by Hill, Casey
‘Ah guten morgen, lovely day for tramping, yes?’
‘Erm, hello, good morning to you too,’ Chris stammered.
‘This is the way to Roundwood, ya?’ the hiker enquired.
‘Yes, just back that way,’ Reilly confirmed.
‘Danke. Auf wiedersehen.’ The man smiled as he confidently marched past them.
‘Holy shit…’ Chris turned to Reilly with his hand on his chest. ‘He frightened the crap out of me.’
She smiled. ‘C’mon, Bear Grylls, let’s attack that hill. Looks like we should get a good view down to the lake from it.’ She pointed in the direction of a hill covered in granite rock, heather and tough mountain grass.
As they made their way to the top, the misty rain seemed to be coming from every direction as the wind forced the air upwards against the steep cliff face that fell away down into the lake.
The lake itself was shrouded in fog, but parts became visible from time to time as the air swirled around, giving glimpses of the inky blue water below.
To the left was the sandy shoreline that they had seen on the satellite images, and in the field beyond several visible buildings.
Chris slipped and slithered along behind Reilly, the misty rain falling more steadily now, and he felt his damp jacket stick to his shoulders and his hair plaster itself to his forehead. He wished he’d been more prepared as right now he felt like a idiot while Reilly took off like some kind of girl-scout leader.
The lake was roughly oval shaped, and on three sides was bordered by boulders and rocks that had been slipping down the steep sides since the last Ice Age.
On the other side the river had carried sediment into the lake, creating the beach and fertile flood plain where the fields were.
‘What do you think?’ he asked her.
‘It’s within a ten-mile radius to where both of our girls were found, and it certainly matches Conn’s description. Also, I checked the soil analysis reports, and the samples we have are consistent with this area,’ She began biting her lip. ‘I’d so love to get some samples from that beach though,’ she added, straining her eyes through the thickening mist.
‘Agreed, but unless you’ve got a handglider in that kitbag of yours there’s no getting down there from here.’ Chris wiped a water droplet from his nose. ‘I don’t want to jump the gun but this feels right to me too. Let’s let O’Brien know what we’ve got and take it from there.’
Reilly went to work taking some soil samples from the grass verge as well as some other gravel and rocks for trace comparison. It wasn’t ideal; what she really wanted was some samples directly from the beach and farmland to compare with the trace they’d taken off the old shoes and from beneath Sarah’s toenails, but for now this would have to do. ‘How do you think O’Brien will approach it?’
‘With kid gloves, I’d imagine. The last thing we want is some kind of Waco-style standoff,’ Chris said as he tried to retrace his steps without looking like he was going to fall on his backside at any second.
They continued to speculate on tactics as they made their way back to the car. As they approached, they could see that the driver’s window was open and cigarette smoke was escaping.
‘Anything interesting?’ Kennedy asked, as they both climbed in.
‘Bad enough that we’re wandering around in that weather and then having to come back to a bloody smoke-filled car,’ Chris moaned.
‘Jeez, what a nag…’ Kennedy turned the ignition key, so the electric windows would work and let his down fully. Reilly left the door open on her side to let some fresh air in.
‘It looks interesting,’ she told Kennedy as she peeled off her wet jacket.
‘Yeah, I’ve been looking at the map,’ he said, taking a folded OS map from the dashboard. ‘Looks like there’s only one road in and out of that property.’
‘Did you talk to the locals about it?’ Chris asked.
‘Owned by a local family according to the guy I spoke to. They’re not terribly well known or active in the community though. Interestingly, a squad car called and spoke to the owner when they were investigating the hit and run. He said he’d seen nothing but would let them know if anybody else in the house had. There was no answer at the front gate on any of the follow-up calls.’ He looked at Chris. ‘The local guy said they reported it to Harcourt Street but had heard nothing since.’
‘Jesus, what’s the point of wasting man-hours canvassing if the reports don’t come back to us when alarm bells should be going off?’ Chris said, frustrated.
‘What about Land Registry?’ Reilly asked.
‘Slow as a funeral. I rang base and asked them to call a solicitor, see if we can get them to use their online system to get a quicker response,’ Kennedy said, winding up the window now that the smoke had cleared. He switched on the ignition.
‘Could we just take a quick ride up to the gate before we go?’ Reilly asked. ‘We’ll just drive down and do a U-turn like lost tourists so as not to spook anybody. I’d really like to try and sneak in some samples.’
‘We could chance ringing the bell for a chat while we’re there,’ Kennedy said as he maneuvered back onto the narrow road.
‘Chances are if there was no answer for the local officers there will be none for us either, and the last thing we want to do is throw a cat amongst the pigeons if we have indeed found our Tír na nÓg,’
‘Cat amongst the swans, you mean,’ Kennedy quipped.
The gates to the property were tall and imposing, hung on impressive granite pillars with granite stone-clad walls in each direction making access to all but the invited very difficult. A wooden pole rose up behind the wall with three CCTV cameras on top spanning 360 degrees.
