The Sister

by China, Max

  In the brief silence, as they paused on the moment, Owen, who up until now had kept quiet, made a remark. "I bet they were glad he didn't pick up a frying pan!"

  The pub erupted with laughter. Bryn looked exasperated, covering his face with his hand.

  When the laughter subsided, eager to take up centre stage once more Bryn said, "I don't know about you lot, but if he were to walk in here right now, I'd be the first to shake his hand!"

  The murmurs of agreement were almost as enthusiastic as the laughter at Owen's frying pan observation.

  Someone noticed the rough looking stranger at the bar behind Bryn. He was holding an almost empty glass. All eyes stared in his direction. The small group fell eerily silent. Bryn, sensing something amiss, turned to follow the direction of their gaze. His eyes settled directly on the man. Dead silence fanned out through the rest of the pub.

  The man steadily returned his stare. He was alone, but showed no sign of being intimidated. Lost for words, for once, and in a drunken muddle Bryn exclaimed, "It wasn't you, was it, boyo?" The bar remained silent as a small crowd drew in around the two men, waiting for the stranger's response.

  The stranger took in the crowd and half smiled. His hand slowly extended for Bryn to shake. The whole pub held its breath.

  The one-armed man took it. A farm labourer used to using his surviving arm for everything any normal man could do; his arm was at least twice as strong as a normal labourer's, but with a handgrip, much stronger, and out of all proportion to that. Discounting the likelihood that the man was the actual vigilante, Bryn turned to the small crowd. His facial expression beaming as if to say: Are you all watching this?

  Bryn put the grip on the stranger's hand; confident his freak strength would cause the other to buckle up in pain. Rope-like veins stood out among the sinews. The other man was older, but bigger, as wide as a door. His hands were gnarled. The knuckles looked like they were full of arthritis. He accepted Bryn's grip, and held firm as he finished the last of his glass with his free hand. Putting the glass down, not taking his eyes off the one-armed man for a second, he squeezed back. A look of surprise flashed in Bryn's eyes. The bones of his hand squashed together, he gritted his teeth to hide the pain; his grin fixed on the verge of becoming a grimace. He maintained eye contact.

  A flicker, a narrowing, a dilation of the pupils . . . something barely perceptible passed between the two men. Recognition. Knowledge. The stronger gave way to the weaker. After all, what value was there in defeating a one-armed man?

  The man released him.

  Bryn had saved face. He held the stranger's hand aloft alongside his own. "A draw!" he cried. Releasing the stranger's hand, Bryn shook his own, flexing the stiffened bones, clenching and unclenching his fist. Then he remarked with a humour more befitting Owen. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were a one-armed man too!" Grinning, Bryn, said, "Tell you what, let me buy you a drink, boyo?"

  The man lit a cigarette, tilted his head back and blew a plume of smoke at the ceiling. "Another time, maybe . . ."

  "Now, Bryn, give him an arm wrestle!" Owen wrapped an arm around Bryn, and pulled him in close, so that they faced the stranger together, square on. "I'll have my money on my, boyo, here!"

  "Sorry, fellas, I got to go. You boys have a drink on me," he said and put two twenty pound notes on the bar. As the door closed behind him. Owen broke the silence, voicing what they were all thinking, "You don't think that really was him do you?"

  Bryn rubbed his aching hand against his chin, thoughtfully. "You know what, boyo. I think it definitely could have been someone like him."

  Two miles down the road the stranger pulled in to offer a hitchhiker a lift. The girl was in her twenties, raven-haired with a heart shaped, friendly face.

  She was relieved to see that he was an older man. She'd never have got in with a younger man. They couldn't be trusted.

  Once inside the car she noticed the boiler suit he was wearing. "Just finished work?" she said.

