The Lost Sister Read online

  Turning on my professional mind.

  This was my case. Ignoring all personal conflicts with my client, I had a duty here. A need to remain detached.

  I moved to the bedroom. Mattress on the floor. Nothing else. Not even carpeting.

  The kitchen was empty.

  No soaps in the bathroom. Ten to one bet the shower would run cold.

  The living room: small TV and DVD player balanced on boxes. Couple of beanbags. No chairs.

  The spare room was where things got interesting.

  Wickes hadn’t got there yet. Was messing with the DVD player in the living room, thinking he could get some clue from the latest rented blockbuster she’d left stuck in the machine.

  Good.

  I wanted the spare room to myself.

  If Wickes had come in, he’d have run at the scene like a hurricane. Tearing everything down. Destroying anything useful that could be found.

  I wouldn’t have blamed him.

  Not with what I saw.

  The room was dark, the blinds dropped. Daylight seeped in cautiously as though frightened to illuminate what was scattered around on the floor and against the walls.

  Canvases. Paints. Sketches.

  Wickes had talked about Deborah’s love of art. The way she saw the world, re-interpreted it through painting.

  Maybe I began to understand the darkness he had talked about as well.

  Images of rotting and darkened landscapes; urban and country, with dark skies and broken buildings. Waters raging as though boiling deep beneath the surface.

  And through every image: the constant.

  The motif.

  A figure, lost and lonely. Always the same. Sometimes the dress shifting, but I realised – even when we saw her from a distance – that it was always the same girl. Her features were hidden in the rough style of the painter’s brush, but as I started to piece everything together, my stomach lurched uncomfortably.

  I recognised her.

  The girl in the pictures. When she was turned to face the artist, with that half smile and her face partially hidden by hair that draped down across her features. I knew her. Even though we’d never met.

  Mary Furst.

  How many paintings – both those that were finished and those that could be deemed works in progress – were in this room, stacked against the walls? I didn’t want to count, but guessed around forty. All of them in that same, loose and destructive style: oils heavy and swirling darkly on the canvas. I started looking for a clear shot at the face, rifling the canvases, checking each image.

  And I found it.

  That face. In full profile.

  Unmistakably her.

  Painted with this expression of extreme sadness that pulled you into her eyes. No landscape on this one, just a head and shoulders portrait of a girl who looked every bit as broken as the landscape images that had preceded her. Her head was turned slightly to the side, her eyes downcast as though she didn’t want to look at whoever was capturing this moment.

  As though she was ashamed.

  And it was the same girl, even if her manner was so different to the Mary Furst I had started to imagine through family photos and the talk of her friends and teachers. In these paintings she was not the perfect young lass with a future so bright it could blind, but someone more deeply conflicted than I could have guessed.

  Wickes came into the room, saying, “You’ll want to see –” The pictures drew him up short. “Bloody hell.”

  “Recognise any of these?”

  He walked the walls, stopping in front of each image. Sometimes reaching out as though to touch the canvas, but pulling away at the last moment like something in the images unnerved him.

  Make that two of us.

  From the way his face pulled taut and from the low growl that escaped his lips, I expected him to start screaming, punching the walls, breaking the frames. But instead he merely took a breath and turned to face me. Smiled awkwardly as if apologising for the outburst.

  There was silence in the flat. The kind that comes before a storm.

  Both of us were pretending like everything was good between us.

  There was more, of course.

  The DVD player. A disc inside. Home made. Shot on digital camera, transferred over.

  Digital camera gives a cleaner picture than the old tape machines used to. But it doesn’t mean you get a professional result into the bargain.

  The film was jerky, unsteady, filmed by someone who didn’t know the difference between viewing something with your own eyes and seeing it on a static screen.

  I recognised the room straight away.

  The lighting dull, the blinds drawn.

  A girl was painting at an easel. Slow, delicate strokes, her back to the camera. Did she even realise she was being filmed? Hard to tell. Her body language was tight with concentration, but I didn’t get the impression she was self-conscious about being filmed. Meaning a few things.

  She was used to the idea of someone filming her.

  Or she knew whoever was behind the camera.

  Trusted them.

  The girl had dark hair which she had tied back into a loose pony-tail. Hard to get a real idea of the colour in the half-light. Her neck was slender, and on the video her skin appeared supernaturally pale. She was dressed in a loose fitting dark jumper and light blue jeans.

  I knew who she was.

  Didn’t want to admit it until she turned to face the camera.

  It was strange to see her move.

  I fought to suppress a shiver.

  Had to convince myself this was not a dream.

  The camera stayed on her face. Mary finally looked directly into the camera and in a moment of self-conscious realisation, she reached up to touch the cross that hung around her neck, the jewellery dark against her pale skin. She plied the necklace between her fingers, seemed to blush a little.

  The cross around her neck, the gift from her godfather.

