The Lost Child: A Gripping Detective Thriller with a Heart-Stopping Twist

by Patricia Gibney

  She wondered what state Mick O’Dowd’s farm was in this morning. And where had he disappeared to? Could he have killed Emma? Was she related to him?

  She lifted the phone and called Jane Dore to ask about Emma’s post-mortem.

  ‘Later today, I hope. Marian Russell’s body is here also. She succumbed to septicemia as a result of her wounds. I’ll send over the prelims when I have them completed.’

  Lottie hung up. Marian’s death would be officially classed as murder. Three victims from one family. Was it the same murderer? Could there be more than one psycho at work around the town? She hoped not.

  Kirby shuffled in, his coat hanging over his arm, and grunted, ‘Good morning, boss. Some mess out there after the storm.’

  ‘Some mess in here too,’ Lottie said. ‘Get everyone into the incident room as soon as they come in. We need to get a handle on this.’

  ‘Handle on what?’

  Lottie looked up. Detective Inspector David McMahon stood in the doorway, his mop of dark hair glistening with dampness.

  ‘Sir,’ she said, picking up a file and making a hasty exit. Why had she called him sir? He was the same rank as her. Get it together, Lottie, she scolded.

  At the incident boards, she moved Emma Russell’s photo to the victims’ side, joining her mother and grandmother. She folded one hand around her waist, then rested her elbow on her wrist and contemplated the pictures. The burned man now had a name. Jerome Quinn.

  ‘He’s the odd one out,’ she said aloud.

  ‘Maybe he’s the link that holds it all together.’

  She hadn’t heard McMahon enter the room. Now he stood beside her, tall and arrogant. The prick.

  ‘What evidence do you have to support your theory?’ she asked.

  ‘I could ask you the same question,’ he said.

  Boyd, Kirby and Lynch joined them and sat down with a few other tired-looking detectives. This should be interesting, Lottie thought, as McMahon turned in unison with her to face the troops.

  ‘Will you introduce yourself?’ she asked.

  Buttoning the jacket of his suit over a slim-fitting shirt, he took a step forward, leaving Lottie in his shadow.

  ‘Detective Inspector David McMahon. And don’t call me Big Mac or anything like that. I’ll answer to sir or David.’ He smiled, reminding Lottie of Cathal Moroney’s white veneer grin. He was still speaking as she uncrossed her arms and held them straight by her sides. Trying to appear as tall as him because she knew she would fail in making herself look as important.

  ‘I’m with the Garda National Drugs Unit. As your investigations into the murder of Tessa Ball have uncovered a substantial quantity of drugs, this investigation now falls under my remit.’

  ‘Hey, hold on a minute!’ Lottie jerked alive and grabbed his sleeve, quickly dropping her hand when he looked down his nose at her. ‘Sorry. But we retain the right to investigate alongside you. I believe there’s more to this than just a drug crime.’

  McMahon turned slowly and pointed a finger at the picture of the burned man.

  ‘Jerome Quinn,’ he said. ‘Second in command to his half-brother Henry “Hammer” Quinn. Do you all appreciate who we are dealing with now?’

  A murmur greeted his question. He continued. ‘We suspected he had a long-time girlfriend, but he’s unmarried. Plenty of bimbos sniffing around him.’

  ‘Bimbos! Ah, come on now, you know you can’t speak like that,’ Lottie said.

  ‘You know what I mean. Hangers-on, wanting a bit of the action. Free swag and all that.’

  Lottie scowled.

  McMahon said, ‘Jerome disappeared over fifteen months ago and went to ground.’

  ‘Underground in Ragmullin?’ Boyd said.

  ‘There’s a criminal element operating out of this town. Someone got greedy. The Russell family was slap bang in the middle of it.’

  ‘Their murders might have absolutely nothing to do with the drugs,’ Lottie said when none of her team were forthcoming.

  McMahon unbuttoned his jacket, shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and strutted around the perimeter of the room. ‘Marian’s tongue was cut out. Her daughter was in a relationship with small-time crook Lorcan Brady. Was Marian about to squeal? Did someone try to stop her?’

