The Sister

by China, Max

  Barely perceptible, a high squeak came from beyond the door. He heard it and stopped, listened with head tilted. Someone is on the stairs! He dashed for the cupboard door; the flayed woman grabbed at his ankle, and he stumbled. She wrapped both hands around his shin and held on fast. He lashed out at her with his free leg.

  "Let go, Cath!" he yelled.

  Still she held on. He dispatched her with a grunt, rabbit punching her behind the ear. She exhaled and rolled over unconscious.

  Without exiting the cupboard, he listened intently. No one was on the stairs, and the front door remained shut. Satisfied nothing was amiss, he returned to Stella. A snarl tightened the skin across his face, and the broken bones of his nose showed white beneath the skin, black eyes blazing with the only emotion that ever touched them. Rage.

  "Now you're going to pay," he said, grabbing onto her arm so tightly, she thought it would break. His grip stopped the circulation to her fingers, and they felt cold and numb. She fought back, tried to snatch away. He rewarded her with the same punch that he'd dealt Cath. Stella tried not to let the lights go out, fought against losing consciousness and lost.

  Stella opened her eyes. On her knees unable to move, he'd tied her arms by the wrists behind her back, secured them to her heels and left her half slumped against the sofa. She realised with horror that he'd undressed her, and she tried to focus on how she felt down there. She couldn't feel anything. He hasn't raped me. Her elation lasted for the only briefest moment; it was a temporary reprieve. It was coming.

  He re-entered the room holding a syringe; he tapped the air bubbles to the top, shooting them out. He knelt beside her. She thought about her father once more. That happy holiday… She smiled vaguely.

  "What did I tell you? You've been looking forward to this now, haven't you?"

  He pushed the needle into her. The drug rushed through her veins with a power that shut her down systematically. She knew instinctively he'd given her too much, but she no longer cared. She was resigned to her fate. No one was coming for her. She closed her eyes and prayed for sweet release, hoping she'd feel no pain. She smiled.

  The half-smile was still on her lips when he tied the stocking gag tightly around her face.

  Chapter 144

  Miller suddenly realised what day it was – Friday the thirteenth. Although not normally superstitious, he felt wary. The sky darkened as he pulled into the car park beside the café, a single splat of water struck the windshield so hard that it jarred him from his thoughts. The aqueous explosion was a mere precursor to what would come next. The wind rose up out of nowhere, whipping up a machine gun burst of similar sized drops that pounded the car and ricocheted off in all directions.

  He couldn't recall another time he'd experienced rain like it apart from the time Kirk had given him a lift many years before. Kennedy! The last time I saw him it rained like this.

  Whichever way he turned in his investigations into Stella's kidnapping he couldn't tune in, and he couldn't focus. The awareness that trickled in through dreams, the shadowy perceptions - had all left him. All signals were jammed.

  His car door suddenly opened, and a soaking wet Kennedy got in.

  Miller clutched at his chest. "You nearly gave me a heart attack! We're going to have to stop meeting like this, John."

  "Yes, I've been trying to reach you for a few days - couldn't get through," he chuckled. "Listen, I know where Stella is."

  Miller turned his full attention to the DCI, "Where?"

  "We don't have much time. Come on, drive. I'll show you where."

  Miller crunched out of the car park.

  "Turn left," he said.

  "Where am I heading?"

  "Grays."

  Once on the main road Miller put his foot down. For the first time since she'd vanished, he felt connected to her. She was alive, but in great danger.

  With Stella securely bound and gagged upstairs, Boyle decided to check on Cathy. She was still unconscious. Turning to go back up, he reached the bottom step and froze. The bolts on the inside face of the door are drawn back! Puzzled, he knew he'd secured them when he returned earlier. He climbed the stairs, pausing on the loose step, shifting his weight. That squeak from just now . . . it cannot be. He sped up the remaining treads and checked Eilise's door. Locked!

