Lost Girls

by K Leitch

  ‘Any luck trying to find out about the other girls Carla?’ Maggie asked, she had been in the room when Frank had talked to Carla about it the day before.

  ‘Mandy’s on the case,’ Carla said with a smile. ‘And if anyone can do it Mandy can….’

  They were interrupted then by the ward sister who had had enough of them for one evening and told them in a no nonsense voice that visiting time was now over. It still took about fifteen minutes for them all to say their goodbyes, but soon the three visitors were blowing Carla kisses and making their way out of the ward.

  ‘Bye darling,’ said Maggie, the last to leave. ‘Can’t wait to have you home and you need to build up your strength girl…don’t forget Jools’ hen night a week next Saturday. I want you there, no excuses ok?’

  Carla smiled weakly, ‘Okay,’ she croaked as she waved her goodbye.

  Carla sank back against her pillows, it had been so lovely to see all the girls again but now she was exhausted. The slightest thing seemed to tire her out, which, she supposed, was to be expected.

  She rolled over onto her side and picked up the little brown diary from her bedside table and began to read. It was a hard read as she had said to the girls; one of the worst things about it was how young and excited Una had been when she had started her diary.

  The first entry was dated June 1969 and was written in large loopy childish writing.

  ….I can’t believe I’m here at last. I rode of the top of the bus all the way from the dock, we passed by Buckingham Palace and I saw the guards with their big fluffy hats, Lorna will be so jealous when I tell her. And everything is so big and grand, but nothing was quite as grand as the Linden Hotel, I can’t believe that this is where I’m going to be working, although my room isn’t quite as posh, but I have a rail and a chest for my clothes. I’m sharing with this other girl, her names Missy…it’s a bit of a funny name but she’s black so I suppose that accounts for it. She seems OK, a bit quiet, but maybe she’s shy. I am so happy to be here, my life starts now….

  CHAPTER 68

  The day of the play dawned bright and clear, Helen was at the pub by eight in the morning to organise the backdrops and make sure that all the props were where they should be. Andrea drifted in at about eleven, complemented Helen on her work and then made some excuse and drifted off again. If it hadn’t been for Rosie and Duncan who had volunteered to help, Helen would have had a nervous breakdown before lunchtime.

  ‘Never again…never again,’ she muttered over and over as she hung backdrops and arranged costumes. Finally by about six thirty the stage was set, chairs had been arranged on the lawn in front of the stage, the cast had arrived and were now nervously going through their lines in the make shift dressing rooms (or the outside loos as they were usually called).

  By seven thirty there wasn’t a spare seat in the house apart from a few in the front row that had been reserved for Mark Stevens and Livy and a couple of ladies from the W.I.

  Helen was buzzing around back stage making sure everybody was wearing the right costume, there’d been a bit of a situation with Martin Grout who was playing a police constable and had put his moustache on upside down, but other than that everybody seemed to know what was what and where to wait. The murmuring hum from the audience suddenly seemed to get a bit louder and Helen poked her head out through the curtain to see what was going on. She could barely contain her excitement when she saw Livy walking to the front of the crowd, followed by a tall, dark haired middle-aged man with a very self conscious look on his face. The couple sat themselves down on the chairs allocated for them; obviously Mark Stevens, the author of the play, had arrived.

  Helen could spot the witches, all seated in the second row. Carla was bundled up next to a bored looking Harry, who in the absence of James (playing Mr Frazer) was taking good care of his mum. Tracy and Simon had managed to get a babysitter for the evening and were enjoying a night out on their own and Maggie had brought all her family with her, including Dom and Jukie who was being bounced up and down on Jed’s knee. Martha was also in attendance and was sitting in state in her wheelchair at the end of the row and accosting anyone that walked past her to tell them about her operation in gory detail.

  At eight o clock the curtain was raised and Rosie, who had the first line, walked nervously onto the stage.

  ‘EUREKA’ (she said, in a loud theatrical voice to Amelia Gordon who was playing her flatmate Helen) ‘A VACANT JOB AT LAST, AS HOUSEMAID TO A MR AND MRS PAGE…WHAT LUCK.’

