The Lost Sister (18 page)

Susan came to the door. When I answered, she reached out instinctively, touching my arm.

I could have collapsed. Let her catch me.

Tired.

So tired.

“It's fucked,” I said. “All of this. Just…fucked up.”

I introduced Susan as my “associate”.

Kathryn hardly seemed to notice. She was still shaking.

Just before Susan had arrived at the door, Kathryn had said to me, “I should have done something else. I should have told someone. Gone to the police.”

What do you say to that?

In the living room, I filled Susan in on the details. Kept them brief. To the point. No point re-opening wounds.

Kathryn remained silent.

Despite my brevity, I could see the steel set in Susan's face. She heard the story in the gaps I left.

When I was done, Susan took the lead talking to Kathryn. Maybe not flashing her badge, but I'd have taken her for a copper. Maybe Kathryn didn't care. Or believed that Susan was off the Job like me.

The two important questions:

Where was Deborah?

Where was Mary?

Her abrupt approach seemed to surprise Kathryn; a glass of cold water in the face.

I could hardly watch.

But the questions had to be asked. One way or another, time was running out. Even if Mary was in no danger from Deborah, there had to be a reason they had disappeared.

And I knew what it was, now.

I understood Wickes. What he really wanted.

What he really was.

The doorbell.

Kathryn went to answer.

In the living room we heard two officers at the front door.

Susan looked at me. Whispered, “I know those voices. If they come in here and start calling me
detective
…”

“We lose all the trust.”

“And we lose our line to Mary.” She took a breath, looked ready to lamp me one. “You know this is your fault?”

“Isn't everything?”

Susan stood up. “Lucky I need the toilet.” She could have smiled. Would have made me feel better, at least. But she didn't. The message loud and clear.

I kept still.

The two officers responding to Kathryn's call about the broken window were young. Probably fresh out of training college. The lad with the bad skin looked me up and down and said, “You're the investigator, then?” while his partner – a petite woman with an angular face and hard eyes – looked around the room as though expecting to discover some vital clue hidden in the corners.

I stood up, offered my hand. “McNee,” I said. “Used to be on the force myself.”

They both looked at my outstretched hand.

The girl said, “Heard of you.” Flat. Emotionless.

I tried for an ice-breaking smile. “All good, I hope?”

“I worked a case with DI Lindsay a while back. What do you think?”

I dropped the outstretched hand. No takers.

What could I say? Working with Lindsay explained the eyes at least. And the suspicion. Christ, listen to what he had to say about me, you'd probably believe my real name was Beelzebub.

The lad said, “There's two of you here?”

“My associate had to go to the bathroom.”

“And your…associate's…name?”

Good question. I tried not to look like I was fumbling. “Elaine,” I said, and winced when I finished: “Elaine Barrow.”

The lad nodded. The name meant nothing to him, but at least it was a name.

One that caught in my throat.

I looked at Kathryn Brown.

She didn't react.

Maybe we'd gotten through to her. Maybe she understood.

Or maybe she just wasn't listening.

I said to the lad, “Why the twenty questions? You're here about the window? The break in.”

The girl nodded. Turned to me and said, “All the same, from what I've heard about you –”

“DI Lindsay and I have a history. Not a good one. I wouldn't listen to much he says about me. And I'd expect he'd say the same about me.”

The lad said, “Maybe he's right. Maybe we should just –”

The girl cut him off: “Aye, fair enough. Although I think this is private, Mr McNee. Unless you have knowledge of the felony? Can I ask what you were doing between the hours of six-thirty and seven-thirty this evening?”

Check the impersonal, professional tone.

Sending me a message? No doubt.

I said, “I have business with Ms Brown. And even your friend, the DI, will tell you that a B&E isn't really my style.”

Kathryn stepped in, said to the officers, “Maybe we could talk in the kitchen?”

As they left, the female officer turned to me and said, “I hope your associate's okay. She seems to be taking an awful long time in there.”

I resisted making any smart-arse reply.

But only just.

The coppers' interview with Kathryn Brown was brief and perfunctory. Susan managed to stay out of their way until they left the building. They weren't interested in her, anyway. I think they were both disappointed to have little more than a bog-standard B&E on their hands; little in the way of witnesses and evidence. The girl in particular seemed especially upset that she couldn't pin anything on me.

Lindsay had trained her well. No doubt there.

They said it would take a while for SOCO to arrive, but that they doubted they would find anything useful. Until then, no one was to go in the kitchen. They recommended a 24 hour glass repair service who could block up the hole until a proper job could be done.

Of course, I wasn't listening in on the discussion. Not at all.

When the door closed, I was standing behind Kathryn Brown in the hall. Asked her, “Everything okay?”

“Nothing was taken. Looks like a random act of vandalism. You know how it is, sometimes. They reckon maybe I disturbed whoever it was when I got home and they went out the way they got in.” She shrugged. “I've got a friend coming over with some polythene and duct tape. I'll have a
Blue Peter
house for a couple of days.”

