The Child Catcher (A DI Erica Swift Thriller Book 4)

by M K Farrar

  She thanked Natasha and took Poppy’s hand and led her to the car. They drove the short distance back to their house, and Erica helped Poppy from her car seat and carried her bag into the house.

  “Go and get comfy on the sofa. I’ll make that hot chocolate.”

  She was able to link her phone up to her television via some Bluetooth technology she didn’t really understand, and once the hot chocolate was ready, complete with a swirl of whipped cream and tiny pink and white marshmallows, she carried it back into the lounge. Poppy was curled up under a throw, her eyelids already heavy. It wouldn’t take long before she was sound asleep.

  Her daughter made an effort to sit up and Poppy used a spoon to scoop off some of the toppings before settling back into the corner of the sofa. Erica pulled up some old videos she’d taken on her phone of Chris and Poppy when he’d still been alive, and she beamed them onto the television. The happy faces of father and daughter appeared on the bigger screen, playing in a park, Chris swinging with Poppy on a giant wooden log that was hung with rope, like a big snake. Erica was clearly behind the camera, and she could hear her own voice warning them not to go too high.

  Erica snuggled in beside her daughter, feeling Poppy’s breathing slow as she drifted into sleep.

  And even though Erica’s vision was filled with her daughter and dead husband, she still found her thoughts wandering to Ellie Dempsey and what the poor girl must be going through now.

  Chapter Seven

  A fist flew towards his face, and balled knuckles and gold rings swamped his vision.

  The knuckles connected with his cheekbone and sent him flying backwards, white-hot agony exploding through his face. He hit the floor, jarring his spine, his teeth clacking together. Tears of shame and fear and pain pricked his eyes.

  Yousef Dabiri held his hand to his cheek and kept his head down, not wanting his uncle to see how upset he was.

  “I’m sorry, Hashem. I did everything you’d asked of me.”

  Hashem Abed stood towering over him. “No, you didn’t. You failed. The woman is still alive.”

  “But I did what you wanted.” He dared lift his face to look his uncle—though technically they weren’t actually related—in the eye. “It’s not my fault she’s still alive.”

  Hashem’s jaw tightened. “Whose fault is it?”

  “I...I...” He didn’t have an answer to that.

  Hashem was right. Maybe his subconscious had taken over and he’d deliberately plunged the knife too far to the right, missing the heart. He was sixteen years old, but he’d believed he had it in him to do what was needed to further their cause.

  “I need to be able to rely on you. What will happen on the day if you mess up again? Who do you think will take the fall for that? It will be your brothers who suffer because you let them down.”

  He shrank beneath the older man’s wrath, feeling only a fraction of his actual size. “I won’t let anyone down. I’ll do everything I need to.”

  And he meant it. This was his whole purpose of life. He had no other goals or aspirations. He wanted to finally make someone proud of him, to have people speak of his name in hushed amazement, to talk of how brave and single-minded he was. He certainly didn’t want this—to have failed at his first test. Something shrank and withered inside him, and he fought against the emotion. He couldn’t let himself crumble, not now. He needed to take Hashem’s words and use it to build himself up, to make himself stronger and more determined to do better next time. He wouldn’t fail his people.

  His uncle gave a long-exhaled breath of frustration and a shake of his head, but then turned back to him and offered his hand.

  Yousef sucked in air, his heart lightening, and took the older man’s hand. Hashem pulled him to his feet. Though his face still throbbed from where he’d been hit, he made no move to press his hand to the injury or even ask for ice. He wouldn’t show any pain, for that would also be a sign of weakness.

  “You understand there are two types of jihad, Yousef. There is the jihad of the sword, which was what today was about, but there is also the inner jihad. It was your inner jihad that you battled with today. You must show God that you are fighting to achieve paradise.”

  Yousef was struggling with both kinds of jihad, though he had no intention of letting Hashem know that. He wished he could get the memory of how the knife had felt when it was plunging into that woman’s back out of his head. The recollection of the moment of resistance he’d felt when the sharp point of the blade had pierced the clothing and skin, and then the easy sinking of the knife through flesh until it had hit something hard, like biting on the prongs of a fork. He’d released the handle, and the woman had slumped forward and slid off the bench to the ground. He hadn’t expected her to scream. He’d thought the husband would make the sound, but not her. The horrific noise that had come from her lips had shaken him down to his core. Even as he’d turned to run, heading in the opposite direction to Hashem, as they’d planned, and stripping off the hoodie he’d used to hide his face when he reached the spot where the security cameras didn’t cover, the screams had continued to follow him.

  They followed him now, echoing in his head.

  But he needed to be brave. He had the strength of God behind him, and he’d never admit his fear to his uncles. He knew they’d see it as a weakness, and he hated to be thought of as being weak. His age already went against him. Some of the older men looked down on him for only being sixteen, but he’d been following this path since he was thirteen years old, and back in Iran he would have been considered a man.

  “I will,” he said. “I will prove to God that I am fighting for him.”

  “Next time, you must do better.” Hashem fixed Yousef’s dark-brown eyes with his own. “Next time, there will be no room for mistakes.”