  ‘WELL DONE JULIE’ Amelia answered, smiling at her mum in the audience who was standing on her chair to take a picture. ‘BUT I’VE HEARD THAT MRS PAGE CAN BE A RIGHT OLD BAG TO WORK FOR.’

  ‘WELL BEGGARS CAN’T BE CHOOSERS HELEN, I CAN DEAL WITH MRS PAGE YOU’LL SEE….’

  And so the play began and for the most part it went without a hitch, the audience laughed when they were meant to and sometimes when they weren’t. There were even a few tears shed during Rosie’s death scene (although the solemnity of the scene was marred slightly by the knife falling noisily out of her back and on to the stage next to her, it wasn’t helped by Rosie picking it up and shoving it back into herself). Helen had to smile at Carla who tried very hard not to mind when James (as Mr Frazer) shared a passionate kiss with ‘Mrs Page’. Although Julie Finch who was playing Mrs Page did seem to be making a meal of it and it was obvious that Carla was biting the inside of her mouth to stop herself from rugby tackling the woman and beating her to a pulp.

  But other than that, oh and of course the end of Inspector Johnstone’s pipe falling off and landing in Mrs Binworthy’s lap, as he dramatically waved it at Mrs Frazer whilst accusing her of murdering Mrs Page, oh and then of course half of St Paul’s Cathedral ending up on Lucinda Lovett’s (now being played by Linda Connelly after Maylee’s defection) head during the final scene. Other than that though, it could be said that it was a resounding success.

  The audience applauded long and loud and all the players were beaming with pride as the final curtain went down, or rather fell down, as they took their third bows.

  Mrs Binworthy stopped the audience before they all made their escapes to the pub.

  ‘Um before you leave,’ she said in a resounding voice, ‘we are very honoured to have with us today the author of our play, Mark Stevens. Mark wrote “Murder at Mildew Manor” when he was just a boy and living in this very pub, I’d like to ask him to say a few words…if you wouldn’t mind Mr Stevens?’

  Mark Stevens took to the stage looking extremely embarrassed and self-conscious. ‘Um…I’d like to thank the whole cast for putting on such a wonderful performance,’ he began, ‘and for taking my little play and making it into something quite different, so different that in fact that I don’t remember even writing some of it.’ Andrea Channel had the grace to look embarrassed at that remark. ‘And,’ Mark went on, ‘it is particularly lovely to be back here in Kenley village and to see so many familiar faces still here….’

  ‘Oh isn’t he wonderful,’ whispered Mrs Binworthy to Helen as they listened to Mark’s speech, ‘he reminds me so much of his father…wonderful man he was,’ she went on dreamily, ‘so charming, such a gentleman. I was…I mean we were all devastated when the family left the village.’

  Slightly taken aback by a love struck Hester Binworthy, Helen just nodded her agreement and made her way over to where the witches were sitting.

  ‘Helen darling that was amazing,’ Maggie said wiping tears of hilarity from her eyes, ‘I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much, oh it was wonderful…’

  ‘It was meant to be a thriller,’ said Helen indignantly, then giggling despite herself, ‘although when that pipe landed in Hester’s lap I nearly lost it back stage I can tell you.’

  Carla had caught hold of Livy as she passed by and was inviting her for a meal later in the week. ‘Nothing special love, just a spag bol and a couple of bottles of wine if you fancy it,’ she was saying.

  ‘Oh sorry Carla,’ Livy said
disappointed, ‘only I don’t know how long I’m going to be staying round here. I’ve just had some disturbing news from my brother and I might have to go and sort it out….’

  ‘Oh I thought your brother lived local?’ Carla said.

  ‘No…no not that brother, this is my brother Freddy, he’s in um…Glasgow. Anyhow it looks like I might have to head on up there so….’

  ‘Oh that’s such a shame love,’ Carla said. ‘I was hoping for a good long catch up, you’re not leaving straight away though are you?’

  ‘No…no I have a couple of things to sort out first and then I’ll be off. Anyway lovely seeing you looking so well again Carla, I was shocked to the core to hear about what happened to you,’ she said giving Carla’s hand a squeeze. ‘What’ll happen to those two, the brother and sister I mean?’ she added.

