The Sister

by China, Max

  He was half-tempted to check in at the guesthouse again, but he knew the chances were he'd never find it after so many years. Settling down at a table, he switched on his laptop and connected to the internet.

  He googled: 'Strawberry1971'. A fraction of a second later, '1971' came up as a hit, listed on several sites. Lastfm, Tripadvisor and eBay all had listings under the same user name. Further down the list were a number of items for sale. This could be useful. He logged in to the auction site and did an advanced search.

  Got you!

  Within minutes, he was looking at the items 1971 had for sale. On over three hundred transactions, his feedback was flawless. Miller was impressed. It reassured him and gave him the feeling he could almost trust him. He scrolled through his seller's history. There she is… She'd praised him highly with a five star rating. Is this how they met? Did they know each other before? It was possible. She'd purchased a CD by 'The Mission' from him.

  His current listings were due to end the following day. One of the items was a hardback copy of the book 'Supernature' by Lyall Watson, which he'd spent years looking out for; and another a bass guitar for a 'Buy It Now' price of fifty pounds. The guitar was available for collection only. The address was in London.

  He couldn't believe how easily all this fitted together. Miller completed the transaction for the guitar and then sent an email offering ten pounds cash for the book, if he could collect it at the same time. Later that night, he received a reply.

  After a flurry of emails that led right up to midnight, they agreed a time for collection the next day.

  It would be late afternoon.

  Chapter 113

  Miller arrived at one of the bleaker parts of South London soon after lunchtime, pulling up as close to his destination as he could. Getting out, he secured the car. A sign on a lamp post read: Permit Holders Only. The car behind his had a clamp on its wheel. He scanned the area for traffic wardens, and seeing none, decided to take a chance.

  The flats were arranged in a rectangular horseshoe and had rendered panels on the outside, freshly painted in neutral pastel colours. From a distance, it looked like the sliced end of a Harlequin cake. The attempt to mask the drabness externally did nothing to fix the problems with the people that lived inside. As he strolled, he crossed into the paved area between the enclosing brick walls.

  Two youths emerged from somewhere behind and made a beeline for him. They boxed him in with a crude pincer movement. He kept moving.

  "What you got for me, man?" The taller one scooted ahead of him and turned walking backwards, nimble, fast and confident. He possessed the look of someone who was beyond caring, like the crack addict who used to hang around near Miller's office with his Staffordshire bull terrier. He disappeared sometime back, and they'd found him stabbed. A single wound to the heart. Rumour had it he owed his dealer eighty pounds. The message carried a clear warning to anyone else that might be thinking about holding out on him. If you do, you die.

  The other man was just on the periphery of his vision, slightly behind. More solidly built than his accomplice, he closed in, thinking to take Miller down.

  Miller had an advantage. They thought it would be easy. He stopped.

  "What have I got for you?" Miller said, "Nothing you can take."

  They exchanged looks. The taller one flicked his eyes intending to distract Miller into following his gaze.

  Darkness gathered, forming shadows. He'd learned long since that it signalled something was about to happen. He switched off, allowing pure instinct to take hold. Without warning, a punch slipped by Miller and crashed home. A blur of movement followed, a flurry of blows smacked home.

  Miller looked with incredulity at the would-be assailants laid out on the floor. A man stood before him, grinning. Miller came back into focus.

  "I don't believe this," he said.

  "Believe," the other man said simply.

  It was Thomas Carney.

  Thomas shook his hand. "I was only thinking about you this morning. How weird is that?"

  "I wish I had a pound for every time something like that happened to me . . ."

  Carney stopped to think. He'd obviously had a lot of fights since Miller had last seen him. His nose was as crooked as a stovepipe, and he seemed to have inherited the same flinty-eyed look his trainer had. He sounded a little punchy.

  "You know, when you turned up at the gym that night, it worried me because I thought Mickey might decide to take you on, over me. Did you carry on as a fighter?"

