The Red Ribbon Girls

by Adam J. Wright

  “How was your day?” Greg asks. “Did you do some more work on that heroine in peril story?”

  “The Secrets of Falcon House,” I say. “Yes, I did a couple of hours on it. And I went into town to meet Nia.”

  “Aha!” He points his fork at me. “I thought it wouldn’t take you two long to get together now we’ve moved up here.”

  “It was nice to see her again. We had a coffee at that place we went to the last time we visited them.”

  “That place with the funny name.”

  “Hallowed Grounds.”

  He grins. “Ah yes, I remember. Will and I were coming up with similar names for coffee shops.”

  “Has Beans,” I remind him.

  “Yes, that was one of mine.”

  We spend the rest of the meal reminiscing about about the various times we visited Nia and Will. I don’t tell him that Nia thinks their marriage may be in trouble. I hope it’s just a blip that will sort itself out.

  Later, as I lie in bed awake while Greg sleeps softly next to me. I hear footsteps on the gravel outside and a car door opening. Then an engine starts and idles for a second or two before I hear the car roll over the gravel and out onto the road. As the car drives away and the sound fades into the distance, I check the time on my bedside clock. 1:30.

  I tell myself that I’m going to stay awake and see what time the car returns. But half an hour later, I drift into a sleep where I dream of Max.

  Chapter 6

  July 26th, 1992

  “We’re all going on a summer holiday,” Dad sings as we drive along the motorway to Wales. Mum looks back at me and Max and rolls her eyes but I know she’s only joking. She likes Dad’s singing really and she likes it when he’s being silly, like he is now, singing an old song that only he and Mum know.

  Max and I are sitting in the back of the car. I’m a bit excited to be going camping but Max is a bit sulky because he wanted to go to the seaside. I don’t blame him really because I like the seaside as well but camping sounds fun and Dad says there are mountains in Wales. They’re not as high as Mount Everest, which I learned about in Geography, but they’re really high.

  And we get to sleep in a tent, which is something we don’t do when we go to the seaside. We stay in a caravan usually. Or sometimes a chalet in a holiday resort which is nice because I usually make friends with other children who are also on holiday and we play together on the beach while our parents sit on deck chairs and shout at us to put sun cream on.

  When I make friends with other children, I always let Max play with us as well. I’m his older sister so I have to look after him. Besides, he’s lots of fun. Always happy and running about. The other children usually don’t mind that he’s with us, even though he’s younger than us.

  “Come on, you three, sing along,” Dad says.

  “We don’t know your old songs,” I tell him.

  “Katy,” Max says, pulling on the sleeve of my cardigan. “You won’t climb the mountain too fast and leave me behind, will you?”

  “Of course not, silly. Why do you say that?”

  He shrugs and looks out of his window at the the cars going past us. “I don’t think I’ll be very good at climbing mountains.”

  “Of course you will,” Mum says. “And besides, the mountains we’re going to aren’t so steep that you have to climb them like the mountaineers on telly. We’ll just be walking up them. So there’s no need to worry, Max.”

  He nods but doesn’t say anything. I don’t know why he isn’t his usual funny self today.

  The campsite is right at the foot of the mountain. While Mum and Dad put the tent up, Max and I go exploring. There’s a shop on the campsite that mostly sells food but they do have some footballs and frisbees in the window. And there are lots of other tents with families in them. So there will be plenty of children to make friends with.

  “We’re going to really enjoy it here,” I tell Max.

  He’s looking up at the mountain that looms over the campsite with a worried look on his face.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask him.

  “Shall we go up the mountain now to practice?”

  “What do you mean practice?”

  “My teacher Miss Rawlins says that if you want to get better at something, you have to practice it. Like when we were learning the recorder in Music. If I don’t practice mountain walking, I don’t think I’ll be very good at it tomorrow and you’ll all be mad at me for being too slow.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I tell him. “You’re really starting to get on my nerves now.” I stomp back to the tent and leave him there.

