Dear Diary VI - Part 3
10. October
Part I
Emma sat on her bed, trying to sort though her feelings and thoughts: her sisters, Kirsty, Louise and Melissa had tried to help, but none of them had ever been married and widowed within the space of less than an hour. All of them were busy with their own lives, their own problems. Emma had a big problem, namely where to begin with the task of sorting out her feelings and making sense of her recent experiences. She looked around, and her fully corrected gaze fell on her small collection of books: in amongst them was her diary. She went to pick it up, and looked through it. There were few entries, none very long: Emma had never been very much interested in the business of diary writing, but today it suddenly seemed the right thing to do. She flipped past a few pages - not caring that the date said “15th of February” when in fact it was the first Tuesday in October, and began to write
‘Dear Diary, or God, or both - are you the same thing? Well, whatever. I have something really terrible to tell you.’
She paused to gather her thoughts as best she could, then continued
‘Some years ago, when I was a prostitute, I was working in another part of the country. Business was good, I was making more than enough money to survive, me and the gang were doing well. We had some good clients, and some bad, even a few who would try raping me. But for one, rape wasn’t on his mind: he attacked me, tried to beat me up, tried to take my glasses. Thankfully Silver and Charlie were near enough to help me. I remember his voice, it was terrible, scary, I don’t know how to describe it other than I’d hoped never to hear it again. But I have heard it again, about a week ago, in the hospital, I swear I did. I think he didn’t recognize me, probably because I wasn’t wearing glasses, and also because I’ve lost weight, and he was much more interested in Kirsty. Everyone here seems so unable to see the truth, including the thing with Louise and Cathy, it’s so obvious, all those dewy-eyed looks they give each other. They are far more than just friends. Kirsty is too busy with her Dad to notice.’
‘I have to tell you this, even though I dare not tell myself.’
She stopped, then dug the pen hard into the paper, and forced herself to write it.
‘I think Kirsty’s Dad. Is the man who attacked me years ago. And. He is the Spechunter.’
She sat there for a couple of minutes, staring at what she had written. Then she tore the last bit from the page, scrunched it up and got to her feet. Truth, if indeed it was the truth, was difficult to face. She went out and down the stairs to the lounge: it seemed that the coast was clear. The fire was burning quite low in the grate, so she threw the bit of paper into it, walked off and then back upstairs, trying not to think about what she had just written.
A few moments later Louise peeked around the corner of the door, and saw the bit of paper starting to singe in the fire. Curious, she walked into the room quickly to see what it was that Emma had done, and saw the bit of paper starting to burn. She used the rake from the rack to pull it out, and carefully unfolded it. And read it. And gasped, upon realising its import. She heard a noise behind her, and there stood Kirsty, hands on hips, looking as only an older sister in charge of running things could manage. She said sternly,
‘your friend Cathy is looking for you. And why are you poking around in the fire? What is that?’
‘Oh, nothing...’
‘Don’t hide things from me! Give it to me!’
Louise nervously handed it over. Kirsty read it, and read it again.
Then Kirsty exploded, screaming at her,
‘you! How can you write this about my father? Are you crazy? You stupid little girl, what do you know? That man did his best to find me, he’s been so kind to me! And you just lie and insult him, trying to undermine everything I am doing here, to keep everyone here going, to keep myself sane...’
Louise started to cry: she wasn’t so keen on being shouted at, and she knew she’d definitely not written that. She didn’t really take in much of Kirsty’s angry shouting and pointing after that, but then tried to protest, saying
‘I didn’t write that. I found it in the grate.’
Kirsty shouted at her some more, then grabbed her wrist and told her angrily
‘I’m gonna check then. Let’s see your diary. See if there’s a torn page. If there is... If you were over 18, I’d throw you out for this!’
She dragged Louise, weeping and protesting upstairs and into her bedroom. Under duress, she showed Kirsty her diary: just flicking through the pages without reading the content. There were no torn pages. With a note of vindication in her voice she met Kirsty’s angry gaze and said, whilst wiping tears from her cheeks,
‘see, Kirsty, I didn’t write that. I never met or heard your father. It wasn’t me.’
Kirsty was still furious, but not to the point that she couldn’t think. And it didn’t take much thinking about who to ask next: only one other sister kept a diary.
She stormed out and banged on Emma’s door, then yelled
‘Emma! Let me in and show me your diary!’
Emma appeared at the door, hardly calm herself. Kirsty pushed her way in. Louise followed, looking on helplessly as Kirsty again demanded to see Emma’s diary. Emma objected very strongly,
‘you told us this would never happen! What we said would be private... No matter what! You can’t come in here shouting and demanding to read about my private life! How dare you!’
Kirsty would not back down.
‘Show me your Diary or leave!’
Emma nearly spat in disgust at that.
‘Kirsty, listen to yourself! You’re so crazy these days! Calm down and look at yourself!’
Kirsty glared sharpened knives at her, then demanded the Diary again. Emma handed it to her, glaring back. Kirsty turned to Louise and told her coldly,
‘get your friend.’
‘Huh? What’s she got to do with this?’
‘I said, get your friend. For once, do as I say.’
Louise scuttled out and fetched Cathy. She looked quite calm when she joined them, although her eyes looked distressed.
Kirsty handed her the diary, opened at the page where the part had been torn out, and told her,
‘whatever it says, read it to us, please. I’m asking you because you’re new here, and I think I can trust you to tell the truth.’
Cathy complied, and then did the same with the bit torn off. Kirsty screamed, then yelled at her,
‘you too??? Why does everyone think my dad is a murderer?’
She took a step forward toward Cathy, but Louise cried out in distress
‘Kirsty! Don’t you yell at my girlfriend! It’s not her fault!’
Kirsty stared at her, her mouth open. She shut it and looked more amazed than angry, then said rather more quietly
‘girlfriend? Girlfriend...?’
Louise told her defiantly,
‘yes, Kirsty, I’m a lesbo, and she’s my girlfriend. And the spechunter killed my old girlfriend, Michelle. So perhaps you’d better start listening to your sisters!’
Emma chimed in
‘Kirsty, you’re not yourself, you’re not seeing the truth. Please listen to me. I know it’s hard. Just open your eyes, just stop and think about it, please!’
Louise added,
‘if you throw Emma out, then I’m going with her!’
Emma gave a little nod of thanks to her younger sister. Kirsty stood there silently for a moment, her face reddened, then murmured,
‘this is crazy. Either you are all crazy, or else I am.’
Emma told her,
‘you ought to be used to crazy by now.’
There was a pause, the Kirsty said,
‘okay, there’s nothing to be gained by shouting at each other.’
She pointed at Emma and told her sharply
‘I still don’t believe you!’
Then pointed at Louise, and told her scarcely less so,
‘why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because I was scared... Of what you would say.’
