The Red Ribbon Girls

by Adam J. Wright

  I flick the light switch on and off to make sure. Nothing.

  That means I’m going to have to go downstairs and tell Rob. Of course, if the power is out in the entire building, then he’ll know. But I can’t take that chance; I need to get on with my work.

  I go out into the hallway and try the lights there. They’re dead.

  Sighing, I go downstairs to the first floor and try the hallway lights there as well. Also dead.

  I can hear noises drifting up the stairs from the ground floor; someone banging loudly on a door and Ivy’s voice shouting, “Answer the door, you ignorant lout!”

  I go down to see what’s going on. Ivy is pounding on Rob’s door with the heel of her hand. When she sees me, she jerks a thumb at the door. “He’s not answering, dear. My electrics have gone off.”

  “So have mine,” I tell her.

  “Exactly the same thing happened the other day,” she says. “I was sitting watching my stories and then all of sudden the telly goes off. And he—” she points at Rob’s door, “tells me it’s because of the wind and we just have to wait for it to come back on again.”

  “The other day? I don’t remember the power going off.”

  “It was the evening before you moved in, dear. And let me tell you something: cats are supposed to be able to see in the dark but Winston was scared to death. He hid under the sofa for most of the evening. So I was sitting in the dark with a frightened cat and no telly until almost ten o’ clock!”

  “That sounds very inconvenient,” I say, not sure that Rob North can be blamed for a power cut.

  “I’ve a good mind to send a letter to his parents, tell them what a rubbish job he’s doing. I’m sure they’d be interested to know about him leaving us without electricity.” She raises her voice when she says this and directs her words at the door, as if Rob is behind it, listening.

  “Maybe he’s gone out,” I suggest.

  “I don’t think so, dear. He only goes out at night, like a bloody vampire.”

  I walk past Ivy to the main door and check the parking area. My Mini is the only car out there.

  “His car’s not there,” I tell Ivy.

  She frowns. “Isn’t it? I didn’t hear it drive off.”

  “I heard it this morning, at about half past one.”

  “Oh yes, I heard that, dear.”

  “Maybe he didn’t come back.”

  “He came back half an hour later.” She taps her ear. “I told you, I could hear a pin drop. My memory might not be what it used to be but my hearing is spot on.”

  “Well he must have left this morning while you were in the shower or something, so you didn’t hear him.”

  She shrugs. “It’s possible, I suppose.”

  “I’m not sure he can do much about a power outage anyway,” I say. “We’re probably going to just have to wait.”

  Ivy seems unsatisfied by that. “Well I’d offer you a cup of tea, dear but the kettle won’t work.” She turns to shuffle back ot her flat.

  “You could boil some water in a saucepan,” I suggest. “The hob runs on gas.” I can’t bear to think of her sitting in her flat alone without even a cup of tea to keep her warm.

  “Oh yes, so it does.” She grins at me and waves me over to her flat. “Come on, I’ll make us a nice cuppa.”

  I follow her inside, where Winston is rolling a plastic ball around the floor and pouncing on it.

  She goes into the kitchen and puts a pan of water on the hob while I roll the ball for the cat and watch him chase it. When he catches it, he gives it a couple of jabs with his paw and then looks at me, waiting for me to roll it again.

  I roll it under the sofa and he goes scurrying after it.

  “I suppose you’ve seen the paper today,” Ivy says from the kitchen. “Terrible business. Just terrible.”

  I haven’t seen the news today, actually; I didn’t roll out of bed until late and then I went straight to work on Falcon House. “No,” I say to Ivy. “I haven’t seen the paper. What’s happened?”

  She picks up a copy of The Mirror from the kitchen table and passes it to me. “There, you can see for yourself.”

  The headline on the front page, AMY DONOVAN LATEST VICTIM OF RED RIBBON KILLER, sits above a photo of a forensic tent on the moors. So they’ve found Amy at last and they were right about her not being alive.

