Corn Dolls

by K. T. Galloway

  “Right,” Annie said, drawing out the vowel.

  “But I’m with you on this one,” he said. “It feels different, less voodoo-y. I’ll bet you my monthly wages that Jodie Carter is wandering around the estate somewhere with an older friend.”

  Swift’s radio crackled before Annie could reply. He barked into it and they both listened as the crackly voice of one of the officers searching the perimeter broke through the heavy plastic radio.

  “Sir,” it said. “You need to see this. We’re at the front gate.”

  Annie turned back to the window and saw two uniformed officers standing just outside the small, AstroTurf front garden. One of them looked up and in his hand was a familiar doll, crudely twisted from golden stalks of corn. And from this angle, looking down on the path, Annie could see now, drawn in child’s thick chalk, the outline of the triquetra staring up at her.

  Ten

  Annie tipped the last of the water from her bottle into the plant pot and pulled out the bed from under the sofa. Tucking herself into her sleeping bag, she thought back to the events of the day and wondered how on earth she’d gone from normal everyday client meetings on Monday to racing around the Norfolk roads, investigating two missing girls two days later. Two young missing girls who were probably crying for their mums right now. The thought made Annie’s eyes prick with tears.

  She’d spent the evening watching as forensics had descended on Tammy Carter’s house. They’d stormed in, covered from head to toe in white overalls, and picked the house apart. Tammy had been taken off in a cruiser, only dropping the cigarette from her mouth as the car had slid away. Sniffer dogs had been given free rein of the estate, their tails wagging as they sped around the pavements, circling out from the missing girl’s bedroom.

  Annie had studied the corn doll through the evidence bag, its gingham ribbon incongruent with the evilness of the twisted stalks.

  Her mind buzzing, Annie hadn’t been able to sleep when she’d finally driven home, dropping Swift at the station on the way. Instead, she’d lifted her laptop lid and started researching the symbols they’d found in Orla’s bedroom. The significance of the corn dolls and the way their bodies were churned up into the fields to ensure that the crops prospered. Annie had shivered when she imagined the young girls, taken and used to prosper their abductors. She prayed that it wasn’t the case.

  She flicked the desk lamp off, shutting her eyes and trying to find anything remotely positive to focus on. With grim images of broken and bent dolls invading her mind, it was almost a relief when her phone began to vibrate loudly on the floor beside her, the screen illuminating the office ceiling, revealing telltale stains from the leak she’d had last year.

  “Ugh, what now?” she said, sitting upright and flicking the light back on.

  The screen flashed with Swift’s number and she swiped to answer him.

  “Yes?” she barked, slightly more annoyed than she meant to sound.

  “Annie, are you awake still?”

  “You’re the detective, you work it out.”

  Swift laughed into her ear.

  “Touché,” he said. “Look, there’s been a discovery. The woods behind the new builds, near to where Jodie Carter disappeared.”

  Annie was wide awake now. She drew a sharp breath, fearing the worst.

  “Not that kind of discovery. We haven’t found her yet. Dead or alive.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Annie said, exhaling. “Well, I mean, not thank God you haven’t found her. Just, you know, I thought you meant…”

  She trailed off. They both knew what she thought he meant.

  “The team and I are heading out now. Shall I get you on the way?”

  Annie looked down at her pyjama-clad body.

  “Give me ten minutes.”

  “I’ll give you five, I’m already outside.”

  Shit.

  Six and a half minutes later, Annie was sitting in the passenger seat of Swift’s 4x4 as he powered through the dead streets of Norwich.

  “What’s been found?” Annie asked, tying her hair back with the band she always kept around her wrist. Mostly for CBT pinging, but occasionally it came in useful for its given purpose.

  “Some teens out drinking stumbled across a child’s toy,” Swift replied, indicating and taking a left. “They only called it in because they’d heard about Jodie. Whispers spread like wildfire around estates like the one where she lives.”

  “Is it hers?”

