by Tudor, C. J.
Katie kissed Sam and Gracie on their heads. “Night, night. Sleep tight.”
Gabe hesitated for a moment and then sat down beside Izzy at the other end of the bed. He bent and pressed his lips to her forehead. Her skin felt ridiculously soft. Her hair smelled faintly of shampoo. He breathed her in. Her scent was so familiar and yet so strange. Once, her small, supple body had felt almost like a part of his own. Now, it was all new to him. All of this, having a daughter, being a father, he had to relearn it. Relearn it and do it better this time.
“Night, night.”
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
She stared up at him with sleepy eyes. “You won’t go away, will you?”
“No. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Never ever?”
Never ever. If only there was such a thing, such a place, he thought.
He brushed a wisp of hair from her forehead. “Never ever.”
He rose and walked to the door.
“I’ll leave a light on outside,” Katie whispered, but the only reply was a trio of heavy breaths.
She pulled the door almost shut. Gabe stared at the sleeping form of his daughter through the gap. He didn’t want to leave her. Didn’t want to ever let her out of his sight again. Never ever.
But right now, there were things he needed to know. He turned to Katie.
“Shall we?”
The ornate hands on the gilt clock above the fireplace read twenty minutes past seven. With the heavy emerald curtains pulled, Katie could no longer have told you whether that was morning or evening. The last twenty-four hours felt like some terrible, surreal dream.
She sat in the living room while Gabe poured drinks in the kitchen. She hugged herself to contain a shiver. The room was beautiful. But cold. And she wasn’t sure that had anything to do with its size or the heating. The whole house lacked warmth. But that wasn’t all. There was something else. Something just slightly “off” about this place. Like a sealed exhibit. A place not even blessed with ghosts because it had never been full of life.
Despite the elegance of this room, there were incongruous touches. The flat-screen television on the wall beside the fireplace, two large tan leather recliners and a gas fire glowing in the hearth, where she presumed there had once been a real fire. Although, tonight, she was grateful for convenience over aesthetics.
Gabe had mentioned that Miriam, the head nurse, lived here. She supposed she had to make it more livable in but, still, it seemed that the house was crying out for someone to love it properly, to appreciate it, to reanimate it.
And then she thought about the girl lying in the south wing. This house wasn’t really a home. It was a living mausoleum. And Gabe was its keeper. She wondered why he didn’t just sell it, but then perhaps he couldn’t. Perhaps he felt duty-bound to look after the girl he had almost killed.
Rereading the news stories online had refreshed her memory. The night his wife and daughter were murdered, Gabe had been visiting the girl he had put into a coma years ago in a car accident.
The very thing that had given him an alibi, proven him innocent of their murders, had been the thing the papers had used to crucify him with. Nail after rusty nail. A hit-and-run, they called it, except Gabe had not run. He had stayed with the girl, handed himself in to the police and visited her ever since. But that part was missed out. He was already as good as a killer. He was a drunk driver. He had left a girl brain dead. The none-too-subtle implication was that, somehow, he had brought all of this on himself. It was justice. Karma.
She remembered feeling sorry for him at the time. A mistake from his youth dredged up and used against him. And then she thought about her dad. About the young man who had killed him. About how it had destroyed her family.
An eye for an eye.
“Brandy?”
Gabe walked back into the room holding two large glasses of amber liquid. Hefty measures. She never drank brandy, but she had heard it was good for numbing shock. She took a gulp. Jesus Christ. Talk about numbing. She felt like it had seared the nerve endings from her throat. From the way Gabe gagged when he sipped his, it seemed like he wasn’t much of a drinker either. But then he took a second, larger gulp and she guessed that, like her, he needed it.
He sat down on the opposite sofa and they perched awkwardly, clutching their glasses, a large oak coffee table between them, unsure if they were allies or opponents.
And then he said, “Thank you.”
It wasn’t what she was expecting.
“However this happened, you brought my daughter back to me. There were times when even I doubted that she was still alive. When I thought that, maybe, everyone was right and I had lost my mind. It’s impossible to tell you how much this day means to me.” He paused, took another swig of drink. “But if you had anything to do with what happened to Izzy, I will hand you over to the police without a second thought.”
She said steadily, “I didn’t. The first I knew about any of this was last night. I didn’t even know for sure that Izzy was your daughter. She was calling herself Alice.”
“Alice?” His face darkened. “I suppose that was the name this woman—Fran—gave her.”
She looked down into her glass. “I want you to keep in mind that, whatever you think about the woman who took Izzy, she has looked after her and kept her safe all this time.”
He barked out a hard laugh. “She kidnapped my daughter. She made me believe she was dead. Why the hell are you defending her?”
She took another sip of brandy and grimaced.
“She’s my sister.”
“Your sister?” Something changed in his face. “Of course.” He shook his head. “I’m such a fucking idiot.”
