by SE Moorhead
Kyra dumped the contents on the sofa, found the inhaler and pumped the canister into her mouth. She waited until her breathing had calmed. Her niece and mother stood watching, panicked.
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I had a waking dream … that’s all.’
‘What did you see, Ky? What was it?’ Molly asked, still distressed. ‘Did you think there was someone in the room with us?’
‘We’ve been doing experiments at the lab and it’s spooked me. That’s all. I’m fine. I woke up in the middle of a dream.’ Her breathing was becoming much less laboured now, her buzzing nerves had begun to settle. ‘I’m sorry I scared you … it was …’ She shook her head, unable to explain further.
‘What sort of experiments are you doing that could freak you out like that?’ Molly asked with tears in her eyes.
She had to give them some explanation, didn’t she? They were both gawping at her, bewildered. She was too exhausted to deceive them.
‘I was with the family of a murder victim yesterday. My friend, Tom, had to tell them we’d found her body, that she wasn’t coming home. She had a little boy. He reminded me so much of you, when you were little, and we lost your mum.’ It all came tumbling out.
‘Why were you visiting the family of a murder victim?’ her mum asked anxiously, and then her voice hardened. ‘Is that Tom Morgan? What on earth are you in touch with him for?’
‘He asked me to do some consultancy work on a case. I’m sorry, Mum, I should have told you.’
‘Yes, you should have told me! I thought all that was over a long time ago?’
Kyra ignored this and said, ‘There’s been a bit of confusion over just exactly who is responsible for … the death of …’ She suddenly didn’t know how to finish the sentence. Should she say the Mizpah murder victims, or should she say Emma’s name? She couldn’t bear to see her mother’s face, so she left the sentence unfinished. ‘The police think that he might have had an accomplice.’ She couldn’t tell them her own theory, that Lomax hadn’t done it and the real killer had been out and about for the last fourteen years while Lomax paid the price. ‘They want me to help using my technology to look into … certain people’s memories to see who might have killed the victim, clarify what exactly is going on.’ She hated lying to her mum.
‘It’s the Mizpah Murders you’re working on, isn’t it?’ Her mother drew away from her, leaving Kyra unmoored. ‘You’re working on Emma’s case? And you said nothing?’
‘Mum. I …’ She closed her mouth again. There was nothing she could say to make this situation any better.
‘And it’s making you see things that aren’t there?’ her mother said, horrified.
Why hadn’t she kept her mouth shut? God only knows what her mother would have said if she knew exactly who Kyra had seen. Molly was sitting still, face aghast.
‘Mols, I’m so sorry if I gave you a scare. It was a waking dream, nothing to be worried about.’
‘You can look into memories to see who killed someone?’ Molly said slowly, her face white.
‘Yes, but don’t worry, it isn’t dangerous,’ Kyra tried to reassure her. ‘These are only side effects, but …’
Molly’s face grew crimson. She jumped up and screamed at her aunt, ‘And you didn’t think to use this technology to find out who took my mum for certain? I’ve seen the news. I know there’s doubt about who the real killer is.’
Her words were like a smack in Kyra’s face.
‘No, Mols! I don’t mean—’
‘You had some way of finding out who killed my mum and you didn’t do it?’ she shouted.
The question knocked the breath out of Kyra. It took a few seconds to gather herself.
‘No, Molly, it’s not like that,’ insisted Kyra. ‘There weren’t any witnesses to your mum’s abduction, so I couldn’t—’
‘Yes there is!’ Molly screamed, ‘Me! I witnessed it! I saw it!’
Kyra stood and squared up to her niece. ‘It’s not like that. You’d have to see it all over again, relive it. I’d have to relive it.’
‘I want to if it means I can find out who killed Mum!’
‘You were no more than a baby! I can’t let you go through that again!’
Molly took a step towards her, jabbing a finger towards Kyra.
‘Do you know what it’s like always wondering who ruined my life? Who took my lovely mum away from me?’ She was screaming in Kyra’s face now. ‘There’s some asshole out there, living their life, laughing, having fun, even having kids of their own while my mum’s in a fucking box!’
