The Stolen Girls

by Patricia Gibney

  Boyd made another call. When he hung up he said, ‘Lynch is on her way to the school. Lottie, I think you need a cup of tea.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Boyd. I don’t want tea. Are you mad?’

  She turned to see Garda Gillian O’Donoghue standing at the table with Carter. ‘How did you get here so fast?’

  ‘You phoned me on your way over,’ the garda said. ‘To come and watch Milot while you sorted out whatever Chloe was ringing you about.’

  ‘So I did.’ She didn’t know what she was doing any more. She needed to get out and look for her daughter. ‘Boyd, you drive. My car’s at the station. I have to think where Chloe would go.’

  ‘Maybe Katie knows,’ Boyd said.

  Katie was at the table, slumped over with her head resting on her arms.

  ‘Katie, are you all right?’ Lottie rushed to her daughter.

  ‘I’m fine.’ She raised her head. ‘Go find Milot and Chloe.’

  ‘Have you any idea where she might be?’ Lottie pulled out a chair and sat beside Katie, taking the girl’s hand in her own. It was clammy with sweat.

  ‘You know Chloe doesn’t talk to me, Mam. She just yells most of the time.’

  Lottie noticed the exhaustion in her daughter’s eyes. ‘Katie, I’m sorry, for landing Milot on you and—’

  ‘Don’t be sorry for me,’ Katie interrupted. ‘I loved looking after the little fellow. Sean’s even taken to him. He’s been good therapy for us. Helped us to forget about ourselves for a while. Oh Mam, where is he? Surely Chloe wouldn’t harm him?’

  ‘Chloe’s a good girl. She thinks she’s protecting him. I need to figure out where she’s gone.’

  ‘Mrs Parker.’ Carter spoke. ‘Before she went upstairs, Chloe said something about Twitter.’

  Kate stood up and grabbed Lottie’s arm. ‘I forgot about that. Her phone pinged and I asked her what it was and she said it was some Twitter notification.’

  ‘Do you have Twitter?’ Lottie asked.

  Katie opened the app. ‘What am I looking for?’

  ‘See if there’s anything from @Lipjan or @ADAM99. Check under #cutforlife.’

  Katie tapped a few times. ‘Nothing today. What’s this about?’

  ‘I don’t know. Can you see Chloe’s account?’

  ‘She hasn’t posted anything.’

  Lottie paced, twisting her hands through her hair. She couldn’t think straight. She stopped in front of Garda O’Donoghue.

  ‘Head back to the station with Carter and trace the number of whoever was contacting him.’ She hurriedly scribbled on a page of O’Donoghue’s notebook. ‘This is Chloe’s phone number. I want a transcript of all activity on it, and on Twitter, Facebook and whatever else she might have been on.’

  She rushed O’Donoghue and Carter out the door.

  ‘Cup of tea,’ Boyd said, placing two steaming cups on the table.

  ‘I don’t want fucking tea,’ Lottie said. She heard O’Donoghue talking in the hall before Superintendent Corrigan marched in through the open door.

  ‘What’s this I hear about a boy who shouldn’t have been in your house disappearing from it? For feck’s sake.’

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Lottie said.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea, sir?’ Boyd asked.

  The man left Fatjon to clean up the mess.

  In the downstairs bathroom, he took off his shirt and turned on the hot tap. There was no soap. He took a complimentary hotel bar from his pocket, unwrapped it and lathered up under the flowing water. He scrubbed his hands up to his elbows for two minutes before drying them with paper from a roll sitting on top of the toilet. Checking his shirt for blood, he noticed a couple of splashes. He turned it inside out and left it flapping open over his white vest, then strode out without turning off the tap. Glancing at his phone, he noted there was still no message from the social worker, Carter. Just as well he had taken extra precautions in case the young shit baulked at the task he’d been set.

  Moving out through the main gate, he smiled to himself. The sun was beginning to dip. An impressionistic sky of purple and orange tinged the horizon, but the heat of the day still hung in the air. At the canal he noticed an evening fog misting over the green water.

  He’d have to hurry and get his van. Night would fall in a few hours and then he could start on the beginning of the end.

