The Sister (61 page)

"What makes you say that?" A suspicious look crossed her face. "Exactly what
is
it you do?"

"I find missing people."

"What did you say your name was?"

"I didn't!"

"Okay, Mr I - don't - want -
you
to know what my name is!"

He grinned at her, "I'll tell you my name, it's –"

"No, no - I prefer you without one.
The Man with No Name
, like someone from a mystery novel."

"Or a Clint Eastwood film?"

She grinned, "Before my time . . ." Curiosity got the better of her, and she asked, "Are you looking for someone right now?"

He hesitated briefly. "No, I'm meeting someone. I'm between cases, so to speak."

She didn't press him for details. "Mmm, I'm interested to know what attracted you to this line of work."

"Well, the whole story is a long one, so I'll just tell you how it began."

She laughed, "This train ride is a long one!"

He explained how he used to stay with his grandfather, and how he would always take a few old copies of True Crime magazine with him, not so much to read, but to study the graphic crime scene photographs.

"They fascinated me. He'd come and sit next to me, asking questions about the scenes, the evidence. It was like playing Cluedo, but with real lives. We'd investigate the unsolved cases, piecing together everything that we could get from what we had in front of us, inventing scenarios, postulating. He used to shoot holes in my wild theories. His ones, of course, were airtight. I learned a lot from him." He reminisced, toyed with the idea of telling her about how his grandfather had psychic abilities. Instead, he just said, "The old man would have made a great detective."

"He sounds fascinating. Do you always find the people you look for? I mean; some people disappear, never to be seen again."

"I don't look for people like that; I only look for people I know I can find." He looked out of the window as he spoke, at sheep herded by a dog. He couldn't see the shepherd, but he knew he was there.

"I don't see how you can be selective like that, how can you possibly know?"

"It's a waste of time, looking for someone you
know
won't be alive when you find them - and how do I know?
I just do
."

She looked at him as politely as open disbelief would allow. "Oh, come on! You don't really think you're going to pass me off with a vague statement like that do you?"

"Well, I had hoped I might!" He allowed her a small grin.

She thought he looked uncomfortable.

"Look, it's not something that's easy to explain, so it's better not to try at all."

She looked disappointed, but only for a fleeting moment. She immediately brightened with a new question. "Tell me about the people you've found then. You must have quite a few stories to tell."

"Oh, I don't think they'd be anywhere near as exciting as some of the ones you must have. Ladies first, you tell me one of yours, then I'll tell you one of mine."

"And they say the age of chivalry is dead!" she laughed, "Okay, where to start? Actually, I'm a
freelance
reporter. I worked at the News of the World, before going it alone. I didn't want to have to answer to anyone else anymore. While working at the World - I was there for five years - the police were hunting for this character the press dubbed the Midnight Man, because he always struck around midnight. It had become apparent he was active all over the country. At first, they thought more than one individual was carrying out the crimes, maybe working with others using the same MO to throw the police off the trail.

"It didn't take long before they realised that it was the work of only one man. Over time, he grew bolder, taking more risks. The crimes had become more and more sexually overt in nature. They realised that soon; they were going to have a rapist on their hands, maybe even a murderer. Detectives didn't have any forensics, not a thing. So the police joined forces, pooling their information and resources to start an elite task force dedicated to tracking him down. I had some close contacts in the force, so I knew a lot more than the public or even the papers.

"Anyway, we received this package one day - it was a video cassette - once the editor became aware of its content, she passed it on to the police, but not until
after
someone made a copy. Anyway, outside of work, I started to collate all the information from previous cases I could get my hands on.

"I was looking for something to break, but it never did. One night, just for fun, I plotted all the known case locations, onto a map, and guess what I came up with? I had more than six or seven hundred flagged points, extending all over the country. One night I was talking to a friend on the phone, just absently doodling with my pencil. I began drawing lines between the dots … all of a sudden; I said to her,
I have to go,
as if it was the most significant discovery since radium or whatever.

"Do you know why? Because what I had subconsciously doodled, was a series of spider webs, covering
Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Nottingham and London. The spokes, the radials, every one of them running through anchors or links, extending to the far corners of the country, then I noticed something else. The spokes didn't extend to the centres. The city centres were completely empty. For a while I really, really thought I was onto something. He wasn't targeting premises; he was targeting homes; either because they were easier pickings, or because he got more of a thrill from what he might find there." She gestured, rolling a hand, inviting his response.

It was a game, and one he couldn't resist.

"Maybe, but you know what I think?" he paused, a serious look on his face. "If you have enough dots you can join them together to make almost anything, with a little imagination, even the face of Mickey Mouse."

She poked the tip of her tongue between her pursed lips and mimed blowing a silent raspberry. Shaking her head slowly, she reached into her bag and produced a piece of paper, which she unfolded and passed to him.

It was a map of Great Britain. On it, she'd marked several overlapping 'webs'; the lowest one had spokes that emanated from around a central location - London. The radials linked to the spokes that extended into the farthest reaches of the map, way beyond the limits of the concentric patterns. What she'd drawn, was just as she described to him.

He scratched his head. She was a seasoned reporter; did she really believe this stuff worked outside of films and books?

Yet,
something
struck a chord. "You know, you just might be
onto
something there."

