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  Detective Jonas typed the name Estelle Munroe into the police database and search system. Nothing came up. There wasn’t even one single person in the whole of Scotland called Estelle with a criminal record her name was so rare in that part of the world.

  The CCTV footage that had recently come in from the stadium too was also utterly useless. There were no cameras inside any of the toilets there. All he had to go on were long-distance grainy images of a hooded top person entering and then exiting the particular men’s room in question. And a person of interest wearing black jeans or trousers and a dark blue hooded top pretty much described more than half of the entire stadiums crowd that night.

  Jonas took a long sip from his cold cup of coffee. Luke had to be wrong about Gayle’s estranged older sister. It was right there in official black and white in the police database for everyone to see. This Estelle woman, whoever the hell she might be, didn’t exist or Estelle Munroe wasn’t her real name. That had to be the truth of it? Or else what was the bloody alternative? That some kind of higher government authority figure had completely deleted and erased a single human being from the entire Scottish police and legal system?

  Who had the power to do such a thing?

  Jonas chuckled at such insane thoughts of nonsense. This wasn’t the X-files. There were no secret government agencies at play here or surely if there had been, then he’d at least vaguely be aware of them after all the shit he’d seen, done, and been through in his twenty odd years in the force. And because of who he now worked for on the take.

  Once he was done Jonas made the short drive over to the Glasgow royal infirmary where Luke was recovering from recently having had his broken arm reset and his stab-wounded shoulder stitched and bandaged up.

  Inside the surprisingly quiet ward, Luke was resting in a private room all to himself and Jonas didn’t find it particularly surprising either what dirty money could get you on the NHS. Luke sat upright on his comfortable hospital bed watching the football highlights of the Rangers game on TV when Jonas walked in. It was the game that he’d missed watching with his own eyes because of his unexpected dealings with Estelle back at the stadium, so he still didn’t even know the full-time score.

  Luke pretended to be happy to see the detective. But in all honesty, he couldn’t stand the prick. Yes, they’d done some pretty terrible and shady things together that past year, forced to work side by side by the higher powers of the political system who had hired them both, on more occasions than they cared to count, to carry out their illegal activities within the city perimeters, which had been obviously more beneficial for Luke in the long run since he was the one doing all the physical leg work out on the streets and therefore earning the majority of the dirty money.

  And even though Detective Jonas was being handsomely rewarded for his participation, he was only really involved because the higher shady powers that be had some kind of strong hold over him. Their own little bent copper on the force to toy with, use, and abuse as freely as they saw fit.

  “Detective Jonas. Long time no fucking see!” Luke teased. “What’s it been, like two hours since we last saw each other? Are you here to give me a ride home by any chance?”

  Jonas wasn’t in the mood for Luke’s fun games and mocking shit humor. He hated the hooligan thug waster just as much as Luke despised him. So, he didn’t even engage in Luke’s witty banter and instead just got straight to the nitty gritty.

  “I’ve checked Gayle’s file. She was an only child. An orphan. She never had a sister. And this Estelle Munroe character that beat the shit out of you and your idiot chums, or whoever the hell imaginary childhood friend you imagined her to be, doesn’t even have a fucking record. She isn’t in our system and therefore does not fucking exist.”

  Luke laughed hard at that. He even began clapping loudly until the pain in his recently stitched up shoulder made him wince in agony. Which of course brought a wry smile to Jonas’s lips.

  “Jesus, you have been keeping yourself busy these past few hours detective. Look, Jonas, mate. I know who the fuck she is. I grew up with her back in the day, for Christ’s sake. If she’s not in your system, then someone has erased her from your shitty little system.”

  Jonas sniggered and gently shook his head. To him Luke was living in a fantasy land. Years of unlimited drug use and violent blows to his head along with always looking over his shoulder on the streets had turned him into a delusional, paranoid fantasist.

  “Estelle fucking Munroe.” Luke continued. “Cold Heart, we used to call her out on the streets. She was a cold, heartless, delinquent fucking whore with a criminal record longer than my own.”