  “I suppose we’ll have the police around here asking questions,” Ivy says as she loads the teapot with teabags. “The last time they were here, I told them I’m an old lady who never gets out. How am I supposed to know anything about missing women? But they kept asking their questions anyway. Very confusing, they were.”

  “The police came here? To this house?”

  “Yes, to ask about the missing woman.”

  “Amy Donovan?”

  “No, not her. This was a couple of years ago, when that other one went missing.” She frowns as if trying to remember something, then shakes her head. “No, I can’t remember her name.” She resumes her task of making the tea.

  I wonder why the police came to this house in particular. Were they following a lead or just carrying out door-to-door inquiries?

  “They wanted to know everything,” Ivy continues. “One of them asked for my name, date of birth, all that kind of thing. I said, ’Never mind my date of birth, you cheeky young man,’ but he was quite insistent.”

  “Did they question everyone in the building?”

  She ponders this for a moment, then nods. “I suppose so. Well, all except him. Rob. He was out at the time. They said they’d come back later.”

  I take my phone out of my pocket with the intention of looking up when the first woman went missing but the Wi-Fi from my flat doesn’t reach down here and there’s no data signal out here in the middle of nowhere.

  Even if I was in my own flat, there wouldn’t be any Wi-Fi, I remind myself; the power’s off so the hub won’t be working. For the first time, I feel isolated in this house on the moors.

  Ivy lays out the cups and saucers on the table and I bring the pot.

  She sits down and I pour the tea as she continues. “I told them, ’If there’s anyone around here who’s dodgy, it’s him. Rob, the landlord.’ But they didn’t seem all that interested in what I was telling them.”

  “Did they come back to question him later?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “I don’t know.”

  “Surely you don’t think he could be involved in anything like that,” I say. “I mean, he’s a bit creepy and everything but—”

  “I wouldn’t trust him as far as I can throw him. I once saw him hurl a snowball at Winston. At a poor defenceless cat! I ask you, what kind of person does that?” She takes a sip of tea and adds, “I even offered to let the police into his flat so they could have a look around but they weren’t interested in the slightest. Some detectives they were!”

  “They’re not allowed to search just anyone’s flat. They need a warrant. How were you going to let them in? Have you got a key?”

  She winks at me and taps the side of her nose conspiratorially. “Well, I’m not supposed to have one.”

  I lean forward and lower my voice. “But have you?”

  She nods slowly. “Fred and Wanda used to live in this flat, you see. Before they moved to Spain. When I moved in, what did I find lurking at the back of one of the kitchen drawers? A set of keys. They either left them here for Rob and he didn’t know about them or they just put them in the drawer and forgot about them.”

  “And you still have them?”

  “Of course. They’re still in the same drawer, behind my knives and forks. I thought I’d hold onto them in case I ever needed them.”

  “And have you? Used them, I mean.”

  Ivy shakes her head. “No, never had the need to.”

  I’m still wondering why the police came here and questioned everyone. Northmoor House is remote. For the police to come here specifically, they must have had a good reason. I remember them combing the moors be
hind the house. “Ivy, was one of the dead women found near here? Is that why the police came asking questions?”

  She looks up from her teacup. “Hmm? No, dear, when they came here, they hadn’t found anyone. She was still missing.”

  I make a mental note to check the date once the Wi-Fi comes back on. The fact that the police came here asking questions might not mean anything at all but the part of my mind that needs answers has been engaged now and I can’t ignore it.

  Outside, a car pulls onto the gravel, its engine rumbling.

  “That’s him,” Ivy says. “I’d know the sound of that noisy old thing anywhere” She gets up from the table. “I’m going to give him a piece of my mind. What does he think he’s doing swanning off while we’re sitting here with no electricity?”

  I follow her to the door. Winston peeks out at us from under the sofa, where he’s been playing with his ball.

