Corn Dolls

by K. T. Galloway

  “Have you turned up here at a ridiculous time to accuse me of something?” Mrs Green looked like a cat caught in a trap.

  “Quite the opposite,” Annie said strongly. “Please just answer my question.”

  Mrs Green huffed, but her energy soon sapped.

  “Yes,” she sighed. “That’s right.”

  “And when did you start taking drugs? Buying from Grey? Were you pregnant with Katie?”

  Mrs Green shot to her feet and spun to face Annie, her finger right up in Annie’s face. Annie held her breath and waited for the onslaught of abuse. But it didn’t come. Instead, the mother collapsed onto her haunches, her hands covering her face as she sobbed. Annie stroked her on the curve of her back.

  “Please, Mrs Green,” she added. “I’m really not here to judge you. I’m trying to piece together something, and this information would be really helpful.”

  Mrs Green sniffed and dragged her dead weight of a body on to the seat next to Annie.

  “I was doing drugs when I was pregnant with Katie,” Mrs Green said, wiping her nose with her sleeve. “But I only met Grey a few weeks into this pregnancy. He was too hard to say no to, you know? I thought he liked me, and I was lonely with Derek being away at work all the time. Looking after a little one is hard work on your own.”

  “So he seduced you?” Annie asked.

  “Kind of, I guess so, yes.” Swift handed Mrs Green a tissue and she took a moment to compose herself. “I met him down the local. I’d not seen him before and he’s a good-looking guy, you know? I think he cottoned on to the fact I was lonely.”

  Annie nodded, her thoughts coming together. “But back when you were pregnant with Katie, you were taking drugs, just not drugs from Grey?”

  Mrs Green nodded.

  “Did you ever have any contact with Social Services?”

  Mrs Green’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  “Please, Mrs Green, just answer the question.” Swift spoke now.

  “They came to visit me,” she said, her face screwed up with the memory. “They said I wasn’t a fit mother because I was smoking crack. They wanted to put me on a tiered programme to make sure I was able to look after my unborn child.”

  “And what did that programme entail?” Annie asked, edging forwards.

  “I dunno,” Mrs Green shrugged. “I never had to do it in the end, I was given the help of a worker who got them off my backs. She did also get me off the crack. A godsend, really.”

  “What was her name? This worker?”

  Mrs Green screwed up her nose and stared out into the distance. Annie saw Swift about to speak and held up a hand to stop him.

  “Alma,” Mrs Green said, eventually, her face lighting up. “Aileen, something like that.”

  “Aila Clough?”

  “Yes, that’s her.” Mrs Green’s face dropped. “Why?”

  Annie stood up and took Mrs Green’s hand. “Thank you. You’ve been really helpful.”

  As they were heading out to the car, Swift’s phone shrilled out of his pocket.

  “Swift,” he said, beeping the car open so Annie could get inside.

  Swift was right, there was no better feeling than this. The threads of thought that had been floating around for the last week were finally knotting together and Annie had woven an almost complete picture. She climbed into the car and got out her own phone. Guessing that Swift was talking to Tink, Annie dialled the office number and wasn’t surprised when Page answered.

  “You’re back in the office already then?” she said, buckling herself in.

  “Yeah,” Page said. “The drugs squad arrived and hauled them all away, and Tink and I were pretty quick at Tammy’s place.”

  “Great!” Annie said. “Did you get hold of the info?”

  Annie heard the shuffling of paper.

  “Yeah,” Page said, clearing his throat. “Tammy Carter was under the eye of the local authority when she was pregnant with Jodie, something to do with the people she was hanging around with. They didn’t take it too far, you know, just gave her some support to remove herself from that crowd.”

  “Yes!” Annie cried. “I knew it.”

  “But get this,” Page continued.

  “Don’t tell me,” Annie interrupted. “Aila?”

  “Yeah,” Page said, the surprise evident in his voice. “Is this your doing?”

  Annie made a noise that could have been a confirmation.

  “Well done, Annie,” he said, as Swift slammed the door and started the engine.