‘You were only a toddler!’ Kyra snarled. ‘What the hell could you have remembered? I don’t know if your brain would even have been able to understand what you saw.’ Why was she being so angry? Why couldn’t she take her niece in her arms and hold her and tell her that they would use CASNDRA, that they would find out who took Emma from them?
Because it would mean that she would have to see her sister abducted, that she would have to accept that, if they hadn’t argued that night, Molly would still have a mother. Is that why the idea of using the tech like that had never even occurred to her? Had she deliberately blocked the idea from her brain because she couldn’t face it?
‘I’m an adult now!’ Molly yelled. ‘You should let me make that decision! I can make fucking decisions! Do you know what it’s been like for me without her? Knowing I saw someone take her but not being able to get it out? All those nightmares I had about Mum being dragged away in a red car. Do you know how much guilt I feel?’
‘You haven’t got the right to feel any guilt!’ Kyra yelled, thinking of her own part in Emma’s death.
‘I saw the killer and I can’t remember!’ Molly’s face was wet with tears, her nose streaming, her cheeks red. ‘I must know something, anything, that could lead us to catch the bastard who did this to mum, to me, to my life!’ She threw herself on the sofa and sobbed.
‘Stop it!’ Kyra shouted angrily, yanking Molly up. ‘Stop being so dramatic! You don’t even know the damage you will do to yourself if you see those traumatic memories as an adult. Think about how your behaviour is affecting your nan, you selfish little cow!’
Molly pulled away from Kyra and huddled into the sofa, weeping.
Her mother, who had stood by stunned, grabbed Kyra by the shoulders.
‘Kyra, what has gotten into you? Why are you being like this? Why are you talking to Molly like that?’
Even her mother’s desperation did nothing to quell Kyra’s rage. Some part of Kyra knew that this behaviour didn’t belong to her … that it had seeped into her … from Lomax during the transference.
‘What are you doing to Molly? Don’t you want to find who killed your sister? You owe it to me! If you can do this, then I need to know. Don’t you think it would be better to go through those memories than live with not knowing?’
‘No!’ Kyra shrieked. She needed to get away. She scraped all her belongings up from where she had dumped them on the sofa and threw everything back into her bag. She went into the hall and grabbed her shoes and her coat in a daze.
Her mother came out after her. ‘Where are you going? I thought you were staying here tonight.’
But Kyra had opened the front door and was sitting on the front step putting her shoes on. A fine misty rain covered her face like a veil. Her heart was thundering in her chest. She had already lost her sister, she didn’t want to lose Molly too, but Lomax’s violence and anger, like a virus, had invaded her system and was changing her beyond recognition, beyond her control.
‘Kyra!’ her mother pleaded but she ignored her, stood up and moved to the car. Molly came out into the hall. When she saw her, Kyra put her hand on the car door handle. ‘I’ve got another witness! I’m going to see him tonight! I’m going to find whoever killed your mum, Molly. I swear to you!’
‘If it wasn’t for you rowing with her,’ Molly screamed back, ‘I’d still have a mum!’
And she slammed the door, leaving Kyra in the street
in the rain.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
TUESDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2035
8.08 p.m.
It was the first time that Kyra had done a transference without Jimmy. She had given Ray the injection of the transmitters even though her hands had been trembling. What if she messed this up? It was the last chance she had to find anything that would solve this case and find Isabel Marsden alive.
There was no going back now.
She focused her mind on Isabel, alone and frightened, and pushed any thoughts of the argument she had had with her mum and Molly so that she could focus on the task in hand. She was doing this for them, too, wasn’t she?
Ray lay on the bed looking small and vulnerable, like a child in the dentist’s chair for the first time. Marcus stood on the other side of the glass, reluctant and protective.
Cosmo’s screen flashed up the security camera image from the front door. It showed Alex’s face. Kyra sighed, relieved. At least she wasn’t on her own now. She pushed the door release and Alex hurried into the building, making sure the door was closed tightly behind her.
‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ she breathed. ‘I couldn’t get away from the Hub.’
She put a hand up to Marcus and Ray, who nodded in reply. Kyra saw her marvelling at the kit, confusion and admiration on her face.
‘I haven’t missed anything?’
‘Will you wait with Marcus on the other side of the glass, Alex?’
Alex’s eyebrows twitched.
‘Keep him out there,’ Kyra whispered. ‘No one can stop the process once it’s started. It’s not safe.’
Alex nodded and left.
Kyra leaned over to Ray.
‘Just you and me now. Half an hour, and this will all be over. We’ll be having a cup of tea and we’ll all feel a lot better,’ she said with a wink, swallowing her fear about the phantoms she might pick up. What would she have to face after this? ‘Don’t worry, settle back and relax. I want you to think about the night you saw … whatever you saw. Don’t force it, imagine yourself back there and I’ll do the rest. Okay?’
Ray gave her the thumbs up.
She smiled, but her stomach was churning.
Kyra took a few deep breaths. You’re going into a memory, a crime scene, that’s all. You’ve been to plenty of crime scenes. You can do this! Ray was facing slightly towards her, his eyes closed, deep in his sockets, his jaw starting to slacken, his breathing steady.
She nearly jumped out of her skin as his eyes flicked open and he grabbed her hand with his own gnarly one. He was surprisingly strong.
‘Thank you for doing this for me.’ His voice was clear and earnest. ‘I can’t do this on my own. I’ve had my problems, but I know I saw something that will help.’
She believed him.
‘Cosmo, prepare for transference. Dim lights twenty per cent,’ she commanded.
There was a shift in atmosphere as the lights gradually faded and the bed on which Ray lay moved into CASNDRA’s centre smoothly. Alex and Marcus stood in the shadows, but she could feel their gaze. Kyra’s heart was beating fast. She settled back into her recliner and braced herself, trying to keep her breathing calm.
It was difficult to prepare a blank canvas of her mind for what was to come. Random thoughts and ideas popped up thick and fast, but she kept parrying. Her nerves and excitement settled a little as her determination took over and she let herself grow heavy.
There was darkness and perfume, sweet and strong, then a blur of blue, the colour of hydrangeas in her mother’s garden. She could hear a buzzing sound, the overlapping of two voices. She tried to tune in, to make sense of the words.
Then she could see Ray’s memories as the visuals kicked in: a bride walking down the aisle, coming closer, not smoothly and step-by-step, but instead in staggered movements, ten metres away, suddenly five metres, then right next to him – red hair, her smile reaching her eyes. One hand held a bouquet of blue flowers, the other hand reached out and a ring was placed on her finger.
Everything went black and then there was an overwhelming smell, wetness and dust, alcohol and filth, all filtering through her brain. It was dark at first, like awakening early on a December morning. The odour of oil and petrol came through strongly, so different from the clean fuels they used now.
The rain pounded down on a metal roof above her head, the sound vibrating through her brain. She saw through Ray’s eyes as he lay on the ground of what seemed to be an old shed or garage. A streak of yellow light cut into the darkness and highlighted a newspaper near her, his, head. She could see the headline: POLITICIAN’S ASSAULT, and she remembered that had been the news on 1st February 2020. However, the newspaper was already dog-eared and dirty. Is this where the confusion lay? That Ray had said it was the first of February just because of a week-old newspaper? Had that been why the police had discounted his testimony? There was a torch nearby; she tried to reach out for it but found her hand paralysed and then reminded herself she was only an observer.
From the darkness, she heard muffled voices coming from outside, the banging of one of the large old wooden doors in the wind.
A man shouted, ‘I’ve paid you for sex. I own you now!’
Then a scream.
Ray sat up, a misty vapour escaping from his lips in the cold air. Upright, Kyra’s head swam with the effects of alcohol. An acidic gurgling in her stomach told her
Ray hadn’t eaten in some time and he had drunk something much stronger than she was used to. A woozy warmth travelled through her veins, moving up towards her head.