  Ivy puts her hand on the door handle but doesn’t open the door yet. She waits until Rob’s footsteps in the hallway reach the door and then she flings it open and shouts at him, “I want a word with you!”

  Startled, he whirls around to face her, dropping the cardboard box he’s carrying. It crashes to the floor. “You stupid old bat!” He crouches down and picks it up. It’s open and I can see a tangle of cables and wires inside. There’s also an old keyboard in there and what looks like a webcam.

  “Never mind calling me names,” Ivy says, “How about fixing the electrics? We’ve been sitting in the cold and the dark for ages.”

  He straightens up and pulls the baseball cap down over his head with one hand, the box under his other arm. “I told you before, I can’t control the national grid. Ring up the electric company and report it. Don’t come to me with problems I can’t fix.”

  “Can’t fix or won’t fix?”

  “I think he’s right, Ivy,” I say, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. “We’re just going to have to wait for it to come back on.”

  “See,” Rob says, gesturing to me with his free hand. “Listen to Katy.”

  “It’s Kate,” I tell him firmly.

  “Whatever.” He digs his keys out of the back pocket of his jeans and opens the door to his flat.

  “Don’t you walk away from me,” Ivy calls after him.

  Rob steps through the doorway, turns to face us, and gives us a salute. “Hasta la vista.” He closes the door.

  “What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?” Ivy asks.

  “I think it means we won’t be seeing him again any time soon and he isn’t interested in the fact that the power is off.”

  “Useless!” she says, turning around and shuffling back into the flat. “I don’t know why I expected anything different from the likes of him. He’s always been the same. I think that accident sent him a bit funny in the head.”

  We go back to Ivy’s kitchen and finish our tea. When we’re done, I wash the cups in the sink and put them on the draining board to dry. Ivy sits on the sofa and stares at the dead TV as if willing it to come back to life.

  “I’ve got an idea,” I say while I’m drying my hands. “Why don’t we go for a drive into town?”

  She looks at me with a worried expression on her face. “Town?”

  “Yes, we can find a nice warm cafe. It beats sitting here in the cold.”

  She mulls it over for a minute or two. “Well, I suppose so.” She doesn’t seem very certain and that makes me wonder just how long it is since she last went out.

  “I’ll go up and get my coat and gloves,” I tell her. “See you back here in five minutes?”

  Ivy nods slowly. “All right. But what about Winston?”

  “I’m sure he’ll be fine for an hour or two.”

  She nods again. “All right.”

  I go upstairs and grab my coat, hat, and gloves. Without any heating on in the flat, the temperature is dropping. I hadn’t planned to spend the afternoon in town with my neighbour but then I hadn’t planned on a power cut making it impossible for me to work either. And I can’t leave her alone in a cold flat staring at a blank TV screen.

  When I go back down to her flat, I find Ivy waiting for me just inside her door. She’s got a thick coat and a knitted green hat with matching gloves and scarf on.

  “You look prepared,” I say.

  “You have to be at my age, dear.”

  We go out to the Mini and set off along the road that leads into town. The road seems busier than usual and I guess it’s because of the discovery of Amy Donovan. There are probably journalists and news crews here from all over the country. This is the kind of story I would have covered during my days at the Manchester Recorder. I suppose I miss some of the excitement from those days. The Amy Donovan case would have had me hightailing it over to Whitby to piece together whatever scraps of information I could find into a story.

  Now I sit at a desk all day and advise other writers about their stories. Not exactly thrilling.

  What is thrilling, though, is seeing Ivy’s face as we drive along the road. She has a contented smile that tells me just how happy she is to be doing something other than sitting in her flat watching TV.

  “Shall I put the radio on?” I ask her.

  “Yes, that would be nice.”

