The Child Catcher (A DI Erica Swift Thriller Book 4)
Page 17
She pulled away from the curb. No one came chasing after her, or shouted for her to stop, and gradually her heartbeat slowed, and she was able to breathe more normally again.
She couldn’t keep those other children, she realised. They’d been a mistake. She had Naomi back now, and she had no more use for them. But she couldn’t just let them go. If she did that, they’d go running to their parents about how she’d been mean to them—especially the boy—and then the parents would tell the police, and the police would say she was a bad mother and come here and take Naomi away again.
She’d already lost Naomi once, and she wouldn’t let it happen again.
No one was taking her baby away.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Erica was furious that the search hadn’t revealed anything more than a bunch of reptiles. She’d been so sure they’d been on the right track, and now it felt like they were back to square one.
Except, they’d been handed one possible lead—the note left on her windscreen saying that Ellie Dempsey had been put into a white 2015 Ford Focus.
How much could they trust the tip-off, or was it just someone trying to stir up trouble? If the car had been one that wasn’t so popular, it might have given them more to go on, but there were probably thousands in the city.
She’d sent the files they’d seized from the shop’s office, together with a laptop they’d found there, to Karl Hartly at Digital Forensics. Hopefully, they’d be able to recover the deleted files from the CCTV, and from that they’d be able to see the face of the person in the shop, though Erica knew they couldn’t rely on it.
Back in the office, with the search over, she spent the next few hours writing up and filing reports and attending a briefing with her DCI. She managed to grab something to eat before she finally turned her focus to the note that had been left beneath the windscreen wiper of her car. At least the CCTV footage of the police car park was easier for her to obtain.
“Let’s see who’s been leaving me notes then,” she muttered to herself, hitting ‘play’.
Also curious as to who was responsible, Shawn left his desk and joined her to watch.
On-screen, a young boy walked among the cars, checking the licence plate numbers. When he reached Erica’s car, he quickly shoved the note under the windscreen wiper and then turned and ran off.
“He can’t be much more than twelve,” Shawn said. “He didn’t write that note.”
“No, he didn’t. It was someone older.”
“Someone has put him up to leaving it. Maybe slipped him a tenner to do so.”
“If we can find that kid, he might be able to give us a description of whoever gave it to him.”
“We need to watch the CCTV, see if that’s picked anything up as well. Maybe we can track the boy home, or even see the exchange happen.”
The streets around this area were well covered by security cameras. People might complain they were an invasion of privacy, but those same people were the first to moan if their car was broken into, or their handbag snatched, and the incident wasn’t caught on camera. At last count, there were sixty-seven cameras per one thousand people in London, and even that number didn’t manage to catch everything. There were always cameras that had stopped working and were waiting on maintenance, or that were pointing in the wrong direction, or even that had a pigeon shitting down the front of them at a crucial moment. There was no doubt that they served an extremely important function, but they couldn’t be relied on completely. They were merely a tool in a bigger box.
Erica moved through the footage from around the car park and the adjacent streets that the cameras covered, tracing the movements of the boy back to before he’d entered the car park.
“There.”
Someone in a hoodie was handing the boy something, though it wasn’t clear what it was in the image, they could make a good guess.
The hoodie. The build. Could it be the same person?
“Are you thinking what I am?” Shawn asked. “Could it be the person from the park and the shop? The one who stabbed Mae Dempsey?”
She shook her head, confused. “It’s hard to know for sure, but why would he be trying to help us find the child? This doesn’t make sense.”
Shawn didn’t seem to be any less baffled. “I’m not sure what to think. What about the contents of the note? The part about a white Ford Focus?”
“It gives us something to go on. We’ll have to go through the CCTV from the streets around the park and see if we can spot a vehicle matching that description. If we can get a licence plate number, we’ll finally have a solid lead.”
“We might owe your mysterious note writer a big thank you,” Shawn said.
“Let’s wait and see if it leads us anywhere first. And if this isn’t the same person who stabbed Mae Dempsey, they’ve gone to a lot of trouble to make sure they don’t get traced. After all, wouldn’t it have been easier just to make an anonymous phone call?”
“Maybe they were in the park with a lover that day and they don’t want it to get back to their husband or wife.”
“Possibly. Or they don’t want us to know they were there because they were involved.”
He shot her a curious glance. “You think this might be the same person who’s taken Ellie? That they’re having second thoughts and are trying to get her found? Why bother hiding their identity then, if they’re just going to tip us off on what car they drive?”
She sighed and ran her hand over her face. “You’re right. It doesn’t make sense. Let’s go over the CCTV and try and get some facts rather than just speculating.”
First, she needed to make a call.
Guilt twisted inside her. It was ever-present, this feeling, but it was something she had to make peace with. If she wanted to be a detective and a mother, then she suspected it would never go away. Considering what had happened with Chris, she knew she could have requested to be transferred to a department that would be less demanding on her time, but just the thought killed her a little inside. She thrived on this work, and the truth was that she didn’t want to give it up.