  “Now that I do find hard to believe.”

  “She was always in trouble with you pig fuckers.” Luke went on. “Petty thieving, pick pocketing, muggings, stabbings. You name it! Hell, she’d even stick a knife to her own granny if she was guaranteed a pack of cigarettes out of it.”

  Jonas chuckled again and shook his head.

  “Cold Heart, aye?”

  “Like I said, this was the nickname she was given back in the day. She was the reason that Gayle went into foster care, for Christ’s sake. She strangled her own mother and butchered her own step father”

  “I think someone did a real good number on you tonight, Luke. That’s what I think. Did you get treated for a concussion too? That’s some fucking imagination you have there after your new knock to the head.”

  Luke suddenly pulled back his bed covers to show his naked left leg to Jonas. Etched upon his upper thigh was a large three-inch scar. An obvious old knife wound.

  “For fuck’s sake! She even stabbed me in the leg when I was fifteen. Psycho fucking bitch that she was. Did I imagine that, too, you dumb cunt? Check the CCTV footage at the stadium for Christ sake.”

  “The grainy footage inside the stadium does confirm that you and your gang got the shit kicked out of you by someone wearing a hooded top when they entered and exited that men’s room. But it’s gonna take some time to identify her or him over the next few days. We don’t even have a clear shot of his or her face.”

  “It’s a fucking her.” Luke continued to rage.

  “I’ll take your word for it.” Jonas said with a wry smirk. He was actually beginning to quite enjoy himself seeing how worked up Luke was becoming. Jonas then took a deep breath and sighed.

  “Okay. Just say she really is Gayle’s long-lost big sister, cousin, whatever. Say, some high and mighty all-powerful dude deleted all history and evidence of her from our database and files, what the fuck does she want with you?”

  “She wanted her sister’s ashes.”

  “So, give them to her.”

  “And she wanted to know what happened to her sister.”

  “She doesn’t believe that she went for a swim and drowned of her own free will?”

  “Nope.”

  Jonas hesitated.

  “Then I guess we have a problem.” Jonas finally retorted.

  “No, detective. You have the fucking problem. And you need to make it go away.”

  Chapter 12

  Drenched from the recent rainfall and looking even more like death warmed up than some poor sucker with a bad dose of the coronavirus, Estelle sat inside a quiet little wine bar in the middle of the Finnieston bar strip. Gayle’s ashes sat up on the table beside her as she sipped on a large glass of red wine while a small collection of jazz musicians played some soft but beautiful light jazz and blues tunes at the opposite end of the quirky pub.

  Some of the more overly dressed customers couldn’t help but stare over at Estelle from time to time, giving the tattered, messy, hobo-looking lass nothing but tainted whispers and dirty sneers.

  A smartly dressed older gentleman drinking alone up at the bar kept glancing over at her too, but with his own sly agendas in mind. He was trying to catch her eye with a charming smile, which was never going to be noticed by Estelle in her state, let alone returned. She was clearly a woman with a lot on her mind.
r />   Not to be deterred, the man made his move all the same. He left his tall bar stool and swaggered on over to the woman, who in his mind seemed to be the perfect damsel in distress. A vulnerable woman who looked as if she were in dire need of saving, along with being a possible easy lay on a slow, quiet weekday night, which, in the end, were the bare nuts and bolts of his intentions.

  The charming older man hovered over Estelle, patiently waiting for her to look up and acknowledge his bold presence with his cheap winning smile that had charmed so many other vulnerable ladies of all ages over the years. As he stood there, still without the slightest bit of recognition on her part for his efforts, the man almost had second thoughts. She did look in a right terrible state. Moody, cold, stern-looking, like she’d just barely escaped from a street brawl with a pack of wolves. But then again, she was there in a bar and on her own. So, in his caveman mind she was most likely there for one thing. To be picked up. Used, abused, and manipulated until he’d had both his fun and wicked way and was ready to send her on her miserable way again.