  “We haven’t found them yet,” she replied. “Do me a favour though, would you? Can you contact the Social Services Emergency Duty Team and get them to look up Aila Clough’s details? I want an address and phone contact, and a list of any other potential targets that she’s worked with. Mothers who she’s helped, who are now expecting another child. We’re on our way back to the station now.”

  She reeled off the Social Services number and hung up. Swift laughed.

  “What?” she asked him.

  “Who died and made you the new DI?” he said, pulling out into the road and flooring the 4x4 back to the station.

  Twenty-Six

  “We know who has the girls, Grey,” Annie said, her voice less compassionate that it had been the last time she saw the young man. “So we need you to tell us why you took Katie and where. Or we’ll be adding obstruction of justice to a rap sheet that’s already long enough to send you away and throw away the key. You’ve got an hour.”

  Grey Donovan’s eyes were staring right at her. Or through her, Annie couldn’t quite tell. It was Sunday morning, so maybe he was just as bone tired and living on adrenaline as she was. She’d downed a cup of coffee when they’d got back to the station and her brain was like Crazy Frog in a blender.

  She slammed the cell door shut and trudged back to the incident room.

  “I’ve told him we know who has the girls,” Annie said, not waiting to see if she was interrupting. “So let’s see if he coughs up Aila’s address quicker than Social Services do, because there is nothing recorded anywhere for an Aila Clough.”

  Page was still on the phone, the hold music loud enough to hear on the other side of the office. It grated, but Annie thought that most things were grating now she was a week deep with no sleep. Eventually, after a short conversation, Page slammed the phone down and ran his hands through his hair.

  “No go,” he said, wincing.

  “What’s a no go?” Annie asked, perching on the table. “They won’t give out information?”

  “No. Aila Clough hasn’t been an employee of the council for about eighteen months. Turns out she was let go because she had downloaded some confidential information and taken it out of the building.”

  “Let me guess?” Annie said, hopping back down and walking over to the covered noticeboard. ‘Names and addresses of vulnerable children in the county.”

  “Pretty much, yep,” Page nodded.

  “Could they give a last known address?”

  Page shook his head. “No. Advocates aren’t directly hired by the council, they’re outsourced. So, although she had access to their files, they kept no records of her. And the advocate service has been disbanded due to cuts to the system. So, I can’t even get hold of them to ask for her address.”

  “That’s it!” Annie cried. “I knew I recognised her, Aila was protesting outside the station when I first arrived. She was protesting cuts to the service even though she lost her job way before they cut the advocacy. I knew I recognised her. What time is it?”

  Swift looked at his watch. “A little past eight.”

  “Right,” Annie said, addressing the room. “We need to get out there and find her. Rose said the protestors are there every day, weekends including. Swift, with me, we can stake out the front of the station. Page and Tink, get onto the electoral register, or the gas board, anything, there has to be a record of her somewhere.”

  The three officers stood to attention.

  “I tol
d you,” Swift said to Page and Tink, raising an eyebrow.

  “Shut up,” Annie said, grabbing her coat and heading out to the reception.

  Annie spotted Aila through the station window the moment the sliding doors had come to a close. She held her breath and turned away, not wanting to give away what she knew and make the woman flee.

  “Swift,” Annie said, trying to look casual. “She’s there. The one protesting with the banner that says advocate not antagonist?””

  Swift leant over the unmanned reception desk, picked up the phone and called through a code that Annie didn’t recognise.

  “Uniform are on their way,” he said, putting down the phone and staring at Annie. “They’re going to round her up and bring her in the front. That way she can’t really do a runner.”

  Annie felt a pool of trepidation building in her stomach. Then the doors burst open and Aila joined them in reception flanked by three officers, a smile on her face as though she was out for a jolly. Swift stepped up, his sleeves rolled to his elbows, and read Aila her rights as she looked right through him, her eerie smile giving Annie a cold shiver.

  “Aila Clough, do you understand why you’re here?” Swift asked when they were all safely hidden away in the interview room.