  He nodded, not breaking the eye contact. “I understand. I will not fail.”

  “Good.” He dropped his hand. “Now go down to the cellar. They need feeding.”

  “Of course.”

  He would do as he was told. Going down to the cellar was definitely one of the things he didn’t like to do, but if Hashem made it his job, then he would do it without question. They needed fresh water, and there was some chopped-up fruit and vegetables to divide into dishes. The cellar was below the shop, and the flat where they lived was above that. A set of stairs at the back of the shop led from one level to another.

  He didn’t like the cellar, but going down there was a necessity.

  Hashem clapped him on the back. “Good boy. You are sixteen years old. You are a man now and need to act as such.”

  Yousef’s heart swelled with pride at his uncle’s praise. These were his people, his brotherhood. He had no one else in the world, and they had taken him in. They’d made him see how wrong Western society was, and he would not let them down.

  Chapter Eight

  “You’re in early, too, huh?”

  She recognised the back of Shawn’s dark head—the slight cauliflower ear, from where he’d got into fights when he’d been a rebellious teenager, was a contrast with the smart suit he wore now.

  He was already at his desk, and he glanced over his shoulder and threw her a wide, white smile. “I should have known you’d be.”

  “Yeah, I couldn’t get Ellie Dempsey out of my head. Has there been any progress overnight?” She went to her desk, hooked her jacket over the back of her chair, and dropped her bag to the floor. “Any contact from the kidnappers?”

  He pursed his lips and shook his head. “No, no contact from anyone.”

  Erica huffed out a breath and flopped into her chair. “Damn. If this was a ransom situation, we would have heard something by now.”

  “Which means the girl was taken for another reason.”

  Erica didn’t want to think about that, but it was part of her job.

  “Did DC Howard go and talk to Mae’s parents?” she asked.

  “Yes. He says they’re recounting the same as what Jack Dempsey has told us
, though, that they’re happily married, other than a few financial stresses and worries about Jack’s job.”

  “Right.”

  She thought she might want to speak with them herself. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her detective constable, but she trusted her own judge of character.

  People often only let one layer of themselves show. They acted the way they believed they were supposed to act, but that didn’t mean that was who they were underneath. How often did she learn of suicides and for the family and friends to be completely shocked, having no idea that their loved one was even depressed, never mind considering anything so permanent and tragic? There were wives who suffered horrible abuse at home, but who on the surface looked as though they had perfect lives and marriages. Even mothers, like herself, might seem as though they had everything together, and be the perfect parents, when deep down they were floundering.

  She knew not to take anything at face value.

  “Do we know how Mae Dempsey did overnight?” she asked Shawn.

  “She made it through the night, but she still wasn’t awake when I checked.”

  “Damn. We could really do with talking to her.”

  “It might be a blessing for her to remain unconscious. I wouldn’t want to wake up only to find out that my daughter was missing.” Shawn pressed his lips together. “Do you think they’ll even tell her right away? It might be a bit much for her to take, after everything she’s been through.”

  “Surely she’s got a right to know? I would definitely want that information, if it was Poppy.”

  “I’m sure they’d just be trying to protect her.”

  Erica frowned, thinking of something. “Or using it as an excuse to stop us talking to her because Mae Dempsey might know something they don’t want uncovered.”

  “You’re talking about the husband again, aren’t you,” Shawn said, understanding her line of thought.

  “Just something to consider. If he wanted Mae dead—perhaps because she knows something—then he won’t want her talking to us.” She didn’t want to blind herself to other possibilities by getting caught up in that one, though. “What about SOCO? Have we had a report back yet?”

  “Yes, I’ve got a list of everything found at the scene. Let me warn you now, it’s a long one.”

  She’d been expecting as much.

  “Anything that might be the item we saw fall from the attacker’s pocket?”

  He nodded. “A few potential things. SOCO collected cigarette papers, a couple of screwed-up receipts, a small shopping list, and some sweet wrappers, among other things.”

  “I want photographs of each item so we can try and match them with what we saw fall out of the attacker’s pocket.”

  Shawn raised an eyebrow. “That’s not going to be easy. It was barely visible at the distance the camera was at.”

  “Maybe, but it’s worth a try. Even if we can narrow it down to a couple of items, it’ll give us something to go on.” She hit a button to bring her computer to life. “What about the car registrations from the surrounding streets?”

  “I’ve got Howard going through them. As you know, we do have blank spots, though. There might be a possibility whoever took the girl was aware of that and has used them to their advantage.”

  Erica let out a frustrated sigh. “And what about the CCTV from the other entrances? Have we managed to pinpoint the attackers arriving or leaving?”

  “No. There are just too many people, and it looks as though they must have changed the hoodies or pulled another one on over the top.”

  “Dammit.”

  “Morning boss,” Hannah Rudd said as she approached Erica’s desk. “Going off of what DCI Gibbs said in the briefing yesterday, I went through any recent missing case files for younger children, and we have one that might be a fit.”

  Erica straightened, interested. “Talk to me.”

  “You’ll probably remember it. It only happened six weeks ago. Seven-year-old Ashley Ford. He went missing while out for a family walk along the canal path. He was riding his bike and went on too far ahead.”

