The Lost Sister

by Russel D. McLean

  When I walked in, I saw three men behind the desk. The Chief, imperious. The air of Ming the Merciless about him. Minus the dodgy facial hair. And he was shorter, fatter than the Emperor of Mongo. Of course, it was all in the eyes. Attitude is what people remember about you.

  On the other side of the Chief sat two men in uniform. One was DCI Black; a grumpy bastard, originally from Lothian. Griped constantly about Dundee. Kept going on about how much cleaner Edinburgh was. How much more beautiful. Christ, even if it wasn’t true, I had the feeling he’d find some way to justify his hatred of the city; Dundee has a polarising effect on those who come from the outside.

  The other copper present was Ernie Bright. In those days I only knew him by sight and reputation. He had a good reputation. The word, fair was used. Along with, a good man. Aye, try throwing a brick in a room full of senior officers and see if you hit many of those.

  The meeting went as well as could be expected. I didn’t know anything, they tried to make out like maybe I did. I kept to my line, they finally let me go.

  When I was walking down the hall, I heard footsteps behind me, turned and saw Ernie Bright following me. I stopped, let him catch up. He leaned close, and said in a voice close to whisper: “You ever want to transfer to CID, let me know.”

  Anyone asks what I did in there to impress him, their guess is as good as mine.

  Do I ever regret it? Leaving the force?

  Aye, of course I do.

  But there are a lot of things I regret. Some of them are stupid. Others make me want to get hit by lightning. But isn’t everyone the same?

  We all have our ways of dealing. Time was I’d have hashed things out with Elaine. My sounding board. No idea how she put up with the rants, my disjointed monologues and irrational annoyances. Ask me why she loved me and I couldn’t say. I’m just glad she did.

  When she died, I couldn’t go to her graveside. Afraid of how it might affect me. To break down like I feared was a sign of weakness that Scottish men are taught to dismiss.

  We don’t break down. We don’t cry.

  At least, that was the excuse I used for myself.

  What I held on to for the longest time was the anger. Finding it hard to let go.

  But after a while, I came to accept her death. And the anger that came with it. Started making regular visits to the cemetery. Feeling like maybe I should talk, but not wanting to be one of those lunatics mumbling to themselves in the graveyard. They say it’s perfectly healthy; I say it’s just an embarrassment.

  Didn’t stop me wanting to say things, though.

  The grave is simple, erected by her family. I didn’t have much say in the matter. There’s an inscription in French on the headstone. I don’t speak the language so well, but her sister told me what it meant:

  Our nature consists in movement. Absolute rest is death.

  Maybe if I’d known that earlier, a lot of things would have been brought into perspective.

  It was late afternoon when I stood in front of the stone, read the inscription even though I could quote it without hesitation.

  I closed my eyes, tried to remember her face. Little by little, she was escaping me. Getting so I could only remember how she looked when I came across old photographs.

  Some days, I thought I was betraying her by starting to heal.

  Overhead, heavy skies threatened. The grass at my feet was stiff, with a thin covering of frost that sparkled gently in the late afternoon light. I could feel it crush when I pressed my weight down on the ground. Wind rattled at the branches of old trees that stood in the grounds of the Balgay cemetery, and I felt a strange sense of loneliness. I was the one living person in a field of the dead.

  I crouched in front of the headstone, traced the dates that marked Elaine’s life with my index finger. Closed my eyes.

  Tried to conjure up her face.

  Wished she was here with me. To answer my questions. Offer reassurance. Remind me what it was to be in love with life again.

  Here was the reality: she wasn’t coming back.

  I was alone.

  In the end, that was the one inescapable truth of my life.

  Maybe I was alive. Had moved to a place of understanding, after all.

  In the car, I read through the files again. Looking for something I had missed. Drinking in the details.

  Working it like a real case and not just a favour for a friend.

  I was parked near the cemetery gates; had turned the interior lights of the car on as the day darkened considerably. Grey light made it hard to see, and I was grateful for the shelter as rain started to whip down over the car. The winds got up enough that I could feel a gentle rocking motion.

  Reading the files I kept coming back to one name: Burns.

  Susan had told me she didn’t suspect the disappearance had anything to do with Mary’s Godfather’s more unsavoury connections. Can’t say that I was so sure.

  The thing I had to figure, why was I drawn to this case? It wasn’t about doing Connolly a favour.

  And could I say that the girl’s disappearance affected me that much? Maybe reminded me of someone I used to know. Some girl at school, perhaps.

  Or was I looking for some closure with Burns? Some way of taking revenge by tying him into the girl’s disappearance. By making him the bad guy. By exposing the bastard once and for all.

  Was I looking to make this my case for all the wrong reasons?

  Chapter 5

  The Neighbourhood Watch had been out in force. Every lamppost had a laminated poster stuck on it. Colour picture: head and shoulders of Mary smiling coyly at the camera. Not really wanting her picture taken, but knowing it was going to happen anyway.

  When I parked the car outside the Furst house, I stopped to look at one of the fliers – a pixellated printout – and felt something that might have been longing or sadness. Possibly both. A longing for something I could never have had and a sadness that even if Mary were to return, she would never again be that girl in the picture.

