One Bad Turn

by Sinéad Crowley

  ‘Gas, isn’t it? Gilmore lost pretty much everything in the crash but the new husband, Dillon, is as well off as Marc Gilmore was in his heyday, so they did a deal and he bought Gilmore’s share of the house after the divorce. Gilmore was anxious to make sure the young one, Leah, grew up in Fernwood so he went along with it. And get this – Gilmore himself is living in an apartment owned by Dillon, a couple of miles down the road! All engineered so Leah wouldn’t have to trek for miles to see her dad when she wanted to.’

  ‘That’s mad.’

  Claire grinned.

  ‘That, Detective Flynn, is how they do things in this part of the world. If you’re from Fernwood, you’ll do pretty much anything you can to make sure you stay there, even if it means a spot of grovelling to your ex-wife’s new fella. It’s all terribly civilized. Mind you, I think I’d be civilized if I was able to lay my head down here every night.’

  She nodded in the direction of the mansion, even more impressive now they were standing at the front gate.

  Flynn’s face darkened.

  ‘Not much use to them today, though, is it? Not with the girl still missing.’

  ‘No.’

  Claire gave him a quick, direct glance. Flynn was right, of course. It was time to leave behind the gossip and, let’s face it, her own worries. Anna, Matt, their marriage, everything had to stay in the car now. Facing into a new day of captivity, Leah Gilmore was their priority.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Leah was still sitting on the floor when he flung open the door. It banged against her outstretched legs and bounced back, hitting him full in the face.

  ‘What the – what are you doing down there?’

  He loomed over her as she scrambled to her feet.

  ‘Were you thinking of trying something on?’

  ‘No, not at all. I’m sorry. I was just—’

  ‘Get over there.’

  The man watched her stumble towards the sofa, then gave a short, barked laugh.

  ‘God, Leah, what are you like, huh? Sitting on the floor, Jaysus’ sake. Here.’

  He threw a cardboard box in her direction. Another prepacked sandwich. Startled, she didn’t reach out for it and it, too landed on the floor.

  ‘I’m okay.’

  Her captor didn’t laugh this time.

  ‘Eat it, Leah, yeah? Last thing I need is you getting weak on me.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘I said, eat it!’

  Something in him had changed, she thought. He was no longer unsure. She knew she should humour him, try to get him onside, but the prospect of eating the food was so sickening that she turned her head away.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Ah, princess. Spar sandwich not good enough for you?’

  His kept his voice light, but his tone was brittle, precise. He was taking this very seriously now, Leah realized. He walked across the floor, picked up the box and handed it to her.

  ‘Eat the sandwich, Leah.’

  He was trying to act calm. Trying to appear like he was completely in control. But he couldn’t stop a note of panic breaking through. Maybe there was a chink there. Something she could use. She pulled herself up straighter on the sofa and attempted a smile. ‘I can’t. I’m a vegetarian.’

  ‘Oh, you are, are you?’

  For a moment, all was silent. Leah held his gaze. Had she scored a small victory? Maybe?

  Then the man brought the box up in front of her face and ripped open the wrapping. The smell of the sandwich filled her nostrils, ageing mayonnaise and salty chicken. She looked down. The bread was brown and bone-dry and there was a large piece of gristle to the front of the filling. Her stomach heaved.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You will if I tell you to.’

  He lifted a sandwich out of the box, winked at her and then brought it closer to her face. Held it there for a second and then mashed it onto her lips. The smell was revolting and panic rose in her chest.

  ‘Please.’

  Attempting to speak had been a huge mistake. As soon as her lips moved he pushed the sandwich in further until she could feel stringy chicken against her tongue, grease on her teeth. Slowly, methodically, he continued to grind the food until she felt bread in her mouth too, and as she tried to stifle a sob, a rough dry crumb lodged in the back of her throat. Too terrified to cough, she felt her eyes begin to water.

  ‘Hurgh.’