  Looking at Wickes who stood beside me, I could see his skin paling. He turned to look at me. “That’s the look she used to get,” he said, and he was talking about Deborah. “When she was working. She looks like her, you know. Jesus fuck, it’s uncanny.”

  We all carry something of our parents.

  I carried some of my father’s features. Not just outside, but also inside where I had inherited his doubts and anxieties. My mother used to say: You’re your father’s son. And I never knew whether her voice carried a hint of sadness in that.

  I blinked.

  Thought about Susan. Her father’s angular face, her mother’s gentle smile.

  More and more I found myself thinking about her. My own feelings confused, as though that one night we had spent together was more than grief and sympathy confusing friendship for something else.

  I blinked again. Forced the thoughts out of my head. Watched the images on screen.

  Analysed. Considered.

  Distracted myself.

  Became the detective again. The investigator. The observer.

  There was no sound on the film. Not a background hum or the thump of footsteps on naked floors. Nothing.

  I watched Mary Furst’s face, tried to see if her lips moved.

  Watching that shaky camera work, I realised that we were seeing this girl through Deborah’s eyes. This was how she saw the world. How she saw her daughter.

  The focus was on the girl’s face. We were watching her obsessively. Close enough to pick up on details. The camera never strayed out of focus. It moved with its subject. Entranced.

  Wickes had mentioned obsession.

  Was that what we were seeing?

  I wasn’t so sure. Having seen home movies before, I knew the way that parents often filmed their offspring with the same kind of intensity I was watching in front me.

  Love.

  Obsession.

  Is there a difference?

  Chapter 28

  “He could have killed me.”

  “But he didn’
t.”

  I was out on the stairwell with Mr Stephen, the skinny man ready to get out his mobile, give the police a call.

  Can’t say I blamed him.

  But I needed Wickes. His insight into Deborah for one thing.

  The big man was holding back. He’d known this was a dead end, I was sure. But he’d wanted me to see the flat. The paintings. The home movie.

  Why?

  To convince me even further that Deborah was deranged?

  Seemed like a lot of effort to go to.

  What was his game? What did he want?

  Stephen said, “You’re working with the police, aye? On this missing schoolgirl case, the both of you?”

  I nodded.

  “What’s this flat got to do with anything? My tenant?”

  I said, “The girl in the pictures.”

  “That’s her? The lass that’s missing?”

  I nodded again.

  Stephen moved to sit down at the top of the steps. He took a few deep breaths.

  I sat down beside him.

  Earlier, I’d hoped Wickes was playing the good cop/bad cop routine. Well, here I was with the follow through.

  Aye, I was there for Mr Stephen. To understand him. To empathise.

  I was his friend.

  My associate…he was just a headcase.

  But I wanted Stephen to believe Wickes was harmless.

  “He’s emotionally involved,” I said. “Knows the girl’s mother.”

  “Emotionally involved? Is that a joke?”

  I tried for a buddy-buddy smile. Did he relax? Looked that way. His shoulders quit hunching at any rate. “Not really,” I said. “He needed inside the flat. To see for himself.” Was I really making excuses for the man? “We’re close to something, Mr Stephen. And I don’t want to play down the fear you’re feeling, but in the grand scheme of things –”

  He turned and looked at me with eyes asking a hard question. “You’re going to help the girl?”

  I said, “Yes,” and hoped that as he was looking into my eyes he couldn’t see the doubt in them.

  The Association of British Investigators has a code of ethics for all members. I sometimes wonder if that’s why more people don’t join.

  One of the principle codes runs:

  To verify the credentials of clients and that they have lawful and moral reasons to instruct an investigation.

  In my rush to get on board, I’d taken Wickes on his word. Blinded by the thought that perhaps I would be doing some genuine good.

  The nature of the job means that sometimes every investigator skirts the edges of ethical behaviour. The Data Protection Act means that grey areas crop up more frequently than they ever used to, stifling some operators who used to enjoy a more free reign in their practices.

  But in my mind, I knew I had stretched one of the tenets of the Association to breaking point. Would it matter that my motivations were justified?

  I met Wickes outside the building again. He was leaning against the car, casual and almost cheerful. “Why so glum?”

  I could have lamped him.

  Scared?

  Aye, maybe a little.

  I said, “This is a waste of time. We’re out here chasing up dead ends and you know that every hour that passes –”

  “I know the rule.” He walked round the car, leaned on the hood. I had to spin to keep an eye on him.

  “And what the fuck was all that about in there?”

  He shrugged; what was I getting so mad about? “We needed to get inside.”

  “Why?”

  “There had to be something. A clue or –”

  “If we had time to waste,” I said, “Maybe I’d say that was helpful. But you threatened a citizen, broke into a private dwelling and –”

  Wickes waved a piece of paper in the air.

  “Got us a fucking lead.” He grinned, waggled his eyebrows. Would have been comical, maybe even endearing, if I couldn’t still remember that look in his eyes when he’d pressed Stephen against the wall, threatened to squeeze the life out of the little man. “Found it in the kitchen. Pinned to the board. An address.”

