The Stolen Girls

by Patricia Gibney

  ‘She didn’t have her kidney removed,’ Boyd said, standing at Lottie’s shoulder.

  ‘So her mother says. But anyway I don’t think Maeve is our dead girl.’

  Lynch appeared with a one-page printout. ‘This is all the history I can find on Dan Russell. It’s not a lot. Just gives his army service and the date he left, and the year he set up his company, Woodlake Facilities Management. All above board.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Lottie said. ‘Will you have a look at this too?’ She handed Lynch the tag from the dress. ‘Check the barcode to see if there’s any way of tracing where it came from.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Drawing Lynch to one side, out of Boyd’s earshot, Lottie said, ‘Get on to the lads in the new Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau and try to establish where Frank Phillips is hiding out. I need to speak to him about his daughter.’

  Making her way back to her desk, she wondered if Jamie McNally had anything to do with Frank Phillips. If he had, Kirby would find out. It seemed too much of a coincidence, McNally being back in town. A girl gets murdered and another goes missing. She didn’t like coincidences.

  Her thoughts were interrupted as she read through the sparse data on Dan Russell. Something had caught her eye. Grabbing her bag, she made for the door. ‘I’m going to see Russell again.’

  ‘Want me to come?’ Boyd asked.

  ‘No. You process the information on Maeve Phillips. Circulate her photo to the media and see what comes back from her computer. Follow up on the murder interview transcripts. See if you can spot anything I might have missed. Grab some lunch. I’ll be back in less than an hour.’

  Kirby blocked her escape at the doorway. ‘I called the security company Bob Weir employs to carry out nightly checks when his yard is closed.’

  ‘And?’ Lottie hauled her bag onto her shoulder.

  ‘They only do a drive-by on alternate nights. According to their logs, there’s nothing to report.’

  ‘Great. So whoever knows about the nights the van patrols has a free run to do whatever they like.’

  ‘The search of the yard is complete. Nothing else turned up.’

  ‘Follow up with ballistics on that bullet hole in the wall and see if they have anything yet on the bullet from the dead girl.’

  ‘Will do.’ Kirby stood back to allow her to leave.

  This time Lottie got out before anyone else could halt her progress.

  * * *

  Flashing her ID, she asked to see Dan Russell. The security guard let her through the door at the main gate and phoned Russell to announce her arrival.

  This time, she took in her surroundings. A barren square, once the ground for army transport, was flanked on three sides by four-storey accommodation blocks and offices. A glass-walled cookhouse skirted to her left. It looked empty. To her right stood the chapel and gym. Adam had once told her that two men were executed behind the chapel in 1921, the bullet holes in the wall a reminder of a volcanic time in Irish history. She hoped that it was indeed history. She didn’t fancy finding any recent bullet holes there. The thought jolted her back to the present and the scene at Weir’s yard. As she looked around, an uneasy feeling of disquiet lodged in her breast. What was she missing?

  She entered Block A, climbed the flight of wooden stairs and knocked on Russell’s door.

  ‘Inspector Parker. What can I do for you?’ Russell brought her inside and smiled.

  Too nice, Lottie thought. She’d have to be careful.

  ‘Mr Russell—’

  ‘Call me Dan,’ he interrupted. ‘And please sit.’

  She stared back at him. What was he up to? She sat opposite him.

  ‘I’m afraid I drew a blank on that dead girl’s photograph. She’s not from here. I’m sorry I’m no help to you.’

  His statement didn’t surprise her, but his change in character did. He was actually being apologetic!

  ‘And the other girl we mentioned. Mimoza. Does anyone know her?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing to report there either, I’m sorry.’

  Lottie tried again. ‘What about this girl. Do you recognise her?’ She placed the photo of Maeve Phillips on his desk. A long shot, but worth a try.

  He glanced at it. ‘No. Should I? Is she dead also?’

  ‘I hope not.’ She hadn’t detected any flicker of recognition from him.

  Thinking of the background check they’d conducted, she decided to come straight out with it.