I nodded, turned to head back to the living room.

She said, “Tell me why you lied about your friend's name.”

I stopped where I was. Susan came down the stairs, walked past me, looked Kathryn straight on and said, “I'm a police officer. A detective actually. CID.”

“They'd recognise you, give the game away.”

Susan nodded.

Kathryn said, “And then the trust is broken. But either way…Bright. The name's familiar for some reason.” She walked past Susan and into the kitchen. We followed, neither of saying a word. Difficult to gauge her reaction.

In the kitchen, she stared at the shattered glass, kept her back to us.

Susan said, “We need to know where your sister is. We want to help is all.”

Kathryn said, “I know the name. The DS, the one I talked to about Deborah. The one who told me not to worry, that I was being stupid. Jesus, ten years ago. More. I should know that when I look in a mirror, but when you stop and think about it…It's such a long time.” She turned round to look at us. “His name was Bright, too. The DS.”

I couldn't help but look at Susan.

She didn't react. Just nodded, and said, “It's in the past now, right? All of that. I can't apologise for mistakes made by other people. For oversights. Misunderstandings. All of that. I can only do my best to help you here and now.”

Kathryn wrapped her arms around her middle and shuddered. Looked at us for a moment before she said anything.

We took my car.

Drove north of the city, through Birkhill and out into the countryside. Passed the Templeton woods; gathered trees bowing together in a way that appeared unnatural, their dark spaces hiding secrets that would not be given up easily.

Maybe Susan was affected worse than me. Three months earlier she'd been involved in a murder case, the body found out in the woods in a shallow grave. An eighteen year old girl killed by a sad and desperate man who had been rebuffed one time too many. A man struck by his own actions who couldn't even bring himself to finish burying the girl's corpse.

“Do you ever long for the masterminds?” she said as we drove into the night.

“The masterminds?”

“The Hannibal Lecters. The Blofelds. The Jokers. The bogey-men from comics and films and books. The monsters we can never really identify with. The ones we'll never really know.”

“The ones who make us feel safe?”

She nodded. “Because they're not real. Because if we ever saw them, we'd know they were the bad guys. I wish for that, sometimes. Something I could point at and say: that is evil.”

I'd been a copper long enough to have seen the true face of evil. Not malevolent insanity, but mundane and petty jealousies and inadequacies. People drawn to commit unspeakable acts for reasons they could never explain or understand. You weren't careful, you could get dragged down by that. Pulled into a mire of disgust at what the human race was capable of.

Was I lucky to get out when I did?

Sometimes the world isn't the way you see it at all.

“She mentioned my father.”

Caught me by surprise. I took in a sharp breath, composed myself and said, “I suppose he took the case when –”

“He palmed her off. That's not like him. I mean, she's talking about threats being made against another person by a known criminal element. He couldn't simply ignore it.”

I hesitated. “He'll have had his reasons.”

“Steed, you wouldn't be holding out on me?”

I didn't reply fast enough.

“Pull over.”

“We don't have the time –”

“I thought we were friends.”

I didn't want to tell her. Not now.

Later, maybe.

Or perhaps I could hold onto it forever.

She said, “Pull over and let me out. Or tell me what you know about my dad.”

I couldn't look at her. Said, “It's all in the past. I mean, he must have told you about the work he used to do in the bad old days. When the force was cutting deals with men like Burns.”

“Not my dad.”

“He was working under orders. I mean, the plan at the time –”

“Do you know what the first thing he taught me about being a police officer was, Steed? He taught me that no matter what you do, do not give men like Burns a break. You do not give them a chance to even pretend that they are in the right, that they have some kind of moral high ground that allows them to do the things that they do. Because if you do that, they've won. He'd fight against that kind of strategy. Wouldn't allow himself to get involved.”

I almost laughed. Was thinking about Ernie standing in the back yard at Burns's house, holding his drink in his hand. Making me apologise for doing what every right thinking bastard wants to do to men like Burns.

I'd known at the time that it would kill Susan to know the truth. I'd hoped that the conversation would never come between us. That if she had to find out, then it wouldn't be from me.

I should have hidden this from her.

Denied everything.

But she could see right through me.

Or else I wanted her to.

“You should talk to him,” I said. “But right now –”

“You're right,” she said. “Right now, we need to think about the girl. About Mary.”

We kept driving in silence. After a few miles, I turned to look at Susan. The moonlight caught her; surrounded her features with a soft light.

The set of her face made me think of Elaine.

Gave me that strangely sick feeling in my stomach again.

We were friends, Susan and me.

Could never be anything more.

We'd made that mistake once. I wasn't willing to try again, risk losing her friendship forever.

She turned and looked at me, her brow creased in what might have been a question. I turned my attention back to the road. Focussed on the broken white lines, the curve of the tarmac.

Neither of us said anything.

The lines started to blur.