Erica stepped in the corridor with her phone and rang Natasha.
“Don’t tell me,” her sister said upon picking up, “you’re going to be late.”
“Sorry, Tash. You know what it’s like when I’m in the middle of these big cases.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it. That poor girl’s face is all over social media. I keep imagining if it was one of ours who was missing, and what her poor parents must be going through, and that’s not even taking into account the mother being stabbed. God, it’s just so awful. Makes me afraid to even take the kids to the park.”
“I know, it’s terrible. That’s why I have to stay, to make sure we find whoever is responsible, and also find the girl. Every hour counts with missing children, especially earlier on. The longer she’s gone, the less likely it’ll be that we find her.”
“Take however long you need. Poppy will be fine. I’ll let her know we’re having a sleepover.”
“Thanks Tasha. You’re a superstar.”
“No, you’re the superstar, sis. You’re the one out there saving children and catching the bad guys.”
She hadn’t saved the child yet, but still her sister’s praise warmed her. The two of them had grown closer since Chris’s death, and where previously she’d often been annoyed at Natasha’s occasional selfishness with regards to their father, things had turned around for them. She hated that it had taken the death of her husband for that to happen. Maybe it had never been Natasha who’d been the one being selfish, and Erica had been the one who’d simply come to appreciate her sister more.
Sibling relationships were complicated things.
Natasha put Poppy on the line.
“Hi, Mummy!”
Poppy’s voice was bright enough.
“Hi, sweetheart. Have you had a good day?”
“Yeah, it was okay. Are you phoning ’cause you’re going to be late again?”
“Does she not have her mummy with her?”
“No, she doesn’t, darling, and her mummy is in hospital and can’t go and look for her herself, so they need my help.”
“What’s her name?” Poppy asked.
“She’s called Ellie.”
“Does she have any of her toys with her?”
A knot tightened inside Erica’s chest. “No, I don’t think she does.”
“She’s all alone and doesn’t even have any toys?” Poppy sounded aghast at the possibility.”
“That’s right.”
“She must be really sad.”
“That’s why I need to find her.
Shawn appeared down the end of the corridor, trying to get her attention.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Erica said, “but I have to go.”
“Night, Mummy.”
“Night, night, darling.”
She ended the call and turned to Shawn. “What is it?”
“I’ve just had a call from MisPer, and the detective who’s been handling Ashley Ford’s case. There’s been another one.”
For a moment, she didn’t know what he meant. “Another what?”
“Another child’s been taken.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Creeper hadn’t come back.
Ellie didn’t know if she should be relieved or worried. While the Creeper terrified her, they also brought her food and water, and there hadn’t been any of that for ages now—she had no idea how long.
Ashley had been crying almost the whole time. When he wasn’t asleep, he cried. In the small amount of light from beneath the door, she could see his arm wasn’t right. The bit between his elbow and his wrist was a weird shape, like it had been bent wrong, and the skin reminded her of balloon animals she’d been given at her friend, Lucy’s, birthday party a few weeks ago, all tight and shiny, and like if she rubbed her fingers over it, it would squeak.
She felt really bad for him, but a part of her just also wished he would stop crying already. He was bigger than her, and he was a boy, and she preferred it when he was making plans to escape. It was kind of his fault that he’d got hurt, though. She’d told him trying to escape was a bad idea, but he’d gone ahead with it anyway, and it had all gone wrong.
Now he cried, and cried, and nothing she said made him stop. The only time he stopped was when he’d fallen asleep, like now, and Ellie finally felt like she could breathe.
Only now, she realised, she could still hear his crying even while he was sleeping. How did that work? Had her ears got used to the noise and was replaying it in her head, even when the sound wasn’t actually happening?
She let out a groan and covered her ears with her hands, though if the crying was coming from inside her head, that wasn’t going to help at all.
But the cries were muffled by her palms. Ellie took her hands on and off her ears, and the volume of the crying changed each time.
She sat up straight and frowned.
Was the noise coming from somewhere else? Her gaze drifted towards the door and the gap underneath it. Was the crying from inside the building?
It was a different kind of cry to that of Ashley’s. Higher pitched, breathier, more of a wail than a sob. Ellie didn’t have any younger brothers or sisters, but Sapphire Harding in her year had a baby sister, and when Ellie went over to her house for a play date after school, the baby had cried and it had sounded just like that.
Had there always been a baby here?
She didn’t remember hearing one crying before, but was that just because the baby hadn’t made any noise until now? Or had it only just been brought here? The thought made her tummy all funny inside. Had the Creeper stolen the baby, like they’d stolen her and Ashley? What if the Creeper hurt the baby as well?
Fresh tears beaded in the corners of her eyes at the thought. She knew she wasn’t a big girl yet, but she was much bigger than a baby. A baby couldn’t do anything for itself.
What if the Creeper wasn’t even a person? What if they were a monster who liked to eat babies? Not just babies, but small children, too.
