The Sister

by China, Max

  It wasn't a migraine; it was something else she hadn't experienced before.

  She was pregnant.

  Their son was born on Friday 22nd November 1963. Despite her age, there were no complications. Rose considered it a miracle. It was also the night of President Kennedy's assassination. The whole world was in a state of shock.

  The family name was Kennedy. They would call him John, after his father. Because of the timing of his birth, and because it coincided with the president's sudden death, Rose insisted they paid tribute by giving their son the middle name, Fitzgerald.

  It transpired JFK died at around 7:00 p.m. Rose always believed that her son was born at the same moment. She took it as a sign.

  "One out, one in," she would tell anyone who'd listen, that her boy was destined for great things.

  As he grew older, unsurprisingly, he became interested and well versed in the life story of the president, and the events leading up to and beyond his eventual demise and that in turn, led to a fascination with the FBI.

  His father was a detective. From an early age, young John would study case histories of unsolved crimes. He would theorise, running them endlessly past John senior, who worked through everything with his son, with quiet, methodical patience, picking holes in the theories and hypotheses his son would put forward.

  In time, the boy would redevelop and test the tightness of his angles before submitting them to his father, who by now realised that his boy, John junior, or Johnny as he affectionately called him, had a natural aptitude for the work.

  Privately, he hoped that junior would follow in his footsteps, but chose not to reveal his wishes, preferring the boy to make his own decision when the time was right.

  In his early teenage fantasies, Junior JFK, as he now imagined himself, had become an FBI Agent. Often, he'd wonder what the FBI Agents over there would have made of him.

  He would smile as he imagined the headlines: New Agent 'Junior' JFK, solves 25-year-old mystery.

  When the time came, it was inevitable he would enrol in the police force.

  He quickly established a reputation as a tough, no nonsense workaholic, with no time for women, making his way with ease through the ranks to detective, solving many difficult cases, making enemies inside and outside the force. A few of these believed his father helped to smooth his passage through the ranks; others suggested he could be gay. Thickset and heavily built, no one repeated the suggestion to his face.

  Although his police record was exemplary, something haunted him. One night, not long after he started as an officer on the beat, something had slipped by him. If he'd been more experienced, he might have realised something was wrong, if only he'd been more assertive, and if that fateful call hadn't come through . . . Thirty seconds, that's all it would have taken to run a check on him, but he didn't and besides, she did seem to know him. The timing of the radio call, it all came down to that really, and the judgement on which was more important at the time. The girl disappeared without a trace.

  For twenty-three years, it was the only blot on an otherwise spotless career record, until the arrival of a group of cases, all within a short space of time, which seemed unsolvable by conventional means.

  The Midnight Man, the Stalker, the Gasman. Serial criminals. After two or three repeat crimes, the press would coin them a nickname.

  He picked apart their operational methods, dissecting every known fact. There was never any forensic evidence. No witnesses, except in the case of the Stalker, he'd been seen looking in the windows of lone women in the dead of night. He dressed all in black, wearing a matching ski mask. Aside from his build, they did not have anything else to go on. No one had seen his face.

  A burglar called the Midnight Man, and a rapist christened The Gasman. He admonished himself for thinking of them by their Press nicknames; he hated the way the press did that. It sensationalised their low lives, giving them a kind of infamy and glory in which to bask.

  In trying to live up to their images, these people sometimes actually increased their activities and whilst inevitably most would get careless and then caught, there was something different about these particular characters and the way they continued to evade the law. There was a link between the Stalker and the other two. He just knew it. Ordinarily he wouldn't have been interested in a stalker at all, but he felt that if he could catch him, he would get a lead on the others.

  In the end, he concluded that the only way to do it was to catch them red-handed.

  For now, they seemed just too clever for that.

  Chapter 38

  Friday 24th November 2006

  Kennedy thought about the woman he'd spent Wednesday night with, and smiled. He'd have preferred to spend another night with her. Instead, at Tanner's insistence, he was out belatedly celebrating his birthday with a dozen work colleagues.

  He'd tried to call it off earlier in the week. Tanner wouldn't hear of it. "Come on, sir. It'll do you good."

  "You're only so keen, Tanner, because you think you can inveigle Theresa along."

  "Sir, I have no interest in her whatsoever, I swear . . ."

  The night turned into a pub-crawl. Of the original group, only he and Tanner remained, lurching through the half-lit back streets of Covent Garden.

  Even when drunk, he always kept well clear of darkened doorways.

  "Y'know, Tanner, one of the first things learnt, learned . . .?" he hesitated. "Whichever … by me in the force … on the beat. On patrol, Tanner, was to be wary in the streets and who could be hiding in the doorways . . . walk in the middle, that's the best thing." He almost walked into a cast iron bollard. "The fuck, did that . . .?"

  Tanner grinned as he manoeuvred around it on legs that no longer obeyed him. Although he knew he should get him home, he was enjoying the spectacle Kennedy was making of himself.

  They stopped. Kennedy perched his buttocks uncomfortably on top of the bollard and mumbled something about calling a taxi.