  “I want a lawyer,” she said, still smiling politely at him and Annie across the table.

  “Just tell us where the girls are, Aila,” Annie said. “Are they hurt? What have you done to them?”

  “Done to them?” Aila said, her dream-like smile still etched on her face. “Hurt them? Are you stupid, girl?”

  She started laughing. A long, drawn-out melodic laugh that made Annie’s hair crawl. Swift bashed a fist down on the table but Aila seemed to like the drama.

  “Oh,” she said, grinning, hunching her shoulders up in joy. “We do like to shout, don’t we? Do you know what I do when they shout?”

  Neither Annie nor Swift spoke.

  “Well, I’ll tell you anyway,” Aila continued. “I give them a hug and a kiss and a bar of chocolate. Because all children shout, don’t they?”

  She looked up at the corner of the room to the camera and gave a little wave.

  ‘Of course,” she added, her cheerful voice almost soporific. “If they keep shouting then I’ll wash their mouths out with bleach and shut them in the cupboard, because you do have to have a little discipline too.”

  “Where are they?” Annie asked again.

  With a movement that was slow and assured, Aila turned to face the psychotherapist. “You don’t need to know that, dearie. They’re safer than they have ever been. Even if they’re never found, they’ve had a good few months, or days in some cases, to live the life of a child, rather than the life of a nuisance or a reject. You’ve only just clocked on to the fact I’ve been rescuing these children, but it’s taken you ten years to get to this point.”

  Annie’s blood ran cold, how many other children had Aila abducted in those years, and where were they?

  “Tell us, or we’ll throw the book at Grey,” Annie said, steeling herself for what she guessed was coming.

  “You’ve got Grey?” she asked, the whites of her eyes bulging, the smile finally dropping from her face. “But… but he’s… you need to let him go right now!”

  “We have video footage of him abducting Katie Green,” Swift said.

  “Stupid, stupid boy,” Aila scoffed, clapping her hands together over and over. “He thought he was doing me a favour. Thought he was all grown up. He wanted to prove to me that he could do it on his own. But he has no idea.”

  “Does he know you abducted him as a young boy?” Annie asked.

  “I didn’t abduct him,” Aila shouted, banging her fists on the table and making Annie jump. “I rescued him. He was the first, he started it all. He could have been taken by that child molester and had his organs ripped out of him, his parents would never have known. They were a waste of space who were so out of it on drugs that they didn’t care when I took him from right under their noses. Literally. I’ve looked after him like he was my own for fifteen years.”

  “Did you find the girls through the confidential records you stole from Social Services?” Annie asked.

  Aila huffed out air through her nose. “They sacked me for no reason. They didn’t need the extra work. All those social workers worked to the bone. They should be thanking me for saving them a job. Like I said, it’s not like anyone noticed the girls were missing until now.”

  “How did you find them? Once your access to records had been stopped?”

  “My Grey may not be the world’s best son, he has had his troubles, but he has never done drugs.” Aila puffed out her chest. “But he knew people who knew people and I still had the old records. I kept an eye on the mothers, stalked their social media, and followed them through the city. I’m clever like that. People often plaster their baby news all over the place. Some of the mothers still wanted my help, and who am I to turn them down? Then it was just a matter of sending Grey in to do the rest.”

  “He’d get to know them? Supply them with drugs?”

  Aila burst out laughing. “It was as though the Angels of the Water wanted to rid themselves of sin by providing me with the ultimate front. I just approached that weirdo Amadeus and offered him Grey’s assistance. Added a few red herrings along the way too!”

  “The symbols and the corn dolls?” Annie said, her eyebrows furrowed. “But they’re symbols for good not evil. Why would they point the finger at what you believe to be an evil cult?”

  “You’re a little too smart for your own good, young lady.” Aila spat the words at Annie. “I couldn’t very well mark those poor girls with an actual curse, now could I? Thought a few well-placed but mis-guided artifacts might help point the finger at the Angels. Goodness knows they’re evil themselves. Bringing that stuff into our beautiful county.”

