Access Point

by Tom Gabbay

  "I don't know. I think you would've -- "

  "Come to my senses?"

  Boyd shrugged. "You could've picked a worse place to disappear to than Paris."

  "Yes, well, who knows what it'll be next time." He gave her a look, but she frowned and he got the message. "So what're you working on?" he asked, moving on to another subject.

  "Oh, it's the Mia Fraser murder case," she replied. "Do you remember -- "

  "The young American girl in Highbury Fields. Yes, tragic, that one."

  She nodded. "Also exasperating."

  "No leads?"

  "I thought I had him, but it seems he's got an air tight alibi."

  "Oh, that's annoying. What's your theory of the case?"

  "I'm afraid I haven't got one."

  "Well, there's your problem. You need a theory."

  Boyd shrugged. "There's not enough evidence to build a theory."

  "Then use your gut."

  "My gut?"

  "That's right. What does your gut say?"

  Boyd frowned. "I don't know. I think -- "

  "Don't think, darling! Feel! What do you feel?"

  "I don't know, Dad, I..." She hesitated. Leonard's outdated methods wasn't how modern police work was approached, but she couldn't very well say that, so she settled on, "I just don't work that way."

  "No, you don't, do you? Never did, either. Always needed to think it through six ways from Sunday. Like your mum." Leonard sighed. "Me? I'm a gut instinct kind of guy, and you know what? It's a pretty good prognosticator. Not a hundred percent, of course, but it's right a fair bit of the time. You know, weighing things up, taking your time to put all the pieces of the puzzle in place, that's all very well. But you can overthink things, too."

  "I suppose you're right," Boyd said, not very convincingly.

  Leonard took a last gulp of tea and vacated the chair. "And I'm not just talking about police matters, either," he said.

  Boyd gave her father a long look. "And what makes you think there are other matters I'm overthinking?"

  "My gut," he said, with a wink.

  "Oh, yeah? Well, I guess maybe you do have a pretty good gut."

  "Good gut, weak bladder." He smiled, gave her a kiss on the forehead, and said good night, adding a fatherly, "Don't stay up too late!" as he went through the door.

  Boyd shook her head, reached for the phone, and read Nichols' text yet again. "thanks again for the coffee and let me know if I can do anything."

  "Fuck it!" she said out loud and quickly tapped out a reply. "You're very welcome. Let's do it again sometime."

  Holding her breath, she hesitated for only the briefest of moments before hitting send. "All right, Detective," she said out loud. "The ball's in your court."

  Feeling simultaneously foolish and exhilarated, it took Boyd less than a minute to start second-guessing the move. What if she'd misinterpreted the signals and he was just being polite? He might look at the message and wonder why on earth she would suggest they have another coffee? How unprofessional that would be. And how embarrassing!

  "Ahhh!"

  Setting the phone aside, Boyd starting going through the file again. The autopsy, the statements, the gruesome photographs, she'd seen it all before and the only thing it added up to was a big question mark. Closing the folder, she leaned back and shut her eyes. Perhaps Leonard was right, she thought. Perhaps she was allowing reason to get in the way of a case that had no basis in logic.

  Ula Mishkin came to mind.

  Mia's friend, Katherine Ellis, had insisted that Ula must've had something to do with the murder, but her only rationale was that she was 'an extremely weird person.' Mishkin was an odd one, all right, there was no denying that, but it's a big leap from socially awkward to brutal killer. It couldn't be discounted, of course, but even if you set aside her physical disability, she had no discernible motive to commit such a cold-blooded act, and there was absolutely no evidence to link her to the crime. Still. In some obscure way, Boyd felt that Ula was the key to the puzzle.