Kirsty’s face and tone softened a little
‘Louise, don’t be afraid of me. Be afraid... Of the Spechunter. The real Spechunter, not my Dad.’
She then turned to Cathy, giving her an appraising look, then apologetically told her,
‘I’m really sorry I shouted at you. I should be welcoming you to our crazy family.’
Cathy gave a polite nod, and told her,
‘that’s alright, I know families aren’t always calm and pleasant.’
Later that day, Kirsty opened her laptop, then accessed her Diary file. She paused to rub some tiny morsel of relief into her tired mind and emphatic headache, shutting her eyes in the vain hope that might help. As usual, that simply made doing anything that demanded seeing impossible, and offered little or no relief into the deal. So she opened her eyes again, and began
‘well, Diary, things have been very difficult recently. Two bombshells: Emma trying to tell me that my Dad’s a mass murderer, and Louise telling me she’s a lesbian. I don’t know which amazes me more! Emma’s opinion still makes me furious and disgusted: we are not speaking at the moment, so if we have anything to say to each other it goes via Louise. If I wasn’t so tired I’d be exploding right now just thinking about what she wrote. Sorry Diary: I am typing a bit hard at the moment, you can guess why: it’s because right now I want to punch Emma. Or throw her out. Or both.’
She stopped and gave an almighty sigh, then continued
‘About Louise, I’m quite relaxed about her being lesbian or gay or whatever she wants to call herself, she’s still my little sister, even though her news was a big shock to me. Perhaps Emma is right about that, I should keep my eyes open here. I’m glad she’s happy, and Cathy seems quite level headed and calm, if a little odd. Oh, I would love some calm myself! I did say sorry to Louise for shouting at her and her GF, I really regret shouting at and being so angry with her. She’s a kind hearted girl and I don’t want her to feel that she can’t talk to me. As for Emma, her past can be pretty horrendous at times and I wish she could put it all behind her, and no doubt she does too. She did tell me again she would go with Emma if I threw her out. Oh, I don’t want to be on my own with just Vicky and Annie, I’ve got too used to having my sisters around.’
‘And, OMG, for fuck’s sake, I need to get my eyes tested and get new glasses. Things are crazy here, but they might just be a bit more bearable if I could lose this shitty headache. I need to get onto the opticians and see if I can get an appointment. Oh, please, do I need a holiday from all this!’
Two days later Kirsty was struggling to get past Vicky’s car: it was particularly badly parked, and she feared another decent skirt would be ruined. Vicky had been late a bit too often recently, and Kirsty was meaning to speak to her about it, as was with many other things, but time was lacking. So she settled for squeezing past her car again. As she neared the back, she saw something in the glove pocket: it was a dark coloured glasses case, difficult to see with her not-quite-sharp vision. It occurred to her that being as Vicky wore glasses, it would not be strange to see a glasses case in her car. But something else hit her retinas. A mark - a letter? Yes, it was a letter. Kirsty got as close as she could, struggling to be sure what the letter was. Was it a V? That would make sense. Or was it an M? For a moment she felt like shrugging and leaving this little mystery to itself, but Emma’s remark about opening her eyes skittered into her mind unbidden. On impulse, she quickly took out her phone from her bag and took a snap of the view, shoved it back in her bag and walked quickly to the bus stop, far more intent on not being late for work. But once lunchtime came, Kirsty retrieved her phone and brought up the photo. She wasn’t entirely sure, so she messaged the pic to Melissa with the words “Hey Mel, what do you think of this?”
She got an answer during another tedious meeting chaired by the even more tedious Bernie. He gave her a nod of approval at the start, asked after her sister Emma, and then left her well alone apart from business matters, and nearly all these things cheered her no end. Once the meeting was over, she read her reply
‘that’s one of my glasses cases! Not seen that for a while, boring dark colour. I like red, easier to find.’
Kirsty recalled her hunt for old glasses a few weeks ago - and remembered finding none. She texted
‘Any more old glasses in your bedroom? If so where do you keep?’
‘Gave some to charity, but ought to be some in bottom drawer.’
‘You sure? Nowhere else?’
‘Yes. Don’t like waste time searching. Nowhere else.’
Kirsty arrived home during the following Saturday, dealt with what needed dealing with, then went upstairs and into Melissa’s bedroom. In a word, it was neat. Emma’s was a riot of old and new, stuff piled here and there, if not a complete tip then threatening to become one if Vicky hadn’t been around to keep it under some sort of control. Hers and Louise’s, somewhere between the two. But as for Melissa’s, that hardly ever needed tidying. Being partially blind meant being unable to see things clearly, and that meant being bad at finding things. So as she said, “don’t waste time searching, give everything a place and you’d find it in an instant”. And thus Kirsty expected to find her old glasses as previously discussed, as she crouched down in front of Melissa’s chest of drawers. But upon opening it, she saw clearly that there were no glasses, no cases, nothing. There was a neat blank space. She got up and looked around: as she well knew, there was no other drawers, bottom or otherwise where she could find glasses. She texted Melissa
‘No old glasses here. Did you take with you to Amy?’
‘??? Why? Can’t see through old ones, give headache etc. And Amy has her own I’m sure, don’t need more. You sure they not there?’
‘Defo not there.’
‘Why want old glasses? You going blind?’
‘No. Seeing more now. My old glasses missing too.’
‘Oh. Ok. That’s odd. What you going to do?’
‘Think about it.’
‘Thinking is good.’
‘Ok, bye - lots of love, K.’
‘Love and hugs from us blindies too.’
Part II
Four days later, Louise arrived at Cathy’s house late in the afternoon: she’d been phoned by Cathy to say that she had something exciting to show her. Cathy opened the door to her knock, then it took Louise a moment to take in what she saw. Her response was,
‘oh, wow!’
And understandably so: Cathy was wearing a short skirt and tights, and as she did more often these days, a tight top with a neckline of middling height, neither boring nor overly provocative. But for Louise the most amazing thing were her glasses: black cateye frames, the edges pointing sharply upward and away from her eyes, the ovoid spaces between them and her nose filled with two myodisk lenses, each eye almost completely encircled by a ring, lashes twitching as she blinked, her eyes small, soft and sexy. Louise was delighted, and told her
‘Cathy, you look amazing!’
She hugged her, and whispered something in her ear,
’oooh, my puddytat is giving me the tingles - you know where.’
Cathy kissed her. Then she pulled away, and said almost excitedly,
‘ahh, but I have something else exciting to show you!’
Louise knew by now some of the things that excited Cathy were for her less so, but then she was her girlfriend and she loved her, so she willingly followed her upstairs and into her bedroom. Cathy proudly showed one of her notebooks: as usual covered in scribbled mathematical symbols. Louise shrugged and said,
‘sorry, you’re the mathematician, you tell me what this means.’
