The Sister(59)
The DCI stood and walked to the door, holding it open. ‘Let me know if anything relevant turns up.’
Tanner spun on his heel and left.
Kennedy closed the venetian blinds, returned to his chair and, leaning back, stared at the ceiling. I never agreed with you on a lot of things, Dad, but you were right about friends and business. Keep 'em apart.
Chapter 45
Kennedy drifted back; he recalled the effect Kathy’s disappearance had had on him. He seemed to have spent every single hour of his off-duty time canvassing passers-by. His persistence seemed to have paid off when he stopped a man in his twenties, who recognised her from the photograph he showed him. He’d been at the Dire Straits concert that night, and he remembered seeing her.
‘Yeah, I saw her; in the foyer, she was wasted. I thought it was, well, I thought she was just drunk until I saw this guy pass her a doobie.’ He made a furtive gesture towards Kennedy with his hand cupped. Kennedy almost held his hand out to receive the imagined offering. ‘He palmed her twice, the second time it was a pill. I know that 'cos she dropped it on the floor, and he shot down really quick to pick it up before someone else swooped on it. He gave it back to her, and she popped it straight away, I remember thinking, boy, she’s keen. She put the joint in her mouth, but never lit it as far as I could see. The guy leaves her. He didn’t take any money from her; you know. I think he was hoping to score off her later, or maybe he knew her, I don’t know, then he goes over and does a deal with someone else. I only took my eyes off her for a minute, but when I looked back, she was gone.’
‘Would you recognise him, if you saw him again?’
‘I can do better than that; I used to see him at the youth centre. I’m sure the guy’s name was Hutchins. Gary Hutchins.’
He followed the lead, getting no further with the dealer until he threatened to have him busted right there and then. Nervously pushing his long blonde hair back from his face, Hutchins’ complexion had paled. Kennedy gambled he was probably carrying, and he was right.
‘What do you want from me?’ he said, licking his lips nervously.
‘You were seen handing Kathy a pill, what was it?’
‘It was an aspirin… No wait what are you doing?’
Radio in hand, he said, ‘I’m calling the Drugs squad.’
‘No, no, wait. It was an aspirin, but dipped in acid.’
‘You gave her an aspirin dipped in LSD?’
‘It was two, actually; she asked if I had anything for a headache.’
Kennedy made no effort to conceal his disgust. ‘Did she know what it was?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, half shrugging, ‘but she knows what I’m like.’
Later that night, Kennedy arranged for a raid on Hutchins.
He tried everything, and although he couldn’t consciously remember the registration of the car he and the taxi driver had seen; he’d heard it was possible under hypnosis to recall such details. A specialist tried to regress him, but without any success.
He concluded she either was dead, or she didn’t want to be found. He considered the impact two doses of LSD could have had on her. It was clear from a subsequent interview that Hutchins made no real effort to control the amount of LSD put on each tablet, he’d simply used an old ear dropper. Kennedy consulted experts, but their opinions were divided. There were just too many unknown variables.
Further investigations revealed Hutchins was responsible for any number of bad trips with the users ending up in hospital. He eventually spent four years in jail for drugs offences.
He remembered Kathy’s parents, how they'd been in denial. ‘She never took drugs!’ her mother said hotly, and her father agreed, nodding vehemently.
They continued to campaign tirelessly, putting up posters in shop windows, stopping to ask people questions in the street, for years. Eventually, shops refused to allow them to keep their posters up anymore, explaining; it isn’t good for business.
At Kennedy’s intervention, they'd managed to keep the official 'Missing' poster at the station for longer than usual, and beyond that, they kept one on display in the vets where her mother worked and another facing out onto the street from the window of their home.
In the end, it proved too much for them.
It was as if she’d disappeared off the face of the earth.
DCI Kennedy parted a couple of slats in the blind with his fingers and looked out over the office from the observation panel. The one blot in my career copybook. That he was unable to rectify it irked him. He suddenly thought about the guilty pleasures he enjoyed with Marilyn. If that were ever to get out... He nailed the thought. After all, he wasn’t hurting anyone and as long as he kept it to himself, that was how it would stay.
Chapter 46
4 January 2007
Tanner rang the number the Irishman had given him, someone else answered; he gave him another number to try. He left a host of messages for Doherty to call him. He proved to be a hard man to pin down, it transpired he was in London visiting relatives over Christmas, and he’d left his mobile phone in Dublin. In the New Year, he finally received the message. He was still in the capital. Tanner arranged for him to attend the station for an interview.