The Missing Ones: An absolutely gripping thriller with a jaw-dropping twist (Detective Lottie Parker Book 1)

by Patricia Gibney

  Her eyes flashed open and he shivered under the intensity of her gaze. Then she appeared to relent.

  ‘Give me a kiss and I’ll get dressed. We can leave together. This place turns my blood cold.’

  He leaned over, ran his tongue along her shoulder, sucking on the chain in the curve, locked his mouth on hers and assaulted her with a violent kiss. A sharp scream escaped from her lips and he realised he had drawn blood from her mouth.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ she cried, pushing him away. She jumped out of the bed, pulled on her underwear. The smell of sex clung to her skin, musky, like yesterday’s perfume. ‘Sometimes I wonder about you,’ she spat, disgust lacing every word.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. The frustration of not being able to touch her last night at the ball bulged like a tumour inside him. He couldn’t get enough of her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated.

  ‘So am I. I’m sorry I got involved in this sordid mess.’ She zipped up her dress. ‘I’m not so sure I want to be with you any longer.’

  ‘Don’t say that. I love you. We are meant for each other,’ he pleaded.

  ‘You see. That’s what I mean.’ She buttoned her cardigan, then her coat. ‘You can be so immature. I’ve been through this before. I’ve watched men crumble under the weight of affairs. And you’re turning out exactly like the rest.’

  He watched her fasten the belt on her coat. When she laughed at him, it cut right through him. He stood with his mouth open.

  ‘Oh, come on now. You honestly don’t think this is my first time in this kind of situation. Grow up.’ She laughed once more, picked up her handbag and pulled it on to her shoulder. ‘You need to find another place for your regular shag. I’m never setting foot in here again.’

  She banged the door. The windows rattled and he felt his heart shrink. Sitting down on the stained sheets, Tom Rickard shook his head. First Melanie losing it, now his lover. Add to the mix the financial mess he would be in if the St Angela’s project failed, plus Detective Inspector Lottie Parker with her bloodhound nose, and he wondered how things could possibly get any worse.

  Then he started to laugh.

  He had faced worse and had come out the other side. This time would be no different. He was a fixer and he would fix this.

  Fifty-Six

  It was snowing hard as they walked home and the cold air helped dilute the wine in Lottie’s bloodstream. She trudged along with her daughter in silence; it was too miserable to talk, constantly looking over her shoulder to ensure she wasn’t being followed. She didn’t want to be paranoid, but still she worried the mugger might strike again.

  At home she hung her jacket on the banister of the stairs and Chloe went into the sitting room. Sean was lying on the couch flicking through indiscriminate television channels. Chloe flounced on to the chair opposite him, arms folded. The room was warm, the atmosphere cold.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Lottie. ‘I should’ve come straight home after work. But it was a long day and I needed to unwind first.’ She leaned against the door watching her children. Why did she have to explain herself? Guilt?

  Chloe lunged out of the chair and skipped over to her.

  ‘No, I’m sorry,’ she said, wrapping her arms around Lottie, hugging her. ‘I was worried you might be on a binge. That’s the real reason I went to the pub.’

  Lottie welcomed her daughter’s concern.

  ‘You don’t need to fret over me,’ she said. ‘I only had a couple. I won’t be making it a regular occurrence.’

  ‘You needn’t think I’m going to hug you,’ said Sean, smiling at them over his shoulder. ‘I need a new PlayStation.’

  ‘It’s only two years old. What’s wrong with it?’ asked Lottie, freeing herself from Chloe.

  ‘It keeps freezing. Niall looked at it and said it’s almost at the red light of death. It can’t be fixed,’ said Sean. ‘And I’ve had it four years, not two. I got it way before Dad died.’

  ‘And Niall is an expert, is he?’

  Lottie knew Sean’s best friend was a master at taking things apart and building them up again. She hoped he was wrong. Red light of death? What the hell was that? Her budget wouldn’t stretch to a new PlayStation.

  ‘He is an expert. When can I get a new one?’ Sean beseeched, the little boy in him overriding the teenager. ‘I have some money in the bank.’