  He laughed and started to cross the road to his own car. “The sister,” he said. When he opened the car door, he paused, turned back and reached into his pockets. “Something else as well. You might be more interested in this one.” He threw something in the air. It arced across to me, and I reached out and caught it in the palm of my hand. My fingers closed around the object, and when I opened them, I saw the cross that had been around Mary’s neck on the video.

  A vital lead, right enough.

  Crucial evidence.

  Which now had my fingerprints all over it.

  People never tell you the whole truth.

  No matter how much they trust you. No matter how much you trust them. When someone tells you a story, there’s always something they miss out. Some little fact. Some detail.

  They don’t always mean to do it. It simply happens. Human nature.

  We need the advantage. The upper hand. Something kept back. Our ace in the hole.

  Wickes had found the slip of paper in the kitchen, pocketed it fast before me or Stephen could notice. Pink paper, crumpled. Spidery handwriting.

  An address.

  A phone number.

  A lead.

  Maybe I was underestimating him. Had him all wrong.

  One of the things I prided myself on as an investigator was my ability to read people.

  Wickes had me all turned around. I couldn’t even guess which way he’d jump next. So I had to wonder if that was really a bad thing, or if I was simply angry at myself for being unable to get into this guy’s head.

  For not living up to my own expectations.

  Chapter 29

  “Were they close? Deborah and her sister?”

  We were in the Phoenix Bar, at the east end of the Perth Road. A small, comfortable pub with a regular bunch of drinkers and some of the hottest chilli on the North East Coast of Scotland. Check the menus, you’ll see a burning ring of fire that’s at once a warning of the heat and a reference to the old TV show, Bonanza.

  We’d grabbed a corner booth, beneath the moose head that dominated one wall. The decoration in the Phoenix was best described as eclectic. Old adverts and framed images of the city as it once was dominated. A clock without hands was at one end of the bar.

  Wickes was on pints of Timothy Taylor. I stuck with Coke, preferring to keep my head clear on a case.

  The hard-drinking, hard-boiled detective only gets away with that shite in movies and between the pages of pulp paperbacks.

  “I met the sister once,” Wickes said.

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  There was an atmosphere between us. A distinct lack of trust that had been building since the incident at the flat.

  I didn’t trust his temper. Or his story.

  It went both ways, of course. He no longer trusted me to stay on point. To back him up.

  But he was talking. There was that at least.

  “Deborah had some keepsakes she wanted to take with her. Stuff her sister had been looking after. Deborah couldn’t face her sister. Not if she wanted to keep quiet about where she was going. So she sent me round.”

  Still not answering my question. But I figured I’d let him go with it. Maybe get my answers by accident.

  Let someone talk long enough, they’ll tell you things they never intended.

  Wickes was a talker.

  Wanted to hold everything back, but I got the feeling he couldn’t resist giving up the truth in the end. His was the kind of personality that got bored easily.

  Aye, check his impatience up at the flat.

  The way he talked about Deborah and her problems. All the things most folks would keep quiet, he aired to a man who was at best a stranger.

  Wickes licked his lips. Going dry. The effort of confession showing. His voice low.

  I thought, as well: dangerous.

  “Th
e thing I remember is the way she looked at me. Even before I opened my mouth. Like I was detritus.” He rolled the word around in his mouth. Savoured it. And then he looked right at me. “I was the reason Deborah was leaving the safety of her sister. Oh, the bitch knew that.” I wondered if he even knew what he was saying. Could hear the words he chose. Understand how they sounded in my ears. “Sounds harsh, aye? Well you weren’t there. Never met her. Cold fucking fish.”

  Less than a day into what I think he would have called our friendship, his mask was slipping.

  The geniality. The transparency. The open-ness.

  All an act.

  But why?

  A cover up? A carefully constructed persona? An echo of someone he used to be?

  I wasn’t sure. But he was beginning to let the façade slip in my company.

  “We’re both investigators,” I said to Wickes. “Not bound by any fraternal code.”

  “One of the reasons I never wanted to join the ABI.”

  “But all the same, we have something in common. We look for the truth.”

  “Do we? My bread and butter came from heavy work. Muscle for hire. Or being a fucking errand boy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Christ,” he said, shaking his head before taking a deep drink from his pint. The head caught up his beard, and he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth to clear it. “You can be all noble and high-and-mighty dealing with the people who don’t know, but we’re barely fucking legal. We skirt the law. Dance around the edges of civilised society. Your precious ABI and the Security Industry Authority do their wee song about organising the profession, making sure we stick to a code of practice…but we’re not really like that. None of us. How many members does your wee group have? Five hundred? Christ, and how many investigators are active in the country right now? On and off the books? We are not – should never be – accountable for what we do. We provide a service. A private service. One that should not be bound by the same rules that exist for the police or other state owned and run organisations.”

  Looking at him, I could see a fire in his eyes.

  The fire of the man trying to convince himself more than anyone else.