The Stolen Girls

by Patricia Gibney

  ‘It’s Mimoza,’ she whispered. She felt for a pulse. ‘Oh my God, Boyd, she’s dead. The brave girl killed him.’

  A groan rose from the man lying on the ground. Boyd swung back towards him.

  ‘He’s still alive.’ He checked him again, then snapped on handcuffs. ‘You’re going nowhere, you bastard, except jail for the rest of your life.’

  ‘I recognise him,’ Lottie said.

  ‘You do? Who the fuck is he?’

  ‘George O’Hara, the tutor at the DPC.’

  She turned her head away. Hauling off her heavy vest and Boyd’s fleece, she wrapped the warm clothing around Maeve and held her close.

  ‘You’re safe now,’ she soothed through her tears. ‘But where is my Chloe?’

  EIGHTY-TWO

  ‘It’s going to take some time before McGlynn and his SOCOs get working on Monk Island,’ Lottie said.

  She watched the blue lights of the ambulance swirl through the mist. Maeve Phillips was on her way to hospital. Lottie knew the girl would survive her physical injuries but wasn’t sure if her mental scars would ever heal. A second ambulance carried George O’Hara, with two armed detectives for company. Mimoza’s body remained on the island. Alone.

  Boyd lit two cigarettes. He handed one to Lottie and leaned against the bonnet of the car.

  Inhaling deeply, she said, ‘We need to get back to base and see what this is about Petrovci. And I need to know if there’s any sign of Chloe and Milot.’

  ‘Smoke your fag first.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No buts.’ He pulled her close. ‘Thirty seconds’ rest. My orders.’

  Leaning her head on his chest, Lottie fought the intense fatigue rushing through her.

  Boyd’s phone buzzed.

  ‘It’s Jackie. I forgot she’d been trying to contact me.’

  ‘Better answer her.’ Throwing down her cigarette, Lottie ground it with the heel of her boot.

  Boyd turned away. ‘Jackie, you were looking for me. What’s up?’

  Sitting into the car, Lottie started up the engine. She didn’t want to hear whatever Boyd was saying. She had to find her daughter.

  * * *

  Back at the station, she flew up the stairs. It was almost midnight. She felt like she’d throw up if there wasn’t word of Chloe soon. Boyd was parking the car. Silence had ensued during the drive back to town. Jackie had been cut off and he had no idea what she wanted.

  ‘Where the feck did you go?’ Corrigan stormed down the corridor. ‘Didn’t I give you a direct order to stay here?’

  She didn’t have time for this. She rushed past him into the incident room without saying anything. It was as quiet as the Dead House. Corrigan followed her.

  ‘Oh God,’ Lottie said. Looking up at the incident board, her eyes had landed on the photograph of Mimoza holding Milot in her arms. A little boy without a mother. What would happen to him now?

  ‘What are you looking at, Parker?’

  Lottie indicated the board. ‘Sir, we have everyone pinned up here except George O’Hara, our killer. He never even crossed our radar.’

  ‘Clever fox, then.’

  She phoned Kirby. ‘Carry out a thorough background check on George O’Hara. I want to know everything about him. Like five minutes ago.’

  Feeling a surge of adrenalin, she turned back to Corrigan. ‘I think he had others working with him. He needed someone to get the girls for him.’ Pointing first to Dan Russell’s photograph, then Petrovci’s. ‘These two. One or both of them has Chloe and Milot.’

  ‘Petrovci is in a cell,’ Corrigan said.

  ‘I need to see him, sir. Right away. He might know where Chloe is.’

  She waited, counting in her head. She got to five before he moved to one side. She was out the door before he could change his mind.

  ‘Detective Inspector Parker! By the book. You hear me. By the book.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Lottie shouted back with her fingers crossed.

  * * *

  The three-inch-thick steel door clanged shut behind Lottie.

  Petrovci made to get up from his stone bed.

  ‘Stay where you are.’ She propped herself against the wall, crossed her feet. No chairs.

  ‘I sorry. I do nothing.’ He swung his legs to the side and sat up straight.

  Flipping through the pages that Kirby had given her on her way to the cells, Lottie said, without looking up, ‘The guy who rang your boss Jack Dermody telling him to go to the pump house where you found the third body, his number came up on your call list. Explain.’

  ‘I not know what you mean.’

