Quigley couldn’t quite hide the faint irritation in his voice when he used the phrase, and Flynn remembered he had a son who, according to office gossip, had recently decided that university life wasn’t for him. It was gas, he thought, how little snatches of people’s lives broke through in conversation when you least expected it. It was part of his job to pick up on them too, he mused, and then realized his mind was wandering and focused on his boss, who was still giving a rundown of Leah Gilmore’s typical day.
‘The mother says there’s no way she’d go on anywhere after her jog without coming home to shower first. It just wouldn’t happen. Dr Gilmore usually calls her after the surgery shuts at one and they might discuss what they’re having for tea. Leah might pick up a bit of shopping in the afternoon, if it’s needed. Today, of course, there was no call as ye were in the surgery at that stage.’
Superintendent Quigley gave a quick nod in Boyle’s direction before continuing.
‘Doesn’t sound like a very exciting life for a young girl, but there you go. That’s what the mother says she does, anyway. I had a word with the stepfather too, Mr Dillon, but he said he wouldn’t usually hear from Leah at all during the day so he didn’t notice anything out of place. He did try his wife’s phone a couple of times in the afternoon, which would have been during the surgery, er, incident, but again, he wasn’t particularly worried. He said he’d had no indication that anything was wrong until he got the call from the hospital to tell him to come in. So that’s where we’re at, really. Dr Gilmore has been discharged, Dillon is driving her home and two officers are over there now searching young Leah’s room, but, to be honest, I don’t think Dr Gilmore will be able to answer any more questions until the morning. I’ve two other men started on door-to-door enquiries in the area, focusing on the time of Miss Gilmore’s run, of course, and others are searching the route she usually took.’
As if she had snapped out of a daze, Boyle leaned forward on her trolley and began to fire questions at her boss.
‘Do you have Eileen Delaney’s phone? We need to trace where that photo came from. Have you the tech guys on it? Have you asked the parents if she runs the same route every morning? Have you set up roadblocks?’
Quigley gave her a withering look.
‘Take it easy, Detective. I have actually worked cases before. Everything that needs to be done has been set in train. We’ve put out a press release with details of the missing woman and a description, as close as we can get it, of the man you saw in the doctor’s surgery. RTÉ ran a short piece on the six o’clock news and,’ he checked his watch, ‘they’ll do it again at nine. I’ve members going door to door, as I said, and we’re also checking CCTV in Fernwood village, although there are no cameras near Dr Gilmore’s house unfortunately.’
When Boyle continued, her voice was much lower than it had been.
‘I’m really sorry, sir, that I couldn’t give you a better description of the guy in the surgery. I just – I just wasn’t looking at him properly when he was outside, that’s the truth. I didn’t think he was important until he came in and then he put the scarf over his face. I can’t forgive myself.’ Quigley shook his head.
‘Don’t beat yourself up, Boyle. It was an extraordinary situation. It sounds like you did well to stay as calm as you did.’
‘Too bloody calm, maybe.’
Boyle sounded annoyed with herself, and both men stared at her, waiting for her to elaborate. For the first time her composure seemed to be cracking and she inhaled deeply before continuing.
‘Don’t forget it was my actions that brought Richard to the surgery in the first place. I threw the cup out of the window – I alerted him to the fact that I was there. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I’d get help, but it looks like it just confused the situation, he and Eileen went off script after that. I can’t help thinking, sir, that I should have left well enough alone. If I hadn’t made contact with him, maybe it would have been over much sooner . . .’
Quigley had raised his hand to silence her.
‘Hold it right there, Sergeant. You’ll be making an official statement, of course, but for the moment all I know is that you acted incredibly calmly and decisively in what must have been a very difficult situation.’
‘But, sir—’
‘Boyle.’
The single word was as close to a reprimand as Flynn had ever heard pass between the two and Boyle sank back on her pillows, silenced. So that was how Quigley was going to play it. Boyle had displayed heroism under pressure and no other narrative would be entertained. Fair enough. Little bit of a whitewash, maybe, but understandable under the circumstances. He himself was feeling pretty foolish that he had let the Richard dude get away. Broken rib or no broken rib, he’d had the fecker right there in front of him and let him straight out of the door. Maybe it was best for them all to stick to the broad brushstrokes of the day’s events and concentrate on getting the girl back, rather than agonizing over what might have been.
Quigley had continued to speak as if Boyle’s interruption hadn’t happened.
‘So we know the girl is missing, and that she was presumably taken by this Richard fella. It’s not confirmed, of course, but it seems to make sense that she was abducted while out running, shortly after ten. That would have given him several hours to bring her somewhere and still be back in position outside the surgery by one. But what we can’t figure out is why, or where she’s being held.’
Despite the painkillers, which were slowing down his thought processes, Flynn was starting to put the facts of the case together in his mind.
‘You said, sir, that the doctor – that Dr Gilmore is married again? Do we know where her first husband is, the girl’s father?’
Quigley nodded.