“Look, I hadn’t seen or heard from Fran in over nine years. Then, yesterday afternoon, I got a phone call. From a girl I believed was Fran’s daughter—asking for my help.”
“Completely out of the blue?”
“Yes.”
“And you just believed her?”
“Whatever was going on, she was a child, scared and alone. I fetched her and brought her home.”
“What did she tell you?”
“Not much at first. She said her name was Alice and that Fran had told her to call my number if she was ever in trouble.” She swallowed. “But, from the start, there were things that didn’t feel right. She forgot to call Fran ‘Mum’ and I noticed that her hair had been dyed. I wasn’t sure why you would dye an eight-year-old’s hair.”
“Seven,” Gabe said.
“Sorry?”
“Her birthday isn’t until April. Two months away. She’s seven.”
Katie felt her cheeks flush. “I’m sorry.”
“Go on,” he said tersely.
She took another gulp of brandy. She was getting more used to the burning sensation now.
“Later that night, she admitted that Fran wasn’t her real mum. She said her real mum was dead. Fran had saved her and kept her safe. But now she’s disappeared.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?”
“I was going to, this morning…”
“And?”
“This happened.” She pointed at her face. “A man came to the house. He was after Izzy. I think he would have killed me, but Izzy knocked him out with her bag of pebbles. She saved my life.”
The smallest of smiles tilted the corners of his lips. “That’s my girl.”
She felt a momentary loosening of the tension, the mistrust, between them. Then he frowned.
“Why didn’t you call the police then?”
“Because the man who attacked me was a police officer.”
She saw his eyes widen, realization dawning. “The man who stabbed me was dressed in a police uniform. Young, stocky—”
“Shaven head?”
He nodded
, and she felt a chill. All this time. Steve had been using her sister. Just not in the way she thought.
“That sounds like him.”
“Why would a police officer be involved in this?”
She shrugged. “Everyone has a price.” She thought about the look in Steve’s eyes. The enjoyment. “Some are just cheaper than others.”
It seemed as if he were about to say something to this, then he shook his head.
“That’s why you ran?”
“And then I called you.”
He nodded, considering. “I still don’t understand, though. How did you realize that ‘Alice’ was Izzy? How did you even get my number?”
Katie reached into her pocket and pulled out the crumpled flyer. She held it out to him.
“I kept hold of it.”
“And you recognized Izzy from this picture? Isn’t that a bit of a leap?”
She hesitated. How much to say? How much to admit? She placed the brandy glass carefully on the large coffee table. “My sister is not a bad person. I really believe that what she did, she did for Izzy, to protect her—”
“How do you know? You haven’t seen her in nine years. Or is that a lie?”
“No!”
“I mean, when you think about it, it’s all a bit convenient. You just happen to work at the service station where I stop for coffee. And your sister turns out to be the person who kidnapped my daughter. What are the odds?”
She glared at him. “You think I’d waste my life working for years in a shitty café just on the off chance that you might call in once a week and ignore me? Yeah, great plan. In the last twenty-four hours I’ve been attacked in my own home, forced to take my children and run. I don’t know if we’ll ever feel safe going back. I have no idea if my sister is alive or dead. How do you think that makes me feel? I never asked for any of this.”
She felt tears burning and tried furiously to blink them back. She would not cry in front of him. Keep it together. Like you always do.
He stared at her, a strange look in his eyes. Then he sighed and sagged back on to the sofa, the anger subsiding.
“If your sister isn’t a bad person, why was she in my house that night? Why did she take Izzy and run? Why did she abandon her own daughter’s body? What sort of mother does that?”
“I don’t know. I can only think she was terrified. She must have seen the killer. Maybe she abandoned her daughter to save yours.”
“Why didn’t she just call the police?”
“Maybe she couldn’t. Maybe she had got herself involved in something she couldn’t get out of.”
“What? What could she have been involved in that could lead to this?”
Katie wavered. Now or never. She took out her purse. Her hand shook. She slipped out the dog-eared business card and laid it on the coffee table.
THE OTHER PEOPLE.
Gabe stared at the card and then looked up at her. “What do you know about the Other People?”
“What do you know?”
“Vigilante justice. Quid pro quo. An eye for an eye—”
“Requests and Favors,” she finished bitterly. “My sister owed the Other People a Favor.”
“What for? What did she ask them to do?”
“Kill the person who murdered our dad.”
NINE YEARS AGO
Gone, Katie thought, staring at the card, “…but not forgotten.” Still gone, though. Forever. Gone.
The word seemed to have lodged in her brain.
She couldn’t get past it.
“You don’t have to decide on the words right now,” the elderly lady behind the counter told her kindly. “You can always call back.”
But she couldn’t. There had been enough disagreement about the flowers/plants. She needed to get this done. And it was stupid, really. Because it wasn’t as if Dad was going to read the card. It wasn’t like she was writing it for him. But she still felt a burden, a responsibility to get the words right, if nothing else. To avoid the clichés, the bland platitudes.
