The Forgotten_An absolutely gripping, gritty thriller novel

by Casey Kelleher

  Nancy nodded.

  The feeling of trepidation in the pit of her stomach.

  Her mind replaying the image of the hand locked around her daughter’s arm.

  That one minute, Scarlett was there and the next minute she was gone.

  Standing up to follow Jack out of the room it was all too much.

  Her legs gave way.

  The tears came then too. Engulfing her entirely as she realised that her worst fears had indeed come true.

  Some bastard had taken her baby.

  Twenty-Nine

  ‘Oh Joanie, stop harping on at the man. Can’t you see he’s distressed enough as it is?’ Colleen Byrne said, feeling heart sorry for Michael Byrne. Ever since she’d got here, an hour ago, all Joanie Byrne seemed intent on doing was beating the poor man down with all her accusations about what he’d really been up to today.

  The woman just wouldn’t let it go.

  Quizzing him and questioning the man, as if she was trying to catch him out somehow, as if Scarlett going missing today was personally his fault, when anyone with two eyes in their head could see that it wasn’t anything of the sort. Michael adored Scarlett. He’d never put her in any harm.

  ‘Today wasn’t this poor bugger’s fault. He’s told you a million times what happened. The same as he’s told all the officers here too,’ Colleen said, nodding to the family liaison officer who was sitting with them all. Who appeared to be keeping well out of the two ladies’ minor dispute.

  ‘It’s not your fault, Michael. It could have been any one of us that took Scarlett to the park today,’ Colleen said, wanting to believe what she was saying more than any of them.

  The poor guy looked like a broken man, sitting at the table in silence. Hanging his head as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Which, Joanie was making sure, he did.

  ‘Scarlett will probably turn up here any minute now. We all just have to try and stay positive. Kids wander off all the time.’

  ‘What? Like the night Nancy did her Houdini act?’ Joanie scoffed. ‘She was younger than Scarlett was at the time. Do you remember? When they found the poor mite wandering around Richmond High Street with no shoes on. The night you were supposed to be keeping an eye on her, only you were too busy trying to flush out your other baby with drugs and alcohol,’ Joanie spat, her venomous words loaded with intent.

  How dare Colleen turn up at the house in the state she was in.

  Drunk, though she was trying ever so desperately to play it down. Only Joanie had clocked her, staggering as she got out of the taxi and made her way up the driveway. If it wasn’t for the family liaison officer hanging around the place like a bad bleeding smell, Joanie would have battered the woman on first sight.

  Even now, the blatant audacity of the woman, sitting here and trying her hardest to disguise the slur in her words. Pronouncing each syllable painfully slowly. Which, despite her best efforts, only had the opposite effect and gave the woman away.

  She was trying too bloody hard, and she wasn’t fooling anyone.

  And neither was Michael. Joanie didn’t care what Colleen thought she knew, Michael was keeping something from them all and Joanie was going to make it her business to find out what it was.

  Her great-granddaughter’s safety depended on it.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Colleen. Spouting all your shit about her just coming home. What if Scarlett didn’t just go wandering off? Eh, what then? What if someone did take her?’ Joanie Byrne said, unable to hide the tears in her eyes.

  She was sick of Colleen sitting here, spouting her drunken crap, and all her useless wishful thinking and cliche sayings.

  Convinced that any minute now Scarlett would turn up at the front door. That the search would be called off. That her precious little great-granddaughter was safe and their nightmare would all be over. Only this was the real world, and sometimes it didn’t work out like that.

  ‘The vodka’s clearly numbed your brain, Colleen!’ Joanie said, before turning back on her husband. ‘There’s something you’re not saying, Michael, and whatever it is, I will get to the bottom of it,’ Joanie warned again, glaring at her husband who had gone a pale, deathly white at the eminent threat that lingered in Joanie’s tone.

  Something bad had happened. Joanie was sure of it. She could feel it deep in the pit of her stomach.