‘We do indeed, Detective. Marc Gilmore is out of the country on business, in China of all places, but he’s been contacted and is on his way back. He’ll be met at the airport when he gets in early tomorrow morning.’
‘Marc Gilmore?’
Bloody tablets. The name sounded frustratingly familiar, but Flynn was struggling to figure out where he had heard it before. Hang on, though . . . ‘The Marc Gilmore?’
Quigley gave him a brief smile. ‘The very man’.
All three lapsed into silence, and Flynn suspected they were all thinking about the same thing. The sixty seconds of television footage, used again and again on news bulletins every time the financial crisis of a couple of years ago was being discussed. It was the first thing every Irish person thought of when they heard the name Marc Gilmore. The footage showed a tall, well-built man walking out of a bank’s headquarters on a dry, autumnal day. His shoulders back, his head held high, he squints slightly into the sun as he moves down the path with strong, confident movements, a furled umbrella by his side. Then, from behind him, a reporter approaches, asking a question. The camera moves in on the man’s face as a microphone is shoved under his nose. Gilmore’s first answer is a gentle ‘No comment,’ his second the same words said more forcefully. Then the reporter’s voice rises.
‘And what about the people whose money you used? What have you have to say to—?’
The man lifts the umbrella and makes a sudden swiping movement. Caught off guard, the reporter stumbles off the pavement and into the path of a moving car. Horns blare as the camera swings wildly, the operator unsure whether to capture the fate of his fallen colleague or the reaction of the tall man, who is by now striding away. In the end the viewer sees a snatch of both, the reporter hauling himself to his feet and beginning an argument with a stalled taxi driver, then, as the camera swings around, the man hurrying away, umbrella raised to shield his face from view. Then the reporter reappears, this time speaking directly to camera: ‘Marc Gilmore has constantly refused to answer questions about his part in the scandal,’ he says, his hair still somewhat ruffled, his tie slightly askew.
‘Whet
her or not his victims will be able to get answers in the future remains to be seen.’
Flynn couldn’t help wondering, when he had first seen the report, if the journalist had deliberately left his hair uncombed for maximum effect. Either way the shots were now part of Irish television history. Every Irish comedian had included an ‘umbrella attack’ in his routine for a few months and an internet meme showing the moment the umbrella had made contact with the journalistic jacket was in constant use on social media, with slogans like ‘Do you want to be part of my LinkedIn network?’ and ‘I told you I don’t like Mondays’ printed underneath.
Flynn gave his knuckles a contemplative crack and looked at the superintendent.
‘He didn’t go to jail in the end, did he, Gilmore?’
But it was Boyle who answered.
‘No. As far as I know he wasn’t even charged.’
Flynn frowned, still fumbling for all of the pieces.
‘What was it all about, again? Buying and selling houses or something?’
The sergeant took a quick glance at the curtain to make sure they couldn’t be overheard, but the bustle of the hospital was loud around them and they were, all three, speaking in discreet whispers.
‘Well, I’m no expert but, yeah, something like that. Gilmore was an investor, and he encouraged people to go in on property deals with him, promised them a decent return. It was all perfectly legal – how moral it was is another question. In some cases people handed over their pensions or even remortgaged their houses to try to cash in. But when the market went kaput their money went with it. To be honest with you, I’m a bit sketchy on the details. I’m barely managing to pay into a pension – I don’t have enough money to worry about my share portfolio, if you follow me.’
Flynn knew what she meant. You didn’t join the guards to make your fortune. That was for sure. Mind you, his own father had a couple of investment properties that would pass to himself in due course, which should make things a little easier for him in the long term. They were starting to increase in value too, despite the crash, because the oul fella hadn’t gone in over his head at any stage. He wasn’t the type to be led astray by dreams of big bucks, unlike some people.
‘Sir!’
Ah, now this was getting ridiculous. Flynn had to move his chair yet again as Garda Siobhán O’Doheny became the fourth officer to squeeze into the tiny cubicle.
Quigley looked irritated by the interruption.
‘Yes, Garda O’Doheny, what is it? Can’t it wait?’
‘Not really, sir.’
Siobhán was excited, Flynn thought, fired up enough for her to interrupt her superior officer. As she continued to speak he understood why.
‘A phone has been found, sir, on Rua Strand. I’ve been speaking to Leah Gilmore’s stepfather and he’s fairly sure it’s hers.’
‘On the beach?’
‘Yes, sir, right down on the strand. It wasn’t hidden, it could have been dropped there or even flung from the road. It has a pink cover on it – that’s why we’re sure it’s Leah’s. It’s distinctive. It’s gone in for analysis now.’
‘Okay. Thanks, Garda O’Doheny.’
Quigley climbed down off the trolley, his bulk making the small space seem even more crowded, and sighed heavily.