  Swift nodded as he accelerated up the slip road and onto the dual carriageway. “Yeah, looks like it might be. The mother has confirmed it’s a match for the cuddly toy Jodie carries with her everywhere. It’s being sent for DNA as we speak.”

  “Oh God, poor girl,” Annie said. “I still sleep with my cuddly toy from when I was a baby. I can’t imagine how scared she must be without it.”

  There was a thick silence in the car, heavy with the weight of the unsaid. The longer the girls were missing, at their age, the less likely they were to still be alive. Annie knew that.

  “So what are we doing now then?” she continued.

  “Talking to the teens,” Swift said. “The search team have spread out to include the part of the surrounding woods where they were drinking. Sounds like a regular spot for them, from what the team were saying. So there’s not likely to be a lot of evidence left amongst the beer cans and cigarette butts.”

  “Why did you want me to come?” Annie asked, feeling sure that she’d stick out like a sore thumb when they got there.

  “I want you to talk to the teens with me, gauge them. You’re part of the investigation now and I need you to be up to date with all of our findings. There’s no point being a part-timer.” Swift turned to Annie and winked. “Plus, I enjoy your company.”

  Annie felt herself blush and was instantly glad of the darkness of the car.

  “I’ll try my best.”

  They drove in silence for a mile or so, the fields flashing by in a staccato of streetlights. Annie’s breath frosted up the glass of the window and made her think back to Orla Finch’s bedroom window. Why were the symbols drawn on it? Who did it? How had someone gotten into the girl’s bedroom and done that without Maggie Finch noticing? The locks of the house weren’t great. Annie wondered if the perpetrator had broken in while the young family were out. She was in the throes of asking Swift these questions when he broke the silence first.

  “You live above your office, then?” he asked as he took the exit off the dual carriageway and headed to the estate. “That must be both brilliant for the commute and awful for the respite.”

  Annie laughed despite herself.

  If only you knew, she thought.

  “Yeah,” she said, wanting to tell him the truth but deciding against it—it was more embarrassing than it was worth. “I worked crazy long hours before you hijacked me, it made sense. Now it seems I’m never going to be off duty.”

  “Welcome to the police force!”

  The group of teenagers looked younger than Annie had been expecting. She had expected maybe eighteen, nineteen at a push. This lot looked like they were fresh out of primary school. The four of them huddled around the police cruisers, their arms wrapped around their bodies to stave off the kind of coldness that comes with a shock.

  “Where are their parents?” Annie asked Swift as they made their way towards a couple of adults who were quite obviously, to Annie’s eyes, police.

  “They’ve been informed,” Swift barked, and the two officers turned to face him and Annie.

  Annie took that to mean they didn’t care that their kids were now talking to the police and were happy to leave them to it.

  “They’re not under arrest, so they don’t need an adult present, but you would have thought at least one set of parents would want to be there for them,” Swift said, reading Annie’s mind, or perhaps her face which was anything but a poker face. “Annie O’Malley, this is my team. Team, this is Annie.”

  “Hi,” the woman stepped
forwards first. Even in the low light, Annie could see she had a peroxide blonde mop of chin-length hair and steely grey eyes. Though about a foot shorter than Annie, the officer gave no signs of being anything other than tough. “DS Belle Lock, but you can call me Tink, seeing as you’re part of the inner circle now.”

  She held out a hand and Annie shook it.

  “Despite the rest of the circle not being consulted!” the man added, stepping forward and offering his hand. He was tall, broad, and wouldn’t look out of place in a bare-knuckle brawl. “Hi, I’m DC Tom Page.”

  Annie shook his proffered hand, slightly concerned about her own fingers.

  Tink and Page. Annie tried to ingrain their names in her mind, the same way she’d learnt to memorise the names of clients.

  “Right,” Swift interrupted. “What and who have we got?”

  “Come with me, Guv,” Tink said. “And I’ll introduce them.”

  “Guv?” Annie whispered to Swift. “I thought you said—"

  Swift gave her a hard stare and Annie remembered where she was and why she was there. She reigned her hilarity in and followed the Guv as Tink led them over to the group of teenagers.