  ‘Well they’ve been charged with three counts of murder, and of course attempted murder so they’ll be going nowhere for a good long time.’

  Livy seemed lost in her thoughts for a moment, ‘I heard,’ she said at last, ‘that they were doing everything because of what they’d read in a book, a diary of some kind or some letters or something, was that true?’

  Carla raised her eyebrows, ‘Bloody hell how did that piece of information get out.’ She shook her head in disgust. ‘Bloody press, they get hold of everything. Although between me and you it is true, well true after a fashion. The man, John, was Una Flannery’s son; Una was the girl that wrote the diaries. And after Una died, the diaries and some letters came into his hands and so he found out that his mother had suffered some terrible abuse when she was a young girl working in a hotel in London and I suppose he wanted revenge. As for the woman, Rebecca, she was just a mad cow whose own mother had been raped and I suppose it just triggered some sort of obsession in her, she seemed to take what Una had written to be some sort of noble quest. Oh I don’t know Livy, what drives people to do the barbaric things that they do? It makes no sense does it?’

  Livy smiled at her sadly, ‘Well I’m just so sorry that you got mixed up in it all,’ she said giving Carla a hug, ‘I wouldn’t have had you hurt for the world love,’ she finished a bit tearfully.

  Carla laughed a bit surprised by how emotional Livy had become. ‘Oh I’m OK love don’t worry, it’ll take more than being buried alive to get me down,’ she finished ironically.

  Livy left shortly after that and Carla waited until James and Rosie had changed and then joined the rest of the audience who had, by then, adjourned to the pub for an after party that went on late into the night.

  CHAPTER 69 - CARLA

  Much to James’s disgust, Carla returned to work the following week.

  ‘Why won’t you give yourself time to recover properly,’ he had shouted at her in exasperation.

  ‘Darling I am recovered,’ Carla had said putting her arms around him. ‘I would feel like an absolute fraud to be sitting at home while Frank and Sam blunder around on their own, when I am in fact perfectly healthy.’

  James turned her towards him, ‘I know you’ve recovered physically darling,’ he said looking into her eyes, ‘but you and I both know that you’ve a long way to go before you get over what happened to you…it happened again last night didn’t it?’

  Carla pulled out of his arms and turned her head away, ‘It’s getting better, you know it is James. Last night was the first time in ages.’

  The first few nights after being dragged out of her muddy grave, Carla had suffered from the most awful nightmares, and had woken screaming and bathed in sweat. She’d been given some pretty good sleeping tablets by her doctor and as a result the dreams had become less frequent, but they still happened every now and then and they still left her feeling vulnerable and terrified. She wasn’t about to let this beat her though, so she played it down to James. Carla was convinced that all she needed to do was to bring this investigation to a close and then she was sure the dreams would stop.

  So she had held firm against all James’s pleas and gone back to work.

  Nobody was in the office when she arrived, apparently there had been a smash and grab at a jewellery store in Redbank and Frank and Sam had gone to speak to the proprietor who had been thrown to the ground during the raid and was now in hospital.

  Carla busied herself by going through some of the papers that had been put on her desk while she’d been away. Mandy had been looking into the other girls named in Una’s diary it seemed. Katy Flyn had been a fourteen year old who had grown up in an orphanage in Dublin, her parents were unknown. She had been left on the steps of the orphanage as a new born baby, and had been given the name Flyn after the postman that had found her. She had no known relatives and had gone to work at the Linden after running away from the orphanage and answering an advertisement. She worked there for three years and then, according to a Harry Standen, who had been working as a porter at the hotel at the time, she left without giving notice. He had observed at the time though that she’d left all her stuff behind including her pet hamster, which she had kept hidden in her room, away from Mr Silco. That, Mr Standen had said, had been completely out of character but despite these suspicious circumstances nobody had ever reported Katy missing, and she was never heard of or spoken about again.