  SEVENTY-EIGHT

  When Boyd had left to take Katie to her granny’s house, Lottie went to the cupboard and counted the mugs while Corrigan proceeded to give her an earful.

  ‘I told you. Didn’t I tell you to put that boy in care? And what do you do? Whatever you feckin’ want as usual. A loose cannon. That’s what you are. I despair over you.’ He paused for breath. ‘Any word on your daughter?’

  She felt his hand on her arm as he led her to a chair.

  ‘Why did you come here?’ Lottie sat down and gazed up at her superior officer.

  ‘I might only have the use of one eye at the moment, but I’m not blind. Nor deaf either. All hell was raging at the station and I wanted to talk to you about it.’ He wiped his eye and winced. ‘So your daughter and the boy. Tell me.’

  Lottie explained what had happened.

  ‘This Eamon Carter, is he our killer?’

  ‘No, sir. I think my house was being watched. They knew the boy, Milot, was here. I’d say Mimoza’s friend brought him here and they tortured her to find out.’

  ‘The girl found dead at the pump house?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I believe they then targeted Carter so they could take Milot without raising suspicion.’

  ‘So who are “they”?’

  ‘I don’t know for sure.’ She stood up. How could she be sitting here talking so calmly when she should be searching for her daughter? She had to get out.

  ‘Sit down, Lottie.’

  ‘Look, sir, with all due respect, my daughter is out there somewhere with the little boy these men are after. Someone is stalking her on Twitter. I think it’s linked to the missing girls. She’s traumatised and terrified. Can I please go and do my job?’

  Corrigan said, ‘I’ve mobilised every officer in the district. They’re turning this town upside down looking for your daughter and the little boy. You’re coming to the station with me. When we find them, I’ll decide what to do with you.’

  ‘Sir—’

  ‘Don’t feckin’ “sir” me. No argument. I’m not letting you out of my sight again. Leave the investigating to the others. You’re in no state to be doing anything other than sitting under my watchful eye.’

  She didn’t have much choice. Lottie sighed, grabbed her bag and followed him out, pulling the door closed behind her.

  * * *

  The station was buzzing. Superintendent Corrigan bustled through, giving everyone orders and snapping his fingers. Lottie escaped to her own office.

  Boyd was pulling files from a cabinet. He slammed the drawer shut and leaned on top of it, staring at her.

  Lottie returned his stare. ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve been given the shitty job of babysitting you while everyone else is out there hunting for Chloe and Milot. So you can either sit down and we try to solve this together, or you can stand there moaning.’

  ‘If I wanted a lecture—’

  ‘You’d get one from your mother. Yeah, I know. I had to listen to her when I dropped off Katie.’

  ‘Sean was there too, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, they’re both safe with two detectives watching over them.’

  ‘Good. Thank you.’

  ‘Sit.’

  ‘I can’t, Boyd. I need to find—’

  ‘You need to do what you’re told.’

  Lottie sighed and sat at her desk. Of course he was right. But how could she concentrate when she didn’t know where Chloe had gone?

  Boyd said, ‘Chloe is a wise girl. She’s doing what she thinks is best for Milot. She’s—’

  ‘Scared. She’s terrified. Where is she, Boyd?’ Lottie gulped down a sob.
>
  ‘We’ve checked with her friend Emily Coyne and she hasn’t seen her.’

  ‘What about Maeve’s mother? Tracy Phillips. Chloe might have gone to her.’

  ‘Checked also. Not there. That woman’s a mess. Why would Chloe go to her anyway?’ Boyd sighed. ‘She’ll be fine. You have to keep telling yourself that. Okay?’ He clasped her fingers.

  Lottie nodded and extracted her hand. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

  ‘Listen. Have you ever heard of Monk Island?’ Boyd asked.

  ‘Is Chloe there?’ She jumped up. He gently pushed her down again.

  Perched on the edge of her desk, he said, ‘Not unless she’s an Olympic swimmer or can manage a boat. Lynch was looking at the reports of unusual activity around the lakes. There were a few about Monk Island.’

  ‘Which lake?’

  ‘Lough Cullion. Anyway, there were complaints about shots being fired outside the shooting season.’