  There was something about her though, the man thought, some kind of rough, rugged edge that made him uneasy and twitch in all the wrong places. But apart from her dark, brooding, and vulnerable sadness, she did look very toned and fit underneath those tattered clothes. He believed he had a good talent too for judging women’s’ bodies and what they were like, especially underneath baggy layers of clothing. And he had a good feeling that this particular girl had a tight, cracking little body on her and his sexual player within was challenging himself to find out.

  When Estelle still didn’t gaze up at the man after almost thirty seconds of him standing over her like some dumb waiter, he began to feel a little bit awkward and self-conscious. Eventually he gently coughed before speaking out, making his presence fully known.

  “Hey there. Are you alone?”

  Estelle snapped out of her trance. She guessed, at first, from the corner of her eye, that the tall, older suited man might be another waiter as she gently gazed up with a steely but tired stare. It was then that the man noticed the big red urn sitting on the table top beside Estelle for the very first time. Why hadn’t he noticed it before? Probably his tipsy brain assumed it was something to do with the restaurant’s decor. A new modern salt and pepper shaker design or perhaps a bucket of ice. But there it was, plain as fucking day. A bloody urn on the middle of her table.

  Estelle continued to stare with a deathly gaze up at the smarmy but now unnerved-looking man. She felt so beat up and tired, like she didn’t even have the energy to open her mouth and tell the guy to politely fuck off once she realized through his ridiculous grin and sexual body language what he was really after.

  The man found it hard to look Estelle in the eyes now. There was something wrong, soulless, almost terrible, and horrifying about them. His instincts told him to swiftly turn around and leave her vicinity immediately. Walk away. Walk back to the bar and cut his losses before something bad happened. Yet still, he couldn’t stop himself from opening his mouth. Perhaps it was just the sheer awkwardness of the situation and the curious eyes of the rest of the bar’s clientele upon him.

  “I was just sitting over there… and I saw that you were sitting all alone, so I wondered if you would like… some company.”

  “Please. Just kindly, piss off.” Estelle replied with a tone that sent a little chill through the man’s spine.

  “Fair enough,” replied the no-longer-smarmy man, feeling somewhat relieved by the cold, hard rejection that had saw him fall flat upon his face. He swiftly turned away and headed back to his bar stool to await the next opportunity to present itself. Perhaps he’d even wait for some inviting eye contact next time from his new target. He had no wish to go through such a painful experience like that again.

  As soon as the man turned around and left, Estelle lit up a new cigarette, using the top of her sister’s Urn as a temporary ashtray. She gulped down the rest of her wine, trying to wash away another long-forgotten, unwanted memory that was slowly resurfacing and creeping its way upon her.

  Estelle began thinking back again to when she was fifteen. She’d just arrived home from another after-school house party. She’d drank and smoked far too much for her own good and was struggling to walk in a straight line, even down her own garden path.

  She was about to light up and sneak one last quick smoke for the night before she stumbled inside to face the angry music from her dickhead stepfather. Her mother didn’t give a shit those days if she smoked or drank like a fish, but for some reason that shithead, dipshit, bully stepfather of hers did. And he took great enjoyment from harassing her nonstop about what she got up to while living underneath his shitty roof—which she’d always chuckled hard at since it was still officially her dead father’s roof.

  Young Estelle lit up her fag and took her first draw. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she realized that the back door to the family home had been left wide open. She couldn’t think of one, single good reason why that would be, especially in such a derelict and high crime neighborhood as hers. Studying the rest of the outside of the house, everything felt and seemed so damn quiet. Every window was black as night, bar a dim low light coming from behind the blinds of the far end kitchen window.

  Estelle threw her barely touched fag onto the ground and stepped inside the dark open doorway. As soon as she set foot into the hall, she heard a gentle but unusual sobbing coming from the direction of the kitchen. She didn’t recognize the distressing sound one bit. It sounded so unfamiliar. She knew the distinct sounds of both her sister’s and mother’s sobs and cries like the back of her hand, but this was a million miles away. It sounded more like a faint wailing and whining dog. It was so completely alien to her eardrums that it sobered her up in a heartbeat.