"
I know
I am, but I just don't know what."

"You know what we need?" he looked at her seriously.

"What do we need?"

"We need more information!"

She raised the back of her hand as if to slap him, and he raised a hand and knee in mock defence. They both grinned widely.

"Coming back to this character, you said he might get more of a thrill from what he finds in the homes than presumably he might find in an office? What makes you say that?"

"He only takes what he can carry in his pockets from what I can gather, and there's evidence he spends quite a while in the houses, going through paperwork, private things. He steals sentimental items, and then tries to blackmail the more attractive women into sex in exchange for returning the items, or for keeping quiet about other things he has discovered. I could go on and on with the details…He knows which ones are attractive, presumably from photographs that he sees or finds in the house. Anyway, I was telling you about that tape earlier… It's really quite graphic. He lured one victim – I think she had emotional issues – into a meeting. He filmed the whole thing, and he could be heard telling her that he was filming it. She even smiled for the camera at one point, unbelievable . . . he also told her that if she notified the police, he would send the tape to the News of The World. She
did
go to the police and good as his word; he sent the tape."

"So you've seen it then?"

A slight flush coloured her face. "Only for professional purposes though, but yes, once or twice," she admitted.

"I assume you couldn't identify him from the film?" He gave her a knowing look.

"Well, of course you don't see his face!" she said hotly. "I'm sorry, you don't know how much stick I've had to endure as I was the one who saw it originally."

"It's okay." He told her, adding with a broad grin. "Did anything stand out?"

She kicked him on the shin.

"Ouch!" he said through gritted teeth. "That really hurt!"

"That wasn't hard." she said.

"It doesn't have to be hard to hurt." He attempted to rub the pain away.

"We digressed; it's a little bit outside my field, but very interesting all the same. I can't believe I hadn't seen it in the press before."

"If you
are
interested, the press christened him the 'Midnight Man'."

"I'll look it up," he said. "I promise."

"I hope you meant that, because I'm going to hold you to it," she laughed. "And I mean that."

"I said I'll look it up. And then we'll see."

The train slowed as it pulled into the station at York. When it stopped, the platform suddenly came alive with the movement of people, passengers disembarking, as others got on. The two of them fell silent as they waited for the resumption of the journey.

He asked himself a question.
Have you ever met someone before that you connect with so completely and utterly, you feel you have known them all your life?
The only time that even came close was when he met Josie, and for the first time since the journey began, he wondered if she might be thinking the same. He turned away from staring out the window, she had her eyes on him. She smiled warmly as if she'd read his thoughts. He smiled back, but inside he was scared. Afraid that he might become involved, not only in the case, but with her, too, and he didn't want to risk losing her.

Chapter 127

After a few minutes, the train resumed its journey. A tall man with a rolled up copy of Der Speigel protruding from the side pocket of his jacket lurched up to their row of seats, and tried to sit with his rucksack still on his back. Miller exchanged looks with his new companion. She made a drinking gesture with her hand. He nodded agreement. The man decided he couldn't perch on two inches of the seat and stood up to remove the backpack. It swung dangerously close to her as he unhitched it from one shoulder and then the other. He sat across the aisle to her and promptly closed his eyes. She gave him a sharp look, then gestured Miller towards her over the table. She spoke so quietly; Miller had to lean forwards to hear what she was saying.

"Okay, so that was me. What about you?"

"Well, I don't have any unsolved cases as interesting as that . . . I don't have any unsolved ones, period."

She pursed her lips and jerked her middle finger up at him.

"A number of years ago I got involved in rescuing a girl from a quasi-religious cult." He hesitated unsure of how much to tell her.

"Come on," she urged, "don't hold out on me."

An idea formed. "It's difficult to explain really without going into boring details, but let's just say it all came about because I developed an interest in the brainwashing techniques employed by the Chinese around the time of the Korean War."

She planted her elbows on the table between them and propped her chin on her thumbs, fingers aligned either side of her nose.

"Whilst researching that I came across an article about cults and their use of the same or similar techniques. They were operating or recruiting in all the major cities . . . I decided to go to
London, on a field trip and to paraphrase you . . ." he winked at her. "You'll never guess what I found?" She opened her mouth to speak, but she wasn't quick enough.

Miller moved on. "I came across not just one group, but several, all working the tourist attractions. At
Piccadilly Circus, there was a group of girls. Every single one of them attractive, and they were approaching young men. Openly flirting and waving leaflets at them, they were selling something as well, quasi-religious charms. They parted the men from their money and got them lining up at the edge of the pavement.

There were two men with them, could have been Asian. One was slim, but athletic looking. The other was bulkier and stood a little back; I think he was probably a minder. He looked dangerous, but anyway the slim guy was about the age I was then. When I looked closer, I realised he was of
Mediterranean, possibly even South American appearance. He had a whole harem of girls he'd recruited tucked in behind him like the pied piper. I wanted to get closer to hear what he said to them that worked so well for him," he said, winking. "By the time I crossed the road onto the island of Eros; a bus had pulled up, and they ferried them all aboard. He turned as he got on - and I'll never forget this - he had the most unusual eye colouration I've ever seen. Have you ever seen the colour of a lion's eye in the sunshine? What colour would you say that would be?"