Loved by Mr. Night

Chapter 5

      Aria stared out of the window at the sun throwing shadows on the city’s magnificent stone buildings. Pictures of herself at various stages growing up flooded through her mind. The carefree Sunday afternoons going to matinee at the Odeon Cinema with her mother and Aubrey, then afterwards sitting in the George’s Square, feasting on fish chips wrapped in newspaper cones. Until it was time to get back home in the bus which would take them to the Maryhill tenement where they lived.

Happy days--- even though she knew that by nine thirty when she and Aubrey would be in bed, the men would come knocking on their door with plastic carry-out bags of vodka and a few cans of beer. They wouldn’t stay long and then someone else would come. And maybe even two together.

Aubrey and Aria could hear them laughing and sometimes arguing, then noises that she did not recognize. She had blackened Bobby Miller’s two eyes in the school playground one day when he had shouted that her mother was a w***e. At first she had punched him in the nose and broken it as there was a spray of blood and then she had not waited and punched him in the corner of his eyes, and punched till the teacher came and pulled her away from him.

He had never said so again but his words had remain stuck in her head saying that her mommy was a w***e even though at eight years she did not understand what it was. What the concept of a w***e was. Bobby Miller not saying it again did not make it any less true. It was her mommy, and she had heard her crying in the night too after the men had left to feel anger or disgust at whatever her eight year old mind could think a w***e was.

Aria swallowed the lump that had grown in her throat as the cab pulled out of the city and in the motorway. Her stomach knotted a little at the thought of seeing Aubrey again. She had been coming back as often as it was possible to see her sister in the caring home. Three or four times a year if possible, if she could manage it without anyone finding it out where she was. As far as most people were aware, Aubrey was long dead and she had preferred to keep it that way.

After she had found her all those years ago, a half-starved wreck in a locked ward of a Dickensian NHS psychiatric institution. Aubrey would remain dead so that she could work towards the single goal that had driven her since that one fateful night all those years earlier. She blinked away the picture.

At least Aubrey was safer now. And in a decent place and not in that s**t hole where they had her rotting away like no one for years. Aria’s money and her donations were plenty for the care of her sister and they had made sure that her sister would be well cared for and every time that she came over from Europe she would sit with her, talking to her empty eyes, holding her hands and telling her stories of them as children, hoping to provoke some reaction, evoke some memory. But Aubrey’s fixed gaze never flinched. Nothing.

Maybe today it would be different.

The nurse of the reception looked up and smiled when Aria came through the swinging doors and into the sterile tranquility of the main foyer.

“Hello Aria,” She put down the folder and came out from behind the desk.

“How lovely to see you. Are you well?” asked the nurse.

“Yeah,” said Aria behind the dark glasses.” I am good.”

She could not remember the name of the nurse who always greeted her with a warm and kind smile when she came to visit Aubrey every time she visited. She viewed it with cynicism like she had for most of the things that she had done when she was growing up. You always get what you pay for.

If this was NHS hospital, then you would have hardly got any attention or even a nod from the staff. Here amid all the oil paintings and the leather sofas in the foyer, they were all grace and charm. If you weren’t coming in to visit a loved one who was in permanent vegetative state or wired to the moon then you would think that you were in a boutique hotel.

“How is she?” Aria asked as they walked along the polished corridor to Aubrey’s room.

The nurse turned to her and made a sympathetic face.

“The same, I am afraid,” she sighed,” but we have to keep hoping. We should never give up hope.” She paused and turned to Aria and said,” She is up and we got her dressed and told her that you were coming.”

Aria nodded as they turned in the handle of the door as they walked in.

Aubrey was sitting in a glossy white wicker chair by the window, a shaft of the setting sun catching the paleness of her cheeks.

“Look who’s here, Aubrey. It is your wee little sister.”

Aubrey stared straight out of the window where acres of soft green grass stretched and spread into foothills in the distance. A male nurse pushed a wheelchair carrying an elderly patient down a tiny path down the lake.

Aria gave the nurse a nod.

“Thanks. We will be fine now.”

The nurse backed away, smiling, knowing that she had been dismissed.

Aria took a deep breath and swallowed back her tears with great difficulty. Every time she came here it was the same. It ripped the heart out of her. Aubrey was all that she had in the whole world to call as family. Even as children they had clung to each other both aware of the fragility of their own lives. Then after the fire, the terror of the night and the awful brutality, everything died, not just their mother.---in the inferno of their home.

Aubrey had retreated in her own world of terrifying silence and she had not spoken a word in all these years. While Aria grew up shunted from one children’s home to another, and she had been made to believe that her sister had been dead. The social workers had even told her so, no details. Nothing.

Aria walked towards Aubrey and stood in front of her and the window.

“Hey Abby, how is it going, big sis?”

She bent over and kissed her cheek. She put her arms around her and held her close, wanting to bury her face in her sister’s hair and again feel safe like they used to when they had curled up in bed like sppons a night.

“Oh Aubrey, I do miss you so much,” said Aria as she desperately fought back the tears.

She composed herself and pulled up a chair so that they faced each other. Aubrey stared past her. Aria moved around again, so that she was in her line of vision. She knew that she could see her. Aubrey had to know that she was there. She just had to.

“Guess what Aubrey,” said Aria, pouring them both a glass of fizzy water from the bottle in the ice-bucket.” He is dead. I did it.”

She reached out and stroked her sister’s hair with one hand while clutching her soft hand with the other.

“He is gone, Aubrey. I did what I said I would do. I killed the bastard.” She squeezed her hand looked into her eyes.” They say that s**t doesn’t burn, Aubrey but that is a lie. I tell you. Because let me tell you, pal, that piece of s**t burnt like a f*****g dry stick.”

She smiled willing her sister to respond--- anything. Then to her astonishment, Aubrey’s empty gaze slowly moved from the window. Her eye flickered a little, then focused on Aria, who sat barely breathing, terrified to break the spell. Then Aubrey’s pale blue eyes glistened with tears and Aria watched as they spilled over and fell down her cheeks. But it wasn’t like crying, because Aubrey’s lips had a hint of a smile. Then Aria felt her sister squeeze her hand tight.

“I know you can hear me, Aubrey. I know you can.”

Aria wrapped her arms around her sister, and her own tears fell as she felt that Aubrey’s arms slip around her for the first time in twenty years.

Aria lit up the cigarette as she sat in the conservatory of the home’s cafeteria. She took a long satisfying draw held in the smoke and then let it out slowly. Still feeling elated over how Aubrey had reacted. Somewhere behind those blank eyes her sister was still there, and her chat afterwards with her specialist was encouraging. It would take time, he had said. Time, she told him that all that she had now. But he stressed that there were no guarantees.

The couple from the table at the window got up and left and there was a copy of The Post lying on the table. Aria squinted at the headlines and then found.

MYSTERY WITNESS READY TO COME FORWARD IN THE RIPPER CASE

She automatically glanced around the empty café before getting up and going to the table across. Benathe the Post there was a copy of the Sun with the same kind of headline.

THE MYSTERY WITNESS MIGHT HOLD THE KEY TO NABBING THIS SERIAL KILLER

And she smiled seeing that Rob had decided to run with her version of the story….

Now all she needed to find was Adriel…but before that she one last job left to do.

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