  ‘Hold on a minute there.’ Boyd was up and out of his chair. ‘We only have it on hearsay that Emma Russell was involved with Lorcan Brady.’

  ‘Didn’t you find cash hidden in her room, Inspector?’ McMahon said, without looking at Boyd. ‘Didn’t you find a hoodie she may have been wearing?’

  ‘That’s true, but—’ Lottie began.

  ‘Wasn’t her body found a few miles down the road from where Brady and Quinn were assaulted and burned?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Didn’t you find unidentified plants hidden at the Russell home?’

  Lottie nodded.

  ‘I rest my case.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ Kirby said, and jammed his e-cig into his mouth.

  Lottie closed her eyes, waited for an arrogant tirade. Deathly silence reigned as she counted. She reached nineteen before McMahon spoke.

  ‘Have you a more reasonable hypothesis to offer, Detective Kirby?’

  When Lottie opened her eyes, McMahon’s suit jacket was once again buttoned up and he was standing at the opposite end of the incident boards.

  ‘If I was to go along with your scenario,’ she said, ‘which I’m not ready to, tell me why Tessa Ball was killed.’

  ‘Wrong place, wrong time,’ he offered.

  ‘Bullshit.’ Boyd.

  ‘You have the floor,’ McMahon said, and folded his arms. Lottie didn’t dare turn her head, but she could imagine he had a sneer plastered over his closely shaven face.

  ‘Right,’ Boyd said, and mimicked McMahon’s earlier tour of the room. ‘Marian Russell rang her mother Tessa at 21.07 on the night of Tessa’s murder. We believe Emma left to go to Natasha’s at 18.30 and arrived home sometime after 22.30. We can assume that Marian let someone she knew into her house, as there was no sign of forced entry. Whoever it was wanted Tessa there. That was the reason for the phone call. We could assume the person was Arthur Russell, as he has no alibi from 19.30 on that evening – a domestic situation that got out of hand.’

  ‘I will indulge this line of thought for the moment,’ McMahon said. ‘Tessa was attacked and murdered. Marian was taken away, in her own car, to Lorcan Brady’s house. There she was tortured and mutilated. The next day she was pushed out of the car at the hospital. It’s been confirmed that was the car found burned out at Lough Cullion the same morning that Lorcan Brady and Jerome Quinn were tortured and burned in a cottage just outside Ragmullin.’

  ‘That cottage was once owned by Tessa Ball,’ Lottie said. Time to get her investigation back in her own hands.

  ‘And a criminal was renting it.’

  ‘She signed it over to Mick O’Dowd.’

  ‘The farmer on whose property her granddaughter was found murdered. He rented the cottage to Quinn, therefore he may also be involved in the drugs ring.’

  Lottie couldn’t dispute his argument. Didn’t mean she had to buy into it. ‘We’re still looking for O’Dowd. When we find him, we’ll get some answers.’

  ‘Depending on whether he’s still alive or not.’

  ‘Of course he’s alive.’

  ‘Appears to me you haven’t been successful in keeping many suspects, or witnesses for that matter, alive so far. Where do you think this O’Dowd character could be? His Land Rover is still at the farm, I believe.’

  ‘A quad bike is missing,’ Lottie said.

  ‘Not an ideal getaway vehicle, is it?’

  ‘He might’ve had—’

  ‘Enough!’

  Superintendent Corrigan moved to the front of the room. Lottie hadn’t noticed him arriving.

  He shook hands with McMahon and clapped him on the back. ‘Good to have you in our neck of the woods.’

  The two-faced bastard. Lotti
e planted a smile on her face, careful not to catch Boyd’s eye.

  ‘Great to be here, Superintendent. I’ll have this solved in a matter of hours. I’m heading to speak with Lorcan Brady once I wrap up this meeting.’

  ‘Brady can’t speak…’ Lottie stopped. Had she been kept out of that loop also?

  ‘I was informed earlier that he’s ready to have a wee chat with me,’ McMahon said.

  ‘I think I should be the one to—’

  ‘Great stuff,’ said Superintendent Corrigan, cutting her short. ‘Off you go, David, and I’ll have a wee chat with my team.’