  Tanner cocked his head, theatrically making a point of listening to the steady, muffled hum of a hundred people talking all at once. It was a human beehive.

  Kennedy extricated himself from his temporary seat, steadied himself and shuffled to the doorway closely marked by Tanner. Drawn like moths to a flame, they hovered outside the pub.

  "Sounds busy in there tonight," Kennedy remarked. "Let's have one last . . . one more, for the road, eh?" He opened the door; it released a blast of sound that made both of them wince. They walked inside.

  Kennedy shouted above the noise, "I always said I'd retire when I reached fifty." Despite having nearly seven years to go, Kennedy said it as if he were fifty already, as if he were leaving the next day. "Before I go, I want to make a big effort to solve all the unsolved crime that happened during my watch . . . no, not all of it, one in particular, and I'm not going to leave it until the last minute either."

  Tanner opened his mouth to speak, the effect of a few drinks, delayed the activation of his vocal chords.

  Kennedy was in the same boat, only a little quicker. "After tonight . . . no, no don't interrupt, I'm serious here. After tonight, I'm going to have those files on my desk, tomorrow . . . no . . . Monday morning, I'm going to start putting them to bed, starting with them," he snapped his fingers several times, prompting his memory. "The old one . . . Yes, that one!?" The words petered out as he struggled to remember what it was he was talking about; he froze in position at the bar, exhausted of the last of his energy. Deep in a haze, he lost himself in the fug of smoke that hung in the garish yellow light. The sounds of the bar no longer clear, his head felt as if it were underwater.

  Tanner had never seen the DCI so drunk before. Frowning concern, and measuring his words carefully, he said, "Do you want me to get us a cab, sir?"

  Kennedy's bluff face was expressionless as his eyes struggled to focus on the last drop of amber fluid in his glass, debating whether to finish it.

  "Ah, the hell with it!" He tipped his head right back as he drained the glas
s, banging it down harder than he intended; he slapped his colleague's back with a heavy hand that jarred Tanner's head forward. "Let's go, Tanner!"

  The following morning he couldn't remember much, other than talking about solving old crimes. Something concerned him about what he might have told Tanner. He couldn't hold the drink the way he used to, he hoped it hadn't loosened his tongue too much. A few times earlier in the evening, he had been tempted to talk. The temptation to regale your friends with tales of derring-do and close encounters of every kind never leaves a man, especially when he is in drink, and in the company of people he thinks he can trust. Even the greatest indiscretions can seem trivial in an alcoholic haze, when the need to bare your soul comes creeping up unexpectedly.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose, unable to remember, but Tanner . . . he wasn't sure about him anymore. A couple of times while he was still sober, he caught a look on that thin face of his, he'd made a few remarks that seemed he might be resentful of his promotion.

  Kennedy rose from his chair, grabbed his jacket off the back, and called it a day.

  When Monday came around, Kennedy did what he said he would; he picked up the phone and spoke to a television reporter contact he had, explaining that he wanted to broadcast a cold case appeal on Crimewatch for information on a girl that had disappeared in 1983.

  Later in the afternoon, he received a call about the programme.

  He outlined the case in detail, sprinkling in for good measure the suspicion that the perpetrator had probably been responsible for other crimes - they usually can't just do it once and stop - and that by getting further leads, in conjunction with modern technology, there was an even better chance that any leads received, could result in solving this crime. Then he played his trump card. "And you know what else? It would be especially good because your program first aired the case during its launch year." Kennedy moved the telephone from one shoulder to the other. "You didn't know that? Well, now you do," he said, shifting the handset as the conversation concluded. "Okay, let me know what they say."

  Five minutes later, his phone rang. The show would run the appeal.

  Chapter 39

  December 19th 2006

  Crimewatch

  Kennedy felt that if he could get the missing girl's sister to appear, there would be a better chance of a positive result. She agreed to do it only if they filmed her blacked out; she didn't want people pointing at her in the street, or coming up to her. Her mother had told her to be careful about media exposure. When you put yourself on a platform, you open all kinds of doors for people. Most have genuine intentions, but you have to be careful . . . Her mother had had a couple of unpleasant experiences, unwelcome attention and things like that.

  His appearance was just before hers. He'd passed her in the corridor earlier, and she'd smiled and thanked him for all his hard work.

  I wonder if you'd have said that to me if you knew I could have saved your sister, and that if I'd done that, then maybe your parents wouldn't have killed themselves.

  He couldn't bring himself to tell her. Besides, when it was his turn to face the cameras, she'd find out anyway. At that point, he realised he hadn't thought it through properly; he should have asked Tanner to lead the appeal. The burgeoning rivalry between them had clouded his judgement. Tanner thought he'd been favoured with the DCI's job over him because of his father's influence, and he knew he'd have to field some awkward questions from him once he realised . . .

  Kennedy knew he should have told him about the case years ago, after all; he'd told him about all his successes . . . But then, you don't crow about failure.

  The presenter finished summarising the last case, and then introduced the next one.