‘Seems a bit excessive if it’s just an ordinary family living there,’ Kennedy commented. ‘If it’s the gateway to a mystical land, however …’
‘It’s not actually that rare for large country estates to have such a high level of security,’ Chris said. ‘I’ve seen it before; people out in the sticks often feel more of a need to take self-protection into their own hands.’
‘Fair enough but all those cameras?’ Kennedy reversed the car around, trying not to linger too long and risk arousing suspicion. ‘It’s way OTT and weird. A bit like Jurassic Park or something. These people are either trying to keep somebody out or somebody in – or both.’
‘Well, either way, the local boys better sit tight on this place,’ Chris said. ‘If things ends up going pear-shaped I’d hate to be the one explaining to an internal investigation how it was called on four bloody times. Hey, where are you going?’ he called out, as Reilly opened the door and stepped outside.
‘Trying to get a sneak peek inside paradise.’
She approached the entrance, and looked through a crack between the pillars and the gates. Inside the first set of gates was a second set – an intermediate zone between the entrance and the property itself.
Then looking through the gap from a side perspective, she immediately understood its purpose – to her left was a huge tank for fuel oil and a generator house. She could hear the generator rumbling away inside its small shed.
Follow the breadcrumbs, Reuben had said. Her mind racing, she turned and walked back to the car.
But as she made to leave Reilly stopped in her tracks. She’d just noticed something else. Delicately sculpted into the stone on the pillars was an elaborate Celtic-style pattern with a winged horse at the center of the design.
The gateway to Tir Na Nog?
Chapter 26
Much later, back at the GFU, Reilly slumped into her office chair.
Various items of post were stacked on top of her desk. There were some familiar external envelopes, and a couple of jiffy bags she did not recognize but no doubt heralded more items for her ever-increasing to-do list.
One piece that did catch her attention was an inter-departmental padded envelope marked as being from Phoenix Park HQ.
Unsure as to what headquarters would possibly be
sending her, she ripped open the seam and slid the contents out onto the desk. A green bulging file was bound together with an elastic band, and written on the front of the cover were several pieces of information, but catching sight of a name she soon realized exactly what this was.
[1 line break]
File Number: IIRGSmk24
Name: Grace Olivia Gorman
Date reported: 14/8/1997
[1 line break]
Reilly felt a pang of guilt. She’d ordered the file a couple of days ago and in the middle of all the drama surrounding the current investigation, she’d almost forgotten her promise to Lucy.
She looked closer at the folder. It was covered in small notes and official stamps that represented its removal and resubmission to file storage at headquarters in the Park. There had been plenty of activity with this file, she noted, although not surprizing given it related to the daughter of a senior member of staff.
Reilly removed the elastic band and opened the folder. Removing the order of contents sheet she was immediately drawn to the last entered record, a printout from the online missing children’s website.
Most modern missing person cases were now listed online, which enabled click-through from independent missing person websites or social networking pages, and thus easier access for anyone with a potential sighting or useful information.
The printout that Reilly was looking at was a relatively updated version compared with the original report paper-clipped to the inside cover of the file. Grace’s case had originated at a time when investigations were far less interactive.
Her gaze fixed on the first of two photographs, a smiling image of a happy teenager in her school uniform, and immediately she felt a lump in her throat. If she didn’t know better she would have sworn it was Lucy as a child staring back at her. The resemblance was striking.
Reilly tried to put aside any background knowledge she’d already gleaned from Lucy; she wanted to have a clear head as she looked through the file.
The second photo was a computer-generated image of what Grace would possibly look like today, similar to the one they’d recently created of Sarah Forde.
The image was haunting, surreal. Reilly wondered about Lucy and Jack Gorman – did they ever look up the missing person website? What did they think when they saw the CGI version of Grace? Had fourteen years of not knowing dulled the pain, made it any easier? She read through the initial case notes.
[1 line break]
Name: Grace Olivia Gorman
Case Type: Missing From Home
Missing Date: 14-Aug-1997
Missing City: Dublin
Missing County: Dublin
Missing Country: Ireland
Case Number: IIRGSmk24
Circumstances: Grace Gorman is missing from her home at 23 Marley Court, Rathfarnham, Co. Dublin since 14th of August 1997. When last seen she was wearing blue denim jeans, a white ‘Boyzone’ embossed T-shirt and brown suede boots, and a silver necklace with a distinctive star-shaped pendant hanging from it.
[1 line break]
The low level of detail was striking, and while Reilly knew that this was a basic information sheet, and more details would be found in the rest of the sizable file, she had expected more.
She read on through the remaining details under the Age Progression CGI image.
[1 line break]
Gender: Female
Height: 5’ 3” (160cm) approx
Weight: 125 lbs (56.7 kg) approx
Build: Teenager
Hair Color: Sandy
Eye Color: Blue
[1 line break]
As Reilly started to leaf though the assorted documents she began to get a clearer image of what had happened. She read the report of the officer who’d called to the family home after Grace had failed to return from a friend’s house on an August evening that summer.