  She tried to move away but he was holding her head with both of his hands now, one supporting the back of her skull, the other continuing to force the food in.

  ‘Swallow it, Leah. I can’t have you starving on me, now.’

  His tone drove all thoughts of rebellion out of her mind. Her body shaking, Leah used her tongue to push the food around her mouth, which was by now completely dry.

  ‘That’s right. Now swallow.’

  Leah tried to shake her head, but the more she struggled the harder he pushed, and she knew that if she didn’t do as he said she was in danger of choking to death. So, closing her eyes, she chewed and chewed, then sucked the mush down. It was the first meat she had eaten in six years and her stomach immediately tried to reject it, but he had anticipated this and, taking his hand from the back of her head, used it to clamp her lips together.

  ‘Eat it, Leah. No excuses.’

  Sobbing now, Leah swallowed again and again until her mouth was almost empty. Once he was sure she had done as he had told her, he sat back on the sofa and gave a slight smile.

  ‘That’s better, pet.’

  She stared at him numbly, too nauseated to speak. But he seemed to know what she was thinking.

  ‘You’re no use to me dead, love. So you won’t be going the same way as poor Alan any time soon. Here – say cheese!’

  He reached into his back pocket, took out a phone, and snapped her photograph. Terrified as she was, Leah felt a flicker of shame at how awful she must look, her mouth clamped shut, smears of chicken fat and butter on her cheek. Her distaste must have been obvious because when he spoke again it was clear he was smiling.

  ‘Not a great one for the Tinder profile, darling, but it’s you all right. That’ll do me.’

  ‘Water?’ she grunted.

  He put his head to one side before he replied. ‘Yeah, I’ll throw you in another bottle in a minute. I’m not a bad guy, Leah, honestly. Just do as I say and it’ll all be okay. Okay?’

  She swallowed again, afraid that if she coughed she’d put more strain on her already heaving stomach. Desperate to take her mind off the building nausea, she looked at him.

  ‘Why did you take it, anyway? Who are you sending it to? My mum?’

  The man smiled.

  ‘You’re the one who gave me the idea, love. You’re the one who reckons her new bloke is loaded.’

  He reached into his pocket again and waved the phone at her.

  ‘I’ll send this to your mum, and your stepdad, and we’ll see what they think, yeah? I’m not asking for a fortune, just enough to make all this,’ he waved vaguely at her, the sofa, the room, ‘worth my while. If your new daddy is worth what you say he is, it shouldn’t knock a feather out of him, know what I’m saying?’

  Leah’s head was spinning now. ‘And then will you let me go?’ He shrugged.

  ‘Sure. If they do what you say. And they’ve no reason not to, do they? They want their little girl home.’

  And then the terror and the nausea boiled up inside her and Leah vomited, pieces of undigested chicken and gristle exploding out of her nose and mouth, splashing onto the man’s hands, his trousers and his shoes.

  ‘You dirty bitch!’

  Horrified, he pulled away and jumped up from the sofa.

  ‘Christ. That was good food. Little cow!’

  Leah stared up at him, terri
fied as he towered over her. His fists were clenched and she closed her eyes, waiting for the blow. And then she heard him move backwards.

  ‘You’re no good to me dead, Leah, not today. Lucky for you, yeah? I’m going to get cleaned up. You can whistle for that water, though.’

  And her captor turned and strode out of the room.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  ‘Thank you for coming. We’re very grateful you could make it out so quickly.’

  Fergal Dillon opened the door wide, then stepped backwards to allow Claire and Flynn to join him in the hall. Heather Gilmore’s second husband was wearing slippers, Claire noticed, although he would probably call them house shoes. Brown suede slippers, well-worn and flattened at the heel. Above them he had on a pair of brown cord trousers and on top of that again a hooded grey sweatshirt that might have been fashionable on another man, but made Dillon look like a newly minted plainclothes cop who hadn’t got the memo on how to fit into the mean streets of Dublin. Claire stole a quick sideways glance at Flynn. The type of gear he had been wearing, as it happened, when she’d first started working with him. He’d smartened up a bit since then, though. Or someone had smartened him.