  ‘You left the army in 2010. I would’ve thought that having risen to the rank of commandant, you would have pursued the higher echelons of the force. Why did you leave?’

  He stood up, walked around to the front of the desk and sat on the edge of it. His knees were inches from hers. She didn’t budge.

  Leaning towards her, he said, ‘What difference is it to you? It’s my business.’ He was so close she could smell his minty mouthwash.

  ‘Just thought it odd.’

  ‘Checking out my CV?’

  ‘I’m just curious.’ She held his gaze, not a bit unnerved by his tense, staring eyes. ‘So why did you leave?’

  ‘I’d enough of the army life. I wanted new adventures. So I set up my company, Woodlake Facilities Management, and landed this job.’

  ‘You didn’t do any more overseas tours after Kosovo. Why not?’

  ‘Why is that of interest to you?’

  ‘Just wondering.’

  ‘Speaking of Kosovo, your name, Parker, it rings a bell.’

  ‘My late husband served there in the late nineties. You may have met him.’ Suddenly Lottie was anxious to hear about Adam, despite her misgivings over Russell.

  ‘I met a lot of army personnel in my travels.’

  He stood up and walked to the wall of photos, moving from one to another. She knew he wasn’t really looking at them. He was making up his mind just how much he wanted to tell her. The bastard.

  He turned and stood with his feet planted wide. ‘I’m a while out of the army. But now I come to think of it, I do remember him. Tall, well built. A good soldier.’

  ‘He was a brilliant soldier,’ Lottie said.

  ‘Oh yes, I could tell you a thing or two about him. Perhaps we could have a chat over a coffee? Dinner maybe?’

  ‘You’re joking!’ Lottie said in surprise

  ‘On the contrary, I’m quite serious. I think you should have dinner with me.’

  She thought his statement sounded like a threat.

  ‘I don’t eat very much.’ Where had that come from?

  ‘Am I making you uncomfortable?’ Russell asked. He moved back to his desk and sat down.

  ‘Not at all.’ But you’re playing silly-bugger games with me, she thought. ‘Why won’t you answer my questions and tell me about Adam?’

  ‘I’ve no problem answering your questions.’ He smiled. ‘I’ve told you, I don’t know the dead girl and I don’t know any Mimoza. Now, while I’m disappointed that you’ve declined my invitation to dinner, I must get on with my work. Was there something else you wanted?’

  ‘Actually there was. Do you have an interpreter working here?’

  ‘Yes, we do. George O’Hara. Very talented young man.’

  ‘Is he attached to Athlone Institute?’

  ‘No, he’s freelance.’

  ‘Really?’ Shit. She had wanted an opportunity to speak to someone not in Russell’s employment.

  ‘It works out much cheaper.’

  ‘I’d like to meet him.’

  ‘Why would you want to do that?’

  ‘I might have some work for him. I’ve time now if he’s around.’

  Russell steepled his fingers and looked at her. ‘Ah. Unfortunately he won’t be in until Friday.’

  ‘I’ll call back then.’ It might be worth meeting this George O’Hara. Maybe she’d get more sense out of him than she’d got from Russell.

  Russell was chewing on the inside of his lip and looking furtive. Shifty. That was how she’d describe him if asked. Or maybe she wa
s imagining it. Must be the heat.

  Opening the door, she said, ‘If there’s something illegal going on here, I intend to find out.’

  Russell laughed, and Lottie noted how this reaction might strike fear into an unsuspecting person. Not her, though; it merely strengthened her determination to get to the bottom of whatever scam he was involved in. Because she was bloody sure he was up to something.

  Once outside again, she knew what it was that had nagged her when she first arrived. The place was empty. No children running around or women watching over them. Silence.

  Walking resolutely out through the gate, she headed back towards the station. At the canal bridge she glanced down and quelled a ridiculous urge to walk barefoot through the cherry-blossom petals sheeting the pathway in a pink carpet. She felt like she wanted to strip off the uneasy feeling she’d experienced in the barracks. Had Russell been implying there was something she should know about Adam?

