by Grace Monroe
‘Girls are dead!’ I told him. ‘I was at a crime scene last night in the Thistle Chapel – a hundred yards from here as the crow flies.’ I stopped to get my breath and tried to keep my voice down, mindful of where I was. ‘At the autopsy today, a foot found in the chapel was discovered to not even belong to the victim lying in the morgue. Do you understand? We have at least one other victim who we haven’t even found yet.’
Grandad’s hand had tightened still further on my back. Whilst he was concentrating on controlling me, I reached down and filched the whisky glass from his hand. I needed a proper drink.
‘Please don’t misunderstand me – no one’s saying it’s not regrettable, my dear.’ The lord justice clerk tried to placate me; his liver-spotted hands were open in conciliation.
‘Not regrettable? You’ve lived longer than three of the victims put together,’ I said. ‘What you really mean is that they’re not the same as us … so they don’t count.’ My jaw tightened. I knew I was snarling – I don’t make good decisions in this state.
‘Did anyone hear me say that these girls don’t matter?’ the lord justice clerk said as he rounded on me, trying to keep his voice down but furious at being pulled up. ‘There are difficulties with this case; I can say no more at present.’ He had stopped smiling.
‘Yes! The main one being that Thomas Foster is innocent! You want me to keep him in Saughton until after the Hogmanay party so that the tourists will still come, don’t you? Who in their right mind would come to a city where a homicidal maniac is preying on foreign girls?’
‘Foreign prostitutes,’ interjected Lord Munro of Caithness.
‘Jesus Christ,’ I sighed, exhausted by their attitudes.
Lord McKenzie of Alvie, an elder in the Church of Scotland, clearly irritated by my blasphemy, turned to Grandad and said – as if I wasn’t even there: ‘I thought you could control her? Just tell her to keep the boy in Saughton – we don’t want anything else in the press.’
They shuffled off.
Grandad still held me as we watched them disperse into the crowd. A damp, cold feeling crept over my skin – I had ruined his party, but I wasn’t apologizing.
Thomas Foster was innocent and I knew that better than anyone, thanks to my anonymous caller. I didn’t want to share today’s break-in with Grandad. He’d worry, and I failed to see what use an octogenarian could be to me. There was always Glasgow Joe though.
The voice on the phone hadn’t laid down specific threats. What could he do? I was on guard. I didn’t trust Bancho and I believed bringing in the police could only make things worse. I was on my own with this one.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Cumberland Street, Edinburgh
Thursday 27 December, 3 a.m.
The phone rang. Fear made me leave it unanswered. I’d been dreaming an anxious dream. Something important to me was lost but I didn’t know what it was. And now, for a few long seconds, my eyes declined to open while my wits tried to understand the sound that I had just heard – it didn’t belong in my dream. Pure panic raced through my veins. Bent into a foetal position I held my knees while sweat ran down my back, gathering in the downy hair at the base of my spine. The swelling in my neck made it hard to breathe, even harder to swallow. Then, in a split second, my eyes opened wide in terror. Blinking, I adjusted to the blackout conditions in the room. Senses on red alert, I watched the nowquiet phone. The illuminated clock on the table showed me it was 3 a.m.: the devil’s hour. It was minus four outside, and not much warmer in my bed. I reached out – it was definitely empty. Ashamedly, I longed for the smell of whisky and stale fags.
The phone rang again. I watched it suspiciously, willing it to stop. If I could stop it, I wouldn’t have to deal with whatever someone wanted to tell me. A heavy black stone weighed on my chest, crushing the wind out of my lungs as I lay down again. I didn’t want to talk to Adie Foster. I didn’t want to have to deal with Thomas Foster at this time of the morning. And I certainly didn’t want to deal with whatever tragedy had befallen Thomas Foster in Saughton Prison.
‘Are you going to answer that bloody phone? Some people are trying to sleep!’ shouted Chris Martel from Louisa’s room. Floorboards creaked as small feet ran heavily, flat-footed, along the hall. The bedroom door squeaked and a shaft of light landed on the worn rug. I didn’t look up; there was no danger to me in this house and the only person running to me would be Louisa.