  "Eliza, are you in there? Answer me." Met with silence, he unlocked the door feverishly. He howled in disbelief when he saw that she'd gone. He thundered across the floor looking everywhere for her. Cathy mercifully remained unconscious, Stella, hovering on the brink of another world, imagined she heard him cursing and growling. The thread she'd floated away on tautened. She stopped, held in limbo. Something is happening . . . she didn't want to die. Hand over imaginary hand she began clawing her way back.

  Martin was in Eilise's room. She'd been unable to escape with her bags; he'd rifled through her meagre possessions before, but he had no reason to look beyond what was in front of him. This time he tipped everything out onto the floor and began sifting through everything, examining her clothes, turning out pockets on a hunch. He was amazed at how little she possessed; even for a runaway. She'd obviously packed only what she needed. He held up a pair of patchwork jeans that were clearly too small for her. What did she need these for? His hands crumpled over every inch of them, and then turning them inside out; he found that a secret pocket had been stitched in using an old silken scarf. He felt something under his fingers, and defined the edges before tearing the lining away to reveal the contents. A note, folded in half, written on the smallest piece of paper possible, revealed a name and address. He scratched his head and pondered. Why hide it? If you lost your jeans and wanted them back, you'd put the address in an obvious place . . . The answer dawned on him quite suddenly. I know where you're going, and I'm coming to get you back.

  But first, he would fuck Cathy's sister. With Eilise gone, the prospect now excited him more than anything; his upper lip pained as he grinned. They had no idea how close they'd come to being reunited.

  He couldn't wait to see the look on Stella's face when he told her.

  Chapter 145

  "There! Over there. That's the block of flats," Kennedy pointed to a parking space. "Pull in here."

  Miller brought the car to an abrupt halt. The two men leapt from the car and ran up to the entrance; the DCI unlocked the communal door with a fire brigade key. Once inside they charged through the lobby, hesitated by the lift and decided to take the stairs.

  "You go on ahead, Miller," he said already breathless, "it's on the seventh floor. Number seventy-one. Quickly!"

  All that working out on the treadmill is paying off today, he thought as he left Kennedy behind. After what seemed an eternity, he reached the seventh floor and burst out of the lobby into the corridor looking left and right for the flat numbers. Someone had removed them from the walls. He started in the wrong direction. Kennedy emerged behind him. "It's that way," he said with a jerk of his thumb.

  Although the numerals were missing, Miller located the door easily.

  "Do I knock?" he looked at Kennedy.

  "No time. Break it down!" Miller shouldered the door; it gave much easier than he expected, and he stumbled half-falling into the passageway.

  "She's upstairs!" Kennedy shouted.

  He took the stairs two at a time and sprang through the first open door.

  Boyle towered naked and fully erect over Stella, with his unbuckled belt in his hand. A thin trickle of blood ran down the inside of her forearm, an empty syringe lay discarded beside her. Bound hand and foot, and stripped of her clothes, she leaned sideward against the sofa, her face filled with fright and desperation. Her eyes fluttering as she tried to stay conscious, lit briefly as she recognised him, and then shut. Her head slumped forward.

  Boyle turned, calmly wrapping the belt around the fist of his right hand, confident the smaller man was no threat to him. "I told you didn't I?" he snarled, licking his lips, "if you came looking, I'd kill her. I've given her enough horse
to stop a fuckin' rhino. Now, it's your turn." Cold-eyed and ugly, he fixed Miller with a stare and advanced towards him.

  Miller felt terror tugging at his knees. Boyle had to be in his late sixties, but he looked no older than a fifty-year-old. An abhorrence; a freak of nature, muscular and lean, faced with a man like that, most people would have turned and run, but with Stella's fate in his hands, he had no choice . . . Deprived of any semblance of his previous abilities, he didn't know what to do. Four words came to him, 'pusty umysł'…no mind! A blue flash of lightning illuminated the room. Thunder rolled. It started to rain.

  He'd hesitated a moment too long. Boyle's huge belt-wrapped fist hurtled towards his face, faster than a cannonball.