  "Thomas, I never wanted to be a fighter. Back then, I didn't know much about anything I wanted to do. How about you? For your age, you were really good."

  Thomas laughed, "You cheeky fucker, you was only about a year older than me. Yeah, I won the ABA middleweight title, had a real career ahead of me, and I threw it away. I can't believe you didn't do anything in the fight game. I could hardly catch you with a shot."

  "That's because I was scared. I didn't want to get hit."

  Carney pressed his lips tightly together and growled, "I've just remembered all that shit about your not boxing before . . ."

  "It wasn't shit, I was telling the truth. I was just able to read ahead a second or two. My grandfather taught me that. You know - if you do this," Miller bobbed left. "It means that," Miller bobbed right, "Or this . . ." He feigned a left hook.

  Carney laughed, "That's too simple. It was more than that; I couldn't fool you with any shots."

  Without warning, Carney unleashed a punch. Miller caught Carney's fist in his hand, two inches from his face.

  Carney shook his head. "Explain to me exactly how you knew that was coming."

  "Mu shin. No mind. I can't explain it any other way."

  Thomas stared intently at him, "In my book; that's not an explanation at all."

  "Anyhow, enough about me, Thomas. What was that about you throwing your chances away."

  "I've only just come out of prison for what I did."

  "Oh shit, really?" Although curious, Miller said, "Listen, Thomas, I have to go see someone, have you got a number, we'll meet and have a proper catch up."

  "Yep, yep . . . here's my number," he scrawled it on a piece of paper and handed it over. They shook hands again.

  "Be lucky," Thomas said.

  Miller nodded.

  At the entrance, someone held the door open for him on their way out, and Miller walked in, making his way up the concrete steps to the third floor.

  Although he hadn't spoken to the man yet, he already had the strong impression he was Irish.

  The south-facing walkway of the council low-rise block was three floors up, and the strength of the wind sweeping along it caught him by surprise. His eyes squinted against the wind-blown dust as he sauntered along checking the door numbers.

  It's this one. The material acting as curtains was drab and brown. A scattering of dead flies littered the sill the other side of the glass. They didn't look as if they'd been drawn back in a long time. He looked for a bell or knocker. There was neither, so he hammered on the sun-faded blue door with the side of his fist.

  The viewer in the door lit up from behind for a split second and then darkened again.

  "Who's there?" The voice had an unmistakable Irish accent.

  "Is this Strawberry? The name's Miller. I've come to collect a guitar and a book."

  "Wait a minute!" Something heavy rumbled, scraping over the floor on the other side. A tassel-haired man around forty years old suddenly appeared in the open doorway. Miller was surprised at his age; he'd guessed he would be younger. Apart from his dark complexion, he actually looked like his Paddy Casey avatar.

  "Come in."

  Inside, the flat was grim, sparser than it had looked from the outside. Brown blankets secured at the top with multi-coloured map pins formed makeshift curtains. The main room resembled a jumble sale, the windows on the other side of it had no curtains and allowed light to pool over the piles of merchandise. At three floors up, privacy wasn't a probl
em. No one was going to be peering through those windows without a very long ladder. A heavy timber beam leaned against the wall. Once his visitor was inside, he braced it back into position, raking it off the wall opposite to the underside of the door lock.

  Is it only the police he needs to keep out?

  "Is there a problem with security around here?" Miller said.

  "Well, y'know it, don't you . . ." he said with a shrug.

  The guitar was one of two propped up against the wall, the other, a battered old Spanish guitar, stood alongside it. There were boxes and boxes of stuff stacked off the floor, labelled A - C, D - F and so on. It was an unholy mess.

  Pushing his dark tassels away from his face, he leaned over and retrieved a book from a box labelled W – Z, and wiped the top clean with the elbow of his cardigan.

  "The guitar's the blue one there, sixty pounds cash to you."

  Miller handed him an envelope.

