The Sister(41)

‘I had a bit of an altercation over a spilt drink. No harm done. Looks worse than it is; we shook hands and had a drink together after.’ He jerked a thumb in her direction. ‘She’s a nurse. I know her from the Hospital. I’m a porter there.’

The officer looked at her uniform and asked her again. ‘Are you sure you’re all right, Miss?’

She started humming ‘The Girl is mine’, her eyes lighting up as she suddenly exclaimed, ‘Michael!’ She covered her mouth, surprised at the loudness of her voice. ‘Michael, that’s his name. I keep forgetting. 'Course I’m all right! He’s taking me home.’

‘That’s right. That’s what I’m doing,’ the man said.

‘What’s your full name and address, Michael?’ The officer asked.

Before he could answer, violent shouts from the disturbance further down the street drew the officer’s attention, distracting him. The constable broke into a jog, turning to call back.

‘Michael, make sure you get her home safely, okay?’

‘Oh, I will,’ said the stranger softly behind the officer’s back. ‘I definitely will.’

Her left leg buckled, pitching her down and away from him. Catching her before she hit the pavement, ‘Michael’ manoeuvred her into the front passenger side of the car with difficulty, brushing his hand across her breasts as he strapped her seat belt on. Although her eyes were closed, she wasn’t actually asleep. She mumbled something unintelligible and then sighed, exhaling slowly. Within moments, she began to snore.

Michael started the engine.

Ten minutes later, her head lolled and bucked with every pothole the car went over as it lurched its way down the dark lane, headlights bouncing up and down, illuminating the shadowy trees before coming to a halt. He turned the lights off and the moon, almost full, bathed the car in its silvery light.

For a moment he watched her shallow breathing, and then he leaned over, inhaling her exhaled breath, running his hand up the inside of her thigh. She stirred. He hesitated and then hooked a finger into her panties, pulling them to one side.

‘Huh?’ she said groggily. ‘I hope you didn’t do that on purpose.’





Chapter 31



Kathy Bird never made it back home that night. The weeks and months rolled by, turning into a long nightmare from which there was no awakening. The appeals and campaigns were in vain; they didn’t turn up anything. The case even featured the following year on the pilot Crimewatch programme. Nobody came forward with any new or significant leads.

After a year of endless campaigning, on the first anniversary of her disappearance, her mother broke down.

‘I can’t take this anymore; she’s gone, hasn’t she?’ Her small shoulders looked frail, slumped in defeat. She shuddered as she took another breath. A deep sob racked her chest. ‘We’re never going to see her again,’ she said it as a matter of fact, a strange light in her eyes.

‘Don’t ever say that again.’ Kathy’s father took her in his arms and held her. ‘She isn’t dead. If she was, I'd know. I would feel it.’

‘You believe that?’

‘I believe it with all my heart.’

Her lips found their way onto his. The surprise both of them felt, melted into a kind of urgency, a clinging to life and each other that they hadn’t experienced since she’d disappeared. She began to act strangely as if in possession of a new vigour. He was unsure exactly what she was going through, but suspected from their frenzied and frequent couplings that she was hoping for a baby. Finally, he’d asked her as they lay in post sexual silence.

‘Yes, I want another little girl or I’m going to go crazy.’

‘What if you do get pregnant and it turns out to be a boy?’

She rolled over onto her side and looked at him with absolute conviction. ‘It will be a girl.’





Her parents named her Stella because the name reminded them of the stars. Mrs Bird brought her up as far as she could tell exactly the same way as she did Kathy.

Not long after learning to walk, Stella realised there was a room that was always kept shut. When she was tall enough to operate the door handle, her mother took her inside to satisfy her curiosity. ‘You have a sister; you look just like her, apart from your hair. She had dark hair.’ She told the little girl all about Kathy, every little thing she could think of.

She stared at her mother and asked innocently, ‘If she is my sister, where is she?’

Her mother gazed into the distance beyond the window. ‘She’s out there somewhere, lost. We will find her one day, your father and I.’ Her eyes misted with tears as she continued, ‘For now, all we have is that photograph, and you of course.’ She forced a smile. ‘She’ll come home one day.’

Stella did not recognise the look in her mother’s eyes – not in those days – as she stared out of the window into a distant place. It would be years before she realised her mother was lost, too, and that while Stella was young enough to depend on her, she was just distracted enough to continue to cope.

As Stella got older, a fear grew up inside her mother. Terrified at losing her, too; she lost faith in Kathy ever returning. It all proved too much. When she reached eighteen years of age, her parents killed themselves in a suicide pact.