  They followed Dillon down the wide, brightly painted hallway. At the bottom he turned to them again.

  ‘We really appreciate you coming all this way, and at this hour.’

  Claire nodded, but didn’t reply. It wasn’t like she’d had a choice. Time was crucial in cases of abduction, and if Claire had had her way, she’d have been questioning Heather and her husbands, both ex and current, all through the previous night and for as long as it took to bring Leah home. But the doctor had insisted, after her discharge from hospital that she wasn’t up to it and even this morning said that she would only feel comfortable talking to Claire herself, and in her own home rather than at a police station. So Claire had trekked all the way out there, but wasn’t prepared to make polite conversation about it.

  ‘Lovely house.’

  Luckily, however, Detective Garda Philip Flynn was on hand to do just that. The admiration in Claire’s junior colleague’s voice was genuine as they followed Fergal Dillon through a heavy wooden door at the end of the hall, and the other man gave a hint of a smile.

  ‘Thanks. We like it. We’ve just had it repainted, actually. Causes an awful mess when they’re in but it’s worth it afterwards . . .’

  Despite her irritation and her intense desire to get on with the job, Claire allowed the two men to ramble on about colours and eastern European tradesmen as they stepped into the kitchen. Fergal Dillon must have spent a miserable night: his wife had been held at gunpoint and his stepdaughter was still missing, so, if talking about house prices was what he needed to keep himself sane, maybe it wasn’t her place to stop him. And maybe they’d get more out of him when they finally did get down to business.

  ‘Are they here? Oh.’

  The kitchen door was so well fitted that Claire didn’t hear it open. Heather Gilmore let it close behind her, then locked eyes with her.

  ‘Claire. Oh, Claire.’

  There was a beat, then a whoosh of air, and then the doctor, the grown-up competent woman who had confirmed her pregnancy, taken her blood pressure and advised her that, no, her daughter didn’t need an antibiotic for a runny nose, was clinging to Claire in a tight, desperate bear hug. You were there, the hug said to her. You understand. You’ll help me because it could have been you. For a while, it was you.

  For a second, then three, four, five, Claire returned the embrace. It was the hug she hadn’t been able to give Matt before she’d left the house that morning, the hug she had longed to give Anna but couldn’t for fear of upsetting her as she was leaving. It was the hug she had been tempted to give, but decided against giving Flynn the day before, when he had broken into the doctor’s surgery and she had realized that Anna was going to be okay. And, as she hugged Heather Gilmore, Claire wondered fleetingly what it would be like to stay on this side: to be the person who was hugged, minded, looked after. To be a civilian, the person who wasn’t in control, who didn’t have to be. It might be nice to be that person for a while. Then she gently peeled herself away. That wasn’t who she was and it wasn’t why she was there today.

  ‘It’s okay, Heather, try not to worry. We’re here to help. I promise you, we’re going to do all we can to find Leah.’

  She chose her words carefully, honed after years of practice. ‘We’ – not ‘I’. She wasn’t Heather’s patient any more, or her friend. She was a guard now. We are a unit, we are working for you. She made sure she didn’t promise that they would find the girl either, simply that they would do what they could.

  Sensing the change in her, Heather Gilmore stepped back and took a deep, shuddering breath. Claire gave her a moment to compose herself. Her husband might have been keeping himself calm, but there was no doubting the depths of the doctor’s misery. Her face was lined and drawn and, noticing the twitch under her left eye, Claire thought she was held together only by the threads of her expensive satin dressing-gown. Even the usually neat curls were bushy and untamed, and from time to time she shoved them back behind her ears as if her hair was just another irritant. Claire had always thought Dr Gilmore to be one of those naturally attractive women, one of the lucky few who could just wash their face, slick on some lipstick and be ready for the day. It was clear now that her ‘natural’ look took a lot of effort, and it was shocking how vulnerable she looked without it.