  He opened it to check the cash. A hand-written note was wrapped around the money, he unfurled it. 'When did you last see Eilise?' "What the fuck!" he spat, his face glowered with unconcealed menace and his fists balled, held at his sides.

  "Cool it, fella," Miller held his hand out palm upwards in front of him, appealing for calm. "I'm a private investigator and I specialise in finding missing people."

  His face flushed bright red with anger, "Then find your way out of here, or you'll be the next one going missing!" He pulled a switchblade knife from his pocket, flicking the blade out.

  "There's no need for that, really. I just need to know when you last saw her. Her parents are worried about her—"

  "Parents? Is that what you call those people?"

  "My job is just to find her. The authorities will deal with her family situation."

  "Did you know she ran away, because of what the old man was doing to her? Jesus, Joseph and Mary. The mother knew what was happening and did nothing."

  Miller inhaled deeply and then asked, "Do you know where she is?"

  "What, so you can send her back?"

  "Look, I know why she didn't report him, and I know she won't go to the police herself now—"

  "Well would you, if you were in her shoes?"

  "Strawberry, it isn't about me. I need your help to find her. Will you do that?"

  "Sweet Mary, I never thought I'd see the day . . . helping the police," he said rolling his eyes heavenward, putting the knife down he crossed himself.

  "I wasn't going to stick you with it, only scare you."

  "I know. Look, will you tell me your real name?" Miller yawned, the long drive earlier had taken its toll.

  "It's Barry, like in Wales," he said, pulling a sheepish face, "only more interesting."

  "You cut me off before I could tell you. Eilise has gone missing, and someone is claiming to be holding her. My job is to find her before she comes to harm."

  Barry looked at him blankly. "I'd no idea . . ."

  Miller scratched his head. "When did you last see her?"

  "I used to busk up in Nottingham, Paddy Casey songs mostly, hence the look," his hands were out at the side of his head, framing the hair. "That's when I met her the first time. She stood watching me play all day long once and afterwards we went back to my digs. We talked, smoked a bit of stuff; she told me what was occurring. She desperately wanted to get away. I felt sorry for her, so I helped her. We came down south, lived on the Farm for a bit, 'bout three months . . ."

  Miller shook his head slowly, bemused. "Barry, I asked you when you last saw her, not how you met."

  "When I last saw her . . . I was just getting to that. After we left Dale Farm, she didn't want to come here with me, she wanted to find her real mother. I got her dropped off by a friend of mine. That was the last I saw of her."

  "Where did he drop her off?"

  "You know, I'm not sure. I think it was Wickford, or Benfleet station?"

  "Okay, but you're sure he did drop her off?"

  "No doubt about it. I'd trust him with my life."

  "Did she say what her mother's name was, or where she lived?"

  "She knew all of that, but she didn't tell me." He took out a tobacco pouch and began to roll a cigarette. "Okay, Miller, so who do you think has got her?"

  "Someone far more dangerous than you can imagine. I know she's still alive, but she is in grave danger."

  Suddenly, Barry looked serious. The gravity of her situation had only just dawned on him.

  Chapter 114

  When the DCI didn't show up for work, it seemed to confirm Tanner's worst suspicions, yet still he was reluctant to take matters further until he'd at least had the chance to talk to him. After dialling his home and mobile telephone numbers and getting no answer, he left urgent messages to call him back. By the end of the afternoon, he decided to pay a surprise visit to Kennedy's house.

  Unable to get a response at the front door, he ventured round the back. The garage door was unlocked. Inside he saw the motorbike in bits in the middle of the floor; just as the chief had said it was. Sitting on the workbench was a set of number plates. He picked one up and dislodged a small bolt. It fell and bounced off the end of his shoe. Bending to retrieve it, it wasn't anywhere in sight, he guessed it must have bounced behind a pile of rags. He moved them and discovered a box that contained twelve compartments. There were seven Kilner jars, with five empty spaces. Inside a bag on the floor was a contraption rigged up with tubes complete with a gas mask.