Cathy solemnly announced,
‘this is the date, time and location of the next Spechunter murder, I’ve been analyzing the data and found a pattern...’
Louise did her best to follow her girlfriend’s explanation, but it was beyond her. She waved that aside, saying,
‘yes, but what are we going to do about this? Go to the police?’
‘Ummm... I’m not sure they’d believe me...’
Cathy was being shy again: Louise was still attempting to pry her out of her shell, with slow but mixed success.
Cathy then exclaimed, suddenly excited again,
‘maybe we could go to that place, at the right time, we might catch him in the act!’
Louise stared at her in astonishment, then said,
‘are you nuts? What if you’re wrong, or worse, you’ve just predicted one of us is his next victim?’
Cathy swallowed at that, but then said determinedly,
‘you said I liked scientific experiments... Like my glasses...’
‘Oh, there was me thinking you got them to please me!’
Cathy touched her arm gently, saying softly,
‘oh, no, you’re so much more than an experiment - you do know that?’
Sometimes Louise had got an inkling she really was just an experiment: she squashed that thought. She replied,
‘okay, if you’re dead set on putting yourself in danger, then I’m coming too.’
‘good, I thought you’d say that. Besides, I need someone to kiss and keep me warm while I wait.’
Louise agreed, then told her very clever but slightly eccentric girlfriend that she needed the loo.
When she’d finished in there, Cathy’s mother appeared and quietly beckoned her into her bedroom. For a moment, Louise thought she was going to tell her off. Instead, she smiled, and told her
‘Louise, I want to thank you, you really are doing so much for Cathy, I never thought she would open up to anyone, or even ditch those dowdy clothes, I’ve been so worried about her since... You really are amazing. And getting her to agree to myodisks - I’ve been trying to get her to do that for so long. How do you do it? Are you a magician?’
Louise smiled back
‘Mrs Dawson, I’m just a normal girl really. Well, maybe not quite... But we do these things for love, no?’
‘Ahh, yes, I understand. Well, don’t let me keep you from her.’
She went to the door, then said to her mother
‘I promise I will take care of her.’
‘I know you will, dear child.’
With that, Louise went back to Cathy and began plotting what to do next. By now, she’d caught something of Cathy’s enthusiasm for facts. Whether that would make her happy, she wasn’t so sure of.
Louise wrote in her diary
‘hello Diary, it’s me Louise. I have to tell you some amazing things: firstly that Cathy is my girlfriend - and Kirsty knows, and doesn’t mind. And secondly, that she has got herself the most gorgeous glasses with Cateye frames, black and with myodisk lenses! They are quite large bowls, but in those big frames they still form a nice circle. I prefer big ones myself. No, not those kind of big ones (cheeky diary) but big bowls you can see when someone with those glasses looks at you. Apart from Emma I don’t know anyone who wears them, and her frames are smaller and less bold. And she’s my sister, not my girlfriend. What’s really sad is that Kirsty and Emma are still not speaking to each other except through me. I am working up to shaking them both and getting them to grow up and stop fighting. And perhaps get Kirsty to think about whether Emma is right. She has no reason to lie, although it might be she’s remembered it all wrong. Oh, I do hope Kirsty’s dad isn’t the spechunter. It’s going to tear her in two: and being as he’s killed my old girlfriend and it looks like Emma’s odd husband (although I can relate to his fascination with glasses!), I think it’s not going to help the rest of us. I wish I was with Amy and Melissa. They seem to be having a lot less trouble than us.’
‘About the spechunter, Cathy has finished her calculations: it’s in town, during the evening at 7:25pm the Saturday after this once coming. I still don’t know how she’s come to that conclusion, but she seems very enthusiastic about it. I worry about either result: if she’s wrong she’ll be disappointed, if she’s right, well would we be witnessing a gruesome murder? I don’t know which I like the worst. One thing’s for certain, Cathy isn’t keen on getting her sums wrong.’
During the Friday two days later, Amy sat messing around on her laptop at the end of another long day’s work: looking up all sorts of nonsensical things just to relax. They’d been to the optician together to get their retinas checked after their recent fight in the park: neither of them were particularly proud of that, but at least their vision had survived. Thinking of that, she looked up retinas online, and read all the things she knew well about. And then the same with myodisks: there was little of the basics of that she didn’t know. But she kept on looking through the pages listed on the search engine: 20 - 30 - 40 pages, seeing if there was anything new she needed to know about. Perhaps there was some way to make them fight-proof? Inwardly she scoffed at the idea: she wasn’t intending to fight anyone again anytime soon.
But then she saw “Myodisk pictures” - and clicked on that. It led to a site with various sections, some with texts talking about technical aspects of eyes and glasses, not just myodisks, and other sections “glasses pictures” and “GWG pictures”. Amy didn’t have much idea what a “GWG” was, but guessed it was something to do with the subject matter of the site. So she clicked on that link, and up came another page, with 9 links, each with a small picture above it. The one in the bottom right looked very familiar. She looked closely at it. It was her! Or her twin, either metaphorically or in reality - standing there wearing the red top, posing. Upon reflection, she decided that it had to be her: Melissa didn’t pose like that.
She clicked on that link, and some more clickable pictures came up: four each of Melissa and Amy. She clicked on each of them, and was rather miffed when she found that Melissa’s rather more demure pictures all had more hits than hers. She thought to herself “well, this is interesting! Now, what else is going on here?” She spent some time investigating the links to other sites, and the links that these links went to. Many things became apparent to her, not the least of which was that the pictures that were posted up were very well received in the community who followed glasses wearers. There were all sorts of compliments about their general appearance, how wonderful they looked, etc. It all took Amy by rather by surprise: she’d got over worrying about how her glasses looked a long time ago, they were never going to be attractive. From her point of view it was a waste of time worrying about it. She thought to herself “optic obsessives? What strange people,” then, “but it’s better than being called a blind ugly freak!”
She then discovered that there was quite a trade in used glasses: people were apparently collecting them for reasons she couldn’t fathom. For a moment she thought of some of her old glasses, then remembered that she’d given most of them away to charity, or returned to the optician for whatever purpose they had in mind. It all seemed a bit mind boggling to her. But she did find a glasses chatroom: there were all sorts of discussions going on, all about every possible angle of glasses and eyesight. It was pretty busy: there was an entire thread about “Twin A” and “Twin M”, discussing with some vigour which was the best. She assumed they were talking about the pictures of her and Melissa that had been put up.
Abruptly, she picked up her phone and called Alan’s number. The number wass unobtainable: she tried again, then again using the landline. She sucked air in through her teeth. She thought “disappeared, eh?” Then “I’ll something else.” She went back to the chatroom and signed up as “Amy33100”. Then she introduced herself
’Hello, I am Amy, AKA “Twin A”.’