  “Which one of you found the toy?” Swift barked.

  Annie thought he was good at being ferocious when he needed to be, but this was not one of those times. A fleeting thought crossed her mind that perhaps he’d scared away all his police partners, which was why he now needed to rope in an outsider to help.

  The teenagers shrunk a little under his stare. Annie stepped up.

  “You’re not in any trouble,” she said, beginning to feel a little heady—the smell of weed coming from the youths was overwhelming. “We can think about overlooking the drugs if you can give us more information about the toy. What made you call the police, for starters?”

  The smallest of the teens looked up from under his hood at Annie.

  “That girl what went missing,” he said, his voice barely broken. “She’s the same age as my sister; my mum told me about what happened after she heard it from me nan down the shop. She said that girl’s mum was an accident waiting to happen. Guys in and out all the time. Mum said my sister’s not allowed out of her sight until whoever took that girl is caught. So, I thought the teddy might be important, you know, when I saw it. My sister’s got one just like it, carries it around with her everywhere she goes.”

  “You were right to think it was important, that was quick thinking,” Annie said, and the young boy beamed a smile at her as though praise was few and far between. “Can you show us exactly where it was when you found it?”

  The boy turned to look at his mates, who were still focused solely on their state-of-the-art trainers.

  “It was over there,” the boy nodded towards a shabby-looking garden at the edge of the woods, the fence half falling over, and the ivy thicker than tree trunks in places. “Behind Old Man Dick’s house.”

  That got a few sniggers from the rest of the teens.

  “Old Man Dick?” Swift asked, his eyebrow raised. “Who’s that when he’s at home?”

  “The weirdo who lives in that shit heap,” the boy said, his chin raised towards Swift defiantly, as though waiting for retribution for swearing. “We’re not allowed near his house, Mum says he’s too fond of the kids, if you know what I mean?”

  “Yes,” Swift said. “We know what you mean. And that’s why you’re all hanging out at the back of his garden is it?”

  “We’re not scared of him!” One of the other teens piped up. “I could have him any day of the week.”

  “He wouldn’t want you,” the girl of the group added, laughing. “You’re way too old.”

  Annie’s senses were tingling somewhere at the back of her skull. She moved away from Swift and the teens and motioned to DS Lock.

  “Is that true, Tink?” she asked her. “What they’re saying about the man who lives there?”

  Tink shook her head. “No. Richard Able has no rap sheet. It’s a rumour started by bored kids and picked up by their even more bored parents.”

  Annie nodded a thanks and went back to the teens, who were now all joining in, chivvied on by their mutual love of ridiculing Richard Able.

  “No rap sheet, Guv,” Annie said quietly to Swift, who acknowledged her before he realised what she’d called him.

  “Yeah,” said the biggest teen, his hands low in his jeans pockets, his eyes dark with the effects of the weed. “My dad told me he’s one of those weirdo cult people. It’s a good way to get access to young kids though, isn’t it? Through the church. Everyone knows it.”

  Abruptly, Swift stood up straighter and puffed out his chest, looming over the youth. “Wait,” he said, his voice authoritative. “Let’s backtrack a little, sonny. Part of what cult?”

  The teen’s eyes widened in fear. He looked like he was going to burst out crying.

  “The angels one,” he said quietly, his toe poking the earth. “You know?”

  “Yes we do,” Swift said, raising a hand to his team. “Thanks for your time. Now please can you all bugger off home to bed so I don’t have to talk to your parents about that rubbish you’ve been smoking?”

  The teens looked at each other with relief.

  “Page!” Swift shouted across to Tom. “Find someone to make sure these kids all get home safe. Tink, go and find out who did door-to-door earlier, and why we’re only just finding out about this.” He turned back to Annie. “And you, come with me. We’re going to pay this Old Man Dick a little visit.”