  "No," he replied, activating the car's central locking system, "actually, I'm just about to start…"

  Chapter 105

  It was already just after 3 p.m. Caulson had deferred their meeting until the afternoon and Brady was dreading it. After spending all day following up what little he had - every avenue had turned into a blind alleyway - he was just finishing his tea. He held the cup against the side of his face for warmth and comfort; an old habit picked up from his father, his thoughts about nothing in particular, when he experienced a eureka moment. Pulling the telephone towards him, he dialled a familiar telephone number. The operator came back to him.

  "I'm not getting an answer from that extension, is there anyone else who can help you?"

  "Can you try John Tanner?"

  She put him through.

  "John, it's Michael Brady."

  Through gritted teeth, he said, "What can I do for you?"

  "This is a long shot, but I don't suppose for one minute you'd know if Kennedy owns a baseball bat…"

  He knocked on the DCI's door, just as he always did, even when expected. The DCI called out, "Come in." He opened the door and stepped inside. Kennedy looked up from his desk. He looked tired, the bags under his eyes, heavy. "You wanted to see me?"

  Tanner rolled an empty chair back on its castors and sat down. "Your phone is off the hook."

  "Yes, I know it is," he said, sounding weary.

  "Sir, have you ever owned a baseball bat?"

  His eyes narrowed. "Of course, I have."

  "Stars and Stripes, American style . . ."

  "Yes, I have one like that. Why are you asking?"

  "Did you carve your initials—?"

  "Tanner, stop pissing about. Get to the point."

  He took a deep breath and explained.

  Kennedy couldn't remember seeing the bat when he'd stayed with his parent's recently. With a look of consternation, he picked up the telephone and dialled home.

  "Dad, can you look in my bedroom for me and see if my baseball bat is still there?" He listened with incredulity. "You thought I had it? No, I left it there with the gloves and ball. Are they still there? They're not? No, no – don't worry, I must have misplaced them, that's all - Yes - no don't worry - thanks, I'll call you later - Yes I will."

  Tanner looked at him expectantly.

  "Gone," he said. There was a thoughtful silence as the two men considered the implications. Finally, Tanner spoke. "Where were you on the night of—"

  Kennedy slammed his hand down hard on the desk. "This is no time for joking!" he said, flushed with anger.

  Tanner caught a glimpse of something else in his eyes. Just for a moment, he thought the chief looked afraid.

  Chapter 106

  When Bletchley's DNA test results came back, they cleared him as a suspect in the Natasha Stone rape case.

  They had to let him go; all along his lawyer had argued that there was no evidence he actually intended to commit rape - he'd not gone equipped and was entitled to keep the items found within the confines of his own home for his own use if he chose to do so. The decision on whether to prosecute over the illegal possession of chloroform rested with the Director of Public Prosecutions.

  Bletchley had waited a few days before returning to his original plan, reasoning that the police would never suspect him after his earlier brief incarceration. I mean, who would be so stupid? After a few days of painstaking attention to detail, which included setting up alibis for the whole evening, he was at last ready. Dressed all in black, with a yellow fluorescent belt and shoulder strap underneath his outer clothes, he left the house and drove a short distance before parking the car. He stripped off his jacket and jeans and left them inside the car, looking to all intents and purposes like a jogger out for an early evening run.

  At the time of his arrest, number twenty-eight on the list did not exist. She would be home at 8 p.m. He would be waiting. Tonight, he wouldn't just watch her through the windows; he would be inside with her.

&n
bsp; With fifteen minutes to go, he took up his position. From his vantage point, he'd see her get out of the car and walk to the front door. Once her key was in the lock, he would pounce. Bletchley checked his watch, 7:47. He felt excitement building. Just a few more minutes.

  A familiar voice suddenly spoke out from behind. Kennedy!

  "You should have left it while you had the chance, you piece of shit." Bletchley froze, just long enough for a surge of adrenalin to kick through his body. His attempt at breaking into a sprint took too long. He did not move quickly enough to avoid the first blow, and after that, he was a sitting duck.

  At just after 8 p.m., number twenty-eight found Bletchley's battered body on her doorstep. Her screams quickly attracted the attention of her neighbours.