  Later, when the tent is almost finished, I look over at Max and see that he’s still standing exactly where I left him, staring up at the mountain.

  Mum and Dad let us stay up late because we’re all on holiday. We sit outside the tent and listen to an owl hooting somewhere in the night. Dad puts a lantern on that runs on gas. It makes a low hissing sound but it gives off a lot of light. That’s all right for a while but then it attracts insects and Dad has to turn it off. There are moths scuttling all over the tent and trying to climb inside the lantern and there are little flies that bite and get in my hair.

  “I think it’s bedtime now, you two,” Dad says finally. I’m really tired and I think Max is too because he’s been quiet all night, not like his usual self at all. I suppose he needs more sleep than me because he’s younger so if I’m tired, he must be exhausted.

  We kiss Mum and Dad goodnight and climb into the tent. When I wriggle into my sleeping bag, I see that Max is still wide awake, staring up at the ceiling of the tent with wide eyes, his hands clasped together on his chest.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I ask him.

  He doesn’t turn to look at me or move any part of his body, other than his mouth, which makes him look like he’s frozen. “Nothing. Go to sleep.”

  “Don’t worry about tomorrow,’ I tell him.

  “I’m not worried.”

  “Yes you are, you said so earlier.”

  “Just go to sleep, Katy.”

  I let out a loud exasperated sigh to let him know I’m frustrated with him and snuggle deeper into my sleeping bag. Now that it’s nighttime, it’s gone a bit cold. I can hear Mum and Dad talking softly outside the tent. I can’t hear what they’re saying because I’m too tired to listen.

  Before I fall asleep, I take a last look at Max. He’s still wide awake. He’ll regret it in the morning when he’s too tired to walk up the mountain.

  “Kate, wake up! Wake up!”

  I open my eyes and look blearily up at Dad. He has a panicked look on his face that scares me instantly.

  “It’s your brother,” he says. “He’s missing.”

  I sit up and look over at Max’s sleeping bag. He isn’t there of course. Dad just told me he’s missing but it’s taking some time to sink in.

  “Get dressed and meet us outside,” Dad says. “We’ve got to look for him.”

  I hurriedly get dressed and climb out of the tent into the cold morning light. Mum is talking to some of the other campers, asking them if they’ve seen Max. She’s got tears in her eyes.

  “Come with me, Kate,” Dad says. “We’re going to check around the shop.”

  “I don’t think he’s there,” I tell him. “I think he’s gone up the mountain.”

  He looks at me quizzically. “What? Why ever would you say that?”

  “He was talking about it yesterday. He said he wanted to practice mountain walking.”

  Dad looks at the mountain. It’s so high that the top is hidden in mist and clouds. Dad’s face looks even more worried than before. “Right, come on.” He marches off towards a wooden gate and I follow him.

  The gate marks the beginning of the trail that leads up the mountain. Dad is almost running and I’m finding it hard to keep up. My breath feels hot in my chest and my legs ache, especially when the trail gets gradually steeper.

  I don’t know how long we’ve been walki
ng when Dad finally stops and waits for me to catch up to him. I can’t imagine that Max came this far on his own. We’re really high up and at the side of the path, there’s a steep drop that must be hundreds of feet down to a stream and lots of rocks.

  “I think I was wrong, Dad,” I say as I get to where he’s standing. “There’s no way Max came all the way up here.”

  He doesn’t say anything and suddenly I think that maybe he didn’t stop to let me catch up with him at all; he stopped because he saw something that made him stop.

  “Dad?” I say, touching his shoulder.

  He turns around and pulls me into a hug. “Don’t look, Kate,” he says and I feel his breath hitch and then feel his body shudder as he starts to cry. I cry as well even though I don’t know what’s wrong.

  Then, even though I was told not to look, I move my face so I can see around Dad.

  And I see the small, crumpled thing lying on the rocks below us.

  It takes me almost a minute to realise it’s my brother.