  ‘We believe his name is George O’Hara. Familiar?’

  Petrovci shook his head. ‘I not know him.’

  She folded the pages and stuffed them into the back pocket of her jeans. ‘You expect me to believe that?’

  ‘I not know.’

  ‘Your friend George O’Hara is in hospital. Shot.’

  He raised an eyebrow and rubbed a hand over his shaved head. ‘I not know anyone by that name.’

  ‘Oh come on. We found two phones on him. There was a call to you on Saturday night from one of them. Why did he contact you?’

  Petrovci looked puzzled, remained mute.

  Lottie said, ‘I’ll explain it for you. You’re working with this man, George O Hara. Reeling in girls from Kosovo, Africa and God knows where for him to operate on and dump in the sex trade. Were you grooming them?’

  ‘I not know… grooming.’

  With two steps Lottie was on him, dragging him upright by the elbow. He jerked his hand free easily and moved to the wall.

  ‘You angry. Why?’ he asked.

  ‘I haven’t time for this. My daughter is missing. I believe you know where she is. So out with it.’ She slapped her hand against the wall beside his head.

  He didn’t flinch. ‘Daughter?’ He turned to her.

  ‘For fuck’s sake. This is impossible.’ Lottie sat on the bed. ‘Please. You have nothing to lose now. You’re going to prison for helping this murderer. However the two of you did it, I’ll find out. But you can help yourself. A shorter sentence. I’ll see what I can do. Please, tell me where she is.’

  ‘I kill no one. I not take your daughter.’

  With an exasperated sigh, Lottie knew she was getting nothing out of him. She stood up and gave the signal for the door to be opened.

  ‘Such a waste of life. But at least Maeve survived. She will tell me everything.’

  ‘Maeve? I confused.’

  ‘You recognised her photograph.’

  He shook his head. ‘I not know name.’

  ‘You don’t know much of anything.’

  ‘Who… Maeve?’

  She knew she shouldn’t play along, but she took out her phone and scrolled. Turning the photo towards him, she said, ‘This is Maeve.’

  He stared at it for a moment then raised his eyes to meet hers.

  ‘I remember you show me. She look like a girl I know once. It scare me. I fear for her. I think she one of them. In ground.’

  ‘I haven’t time for your lies.’ Lottie snapped away the phone.

  He put out a hand and held on to her arm. Thick fingers, ingrained with dirt from his work, pressed into her skin. ‘I no lie. I never lie. I not kill girls. I come to Ragmullin. I work and I look for my girl. Every day. But I not find her.’

  Shrugging off his grip, Lottie said, ‘What girl? Why did you leave your apartment? You took your stuff.’ She needed to get away from him. To get out and search for Chloe and Milot.

  ‘I a boy in war.’ He pulled up his T-shirt. ‘War do this to me.’

  Lottie gasped. A neat scar stretched from his abdomen up over his hip and round his back. Similar to the scars borne by the first two victims. ‘Who? Who did that to you?’

  ‘Many years ago. In the war. It not matter now. Hurt my brain. My head.’ He knocked at his skull with his fist. Three times. Hard. ‘So many things happen. I not remember. You understand. W
hat you call… blackout. I not remember.’

  She ran her hands through her hair. ‘It still doesn’t explain why you left your apartment and came back again.’

  He shuffled around the small cell, constantly tapping and rubbing his head, leaving dark streaks of dirt and sweat. In the confined space he appeared like a lonely, sad giant. Lottie shook herself. She shouldn’t be feeling sorry for him. God knows what he’d done.

  Facing the wall, he said, ‘I find that little girl dead by the water and you lock me up. Your detective, he ask me lot of questions. He let me go. I afraid. I not want to be locked up again. I get phone call. This man, he say my girl in town. He say he kill her and me. That all he say. I pack and I go. I have to look for her.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  Petrovci shrugged his shoulders. ‘I walk around. I sleep by the rail tracks. But I got nowhere to go. I come back to my apartment. Only place I know. I got nowhere.’ He banged the wall with his knuckles. ‘I come back. That is all I know.’ He started to sob. ‘She is near.’

  ‘Who is near? What are you talking about?’

  ‘He tell me she is near. That is why I look for her. The man on the phone. But he not tell me where she is.’

  Give me strength, Lottie thought. ‘When you’re ready to speak without the riddles, I’ll be back.’ She opened the door.