  I hit the button and the news comes on. A female voice is talking. It sounds like she’s reading from a prepared statement. “In the early hours of this morning, a body was found on the moors. After a positive identification by family members, we can confirm that this was the body of Amy Donovan, who disappeared from her home four days ago. Detectives are working around the clock to apprehend the person or persons responsible for Miss Donovan’s death, so that her family might have some closure. If anyone has any information about the whereabouts of Amy during the last four days, or has any other information that might be useful to solving this crime, please contact the North Yorkshire Police incident room.”

  She reads out a phone number.

  The newsreader says, “That was Chief Constable Lisa Waring of North Yorkshire Police appealing for help in the Amy Donovan murder inquiry.”

  “Look.” Ivy says, pointing to the moors on our right. “That must be where they found her.”

  I glance out of my window and see, in the distance, a white tent surrounded by dark figures. Parked on a road nearby are a number of police vehicles.

  We’ve only been driving for about five minutes. That’s how close Amy Donovan’s body was to Northmoor House all this time. Just a five minute drive away. Whoever put her there was also that close to the house.

  “If I knew who it was, I wouldn’t call the police,” Ivy says.

  I look at her, not sure what she means by that. “Why not?”

  “He wouldn’t last that long once I got my hands on him.”

  Chapter 10

  “Get a shot of the abbey, Pete,” Jillian Street says to her cameraman. They’re walking along Pier Road, getting a few snaps of Whitby after spending the morning on the moors trying to get someone from the police to talk about the body that’s been discovered up there.

  Jillian’s instincts tell her it’s Amy Donovan but nobody in authority is saying anything.

  She’s been in Whitby for two days now, following the story of Amy Donovan. If Amy turns out to be the latest victim of the Red Ribbon Killer, then that’s all the better. Serial killer stories sell better than “girl freezes to death on moors” stories and Jillian is hoping to grab a scoop that she can sell to the highest bidder.

  Her freelance journalism has had its up and downs but certainly more of the latter than the former. After leaving the Daily Star five years ago, she spent most of her time trying to track down the Eastbourne Ripper, following the trail of bloodshed and shattered lives he left in his wake.

  But after the Ripper, aka Leonard Sims, was caught and incarcerated, there’s been a scarcity of stories juicy enough to interest the big tabloids. Only the Red Ribbon Killer has piqued the public’s interests and he only kills in winter, the inc
onsiderate bastard.

  Still, Jillian has shifted her focus from the Eastbourne Ripper to the Red Ribbon Killer and is considering writing a book. So the shots Pete is currently getting of Whitby may end up in her magnum opus someday establishing the setting of Red’s dastardly deeds.

  Pete is no David Bailey when it comes to photography, or videography for that matter, but he’s handy to have around. Jillian would find it difficult to shove a microphone into someone’s face and have to worry about the video and audio at the same time.

  So she hires Pete—a wedding photographer in his hometown of Birmingham when not working for Jillian—to do all of that stuff while she concentrates on the thing she excels at: writing an attention-grabbing headline and a gut-punching story.

  So far, she hasn’t come up with anything newsworthy from today’s early-morning excursion to the moors. Detective Inspector Summers wasn’t saying anything, as usual, and neither were her team. The only headline Jillian scribbled in her notebook was Police Baffled By Girl On Moors but that’s already a non-starter; the police have just announced that they know the person they found this morning is Amy Donovan.

  So it’s back to square one: try to get interviews with Amy’s family, attempt to get some juicy morsel from the police, and hope that some nugget of information—something that no one else knows regarding the case—will come her way. It’s a long shot but she lives in hope.

  “Anything else, Jillian?” Pete asks, lowering his camera and looking at her with a pained expression on his face. “I’m starving.”

  She sighs in frustration. It’s like working with a five-year-old child. “All right, Pete, go and get yourself some fish and chips or something. I’ll meet you back at the car park in an hour.”

  His face breaks into a grin and he virtually runs to the nearest chippy.

  Jillian wanders along the road towards the pier, mulling over the title of her future book. She Wore a Red Ribbon? No, too obscure. The Girls on the Moors? Too Gothic. A Ribbon Red? Too literary.