  And still Michael didn’t speak; he didn’t bother to so much as open his mouth and defend himself. Another sure sign that the man was guilty as sin.

  In fact, other than when he’d been bawling earlier, the minute he’d set eyes on Nancy, the man had barely said a word all evening. Well, Joanie had had enough.

  ‘You’re better off telling me, Michael, before I find out from someone else,’ Joanie said again. Shaking her head ruefully. ‘And I will find out.’

  She knew how stubborn Michael could be. The man was an expert at his conniving and selfish ways. As much as he’d made out he was a changed man this past few years, Joanie knew, deep down, he was still the same.

  ‘I know you, Michael, and I know the lengths you’d go to, to try and save your own arse. Well, let me tell you, if I find out that you’re hiding something about our Scarlett, something that might help us find her, then nothing and no one will save you, do you hear me? I’ll unleash merry hell on you myself.’

  ‘Joanie, for Christ’s sake will you just give it a bloody rest!’ Colleen said then. Losing her rag, as Joanie’s voice echoed through her. Just the sound of it, so nasty and condescending. Reminding her of all the times the woman had spoken to her in exactly the same way.

  ‘No wonder the man’s a quivering wreck. It’s okay, Michael. She doesn’t mean it. She’s just worried about Scarlett, that’s all. We all are.’

  Watching as Michael broke down once again.

  His shoulders shaking violently, as he hung his head. The tears running down his face, dripping onto the kitchen table that they all sat around.

  Colleen reached out and touched her father-in-law’s arm.

  The kind gesture, seemingly only making Michael cry more.

  ‘I’m surprised poor Michael wasn’t the one committed to a bloody mental hospital!’ Colleen said then, the alcohol in her system making her feel brave. ‘The amount of giving out to him you do, the poor man’s a nervous wreck.’

  ‘What? As opposed to me being the one in a mental hospital? Is that what you’re getting at, Colleen? ’Cause let me tell you, you don’t want to be going there, love! Not if you want me to keep my mouth shut,’ Joanie said, her eyes flashing with fury at the cheek of Colleen using her breakdown against her. The breakdown she’d had because of her in the first place.

  If Colleen wasn’t careful, Joanie would tell them all. Her expression said as much, her eyes boring into Colleen’s.

  Only Colleen waved her hand at Joanie dismissively, too wasted to care. She’d spent the best part of the day stuck in her flat alone. Stewing on the fact that Joanie was going to hold what she did over her head forever.

  Well, fuck Joanie.

  ‘Do it, Joanie. Tell them. I don’t give a shit anymore,’ Colleen said then, challenging Joanie. Playing the woman at her own game. She wasn’t willing to spend the entirety of her granddaughter’s life being held to ransom for her mistakes. ‘Tell them, and maybe then you can stop hanging it around my neck like a noose. You’ll have nothing on me. Nothing to keep me from Scarlett once she’s home.’

  Colleen had already missed out on enough, she decided.

  ‘You’re a state, Colleen. Look at you.’

  ‘Look who’s talking, Joanie, Lady Muck herself….’

  The two women were standing then, leaning over the table as they shouted at the tops of their voices. Swearing at each other and calling each other names.

  Michael was shouting too.

  Begging them to both shut up.

  They were doing his head in. All this screaming and shouting, as if all hell had broken loose before him.

&nbs
p; He couldn’t stand it for a second longer.

  This was all down to him.

  He had to tell them the truth about Jess.

  But Joanie would murder him. She’d kick him out of the house. He’d lose everything.

  Then he thought of Scarlett.

  Sweet, little Scarlett. He owed it to her if nothing else.

  It was starting to get dark. Wherever Scarlett was, whoever she was with, she’d probably be petrified by now.

  This was all his fault. All his doing.

  So what if his family disowned him, if they all turned against him?

  He deserved everything he got.

  ‘Please shut up!’ he shouted, on his feet now. Banging his fists on the table. ‘SHUT UP!’

  He was crying still, his body heaving with huge almighty sobs, snot hanging from his nostrils, his face bright red.

