The Sister(91)
It contained twelve jars originally; he had reduced the number to seven before he brought the box with him. Of the seven kept elsewhere, one had already been used. Only four more were needed, and then he was done.
He crept back out the way he came in. His victim had a window of opportunity. Check. One move he can still make. After that, there won’t be a thing he can do about it. Checkmate.
He paused to look at the back of the house from the other side of the fence. A light switched on in one upstairs room, then in another. It gave the house the appearance of two big square eyes, staring out of a dark face, looking out into the night.
‘I’m coming to get ya, Kennedy,’ he whispered.
Then he shrank away from the fence and made his way back along the alleyway.
Chapter 73
Early hours, 7 March
As the last lights turned off in the bungalow, the intruder remained in the shadows by the garden summerhouse. He stayed in the same place for a full hour. The frosted window of the bathroom in the house next door came on. The colour of naked flesh caught his eye; it was a dark haired female form, coming close enough to the glass as she cleaned her teeth for him to make out her breasts as they swayed pendulously. A minute later, the light went out.
He moved silently, withdrawing the ladder that he knew was behind the storage shed. These people that keep unsecured ladders lying around, where would we be without them? Shaking his head, he rested the ladder against the wall. It was just long enough to project above the roofs edge. He climbed up and formed an opening just above the eaves line, removing only enough tiles to enable him to squeeze through. Twenty-four inches square should be enough. He slid them up twisting them out, laying them down, restrained by thin steel anchor straps that he inserted into the tiles either side of the opening. When he’d finished, he would use the same straps re secure the tiles in their original position, to bridge across the void he’d made, then he would put the ladder back as he found it. The tiles would hold, at least until the next strong wind.
He cropped through the exposed timber battens with heavy loppers and sliced a flap through the felt underneath. With his penlight torch in his mouth, he silently squeezed in between the rafters at the far end of the bungalow, away from the bedrooms. Pulling the loose felt down behind him, and then taking the torch from his mouth, he shone it onto the boarded out roof space before him, and then crouched low to avoid banging his head on the timber cross beams, moving forwards slowly; easing his feet down, he shifted his weight with each step, listening intently for tell-tale creaks that might alert the occupants in the rooms below him.
He knew there was little danger of waking either of them, because when he’d scouted the outside of the house the night before, the bins revealed that both of them took something to help them sleep; in the case of one, from the empty whiskey bottles in the recycling, it was alcohol. In the case of the other, it was Tramadol.
The area of the loft closest to the access hatch had shelves built for storage. Stacked in rows of boxes, from the looks of it, were the entire family archives. If he’d had the time, he would quite happily spend all night and day reading up on them and their dealings, absorbing it all for some future campaign. One day, he might come back.
He passed the torch beam across the shelves. All the boxes were labelled with the details of their contents and archived in date order –utility bills, bank statements, appliance guarantees, old vehicle documents and then to one side, two boxes similarly labelled, but marked ‘Johns Records’ 1963 – 1981 and 1982 – 1992. He peeled the tape off the top of the latter box and lifted out a lever file; he ran his latex covered fingers through the contents. Not this one. Pulling another out, he realised the contents were listed on the spine. He had moved a dozen files before he found what he was looking for. The box was full of pay slips, bank statements, old cheque stubs and paying in books, dating back fifteen years or more. He removed a paying in book. A couple of unused slips remained inside; he put them in his pocket. Returning everything to the way he found it, he spotted an old newspaper encapsulated in a clear plastic sheet; the print still looked crisp and fresh. 'Kennedy Assassinated'. After quickly reading the page, he withdrew it from its preserving sleeve and folded it into his inside jacket pocket.
There was another box on the shelf marked ‘newspapers and magazines’. It was heavy. Inside, were dozens of True Crime magazine, more newspapers, clippings, scrapbooks. He opened one. The childish scrawl told him who had written it and when. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Fall 1976. ‘Somebody’s been reading too many American magazines, eh Kennedy?’ he whispered to himself as he put the box back.
Shining the torch across the floor, he located the loft access hatch; he levered the sides up with a screwdriver lifting it clear, setting it down quietly, he leaned down and listened. The sounds of two people deeply snoring reached his ears. Each had a distinctive sound. Lowering himself down onto a coffee table, almost slipping on the cloth that covered it, he regained his balance in an instant, then reaching up, replaced the access cover. Stepping down, he crossed the hallway, looking in on both sleepers. Old man Kennedy was flat on his back, mouth open, throat half closed, throttled by the weight of his tongue. Across the passageway in her room, his wife was propped almost upright, snoring through gritted teeth, like waves rolling on the shore. He resisted the temptation to root around in their rooms while they slept.