That got an instant response from 3 different users:
‘It’s really you?’
‘you’re beautiful!’
‘Wow - Twin A!’
Amy typed, ‘Hello everyone, I’m looking for a guy called Alan. If you know him, please tell me.’
A moderator stepped in and sent a message to her private mailbox. Meanwhile more replies appeared:
‘good to see you!’
‘what can you see without glasses?’
‘how long have you worn myodisks?’
And suchlike. She ignored them, and went to her private mailbox: there were a couple of messages there already from users, and one from the moderator. It said
‘I am Alan, good to see you here. I hope you are not angry about putting your photos up on the net without your sayso. I just thought you and Melissa looked so beautiful that the world needed to see you.’
Try as she could, she couldn’t quite feel angry at that. She read the rest
‘there’s no point taking them down, they’re all over the OO community. You and your sister are already legends. I hope you don’t mind being a legend. I apologize for deceiving you.’
Amy couldn’t resist giving a chuckle: she’d done a bit of deceiving herself in recent months
‘I’m grateful you’ve contacted me and given me a chance to ask your forgiveness. Pass these words on to your equally lovely sister Melissa. Regards, Alan.’
She considered for a moment, then plunged in
‘Hello, Alan. I’m still rather in shock at what I’ve seen tonight, rather than angry. Although a little notice would have been nice.’
She paused to consider: her current situation was drifting back to how things were before her rather naughty fling with Alan, which was rather lonely and unhappy, and not much fun at all. She rather liked fun, and the attention was flattering. So she wondered what to do, either sit and let things slide, or else do something? She decided to do something: so replied,
‘how about doing more pictures?’
‘That would be very welcome, and I’m sure everyone else would be happy to see more of you. Anonymity guaranteed. No nudity. Just pics of twins in glasses. Is that OK?’
‘Yes, of course. I will have to ask Melissa, but I think she will probably agree. Life’s been a little quiet around here. What do you want to do? Your phone doesn’t work anymore. Did you disappear?’
‘Sort of. I was really doing that Lipreading teaching job, but that finished and I’ve had to move away, and replace my phone because someone stole it. It’s a bit of a mess really.’
‘Ahh, that’s not good. As you can guess, neither of us drive and our night blindness makes doing things after dark without a guide difficult, although we can manage a little in familiar areas with a bit of stabbing around in the dark with a white cane. It’s not exactly our favourite. Can you come to us?’
‘Looks like I’ll have to. Will have to make arrangements later. What’s your email address? I have no phone at the moment.’
Amy sent her email address to him.
‘Thanks. Okay will be in touch in a few days I hope. Oh, if you’re going to stay in this chatroom, look out for a guy called BurnyINS. He’s a bit strange and obnoxious at times.’
‘Understood, thanks for the warning. Will await your email. Bye.’
Amy spent some time on the main chatroom, answering questions about her vision and thanking people for their compliments. There was even a guy on there who accused her of being fake: Amy told him that she wasn’t fake at all - she gave a good description of her vision problems and sent him packing, with similar sentiments from her new fan club. She was enjoying this attention, and when she left, she told them she would return.
Part III
A week later, Louise and Cathy sat on a bus which was steadily chugging its way into town. They sat beside each other, looking at things outside and also at their fellow passengers on the bus. Louise asked Cathy,
‘what time did you say it would happen?’
‘7:25. I told you already.’
Louise shrugged, and asked,
‘what do we do in the meantime?’
‘Shopping? Check out the local record store? Check out the local boys?’
Cathy kept a straight face, then gave a little chuckle. Louise asked her,
‘don’t you ever - think about them?’
‘No, not really, except as competition. But even so, finding one who is into glasses is a bit difficult. Actually finding a girl who is like that isn’t easy either.’
‘Well, I’m glad we found each other. But, you didn’t really make finding you very easy, did you?’
‘I regret that.’
Louise had long felt that there was a reason why Cathy was so often a bit “difficult” with strangers: perhaps it was her epilepsy, which despite medication, sometimes set off under the most unexpected circumstances. She’d looked after her a couple of times when she’d had a seizure. During the last time, recently, she was worried about her new glasses more than herself! But was there more? Cathy could be impenetrable when she wanted to be, even with her.
Then the bus lurched to a halt, and another girl got on: this one wore roundish silver-wire frames and quite thick lenses. She turned her head to look at Louise, and thus revealed to her that she wore thick plus lenses, stretching and distorting her eyes. Louise was entranced, just as she was when she first saw Michelle and met her similarly distorted gaze. If anything, this one wore stronger glasses. She smiled at Louise. Louise started to smile, then got a elbow in the ribs, and a whisper in her ear,
‘hey, I thought you liked my kind of lenses? You spent so much time persuading me to get them!’
Louise rapidly turned her head away from the girl, purposely ignoring her and meeting Cathy’s encircled gaze.
‘I’m allowed to look, aren’t I? You do it too.’
‘Mmmm... I suppose so. But no more than looking, right?’
Louise nodded. Quite soon after that, they got off the bus together.
A couple of hours later, Louise and Cathy stood close to each other: it was cold, and dark, and there were few people around. Cathy looked at her watch, then cuddled up to her girlfriend. She said,
‘it can’t be long now. Only a couple of minutes.’
‘You sure it’s this street? Not down there, in that alley?’
‘mmm, that would make more sense, I know, but - well perhaps the murder is here and the victim will be dragged down the alley?’
‘You tell me, I don’t know. What I do know is there’s nobody around, so the victim could be one of us. And if it isn’t, I’m cold and bored. Can’t we go inside somewhere?’
‘umm... Give it five minutes?’
‘Okay. As long as you stay close.’
Cathy did so, as she felt cold too.
Nearly ten minutes passed, and nothing happened. Then they heard a scream, and the sound of someone running. And someone else running after them. They hurried off down the alley to the next street to see what was going on. It turned out to be a girl running from what they presumed to be her boyfriend: her name was apparently “Julie”, and she didn’t wear glasses. The two girls became completely disinterested in them on any level once it became clear that they were just two idiots fooling around chasing each other. Then they heard a door opening behind them, halfway down the alley they’d just walked up, and a woman stepped out. She said some goodbyes to whoever was inside and shut the door. She turned away from Louise and Cathy, and as she did so, the small amount of streetlight that penetrated the relative gloom there glinted off the glasses she was wearing. As she walked away from them, Cathy whispered to Louise,
‘it could be her!’
‘victim or murderer?’
Cathy rolled her eyes and told her firmly,
‘the odds are that she’s not the spechunter.’
‘Women murder people too.’
‘She’s too small and slight.’
‘She might have a kitchen knife under that coat!’
‘Mmm... I didn’t think of that.’
Louise flashed a smile at her, then asked,
‘so, what do we do? Following her might creep her out.’
‘Following her might save her life.’