  Lottie noticed the realisation dawning on McMahon. He’d been outsmarted at his own game. She couldn’t help a grin curling at the corner of her mouth as she watched the Dublin DI shake Corrigan’s hand and leave the room.

  ‘Shut the feckin’ door,’ Corrigan instructed once McMahon had left.

  ‘With pleasure,’ Kirby said, dragging himself out of his chair.

  ‘Now, I want a full update from the senior investigating officer. Inspector Parker, that’s you, in case you had been misled by that Dublin hotshot in a suit. You have ten minutes to consult with your team. Then I want you in my office. With answers. Understood?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Sixty-Three

  The relief was palpable once the two men had left. Lottie thought the four walls also breathed a welcome sigh. The air seemed to lift. If only momentarily.

  ‘I don’t want this going on a day longer than necessary. I want Arthur Russell and Mick O’Dowd found. What are you doing about it?’

  Lynch sat up straight. ‘Every officer in the district is mobilised and there’s a manhunt throughout the state for them. Checkpoints are operational since Emma’s body was found. Airports and ports have been notified. Everyone is watching for them.’

  ‘So what have we got in the line of answers to our overall investigation?’

  ‘I’ve just received a transcript of the information that was salvaged from Marian Russell’s laptop hard drive,’ Lynch said. ‘I’ll give you a summary as soon as I get a chance to examine it.’

  ‘Good. Kirby, you look like the dog that got the bone. What’s your news?’

  Kirby grinned, and Lottie had to smile back, even though she wanted to tell him to get a haircut.

  ‘The bones found at the cottage yesterday…’

  ‘Brady’s missing fingers?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘The gun we found in Tessa’s apartment,’ Lottie said, moving on swiftly. ‘Any information from ballistics?’

  Kirby shifted in his chair, from one buttock to the other.

  ‘Out with it,’ Lottie said.

  ‘You might not like this.’

  ‘Let me be the judge of that.’ Her phone vibrated in her jeans pocket. Ignoring it, she braced herself for whatever it was Kirby thought she wasn’t going to like.

  ‘The revolver is a Webley and Scott. Used by the Garda Special Branch back in the seventies.’

  ‘The Special Branch?’ Lottie said. ‘How did it end up in Tessa Ball’s possession?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Kirby said. ‘But the weird thing is…’

  ‘Go on.’

  Kirby took a deep breath and blurted out, ‘Ballistics show it’s a match with the bullet from an old suicide.’

  Lottie’s next question died on her lips. She knew where this was leading. She formed a new question.

  ‘You mean to tell me that the gun we found in a murder victim’s home the other day is the same gun that my father used to kill himself forty years ago?’

  Kirby was biting his lip, nodding his bushy head of hair.

  Boyd said, ‘That’s… that’s the most far-fetched thing I’ve heard in… in ages.’

  Lottie walked around the room, mulling over the significance of this. Had Tessa known her father? How did she come to have the gun? In all the reports she’d read so far in her own private investigations, it was stated that Peter Fitzpatrick had stolen the gun from a secure cabinet in the garda station. She banged her fists against her forehead. Nowhere had she read what had happened to the gun afterwards. Nowhere had she seen any connection to Tessa Ball. But had she? Think, Lottie, she told herself. Think. Then it came to her. Her father’s notebook. The one with the name of the solicitors scrawled across the centre of a page.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ Boyd said.

  ‘Remember the notebook I showed you? It had “Belfield and Ball” written in my father’s handwriting. Someone please tell me what is going on.’

  ‘Just a minute,’ Boyd said. ‘No point in jumping to conclusions. They were probably the only firm of solicitors in Ragmullin in the seventies. Your father was a garda sergeant. He would’ve been dealing with the courts on a weekly basis, so it’s not unusual that he had the name written down.’

  ‘But I don’t understand why Tessa had the gun.’

  ‘It’s probably nothing to do with our current investigation,’ Lynch said. ‘Just an odd coincidence.’

  ‘I don’t like coincidences,’ Lottie snapped. ‘Odd or otherwise.’

  ‘Then there are the files that were stolen from Belfield and Ball. Files that Tessa had been dealing with,’ Kirby said, scratching his head with the end of his e-cigarette.