  Estelle took a breath and walked into the kitchen. The kitchen light was off, but bizarrely a small bedroom lamp sat with its dim light switched-on right on top of the worktop beside the kitchen sink. Estelle edged a few more steps inside before freezing in absolute horror at what she saw sprawled out in the shadows in front of her.

  Her mother and Gayle were both lying flat out on the kitchen floor, seemingly lifeless. Both dead as doornails, in fact. That’s what it looked like. That was her first spine-chilling impression of the tragic scene laid bare out in front of her. None of them appeared to be moving or breathing in the slightest. It was such an unnatural and unnerving position to find someone you cared about lying in and it rocked Estelle to her very core.

  For a fleeting moment, she thought that perhaps the two of them might even be playing some kind of silly play-dead game just to wind her up. The whole situation felt so surreal. But then the bizarre, continuous sobbing-wail jolted Estelle right out of her solemn trance. She gently adjusted her gaze towards the far end of the kitchen and the open utility room cupboard where the washing machine was stored.

  A bizarre sight confronted her vision. Her stepfather sat huddled up right against the washing machine, head bowed and arms wrapped around his knees, cradling himself like a scolded child. He looked like a nervous, wasted wreck as he sobbed uncontrollably while a cigarette smoldered away in his hand.

  Estelle turned her attention back to her mother and sister. Her mother laid closest to her feet and she quickly approached her first. She crouched down and checked her pulse, but couldn’t find one. She noticed a hell of a lot of bruising around her neck though like she, as unbelievable as it sounded in her head, might have been strangled to death and violently hard at that.

  Estelle shook her head and focused her attention on her little sister Gayle. That was the moment she’d been dreading and the main reason she’d dashed to her mother’s side first. To put off confronting the most dreadful moment that the deepest, darkest regions of her mind were screaming at her to face.

  That her little sister was dead too.

  Estelle took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a long moment. She checked Gayle for a pulse. There was nothing. Absolute
ly nothing to feel. Gayle felt warmer than her mother, but that only told her that her mother had died first and Gayle last, and recently at that. She noticed a little puddle of vomit too, only a few inches away from her little sister’s mouth.

  Estelle kneeled back. Was this really happening? She felt dizzy and sick. Caught in a nightmare scenario that didn’t even feel real, not one little bit. Her recent feelings of soberness vanished in a heartbeat and she felt the full force of her drunkenness flood over her again with a new wave of vengeance.

  Estelle staggered back up onto her feet. The sobbing wail of her distraught stepfather engulfed her ear drums yet again. Estelle coldly turned around to face him. That familiar rage whenever she was about to do something bad—really fucking terrible. Something that she couldn’t control or quite had the know-how, how to tame. It rip-roared throughout her entire body, obliterating the tipsy drunkenness that had briefly returned to haunt her and smashing it completely out of her head.

  Estelle took a few short steps towards her stepfather and stood only a yard shy from the utility room, directly facing his pathetic looking figure.

  “What did you do?” Estelle calmly asked.

  Estelle’s step father continued to sob. He didn’t move his head or acknowledge Estelle’s presence in the slightest. Had he even heard her?

  “WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?” Estelle roared out at the top of her lungs.

  Her stepfather gazed up in fright. He even dropped his cigarette. He looked so shaken and disturbed by Estelle’s tone of wrath. Well he’d certainly heard her that time.

  “We were just...” her stepfather mumbled through his sobs. “We were just having a good time, you know. Just your mum and I—just having a good time... That was all…”

  Her stepfather broke down even harder. Desperately he tried to pick up his dropped fag again. After three clumsy attempts he finally managed to grab it and took a deep hard draw. Estelle continued to bore her stare straight through him, unmoved, unsympathetic.