The Sister(216)

A pang of jealousy soured the taste in his mouth. ‘How did you get him involved?’

‘Oh, he owed me a favour. We'd done some research on the best travelling fighters in an effort to track Boyle down earlier, and we interviewed a number of past Kings of the Gipsies. The whole story is in my book, but we ended up talking to this guy in Marseilles and it turned out he’d seen Boyle for the last time, quite by chance in Boulogne, waiting for the ferry on the night Josie vanished. We checked the passenger records. Boule – the name he adopted in the Legion – was among them, and so was she. Coincidence? I think not.’

In his mind, he replayed the snapshot the Sister had shared with him. His jaw tightened, grinding his teeth together. It was him. I know it was him.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked, breaking the silence.

‘I have to be,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘You didn’t tell me how you'd drawn the conclusion the Clootie Fairy only appears on ghost day, and that being so, how do they avoid detection on each anniversary?’

‘Ghost day is never the same day in consecutive years. I pieced everything else together, but something still bothered me about this part of the story. The locals had tried periodically, to catch whoever it was tying the silks up, wrongly assuming whoever it was, was marking the anniversary of the mine disaster. I went there the other day, what a creepy place it is… I counted all the clooties, some of them were old, bleached white, green with mould, rotting; just the knotted part around the branches had survived. Someone had tied up a pair of red socks, so clearly a few of these offerings are just random, but then I counted the silk ones separately, and there were thirty-one of those.’

He struggled to recall the numbers of rags Kennedy had quoted him. ‘Carla, when Kennedy was last there, he accounted for twenty-three mine deaths, the seven murder victims and my three friends. At that time, the number he’d seen tied up was forty-nine. I’m sure of it.’

‘Maybe, but how many silk ones? Anyway, the penny dropped. There was one of those for every year since the bodies were discovered.’

‘I see where you’re coming from, and Lei Liang was Chinese.’

‘Exactly, and the extra clooties only started manifesting themselves after her remains were identified.’

Driving on auto-pilot, Miller slipped into deeper thought. Ryan had told him about the local legends surrounding Devil’s pond, the locals believing it released its spirits on July 15th every year. Thirty-one. Silks. Every year. He was on the verge of figuring it out when Carla spoke again.

‘Did you know one of the skeletons pulled out matched Boyle’s DNA profile? We reckon it was his father. He disappeared not long after his wife – Boyle’s mother – died. It looks like he killed him, too. His own father.’

‘What else have you found out about him?’

She laughed and stroked the back of his neck. ‘You’ll just have to wait for the book to find out.’





They arrived at almost eleven o’clock. He drove slowly down a farm track that led to within a quarter of a mile of the pond and switched off the engine and lights.

‘Shouldn’t we get nearer?’ she said.

‘If anyone comes, they’ll need a torch to see in this dark, so we’ll spot them easily enough. No, we’ll wait here.’

At just before midnight, Carla caught a glimpse of a low light in the darkness, moving slowly through the trees. Miller had dropped off, snoring gently.

‘Come on, Miller,’ Carla said, shaking him violently. ‘Quick! There’s someone over there!’

He woke, not quite knowing where he was.

Carla was already out of the car. If it really were the Clootie Fairy, she wanted to be the first see who it was. The leaden cloud cover broke, allowing moonlight to illuminate the surrounding land to some degree. Miller got out and ran after her.

Keeping under cover, they followed the shadow as it carried its dim light close to the waters. The dark clad figure put the lamp down and tied a fresh clootie in place, and turning picked up the lantern and moved closer to the water.

From behind, the figure was so small; Carla thought it was a child, but it couldn’t be. The clooties had appeared every year for over thirty years.

Carla’s torch gave her away. The figure froze on seeing the pool of light, and made no attempt at escape, instead, a thin voice rasped, ‘Who are you?’ It was a woman! She continued talking without waiting for an answer. ‘Every year on night of Ghost Day, I mark anniversary of death of my child in this place. When I hear of custom to tie rag wiped with hurt, and I see much old rag rot in the wind. I tear sleeve and leave there first time. After, I bring always finest silk. You know pain, it never go away.’

She turned to face Carla and Miller. In the torchlight, she looked younger than her years. Miller did the maths; she had to be in her late seventies, but could easily pass for a woman in her sixties.

Carla spoke to her softly. ‘Are you Lei Liang’s mother?’

‘Yes, I am.’ The old woman said, proudly raising her chin. ‘You didn’t tell me, who are you?’

‘My name is Carla Black and I’m hoping to solve the mystery of what happened to your daughter and the other people who died here.’ She indicated Miller. ‘This man is an investigator and I’m a reporter. We are not far off catching the man who did this.’