  It’s funny how pictures can affect us that way. Light and angle and expression give us these impressions. Snapshots make us think we know a whole person.

  But I didn’t know this girl.

  Maybe never would.

  I turned away, opened the front gate of her mother’s house, walked up to the door, knocked fast. Too late to double back.

  No choice, then, but to wait.

  After a while, if only to keep myself standing there, I knocked again.

  The door opened. A woman slipped her head out, nervous, not sure what to expect. In her late thirties, but her daughter’s disappearance had added years. Her hair was flat and lifeless, her skin smooth but dull, and her eyes seemed heavy with the kind of knowledge no one should ever have. She might have been attractive if it wasn’t for the fact she appeared so close to death; a look in her eyes as though she wished she could feel that bony hand upon her shoulder.

  Jennifer Furst. Mary’s mother.

  She wasn’t past thirty-five. Looked so damn tired.

  I introduced myself.

  People joke a lot about the “foot in the door” methods employed by door to door salesmen. Truth of the matter is, putting your foot in the door doesn’t really change anyone’s mind, although it usually does result in bruising or broken bones. A guy I knew used to be a salesman, said he had a real method of getting sales; figuring who were the chumps and who the timewasters. It worked pretty well, I found. Not just for salesmen.

  As I gave my name, I took my hand out my coat pocket as though to offer it, dropped the pen that had been in there.

  The pen rolled.

  Jennifer Furst bent down to pick it up.

  My friend had called this action, “The calling card of the sucker.”

  I was better disposed. Figured I learned a lot about Mrs Furst from that one gesture.

  She may have been related to David Burns by blood, but she was not him. I didn’t know whether to feel glad for that or guilty at using
her misery to satisfy my own curiosity.

  We moved to the living room. Jennifer Furst gestured for me to take a seat on the sofa, flopped herself into a large armchair which seemed too imposing for a woman of her stature.

  The room itself was neat; no real clutter. And – this was what struck me – no pictures on the wall, although the fireplace held a few photos in frames. Many of them of Mary herself. You could chart her whole life, from gurning little girl to smiling teenager.

  Call that heartbreaking. There was still that nagging sensation that maybe she reminded me of some girl I used to know. Or I simply wished that she did.

  The sofa had its back to the window, faced the rear wall of the room. Jennifer Furst’s chair was in a corner, again giving this impression that it was a place she could hide away.

  She said, “I’d offer you tea, but I don’t want to give you an excuse for staying.”

  I didn’t sense hostility so much as a tentative grasp, the hope that here sat someone who could help her.

  Aye, check the romantic in me.

  “I’ll level with you, Mrs Furst. I’m working with a reporter.” I bulldozed on before she could tell me to get out. “But the more I learn about your daughter, the more I just want her back alive. I used to be a copper, and I’ll tell you that the officers working your case are –”

  “Not going to find my daughter.”

  No defence there. What can you say to that? Especially delivered in such calmly considered tones?

  “They’re not going to find her,” she said. “Unless she wants to be found.”

  “You think she ran away?”

  Mrs Furst seemed ready to say something, but shied from it at the last moment. She tucked her legs up underneath her, and turned her head to the side.

  I said, “It’s better than the alternative.”

  She nodded, and I felt this pain in my chest, like my heart wanted to give out. Realised too late what I’d said to her, and recognised the pain as guilt.

  I wanted to leave. Stand up, walk out the room, maybe even pretend I’d never been there in the first place.

  And I had to ask myself the same question I felt sure Mrs Furst was dancing around: what was I doing there?

  But instead she asked, “Are you working with the police?”

  I figured it was the same question rephrased. And I sidestepped it: “Observing the investigation.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to see your daughter safe.”

  “There’s more than that.”

  Maybe.

  We were on the second floor landing. The door in front of us was shut. The tag two thirds of the way up read Mary’s room and looked old, as though it had been there for all of her fourteen years.

  A marker of childhood. Even as a teenager, you hold onto that innocence of childhood as long as you can. Privately, sometimes, as you assert your own identity. The truth is that growing up frightens you.

  So in your own space, there are reminders of what it is to be young. Talismans and keepsakes. Memories.

  Something about this case was pulling me in. Not simply that I’d been asked to look into it. More than that…

  I looked at the door again.

  The name.

  I turned back to Mrs Furst. “I told you I was working with a reporter. But on some level…I need to know that your daughter will be returned, Mrs Furst. The deeper I look into this, the more I see a person at the heart and not…not a news story or –”

  “Really, what do you know about her?”

  Nothing.

  “Enough. Enough to know that you want her home.”

  She looked suspicious.

  “Working with a reporter,” she said, as though thinking it over. “I can’t stop them writing about her. But maybe they can…maybe they can do it right. Maybe you can tell your friend the truth, aye? About my girl.”

  I nodded. “I have questions.”

  “She was never in any trouble.”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  “I loved her.”

  I looked back at the door again. At the sign. Said, “This was her world, behind the door.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  I answered fast. “Mary,” I said. “That’s all. I’m just looking for Mary.”

