The Lost Sister (13 page)

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.

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 him
?

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.

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.

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?