Flynn felt sure he knew what was on the other man’s mind. Ever since a high-profile murder case in Dublin a couple of years ago, the fact that the guards could trace people’s movements using their mobile phones was well known, so it wasn’t surprising that the man who had taken Leah Gilmore had ditched hers as soon as possible. Not surprising, but depressing nonetheless: it meant one element of their investigation had ended before it had even begun. Time was sliding by now, and judging by the time line they had been given, the girl had been missing for more than eight hours. Assuming she was still alive – and Flynn didn’t want to countenance any other outcome at the moment – the poor kid must be terrified out of her mind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Fuck him, though. There was only so long she could spend cowering on the floor. Leah tipped the last of the bottled water into her mouth and rose carefully to her feet. A bolt of pins and needles shot through her left foot and she hovered for a moment, balancing on the right, flexing her toes slowly while painfully waiting for the circulation to return. Then she put her foot to the floor again and, with an instinctive explosive movement, kicked the sandwich box at her feet, sending it slamming against the far wall.
Bastard. He was some scumbag, keeping her locked up in here. Well, he’d picked the wrong girl. The sandwich box had split open with the force of the blow and crumbs merged with the dust on the carpet. Leah bent over to take a closer look. Beige on white, chicken and stuffing or some shit, the type of muck they sold in petrol stations. Not the type of junk she’d be caught dead eating and, besides, she’d been a vegetarian for years and had no intention of letting this arsehole make her abandon her principles. But a hollow sensation in her stomach was a reminder that she hadn’t had anything other than a protein shake before her run and, despite the lack of natural light in the room, she had a feeling that it was now late evening. So she picked up one of the crusts, making sure there were no soggy bits that might have touched the disgusting filling, and chewed it thoughtfully. As the energy from the carbohydrates started to flow into her bloodstream she felt her head starting to clear. This man had had it all his own way so far. She needed to do something and, more to the point, stop waiting for things to be done to her. She’d heard the guy, whoever he was, come back into the house hours ago but he hadn’t been near her. Well, now was time for her to show him she wasn’t a complete pushover.
Giving her foot a final shake she turned, took a deep breath and banged on the door.
‘Hey! Hey, you, I need to talk to you!’
Her burst of courage lasted until she heard his footsteps outside, and when she saw the door handle turn she wanted to scuttle to the other side of the room and hide behind the sofa, but she couldn’t. That prick wasn’t going to get his way, not without a fight anyway. So, when he pushed the door open Leah pulled herself up on her toes and looked straight at him.
‘I need to use the toilet.’
His eyes above the dark scarf narrowed slightly, but he didn’t respond. Leah moved forward slightly and forced herself to keep her voice steady.
‘I said, I need the loo! You can’t just keep me in here.’
His response was so muffled by the material that she could barely make it out. He pointed over his shoulder, then repeated himself.
‘Bucket in the corner.’
Leah stood her ground.
‘Yeah, I know, but I need – to go?’
‘I’m not sure . . .’
For the first time, even through the scarf, he sounded uncertain, and Leah felt a faint stirring of hope. He was a bloke, after all, wasn’t he? A nutter, certainly, but a bloke, same as the rest of them. Ramping back her aggression, she dropped her shoulders and looked down at the floor.
‘I’m sorry, I just really need to go. It’s my, you know, time of the month?’
There was a pause, and then the man jerked his head backwards.
‘Come on, then.’
Leaving the door open, he stepped backwards, then turned and indicated she should follow him down the narrow, dim corridor. Leah kept her gaze downwards, but was able to take in yet more swirly carpet and what looked like wood panelling on the lower half of the walls before he opened the door to a small, foul-smelling cloakroom. ‘In there. And hurry up about it.’
The smell intensified as he shut the door and Leah almost gagged as she hovered above the cracked, yellowing bowl, using it as quickly as she could, then standing up straight again with a sigh of relief. She waited for a moment but didn’t flush. She pushed against the door as hard as she could. Just as she had hoped, he was standing right outside and it hit h
im full in the face making him howl – as much, she suspected, from surprise as from pain. Quickly, she moved around the door then kicked out as hard as she could, catching him between the legs. This time the agony was real, and as he bent over, moaning, she dragged the scarf away from his face and screamed at him.
‘Asshole!’
Breathlessly, he reached up, trying to protect his face as she continued to strike him.
‘Asshole! You can’t keep me in here!’
And suddenly it was as if every moment of tension from the past year, every row with her mother, every bit of the misery bubbled up inside her and, yes, every bit of the guilt overflowed, lending strength to her fury, and she struck out at him again and again, raining blows down at him so that, despite his far superior size, he could do nothing other than hold his hands up in front of his face and try to protect himself. Leah aimed one final kick at his crotch, missed but struck his kneecap instead, and as he bent double, clutching his leg, she looked over him and saw freedom. There was a door at the end of the corridor, an ordinary front door. All she had to do was get that far and twist the handle and then—
And then an arm appeared in front of her face, blocking her view. For a moment they stood there, motionless, the dark hair on his pale forearm almost tickling her nose. Leah could smell him, fresh sweat and old deodorant intermingled, and maybe the best thing to do would be to bite him and—
Too late. Her head jerked backwards as he used his other arm to tug at her hair.
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