  “How did you know they were a front for running drugs?” Swift asked.

  “Anyone with half a brain could see they were running something, and that certainly wasn’t any sort of worship!”

  “So Grey would supply the drugs and you’d, what? Swoop in when they were out of it and steal their children?” Annie was incensed.

  “If people aren’t good enough parents, then who are you to judge someone who is?”

  Annie shook her head. There was no reasoning with the woman.

  “Who looks after the children when you’re here, protesting for a job that you screwed over?” Swift asked.

  “They are capable of looking after themselves for a few hours,” Aila said, without a thread of irony. “And Grey will pop his head in to make sure they are behaving. There are strict punishments for any girl who misbehaves.”

  “And Grey took Katie? Why? We need you to tell us where they are.”

  Aila’s nostrils flared. “He is my life, that boy, but he has ruined everything. Ruined it. I guessed you’d be on to me sooner or later, as soon as Katie arrived at my door. But they’ll be okay. I made sure of it. I’ve said my goodbyes and they have each other. Soon it will all be over.”

  “Tell us where they are, Aila!” Swift shouted.

  “I won’t tell you,” she said, quietly. “I won’t. I won’t. I won’t.”

  With each word the volume increased until Aila was screaming them over and over at Swift and Annie. Bits of spittle flew out of her mouth and hit the table like tiny white raindrops.

  “I won’t! I won’t! I won’t!”

  Swift grabbed Annie’s upper arm and was about to drag her from the room. But Annie pulled away, slamming her hands down flat on the table and staring at the hysterical woman.

  “You tell me where you have hidden those girls, right now,” she hissed. “Or I will march right into Grey’s cell and tell him you’re not his real mother, so help me God.”

  Twenty-Seven

  For a split second, Annie couldn’t move. Swift was counting to three in the background, the uniformed officers primed with the battering ram at the plastic
door that wouldn’t yield to her hand. She’d tried the letterbox, lifting it with her fingers extended and shouting out to the girls inside, but the only thing she’d been greeted with was a stench that she couldn’t clear from her nose.

  Swift had smelt it too. He’d paled and stepped aside for the officers, shouting a countdown for any listening ears, trying to stave the fear the girls must be feeling. Annie hoped they were feeling fear, at least that would mean they were still able to feel.

  The door cracked open and adrenaline rushed through Annie’s body. Heading through the hallway into the house, she called out the names of the three missing children.

  “Orla! Katie! Jodie!” she cried, running from room to room.

  The house was smack bang in the middle of nowhere, between the church barn and the coast. A sprawling farmhouse, newly renovated and with a security system to match that of Fort Knox. Annie burst through the doors to the kitchen, almost sliding on the newly cleaned floor. The bleach in the air was drowning out the smell of decay that Annie was trying not to think about.

  Swift ran into the kitchen behind her and stopped at her back, his hands resting on her shoulders. They both stood still for a moment, their breaths held, listening out for the cries. But the house was silent.

  “Oh God, Joe,” Annie said, her eyes welling up. “Are we too late?”

  It had taken them nearly an hour to get to the house, despite Swift putting his foot down. Annie’s gamble that Aila’s maternal instinct would be strong enough to protect Grey had worked. But where was Aila’s maternal instinct when it came to these girls? Had her own self-preservation won out? She felt Swift squeeze her shoulders and shook the doubt creeping into her head. She had to stay positive.

  “You check the garden,” she said, turning to face him. “I’ll follow the officers up the stairs. This place is huge, they could be anywhere.”

  “Go,” Swift shouted, as he turned the key in the lock and headed out to the garden. “Shout if you need me.”

  Annie suppressed the need to shout for him right then. She didn’t want to be here, but the need to find the girls outweighed her fear of what she might see when she did find them. She headed back to the stairs, near the broken front door, feeling little comfort at the presence of the uniformed officers who stood guard against anyone who might be lurking out in the corn fields. She grabbed the banister rail and dragged herself up the stairs two at a time, all the while shouting for the girls.