  Chapter 107

  "It looks like we have another vigilante murder, this time on our doorstep."

  Kennedy regarded Tanner with disdain. "If that was an attempt at humour, it wasn't funny."

  It took a moment for the penny to drop. "No, sir, of course it wasn't," he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Preliminary reports show he was beaten to death, just like the victims up North. He had bits of glove leather and a baseball rammed down his throat along with half his teeth while he was still alive by all accounts. The MO seems to indicate it could be the same guy."

  Kennedy mumbled something that Tanner couldn't quite catch.

  "Sorry, sir, you said something?"

  "Don't tell me, Tanner. It was my missing baseball." What the fuck is happening to me?

  Clearing his throat, Tanner said, "Sir, I know it wasn't you, but it would be easier if you did have an alibi?"

  Kennedy bristled, "Of course I haven't, and I don't have one for the first incident either!" His bluff face reddened, "I live on my own and I don't go out much with anybody else. I don't have an alibi for about two hundred nights of the year!" He grabbed his jacket, putting it on as he started walking out of his office. "Besides, I'd hardly use a bat with my own initials on it and then continue to attract suspicion by giving the murder a baseball theme, would I?"

  Kennedy left without hearing the reply. He didn't care anymore.

  "No, sir," Tanner said to the empty room, but he wasn't convinced. The DCI could be using the same type of reverse psychology that the cleverer criminals used and he'd been acting strange lately. He wasn't convinced over Theresa either, or the calls she said she'd taken that sounded like him. He'd always suspected the DCI had a secret thing for her. After that motorbike incident, he'd already realised he could have used his own number plates on another bike, but the over-riding question had to be why?

  The answer was in his head the following morning. Kennedy had used the alleged caller to manipulate Theresa into doing those things to lay a false trail. So, if he was caught, it would look like a set-up. The final piece of the puzzle fitted when he'd asked her for the Stella Bird file in the guise of the caller. Theresa had told him. "The look on his face when he hid that file, John, the way he looked at me for a reaction, knowing how desperately I needed it. I almost gave the game away, but that was when I knew he had to be the caller."

  "Did he say anything after that?"

  "No, but when he rang - knowing I couldn't get the file because he already had it - he used it to try to blackmail me into sleeping with him . . ."

  Tanner knew he had no choice but to take it higher, yet some little thing niggled at him. Unless he wore a mask, Theresa would have known it was him and would Kennedy really do all this, just to screw Theresa?

  He decided not to do anything about it until the morning, when he'd had the chance to speak to Kennedy further.

  Chapter 108

  9:05 p.m. April 3rd - Passover.

  Miller arrived late for his Passover dinner speech. A traffic snarl-up coming out of London had held him up, but he arrived with a few moments to spare. En-route he'd kept in constant touch with the school captain, a gangly spotty-faced youth with bright, intelligent eyes, who'd met him at the school entrance, and then escorted him into the hallway down the central aisle through the dining tables.

  "You'll be sitting there," the captain informed him, pointing at the vacant place setting as they passed his allocated table. Miller noticed the roll and butter was still intact and wondered if it would last for the duration of his talk. Old friends ribbed him as he made his way through, and he responded by cocking a finger gun and pointing it at them as he walked by.

  Nervous, because he hadn't delivered a lecture since his ill-fated series on the supernatural the year before, he would have loved to have had a few minutes to run through his notes, but there was no time. As he followed him up the five steps onto the stage, the hollow thud of their footsteps echoed into the void beneath. Every year at the annual event triggered a different set of memories.

  Aware of the captain introducing him at the lectern, he slipped into autopilot. It was a strange feeling. He felt as if he were looking down on himself from the rafters.