  Chapter 7

  He isn’t happy. The sun has been shining, melting the wintry landscape, and his headlights pick up water where last night there was snow and ice. He’d hoped to have his beautiful sleeping angel for at least another day but now that everything has thawed, he knows what he’ll find when he gets to the depression in the moors. It won’t be beautiful anymore.

  When he arrives at the parking place by the moors, he gets out of the car and doesn’t hesitate before setting off through the wet grass and heather. There is no cold wind blowing now that he can revel in, no harsh icy breath to freeze his skin. The world is wet and tepid.

  The beauty he left in the depression will no longer be under ice, no longer beautiful.

  When he reaches the depression, his worst fears are realised. The ice is gone and most of the water has been absorbed by the thawed ground, leaving the girl lying in a pool that barely covers her arms and legs.

  Exposed to the air like this, she will soon spoil. The beauty that had been frozen in time by the ice will rot and decay. He has no interest in this.

  Sighing, he turns away from the depression and makes his way back to the car. He feels hollow inside, lonely. He needs to create another work of beautiful art but he can’t do that until the temperature plummets and the snow falls again.

  Until then, he has to wait. Watch the weather forecast and wait.

  He gets to the car, starts the engine, drives away without looking back. He’ll never come to this exact spot again. Now that the ice is gone, it is a place of ugliness.

  Besides, someone will find her soon, he has no doubt about that. Once his angels thaw, it doesn’t take long before a hiker or a dog walker comes across them. He doesn’t care; he was careful to leave no clues. And he has no interest in the girls after they thaw anyway.

  Let the police have them so they can puzzle over questions like why someone would do such a thing.

  No matter how much they try, they’ll never understand.

  They’ll never catch him.

  Chapter 8

  Detective Inspector Danica Summers—Dani to her friends and colleagues—steps over the fluttering police tape and walks towards the white tent that has been hastily set up to cover the body on the moors and preserve the scene as much as possible.

  Apart from the tent and the tape, and the group of police officers milling about, it’s beautiful up here; untamed wilderness overlooking Whitby in the distance and the grey, flat sea beyond that.

  Dani spots DS Matt Flowers, by the tent and goes over to him. “Morning, Matt.”

  He gives her a nod. “Morning, Guv.”

  “What have we got?”

  He pulls a small black notebook from his pocket to make sure he doesn’t miss anything while giving her the rundown. Matt lives closer to this area of the moors than Dani does so even though they both received the call from HQ at the same time, Matt got here first. If Dani knows Matt Flowers—and after two years of working together, she’s sure she does—he’s already questioned any witnesses present and gathered any relevant info from the SOCOs.

  “Dog walker found her about an hour ago,” he says, reading from the notes.

  Dani checks her watch. 0530 hours. How early do people walk their bloody dogs around here?

  “The dog led the owner straight to the body, which was lying in a pool of water in this depression,” Matt continues, pointing out the dip in the land. “According to the SOCOs, she may have been there a while. The cold weather has slowed decomposition.”

  “Is it Amy Donovan?”

  “I think so, Guv.”

  “Is there a ribbon?”

  “Yes.”

  She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath of air to prevent her from spewing the expletive that’s running around inside her head. She turns to the tent. “Right, let’s have a look.”

  Matt pulls the tent flap back and Dani steps inside. The familiar sickly-sweet smell of death, mingled with the smell of dirt and water, hits her and she takes a moment to adjust. Slow, shallow breaths through the nose, she reminds herself.

  Ray Rickman, head of the Scenes Of Crimes Officers, is standing just inside the tent entrance, dressed in white coveralls. When he sees Dani, he waves.

  “Anything I need to know?” she asks him.

  “Looks like your killer has struck again,” he says. He gestures to the place on the ground which Dani has been steeling herself to look at. “See for yourself.”