‘Following her might get one of us killed, whether she has a knife or not.’
Cathy gave one of her more exasperated sighs, then said,
‘lets’s vote. I vote to follow her.’
‘I vote to stay here.’
Cathy shrugged and walked off after the woman without a word. Louise quickly caught her up, and muttered,
‘you’re really nuts sometimes!’
‘I must get it from you.’
By now the woman was virtually at the end of the alley, so they had to walk quickly to catch her up. As she reached the better lit area, she turned on them and asked,
‘are you two following me? I have a knife.’
Louise shot Cathy a look, then replied for the both of them,
‘no, no. We were just - out.’
She didn’t look particularly pleased or convinced, so Cathy interjected,
‘we were just headed to the end of the street - perhaps we could walk together? Safety in numbers, right? Can’t be too careful.’
She accepted that, and said,
‘yeah, alright.’
They walked for a few minutes: there didn’t seem to be anyone around, most of the major shops were shut thereabouts, although further on there were some eateries and a cinema where things were a bit livelier. The woman asked them,
‘live in town, do you?’
Louise answered,
‘yeah, out in the Westling District.’
‘Oh, quite nice out there.’
‘Yes it is.’
At that, Cathy gave her girlfriend a nudge: in a darkened doorway ahead and across the street, there was a shadow. It seemed to move and change shape eerily as they walked nearer to it. Louise whispered to Cathy,
‘don’t panic, it’s only a shadow.’
As they drew near it, the shadow moved out toward them, resolving into a dark-clothed hooded figure, most definitely not female. He jogged up to them, a knife appeared in his right hand, then stopped and hissed angrily at them
‘I’ll get you three next time - one by one.’
With that, he ran off down the high street. Louise whipped out her phone, pointed it and took three quick photos of the fleeing man before he vanished around a corner. She then looked at the gallery, where the photos were stored, and sighed. They were all blurred, and a figure in dark clothes at night was hardly going to help with identification. She was about to delete them, but Cathy stopped her,
‘give me a little time with those back at base, and I’ll be able to estimate his height.’
‘Base? You mean your bedroom?’
‘Oh well, you could call it that.’
The woman called after them,
‘well, aren’t you two coming?’
Cathy called out,
‘no, we’ll be okay now.’
‘Well, I’m going to the police. I suggest you do too.’
Louise sighed, and said to Cathy
‘I doubt these are any use to anyone, let alone the police.’
‘What did I just say?’
‘Oh, alright, I’ll keep them. You do love your maths, after all. Anyway, I’m cold and hungry, let’s go get a Mexican.’
‘What you going to do with him?’
‘Eat him.’
Kirsty sat tapping away at her laptop after dinner of the last Friday of the month, saying
‘Dear Diary, I have something serious to report: my think my little sister has done something very stupid. I was watching tonight’s edition of “PoliceView”, about the ongoing investigation into the spechunter murders, and it mentioned a woman walking in town the other day, who claims to have been threatened by a knife-wielding manic, but was saved by the intervention of two other younger women, one with ginger hair, both wearing glasses. Well, if that doesn’t sound like Louise and Cathy, I don’t know. What they were thinking? Fooling around like that when that nutcase is around is just crazy. Cathy is epileptic, and Louise is, well, just my little sister, and I don’t want harm to come to either of them. I’ll have to have a talk with them.’
‘Regarding another little mystery, the case of the missing glasses, although Melissa and I have little use for old glasses other than some unlikely attempt to keep my headaches at bay, I would like to know who it is who has been taking them. Here I am saying that it is unlikely that both of us are dreaming, or have given them away to charity without also taking the piles of old clothes that we both have stuffed at the back of wardrobes, nor have the glasses walked away somewhere on their own. So I’m thinking, as Sherlock might do, that someone has been stealing them. I have a good idea as to who it is, but I need evidence to back me up, or else the police won’t listen. Amy and Melissa are coming soon for dinner, and I’ve asked Amy to bring a pair of her old glasses: she was very concerned when I explained why. I want them as bait, and I will use you, Diary, in your laptop form, to help me catch whoever is doing this. I’ll tell you exactly how later. Don’t worry, I’ve backed you up into a cloud somewhere, so you won’t be gone if this goes wrong.’
‘Regarding my vision, yes I have a headache, I know you’ve heard me say that a hundred times this year and are utterly bored with me going on about it, but also I have an appointment with Davis & Taylor coming up soon, apparently they have a temporary replacement optician who will see me very soon. Those seconds and minutes can’t tick away fast enough. And I know I’ve mentioned all my attempts to get new glasses to you, but this time - well I have high hopes. I can’t keep being unlucky - can I? So fingers crossed I won’t be telling you all about this nightmare yet again this time next month.’
11. November
Part I
Early in the evening of the first Saturday of November, Kirsty opened the door: it was Amy and Melissa, followed up by Emma who had guided them there by means of a taxi. Emma seemed a little brighter, although Kirsty was still struggling to have anything to do with her, let alone worry about her sister’s feelings. There were profuse greetings from Amy and Melissa, and something close to a scowl from Emma. As soon as they were all in the lounge, Melissa asked,
‘when’s dinner ready? I’m starving!’
Amy agreed, so Kirsty said
‘Louise and Cathy will be here soon, so not long after that.’
‘I’m looking forward to meeting Louise’s girlfriend,’
said Melissa.
‘So am I,’
said Amy, and then
‘I never would have guessed about that. Aren’t you shocked? Emma doesn’t seem to be.’
Kirsty shrugged and said to them both,
‘well, yes I was, and I think I’ve been missing quite a bit of late. Well, I certainly have if you count my vision.’
‘Still not got that sorted? Aooow, that must be terrible...’
‘Well, I’m due to try again early next month. Fingers crossed... I’m half expecting that I’ll be abducted by aliens, or some wizard will appear and turn all the opticians in the country into toads, or else something even more weird will happen to stop me getting new glasses.’
Melissa smiled at that.
A little while later Amy sidled over to Kirsty and whispered in her ear
‘I’ve got that thing you wanted.’
‘What thing? Oh, I remember. If you could take it upstairs and put it into my bag, thanks: it’s hanging on the back of my chair in my bedroom. Can’t miss it.’
Amy smiled - she did miss things, but not for want of trying to avoid that. Having poor vision meant doing more and better looking to compensate. She went upstairs ostensibly for the toilet, meanwhile the rest of them went to help Vicky. There was an awkward moment when Emma handed Kirsty something - sharp glares were exchanged - Kirsty grudgingly thanked her. Melissa caught the tension and exclaimed
’oh, for goodness sake, can’t you two just get along? Amy and I had a little fight not long ago, and now it’s all fine between us. You two need to grow up and remember you’re sisters.’