A shudder worked its way down Ellie’s spine, and she huddled back into herself, trying to both stay warm and make herself as small as possible. A moment earlier, she’d been wishing for Ashley to go to sleep, so he’d stop making so much noise, and now she desperately wanted him to wake.
“Ashley,” she hissed over at him. “Wake up!”
The boy moaned and shifted in his sleep.
“Please, wake up,” she begged. “I think the Creeper has got a baby.”
She didn’t know what she thought Ashley would be able to do to help, but she didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts.
Ellie paused and listened hard again. She didn’t hear anything, other than Ashley’s snuffling breathing, his nose clearly blocked from all the crying. The baby had fallen silent, and Ellie didn’t know if that made things better or worse. What if the baby was quiet because the Creeper had killed it?
Footsteps approached from outside.
The Creeper was coming back.
She pressed her fist to her mouth trying to hold back her screams.
The door opened.
“I’m sorry, but this has to end now.”
In a burst of hope, Ellie thought that meant she might be allowed to go home, but the Creeper took several steps towards her, and she could tell that wasn’t what the Creeper meant.
The Creeper leaned over her and tried to lift her. Ellie went completely floppy, like she had in the times she’d had a tantrum when Mummy had tried to take her to the car, or into the supermarket, when she didn’t want to go.
“Stop that.” The Creeper gave her a frustrated shake. “I can’t pick you up like that!”
Something flipped in Ellie, and she turned into a wild cat. The image of the shiny skin of Ashley’s arm filled her head, and she fought like she’d never known she had in her. Her arms and legs seemed to work independently of each other, and though she’d lost her shoes some time ago, her bare feet hit soft flesh, and she kicked and kicked and kicked. Her fists flailed, pummelling blindly. In the background, she was aware of Ashley screaming to the Creeper to leave her alone, but her own shrieks drowned him out.
“Stop that!” the Creeper snarled. “Stop that right now.”
Ellie had no intention of stopping. She bucked and thrashed, and each time the Creeper got hold of one of her limbs, she managed to slip out of their grasp again. She got the impression the Creeper was trying to pick her up to take her somewhere, and she was sure that wherever that somewhere was, it wasn’t going to be good. She clawed and scratched, caught the Creeper’s skin, and saw blood.
But all of her struggles didn’t amount to anything. The Creeper still managed to pick her up, and she found herself being hoisted onto their shoulder. Before she could find herself hanging halfway down the Creeper’s back, Ellie twisted her face and bit. Warm soft flesh filled her mouth, and instead of being disgusted and pulling away, she sank her teeth in harder.
It was the Creeper who pulled away, and the result wasn’t good for them.
Ellie fell to the floor, where she spat the taste of blood from her mouth.
“Little bitch!”
The Creeper held a hand to their face, and in that moment, despite the blood pouring through their fingers, Ellie realised the Creeper wasn’t a monster.
She was a woman.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The last conversation Tim Bergersen had had with his ex-wife, Helen, was playing on his mind.
She was a completely different woman to the one he’d married eight years ago. Back then, when they’d embarked on a whirlwind journey of love and marriage, they’d been so full of hope. But they’d been naïve, too. They’d both had the opinion that bad things happene
d to other people, not them. They were both young and attractive, and had good jobs and their futures ahead of them. And more importantly, they’d found each other and were in love. When they’d got engaged, everyone had been thrilled, and a little over a year after being married, Helen had announced she was pregnant.
He’d have been lying if he said everything had been perfect for them after Naomi was born. Helen had struggled, just as many new mums did, he assumed. He was still going into the office, so things hadn’t changed as much for him as they had for her—and even the sleepless nights didn’t affect him so much, since Helen was breastfeeding exclusively, and it wasn’t as though there was much he could do for Naomi in the early days. Helen had gone through a complete lifestyle change, however, and there were days when he’d come home where he’d worried he was losing the woman he’d married. She’d spend the entire day in her pyjamas, even though he knew she wasn’t sleeping. Even when Naomi was napping, and she’d go and lie down on the bed, beside the cot basket and wooden stand where their daughter slept, she’d just lie awake, terrified that if she took her eye off Naomi for more than a few seconds, the baby would stop breathing.
In the end, he’d convinced Helen to speak to her doctor, and they’d all gone together. The doctor had reassured them it was perfectly fine to feel anxious with a first baby, and that Helen needed to find more time to relax. She prescribed camomile tea, and warm baths, and breathing exercises, and told Helen to make sure she got out more with the baby. Walking was good, apparently.
The next few months had been rocky, but eventually, when Naomi hit six months and started eating solid foods and wasn’t waking up every two hours to feed, things improved. Helen met a friend who she’d bumped into in a café, who also happened to have a baby of a similar age, and they’d started going to soft play and other baby-orientated places.
For years, things were great. They’d become a happy family of three, though Helen talked about them having another baby before the age gap got too big. But he hadn’t forgotten about how things had been after Naomi had been born, and he was frightened of their happy little family going backwards again. He knew she was frustrated with him for holding off, but she seemed to have glazed over the whole experience.