  Remembering the diary she'd found on Ula's bookcase, Boyd opened her laptop and entered the search term, "Olga Mishkin." Nothing of interest came back, just a few Facebook and LinkedIn pages belonging to unrelated people. After several more unsuccessful searches using various filters, with her curiosity aroused, Boyd logged into the Met Police archives and found a 1996 file marked "Mishkin, Olga." Inside the folder was a single photocopied page of an officer statement, a report from the coroner, and several newspaper articles. Boyd clicked on one from The Times:

  MOTHER AND CHILD IN MURDER-SUICIDE

  London, 12 October. Russian immigrant Olga Mishkin woke early on Thursday morning, removed her six year-old son, Aleksi, from his bed, placed him in a warm bath, and held his head under water until he drown. She then stood on a step ladder, placed a noose around her neck, and stepped to her own death.

  The pair were discovered in their North London home by the deceased boy’s twin sister, Ula, who had been asleep in the bed next to her brother. No note was left by the widowed mother and police are at a loss to explain her actions, except to say that she had suffered from mental illness for several years.

  Boyd sat back and contemplated the significance of the information. Her phone pinged with an incoming text, but she was too absorbed to notice.

  36.

  Flicking the bedside lamp on, Ula sat up and reached for the phone. 3:47 AM. Uncertain how long she'd been asleep, she recalled returning home from the park at sunset, which would've been around six o'clock. She'd gone straight to bed, meaning she must have slept for close to ten hours. Why then did she feel so exhausted?

  Pulling on a baggy jumper and tracksuit bottoms, she made her way downstairs and was surprised to find the kitchen lights burning brightly. Strange, she thought. She never used the overhead lights, preferring the subdued glow of the oven lamp instead. It was disconcerting, but after checking that the front and back doors were secure, she dismissed her apprehensions and filled the kettle.

  As she sat alone at the kitchen table, eating dry toast and sipping black tea, Ula looked around the room and lamented her reality. Leaving it behind wouldn't be difficult. There was simply nothing here for her. Nothing left to lose.

  The plan had taken shape as she lay in bed the previous evening, waiting for sleep to come. There were practical concerns, of course, but nothing that couldn't be arranged. A regular supply of pentobarbital would be needed to keep her in a drug-induced coma, and a daily caretaker would be required -- someone she could trust to administer and monitor the dose. Nourishment and bodily functions would have to be seen to, as well, but it would be easy enough to set up a basic life support system of feeding tubes and catheters. All this would come at a substantial cost, of course, but Ula had a plan for that, too.

  The property on Highbury Crescent had cost her mother one hundred and eighty-seven thousand pounds when it was purchased in 1989. It had come as a shock when Erik told her it would now be worth somewhere in the neighbourhood of three million. Although broke and in need of some sort of income, at the time she couldn't imagine having to leave the house she'd lived in for her entire life, which was why Erik arranged for her to rent the room to Mia. But things were different now. Everything had changed. Now, it would be a relief to get out of her present circumstances.

  Ula smiled as she imagined a picturesque one bedroom cottage, somewhere out of the way -- perhaps by the sea, or in some deep, dark forrest. It would be no more than a repository for her physical body, of course, but she liked the idea of the sound of waves crashing against the rocks, or a symphony of morning birdsong filtering through to her new life. Perhaps her subconscious could even impose the cottage onto Mia's memory and they could live there together, taking long walks on the beach before returning to their little kitchen to make pasta and drink red wine.

  Ula's excitement grew as she hobbled up the narrow attic staircase, heart beating faster in anticipation of spending the next few hours with Mia. While
her conscious mind wasn't yet able to control the way the past would unfold, she was confident that by replaying the events of that night over and over, she would learn to guide the narrative to a more acceptable outcome. Once Mia survived the night, there would be no limit to the new memories they could create together.

  Unlike most of us, who hold hopes and dreams for the future in our heart, Ula had long ago lost the ability to conceive of better days ahead. But while the rest of us have no choice but to live with the unalterable regrets we've accumulated through the years, Ula had found a way to apply her hopes and dreams to the past. She and Mia would become one, producing new memories from old, creating a new life together, safe from the destructive influences of the physical world. The idea lifted her spirit to a height she had never before experienced, giving her, for the first time ever, a feeling of unrestrained exhilaration about what was to come.

