The Lost Sister (14 page)

“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.

“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
.

“The 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.

Fuck trying to make a connection with him.

“You've been lying to me,” I said. A weight lifted.

“About?”

“I don't know,” I admitted. “Something. Holding out.”

He nodded, seemed to consider this. Said, “Maybe I made a mistake. Coming to you for help.”

“Maybe you did at that.”

He took a deep swig from his pint, slammed the glass onto the wooden table. Never once took his gaze off me.

“We're going to the police,” I said. “We're telling them everything.”

“Fuck you,” said Wickes.

I sat back in the chair. “This is how it works.”

He laughed at that. Not the strange animal sound I'd come to expect from him, but a lower sound that rolled out from him and seemed to languish across the table.

I suppressed the urge to shiver.

“Susan Bright.”

I hesitated when she answered. Not sure what I wanted to say.

Again, she said, “Susan Bright,” with just enough impatience in her voice to goad me into saying something.

“It's me.”

“This isn't a good time for a social call.”

“We need to talk.”

“There's a girl missing, Steed. And unless –”

“This is about her. I think we might…I mean, this could help you.”

The wind was blowing hard through the streets of the city. The cold of the past few weeks was getting worse, and heavier snow was expected, maybe even hoped for.

Slush was probably the best we'd get.

Susan said, “You know something?” her words were partially obscured as the line crackled.

I bowed my head to try and reduce the interference. “I know something.”

She said, “Deborah Brown.”

I said, “So you know. But maybe not everything.”

Wickes was watching me from the shelter of the pub's doorway. He was leaning against the frame, his lips curled, his eyes focussed.

I tried to forget he was there.

On the other end of the line Susan relented, said, “Aye, right enough, maybe you've got a point. Maybe we need to talk. But it has to be good, Steed. It really does.”