The phone stopped ringing but I still couldn’t move. Clutching the covers up to my chin I stared at the one in my room. I knew it would begin again. A clenching pain in the gut told me so. A figure approached the side of the bed and soft fingers smelling of calendula stroked my hair. Like a cat, I didn’t uncurl, but I inched towards my handler, grateful for human contact.
‘Brodie, honey, why didn’t you answer the phone?’ Louisa’s voice was soft and cajoling, but she couldn’t hide the edge of worry that had crept in. The phone line came directly into my bedroom; calls that disturbed my sleep were always welcome as they meant more work. I worried if three nights in a row passed without a call from the emergency services – it was a sign I was losing my touch. The call that heralded the end of sleep tonight was different. I don’t know how I knew but a silent scream in my head told me to stop all the clocks.
Frantically, Louisa pushed my shoulder at the sound of the ringing phone, but her slight weight couldn’t move me. I had enough sense still in me to take long, slow, deep breaths. It didn’t work. I held my breath until the ringing wasn’t there.
The phone had stopped and I gulped the cold night air down like a newly caught fish. For a few long seconds the darkness was silent, and then the attack began again from another direction.
‘Your mobile? Where is it? Where is it, Brodie?’ Louisa, affected by the atmosphere, manhandled me. Intending to cause pain, her long fingernails scraped and pinched me. I refused to respond. I was petrified by fear – this went way beyond anything Adie Foster could inflict on me, yet I had no idea why that was. Exasperated, Louisa’s sigh echoed around the corners of the room. A soft hand smacked me across the cheek – it stung. Nonetheless, I refused to answer her.
The old cast-iron radiators rumbled thunderously into life as Louisa searched amongst the heaps of clothes on the floor. She didn’t miss a beat. Delving into the dirty knickers pile, my private mobile was still calling to her, but things were in such a mess she couldn’t locate it from the sound.
‘Fucking get a grip, Brodie! What’s wrong with you? Where is your mobile?’ Her gaze locked on to me; inadvertently my eyes darted to the leather trousers hanging over a chair. It was the only clue she needed, and she ran over the mounds of tee shirts, trousers and jumpers that lay on the floor. ‘Tomorrow you’re tidying this shithole up.’
The mobile still rang.
Louisa answered.
‘Hello? Brodie can’t come to the phone right now.’
I grabbed it out of her hands. ‘Hello?’
There was no sound, just laboured breathing. I fancied that I could hear heartbeats in the darkness. I knew what my fear had been – that this was the Ripper. And I knew now, immediately, that he was far from the worst thing that could happen to me.
‘What’s happened to Connie?’ I asked suddenly, as if the words had nothing to do with me. I laid my hand on the left side of my chest; breathing deeply, I swallowed the air to bring myself back to the present. I couldn’t slow the beats down.
‘For Christ’s sake, speak to me,’ I pleaded.
Kailash spoke softly. ‘Brodie – she’s gone. He’s taken her.’
Chapter Thirty-Six
Kailash’s home, Ravelston Dykes, Edinburgh
Thursday 27 December, 4.05 a.m.
‘Tell me it’s not true. Please God, Jesus, tell me it’s not true,’ I whispered to myself. But it didn’t take a genius to work out that something was seriously wrong. Fear poisoned my body as I approached Kailash’s house, Four Winds. Connie and I had connected in a way I neither knew nor un
derstood; our lives were inextricably linked. I needed her, and, somehow, she needed me. This was odd for me, new ground, and I didn’t really know how I felt, or how I should feel.
The clock in the car glowed 4:05 a.m. In spite of the pounding behind my eyes, I counted two police squad cars, Glasgow Joe’s racing motorbike, and Malcolm’s Mini crowded into the driveway. Louisa had insisted that I was in no fit state to drive; she had snivelled her way up through the deserted streets running every red light we encountered.