  The short applause dissipated. He cleared his throat. The microphone picked up the sound, relaying it around the hall. Ripples of laughter reached his ears. The fear that he may be about to blush, erythrophobia, bubbled beneath the surface, a fear of manifesting the problem that afflicted his mother all her life. Don't think about it. A flush of heat formed a film of perspiration on his forehead. The thought of breaking into a sweat made him more nervous, part of him screamed: Say something!

  Banishing all conscious thought, he allowed instinct to take over.

  Miller leaned on his right elbow and smiled, making it appear that the long pause was intentional. His gaze swept the hall, and as he began to speak, a serious expression replaced the smile.

  "When I was young and growing up, it seemed the world wasn't such a dangerous place. I'm sure, gentlemen, that you read the same news in the papers as I do, hear the same news as I do, and if you are anything like me, you probably wonder what kind of a world we are living in today. What are we coming to?"

  A murmur of agreement rolled around the hall. Miller sipped from a glass of water and scanned the crowd.

  "If you are the same as me, you probably worry about the state of the world our children are set to inhabit as this twenty first century unfolds." Both hands gripped the sides of the lectern firmly as he looked around the hall, engaging with his audience.

  "If what I'm about to say disturbs you, I apologise in advance. In today's society, we cosset and care for our children on the one hand and then think nothing of allowing them out into the wide-open spaces of the internet from the privacy of their bedrooms, with little control, or supervision. Our children are ill equipped - because they're not ready for it - to deal with the predators that stalk the pages of cyberspace, dressed up like the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, hiding behind fake photographs and false identities. If we allow the media and other entities to continue to encourage our children to grow up too soon, we'll be taking part in an experiment the likes of which . . ." He looked down at the ledge behind the lectern, picked up the water jug and topped his glass up, before continuing, "the likes of which, I don't think we've ever seen before.

  "I didn't come here tonight to talk about society's ills, or what we need to do to make them right. That's a job for someone else better qualified than I am, but I mention these things, because I believe they are all related, part and parcel of the same thing. There's a limit to what schools can do in support of parents if they themselves do not observe simple disciplines at home." He took a sip of water.

  "When I left school, I was unsure of what I was going to do. I wanted to do something worthwhile, and I needed to find out for myself what that was. My education at this school, laid the educational foundations, but it wasn't until years after I'd left, that I actually found what it was I was looking for. A chance encounter with a teacher from this school pointed the way for me. I won't bore you with the details, but in a nutshell, as a direct result of that meeting, I chose to become a private investigator and I specialise in tracin
g missing people."

  He reeled off statistics, "Every year, around two hundred and fifty thousand people go missing in this country. Happily, most of them turn up again, safe and well, but some people disappear forever. It's a dark, disturbing subject, but fascinating at the same time."

  He turned away from the microphone and coughed once into his cupped hand. "Excuse me . . . We all know Fred West and his wife were responsible for the disappearance of - what was it - at least 17 young people. And because we only find out about the likes of the West's after they've been caught, we're not in a position to accurately guess how many missing people have fallen victim to opportunistic murderers like them. Serial killers. It's my belief - and I'm not looking to scare anyone - that there are a number of killers out there so good at what they do - they never get caught. They might not ever get caught. Obviously, there are links to unexplained, mysterious disappearances of adults and children. In most cases, there are no clues. These people simply - just - vanish. Sometimes, remains are discovered years later." Miller sipped at his water before continuing. "New technology, criminal psychology, neuroscience and DNA profiling advancements are evolving all the time, increasing the chances of the eventual arrest and conviction of these killers, but that isn't my job. My job is to find missing people alive, before they disappear forever." He stepped away from the lectern and bowed to the audience.

  A round of applause rippled through the hall accompanied by the hum of male voices raised in conversation, exchanging opinions.

  Acknowledging the applause, he raised a hand to doff an imaginary hat and called out, "Thank you!"

  He made his way to the table, stomach churning with after speech nerves. It seemed ridiculous that a veteran of so many talks could still react as if it were his first speech all over again. Before sitting, he ambled round the table shaking hands with old friends, and introducing himself to those he'd not met before.