The Lost Sister

by Russel D. McLean

  I was about to get into the car when a voice said, “You’re not the police.”

  I looked up and saw a lad sitting on the wall a few metres down he road. Doc Marten’s, frayed jeans, attitude to spare. He looked at me from beneath a sandy fringe and his eyes had the attitude of the rebellious teenager.

  He wasn’t practised, though.

  Likely, he’d perfected this act over the last few days. A defence mechanism.

  I said, “Richie?”

  “Aye. And who’re you?”

  “I’m consulting with the police.”

  He didn’t question that. Just nodded and said, “Told that woman I didn’t have anything to do with Mary.”

  That woman. Figured he meant Susan.

  He hopped off the wall. “What do you mean you’re ‘consulting’ with the police?” Smart kid, cutting straight through my crap.

  “Just that. I’m an investigator.”

  “Aye?”

  “Private.”

  “That’s only from films.”

  I shook my head. “The real deal.”

  He laughed at that, got down off the wall and walked over to the car. Said, “Got a cigarette?”

  “Bad habit.”

  He nodded. Said, “How’d you quit?”

  “Willpower,” I said. “The woman copper. Her name’s Susan Bright. We’re friends. She’s the one asked me to dig a little deeper.”

  “I’ve got nothing else to say. So why’d they send you?” He shook his head, started to back off. “They think I did something to Mary.”

  “Did you?”

  He nodded, made to walk off again. I followed. Caught up with him. He didn’t seem to care, turned off the main road and took the gap between two houses. Heading to the old tower blocks.

  I said, “You split up with Mary a few months ago?”

  “Aye.”

  I leaned forward. “Hurts, right?”

  He shrugged. “What do you care?”

  I tried for a smile. “Hurts like a bastard. I know it. Really.”

  “The breakup? Aye…It was…mutual.”

  “Tell me,” I said.

  “She was…she wasn’t interested any more.”

  “She tell you why?”

  Didn’t get a response. We kept walking up near the high-rises, through patches of grassland that might have once been decorative but were now strewn with discarded glass and rubbish. There was no one around; from just beyond the buildings came the sound of traffic on the Lochee Road heading up towards Camperdown way.

  I looked up at the high-rises. Social and architectural failures in every sense. The grand experiment, and it all got fucked up. Story of every city, I suppose, and it could have been worse. Dundee had a history to fall back on.

  Some Scottish towns were built on nothing but experiments like this from back in the sixties, and were now something of a national embarrassment; synonymous in the popular public imagination with poverty and crime. A self-fulfilling prejudice.

  Richie wasn’t a high-rise kid. But I figured he kind of liked hanging around the buildings. He walked here with an ease I’d never have had at his age.

  Mind you, it was still daylight and the open spaces seemed deserted. A ghost scheme.

  He said, finally, “It was Ms Brown.”

  Deborah.

  “What, it was her fault that you and Mary broke up?”

  “Aye.”

  I wished that Wickes had really taken me on some kind of wild goose chase. Would have made my life simpler.

  I didn’t want his truths confirmed.

  But I couldn’t run from them either.

  Richie stopped walking, looked at some graffiti on the side of one of the rises. Multi-coloured scrawls that didn’t mean anything beyond boredom and anger.

  I said, “Tell me.”

  He kicked at the wall. His manner sulky and awkwardly defiant. Aye, for all that attitude in his clothing and slouched shoulders, he was still little more than a boy. Didn’t really know how to defend himself in this world.

  Then again, do any of us?

  Typical teenage romance.

  Finding they were pushed together by mutual friends after cautious flirting. Deciding, what the fuck, and discovering they clicked.

  For maybe…four or five months?

  There are two types of teenage love that I remember. Theirs was the one I was most familiar with. The other one only seemed to happen to other people; the true highschool sweethearts who hooked up fourth or fifth year and remained sickeningly attached even when they headed off to university.

  Maybe Richie and Mary would have wound up that way.