  Then there was Bella O’Shea, another Irish girl, fifteen when she worked at the Linden as a chamber maid. Bella came from a big family who also lived in Dublin. The father was a dustman and the mother presumably had her work cut out looking after her eight children. Bella was the eldest daughter and was sent to London by her family to work at the Linden. She worked there for a little over a year when she too disappeared, apparently according to the very helpful Mr Standen, who also remembered Bella although she was a little before his time and he only knew her a few weeks before she ‘left’. Bella’s family wrote to enquire as to their daughter’s whereabouts a few weeks after she had gone. They were fobbed off with the same old story about their daughter leaving without giving notice. In fact Harry Standen could remember Jonas Silco boasting that he had put the fear of God into them, by threatening to sue them for breach of contract, the hotel was never contacted again by the O’Shea family.

  Carla sighed and put down the paper she was reading. What were these people thinking, why did no one question the disappearance of these girls, it was awful, just awful, that they were deemed so worthless…even to their families for Christ’s sake!

  With a heavy heart, she picked up the paper again and carried on reading. Precious Freeman was the girl that had been employed to replace the unfortunate Missy Gattoré and it seemed likely that she had suffered the same sort of abuse. Although according to what Mandy had found out, her family came and rescued her before she could come to any more harm. They tried to take an action against the hotel but were thwarted at every turn by the police and the Wisemans themselves, so that in the end they just went away quietly…but did they? It was not long after that the Linden was burnt to the ground, could that have been the work of the Freemans rather that Jacob Gattoré who had always sworn that he hadn’t done it? Carla sat and thought for a moment, before carrying on.

  The Freemans lived in Peckham, South London. It seemed that Precious Freeman had been yet another girl that Jonas Silco had impregnated and abandoned, because soon after returning to her family she gave birth to a daughter, Olivia. She went on to marry a man called Eli Rose, a plumber and have three more children, all boys. Something about what she was reading was nudging at Carla’s memory…something felt familiar, as if she’d heard this story before… she just couldn’t think what it was…it was there, right there on the edge of her recall…she just couldn’t pin it down.

  Little by little as Carla was reading, the office began to fill with people. Midge, surprised to see her back, came over and gave her an emotional hug which embarrassed them both.

  ‘You don’t know how glad I am to see you sitting their Ma’am,’ he said awkwardly, ‘I was sure they’d find you dead….’

  ‘Oh my God, Carla
!’ Mandy shrieked as she too noticed who was sitting in her office. ‘What are you doing back; I thought you’d be out for at least a month?’

  Carla rolled her eyes, ‘Yes, I think James thought so too…he’s not happy. But you know me, I have to finish what I started and judging by all these notes you’ve left on my desk, we haven’t closed this case yet have we?’

  It was Mandy’s turn to roll her eyes, ‘No, unfortunately…but we did manage to get a bit more out of John. Rebecca has shut up shop, she’s not saying anymore about anything, John on the other hand has let slip a few times that there was definitely someone else involved. Not in the actual killings but in the planning and providing names and addresses that sort of thing which is why I was looking into….’

  ‘Um…I’ll fill Carla in thank you Mandy,’ Frank interrupted her, poking his head round the door. His face broke into a huge smile as he came round the desk and gave Carla a big hug, lifting her off her feet.

  ‘Oh hell,’ he said after they had broken apart, ‘I don’t suppose you’d believe me now if I said we didn’t want you back to work would you?’

  Carla shook her head laughing, ‘Hey, I never would have believed you anyway. I know you are all running round like headless chickens without me here.’

  ‘I’ll have you know that we have made some significant progress Ma’am,’ Frank said pompously. We have taken statements from lots of people and have even typed them up, and Mandy has written you detailed report on all the missing girls…ah I see you’ve found that and….’

  Carla held her hands up in defeat, ‘OK, OK you’ve all been working your little cotton socks off,’ she said walking out of her office and over to the white board, which still had pictures of the Sheenans and the murder victims on it. ‘So what have we got? Frank did you check out Jacob Gattoré again, he still seems the most likely to have been involved?’

  Frank was shaking his head, ‘I can’t make it fit Carla, for one thing he is crippled, and he has no car. So if he were providing information to the Sheenans he would need to be doing it on-line, Google searches that sort of thing. Except he has no internet connected to his flat, and no computer that we could find, and to be honest he appears to be almost illiterate…no I’m sorry, but I don’t think he’s our man.’