There was an awkward silence as Kirsty and Emma glared at Melissa, which was thankfully interrupted by Louise and Cathy arriving. Amy came downstairs as fast as she dared, and soon all six of them were chatting and comparing stories, before and over dinner. Melissa admired Cathy’s glasses; being as she was sitting next to her, she could see them well enough to comment on how alluring they were. Cathy smiled her thanks, and did her best not to talk about mathematics. Kirsty and Emma pointedly sat at either ends of the table, so they would not have to sit together nor face each other directly.
Despite Cathy’s reticence, Louise told everyone how clever she was: which was true, but especially so from the point of view of her girlfriend. She told whoever was listening
‘Cathy’s got all these mathematical theorems - there’s one to predict myopia progression, and another about working out what prescription someone has from just a picture.’
Cathy nodded, not entirely sure this was a good time to be doing this, but she got caught up by Louise’s enthusiasm - as so often before. Louise told Emma to look at her while taking a photo on her phone, then gave it to Cathy, who did a bit of measuring, some calculations and told her it was minus 18 each eye, and the astigmatism angle and how much to boot. Emma was impressed, although not sure why anyone would want to do this. Amy and Melissa did this too readily enough, but Kirsty felt tired and needed some cajoling to go along with it. She gave a little sigh at the result: being again reminded that her glasses were wrong didn’t please her. Louise touched her hand kindly, and murmured an apology to her. Subjects of discussion then quickly moved on from mathematics and vision.
Emma sat talking to Amy, and as she did so, Kirsty looked at them both, and particularly Emma. She was starting to be like her old self, or was that just a facade? She caught herself, wondering why she was worrying about her crazy, stupid sister Emma, and then caught herself again: why shouldn’t she worry about her? Kirsty looked away into the distance: that fuzzy, disturbing place where things unknown lurked. Melissa touched her hand gently
‘Kirsty, you look tired, we’ll sort this mess out.’
Kirsty gave her a wan smile, and replied
‘I’ll have to sort some of it out on my own,’
she admitted, then thought to herself “I reckon Emma and me will have to agree to disagree about my Dad. Perhaps... I was a bit hasty blundering in demanding to see her diary,” then “I’m the eldest sister. I ought to know better.”
Then she replied to Melissa,
‘perhaps you’re right, I do need some relaxation. Us oldies can’t do everything.’
Melissa grinned at that. Kirsty went to sit in the lounge again, staring into space, trying not to be overwhelmed by her headache. She wondered when that appointment was, hoping it was soon.
After a few minutes, Louise went to check on her
‘Kirsty, you okay?’
‘Yeah, just a bit tired.’
‘Erm - you remind me of Mum when you say that.’
‘Do I? Oh. I see.’
Then, after a pause, she continued,
‘can you go get your... Cathy through here? I want a little word with you both.’
Louise and Cathy duly appeared, wondering what Kirsty was about to say.
‘Look, I know what you two did last week in town, it was on PoliceView. Yes, you may have saved a woman’s life, but really you two need to be more careful.’
Then, after pausing to catch her thoughts,
‘what were you thinking? You’re not superheroes, you’re my - sisters.’
Cathy gave a little smile at that. Then she told them firmly,
‘you’re not to do that again, understood? It’s for the police to deal with, I don’t want to come to your funerals, thanks.’
Louise protested,
‘but Kirsty, we were trying to catch him! I have pics of him on my phone! Next time we’ll get more!’
‘Next time? What did I just say? And how do you know when he will be around next? Are you two his best mates or something?’
Cathy piped up hesitantly
‘Kirsty... I have developed an algorithm based on probability theory that allowed me to predict his next attack. I did so last week, and was proved right. Well, pretty much right.’
‘Pardon, did you just say you used maths to work out where he was?’
Cathy nodded. Kirsty stared at her, shaking her head in disbelief.
Louise took out her phone and gave it to Kirsty, who then flicked from one picture to another, then back again. She blinked, and began to chuckle just as Melissa appeared at the door. She asked,
‘what’s so funny?’
‘Oh, these photos taken by our two little Sherlocks here... They seem to think a few fuzzy pictures of a man in black, with his face covered, is worth anyone’s trouble.’
‘Let me look?’
Kirsty handed Louise’s to Melissa. She then turned back to Louise and Cathy, and told them,
‘now, you two... Just take a bit of advice here: just keep yourselves out of trouble, eh? And no more sleuthing, ok?’
Cathy opened her mouth to protest: she rather liked sleuthing.
‘You don’t want me to tell your mum what you’ve been up to, do you?’
Cathy’s eyes narrowed behind her thick lenses, then reluctantly nodded her acceptance.
Melissa then piped up,
‘mmm - there’s something else in these pictures... It’s my favourite colour, that’s why I spotted it. You “20”s don’t look hard enough.’
They all looked up at her: she was holding the phone very close to her eyes, which was hardly unusual given her feeble vision. But feeble vision meant getting the best out of whatever she could muster, thus she had noticed something. Kirsty asked,
‘what? What do you see? Bring it here and show me.’
Melissa walked over, crouched in front of her, then showed her the first picture, and then pointed to the bottom right hand corner. The other two got up and gathered round to look.
Kirsty saw what were plainly reflections in a shop front window, none of which were very bright. One of them was what looked like a red blob. Then she blinked, and it looked like a letter of the alphabet. She took the phone from Melissa, and used her fingers to blow up the photo.
‘I think it’s an “H”. So? It must be a sign or something reflected in the window from across the street.’
‘I thought that, but look at the other two photos.’
Kirsty looked at the other two.
‘Ummm... What I am I looking for...?’
Louise pointed out,
‘the letter is at a different angle.’
‘So it is. What does that mean?’
Cathy answered,
‘it’s moving. What was moving? He was.’
Kirsty met her gaze, and very quickly realised this clever young woman had more to say, so told her,
‘go on, being as you’re bursting to tell me something.’
Solemnly, Cathy enumerated points on her fingers,
‘one, nothing else in those shops had moving displays; two, trainers often have distinctive logos on them; three, there are no shops selling trainers in that part of the street; four, therefore it has to be a reflection; five, being as it’s a reflection, a mirror image, it’s not an “H”. It’s an “R”. A red “R”. A Ricky Trainers “R”.’
Kirsty’s eyes widened as she looked at the red letter again.
‘You could be right...’
And then the memory of a pair of trainers she’d bought in July popped into her head. She went white, then erupted out of the chair and dashed upstairs for the loo, slamming the door shut.
Kirsty sat on the toilet, her glasses on the ledge above the sink, her eyes shut and hands over them, her mind spinning. She felt ill. Her thoughts raged, competing with her headache “oh, it couldn’t be. Absolutely couldn’t be. Could it? Please, let it not be him.” She started to hyperventilate, then calmed herself, telling herself “it’s just a coincidence. It has to be. There’s lots of people wearing those trainers.”