  “Of course, I remember.” The case had gone through Missing Persons and so wasn’t something they’d dealt with, but everyone had known about Ashley Ford. “The parents were dealing with the baby and took their eye off him. He vanished around a corner, and by the time they caught up with him, his bike was lying on the canal path, and there was no sign of him.”

  There had been a massive manhunt across that part of East London. They’d even got the divers in and had dredged the canal, just in case the boy had fallen in and drowned. No body had been recovered, though.

  “What makes you think the two cases might be connected?” Erica asked.

  “Both children vanished in the middle of the day, in a public place, while out with their families. There haven’t been any ransom demands for either child—”

  “So far,” Erica added. It was still early days for Ellie Dempsey, though admittedly she’d have expected the kidnappers to have made contact by now.

  Rudd nodded in agreement. “So far.”

  “There was no stabbing involved with the Ford case either.”

  “No, there wasn’t, but there’s also been no sign of the child since then either, and there aren’t any custody cases going on with the family, or anything like that. I don’t know...” Rudd seemed suddenly unsure of herself. “I just thought it might be worth following up.”

  “You’re right,” Erica said. “Thank you. I’ll make sure we go and speak to the family today, see if there’s anything that’s linking them. Can you find out who’s working that case as well and let me know?”

  “I’ll get onto it right away.” Rudd turned to go back to her desk.

  It looked like Erica wouldn’t be staying in the office for long.

  THE FORD HOME WAS A typical three-bedroom, semi-detached ex-council house. Nothing about it spoke of the tragedy those who lived there were going through

  Mr Ford opened the door to find Erica and Shawn standing on his doorstep. He must have instantly recognised them as police, and a mixture of hope and fear crossed his features.

  Erica wanted to put a halt on his emotions right away. Not wanting him to think they were there with news of their missing son, she jumped straight in.

  “Mr Ford, we’re not here with news about Ashley, I’m sorry.”

  His shoulders dropped. “Oh, right.”

  She took the moment to introduce herself and her sergeant, and then continued, “We wondered if we could have a chat. I don’t know if you’re aware, but another child—a five-year-old girl—was snatched from an East London park yesterday.”

  He nodded. “Yes, I heard about that. The mother was stabbed, wasn’t she? Terrible news.”

  “May we come in?” she asked.

  He stepped out of the way. “Sure.”

  Erica entered the house, Shawn following close after. Ford guided them down to the small living room. The missing boy’s mother sat on the other side of the room, juggling a one-year-old on her lap. She lifted her head with that same fearful, but hopeful, expression her husband had had upon opening the door.

  “They’re not here about Ashley,” Ford said quickly, recognising her reaction as his own.

  She hunched over the baby. “Oh.”

  Ashley Ford’s father gestured for them both to take a seat, and Erica and Shawn perched, side by side on the couch.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you both,” Erica said, “but we need to ask some questions around Ashley’s disappearance. It’s unlikely to be connected with the girl who went missing yesterday, but we need to make sure.”

  Mr Ford nodded. “Whatever we can do to help.”

  Erica took in the sight of the room. Grief filled the air like a smell, bitter and acrid, unwashed and unclean somehow. Framed photographs of the blond boy in various stages of growing up sat on every surface and hung on the wall. It had been six weeks now, and the boy seemed to have just vanished into thin air.
r />   “Can you talk me through what happened the day Ashley went missing?”

  He pressed his lips together but nodded. “We went out for a walk, beside the canal. We’d been cooped up inside all day, and the baby hadn’t been sleeping, so I thought it would be a good idea if we all got out. I said Ashley could ride his bike, and so he was riding a little bit ahead of us. Then the baby started fussing in the pram, and we thought he might be cold, so we stopped to cover him up with another blanket. When we looked up, Ashley had ridden too far ahead and had gone around a corner. I shouted for him to wait and jogged after him, but he didn’t reply. By the time I’d got around the corner, he was gone, and it was just his bike lying in the middle of the path.” He choked back a sob and covered his face with his hands.

  “I’m sorry, I know this is hard,” Erica said sympathetically.

  “I’ll never forgive myself. I wish I’d never told him he could ride his bike, or even suggested the walk that day. Or I should have been watching him instead of messing around with the pram.”

  The poor dad appeared drawn with desperation, glancing around at them, hoping for someone to tell him their son going missing wasn’t his fault.

  Erica gave him what he needed. “It wasn’t your fault, Mr Ford. I know I’ve been distracted plenty of times when I’ve been with my daughter.”

  “You have children?” he asked.

  “Yes, a girl.”

  He turned to Shawn who just shook his head, and then refocused on Erica. “So, you understand how this is destroying us?”

  From the way her lips were pinched and the glares Mrs Ford shot at her husband, Erica thought that she most likely did blame her husband—and probably herself, too—for not watching their son properly. She was pale and thin, with hollowed cheekbones and purple semi-circles beneath her eyes. Her baby batted at her face, trying to play with hair that looked as though it had been without a wash or cut for some time, but his mother just jerked her head away and didn’t even raise a smile for the poor child.