Falling out of the car, I stumbled up the gravel driveway. The seconds were ticking away. The doorbell was loud enough to wake the neighbourhood, but no one answered. I kept my finger on the bell as Louisa tried to calm me. Shrugging her off, I kicked the door. I welcomed the pain shooting up through my toes because it spurred me to kick harder. Running shoes don’t really make a good battering ram.
Footsteps in the hallway calmed me momentarily; a WPC opened the door. She stared out suspiciously, not knowing who I was. I was in no mood to be polite. I pushed the half-open door back against the hallway wall and the young policewoman jumped out of the way to avoid being injured. An unnatural silence pervaded every corner in the house. I strained to listen for sounds of Connie, even though I knew they wouldn’t come. If she didn’t come rushing to greet me at the door, her habit was to sit in her games room playing computer games on the Internet, shouting and chatting with kids in America and Europe. All I could hear were muffled voices. I followed them and they led me to the drawing room. The WPC, who I assumed was the family liaison officer, was on my heels. Over her objections, I shut my eyes and opened the door. I knew that I couldn’t cope with Kailash’s pain – I’d never really seen her vulnerable – but I certainly wasn’t prepared for Joe’s.
Sitting in the corner, the big man’s head was in his hands. He didn’t look up. His shoulders heaved with silent sobs. In the room, people were almost mourning. Inside, my stomach was cramping over the idea that I might never see Connie again. I thought I might be sick.
I tried to distract myself by staring at the stain on my trainers. It had been caused by Connie dropping hair dye on them. We had been in the sitting room a few months ago, eating Mackie’s ice cream and chocolate flakes whilst watching My Super Sweet Sixteen on MTV. After a period of silence she’d told me: ‘Malcolm says you’re a slob.’ ‘He’s right,’ I’d answered. Connie had lifted a brush and tried to pull it through my tangled hair. ‘That hurts!’ I’d squealed as she lifted half my scalp off. ‘Suffer for beauty – that’s what Malcolm always says,’ she retorted. ‘And what else does Malcolm say?’ I’d asked, but she’d missed the sarcasm in my voice. ‘He says if you’re not going to rinse your hair in vinegar, you need a semi-permanent. Hair without dye is like a face without makeup.’ I could have pointed out that I didn’t choose to take style advice from a man that made Quentin Crisp look like a member of the Amish, but by then she was already brandishing a home-dye kit. How much harm could it do, I’d asked myself? It cost me £140 to rectify the damage – and that didn’t include the cost of repainting the bathroom wall.
I couldn’t distract myself any longer – I had to face Kailash.
‘She’s gone – our Connie is gone,’ she said, breaking down as soon as she saw me. ‘I went in to check on her when I came in from work – I got in a bit earlier than usual, but it was still nearly three. Her bed was empty – the window was open, Brodie. Someone came in her own window!’ Kailash wiped her silent tears. I expected that she thought it was a punishment on her. I said nothing. She told me that Malcolm had been babysitting, that Derek had come round as they were back together. They didn’t hear a thing, Kailash said, and I couldn’t help a voice in my head from saying that they were probably too busy having reunion sex downstairs to hear my sister cry out for help.
‘They’re both crying in the kitchen – Malcolm is blaming himself,’ Kailash said. I stopped myself from saying that he bloody well should.
‘It might be ransom,’ I said, clutching at straws. ‘Someone’s read the papers, what’s going on, known you from other … coverage … and thought the best way to get a bit of easy cash was to take Connie. You’d pay out anything just to get her back – it could be as simple as that.’ I felt like falling to the floor and howling like a wounded animal, but I knew that I couldn’t. Connie needed me, and I imagined I heard her crying out, begging me to find her.
Malcolm and Kailash had known each other since shortly after I was born. He was her ‘dresser’ in the brothels of Amsterdam. He patched her up when vicious clients went over the top, and he was with her when she finally decided that if any pain was to be inflicted, she would be the one wielding the whip. He was like a livein retainer and, when Connie came along, it was the natural order of things that the care of the baby fell mainly to Malcolm; Kailash simply had no idea how to be maternal. She’d been robbed of that chance with me. Tonight an emergency doctor had made a house call to sedate him – she was as dear to him as anyone could be, and I knew that, even as I was blaming him for her disappearance.