  ‘You can’t touch your money. You know it’s held in a trust fund until you reach twenty-one.’ She had invested Adam’s small life insurance money in special accounts for the children.

  ‘I know that. But I have a few hundred in my own account,’ Sean sulked.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do. You’re back to school in a few days so you’ll be studying,’ she said, hopefully. ‘No time for PlayStation then.’

  ‘I’ll die without FIFA and GTA. There’s nothing on the telly.’

  Lottie sighed. Maybe she should cancel her Sky subscription.

  ‘Come on, Chloe, let’s see if there’s anything besides Pot Noodles in the kitchen.’

  Sean returned to his channel hopping, settling on a re-run of Breaking Bad.

  Lottie wasn’t sure if it was suitable for a thirteen year old, but hadn’t the energy to protest.

  Fifty-Seven

  Mike O’Brien had left the bank in a foul mood, after he had dispatched Rickard’s loans account to Head Office. He knew there could be repercussions. One day. Not yet, though. He had massaged the figures as best he could. Now, he had to wait and hope the account might get lost in cyber world. The diversion on his way home had done little to assuage his temper.

  He sat with his orange-striped cat on his knee, as he did most nights. Classical music filled the air from the music system speakers. It usually served to relax him. Not tonight.

  Chewing his nails, he stroked the purring creature. Most of his life was spent alone. He liked it that way. Loneliness and aloneness went hand in hand with him. He’d never been one for forming friendships, let alone relationships. He had a few acquaintances at the gym, Boyd the detective included. But they were not friends. His sexual inadequacies warped his sense of belonging. He had learned to live with it. Found ways to supplement it. Not always tastefully, but he survived. And another couple of months before the hurling season resumed. He missed training the young lads. The activity helped fill the spring evenings.

  The doorbell sounded, screeching into his reverie.

  Flinging the cat to the ground, O’Brien looked around wildly. Had Head Office sent the crime squad already? Could they be on to his fraudulent activity with the Rickard loans so quickly? That was insane. Not at nine o’clock at night.

  He switched off the music, flicked back the curtain and peered into darkness. Living on the outskirts of town had its disadvantages, particularly since his home was in the middle of a Rickard ghost estate. Twenty-five houses, enclosed behind high walls, was the original plan, but only half were completed and the erection of intercom gates had not transpired. The remainder struggled against rusted scaffolding and wind howled through windowless concrete. The sound resonated through O’Brien’s skull.

  Pulling back from the window, his reflection in the glass was all that remained. He let the curtain fall and smoothed down its creases.

  The doorbell rang a second time.

  He cursed and went to answer it.

  Bishop Connor had an anxious scowl scrawled on his face.

  ‘Let me in, before someone sees me,’ he said, pushing past O’Brien.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked O’Brien, his smile faltering. He closed the door, having first checked no one else was outside.

  ‘I hate cats.’ Bishop Connor walked straight into the living room, eyeing the ginger cowering beneath a Queen Anne chair.

  O’Brien clenched his hands into tight fists. This was his home.

  ‘I’ll take your coat,’ he said, rescuing it from the back of the couch where Connor had dropped it. A cat hair clung to the shoulder. O’Brien plucked it away and hung the coat in the hall.<
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  He returned to find Connor holding a fragile Lladro ornament of a young boy.

  ‘Your décor could do with a facelift,’ Connor said, returning the ceramic piece to the mantle.

  ‘It serves me well. I don’t see any reason to waste money unnecessarily.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Ever the banker.’

  ‘Drink?’ asked O’Brien.

  He poured generous fingers of whiskey into two crystal tumblers and handed one to Connor. They clinked glasses, remained standing and sipped the alcohol.

  ‘That interfering Inspector Lottie Parker is poking her nose around,’ said Connor.

  ‘She has a job to do.’

  ‘She knows I met that Sullivan woman and she’s snooping about Father Angelotti.’

  ‘That had nothing to do with you,’ O’Brien said. ‘Did it?’

  ‘I do not need her joining any more dots.’

  ‘What about your friend, Superintendent Corrigan? Won’t he help?’