  As she stepped out into the brightly lit hallway, she heard Andri Petrovci cry out.

  ‘One day. One day I see my Mimoza again.’

  Boyd clasped the phone to his ear and walked up and down the station yard.

  ‘Start from the beginning, Jackie, you’re making no sense.’

  ‘I haven’t seen Jamie for hours. He rushed off after getting a phone call. When he’d left, I found this phone on the couch. Not his usual iPhone. A bulky Nokia. It was unlocked. I thought maybe he used it for another woman, you know…’

  ‘So you checked it. Right?’

  ‘Right. The only text sent said: “Boy not safe at yours. Leave. Meet at canal footbridge.” That’s all.’

  ‘You sure. No name? Anything?

  ‘Just the number.’ She read it out to him.

  Boyd recognised it. ‘I’m sending someone to yours for the phone. Don’t leave.’

  ‘Okay. And one other thing…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There are only two names in the contact list. One is Tracy Phillips and the other is George O’H. Mean anything to you?’

  ‘I need that phone,’ Boyd said.

  EIGHTY-THREE

  ‘Boyd. Boyd!’ Lottie ran up the stairs and into the incident room. ‘Have you seen Boyd?’

  Lynch and Kirby were there, rings as black as nuggets of coal circling their eyes.

  ‘Chloe?’ Lottie gasped.

  ‘No, boss,’ said Kirby. ‘We’ve searched high up and low down.’

  ‘Her phone. Anything on it?’

  ‘We got a number, but it’s another one of those throwaway yokes.’

  ‘Pre-pay,’ Lynch said.

  ‘Yes. And it’s not the same number that contacted Dermody or Carter,’ Kirby said with a yawn.

  ‘Guys, I’m so sorry,’ Lottie said. ‘You’ve been working day and night. I need Boyd.’

  ‘I’m here.’ He walked in.

  If anything, Lottie thought he looked worse than her other two detectives. She said, ‘It’s Petrovci. You won’t believe what he’s just told me.’

  ‘Can it wait? I’ve something important to tell you all.’

  ‘You’re looking too serious. It’s Chloe. Tell me!’ Gulping air so as not to get hysterical, Lottie pleaded with her eyes. ‘I can handle it.’

  Boyd slumped into the nearest chair, plucked at the growing stubble on his chin. ‘It’s Jackie—’ he began.

  ‘Boyd! My daughter and a child are missing and you’re on about Jackie. Give me a break.’

  ‘Will you calm—’

  ‘Don’t tell me to calm down.’ Lottie kicked over the nearest chair. ‘This is shit. All shit.’ Near to tears, she picked up the chair and sat down. ‘Sorry. Go on.’

  ‘Turns out Jamie McNally is in this up to his greasy little ponytail.’

  ‘What?’ Lottie jumped up again.

  ‘The slimy little fucker,’ Kirby said, sticking an unlit cigar into his mouth.

  Boyd told them about the phone Jackie had found.

  Lottie counted silently, trying to ease the tension building in her chest. She said, ‘McNally has Chloe and Milot.’

  ‘How did he get Chloe’s number?’ Kirby asked.

  ‘Kids have their numbers on Facebook and Twitter and stuff,’ Lynch said. ‘Never aware of how vulnerable it leaves them.’ At the incident board she pushed a pin slap-bang in the middle of McNally’s face.

  ‘I should have been more careful. I suspected someone was watching me, watching my house,’ Lottie said. ‘Why would Chloe respond to that message if she didn’t know who it was from?’

  ‘Unless he is Lipjan,’ Boyd said.

  ‘Where is McNally now?’ Lynch said.

  ‘Is Jackie with him?’ Lottie said. ‘Why are we still here? Come on. Let’s go.’

  Boyd stopped her at the door. ‘I don’t know where McNally is. Jackie’s alone. I’ve sent officers over to get the phone and sit with her.’

  ‘Could McNally be with Russell? Up at the DPC?’ Lynch asked.

  ‘I thought I told someone to pick up Russell,’ Lottie said.

  ‘We went in with the warrant,’ Kirby said. ‘I left a crew of detectives searching. Ongoing as we speak. But Russell wasn’t there. Last seen early afternoon.’

  ‘Check his home.’

  ‘Done. Not there either. His car is still at the DPC.’