  But Mary changed.

  At least, the way Richie told it she did, “Pretty soon after Ms Brown took her for art.”

  Go figure.

  “I don’t know if…I mean, she started not being there. All the time, that is. Kept telling me how she couldn’t be distracted. She wanted to be an artist. She was good, too. And she told me how I was dragging her away from that, how we didn’t need to spend every waking hour together.” No bitterness there. Or no more than you’d expect from a teenage boy, anyway. “She told me how it was tough to be an artist and how she needed to spend so much time doing it and, well, I was fine with that except…” He still wasn’t sure about what he was going to say next. I figured he knew that it could sound petty and jealous to the wrong ears. All appearances aside, I got the feeling Richie was a pretty sensitive kid, knew that he’d have been stupid to make his girlfriend choose between him and her dreams. “We never saw each other at all after a while. She spent all her time…not with me, anyway.”

  From what little I knew of Mary, she was smart, focussed and driven. Everything that Richie told me confirmed that. When he talked about her, his body language became fluid and expressive. He sat forward.

  He told me how she used to hum to herself when she was working or reading. A habit she tried to break in time for exams, when silence in the hall was mandatory. And that she always wore a cross even though she told people she was a devout atheist. “She wore it because her godfather gave it to her.”

  For the breakup being mutual, it was clear he still carried a torch for her.

  Don’t we all when it comes to our first loves?

  More and more the excuses came to be expected. He’d make a date, she’d agree, and then a call or text would break the arrangement off at the last minute. “Every time,” Richie said, “she was with Ms Brown. Always. Everyone knew it, too, that she was spending more time with her art teacher than me.” He started kicking up dirt from the ground, staring at the toes of his boots. Spoke quietly; “Some people said things.”

  The rumours that Ms Foster had inferred.

  The kind of whispers that could lose a teacher her job.

  I had the feeling that Deborah Brown hadn’t made a move to nip those in the bud. Probably hadn’t even noticed they were circulating. No, all she would have cared about was not being close to her daughter again.

  “I didn’t want to believe them.”

  “Did you talk to her about it?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  I said, “Did you want to talk to her about it?”

  More silence. Aye, check the Scottish male: let’s not talk about this.

  “I told the police –”

  “I don’t care what you told them.”

  He looked ready to walk. But he wanted to tell me. I knew it. He just needed the right encouragement.

  “Richie,” I said, “We need to find Mary. You want to know what happened to her, same as me. You want to know she’s all right. And believe me, pal, anything you can tell me…it’s going to help. Even if it seems stupid.”

  He ran his hand through his hair, tugging as though to pull it out by the roots. His features squeezed tight, and I saw tears leak from the corner of his eyes. “I thought she was playing with me,” he said. “Really, just messing with my head.” He let his hands drop and his body relaxed completely. “When
she told me about Ms Brown. I mean, that’s why I didn’t tell the police what she said. Because…it wasn’t true.”

  “What wasn’t true?”

  “She told me…told me Ms Brown…was her mum.”

  When I got back to the car, it was nearly four in the afternoon.

  I was strangely light headed. Still couldn’t figure why Deborah had abducted Mary. She’d been at the school for months. Working her way into the girl’s affections.

  Was this not enough?

  And if Mary knew Deborah was her real mother, why the need for any of this?

  What really unnerved me was the way everything seemed to jar with Wickes’s story, even in subtle ways. All his talk of solidarity among people in our line of work was just so much smoke up my arse.

  The sheer planning and patience involved with Deborah’s plan seemed at odds with the impulsive and obsessive behaviour Wickes had described to me. I couldn’t figure it.

  And his own investigation seemed to have been delayed for reasons I couldn’t understand. Why didn’t he notice her odd behaviour sooner? Why not confront the sister straight away? Or even Burns?

  So I was stuck questioning everything. Wondering what the hell was going on. And unable to leave it alone because pride dictated that I had to get to the bottom of it all. That I couldn’t ask for help.