  For starters, Old Man Dick was not old. The jury was still out on whether or not he was a dick. Annie looked around the house as he led them through to his living room. This estate was only ten years old. From the looks of his house, Richard Able had been here for the entirety of the ten years and never once thrown anything away. Newspapers were stacked to ceiling height along the hallway, carrier bags full of what looked like paperwork were shoved into any available gaps. The downstairs toilet door could not be closed due to the large armchair blocking its way.

  They all squeezed past the obscure furniture, ending up in a room just as rammed as the hallway. A small, grease-stained gap on the sofa showed where Richard Able spent most of his days. He took a seat without offering one to Swift and Annie, not that there was anywhere else free—the rest of the chairs were covered in stacks of paper. A dusty old TV took up the majority of another armchair, and buckets containing dubious-looking fluids dotted the floor. The smell was making Annie’s eyes water, but she couldn’t see any sign of a window to stand beside—they were blocked out by the towers of newspapers.

  “I’m not what they’re saying I am,” Richard Able said, shrugging in his sunken position on the sofa. ‘Like I told your guys yesterday, I keep myself to myself mostly. Except for the church. My congregation understands me, you see.”

  “Your congregation?” Swift asked.

  “Yes, I’m church leader of the South City branch of Angels of the Water.”

  “What does being a church leader involve?”

  “Looking after my women however they need me, which is where I was when poor little Jodie was hurt. I told that to your officers yesterday too. My congregation will tell you the same. I’m a carer, not a destroyer. I’d have no reason to hurt a child.”

  “No one said anything about hurting a child, Mr Able,” Swift said sharply. “We just want to know where she is.”

  “Taking a child from their parent is hurting it, DI Swift.”

  Annie noticed the calm and collected manner in which Richard Able spoke to Swift. She remembered back to her first meeting with him, how nervous she’d been, and she hadn’t even been a suspect.

  “Where do you hold your meetings, Mr Able?” she asked, looking around the room. “Not here?”

  “They’re not called meetings, dear,” he replied, his stare sending a shiver up Annie’s back. “They’re assemblies.”

  “Answer her question,” Swift ordered.

  Richard nodded, his mov
ement slow and assured. He didn’t seem at all thrown by Swift’s orders, or by the presence of two strangers in his home.

  “They’re obviously not here,” he said. “My house is sacred to me.” His eyes ran up and down Annie in disgust. “I hold my assemblies in the South City branch church house. Not like some other branches, whose leaders use their houses for other means.”

  “Other means?” Swift asked.

  “Yes.”

  Richard Able crossed his arms and kept his mouth shut, obviously he wasn’t going to be forthcoming with information about what other means he was talking about.

  “How many branches of the church are there, Mr Able?” Swift asked.

  “Ten.” Richard Able was being as insensitive as they come.

  “Do you know the leader of the North Norfolk branch, Mr Able?” Annie asked, keen to find a connection

  “Of course.”

  The room fell into a thick silence, all the ambient sounds were soaked up by the years of hoarded news.

  “Mr Able.” Swift was right up beside the man now. “Stop being so obtuse and answer the bloody questions.”

  Mr Able sat stock still for a moment, drumming a dirty nail on his thigh, then spoke. “The North Norfolk leader is a downright pompous man. He lives in Brancaster. His own house is bigger than the bloody church and that’s no surprise given that he rents out his church house.” Richard Able cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “Sorry. Yes. His name is Peter Johnson.”

  Swift threw Annie a look. It was clear that something about Peter Johnson had rattled Richard Able’s cool, calm exterior, and Annie knew that Swift had seen it too.

  “Thank you for your time, Mr Able,” Swift said. “We’ll see ourselves out.”

  Eleven

  Swift cleared the station car park bollards by millimetres and steered the 4x4 into an empty space. The sun was now high in the sky and having come straight from the woods, having had no sleep the previous night, Annie was struggling against the brightness. She followed Swift as he buzzed them both into the back doors of the station and through to reception. The usual gaggle of protestors hung around the entrance, and Annie saw a flash of a friendly face she recognised, probably from her probation work.