  Lottie paused, banging her forehead with her knuckles.

  ‘Could he be at St Declan’s? That’s where O’Hara wanted to pick the boy up from Carter. And Jackie said that O’Hara’s name is in McNally’s phone.’

  ‘You’re right.’ Boyd passed her at the door. ‘Two cars. No sirens. Come on.’

  ‘Right.’ Lottie wondered where she was getting her energy from. She hadn’t eaten all day and she was still going.

  Fear, she thought.

  Fear for her daughter and that little boy.

  * * *

  The three-storey Victorian asylum for the mentally insane rose in front of them like a monster in the fog as they parked the cars outside the front door. They couldn’t see lights anywhere in the building.

  Huddling in a group, Lottie quelled a rush of anxiety taking a tight hold of her heart.

  ‘It’s a horrible-looking place,’ she said.

  ‘There’s an annexe-type building to the back. It was built in the early 1900s,’ Lynch said.

  Lottie, Boyd and Kirby stared at her.

  ‘I studied for a diploma in local history a few years ago,’ she explained. ‘Far as I can remember, the annexe housed an operating theatre.’

  They set off round the side of the building, staying close to the wall.

  ‘You all right?’ Boyd asked Lottie.

  ‘No.’

  She stopped abruptly as they turned the corner. A long single-storey building jutted out from the main hospital. A light glared from a window at the very end.

  ‘Looks like it’s shining through plastic or something,’ Kirby said.

  ‘It’s the fog,’ Lynch said.

  ‘No, I think Kirby’s right,’ Boyd said.

  ‘Quiet,’ Lottie warned. ‘Be ready with your weapons.’ She eased her gun into her hand.

  The door opened silently. No creak.

  ‘Not a sound,’ Lottie whispered. ‘No flashlights. Follow me.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we get the ballistic vests?’ Kirby asked.

  ‘I said, not a sound.’ She entered a narrow hallway.

  High ceilings. Thick pipes snaking along the walls by her feet. Concrete floor. Stopping at a tall door, which seemed to cut the hall in half, she looked up at the strip of stained glass at the top. To her
left, the floor sloped away into a dark, cavernous hole. She ignored it and put her hand to the hard wood of the door. It opened inward without resistance.

  Stepping inside, she found the wall to guide her, sensing the three detectives behind. Trailing her hand as she walked, she felt an indent. A door. Kept on walking. Twenty-seven steps. Another high door with glass on top. The light they’d seen outside was coming from here. Would this door be locked? She hoped not.

  ‘On the count of three,’ she whispered.

  ‘Fuck that,’ Boyd said, and kicked in the door. ‘Armed gardaí!’ he shouted and entered running. He halted immediately. They all did.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Kirby said.

  ‘What the—’ Lynch dropped her arm, letting the gun fall to her side.

  Lottie stared, her mouth opening and shutting, no words coming out. Whirling towards Boyd, she tried to comprehend what she was witnessing.

  Windows sheathed with Perspex, solidified blood like a Jackson Pollock reject. White ceramic tiles grouted in blood. Ceiling pebble-dashed red. She lifted her foot from the plastic-covered floor, dark remnants stuck to her boots. Blood and more blood.

  At the end of the L-shaped room were two iron-framed hospital beds. One was empty. Not even a mattress. Base springs rusted green under the fluorescent light. From the other bed saturated sheets dripped blood to the floor. Pools of it.

  Picking her way slowly, so as not to slip, she inched forward. Slow. Slow. Slower. She reached the bed. Gasped. Swallowed bile back down to the pit of her stomach.

  Dan Russell.

  Naked, except for navy socks with gold logos. Prostrate on the bed, a wide canvas strap across his chest. He didn’t need restraining. Not any more. The socket of one eye was sunk flaccid in his head. She dragged her eyes to the source of the blood. Stomach sliced open, entrails and intestines hanging out across fatty flesh.

  She heard Lynch retching behind her.

  ‘Don’t contaminate the evidence,’ she said, her voice sounding like someone else’s entirely.

  ‘It’s like a… like a…’ Kirby stammered.

  ‘An abattoir,’ Boyd said.

  Breathe, Lottie, breathe, she commanded herself. The fetid stench in the room clogged her throat and she thought for a moment she’d be joining Lynch. But she had nothing in her stomach to bring up.