  ‘It’s my fault; Joanie’s right. I fucked up big time. This is all my fault.’

  The two women stared at him then. Rendered silent, as they saw the pain and guilt etched on Michael’s face as he continued. The family liaison officer standing at his side, trying to comfort him, to calm him down; only Michael shrugged the man off him.

  ‘I left her on her own. It wasn’t even ten minutes. I swear to God. And she was fine, playing in the sandpit. I said, “Scarlett, Grandaddy won’t be long. Don’t go off anywhere.”’ He shook his head remorsefully, ashamed of himself.

  Sick to his core.

  ‘And when I came back, she was gone.’

  ‘“When you came back”?’ Joanie said, her fists clenched at her side. She knew it. She bloody knew it. ‘Came back from where?’

  ‘There was this woman…’ Michael said now, as Joanie closed her eyes, instantly feeling as if she’d been punched in the gut, a cry escaping her lips.

  ‘“This woman?” Oh, Michael there’s always “some woman” when you’re involved.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ Michael lied. Continuing now that he had started, relieving himself of the guilt that was eating him up inside. Glad to finally unburden himself. ‘I think I was set up. Jess was the one who suggested it. That we meet up in the toilets… I should have known…’ Michael looked away, ashamed then. Even as he said the words, he knew how ridiculous he sounded.

  How pathetic and desperate he must be to have fallen for the woman’s advances. To have even believed for a second that she’d really be interested in someone like him.

  A wrinkly, old fool.

  This had never been about him, he knew that now. This had been about Scarlett.

  It had always been about Scarlett.

  Joanie knew it too.

  ‘You stupid, stupid bastard,’ Joanie shouted, her suspicions confirmed that Michael was back to his old tricks again. Up to no good with some old slapper.

  Only this time he’d put their precious little great-grandchild in danger in the process.

  ‘What have you done? You selfish, lying, cheating bastard. What the hell have you done?’

  Joanie was on him then.

  Battering him with her fists. Screaming obscenities at the man, as the family liaison officer tried to drag Joanie off, as she swung out wildly in the middle of the kitchen, catching Michael over and over on the back of his head, pummelling him to the floor.

  Colleen standing there, looking confused at what was happening. Still drunk, and not sure what Michael was admitting to, as if she’d just missed something. Her mind couldn’t keep up.

  ‘Are you going to tell our granddaughter what a fuck up you are, huh?’ Joanie spat now, pure hate in her eyes.

  Her and Michael were done now, forever.

  After today she’d never have him back again.

  ‘Are you going to tell Nancy that you gambled with her daughter’s safety for some slapper you were meeting in the bogs? Like some dirty old pervert.’

  ‘He doesn’t need to, Nan,’ Nancy Byrne said, marching into the kitchen followed shortly by Jack. ‘I already know. Now you better sit down, Grandad, and tell me everything you know about this woman. And I mean everything.’

  Seeing the cold hard expression on Nancy’s face, Michael knew without a doubt that by the time Nancy and Jack were done with him, he’d have wished that Joanie had put him out of his misery while she’d still had the chance.

  Thirty

  ‘What is it with this family and all your fucking lies? Why can’t anyone just be straight for once and tell the truth?’ Nancy said, standing in the kitchen, her eyes flashing with fury. ‘Who the fuck is she, Grandad? That woman that you met up with?’

  She could feel Jack’s hand gripping the back of her arm. Holding her off from running at Michael and physically tearing strips off the man.

  They needed him to speak, to tell them everything.

  Their priority now was getting Scarlett back.

  Dealing with Michael could wait.

  Defeated now, and heart sorry for his actions, Michael shook his head. Not even sure where to begin, as he sank back down into the chair behind him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Nancy. Hand on my heart, I don’t know what I was thinking. Leaving Scarlett like that…’

  But he did know.

  He’d put himself before the child.

  His greedy, dirty, wanton needs before the safety of his great-granddaughter.

  And now his family knew it too.