  ‘Has anyone followed up on this yet?’

  ‘We were stretched to the limit and it seemed a low priority at the time, so no.’

  ‘Is someone out there now?’

  ‘All manpower is assigned to tracing your daughter.’

  She thought for a moment. ‘Chloe’s phone! Has her GPS been tracked yet?’ Pulling her desk phone to her, she lifted the receiver.

  Boyd stopped her. ‘It’s being done. And we’ll check Monk Island as soon as resources are freed up.’

  ‘But it needs to be checked now!’

  ‘We’ll try and find Chloe and Milot first.’

  ‘Why haven’t I got a transcript from Chloe’s phone? What are they at upstairs?’

  ‘It takes time.’

  ‘What about the social worker’s phone? Any trace on the number he was supposed to text when he had Milot?’

  ‘Tech guys are working on that too.’

  ‘I need to get out of here. I can’t just sit around.’

  She blinked as an email pinged. Glanced at her inbox. ‘I don’t need this now.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s just a reply to the email I sent last night to Besim Mehmedi.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The prosecutor of the illegal human organ harvesting case in Pristina about five years ago. I told you about it.’

  ‘Relevant to our cases?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘Open it.’

  As she clicked the email open, Garda Gillian O’Donoghue put her head around the door.

  ‘Detective Inspector? Eamon Carter is throwing a wobbly down in the interview room. He’s insisting he needs to send a text message to the guy who forced him to abduct the young boy. He doesn’t believe his mother will be safe unless he does it.’

  Lottie looked up at Boyd. ‘What do you think? Draw the bastard out?’

  Boyd stood up. ‘Exactly.’

  Ignoring the email from the prosecutor in Pristina, she hit the screen-save button.

  ‘Later,’ she said to the computer.

  * * *

  The heat in Interview Room One was usually oppressive. This evening it was overwhelming. Perspiration stained Carter’s shirt dark grey between his shoulder blades and under his armpits. Boyd appeared to be cool, but Lottie knew he was as anxious as she was. She had to find Chloe and the boy. And the only way to do this might be by snaring the man in contact with Carter.

  She had ripped the phone out of the plastic evidence bag and dictated the message for Carter to put in his own words. No point in spooking the recipient. Now she felt the phone slip around in her hand as she waited for a reply.

  A text came in: St Declan’s. Ten minutes. Wait behind gatehouse.

  ‘Lets go.’ Lottie ran to the door.

  ‘Doesn’t give us time to get a team together,’ Boyd said.

  ‘You and me. That’s team enough.’

  ‘What about me?’ Carter said.

  For a moment, Lottie thought about bringing him with them to draw out the kidnappers, but she couldn’t risk his life.

  ‘Stay here where you can’t get into any more trouble,’ she said over her shoulder.

  ‘Watch him,’ Boyd told O’Donoghue.

  Lottie ran through reception and out the station door. ‘Where’s your car?’

  ‘Round the back.’

  ‘Hurry up.’ She streaked around the side of the building.

  ‘Ten minutes in this traffic. It’s madness.’ Boyd clicked the car unlocked and they jumped in. ‘Blue light and siren?’

  ‘Yes. No.’ Lottie clasped the dashboard as he swung the car out of the yard at an acute angle. ‘We don’t know where he is. He could be watching us for all we know. Better not to warn him.’

  He’d parked his van in the cathedral car park. Right under the noses of the Keystone Cops across the road. He’d lived dangerously all his life. No need to change now.

  He pulled off his soft leather shoes and shoved his feet into steel-toe-capped boots. As he was turning the key to start the van, he heard the message vibrating in his phone.

  Glancing at the screen, he banged the steering wheel. ‘Yes!’

  He read through the text again: Got the kid. What will I do now? Don’t hurt my mum. He thought for a moment before keying in his reply.

  As he drove out through the cathedral gates, he glanced over at the garda station. Why were Lottie Parker and her sidekick running so fast?

  He wondered about it as he travelled down the street. It gnawed at the back of his brain. Did they know something? Surely not.