There was a knock at the door, and she heard Louise ask, her voice trembling with concern
‘Kirsty, are you okay? Do you want help?’
Kirsty called out to her,
‘no, it’s ok, I just felt a bit sick. I’ll be ok. Just give me a minute.’
She spent five minutes telling herself it was just a coincidence, then came downstairs. After that, the dinner party for her didn’t seem quite the same, and she was glad when it was all done.
Emma took the twins home - and when she returned, she found Kirsty waiting for her. She walked right past her without even acknowledging her presence. Kirsty cleared her throat and said
‘Emma... Emma.’
Emma looked at her. She gave Kirsty her hardest, angriest stare; that stare which belonged to the scary Emma who would not be beaten. Kirsty hesitated, then Emma demanded,
‘well?’
Kirsty slumped a little, and said
‘Emma, can we - talk?’
Emma’s mouth twitched, as if she longed to tell Kirsty where to go. Kirsty took a breath, and said
‘Emma... Sister... I’m sorry I got so angry with you. So so sorry.’
Emma looked at her darkly, and retorted,
‘so I’m your sister again now?’
Kirsty did her best to bite back her own anger, telling herself over and over again “eldest sister, eldest sister, eldest sister.”
Emma demanded grumpily,
‘so, you’ve opened your eyes then?’
‘Sort of.’
Emma said no more as she stumped angrily upstairs. Kirsty called up to her,
‘can’t we fix this?’
Emma grunted, and then disappeared from view without stopping.
While its owner was at work during the following Tuesday, Kirsty’s laptop sat hidden under a pile of used plastic shopping bags, its single eye peeking out at the view of Kirsty’s chest of drawers, staring unblinkingly at a used spectacle case which sat on it: dark blue, with a gold “A” on the top. It contained an old pair of Amy’s glasses, the only old glasses its owner could lay her hands on, being as there seemed to be none to be found anywhere in the entire house. The laptop’s owner had taken the precaution of telling only one person that she was soon going to be taking some old clothes to a charity shop, and had included some of these from all her other sisters without their knowledge: they would welcome the extra space, although they never seemed too keen on taking the necessary steps toward that end. Kirsty had told her not to tell anyone else: if she were tempted to rummage in the pile, find and then steal the laptop, it was security marked and the thief would probably not be able to log in anyway, certainly not quickly or easily. That was a bit of a risk, but Kirsty needed to know. So the laptop sat there, patiently watching and recording.
And thus, after some hours of tireless observation, someone came in and looked around: first at the pile of stuffed-full shopping bags, then at the tempting spectacle case sitting there inviting attention. The case was picked up and opened, then the contents elicited a smile: a pair of Amy’s glasses, over minus 30 in each eye, with those fascinating small-bowled, powerful lenses that she needed to correct her high myopia. Those glasses were taken out of the case, held up the to light and inspected: from the point of view of the person so doing, they were of no use for seeing anything but a useless blur. But they needed to be checked, and were found to be quite good enough; broken glasses being of no use to anyone. They were carefully replaced in their case, then put in a pocket. Both they and the person whose pocket they now resided in were not seen again during all the seemingly endless hours of further recording.
Kirsty found her laptop still under the pile of clothes, and sat down to watch the endless hours of boring, nothing-happening movie that had been recorded. Lots of whizzing through helped, but it was a long time before anything happened. And then the thief appeared: it seemed to be a high-speed thief, being as it was being replayed at 5x speed, so Kirsty rewound it and watched it at normal speed. It was as she had suspected: it was Vicky. She thought to herself and wondered “what to do now?” Then she decided: call the police.
Kirsty pushed her glasses up with her fingers and gave her tired eyes a gentle rub, just on the off chance that this might help relieve her endless headache. Not today, it seemed. So she settled down to write
‘Dear Diary, Vicky has been arrested for the theft of Amy’s glasses and taken off to the local police station, that place where I was some weeks ago. No, I don’t want to repeat that again, and I wish this hadn’t happened either, but here we are: she’s been stealing our old glasses and apparently selling them on ECove. Goodness knows why anyone wants them, but the money went into her pockets all the same.’
‘Being as we are without a proper housekeeper again, and Emma hasn’t got herself a proper job yet, she’s been drafted in. I can’t say she’s exactly loving it, she’s not really the sort of person who loves menial tasks, and she is still angry with me, and I want not to be angry at her, so it’s all very difficult. At least she gets on with Annie and doesn’t steal things. Apart from that - I’m counting down the days to my eye test. Off to bed now, I’m exhausted as usual.’
Part II
During the following night, Kirsty opened her eyes and found herself standing outside the fairytale chateau, lawns perfectly kept, borders packed with flowers of every hue. She heard mocking laughter, then for a few heartbeats her view of the world blurred to imitate the way her awake vision was with her not-quite-right glasses. The voice asked,
‘do you have a headache yet?’
Then her vision cleared, and the voice asked,
‘well, come on in then.’
Kirsty went inside: the entrance hall was decorated with scenes that could have been taken from any opticians she’d ever been to: people looking at eyecharts, opticians fitting trial lenses and doing various tests, but strangely all dressed in 18th century-style clothing. Up ahead were two pillars; between which was draped a curtain decorated with eyecharts, all printed in dizzying directions and colours. This curtain pulled itself aside, allowing Kirsty to enter a large chamber, plain apart from an arcade each side: she was sure something was lurking in the shadows behind each small column.
A female figure appeared and walked towards her. Kirsty recognized her: it was Vicky! She spluttered in astonishment,
‘wha... What are you doing here?’
Vicky grinned, then replied,
‘what did you expect, a burned guy wearing a scruffy red and green jumper?’
She clicked her fingers, and distant voices began to chant,
‘One, two, Spechunter's coming for you.’
‘Three, four, better lock your door.’
‘Five, six, grab a good sharp knife.’
‘Seven, eight, gonna stay indoors.’
‘Nine, ten, what can you see?’
Vicky chuckled at her, then said,
‘well, aren’t you the blind one?’
Kirsty then awoke with a start: she swore she could hear children singing.
Vicky was brought into a room a couple of days after being arrested: there was a table with two chairs, a tape recorder and what she rightly assumed was a plain-clothes policeman. He spoke to her in English,
‘so, do you admit taking that pair of glasses, and all the other glasses that your employer alleges that have gone missing?’
She shook her head, and said,
‘No, no, is okay, I did this, I’m sorry.’
‘Just this one, or all of them?’
It took her a moment to understand, so she replied
‘I’m doing it, I took off the glasses, I’m sorry.’
He gave a little sigh, and told her,
‘okay, we are going to get a translator.’
‘Is good, my English is not so good, thank you.’