  The woman cleared her throat in an attempt to compose herself.

  ‘I just – I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know where to start!’

  ‘You don’t have to worry about that.’

  Claire gave her what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

  ‘That’s my job. We’re making this a priority, okay? All you have to do is answer a few questions – that’s your only job this morning. That’s the best way to help Leah.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Heather nodded, but her feet remained locked in place, as if even deciding where to walk to in her own home was suddenly beyond her.

  Claire caught her husband’s eye.

  ‘So, if we can just sit down . . .’

  ‘Of course. I’m sorry. And I’ll make tea.’

  Fergal Dillon snapped into action, pointing towards the opposite end of the room before turning himself in the direction of the central kitchen island. But Heather still didn’t move and, in the end, Claire had to take her arm and lead her towards the space he had indicated. It was an exquisite room, she thought. Claire mightn’t have Flynn’s expert eye in the property department but even she could see it was of the type that home-improvement shows would refer to as a ‘light-filled space’. The word ‘kitchen’ didn’t go any distance towards doing it justice, either. The area they had been standing in housed all the ordinary domestic stuff, dishwasher, fridge, from a hugely expensive range, and in the middle, where Dillon stood fiddling with a kettle, was the large island, covered with grey granite. Matt would love it, Claire thought, and for a moment she imagined him there, chopping vegetables and singing along to songs coming from the Bang & Olufsen speakers mounted on the wall. But it was at the other end of room that the architects had really earned their money. With the doctor following close behind, Claire and Flynn walked down two steps and into a tiled seating area, with two huge squashy blue sofas. A coffee table in the middle held books that looked as if they had been chosen to match the furniture rather than the reader’s taste, and the neatest cactus Claire had ever seen fitted perfectly into one corner. The whole corner or space, or whatever the hell you wanted to call it, was lined with glass – glass walls on both sides with huge glass sliding doors leading out onto a paved patio space. Beyond that again was a manicured garden where one solitary racing bike stood, gleaming, outside a perfectly painted garden shed.

  ‘Tea on the way – or would you prefer coffee?’
r />   Dillon was hovering anxiously now, trying not to crowd his wife, and Claire smiled at him.

  ‘Tea is fine, thanks.’

  Flynn was taking his time lowering himself onto the sofa – it was he, rather than she, who should have someone clucking over him, Claire thought – and she continued to chat to give him time to recover.

  ‘Must be nice, to live so close to the sea.’

  Heather had placed herself awkwardly on the sofa directly opposite Claire and wrapped her knees around each other, corkscrew style.

  ‘That’s Leah’s room out there. I can show you, if you like.’

  Claire followed her gaze out into the garden and for the first time noticed another wall, separate from the gable of the house, jutting into the garden.

  Heather cleared her throat.

  ‘It’s a granny flat. We had it built for Fergal’s mother, but she wasn’t well enough to move in with us, and then we thought, one day, that maybe a nanny . . . Anyway. It has its own entrance, bathroom, that sort of thing. It’s totally self-contained, but there’s an adjoining door here,’ she pointed towards the opposite wall of the kitchen, ‘so you can be private or part of the family as you like. It’s nice. It gets the light in the summer – Jesus, listen to me. I sound like a bloody estate agent. Anyway. It’s where Leah stays now. I must get it ready, actually, for when she comes back.’

  She took another sharp breath and Claire could see that the faint veneer of normality she had managed to paint across herself was about to crack, like a layer of caramel on a crème brûlée. Best to keep her talking, she decided, while she still could.

  ‘I’m going to start off by asking you about Eileen Delaney. Is that okay?’

  ‘Eileen?’

  Heather looked into the distance.

  ‘Sure. Whatever I can tell you, I mean—’