  With only a millisecond to go until impact, the shadows returned, seeming to slow down time. The shadow-shape of a man formed on the wall opposite and dropped, spinning on the axis of his hands. Copy me, boy! Miller aped the movements of the shadow with lightning speed. He spun, palms down on the floor scribing a wide arc in a blur of movement anti-clockwise, his right leg like a scythe, took the other man's legs out from under him. He crashed down hard onto his back. Winded, he raised his head off the floor.

  Miller gave him no chance to recover. He shot up driving the heel of his foot with full force into Boyle's face; his head smacked hard against the floor. He glanced at the shadow on the wall. It echoed his posture.

  With his opponent out on the floor sprawled on the floor unconscious, Miller knew he had to work fast. No time to untie or dress her. He had to get her to the hospital right away. The nearest was five minutes away. He couldn't risk the wait for an ambulance, so he scooped her into a fireman's lift and ran, surrounded by shadows and darkness down seven floors of stairs, surprised at how weightless she felt.

  Once he'd got her into the car; he drove at high speed. If she were to survive, every second would count. There was a bus in front. He caught it up and veering round to get past it, immediately pulled back. Two of them! He couldn't risk overtaking both buses at the same time. Frustrated, he banged his hand down hard on the steering wheel and gauged the chances of forcing the oncoming traffic to let him pass. He indicated to overtake. The bus directly in front pulled in at a stop. Jubilant, he shouted, "Yes!"

  The chance to get by the remaining bus had suddenly become a realistic prospect, and he edged out to overtake. An elderly woman lurched unexpectedly off the pavement into the road; hitting the brakes, he narrowly avoided her. The bus in front had stopped. If she'd only hurry out of his way - he could get in front of it before it pulled out again. She took what seemed like forever to finish crossing in front of him, staring balefully into the car, muttering something about inconsiderate drivers. Come on! The bus indicated to pull out and started rolling forwards. Miller gunned the car like a kamikaze pilot, out around the front of the bus and into the path of the oncoming traffic, before swerving back into his own lane. He felt the adrenaline surging through his system. His neck felt hot under his collar.

  Two minutes later, he arrived at A & E.

  An hour later, Miller was at her bedside. It had taken two Naloxone injections to wipe out the effects of the heroin, she'd renarcotised after the first. Although she appeared stable, the doctors wanted her kept under observation.

  The corners of her mouth lifted when she saw him, relieved to be in the hands of someone she trusted, but she didn't feel much like smiling. She felt spaced out and peculiar and on top of that, more than anything, though she'd never ask for it, she needed sympathy. She yawned, long and loud.

  "Oh, Miller, I can't stop yawning," she said. "I thought you'd abandoned me. What took you so long?"

  "Stella, you need to rest."

  "What about the other girls - what happened to them? Are they okay?"

  "The police found one of them. The other one escaped. They haven't found her yet."

  "And what about him … they have arrested him, right? I was so scared when he tied me up like that - I thought - you know; I thought I would die." She blinked rapidly, holding back tears.

  "Come on now, you rest."

  Although she was still fuzzy and out of it, she needed to talk. "Those were the things I've dreaded the most in my life since Kathy went missing. Kidnap, rape, murder . . . tied up. I never expected to suffer all those things at once." She looked dejected and sad, but Miller beamed.

  "Why are you grinning at me like that, it's not funny," her shoulders slumped, deflated.

  "Well, unless something else happened that didn't tell me about . . . you got away with at least two of the things you just mentioned."

  "And injected with a drugs overdose," she added it to the list without emotion. He stopped her.

  "Okay, okay, you have every right to feel sorry for yourself. Did I tell you about the time I got murdered once?"

  She poked her tongue at him, "He was going to rape me, if he hadn't been bitten in the crotch by a guard dog, if he'd been functioning – it doesn't bear thinking about. Miller he was a complete schizo . . . By the way, you kept that one quiet didn't you."

  Miller looked confused. "What?"

  "Just before I passed out that move … you didn't tell me you could do that stuff! When I saw you do that, I knew we were going to be okay. I mean - what the hell was that?"