  "This next case is about the disappearance of a young girl just over twenty-three years ago. She was last seen walking home after a Dire Straits concert. Described as 5'6" tall, Kathy had shoulder length black hair and blue eyes. She'd gone out straight from work and was last seen wearing her nurse's uniform. She was also wearing large silver hoop earrings, a small silver cross on a chain and a St. Christopher medal . . ."

  The reconstruction began by showing posters of the Dire Straits concert that night, the cameras panned across hundreds of people queuing outside, showing the local pubs packed with concertgoers. A young, dark-haired girl sipped at her drink, dressed in a crisp new nurse's uniform similar to the one Kathy had worn that fateful night. The narrator was speaking. "Kathy had a change of clothes with her when she left for work that morning. It's thought she lost or mislaid them . . . Her mother said at the time, 'There was no way she'd go out socialising in her uniform.'"

  The show portrayed her as a young girl enjoying a night out, meeting up with friends at the show, drinking, laughing and becoming louder as the evening progressed. Then they showed her looking confused after losing her friends. They used actors to portray her friends talking about Kathy, how although she'd had a lot to drink, she was all right until someone gave her something.

  "I saw this guy give her a joint, and she lit it. They argued about something; he tried to make her stop with the smoking; I think he was scared they'd be thrown out. She wouldn't listen. One minute she was there and the next she's gone. It was just before the end of the show; the band was doing their encore . . ."

  The re-enactment then showed two police officers walking down a typical affluent North London street. They noticed a man and a woman, at first it appeared they were arguing, she was clearly worse for wear, and as the officers approached to check up on her, a call to a domestic disturbance came in. It was two hundred yards away. The older one tapped his colleague and said, "Let's go!"

  The other officer said, "You go on ahead; I'll catch up with you." The woman almost stumbled over; the man caught her by the arm and pulled her upright. She was giggly and seemed happy enough, but something about their body language had bothered him. He started walking over to them calling back to his colleague. "I'll be right with you; I just want to make sure she's all right!"

  The older one hesitated, weighing up the situation. "Okay, but be quick," he said, as he took off down the street.

  The actor playing the young officer approached the couple.

  The narrator cut in. "We have in the studio with us tonight, the officer who approached the couple that night, he is still with the force, now a DCI." He swung round to face the detective who'd had his features fuzzed out with a blurry disc.

  "DCI Kennedy, I understand you were the young officer who spoke to Kathy that night. Can you tell us in your own words, what you recall?"

  The more astute viewer might have thought it odd that they named him, but concealed his face. Kennedy himself had insisted on that, citing a delicate case he was currently working on.

  "As I approached, I thought the man who was with her looked a little out of place, too old for her. I thought he'd probably just stopped to try to help her. When I got closer, I realised she appeared to know him; she kept calling out his name, "Michael!" Like that, repeating his name two, maybe three times. She didn't sound distressed, quite the opposite really. A happy drunk." He'd spoken at length after that, but when the show went out, they'd cut to the actor playing him that night. The officer had said, "Are you all right miss, do you know this man?"

  "Ishh . . . Michael," the girl playing Kathy said.

  The officer looked hard at the other man's face; there was bruising around the eye and dried blood in the corner of his mouth.

  Kennedy's original narration picked it up from there. "I noticed he'd clearly been in a fight. I asked him how he knew the young woman in question, at this point; I could hear raised voices coming from the other end of the street where my colleague was. 'Michael' said he was a porter. "I'm at the same hospital she works for."

  The reconstruction cut in for the last time with loud, and aggressive shouting coming from the disturbance his colleague was attending and showed the young policeman telling Michael to look after her as he turned and ran down to help his colleague.
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  Subsequent investigations revealed no one matching that name, or description was employed at the hospital where she worked."

  Kathy's sister was speaking, filmed in silhouette.

  "I never met my sister. I was born after she disappeared, but thanks to my parents, I have a strong sense of having known her and what she was like."

  She talked about the disappearance being so out of character; she'd just started a new job, which she loved. "That was all she wanted to be from when she was a little girl," she said. "Sadly our parents are no longer with us, or they would have made this appeal. They worked tirelessly towards finding out what happened to Kathy that night, they never…" her voice betrayed her emotions and trailed as her thoughts drifted. She quickly regained control. "If there's anyone out there that knows what happened to her, or knows anything at all, please call."

  The presenter summarised. "Were you at that Dire Straits concert that night? Perhaps you saw Kathy. Does anyone recognise the man who gave Kathy the marijuana cigarette? Can you remember seeing her outside? Did you see Kathy with this man getting into a car after the officer was called away?"

  Photo-fits of the man as he looked then appeared on the screen, followed by a digitally aged photograph showing how he might look today.

  "Do you know this man? Does anybody recall the fight in the pub that night? Has anybody seen or heard of Kathy since that night? If you know of her whereabouts, or what happened to her, we want to hear from you . . . Please call the incident room number on your screen. DCI Kendricks and his team are waiting for your calls."