  ‘She said that she liked me, and I don’t know, I guess I just got sucked in by her spell…’

  ‘Oh you were sucked in by something all right! A spell? Oh, I’ve heard it called a lot of things, but “spell” is a new one on me,’ Joanie scoffed. Ready to launch herself at the man again; only she could see the urgency in Nancy’s expression. She knew that whatever was going on right now, she had to let her granddaughter get to the truth.

  All she wanted to do was batter the man, and as much as that would make her feel better it wasn’t going to help get Scarlett back.

  ‘Her name’s Jess. That’s all I really know about her. She met me at the park a few times. She seemed sweet. I felt sorry for her. When she said she didn’t have any kids of her own. That she couldn’t—’

  ‘Jess, what?’ Nancy said, her tone harder than stone.

  Michael shook his head. Realising that he didn’t know her surname. He hadn’t asked her, and she hadn’t told him. And even if she had told him, Jess’s sob stories were all just lies anyway.

  ‘I don’t know. She didn’t tell me and even if she had done, none of it was real, was it? Maybe not even her name? It was all orchestrated to catch me off guard. And I fell for it, too. Hook, line and sinker. Like the old, doddering fool that she’d hoped I’d be.’

  Michael felt physically sick then.

  The fact that he didn’t know anything about this Jess, nothing genuine anyway, finally hitting him.

  And now he couldn’t even cry. He had nothing left inside him.

  A broken empty shell.

  He’d done this. He’d let his family down.

  They all had every right to hate him. Christ knows, he hated himself.

  ‘That’s it, is it? That’s all you know about her?’ Nancy said, her eyes full of fire. ‘All you know about a woman that you were happy to go off and do Christ knows what with in the toilets. That her name was Jess. That’s it?’

  Michael stared at the floor. Deeply ashamed of himself then.

  ‘Get out,’ Nancy screamed. Not even able to look at the man. Just the sight of him made her want to claw his eyes out.

  She could see the hurt and the utter humiliation on her nan’s face.

  ‘I said get the fuck out of this house.’

  Michael didn’t need telling twice. He was glad to go. Glad to escape from all the accusing glares, all the angry hateful faces.

  He ran from the room, almost knocking down Bridget as she came through the front door.

  ‘Michael? Oh God, what’s happened?’

  But Michael didn’t bother to stop to fill her in.

  ‘What’s
the matter with Michael?’ Bridget asked as she made her way into the kitchen; staring at everyone’s faces, she prayed to God that it wasn’t what she thought it was.

  That they hadn’t just had bad news about Scarlett.

  All she knew so far was that little Scarlett had gone missing. Jack had phoned the house and told Bridget to keep an eye out. To ask the girls to check everywhere, just in case Scarlett had made her way there.

  Not that she would have. The child had no clue how to get to the place, but Jack had sounded desperate. As if he was running out of options. Even Bridget had known that.

  ‘I came as soon as I heard, Nancy,’ she said then, almost too scared to ask what had just made Michael run from the house. ‘Have you found her?’

  Nancy shook her head.

  ‘She was taken, Bridget. Someone’s taken her. We saw it on CCTV. While my feckless grandad was busy trying to get his end away with some little tart!’

  The tears coming once again.

  Frustrated and angry that this was even happening. That her own grandad had caused all of this, with his stupid, philandering ways.

  That her precious baby was out there, somewhere, without her. Scared out of her mind no doubt.

  ‘Oh, darling!’ Bridget was crying too then. Wrapping her arms around her friend, the two women standing together in the kitchen in a locked embrace.

  ‘Do you know anything else? Who it was? Anything at all?’ Bridget said finally, this time directing her questions to Jack.

  ‘We’re doing everything we can…’ he said with more bravado than he really felt.

  Trying to hold himself together then too.

  Trying to be strong for Nancy.

  ‘We’ve got a couple of leads…’

  Nancy knew what he was doing. He was trying to placate her, trying to keep her hopes and spirits up. When the truth was they had fuck all to go on really. Nothing.