  The man drew into the shadows as Lottie left the block housing Dan Russell’s office. He hunkered down and patted the dog’s head to keep the mutt quiet.

  The detective was going to be a problem. But not for him if he could help it.

  He just needed to speed up his work.

  He would be okay. But she would have to be watched.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Three years ago, her stilettos clipping out the front door, long black hair swishing behind her with purpose, Jackie Boyd had exited DS Mark Boyd’s life.

  Now he watched open-mouthed as she dashed into Books and Things. She had never read a book in her life; hadn’t done much of anything except complain about everything that crossed her line of vision. She was beautiful, not in an understated sort of way, but extravagantly gorgeous. And he’d been such an eejit, he hadn’t been able to hold on to her.

  She had liked excitement and danger, so he supposed that was why she’d hightailed it off to Spain with her lover. Jamie McNally, suspected smuggler of drugs and God knew what else. ‘You’re so boring,’ she’d said in one of their arguments before she left. And she was probably right. But he had loved her and done what he could with what little he had, stretching his savings to their limit for a wedding at Ashford fucking Castle. The wedding had been so expensive they couldn’t afford to buy a house afterwards. His one-bed apartment wasn’t good enough for Jackie. She had spent most weekends in Dublin partying with her friends, leaving Boyd alone in Ragmullin, and eventually she’d been swept off her high heels by Rat-Face McNally.

  Boyd had kept her departure under wraps for a while, but Ragmullin, though it was a big town, was still small enough that you couldn’t go unnoticed from being married to being single. Humiliated and ridiculed, with the threat of a major investigation into the scandal, he’d relied on his close work colleagues for support. There had been an inquiry regarding his non-existent association with McNally, but nothing had come of it. He hadn’t been the one cavorting with a criminal. Outwardly he accepted the slaps on his shoulders; inwardly he tried to consign Jackie to his past. Venting his anger on his bike, pedalling like a madman, didn’t make him feel any better, but it did dull the void in his heart. A void into which he had tried unsuccessfully to entice Lottie Parker. But she’d stepped over it like a rain-filled puddle and danced around the edge, sometimes getting her feet a little wet but never jumping right in.

  Seeing Jackie heading into the store, her hair shorn so short her neck appeared swanlike, stopped Boyd in his tracks. Why was she back in town, and where was lover boy McNally?

  He watched from his vantage point as she exited the shop, unwrapping a pack of cigarettes, letting the cellophane catch in a slow breeze. She looked around nervously, lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. Clipping down the street, she turned right, to the Brook Hotel. And Boyd, unable to help himself, followed her.

  * * *

  As he walked into the hotel lounge, he saw her sitting in a booth. Leaning against a pillar, he watched her. She must have spent the last few years in the sun, he thought. She had changed. A lot. Her skin was like an old brown leather handbag, and her eyes appeared dull and lifeless. But she’d maintained her perfect figure.

  She looked up and they stared at each other. No smile. He thought about turning and leaving, but did neither. He walked up the wooden steps, careful not to slip in his haste, and sat on a stool opposite her.

  ‘Hello, Marcus.’

  Boyd cringed. Jackie had never called him Mark, his birth name. Too common, she’d said, the irony lost on her. So she’d rechristened him Marcus. He hated it.

  ‘It’s Boyd to all and sundry now,’ he said. ‘How’re you, Jackie?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said, laying the menu on the table. He noticed her fingers twitching. Itching for a cigarette? Nervous?

  ‘What brings you back to Ragmullin? If you’d warned me, I would’ve rolled out the red carpet.’

  ‘Sarcasm never did suit you.’

  Boyd put a piece of gum into his mouth and chewed. ‘So, are you going to tell me?’

  ‘Nothing to do with you, if you really want to know.’

  The waitress arrived with a notepad.

  ‘Just a coffee,’ Jackie said. ‘Something has taken away my appetite.’

  ‘Nothing for me,’ Boyd said.

  He leaned back and remembered just in time that he was sitting on a stool. His knees ached. Could he chance moving over to the seat beside her? No way. Maybe he should just get the fuck out of here, away from his not-yet-ex-wife.

