The Sister(2)

Damn! He’d seen it too late. Moving in the opposite direction, careful to keep the sun in front of him, he stood perfectly still, head tilted, an ear cocked close to the orange fabric. Against the sunlight shining through from the other side, he could see their silhouettes, frozen in position, the girl with her knees drawn up, the man between, on top.

‘I saw someone,’ she whispered urgently.

‘What? Jesus!’

‘Thomas – there’s someone outside.’

The stalker held his breath, expecting the top shadow to extricate itself, and come out to look. They remained locked together.

‘There’s no one out there, relax.’ Slowly, the dark profile of his buttocks resumed their thrusting.

Outside the lover’s nest, the man moved silently towards the entrance.

High above, a bird of prey cried, its keening piercing the air.





Chapter 3



20 August 1967





The Milowski family walked much further than they had intended to find the ideal picnic spot, choosing a wide-open meadow where Bruce could play with little chance of hurting himself. From where they sat on a spread of blankets, the field of vision was uninterrupted for hundreds of yards.

His grandfather stared up at the rocky crags and pointed. ‘Can you see that bird, Bruce?’

‘You’ve got good eyes,’ Mrs Milowski said. ‘I wouldn’t have noticed it. Did you bring binoculars?’

‘No, telescope,’ he said, ‘in bag, next to you.” Although he’d lived in England for twenty years, a trace of eastern European accent remained, along with a tendency to leave words out. ‘Pass to me,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘Please.’

He focused on the bird. A buzzard. ‘There, at top of cliffs. Probably, he lives there.’

He handed the ‘scope over to Bruce’s father, who trained it first at the sky, and then at the craggy outcrop.

‘You want to look, Ellen?’

‘Maybe later,’ she said, tending to the baby.

‘You, Bruce, you look…’ He pulled the boy in close, and passing the telescope over, showed him how to work the adjustment wheels. ‘Remember, if you can’t see, turn those buttons I showed you.’

Fascinated, he stared through the lens, sweeping the skies and the landscape. On the other side, lower down, he caught a flash of bright colour. He fiddled with the controls until he brought the object into focus. It was a young woman dressed in purple, undoing her hair.

He lowered the telescope, and compared the image with what he could see with his naked eye. The difference amazed him.

His mother’s voice drew him away from the distant world he’d discovered. ‘Bruce, put that down for a minute and come and eat.’

When they had finished their food, Bruce amused himself by lying on his front, staring at the intricacies of the grass below his face, constructing fantasy adventures which involved cutting his way through the jungle, battling giant ants and spiders. Suddenly, he rolled on to his back and stared at the sky. Something had unsettled him. He didn’t want to lie there anymore. ‘I’m bored – can I go and explore?’ he asked no one in particular.

His father and grandfather were deep in conversation, his mother, although busy with his two-year-old baby sister, turned her attention to him.

‘Do you want to go off and play?’

‘Can I?’ he said.

‘Yes, you can, Bruce, but I want you to stay where I can keep an eye on you,’ she said.

Over the course of the next few minutes, he edged further away.

Mrs Milowski called out, ‘Don’t go any farther, Bruce!’

‘I won’t!’ he shouted.

Waving to reassure her, he inched his way towards a fence separating the meadow from another field, a hundred yards away. On the other side, the vegetation was quite different from the one he was in now.

He paused, looking back at his family. His mother, distracted by his sister’s crying, had turned away to soothe her, and the men were still in deep conversation.

He dropped to his knees and slid under the barbed wire, careful not to catch his clothes.





When Mrs Milowski realised that Bruce had vanished, she cried out, ‘Bruce, where are you? I told you not to wander off.’ Then, panic rising, she shouted at the top of her voice, ‘Bruce!’

The men stood, their faces registering concern as they scanned the meadow, looking in all directions. ‘What are you talking about? Where was he when you last saw him?’ her husband asked.

‘He was over there,’ she said, pointing to the edge of the field. The little girl sensed something was wrong and began to cry. Mrs Milowski hugged her tight.

‘Find him,’ she said, clasping the child’s head to her shoulder. She bit her lip, keeping her face hidden from the little girl, and her eyes squeezed shut. A large tear rolled down her cheek.

The men sprinted to the fence where Bruce had been a few minutes earlier. His father vaulted the wire and crossed to the other side of the field calling his son’s name. Bruce’s grandfather bent to pass between the strands, and standing upright on the other side, eased his palms into the small of his back to help it straighten up again. He watched his son a hundred yards away, charging in and out of the trees, wasting his efforts. The young … they have so much energy.