  She turns towards the body, crouches down near the woman’s head. “It’s Amy Donovan,” she says. She’s seen plenty of photos of this young woman, photos of a happy, smiling young woman. But a person unknown somehow intersected with Amy’s life and ended it abruptly. The woman in the water will never look into a camera again other than the ones used by the SOCOs and the Coroner.

  Amy’s hair floats in the water—the only part of her that is still moving—and among the blonde tendrils floats a single red ribbon.

  “Is there an injection site?” she asks Rickman. She already knows the answer; the Snow Killer sedates his victims before he drowns them.

  Rickman nods. “There’s a red mark at the base of her neck. Looks like he injected the sedative into her trapezius muscle. Probably diazepam, like the others.”

  Dani closes her eyes and let out a breath. Amy’s name will now join the names of three other women on a whiteboard in the incident room at headquarters: Stephanie Wilmot, Nicola Patterson, and Angela Rayburn. All victims of the Snow Killer.

  Dani has forbidden her team from using the monicker Red Ribbon Killer. She’s witholding the facts surrounding the ribbons from the press. It’s common knowledge that the first victim, Stephanie Wilmot, was found with a ribbon tied into her hair but not common knowledge that two other women—three now—have also been found with the exact same type of ribbon.

  And even though there was a leak last year when some bright spark in the department told a journalist about the ribbons, Dani is determined to continue with her obfuscation of the facts, at least as far as the press is concerned. They still don’t know about the sedative used on the women. That information hasn’t been leaked. Probably isn’t newsworthy enough for the sensationalist press anyway.

  So her team has been ordered to refer to the killer of these women as the Snow Killer, not the Red Ribbon Killer, even in private.

  “Cause of death appears to be drowning,” Rickman says. “Whether in this water she’s lying in or somewhere else, we won’t know until we run some tests on what’s in her lungs.”

  Drowning. Same COD as the other three women. There’s no sign of sexual assault—at least there wasn’t with the other three victims—and there are no signs of violence. He just takes them onto the moors and drowns them, always during a snowstorm. What is the bastard trying to achieve? What does the ribbon mean?

  She stands up and turns to Rickman. “Get me those results as soon as you can, Ray.”

  “Of course,” he says.

  Dani pus
hes her way out of the tent and rejoins Matt. “Tell me about the dog walker.”

  He consults the notebook again. “Mr Andrew Thomas, 62, from Little Beck. He brings his dog out onto the moors every morning and evening. He’s in the back of the ambulance at the moment, being treated for shock. Do you want to talk to him?”

  She shakes her head. “No, but get someone to check out his story. Does he always bring his dog here, to this spot, or does he vary his routine? If he comes here all the time, he might have seen something else on an earlier date, something he doesn’t remember. We need to know if he saw anyone hanging around here, or any vehicles parked in the area.”

  “Yes, Guv.” Matt makes a note and puts his notebook away. He gestures to the tent and says, “It’s him, isn’t it? The Snow Killer.”

  “Looks like it.”

  “What’s our next move, Guv?”

  “We need to go and tell Amy Donovan’s next of kin that we’ve found a body. And we need to get a positive ID.” She gestures to the police tape, where a number of journalists are already gathering with their cameras and microphones. “And we need to do it before these vultures start writing their own version of events.”

  She walks away from the tent, Matt in tow. She isn’t looking forward to telling Mr and Mrs Donovan that their daughter is dead. She can’t imagine how it might feel to be told that a loved one’s life has been snatched away by a killer.

  As soon as she steps over the police tape, questions are thrown at her by the journalists and microphones are thrust into her face. She pushes them away and simply says, “No comment.”

  Chapter 9

  It’s almost lunchtime and I’m sitting in front of Falcon House, making notes on a legal pad and considering taking a break, when my computer goes off. “No, no!” I throw the pad onto the desk and toss the pen on top of it. Pulling the computer screen forward on my desk, I check behind it to see if the power cable has come out but it all looks fine back there. Then I realise the flat is more silent than usual. There’s no hum from the fridge. The bloody power’s gone off.