  Flicking the attic lights on, Ula froze in horror as she took in what lay before her. The Electronic Impulse Receiver, the mainframe computer, the monitoring station... it was all strewn across the floor in a twisted mesh of smashed plastic, crushed glass, pieces of metal, and stray bits of coloured wire. Even the subject chair had been overturned and battered with the sledgehammer that lay in the midst of the wreckage.

  Ula just stood there, numbly taking in the utter destruction of all that she had worked so long and hard to create. It might have been just a few moments, but perhaps it was longer before the true horror of what had happened sunk in. Forgetting her cane, she rushed forward and fell to her knees, searching frantically through the rubble. A long anguished cry escaped from the depths of her soul when she found it. The hard drive that contained all that was left of Mia had been crushed by one cruel, devastating blow. She was truly gone now. The memory of her thoughts and feelings, the impulses that made her what she was -- and what she could have been -- were lost forever. It was as if the final act in her brutal, heartless murder had taken place.

  Lost in her grief, Ula didn't at first notice the scrap of paper that lay amongst the wreckage. When she finally looked up and saw the message that had been left for her, it sent a chill up her spine.

  Written in big, bold letters were the words:

  STUPID GIRL!

  37.

  Boyd woke at 4 AM, for no apparent reason other than a sense that something was terribly wrong. Getting out of bed and slipping into her dressing gown, she went straight to Leonard's room to find the light on and the bed empty.

  "Dad?"

  She called out as she quickly checked the kitchen and sitting room, only to find them both empty. Relieved that the front door was still locked and the chain securely fastened, she became aware of a current of cold air drifting through the house. Hitting the overhead light switch, she discovered that the sliding door onto the patio had been left wide open.

  "Dad?"

  There was no response, but she could hear the sound of soft sobbing coming from the bottom of the garden. As she approached, she saw that Leonard was sitting hunched over, head bowed, in one of the two faded Adirondack chairs that had been there for as long as she could remember.

  "Dad?" she softly repeated as she approached. "Are you all right?"

  "Yes, darling..." He looked up and wiped his eyes with the palm of his hand. "I'm fine. Go back inside."

  Boyd pulled her dressing gown tight against the cold and sat on the edge of the empty chair. "Do you want to talk about it?"

  Leonard shook his head and took a deep breath. "Embarrassing, in't it? Seeing your old man in this state?"

  "No, Dad. Of course it's not. I understand."

  "I'm not feeling sorry for myself," he said. "It's not that."

  "I know..."

  He shook his head and sighed. "I just... I woke up and there I was, crying like a baby. No idea why." He attempted a smile. "Not a clue."

  "A dream perhaps?"

  "Yes. Perhaps I had a dream. You must be cold, sweetheart."

  "No, dad, I'm fine."

  "Are you sure? It's bloody freezing out here."

  Boyd shook her head and looked up into the clear winter sky. It was teeming with stars -- some still burning brightly, others no more than an echo of a long extinguished light traveling to earth through a cold, dark universe.

  "Beautiful, isn't it?" Leonard said.

  "Yes." Boyd smiled. "Beautiful."

  They sat there, staring into the heavens, for several minutes before Leonard sighed and shifted in his seat. "I've been thinking about Trevor," he said quietly.

  "It was good that you got to spend some time together. I'm sure it meant a lot to him."

  Leonard nodded. "Want to know what we talked about?"

  "If you want to tell me."

  "Football," he said with a smile.

  "Football?"

  Leonard shrugged. "He wanted to know the scores. Imagine that. Being on your death bed and the one thing on your mind is how Tottenham did against Chelsea."

  "That's dedication."

  "Oh, Trevor was a fan, all right. Ever since we were lads. He was Tottenham and I was Arsenal."

  "Nothing wrong with a little friendly rivalry."

  "Not always friendly."

  "What happened between the two of you?" Boyd asked.

  "You know, darling, the truth is I really don't know. Thinking back on it, it seems as though one day it was all fine and the next day we weren't speaking. It couldn't have been like that, of course, but I'll be damned if I know what started it off. I just can't for the life of me remember what it was."

