The Sister(128)

In an alternative version of last night’s reunion  , he saw himself back at the table with Kennedy. This time they spoke of their origins and swapped case notes, laughing at the FBI games his forgotten acquaintance told him he used to play.

‘Did anyone ever call you Jack, as in the president?’

The detective reacted slowly and thoughtfully. ‘Just a girlfriend I had once and this other character. I just started picking up on his trail and then he started playing games with me.’ Miller detected sorrow in the other man’s eyes. The light faded from them as he continued to speak.

‘He called himself Lee Harvey Oswald, pathetic really.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘I let him get to me. He left a newspaper with the headline “Kennedy Assassinated” at the scene of one crime. Not one shred of forensic. Nothing on the paper. No sweat, no nothing. I suppose I had an inkling I was dealing with someone different, not your run-of-the-mill ordinary criminal. I knew he was out to get me. His messages made that perfectly clear from the outset.’ He began fiddling with his tie, pulling at the knot, loosening it from his neck.

‘Did you ever get him?’

Still fiddling with his tie, he said, ‘No, I never did.’ And then he asked about Miller’s lost friends, the boys who died.

Caught off guard, he bristled at the mention, driven back into his adolescent self where he wrestled with his thoughts. He’d forgotten none of it. It became merely encapsulated in the comfortable blanket time had woven for it. ‘Why do you mention that?’ he asked.

No longer looking at him, he focused on something beyond where he sat. ‘You need to talk about it.’

There was something odd about Kennedy. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. In his head, he fine-tuned his imaginary receiver, but he’d lost him. The dream was no longer in his control. It shifted to a beach … to a holiday he had long ago.

Then he was back in the hall, where Kennedy waited patiently for his answer. He tilted his head his expression one of query. A half shrug of the other man’s shoulders invited an answer. It had been a long moment.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I’m just not ready to talk about it.’

Kennedy leant forward, two fingers in the knot of his tie. When he spoke it was with difficulty. ‘That happened thirty-five years ago. You should lay those ghosts to rest.’

‘I know,’ he said simply.

The detective’s eyes had become grey. One was narrowed, the other shut. He could have been looking through a telescope. ‘I need help, Miller.’

It was late and he was tired. This is crazy. It’s a dream! He rubbed his eyes. They felt sore. He sparked off an ocular migraine. If he caught it in time and avoided bright lights, he could still prevent the visual aura from manifesting itself.

Kennedy had his back to the light. Miller couldn’t look at him.

He felt himself leaving rapidly, floating upwards and backwards. Kennedy’s voice briefed him in a blizzard of words he couldn’t understand.





Miller woke up and the first thing on his mind was Kennedy’s last words. ‘So, will you help me?’

He lay awake for a long time. These shifts in perspective were occurring with greater frequency and now not only when he was asleep. He found if he concentrated hard enough, he could make out in part, what Kennedy had told him. Big trouble, a key and finding a missing girl. No, not a key. She was the key. The key to what?

He took his pencil and pad from his bedside table and noted it all down. It might make sense later.

Sinking back into sleep just as the birds began to stir, he dreamed about the boys again.





Chapter 111



4 April





The following morning Miller woke up, his head filled with strong ideas.

I need help, Miller. Eilise Staples.

He hadn’t felt the same way since he’d decided to find Olga Kale, but it didn’t worry him. What he was doing was for the good.

Although Nottingham wasn’t as far as he thought from London, it was still too far for him to consider driving back the same day. After three and a half hours of boredom, the Sat Nav dumped him a few doors down the road from where he needed to be. He wouldn’t have parked right outside anyway.

He grabbed his bag out of the boot and made his way up the path. Eilise’s house was in an affluent part of town. Not quite how he’d imagined it, but runaways came from all walks of life. Olga Kale – she’d been a runaway too. The step up to the front door was freshly scrubbed and still wet, so he stretched up and rang the bell, without standing on it. The door opened almost immediately.

‘Mrs Staples?’

‘Yes.’

‘The name’s Miller, I believe you were expecting me?’

‘I’m sorry?’ Dressed in a floral housecoat, wearing pink marigold gloves and holding a yellow feather duster in her hand, she looked ridiculous, but not self-conscious at all.

‘DCI Kennedy arranged for me to come up this morning.’

‘Well, he never said anything to me,’ she narrowed her eyes. ‘Got any ID?’

Miller produced a business card and handed it to her.

‘What – the police can’t do their own work? They have to call in the private sector to get anywhere?’

‘Something like that.’ He smiled.