The Sister(37)

He drew out the last of the inheritance his grandfather had left him and flew to Amsterdam the following day.





Chapter 27



Three weeks later, Miller found himself sitting opposite a man he’d met for the first time only a few minutes earlier. The office was clearly that of a very wealthy man.

‘I thought it was important to meet you,’ Donovan Kale said, ‘and to hear your account of things, first hand.’ He ran his hand through his thick dark hair, revealing a few strands of grey. Thin faced with a single deep vertical crease on each cheek, his deep brown eyes narrowed as he focused them on the young man before him.

Miller was still jittery, the nervous energy draining rapidly from him as exhaustion took over.

The older man steepled his hands. ‘Go on, in your own time.’

Never particularly good at explaining things, he took a deep breath and just started talking. ‘It wasn’t long after Josie disappeared, and I didn’t care about what happened to me anymore, but then I met an old teacher of mine.’ He caught the look of confusion on the other man’s face and paused. ‘Am I making sense? I don’t make sense at the best of times. I’m tired.’

Kale nodded, and said, ‘Go on, it’s okay.’

Suddenly keen to get the whole thing off his chest, he continued, ‘And the other thing was I think I wanted her out of there; because I knew what it was like to have someone go missing. It became an obsession to find Olga, I don’t know if you can understand that. I just had to do it.’ He looked for a reaction from Kale, who rolled his hand over, gesturing for him to continue.

‘I got myself recruited. I couldn’t believe how many people they'd squeezed onto that bus. For a moment as we were driving, I thought, what if they have more than one commune that they can take them to? I needn’t have worried.

‘They'd taken over a former school and its entire grounds. The place was enormous, and once inside there must have been six hundred lost souls in various states of delusion. They made us all feel extraordinarily welcome, bombarded us with love and affection, lots of touchy-feely contact. If it wasn’t for the fact that I could switch off – dissociate myself – they'd have had me. They nearly did anyway.

‘They kept the new ones separated at first, singled out for special treatment. It was three days before I saw her; she had this beatific smile on her face, and she was gone – brainwashed already, but I saw where they kept her at night. The place had four separate accommodation wings, which they locked down at lights out. They allowed a limited amount of association, supervised by trusties, or premies; I think that’s what they called themselves.

‘To get over to her wing, I had to cross a central hub, which was the main surveillance area. Security patrolled outside, so going that way was out of the question. The chances of getting to her undetected were virtually zero. I was lying in my bunk when it came to me. I'd cross over using the underground heating ducts. When we'd first arrived, I noticed that the distance between the ventilation bricks and the underside of the windowsills probably meant there was an under floor void at least four feet high. I waited until everyone else was asleep and then lifted a panel in the corridor floor.

‘Once below, I carefully replaced it and started towards the centre, holding the pipes as navigation. I’ve never been in such a dark place in all my life. It took me forever to reach it. I could hear the guards pacing the floor above. I lost count of the number of times I banged my head where lines of different pipes crossed over.

‘My back hurt from bending forwards at the waist, the actual depth of the walkway must have been about four and a half feet, decreasing as I neared the central hub, so I had to half crawl. To my advantage, the pipes were noisy. Security wasn’t expecting anyone to do what I was doing, so any noise I made went unnoticed. When I finally got to the middle, the darkness and confined space had left me so disorientated, I lost all sense of direction.

‘I handed myself over to blind chance, and miraculously ended up over on her wing. The access points into, and out of the ducts, were around every fifty yards or so and detectable by the short cat-ladders that stuck out beyond the pipelines. I listened for a long time to make sure it was safe to come out. Although the lights were out, after having been in total darkness, I could see easily. I was just figuring out how to find her, when she came out half-asleep to visit the toilet. I couldn’t believe my luck; I knew then I had God on my side.’

When he’d finished telling his story, the man opposite who had listened without interruption, finally spoke again.

‘You acted with no authority, completely off your own back, putting yourself at considerable risk – on the strength of what you read in the newspapers.’

Miller felt the spotlight heat of the man’s eyes as they searched him.

‘I assume you thought you'd be well rewarded if you had pulled it off?’

He shook his head. ‘I never gave it a thought.’

Kale said nothing, but the expression on his face and the tilt of his head made it clear he expected an explanation.

‘I did it because I wanted to feel worthy again. When Josie disappeared I knew how that felt. When I saw the papers, I just had to do something. You see, I had some bad luck when I was a kid.’

‘What sort of bad luck?’

Miller told him. He listened intently.