  That I couldn’t admit defeat.

  Chapter 26

  Jam.

  Jute.

  Journalism.

  The three J’s.

  Every Dundonian kid was taught about them in history class. Every university student lectured on it during their orientation. The three J’s were the lifeblood and heritage of Dundee.

  Except they weren’t the three J’s because that first one was really an M. Marmalade. But, like the three R’s of education, the three J’s stuck because they sounded right.

  Journalism still thrived. DC Thompsons remained a driving force in the UK publishing industry. The Courier, The Sunday Post and even The Evening Telegraph remained key in Scottish reporting. They produced some great journalists who went onto bigger and better things, and they were the publishers of Scotland’s only surviving comics in The Beano and The Dandy.

  The other J’s had died.

  Marmalade dried up fast.

  Jute just about killed the city.

  As demand for the threads diminished, whole factories came crashing to a close. The industry that had kept an entire city functioning left Dundee without jobs and its slow death crippled thousands of families.

  For decades, the old mills stood empty. Waiting for…

  Rejuvenation.

  When it came, the rebirth manifested itself not as new industry but as apartment blocks and city centre pads for students and young professionals. The old mills found themselves gutted, given a new lease on life.

  Check the stone building I pulled up in front of, with the new double glazed windows and the blue security doors anachronistically set into the heavy stonework.

  Wickes was outside. Waiting with a skinny, dark-haired man whose shirt and trousers hung loosely on his frame, like all the clothes he could find were a little too large for him. He had an open face, what you might call trusting; the kind of innocent grin that made you warm to him fast.

  Wickes said, “This is Timothy Stephen, owns Ms Brown’s flat.” He nodded at me and said, “My associate, Mr McNee.”

  Stephen said, “No first name?”

  Wickes said, “I think he’s embarrassed by it.”

  Stephen nodded, as though this explained everything.

  I said, “Has my…associate…explained to you why we need to talk to Ms Brown?”

  “Yeah…look…uh, this isn’t…I mean, it’s my dad owns the place. I just…kind of…caretake, aye?”

  I said, “You’re responsible for the day to day upkeep of the building?”

  “Sure. I deal with maintenance. Issues.”

  “Between tenants? Say, if someone was causing a problem…”

  “Guess so. Aye.” Stephen shuffled uncomfortably. Looked nervous, as though maybe he was expecting me and Wickes to start beating on him. Made me wonder how Wickes had made initial contact. “Look, uh…a question…this woman…what’s she done?”

  “It’s old business,” I said.

  “This isn’t going to cause trouble, is it?”

  I shook my head.

  Wickes clamped a heavy hand on Stephen’s shoulder.

  Neither gesture seemed to reassure the man.

  They wouldn’t have worked on me, either.

  Deborah’s flat was on the top floor.

  She rented at £450 a month. One bedroom, although Stephen explained that for property reasons they called a second room a “study” area. “Can’t call it a bedroom. No main window. Just a skylight. And it’s small.”

  The inside of the converted mill was well maintained. Clean halls. Pot plants. Fresh paintwork. Coming through the main entrance, I’d seen a camera and Stephen had explained the entry buzzers provided a screen so you could see who was at the door.

  We hadn’t wanted to buzz up.

  I wondered what Wickes had told this guy, he let us in so easy.

  Stephen said, “She’s been a good tenant. Quiet. No trouble. Pays her bills on time.” As though he was making excuses.

  I looked at Wickes.

  I’d ask him what he’d said later.

  I said, trying not to sound out of breath from the stairs, “She pays in person?”

  “Direct debit.”

  Somewhere around the fourth flight, I felt my left leg begin to burn. The muscles stretching, feeling ready to snap.

  Psychosomatic?

  Kiss my arse.

  Deborah’s door was nothing special. Off white, spyhole at eye-level.

  What had I expected?

  Stephen knocked at the door, announced himself.

  We waited.