  Chapter 6

  Mary Furst’s room seemed untouched.

  Her mother did not come inside with me. She stayed out in the corridor, acting as though the door was still closed to her.

  She said, “After the police were done, I made it back the way it had been.” She hesitated before adding, “In case…she comes back.”

  What do you say to that?

  I opted for silence, stood in the middle of Mary’s room and looked around. The bed was made by a mother’s hand. Sheets tucked tight, pillows fluffed and inviting. A few stray stuffed animals at the head of the bed; inanimate pets. Probably closer to Mary than some of the friends she had at school.

  Like I said: talismans…reminders…memories.

  There were pictures on the wall. The framed ones were paintings. Originals, not prints. Looked like they’d been given as gifts. A recurrent theme of dogs made me guess at a lost family pet. Not recent, but Mary had been old enough to be struck by the loss.

  Other images were more expected: torn posters of bands and films. Guys – tanned, with white teeth – glared down, with open shirts, one or two dispensing with them altogether. How much of a fight had that caused with Mum?

  I checked the bookshelves. Waist high along one wall, the top shelves were decorated with knickknacks; pewter dragons with false gems for eyes, some cute looking models, a couple of pictures of other kids I guessed were her friends, all framed perfectly. Looking at the books themselves: a few old children’s classics – battered and well read – sat alongside more adult works. I smiled when I saw Catcher in the Rye, and noticed the crack in the spine. The kind of book, you get to it at the right age, I hear it can change the way you look at things. Come to it older, as I did, you wonder what all the fuss was about. I pulled the copy, thumbed.

  An inscription:

  Will this change your life, too?

  Love,

  D.

  Feminine handwriting. The attention to detail you don’t get with most boys. I popped the book back into place. Didn’t figure it as too important, but maybe teenage angst had played some role in this particular drama.

  Also on the shelves, of course, there were the obligatory Harry Potter novels. The older ones were cracked and thumbed, the newer ones looking fresher with the latest edition hardly looking touched. Lost interest? Or an appreciation of how much the books were going to be worth in their new condition?

  More space was given to CDs. Music from bands I didn’t know. Maximo Park, Biffy Clyro. The names meant nothing to me.

  The computer was tucked away in a corner. I didn’t figure her for a geek, but I guessed she knew her way around the machine. I turned back to Mrs Furst, gestured to the computer, still feeling like an intruder.

  She said, “Aye, if you must.”

  I booted the PC. No password protection. As though asking an idle question, I said, “You have your own computer?”

  “No. I can barely turn the bloody thing on.”

  That meant no password because there was no need for a password. Mary felt safe enough with her mother booting up the machine because the woman wasn’t about to go snooping. Maybe not because she didn’t want to, but more because she just couldn’t.

  I turned away from Mrs Furst and mouthed the words, Sorry, as though Mary could actually see me or at least sense what I was doing.

  The computer whirred, slow. Not out of date, but getting there. I checked the modem, saw the PC Activity light start flashing as Windows kicked in. The start up sound boomed at me, “Come with us now, on a journey through time and space…” The desktop was decorated with an image of two cats in a basket; stupefyingly cute.

  I checked the documents folder first.

&nbs
p; Lot of schoolwork by the looks of things. Essays and projects. Saved pages from the internet. Adobe documents. Lots of scanned images.

  I checked Outlook Express. Bypassing the password got me into her saved emails. She wasn’t that security conscious. Organised meticulously.

  I clicked through folders, named for recipients. Most of her friends identified by nickname.

  I skimmed e-mails. Checking for keywords: anything that signified tension or worry. Nothing jumped out. The usual back and forth: worries about schoolwork, boys, parents.

  Check the local folders, skim past the number of messages in each folder. Check the disparities.

  One name:

  Deb.

  362 messages. More than double any other number.

  I figured Deb for the mysterious “D” who’d gifted Mary Catcher. Clicked through a couple of the mails. Shorthand, mostly. Never specific. A lot of talk about classes and how Mary shouldn’t be afraid to nurture her talent.

  Read more like a concerned older relative than anything.

  Maybe something more. Or was I looking for connections where there were none?

  I searched for messages from her last known boyfriend, Richie Harisson. Finally found him in the folder marked:

  Ra-Ra-Rasputin

  An in joke?

  Aye, you’re full of them as teenagers. Like a secret code; a way of hiding what you’re thinking from the rest of the world.

  Chapter 7

  Downstairs, in the living room, I drank coffee, sitting across from Jennifer Furst. The coffee was instant. She’d put the milk in without asking. I didn’t complain.

  “Did you ever argue with your daughter?”

  “I loved her.”

  “Doesn’t mean you didn’t fight,” I said. “I’ve never been a parent, but I know I used to fight with mine when the mood took.”

  She smiled, hung her head. For a moment, she didn’t look so tired. As though the idea of her daughter had taken away a few years. She said, “The last year we fought about church.”

  “Church?”

  “We go every Sunday. Always have done. She used to do well in Sunday School, too, you know. When she got older, we had a wee talk about it and she stopped that part. But I told her she had to keep going to Church. It’s what our family always did.”