The Sister(71)

He’d killed her! Surely, she’d be next.

She looked around her cell, desperately searching for a weapon; there wasn’t a single thing that would trouble him if she hit him with it. He was going to kill her and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. Unless she could convince him she was worth keeping.

She’d lost all her dignity years before. If she got through this, she might be able to buy herself the chance to escape later.

She stripped naked, sank onto the bed and waited for him.





An hour later he still hadn’t come for her. She was cold and pulled the covers over her. The stress had given her a dull headache. She wanted some scag; she wanted some sleep, and she wanted her nightmare to end. She prayed. Hovering on the brink of consciousness, about to sleep for the first time in weeks unaided by drugs, she thought she’d heard a woman cry. She sat up, listening. Then she heard Martin’s voice talking, low and smooth. She was alive!

The welcome sound of Cathy’s sobbing continued for a full five minutes while he tried to soothe her. Soon all was quiet again.

She lay back down and drew her knees into her chest. She heard the tell-tale stair creak. Eilise kept herself covered. Martin opened the door.

‘You almost killed her...what you did.’ Words formed in her head, but she dared not speak them.

He pulled the keys from his pocket and unlocked the cage. ‘I’ve got business to attend to. I need you to look after Cathy or she’ll die. You owe her.’

‘What’s wrong with her?’

He shrugged. ‘She took a beating, went too far.’

‘You should call a doctor.’

‘She’s a tough one; she’ll be all right,’ he said, ignoring her advice. ‘You can’t get out, don’t bother trying. Oh, and the place is soundproofed, so don’t waste your breath shouting. When I come back, she’d better be alive.’

He’s mental; she thought.

He walked out down the corridor. She heard the door slam, the deadbolts turning.

She slipped her T-shirt on and made her way upstairs. The stair creaked. ‘I’m coming, Cath,’ she said quietly.

Eilise found her propped in bed; her eyes welled up at the sight of her. Her breathing was shallow; although she was breathing through her mouth, a tiny mucous bubble of blood inflated in her left nostril with every exhalation. She looked in a bad way. How a man could do that to a woman was beyond her. Eilise decided to let her sleep. She lay on the bed next to her, listening for her laboured breathing, afraid in case it should stop.

It was almost midnight when Cathy wet the bed.

Oh, great!





Martin was gone for days; she nursed Cathy back to health as best she could. She was still reluctant to talk about him and wouldn’t hear a word said against him. He was right about them not getting out. Without tools, there was no way. Eilise wondered what would happen to them if something happened to him.





Chapter 56



The caller studied his face in the car’s rear-view mirror; he had his father’s bony eye sockets, hammered out of shape by many fights, a nose broken so many times it resembled a chimney rock formation. The flinty eyes and bullet head came from his father, too, but he had his mother’s mouth, fleshy mashed up lips and teeth that whilst even and white, grew inwards and backwards like a shark’s. Few people settled their eyes on him for long. He always got a feeling if someone was looking at him and he’d often swing around and catch them. Most times, once he’d glared at them, they would turn away.

There was something feral and animalistic about him, something familiar, too, like a photo fit, where the top doesn’t quite match the bottom. Sometimes, when he was in a mirror gazing mood, he wondered if he’d become what he was because of what he looked like.

Without the benefit of a formal education, he more than made up for it with cunning and deviousness and a sharp intelligence that belied his appearance. Able to imitate voices, he experimented with speaking in different ways; he could sound posh and well educated and as rough and unintelligible as a raging drunk. On top of that, he was also a master of disguise, frequently changing his appearance, especially after significant events in his life. The disguises were something his father had taught him. Never stay the same… He used them to cover another genetic trait he shared with his father, for which he hated him.

As Midnight, he’d wear glasses, wigs, beards, moustaches, skin tan lotions. The clothes he wore ranged from lumberjack work shirts through to business suits. Every job he carried out, he engineered with scenes of crime in mind; he knew what they'd be looking for. Unless he wanted to plant something, he left no clues. During his years on the road, he learned to read, and it helped him make sense of the paperwork he would find at people’s houses. In an attempt to control his urges, he applied disciplines that diverted his interests elsewhere.

He learned about people and their quirks. Unafraid to experiment with manipulation he observed the different outcomes, and never stopped asking what if questions, developing scenarios.

An expert in surveillance, he learned to play chess with other people’s lives. His plans came about like evolution.

The pills in the bathroom cabinet, and the smell of the empty glass left on the side of the basin confirmed that gin was her extra poison for the night, a dangerous mix. The blonde wouldn’t have woken up if he’d driven a truck through her bedroom.