She was desperately willing him to move, turn on the torch, do anything, so she could get a look at what was going on. She shifted her body in the recliner in the lab, her muscles tense as she strained against the confines of Ray’s consciousness, but then she crumpled, frustrated.
Behind that weather-beaten wooden door was the man who had killed again and again, and who was going to kill very soon, the man who had Isabel Marsden held captive in real time. The surge of intoxication in her bloodstream reached her brain just as Ray put his head to the floor.
There was a delay of two or three minutes before a shrill scream followed by what sounded like a woman crying and begging. Ray looked up again, vision heavy and blurred.
Then the screaming again.
Kyra’s body was rocking in fear and frustration in the recliner, but she could still feel the cold concrete beneath her.
The noises stopped. She watched as Ray’s hands scratched along the grimy floor of the garage, nails filthy and ragged, as he crawled closer to the door. He peered out from the cracks and gaps below the rotted wood.
From this angle, Kyra could see a car to her left, and ahead across a courtyard, another row of garages with wooden doors. The car was red, as Ray had said in the interview, although the only light was coming from a weak, yellowy wall lamp on the last garage in the row, so the exact shade of red was uncertain.
If she could only get a look at the number plate! Was that the piece of information that Ray had? Was she about to get this bastard? She thrilled at the idea of it, even with the overwhelming inebriation coming from Ray which threatened to dull her brain and her excitement, she willed him: Go on! Go on! Get a look at the plate!
As if he had heard her, Ray moved forward, shuffling along the ground, and pushed the door open slightly. Kyra held her breath, ready to remember the numbers and letters, but at that moment the door to the garage opposite flew open and banged against a wall. Her vision, Ray’s vision, immediately transferred from the car to a small woman dressed in white. She was stumbling barefoot, disoriented, wailing in fear.
Kyra immediately recognised her – it was Jennifer Bosanquet.
Ray had been telling the truth after all – he had seen one of the victims of the Mizpah Murderer.
A shout startled her: ‘Get away, get away!’
It was another woman’s voice!
Ray peered into the darkness, but Kyra could see nothing. Jennifer appeared to
o frightened to flee, unable somehow. Drugged? She crumpled on the ground behind the car, cowering.
She was so close now that Kyra could hear her whimper in fear. She had to remind herself that Jennifer was dead already. This was in the past, untouchable. But her blood was itching, the bees in her throat stinging as she screamed in her mind: Run! Run! Run! All her instincts were urging her to burst out of the door and save the poor girl.
But there was nothing that could be done for her now.
Moments later, a man stumbled out of the garage and made his way to the back of the car. She could see he had dark hair but couldn’t make out any of his features in the poor light. He pulled Jennifer roughly up by her arms. She pleaded, ‘I’m Jenny, please, I’m Jenny,’ over and over as she struggled feebly against him. He grabbed her around the throat and hit her once, really hard, and she mewled, a heart-wrenching sound.
As he let her go Kyra saw a glint, as though a silver moth had fluttered to the ground.
The man stood still for a moment, catching his breath, and then opened the car boot.
He knelt down and gently took the woman in his arms and lifted her. ‘Don’t worry, Elise. I’ll be back for you very soon. I need to keep you safe in here for a while. You won’t be alone anymore.’
Elise?
She groaned as he put her in the boot, as carefully as a mother putting a child down to sleep in a cot, and closed the lid softly as if not to wake her. He leaned against the car for a moment exhausted, but then regained himself and stood up straight, shoulders squared. He faced the garage opposite.
‘Right, you fucking bitch! I’m coming for you!’ he yelled into the darkness, and terror gripped Kyra as if he knew she was watching. Her body stiffened in fear, but he moved away into the opposite direction.
For a moment, she could see nothing as Ray put his forehead against the rough, cold stony floor. Then, he pushed the door open a fraction and peered out. From this perspective, Kyra could see that it was a red Ford Focus. She couldn’t see the plate, only that rust had eaten away at the bottom of the car.