  He had the unmistakable feeling someone was staring at him. For one crazy second, he thought someone stood behind him. He turned quickly. There was nobody there. His heart pounded hard in his chest and didn't slow quite some time. He knew he should report what he'd found. Moving the box of jars off the workbench, and without really knowing why, he replaced everything as he'd found it.

  He returned to the office. Something had gnawed away at him ever since he left Kennedy's garage. Suddenly, he had a hunch. He checked the CCTV records for the cameras outside the police station. He worked all the way back to the 3rd of January and then he spotted him. The same figure they'd seen on London Bridge, dressed identically, the body posture unmistakable. His face concealed by a hood.

  He's been after Kennedy all along.

  Chapter 115

  April 5th

  The rapid decline in Ryan's health had nibbled away at his once unshakeable belief. He felt abandoned. Determined to hold on to the last vestiges of hope, he decided to finish a task he'd begun fifteen years ago.

  The archiving of his patient files.

  The older ones had survived the initial exercise because of their particular interest to him. His thoughts touched on Penny. Pleasant memories bloomed, and then withered quickly as he recalled how their working relationship had turned sour.

  After starting a list of files for Stella to prepare for boxing, he decided it would be easier to send them all with the exception of three. One of those files he kept under lock and key. The other two were the files of Bruce Milowski and Jackie Solomons.

  Solomons had been the last of his unconventional treatments and a witness to his secret visits to Vera Flynn in those days. Over the years, he'd noticed a correlation between childhood tragedy and the development of resilience in later life. Solomons had undoubtedly fallen into that category. Losing her father at the age of four, she'd been raped and almost murdered, yet she'd gone on to thrive. At one time, he'd considered writing a book on his theories, and although it was prominent on the list of things he had to do, he never got around to it. It's too late now.

  His thoughts turned to Milowski. He'd been lined up to become the first candidate to receive Vera's remarkable attentions when his mother suddenly refused any further treatment of her son.

  Mrs Milowski . . . What was her first name again? Ellen, yes that was it . . . She possessed an innocence that had appealed to Ryan's fatherly nature. He'd wanted more than anything to help her son. The termination of his services had been abrupt. Stung by the recollection for a second time,
Ryan moved the file squarely in front of him.

  His memories were quite clear.

  With Mrs Milowski's permission, he'd hypnotised him, taking him back through the years. He'd asked him to focus on the earliest thing he could remember, something in the past that had perhaps bothered him. Ryan was astounded to learn that the boy had fallen into a coal fire at the age of ten months and survived unscathed apart from a few singed hairs. It all came back to him. How, aged four, he had escaped suffocation when a tunnel he'd dug into the sand dunes on a Cornish beach collapsed and buried him. We found him because his grandfather noticed four of his fingers sticking up above the sand. At the age of seven, Ryan had seen him as a physician. Only later did he realise that the first visit was related to something Bruce had never told him at the time. He revealed that somebody had chased him in the woods and that from then onwards, he never slept without a light on. The experience had led to his first encounter with the 'shadows' as he called them, but no amount of coercion could get him to reveal more. The boy just locked up, even under hypnosis.

  What happened to you Bruce? Did you make it? Or did you die without me hearing about it?

  Ryan drummed his fingers on Solomons' records, lost for a moment, indecisive. Then he put her file and Milowski's on the spare desk, well away from those destined for microfiche.

  He pushed his chair back abruptly, straightened his back and then crossed the room. Running his fingers under the lip of the bottom-most shelf, he produced a key. Going from the archive room into his office, he unlocked the top drawer of his personal filing cabinet. The file was right at the back. A plastic tab identified it simply as 'Vera Flynn'.

  Ryan removed the brown paper package from its sleeve and placed it on his desk. Inside it, along with her file, was an unopened envelope, containing the last prediction; he recalled how she'd told him not to open it until the time was right.