  He laughed, "Oh that," he said, modestly, "was combat, Korean style!"

  "Miller?"

  "Yes?"

  "Thank you." With tears brimming, her lips quivered, and she bit the top one, holding herself in check. "This has all been such a nightmare."

  He wasn't sure now was the time to tell her. She saw the look on his face. "You didn't answer me just now; they did get him, didn't they?"

  "Stella, there's a police guard outside the door. They told me that when they got there, Boyle was gone." Miller's words took a moment to sink in.

  "Oh no, that means . . ."

  "Stella, he would have to be crazy to come after us again, the police would catch him straight away."

  "But that means it isn't over," Stella's eyes looked haunted. "Doesn't it?"

  The door knocked, opening simultaneously. Tanner strolled in with a female officer, and despite making a beeline for Miller, he addressed Stella without looking at her. "I'm sorry it couldn't wait. We're keen to pick this scumbag up as soon as possible. This is DI Wright," he said, pointing to her. "So if you're up to it, we have a few questions we'd like you to answer."

  Pulling Miller to one side, he said, "How did you get there before we did?"

  "Well, I have to confess, I had a little help from a friend on the inside."

  "What, working with Boyle?"

  "No, working with you - only you didn't know it . . ."

  "Don't smart-arse me, Miller. I'm not in the mood. Who was it?"

  "It was Kennedy. He showed me how to get there—"

  "You were with Kennedy. Where is he now?"

  "He disappeared after he showed me where Boyle was holding Stella. I guess he didn't want to get involved, not until he's sorted his mess out . . ." He stopped himself short; he had a flash of the first time he ran into Kennedy at the cafe.

  It was raining like Armageddon that day as well; he recalled how Kennedy disappeared . . . The look on the girl's face in the café when he'd asked where Kennedy had gone. "Who?" She'd said.

  He examined Kennedy in his mind's eye. Seeing him again after the re-union dinner - in the cafe the first time - he couldn't read him or anything else when he was near. It all began to fall into place. The DCI had shadowed Miller ever since he disappeared. It was something to do with the rain, but what . . . he didn't know.

  "Miller, I haven't got all day - who was it?" Tanner sounded irritated.

  "I'm not sure I can tell you that at the moment, but I think I know where Kennedy is."

  "This had better be good." Tanner said.

  "I think you'd better come with me, John," Miller said, softly.

  The clues had been there all along; even the letter had spelled it out. Do not try to find me
at this stage.

  The following day, the local newspaper carried the headline: Missing DCI. Police identify body.

  Inside the paper, the article was brief. Police confirmed the identity of a body found hanging beneath the stage in a disused basement area of a local school as being the missing DCI John Kennedy; police have ruled out foul play. The family has requested that their privacy be respected at this difficult time.

  Chapter 146

  As soon as she heard him flaying poor Cathy, Eilise rose from her hiding place behind the sofa. In the melee a few moments before, she'd crept unseen out of her room, before he'd locked it again.

  She sneaked down the stairs; every step taken painfully slow - she didn't know exactly which one creaked. She held on to the banister and took the steps two at a time. She'd worked out it would decrease her chances of landing on the creaky step by fifty percent, plus it sped her descent.

  Too late, she froze at the first tiny creak. She stabilised her weight across the step, the handrail above, lent some support to her, but she didn't have the strength to prevent herself from applying more downward pressure onto her foot. She shifted slowly onto the one below, realising it wasn't the weight going onto it that triggered the sound; it was the weight coming off. The stair chose a lull in the proceedings to issue its distressed rodent-like screech.

  He would have heard that! No time to make it back upstairs - no time to get out of the front door. With the keys she'd lifted from his jeans, she would need at least a minute to unlock the door quietly. With nowhere else to hide, she tucked herself behind the swing of the cupboard door and prayed he wouldn't find her.

  The door swung back. She pressed herself flat against the wall. If the door touched her, he would feel it. The wheeze from his exertions passed across the edge of the door in the direction of the stairs. Three breaths… She imagined his face the other side, turning then to check the front door.