  ‘I agree this may have nothing to do with the murders,’ Lottie said, ‘but I’ll talk with Kitty Belfield myself and maybe have a chat with that old journalist, Buzz Flynn. He might remember something from his newspaper days. You know him, Kirby; will you tell him I’ll be calling?’

  Kirby nodded.

  ‘Do you think I should inform Bernie and Natasha Kelly about Emma’s murder?’ Lynch asked.

  ‘I forgot about them. Boyd and I will call later. I’m sure they know already, but no harm in a formal visit to wrap things up with them.’ Lottie paused then added, ‘I wonder what Lorcan Brady has to say for himself about it all.’

  ‘I’m sure our Dublin friend will tell us when he returns,’ Boyd said.

  ‘One other thing,’ Kirby said, flicking through McGlynn’s report. ‘Brady’s house.’

  Lottie turned to look at him. ‘The blood in the kitchen is that of Marian Russell?’

  ‘Confirmed. But this has to do with the bags of rubbish out the back. They proved to hold vital evidence.’

  ‘Bloody clothes?’

  ‘Yes. They’ve been sent for DNA analysis.’

  ‘Let me know as soon as you know.’

  ‘That’s not all…’ Kirby hesitated. ‘In amongst the rubbish they also found Marian’s tongue.’

  Sixty-Four

  In her office, Lottie tried to keep the churning in her stomach to a minimum.

  ‘Will I get coffees?’ Boyd offered.

  ‘No, I think I might puke. The bastards. Why torture her? Why not just kill her and be done with it? Something is not adding up here, Boyd.’

  ‘Talking of adding up, what’s with that ledger you took from O’Dowd’s house?’

  Lottie pulled on protective gloves, laid a sheet of plastic on her desk and retrieved the ledger from the evidence bag. From her drawer she took the copies of the letters they’d found in Tessa’s apartment. Laying them beside the ledger, she pointed to the handwriting.

  ‘Notice anything?’

  Boyd sat on the edge of the desk and leaned over her shoulder, his voice close to her ear. ‘The writing looks similar.’

  ‘Not similar. It’s the same.’ She turned to look up into his eyes, their hazel flecks dancing. ‘Is this the missing link?’

  ‘Perhaps another link, but I don’t think we have the full chain yet.’

  Lottie picked up the letter from the top of the pile. No signature. No date. She read it aloud:

  My dearest love,

  I know we cannot be together, but I want you to know that I think of you every day. Others have decided that we are to be apart. Not me. I want you to believe that. If I had my way, we would be together. You deserve to be loved. I wou
ld give you mountains of it. I want to. But that is not to be, unfortunately.

  I will write again as soon as I can.

  Please believe that I really do love you.

  Love you always.

  ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘The rest of the letters are in a similar vein.’

  Boyd picked up another. ‘So if we get the handwriting analysed, and allowing for passage of time, are we going to be able to categorically say that Mick O’Dowd wrote these letters?’

  ‘I think so.’ Lottie put them back in the folder. She closed the ledger and replaced it in the evidence bag. ‘But they read kind of… weird, as Kirby would say. Don’t you think?’

  ‘We have no clue as to what this separation was. Her husband might still have been alive at the time.’

  ‘He died early in the marriage, leaving Tessa free. Something isn’t right with them. I can’t fathom it.’

  ‘We know there’s a connection between Tessa and O’Dowd. She sold or gave him the cottage, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘She was a solicitor. Maybe she was a go-between for O’Dowd and someone else.’

  ‘But she kept the letters. Never sent them on.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Lottie wiped a hand over her throbbing head. ‘And that gun… I’m going to have a chat with Buzz Flynn. See if he can enlighten me about anything my father might’ve been involved with.’

  ‘You’re right. Newspaper hounds know even more than us guards. And I’ll check to see if there’s been any sighting of our two missing men.’

  ‘Do. One of them must be a murderer.’

  ‘Or both?’

  ‘We also need to find out what McMahon gets from Brady. Better still, we could go talk to Brady ourselves.’

  As she grabbed her jacket, her phone vibrated. She saw a red circle indicating that she had an earlier voice message. She should ring Annabelle. She answered the call.

  ‘Hi, Jane. Any news on Emma’s PM?’