  He said, ‘Was it too hot for you in Spain?’

  ‘What do you think, Detective Sergeant Boyd? Heard from one of my friends that you didn’t make inspector. Sorry about that. Was your reputation sullied by my indiscretions?’ She crossed her long legs, her light dress sliding up her thigh. ‘No need to answer that.’ A smile glided across her face. She knew how to hurt him, knew how to tip his anger off the scale.

  Boyd shook his head. ‘So did you leave McNally on a sunbed somewhere?’ he asked.

  ‘Do you speak in questions all the time? I don’t have to answer any of them. Unless you want to arrest me?’

  ‘You should have stayed under whatever rock he dragged you to. I don’t need to see you around here.’

  ‘It’s a free country, last time I checked.’

  ‘I’d better go, if you don’t mind.’ He stood up.

  ‘Why would I mind? I didn’t invite you.’

  ‘Just stay out of my way.’ He walked away before the rage, swelling like lava, overflowed into something he would later regret.

  ‘Marcus?’

  He paused on the bottom step of the booth.

  ‘You stay out of my way too.’

  ‘Keep McNally out of my face,’ he said, ‘and you won’t see me.’

  He left the hotel and headed for Cafferty’s Bar. He needed a pint before he faced Lottie.

  * * *

  Jackie Boyd knew it had been a risk returning to Ragmullin. But she had wanted to come, and following lots of cajoling and partaking in a few things she didn’t particularly like in bed, Jamie had relented. She’d known there was a strong possibility she would run into Marcus, and somewhere in her subconscious she had thought he might be able to help her. Before she could dwell on it too much, Jamie was sitting in front of her.

  ‘Was that Detective Sergeant Boyd I saw leaving like Batman?’ he mocked.

  ‘He appeared out of nowhere,’ she said, taking the coffee cup from the waitress who had materialised at her side.

  ‘I hope you haven’t been screwing around behind my back.’

  ‘I can’t help it if people I used to know happen to bump into me.’ She knew she had said too much the second the words left her lips.

  ‘Were you talking to him just now?’

  ‘He said hello. I told him to get lost. He left.’ She hoped Jamie accepted this. She didn’t want a row. Not here. Not in public. ‘How did you get on?’ she said quickly, changing the subject.

  ‘I’m calling to the house later. See if I can f
ind out anything. If you’re finished, let’s go. I don’t want to be seen.’

  She wondered why he was out in a public place if he didn’t want to be seen. Wishing she had time to still her nerves with the coffee, she left the correct money on the table and stood up. McNally caught her by the elbow and steered her down the steps.

  He pulled her close. ‘Stay away from your ex or you’ll have me to deal with. You hear?’ He bit down on the lobe of her ear.

  ‘Of c-course, Jamie,’ she stuttered. ‘Of course.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Lottie glanced up as Boyd slunk into the office shortly after three o’clock.

  ‘Liquid lunch?’ she asked.

  ‘Leave it. Just for once.’ He sat at his desk.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ She noticed he was looking unusually dishevelled, his cotton shirt soaked with perspiration.

  ‘I said leave it.’

  ‘Have it your own way.’ There was no getting through to Boyd when he was like this.

  Scanning her notes on Maeve Phillips, she considered handing the file over to another team to heighten its profile. She had plenty on her desk already to contend with. She was no closer to discovering who the murdered girl was; there were no results from Weir’s yard; no sign of Mimoza and her son. But she couldn’t ignore the fact that a girl was now missing.

  ‘You never drink at lunchtime.’ She couldn’t help herself. Boyd was acting so out of character, he was almost someone else.

  He sighed. ‘Jackie’s back.’

  So that was it. If anyone could drive Boyd to drink, it was Jackie. Why hadn’t he divorced her? He must still have a spark for her. If she were Boyd, it’d be a knife, not a spark. But she wasn’t, and Boyd had a soft heart. Shit, she thought, I should have warned him about McNally. Now she felt really bad.