb's problem, you know? She was…suggestible. Never knew if that was to do with…you know…”

Her depression. Her illness. Kathryn didn't need to say anything out loud. I could sense it, what she meant. What she didn't want to say.

Wickes hadn't been lying to me about some things, at least.

She must have seen my look, said, “Aye, you know, then?”

“Way he told it, she was aggressive and unpredictable.”

Kathryn's eyes were glassy. Puffed up; those bags showing.

It was killing her just to talk about any of this.

But she had to.

And I had to listen.

I went to the kitchen, found the kettle and the tea.

Set the kettle boiling, checked outside the door to see if Kathryn was anywhere to be seen. Figured she wasn't much up for going anywhere.

I kept my distance from the broken glass, figuring when they finally got round to it, the first officers on the scene weren't going to appreciate someone trampling the scene. I looked at the French doors; the gaping hole to the night outside. Wouldn't feel safe myself with that kind of damage overnight. Had she called for help? When I came to the door, she thought I was the police, which made me ask: where were they?

Response times were an issue these days; every couple of months, the local papers made a noise about how the police weren't responding appropriately. Like they understood the kind of pressures the lads were under, especially the boys on the beat.

I pulled out my mobile, dialled Susan's number.

“I'm nearly there.”

“Leave the badge outside,” I said. “Don't tell her you're a cop.”

I could sense the anger on the other end. “I'm not lying to anyone.”

“I'm not asking you to lie. Just to…omit certain facts. Look, she's jumpy, okay? And she doesn't trust the police. Not about this situation.”

“She's got something to hide?”

“Doesn't everyone.” I checked back the corridor again. I was talking low, a hoarse kind of whisper.

Susan went quiet on the other end of the line. I wondered if maybe she'd just hung up. Then: “I'll go with it,” she said. “But if this is another wild goose chase, I'm arresting you for obstruction of –”

“Fine,” I said, and hung up.

The snap of the phone echoed too loudly and afterwards, the house seemed uncomfortably silent even though the kettle was reaching a boil.

I made the tea fast, went back to the living room. Told Kathryn that an associate of mine was coming round.

“You want to know where Deborah is?”

“Yes,” I said.

“She didn't abduct the girl.”

I didn't know what to say. Mary was still under sixteen years of age, had disappeared from her home without her mother's knowledge. What else would you call it?

But I didn't disagree.

Like I'd said to Susan; no lies. Just omissions.

Kathryn Brown didn't like Wickes much before she met him.

When he came to pick up Deborah's things, she liked him even less.

“You've seen him, the way he carries himself. He's a big man. Imposing.” From the minute he walked in the door, she said, he treated her like shite. Practically pushing her out the way as he made straight for Deborah's belongings.

Kathryn put it succinctly: “This was the man she said she was falling for.”

Aye, they'd had the heart to heart. Deborah had come to her sister for advice about Wickes's plan. Uncertain, but undecided. Talking as though Wickes was some kind of rough-edged saint.

Nothing close to the man who barged past Kathryn, who called her an uncaring and manipulative bitch.

“The thing that struck me…not his size. But…I remember looking at his eyes, and…I don't know. You've seen these wildlife documentaries? The small animals take one look at the predator bearing down on them and it's like they've been hypnotised? Like that. I was scared. I'm not afraid to admit it, either.”

Looking into someone's eyes, seeing evil there, it's the kind of description I'd dismiss as overactive imagination. If I didn't know Wickes. Hadn't seen his true self shifting uneasily beneath the mask he wore.

“He came to the door angry, like I'd already refused him entry before he knocked. Didn't say hello. Barged past me. The kind of strength in it, I don't think he cared if he hurt me or not.” Kathryn massaged her hands as she talked. Maybe feeling guilt at not having done anything for her sister fifteen years ago.

I wanted to ask her why she didn't do or say anything. Why she didn't act on her instincts.

It's easy to judge.

I've had to teach myself to step back. Understand that people are their own judges in the end. Consciously or unconsciously we all punish ourselves.

“He went straight to her room. Like he'd been there already. Although I'd never met him before. Never seen him in the house.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“I tried.”

“And?”

The real hesitation. Right there. The massaging became intense and she started looking around the room.

“And?”

She couldn't escape. Maybe realised it would only compound her first mistake. She drew a long breath, raised her head. “I talked to him. Tried to.” She shifted on the sofa, played with her blouse, pulled it up to reveal her lower abdomen. The left hand side.

An ugly blotch on pale skin. Blackened and cracked and wrinkled; the kind of wound that doesn't heal quickly. Doesn't allow you to forget.

She let the silk drop back to cover it, and fell back onto the sofa. Her eyes damp and her face pale with exertion.

What had it taken to show me that?

I said, “He did that.” Wanted it to be a question. But it wasn't. I knew the answer. Made my stomach churn.

She nodded. “I asked too much,” she said. “Insisted. All I wanted to know was whether he'd take care of my sister, if he'd really look out for her. You know, I just didn't like what was happening. Needed to hear from someone other than Deborah that –” She crumpled in on herself. Doubling up. Her body shuddered.

Across the other side of the coffee table, I couldn't offer any comfort.

Didn't know if there was any I had to give.

“I'd been ironing,” she said. “When he came round. Ironing. The kind of thing…it's a chore, aye? Boring. Mundane. Not dangerous.”

I closed my eyes. All I could see was that scar. The puckered skin. The angry outline.

The kind of scar that stays with you.

“I asked him about my sister. Over and over. He didn't answer. I grabbed his arm. He turned round. I slapped him.” She spoke with slow deliberation. There would be no faltering. She'd lived with this for years. Now she could tell someone. Someone who would listen.

She talked with the inevitability and rising momentum of an avalanche. “That was when he grabbed me. I remember thinking he was going to break my arm. Just twist and…
snap!
That's what I was waiting for. Feeling sick at the thought of it, aye? But it never came. The pain, not like that.”

Sitting in the calm of her house, I tried not to think about it. But couldn't help imagining Kathryn fourteen years younger being grabbed into the spare room where she'd been ironing, listening to the radio.
Being thrown to the floor.

The big bastard looming over her.

First time I saw Wickes, I'd had this mental impression of him as The Big Friendly Giant and Brian Blessed's unholy love child.

The truth was nothing so reassuring.

Over the past day and a half I'd realised that he was nothing more than a force of sheer hatred. Nothing discernible about it; just an absolute distaste for the world about him. A contempt for all the people.

But I'd only scratched the surface of his insanity.

Kathryn Brown had seen his true face.

Buried that memory deep for all these years.

What was it doing to her, reliving it in front of a complete stranger?

I wanted to reach out, tell her she could let it go. That she didn't have to do this.

More, I wanted to break something. Burn down the house where this had happened, purify the past in fire.

I wasn't just angry at Wickes.

But at myself for making Kathryn Brown relive that moment.

Not for her own sake.

But for mine.

So that I could know the truth.

Aye, tell me again, between me and Wickes, who really caused the most pain?