The Sister(54)

The show also covered an armed robbery on a jeweller’s shop, an aggravated burglary, an appeal for information about a fifteen-year-old runaway girl thought to be living rough in the London or Essex area. DCI Kendricks also put in an appearance, appealing for help in solving a rape and attempted murder case.

The filming completed without a hitch, but when they broadcast the programme later, there was a problem with the editing. They'd mixed up the cases and the detectives who were dealing with them. Kennedy’s name and contact telephone number were allocated to the rape case, and Kendricks’ details to the Kathy Bird disappearance.

Apart from the mix up with the cases and the phone numbers, the show had gone remarkably well. They corrected the numbers in a bulletin at the end of the show.

When he watched a re-run of the programme – at the point immediately after they gave his contact details, he heard something in the background. Rewinding, he played it again. With the volume right up, someone could be heard speaking faintly in the background, something unintelligible and then quite suddenly and barely audible, These people are vile. Said off camera, it had cut in right after the piece by Kennedy. It sounded like him, but he knew the voice wasn’t his; it only took a moment to figure out.

Kendricks said it!

Nobody else seemed to notice.

It wasn’t right. He debated whether to complain about it. The comment was irrelevant, but Kendricks shouldn’t have said it. He’d have words with him in the morning. He imagined himself talking to John senior about it. Anyone can make a mistake, John, but if you feel that strongly about it…

He thought about his father, and it took him back twenty-three years, to just after the news that he’d been the last person to see Kathy alive. John senior had picked it apart for him.

‘She said she knew him; you had no reason to 'call it in’. They called you out to attend a disturbance; you did what you had to do. It was a million to one chance, something like that happening; you can’t feel guilty about it. Everything you did was right. It isn’t as if you knew he’d kidnap her, is it?’

‘I should have known. I should have had a gut instinct.’

John senior had laid a reassuring hand on him. ‘Those gut instincts take time and experience to recognise. You did nothing wrong.’

Maybe, Dad, but it still haunts me.

Compared to the mistakes he’d made twenty-three years ago, the production errors paled into insignificance. By taking it no further, he set in motion a chain of events he couldn’t possibly have foreseen. When he looked back later at the pivotal events around which everything turned, he’d realise the editors and their cutting room mistake, had started a lunatic off on his trail.





Chapter 40



Tina Solomons heard the front door open. She turned the television volume down and listened intently.

‘Mum, is that you?’

There was no reply.

Tina swung both legs out from underneath her on the sofa. She was half way across the lounge before she heard the rustling of shopping bags. It was her mum.

She sighed with relief.

At the other end of the hall, Jackie Solomons heaved the last of the shopping bags in, and turning, back-heeled the front door closed. She leaned against it for a moment with her eyes closed. She could have slept there and then she was so tired. As Tina watched her, she suddenly sprang back to life. The few seconds rest had allowed her to snap out of it. Come on girl! She started putting the bags away.

‘Don’t look, Tina!’ she called out. ‘Most of these are for you.’ It was almost Christmas. Tina smiled. The only time of the year, her mum was truly happy.

Half an hour later, after Jackie had showered, she entered the room dressed in a black silk kimono, her long dark hair tied back. From behind, she could almost have passed for a Japanese lady. She was carrying a plate with a couple of sandwiches on it. ‘Want one?’ she said, offering them to Tina.

‘No, I’m all right, Mum – I had something earlier.’

‘What’s that you’re watching?’ Tina quickly switched the channel over.

‘No, wait – go back a sec.’

After what happened to her, she never watched programmes like Crimewatch. She always felt that whilst the programme did a lot of good in respect of helping to solve crime and catch criminals, a lot of the viewers came from the same mould as people that craned their necks round to have a good look when they passed a road crash, human vultures flicking through the channels, looking for someone else’s misery to feed on. It was part of the reason she didn’t like Tina watching it.

The photograph had her hooked; caught on screen in the moment it took Tina to change the channel. ‘Go back!’ Jackie said.

The girl had reminded her of someone.

‘Mum, it’s Crimewatch!’ Tina said.

‘Put it back on. I want to see.’

When Tina switched it back over, the girl had gone, but Jackie had seen enough of her to register. She looked like me.

Jackie should have just walked away, but her curiosity was aroused.

‘Who was that girl, Tina?’

‘She’s someone who’s gone missing from near here.’

‘Oh, Jesus – no!’ Jackie’s hands flew to her cheeks, partly shielding her eyes.

‘It’s okay, Mum, you don’t have to worry. It’s a cold case. It happened over twenty years ago.’