  ‘I think I have exhausted that line of friendship.’

  ‘Sit?’ O’Brien indicated a chair. The cat sulked beneath it.

  ‘I will stand,’ said Connor, taking up centre position in the room.

  O’Brien’s legs felt weak, he needed to sit, but remained standing. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Get her off my back. We need to transfer her focus somewhere else.’

  ‘And what do you propose?’ O’Brien asked, a sense of helplessness swamping him. His throat constricted so he swallowed another draught of whiskey. Lottie Parker had ridiculed him in his own office yesterday. He’d love to make her pay for that, but what could he do?

  ‘What about Tom Rickard? What does he have to say?’

  ‘I am talking to you, not Rickard,’ said Connor, his voice a shaft of steel.

  The room seemed smaller with the bishop in it. O’Brien perspired uncontrollably and the glass slipped slightly in his hand. He placed it on the mantelpiece behind him.

  ‘You and I know how important it is that nothing is uncovered.’ With one step, Connor moved into O’Brien’s personal space. He flicked a flake of dandruff from the banker’s shoulder. ‘Secrets have to remain just that. Secrets.’

  O’Brien stepped back. His ankle collided with the fireguard. He had nowhere to go. Both men stood eye to eye. The sour whiskey odour turned his stomach. Connor’s neck was naked of any religious collar and his carotid artery throbbed visibly in his pulsing throat. He watched it expand and contract, hypnotised, imagining it pumping blood into the bishop’s heart, if he had one. He held his breath.

  ‘What do you mean?’ O’Brien asked, eventually.

  ‘Do I have to spell it out for you?’

  ‘No . . . no, I don’t think so.’

  Connor’s eyes darkened. He put his glass beside the Lladro boy and planted his two hands on O’Brien’s shoulders.

  ‘Good. I cannot afford to lose out on this deal,’ said Connor. ‘You are the money man. You see to it that my finances and . . . everything else, remain untraceable.’

  Each word reverberated throughout the room. He gave O’Brien a shake, removed his hands, picked up his whiskey glass, drained it and replaced it on the mantle. He turned away. Only then did O’Brien exhale.

  ‘I hate cats,’ Connor said again on his way out to the hall.

  O’Brien didn’t speak. He couldn’t. The odour from the bishop’s breath almost suffocated him. He rested against the fireplace for support.

  Connor put on his coat.

  ‘No need to see me out,’ he said.

  When the cat appeared from beneath the chair and rubbed against his leg, only then did O’Brien move.

  To reach the position of a local authority county manager required a lot of hard work, brains and a good business acumen. It also helped that your father had once been a county manager. Gerry Dunne was no fool, he knew his father had worked behind the scenes to ensure his success. Now he regretted it. The job brought him too many problems for which he had the final decision. He hated making tough decisions, especially when he would be held responsible.

  He had left work earlier but returned to check the file once more and silently cursed his interfering father. He flicked through St Angela’s planning application file, thankful that James Brown had handed it over to him for final consideration, just before his untimely death. Consigned it to his desk drawer. Locked it. The project wasn’t as contentious as it should be since they’d succeeded in contravening the development plan. But Tom Rickard wanted to be doubly sure, so he was willing to pay over more cash. Dunne wasn’t about to decline the offer. Soon he hoped he could forget about it and get on with his life, without Rickard’s claws scratching all over him. He looked out at the falling snow and wondered where the hell he was going to procure salt from, to last the rest of the week.

  He picked up his coat, switched off the light and headed for home. Never before in his life had he felt this much pressure.

  Switching the shower to full power, Mike O’Brien allowed the hot water to pinch his skin. He stood in the cubicle feeling very small.

  Demons crawled along the inside of his scarred epidermis, choking out gasps of panic. He willed them away. He didn’t like being reminded of the past. It was buried. For good. No one was going to resurrect it. No one. He scrubbed harder, his nails drawing red streaks along his arms and torso. He tried to drown the escalating rage that threatened to suffuse him.

  He needed to escape the mental torment that was quickly overtaking his brain. Switching off the water, he allowed the bathroom air to cool his naked body.