  Got nothing.

  Two more attempts.

  Stephen shrugged. “No one home.”

  Wickes said, “She’s not coming back.” Sounded ready to kick himself. He’d have to get in line behind me.

  I was ready to give up. Say to Wickes, enough of this shite, let’s just tell Susan what we know; let the coppers handle it.

  Leave it to the professionals.

  Before I had a chance to say anything, he jumped in: “We need inside. Maybe we’ll find what we need.”

  Stephen raised his hands. “I can’t let you in there. Unless you’re with the police, forget it, pal.”

  “This is serious,” said Wickes, his voice calm and measured. I listened hard for any kind of tremble, didn’t get it. “A girl’s safety is at stake.”

  Stephen stepped back, hands still raised. “This over my –”

  Wickes moved fast. Deceptively so for a man his size. Reaching out, grabbing Stephen by his skinny shoulders and hurling him round so the man bounced against the wall.

  “I’ll use your head as a battering ram,” Wickes roared, getting right in the other man’s face. “I need to see inside the fucking flat, you little fucking tosser!”

  I felt myself struggling to breathe. As though Wickes was getting in my face. I was paralysed. Not with fear so much as confusion.

  Or the realisation that this side of Wickes had been there all along. I’d just been denying it. Trying not to notice.

  We all like to think we’re heroes, that when push comes to shove, we do the right thing. Step up and step in.

  Aye, right.

  What happened was, I froze.

  Scared?

  Maybe. Or just surprised, caught off balance by Wickes’s outburst. A tactic? Had to be.

  Stephen said, “I don’t have the keys.”

  Wickes roared, and for a moment I thought he was about to make good on his threat. This time, I managed to step forward, reaching out with no idea what I was doing.

  Was I going to attack the bastard?

  Restrain him?

  God help me, help hi
m?

  But it didn’t matter, because his mood switched fast again. He let the skinny man drop and took a step back. Laughed that animal laugh of his and said, “We don’t need keys. Just your permission, pal.”

  His permission?

  Stephen was struggling to breathe, looked ready just to slide down the wall and collapse on the floor. He kept his eyes fixed on Wickes, maybe waiting for another assault. “Permission? Fuck, you’ve got it. OK? You’ve got it.”

  Wickes spun on his heels and winked at me. “Bet you couldn’t do that as a copper, eh?” He was practically humming with energy. Like this was what he lived for.

  I just nodded in a meek agreement. Still unsure he wasn’t just playing some extreme game of good cop/bad cop.

  If he was, it was a game he excelled at.

  Chapter 27

  Inside the flat, I was thinking: walk. Just fucking walk, now.

  But I didn’t.

  What would have happened if I hadn’t been there? How far would Wickes have gone?

  I’d been having my doubts about him.

  Nothing like this.

  Stephen harped on about not having keys, but went quiet when Wickes gave him this look that could have flattened a village. I was tempted to ask where the big man learned his lock-picking skills, but given the situation I kept quiet.

  Figuring I’d see where this was leading.

  Remember what’s important here: the girl’s life.

  Walking inside, I was overcome by a strange feeling of disappointment. Is this it? The flat consisted of, simply, an entrance hall with doors off. Kitchen. Bathroom. Bedroom. Living room. Spare room.

  What did strike me was the sparse decoration.

  No, not sparse.

  Non-existent.

  Wickes barged in through the front door like a bull. Stephen trotted behind, maybe worried about what damage the big man might cause. And not just to the flat.

  I stayed in the doorway. Closed my eyes.

  All of us acting like Wickes hadn’t just made a threat on another man’s life.

  Wishful thinking can erase damn near anything.

  The atmosphere was thick. Maybe my imagination. Or the situation. Either way I felt closed in and trapped.

  For a supposedly rational man, I was acting spooked.

  Trying to combat the sensation, I took my time; drinking in details and impressions. Keeping away from preconceptions and expectation. Letting the picture build.