But what could she say? This wasn’t the funeral of a father who had died peacefully in his sleep. He hadn’t suffered a long illness from which death was a merciful release. What were the right words when your beloved father had been brutally and sadistically murdered?
The florist was still staring at her.
She was short, with straggly white hair in a bun and thick glasses which she peered through like a myopic mole. A myopic mole dressed in a blue dress, shabby cardigan and sensible black shoes.
“It’s always more difficult in these circumstances.”
Katie looked at her more sharply. “What do you know about my circumstances?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude but, well, I read the news and…I’m so sorry.”
Katie cleared her throat. “Thank you. It’s just—”
“You’re still angry.”
She looked up sharply, about to retort that it was none of this woman’s business. But then she realized the florist was right. That was exactly it. It was hard to write words of remembrance when you were still so angry that you were doing this at all. When this was not right. When what you really wanted to do was shout and scream and rail against the God who had let it happen.
And this was the first person who had recognized that.
She nodded. “Yes. I am.”
The florist smiled. It wasn’t exactly sympathetic. Katie wasn’t sure what it was. It only occurred to her later that it was satisfaction—as if she had answered correctly.
“Would you like a coffee?”
“Erm, thank you.”
The woman gestured for her to come around the counter. In the back of the shop there was a small kitchenette and a couple of comfy chairs. Katie sat down while the woman boiled the kettle.
“You know, a lot of people think that grief is all about acceptance. But that’s not always the way.”
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
“How do you really feel about the man who murdered your father?”
Katie took a breath, so sharp it physically hurt, like a cracked rib.
“I hate him. I know I’m not supposed to say that. I know I’m supposed to try and forgive. He was just a kid, only eighteen. Deprived background, in and out of care. I get it. But he murdered my dad. He crushed him against a wall and then left him there to die. He could have still saved him. One call. One sign of remorse. Instead, he went to a party. While my dad was bleeding to death, he was snorting coke and getting wasted.”
She stopped for breath. It was the first time she had said it; had really let it out. To a complete stranger.
The florist brought two mugs of coffee over. “At least they caught the person responsible.”
“For what it’s worth. Our solicitor is telling us to prepare for a plea of manslaughter and a light sentence because of his age. Maybe only two or three years. My dad is dead forever and he gets a few years. It doesn’t feel like justice.”
“What would?
The question caught her by surprise. Her answer even more so:
“For him to die, in pain and alone, just like my dad.” She shook her head. “God. That sounds awful, doesn’t it?”
“No, it sounds honest. Here.”
The woman handed her a card.
Katie stared at it. The card was black with three words written in white.
THE OTHER PEOPLE.
Beneath the words two white stick people held hands.
“What’s this?”
“A website where you can connect with people who’ve been through the same thing as you; who might be able to help.”
“Right—thank you. I’ll take a look.”
She had no intention of taking a look. It was probably some happy-clappy Christian site. This was obvious
ly a ploy to spread the good word.
“You won’t find it on the normal Web.”
Katie frowned. “Then?”
“You’ve heard of the Dark Web?”
Katie stared at the frumpy, bespectacled florist. The Dark Web. Was this a joke? Some hidden-camera show?
She frowned. “I thought that was illegal.”
“Not always. Sometimes it’s just for individuals who want to be more private.”
Katie flipped the card over. A sequence of letters and numbers was written on the back.
“That’s the Web address and password. If you want to visit,” the woman said.
“So, it’s just a chatroom?”
“Not just. If you’re serious about finding justice for your father, they offer other services.”
Other services.
The conversation had taken a surreal turn. The small room suddenly felt claustrophobic; the smell of the flowers sickly, the taste of the coffee bitter. Why had she confessed all of that to a stranger? Grief, she thought. It was playing with her mind. She needed to get out of here.
“Well, thank you—for the chat and the coffee, but I should really go now.”
“What about the words on your card?”
“Just…‘We’ll miss you, Dad.’ ”
She hurried from the shop, out into the flow of midday foot traffic, gulping in the cool air. She walked briskly along the pavement, toward the car park. She meant to throw the card into a litter bin, but she didn’t see any, or maybe there were people in the way.
Somehow, when she got back home, it was still in her purse. She took it out; her intention, she was sure, to chuck it into the recycling bin. But she must have been distracted because, instead, it ended up sitting on the small table in the hall.
She was busy with Sam and work and it continued to sit there with unopened junk mail for several days. She had almost forgotten about it when Fran came round to finalize the funeral arrangements.
Her sister didn’t come round very often. She had always maintained a distance from the rest of the family. To be fair, Katie didn’t mind all that much. She found her elder sister hard work, in the same way that Mum could be hard work. Spiky, often confrontational. Difficult to love. Which made it sound as though you were the one with the problem when, in fact, it was more that Fran put obstacles in the way of affection. Katie wasn’t sure why and, after all this time, she wasn’t sure if she had the energy to climb over them.