The Sister(158)

‘What did he think was happening to you?’

‘Look, I’ve said too much already.’

‘Miller, I want to know what’s happening to you.’

‘Strange dreams, that’s all.’

‘You’re not going to tell me?’ She seemed disappointed.

He took a sharp intake of breath. His lips pressed tight together.

‘Come on, Miller, answer the question.’

‘It’s complicated.’ He exhaled.

‘I don’t care, tell me.’

He focused on her. ‘I keep having nightmares where I wake up on the point of drowning and that’s not all. Lately, I’ve found if I concentrate hard enough, I can almost tell what people are thinking. Not with everybody, and not all the time.’ He told her everything he’d told Ryan, with the exception of the Simpson dream. ‘Do you think I’m going crazy?’ He was staring at her the way he did on the train – not seeing her – but seeing through her. His eyes came back into focus. He looked exhausted.

She’d been tempted to interrupt him, but she held off, not wanting to stifle the words flowing out of him. It had been like watching a self-imposed exorcism. ‘Holy shit,’ she said, and whistled low.

Miller trembled.

Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to hold him.

They'd been outside her hotel for a quarter of an hour; she shivered in the dropping temperature. ‘Are you going to come in?’ she said, and reaching for his hand pulled him up the steps.

‘Carla, listen. I have an appointment tomorrow with someone who apparently holds the key to my destiny and it’s so late.’ He left her by the entrance doors. He was ten feet away before she even thought of protesting.

He blew her a kiss. ‘There’s nothing I want more than to come in with you, but it’s going to have to wait, at least until I get back.’

She called out after him, ‘I won’t be here when you get back!’





Carla slipped into her room and dropped her handbag onto the seat of the armchair. Removing her shoes and jacket, she then wriggled out of her jeans. Semi-naked, she admired herself in the mirror, and then leaned down into her bag to pull out her voice recorder. It was no bigger than a pack of ten cigarettes. She pushed the rewind button, held it close to her ear and clicked play.

When she decided to pass the time of day with Miller on the train, she’d not expected to find a potential story in him. As the journey and the conversation progressed, she discovered there were at least two, and as she reflected on the content of the tape, she realised Miller himself was a story. His reticence annoyed her; she was going to have to get closer. She hadn’t had a challenge in a long time, but first she had to get to grips with the Vigilante case.

Putting the recorder down, she picked up her phone, selected a name from the menu and pressed the connect button. She knew it was late, but Michael Brady never slept before one o’clock in the morning.

‘Hello, Michael, it’s Carla.’

‘Carla? Oh, Carla Blue! It’s been such a long time… Is it really you?’

‘Yes, it’s really me.’ Carla Blue. When the tape turned up at The News of The World, he’d been an officer in the Met and had heard through the grapevine she’d watched it. He called her at work to talk about it. Afterwards, they had a brief fling. It didn’t last, he outlived his usefulness, but she remained on good terms with him. She never fell out with people like him. In her job, you never knew when you might need them again.

‘You still there?’

‘Yes, I am. I was just thinking, when are you lot ever going to let me live that down?’

He chuckled down the other end of the line. ‘Well, how are you?’

‘I’m very well and you?’ She didn’t allow him to answer, getting straight to the point. ‘Michael, I’m putting a piece together on the Vigilante murders and I’m struggling to get information. Is that something you can help with?’ She held her breath.

‘Oh, Carla, you’re putting me on the spot here.’

‘Michael, I’m sorry, but I don’t have anyone else I can ask. If you help me, I’ll owe you one,’ she lowered her voice suggestively.

‘Look, Carla, they’re keeping this one under wraps from the press, if anything gets out...it could get sticky.’

‘Michael, all I want is to be there with a finger on the button, so when the story does break…’

He sighed. ‘I wish there was a way I could help you. Where are you?’

‘I’m in Edinburgh.’

‘Do you want me to come over?’ He sounded hopeful.

‘Have you anything for me, information wise?’

Brady spun it out. ‘I might have.’

‘Oh, come on, Michael, don’t hold back on me.’ She paused and then said, ‘How are things with you and Maggie, by the way?’ Met with silence, she bit her lip.

‘I’ve got one thing, but you must promise you never heard it from me. You remember I used to work with John Kennedy at the Met?’

‘Vaguely,’ she lied.

‘Well, it turns out the baseball bat recovered from the scene of the killings used to belong to him.’

After putting the phone down, she pulled out the 'Midnight Man’ cobweb map and studied it again. It helped her think outside the box, and it always seemed to work best when she was a little bit unfocused, but it wasn’t working tonight.