  "Does it matter?"

  "I suppose not. What's done is done, and it can't be undone, so best to leave it alone. That's the answer, isn't it?"

  "I think it is, Dad."

  "Anyway, we haven't much choice, do we?"

  "No, we don't."

  Leonard smiled, then reached across and patted his daughters knee. "Now let's get inside and have a nice, warm cuppa."

  As they crossed the garden toward the house, Boyd could hear her phone ringing.

  38.

  Aleksi knew his sister better than she knew herself. Every thought, feeling, pathetic fear, and pitiful emotion that ever passed through her fragile mind had come straight to him -- and he ensured that it remained a one way street. As brilliant as Ula was, he saw her for the frightened little girl she'd always been, easy to deceive and effortlessly manipulated. At least, until recently. Her ridiculous infatuation with the art student not only made her look foolish, it threatened the lifestyle he had engineered for them, an arrangement that had functioned smoothly for more than three decades.

  He'd taken control from the beginning, setting the rules that governed her life even while she was entirely unaware of his existence. And the most important rule -- the one that kept them safe from a meddling world -- was to stay the fuck away from people! Well, she'd broken that one and her art student friend had paid the price.

  Killing her was an easier task than he'd expected. In fact, he found the experience rather enjoyable. Not so much the physical act of burying the blade in her flesh, or the sight of all that blood rushing from her wounds. That was all very dramatic and exhilarating, but it was the look on the poor girl's face that really turned him on. The initial fear in her eyes, followed by the sudden realisation that she was about to die, and finally, that last silent plea, as she was desperately trying to hold on, to please, please allow her to live. It was the complete and utter power he wielded over her in those last impassioned moments that excited Aleksi. It made him feel alive.

  He'd learned over the years to monitor his sister's behaviour day and night, even while in his dormant state. Rarely did he need to intervene directly, but there had been a number of times when circumstances required him to quickly take control in order to prevent Ula from doing something stupid. On this particular occasion -- the night that he destroyed her equipment -- he was roused when he became aware of a whispered phone call.

  "...is that Detective Boyd?"

  "Yes,
this is Boyd. Who is this?"

  "It's Ula Mishkin... You gave me your card and said I could phone anytime..."

  "Oh, yes... Ms. Mishkin... Is everything all right?"

  All sorts of alarms were going off in Aleksi's mind, warning him of the pending danger, but like someone waking from an uncomfortable dream, it took him a moment to find his way to the surface.

  "I... I don't know," Ula continued, her voice trembling. "But, I... I think someone is in the house and... I think it might be -- "

  She went suddenly silent as Aleksi emerged and took control. There was a moment when it seemed as though Ula would resist, but, in the end, she meekly surrendered and put herself away, as she always did. Aleksi looked around to find himself in her bedroom, cowering behind the locked door.

  "Ms. Mishkin?" Boyd said. "Are you still there?"

  "Yes... Yes, I'm here," Aleksi replied in Ula's voice. "I'm sorry, I... I feel rather foolish now... phoning you at this hour... I don't know what I was saying earlier, but everything is fine now. Just fine."

  "You said there might be an intruder in the house..."

  "Did I? Oh, well, I... I must have been dreaming. Sleepwalking. I often do that. But I'm awake now and everything is perfectly fine."

  "You're certain?"

  "Yes. I'm quite sure, thank you."

  "Would you like me to send a patrol car?"

  "Oh, no. That really won't be necessary."

  "If you feel under threat -- "

  "Everything is fine, detective. Really. Thank you. Goodbye!"

  Aleksi hung up and stood there, quietly brooding. Whatever was he going to do with his uncontrollable alter ego? She was his sister, after all, and he felt a certain fondness for her, but from the moment that pretty young thing stepped through the door she'd become obsessed, and there was simply no room for three in their relationship. Aleksi believed that by removing the girl he would remove the problem, but in the end, it had only made matters worse.