  His mind ticked over as he thought of ways to manage the situation if they were on to him. He’d been careful, but was there something he’d overlooked? Had Russell blabbed to the cops? He’d said he hadn’t and now he was in no state to answer any questions. Too bad.

  He would just have to think on his feet. Like any good surgeon would do.

  The traffic wasn’t the problem. It was the fog. Out of nowhere it seemed to drop like a heavy veil over the town. Ensnaring everything in its web. The sun was shrouded out and darkness descended.

  ‘It’s like the end of the fucking world,’ Boyd said, turning up by the Dublin bridge.

  ‘Where the hell are Kirby and Lynch?’ Lottie said tensely.

  ‘Nothing from either.’

  Lottie tapped Kirby’s name on her speed dial. ‘Come on, big man, answer.’

  ‘Boss?’

  ‘Thank God. Where are you? Any sign of Chloe?’

  ‘We’ve completed a search of the railway line from the back of your house. Think she climbed up there and walked along the tracks. Haven’t found her yet. Or the little boy.’

  ‘Why would she go up there?’ Lottie widened her eyes. ‘Why were you up there, for that matter?’

  ‘Tracked her phone. She’d dropped it just outside the train station.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘The little footbridge. The one that goes over the canal to Hill Point. We’re searching the area now.’

  ‘That’s where Petrovci lives.’ Lottie shook her head, trying to insert some logic into the equation. ‘Why was her phone there?’

  ‘Don’t know. Maybe she was running and it fell out of her pocket. I’ll let you know as soon as. This fog is slowing us down, though.’

  ‘Lynch with you?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  Lottie sighed a long breath. ‘Keep at it.’ She hung up. ‘Keep driving,’ she told Boyd.

  ‘I can’t see a thing.’

  ‘Just follow the tail lights of that van in front.’

  ‘That’s what I’m doing.’

  ‘Faster, Boyd. Can’t you go faster?’

  ‘Not unless I grow wings.’

  He could see the police behind him. Pulling in at a corner shop, half a mile from St Declan’s, he let them pass.

  Where were they off to? Surely not St Declan’s Hospital, once an asylum for the mentally insane. They had no reason to go there, had they? Closed down for ten years, as far as he knew. Crumbling in on itself unt
il he had stumbled upon it a year ago and brought its operating room back to life. He couldn’t let them find it. Not yet. Not until he had finished. He had a job to complete.

  Manoeuvring the van back into the line of traffic, he continued his short journey. He had to concentrate on the job in hand. He needed to take delivery of the boy. And deal with Eamon Carter. No loose ends.

  Driving through the rusted gates of St Declan’s, he saw no sign of the unmarked garda car. He parked behind the gatehouse, switched off the engine and sat waiting for the biggest prize of all. Mimoza’s boy. Milot.

  SEVENTY-NINE

  Boyd drove around the roundabout that led to the motorway and came back down on the opposite side of the road.

  ‘Stop!’ Lottie cried. ‘In there.’

  ‘Someone will crash into the back of me in this fog,’ he protested.

  ‘Park the fucking car, Boyd!’

  With a swerve of the steering wheel he banked the car up on the grass verge.

  ‘And switch off the lights. Have you a jacket I can wear?’

  Boyd leaned into the back seat and found a black fleece. ‘This any good?’

  ‘It’ll do.’ Lottie unbuckled her seat belt and zipped up the fleece.

  ‘You’re not going out there alone.’

  ‘Stay here. You need to keep in touch with Kirby,’ she said, ignoring his concern.

  ‘I’m going with you.’ He opened his door.

  Grasping his arm, Lottie pulled him close. ‘Listen, Boyd. I need you to monitor the phone and the radio. I have my gun.’

  ‘That’s what I’m afraid of. I don’t want it to end up like the O. K. Corral.’

  ‘I’m not that stupid.’

  He groaned. ‘You’re the boss.’

  ‘This guy might have Chloe or know where she is.’

  ‘He might also be the same guy who has killed three girls and abducted two more.’

  ‘You think I don’t know that?’

  Boyd held her hand. ‘Be careful.’

  Lottie opened the door and stood out into the damp fog.

  ‘I’m coming for you, you bastard,’ she whispered into the mist.

  * * *