Malcolm was saying nothing now; as I looked at his half-drugged body sitting on the couch, I didn’t know that someone could age so quickly. He shuffled over to me and pulled me into his arms. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t mind that when I opened my wet eyes, Kailash had left the room.
Old habits die hard: even in his drug-induced state, Malcolm was presiding over the residence. To be fair, Dismal Derek was in the kitchen making cups of tea that no one would have the will to drink. Malcolm led me through the hallway; his long fingers gripping my wrist – we both needed that hold. He pulled me up the stairs. The door to Kailash’s room was open. Turning left, we walked down the upper landing, past a smiling photograph of Connie on her first birthday, bald as a coot with a lace bonnet to disguise her hairlessness. Malcolm stood in front of it, his thin blue lips quivering as he traced her face with his finger. Unshed tears cracked his voice. ‘I thought her hair would never grow. She just had a few wispy curls at the back for ever such a long time. I was always touching her head – Kailash said that’s what was keeping her bald. I even tried sacro-cranial massage – I put her down in her cot one night when she was eighteen months old and it all just sprouted. It hasn’t stopped since. She’s got such bonny red hair – don’t you think?’
I didn’t answer him. How could I? Red hair, bonny or not, meant something different to me now. It was a lure, a necessity for the Ripper, not just a beautiful aspect of my sister. How could I share this with Kailash and Malcolm? How could I make them even more panicky?
We were at the entrance to Connie’s room.
‘Maybe this is a ransom grab,’ I said again to a new audience, praying that it was. It was the only possibility that meant Connie was still alive. You don’t pay for a dead child. Malcolm ignored my comment. ‘Glasgow Joe’s a nut job; he’s lost it. I don’t think he’ll be any help.’
‘How is she?’ I whispered, inclining my head towards Kailash’s room.
‘She’s strong – Kailash is always strong for her girls.’ He squeezed me hard. From inside the room, I heard a voice, female and harsh. It didn’t sound like Kailash, who usually had a lilt like melted chocolate. ‘Malcolm, your only job is to make sure that the police are well fed – they can’t find Connie if they’re thinking about their bellies. Stop gossiping and get that sorted. Please.’
‘Derek’s taking care of that,’ he answered. ‘I’m here for you and Brodie.’ Malcolm wasn’t able to stand up to Kailash. He capitulated, going off to join Derek in the kitchen. I grabbed his arm to stop him collapsing. The place was falling to pieces – now was not the time to do my grieving too. Kailash came to the doorway. I locked eyes with hers. They were not the red-rimmed, swollen eyes of mothers I’d seen on TV. She was a survivor; she had fought so many battles in the past. She would not beg the bastard to return her child. She would send out the Dark Angels to scour the sewers and bring Connie home.
So soon after Connie’s abduction, Kailash was
dressed and barking orders. This was her coping mechanism, pretending she still held the reins over her own life. Obviously, she didn’t – Connie’s life, and so her own, was in the hands of the Ripper.
‘We’re going to get through this,’ I told her, emptily. ‘I’ll find her – I promise.’
‘You better find her fast then: she was taken just before midnight from what I can tell.’ She glowered at Malcolm, who had obviously admitted that was when he’d last checked on my little sister. Kailash didn’t need to tell me any more – children who are abducted and then murdered rarely survive longer than one hundred and eighty minutes.
It might already be too late.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Kailash’s home, Ravelston Dykes, Edinburgh
Thursday 27 December, 9.30 a.m.
‘You know the fucking bikes! Don’t give me any shit! You can take them all – just one fucking condition. I need the cash, all of it, in readies this afternoon.’ Glasgow Joe paced the kitchen floor, screaming into a mobile. Alone for a second, he paused, leaned his head against the fridge and shut his puffy, red-rimmed eyes. Eyes still closed, he switched the mobile off and slipped it into his leather trousers. He raised his clenched fist and banged it in vain against the door.