Vicky’s rather wobbly English was good enough to get her a job cooking, cleaning and a bit of childcare, but it lacked the precision for such an interview, and being so stressed and fearful didn’t help either. So she was taken back to the cells to await the translator, and also the results of the search of her flat.
Later, Vicky again sat being interrogated: she had by now been charged with theft after admitting she’d stolen glasses from Kirsty and her sisters, and told the police what she’d done with them: sold them on an auction site to raise money for herself. But she looked at the investigator warily: there was something else he had in mind. What now? She soon found out, as he handed her another pair of glasses, and asked through the translator,
‘do you recognize these glasses?’
‘Yes. I stole them too, but not from the Johnsons. I got them somewhere else.’
‘From the face of a young woman called Caroline Wyatt?’
Vicky shrugged: she couldn’t place the name.
‘Caroline Wyatt was a young woman who was murdered, we presume by the spechunter, in June.’
Vicky shivered, wondering if he really thought that she was the Spechunter.’
‘No, no, I am not the Spechunter, no, no.’
For a moment he looked at her as he didn’t believe her, then her lawyer spoke up on her behalf,
‘you’re fishing. Do you really think she is the Spechunter?’
The investigator looked almost ready to say “yes,” then said,
‘that remains to be seen. But, if we assume you are not the Spechunter, where did you get these glasses?’
Vicky quickly told them: an old disused garage that she’d broken into on the outskirts of town. Despite this bit of desperate honesty, it looked very much as if she wouldn’t get bail.
Kirsty sat tapping away at her laptop nearly a week later
‘Hello Diary, I have very good news for you, I am getting new glasses tomorrow morning. Yippie!! And then, no more headaches, no more fuzziness and distortion! Apart from that... Almost nothing else is important.’
Three days later, a Saturday, found Kirsty standing waiting under the clock in the shopping mall as she had done before many afternoons in the past. Her phone beeped - there was a message:
‘Hey, we’re running late, be with you in five. A+M.’
Well, there was only one A+M she knew; it was her twin sisters Amy and Melissa, out shopping. Kirsty half wished she were out shopping too, but then two days ago she’d recently bought something far more necessary: new glasses, much as she’d tried to buy from SharpSpex, black with wide sides, curved enticingly upwards and downwards at top and bottom. As for the lenses, they looked as good as minus 16 and some astigmatism would ever look, but Kirsty was well past worrying about that. Instead, her vision was far more important to her, her lenses transforming that uncorrected, near useless blur into sharp clarity. And then there was the complete lack of headache: after a few minutes it had seemed to evaporate, leaving her elated. Now she was getting used to not having it, although the memory was distinctly unpleasant. The cause of it hadn’t been surprising to the optician: in one of her eyes the angle had changed quite drastically, and the other it had changed in strength. Kirsty didn’t remember the exact details, nor cared enough to do so: the clear vision was enough. She scanned down the wide aisles of the shopping centre, wondering where her sisters were, checking out faces for their familiar looks.
And then there they were - two tall, slim young women of 25 years wearing distinctively powerful glasses, at least twice as strong as hers. Kirsty wished she had their legs and height, although of course not their vision. Kirsty couldn’t tell them apart at that distance, but then an instant later realised the one in red was all but certain to be Melissa. Did she ever not wear something red? That red dress clung to her body so alluringly. Amy next to her wore a blue top and dark trousers. How strange, she mused, being as Amy was always the one at the fore between the two of them, yet she often wore the darker colours. Despite their similarities, they strove to be different. They both looked so happy and smiley, seeming to have no cares in the world. Kirsty wished to herself that she had that pleasant state too: the cares of her life had worn her down this year, sorting out her glasses at last was a relief, but there was now her niggling worries about her father. What was going on with him? He wasn’t quite what he seemed, it occurred to her, and not for the first time in recent weeks. Then she caught a fleeting glimpse of a particularly attractive man walking past, and just for a moment her thoughts turned to her own needs. Then her twin sisters grew closer, and they demanded her attention instead. At that distance, they didn’t recognize Kirsty dressed in her sensible top and skirt, so Kirsty went to meet them. There was much delight and hugging, and then they went off for a coffee.
Kirsty was obliged to help them out with the menu & price list behind the counter: she was always glad to do this, but particularly today, with her wearing new glasses and thus possessed of properly corrected, clear comfortable vision, it was a pleasure. They sat down, and then she asked,
‘so what’s with all the shopping? Going to a party or something?’
Amy laughed at that, then said,
‘we’ve met this man... He’s... Doing some lovely things for us.’
Melissa started smiling too, bordering on laughter. Kirsty asked,
‘we?’
Her mind was very much boggled by that.
Amy continued,
‘his name is Alan, he was Melissa’s lipreading teacher... Then he became her boyfriend... Then I was a bit naughty and snared him too...’
Kirsty’s eyes popped out at that, then said,
‘is that... Wise?’
‘Wise?’
Replied Melissa,
‘who cares about wise? It’s fun though.’
Kirsty got her giggly twin sisters to tell her all about it. Amy watched her face as Melissa finished explaining, then asked,
‘so, you don’t approve?’
‘No, no, it’s not for me to say... It’s just a bit... Unusual. All these pictures, they are probably all over the net by now, and on a million hard drives. What if one of them is the Spechunter?’
That quieted them down. But then Amy said,
‘nah, can’t be, he’d have to find us first, and it’s not as if we go out in the dark alone much anyway. Hopefully the Police will find him soon, so we won’t have to worry about that.’
‘The police seem to be getting nowhere on that. And - what’s to stop him coming into someone’s home?’
They fell silent again.
They finished their coffee and left, Kirsty not going out of her way to help: in daylight they were perfectly capable of guiding themselves, after all they’d found their way to her and done lots of shopping to boot. There was some more chatting and giggling from Kirsty’s twin sisters, which she paid some attention to, but again, the question nagged her: what if the Spechunter was... Her Dad? She tried desperately not to think that, but it kept on resurfacing as they walked to the requisite bus stop. They were halfway to it when Kirsty heard something behind her - she was too preoccupied with her thoughts to notice - then the next thing she knew, she was shoved against a railing and her new glasses had been knocked from her face: somehow her bag had gone over the railing into the road, then she heard two “crunch” sounds in quick succession. She heard Amy noisily remonstrating with someone, with venomous swearing added for good measure. The cyclist got back on his bike and pedaled off, leaving Kirsty with scraped knees and palms; she then sat up and began searching for her glasses. She saw a twin crouching next to her, wearing a red dress: it had to be Melissa. She put a gentle hand on her back and said to her comfortingly
‘Kirsty, it’s alright, you got knocked over by some idiot on a bike.’
‘What about... My glasses?’
‘Erm... It looks like they got smashed.’
Kirsty grimaced and asked rather desperately,
‘where’s my bag? Amy? Can you see my bag? They have my sp