The statement from Gorman’s wife Joan, who was described by the officer as ‘distraught’, reported that she’d allowed her daughter go to a friend’s house that afternoon, expecting her back by six p.m.
The officer had gone on to describe how Joan had phoned the friend’s house and spoken to her mother, only to be told that Grace had left at five p.m. The statement had been taken at eight p.m., three hours after Grace had last been accounted for.
The initial report listed Gorman himself as ‘absent for work reasons but en-route home.’
Reilly could imagine the panic: no mobile phones to keep in touch, a husband desperately trying to make his way home from a job somewhere.
And all the while, she couldn’t help imagining a fresh faced, blue-eyed teenage girl, wondering what was happening around her, not realizing her life and the lives of those around her would never be the same again.
There was a lot of activity over the first couple of days of Grace’s disappearance. Senior members of the Missing Persons Bureau, which had been set up only five years earlier, had become involved almost immediately and a nationwide campaign had been launched with ads in newspapers as well as appeals for information on the main evening news.
Reilly leafed through more documentation, copies of ads from the paper, details of numerous so-called leads that had ended up going nowhere. The case even featured on Crimecall, a national TV show seeking information from the general public. The programme had re-enacted Grace’s last known movements in the hope of jogging somebody’s memory. Reilly could sense the frustration from the file – dead ends and false hope. Multiple leads being chased up fruitlessly. The Irish authorities had been quick to link up with international counterparts in case she had absconded or been taken abroad but to no avail.
She read through several interviews with Grace’s friends, which seemed to paint her in the same light as Lucy had: a happy, loving girl with absolutely no reason to run and every reason to stay.
There was a transcribed interview with a ‘boyfriend’ whom the parents had evidently known little about, but her friends had spoken of.
Fifteen-year-old Darren Keating was interviewed twice, and it seemed was high on the investigating team’s suspect list. He had a weak alibi, but had remained steadfast in his own defense that he had not seen Grace much since the school holidays and that they had just ‘shifted’ a couple of times. Reilly guessed that ‘shifted’ was a local term for ‘snog’ rather than anything more intimate.
Keating’s involvement had eventually been dismissed when two friends and a surveillance camera placed him in an amusement arcade at the time of Grace’s disappearance.
Leaving the file aside, Reilly got up and went to the coffee machine, lost in thought.
She wondered what, if anything, she could bring to this case but she had made a promise to Lucy and she intended to keep it.
There was no physical evidence, in fact there was little evidence of any sort. Grace Gorman had vanished into thin air, and the investigation that followed for years afterwards was broadly based on appeals for help from somebody who might know something. The person or persons who might have were clearly not willing to help, and until they were, the trail was cold.
Returning to her desk, coffee in hand, she resolved to temporarily put aside thoughts of poor Grace Gorman and tried for the moment to turn her attention back to the investigation she could bring something to.
She was still thinking about what she’d seen at the entrance to the property in Wicklow and was almost certain that the place was indeed the location Conn had described.
She was also thinking about the generator, and specifically the traces of paraffin and petrol they’d found on both girls. The running of generators on this fuel combination would have been very common years ago but was unusual now. Which meant that the generator was old. It had certainly looked it and, given its age, she guessed that such apparatus was notoriously unreliable, and would need specialist attention when it came to servicing or repairs.
Turning to her computer, she brought up a list of relevant mechanical engineering companies throughout the Wickl
ow/Dublin area. It was a long directory, and Reilly’s to-do list was even longer, but she had a sneaking suspicion the answer lied in it.
Chapter 27
Later that afternoon, Chris and Kennedy pulled up to the large hangar-sized building just outside Blessington. The gates were open and a van was parked outside.
Getting out of the car, they made their way to the reception hatch, trying to avoid the spilled oil and puddles on the way.
‘Lakeside Engineering?’ Kennedy asked loudly to the overall-clad figure inside.
‘Yep, what can I do you for?’ The voice was jocular, easygoing. ‘Mick Wilson.’
‘Detectives Delaney and Kennedy from Harcourt Street station.’
Wilson’s face changed immediately. ‘Never a good start to a morning … what’s going on?’
‘We just wanted to ask you a question connected to an ongoing enquiry. We believe you hold the service contract for a generator near Roundwood, owned by one David McAllister?’
‘Oh right, somebody phoned this morning about that. Yeah, we’ve been looking after that antique for years. Dan is the man to talk to about that, he usually does the callouts for it. Was out there several times last year as I recall. Ended up custom making parts for it; it’s so old.’ There was a brief pause. ‘Like I said, it’s ancient and well past needing replacement, but your man wouldn’t hear of it. So if anything’s gone wrong with it …’
‘No, it’s nothing like that,’ Chris put in quickly. ‘We’d just like to talk to your service engineer about what he might have seen while he was out there.’
Wilson shook his head. ‘A weird place. Been up there myself in the past. All those fences and cameras. Always wondered what was going on, thought it might be some kind of government place or something.’
Kennedy looked at his watch. ‘What time does Dan get in at?’