  There was only one way to calm his inner torment.

  He dressed, fed his cat and went out into the night.

  Bishop Terence Connor drove around for a while, then parked and sat for a long time. Going over and over his encounter with O’Brien.

  He worried that he might have pushed too hard. Desperation was getting the better of him. Too many worms were escaping the can and he urgently needed to put a lid on it and nail it down tight. He didn’t need another loose cannon, plus he had to make sure Tom Rickard kept his part of the bargain. They were all in this together. Drastic times called for extreme measures. He wondered if they were all up for it.

  He sat there for a long time looking through the sleet, out over the frozen lake, visualising a sunny day, playing golf on the new St Angela’s development. Yes, he thought, there were good days on the horizon.

  Fifty-Eight

  ‘I’ve had a visit from our friend, the bishop,’ O’Brien said, settling into an armchair.

  ‘What’s that ugly bastard after now?’ Rickard asked, offering O’Brien a drink.

  O’Brien shook his head.

  ‘I’m driving and I’ve had a couple already.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’ Rickard poured his own. ‘You look nervous.’

  ‘Yes, well, he has a way of scaring the shit out of me.’

  Tom Rickard laughed loudly. ‘Oh come on, don’t be such a wanker. What’d he want?’

  ‘He doesn’t like the gardaí, especially Inspector Parker, snooping around our business.’

  ‘Too late for that. Two of the victims have a link with our project, tenuous though it is. But we have nothing to hide.’ Rickard scrutinised O’Brien. ‘Have we?’

  ‘No . . . no. I don’t think so.’

  ‘You don’t think so?’ Rickard towered over O’Brien. ‘You better know so.’

  ‘It’s just . . . all those loans. I’ll be in deep shit if you don’t repay them soon.’

  ‘That has nothing to do with our mutual friend.’

  ‘Your loans support the deal.’

  ‘I know my own business.’ Rickard walked around his white leather couch. ‘It’d answer Bishop Connor better if he minded his own business.’

  ‘There are other things . . .’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I . . . I can’t say. But if they come out . . .’

  ‘Jesus Christ man! Spit it out.’
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  ‘You don’t need to know.’

  ‘I’ll tell you now, if the gardaí find something that I don’t know about, this deal is off the table. Do you hear me? Off . . . the . . . table.’ Rickard slammed down his glass, splashing whiskey on the arm of the couch. This night was going from bad to worse.

  ‘You’re not serious?’ O’Brien said, widening his eyes in dismay.

  ‘Oh, but I am. If you and Connor have concocted something behind my back, I will pull out.’ Rickard folded his arms over his wide girth. ‘Where will that leave the two of you then?’

  ‘I . . . I . . . I . . .’ O’Brien stood up, waving his hands in the air.

  ‘I don’t like you, O’Brien. But you know what? I don’t have to like you.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You know me, I call a spade a spade and you are the shite waiting to be scooped up. So you make sure the money is safe and keep out of my face.’ Rickard turned to the door and opened it. ‘Get out of my house.’

  ‘I . . . I’m going.’

  ‘You know what, O’Brien?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You dress up all fancy, with your diamond cufflinks and designer suits, but that persona doesn’t hide the fact that you are a sham without your costumes.’

  ‘You’re insulting me,’ O’Brien said. Hadn’t Lottie Parker reached the same conclusion? What right had either of them to do this to him? He hung his head.

  ‘Get out,’ Rickard shouted. ‘Insults are nothing to what I’ll do if you don’t go now.’

  O’Brien scuttled out the door.

  Rickard poured another drink and went to the window.

  ‘The little shite,’ he said.

  He flicked the curtain open, saw O’Brien’s tail lights disappear down the drive, then he closed it over again, swallowed his whiskey and headed to his drinks table. He didn’t like being kept in the dark and O’Brien had hinted there was something he should know about. That creep was too afraid of the bishop. What hold did Connor have over O’Brien? The banker was right about one thing, Rickard concluded. They could do without Inspector Lottie Parker messing up their project. Things were getting a little bit out of control.