All the Lost Girls

by Bilinda P Sheehan

  I took his hand and we shook. “I’m DCI Radcliff and this,” he said, gesturing to the woman next to him, “is DS Carter.” He fished an ID from his pocket as he spoke and presented it to me for a cursory glance. “Is it all right if we come in and have a quick chat? It’s in regards to the recent incident involving the Clayton’s.”

  I’d been expecting them to show up at the hospital and ask what had happened but when no one had shown up, part of me had thought they weren’t going to bother. However, now that they were standing on the doorstep, I couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy, especially after the conversation I’d had with Gerald earlier.

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ve just boiled the kettle if you want a cuppa.”

  “No thank you,” DS Carter said as she stepped through the door.

  “I’d murder a tea,” Radcliff said, his grey eyes twinkling as he waited for me to shut the door behind them.

  I directed him into the small sitting area and he stood in front of the small window that overlooked the back garden, He shoved his hands into his pants pockets as DS Carter took a seat on the edge of a wooden chair I had in the corner of the room. She’d already taken a small notepad from her bag and from the corner of my eye, I caught her scribbling down a few notes.

  I moved into the kitchen and set out another cup, grabbing two teabags from the cupboard before I poured the water in over them.

  “Milk? Sugar?” I asked, drawing DCI Radcliff’s attention back into the room.

  “No sugar,” he said with a smile. “Wife says I’m sweet enough but plenty of milk, ta.”

  I kept my smile fixed in place as I took the milk from the fridge and finished with the drinks. Once they were done, I stared down at the two mugs and realised I would have to make two trips.

  I grabbed his first but I only made it to the edge of the kitchen counter before he intercepted me.

  “Here, let me help.” He reached past me and took both cups, carrying them into the living area, leaving me to trail after him.

  He was being far too nice and it set my teeth on edge. It was entirely possible that he just was this nice but I’d seen enough police in action with the cases I worked to know he was fishing for an angle with me, trying to put me at ease. But why?

  I sat on the sofa and watched as he took a gulp of the tea. His appreciative noises made the pain that was gathering in the back of my head worse.

  “How’s the arm,” he asked, catching me somewhat off guard.

  “Painful,” I said. “Worse than I thought it could be.”

  “Are we correct in thinking the courts appointed you to the case regarding Zoe’s welfare?” DS Carter asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “Dan had a history of drug abuse.” I kept the part to myself where it was also suspected that he was a domestic abuser. Rachel had never made a formal complaint against him and without it, my saying it, was nothing but hearsay.

  “Officer Shaw said you were under the impression that Ms Clayton and her partner were separated and that you were unaware of their reconciliation.” DS Carter stared at me expectantly.

  I took a mouthful of the scalding tea. The burning sensation as it travelled down my throat was soothing in a perverse kind of way.

  “Ms Clayton only disclosed to me the morning of the incident that she had been allowing him access to Zoe outside of the supervised visitations.”

  ‘Isn’t that your job though?” DS Carter said. “To know what’s happening? To foresee potential issues and report them to your supervisor before it gets any further?”

  “Well, I suppose but—”

  “And isn’t it true that you didn’t make any such disclosures to your supervisor, a…” She consulted her notepad. “Mr Gerald Wilson?”

  “There wasn’t anything to disclose,” I said. “I’m not a mind-reader. Rachel didn’t tell me anything so how the hell was I supposed to know?”

  DS Carter scribbled something in her notepad.

  “Alice, we’re not trying to upset you,” DCI Radcliff said. “We’re just trying to get to the bottom of all of this.”

  “Dan Clayton was not my job,” I said, the pain in my head magnified by their questions. “Zoe was and I thought I was doing my best. I tried to protect her as best I could and—”

  “No one is accusing you of anything.” Radcliff said, gently. “DS Carter here is just crossing all the ’t’s’ and dotting all of our ‘i’s’ is all.”

  I stared down into my cup, suddenly unwilling to meet the accusatory looks in their eyes. First Gerald and now them.

  “Can you tell us in your own words what happened that morning?” Radcliff asked.

  I bit my tongue, allowing the pain to clear my head.

  “Well I got the call from Gerald and—” Bohemian Rhapsody cut through my sentence and I glanced over my shoulder at the phone on the kitchen counter. The vibration alert had it dancing in time to the beat.

  “Do you need to get that?” Radcliff asked but I shook my head.

  “No, I can leave it.”

  The song ended and the phone went silent once more.

  “I was going to go into the office but—”

  The phone started to ring once more.

  “I think you should get it,” he said. “It’s probably someone worried about you. You did just get out of hospital.”

  Pushing onto my feet, I crossed the floor and stared down at the word ‘Mam’ flashing on the screen.

  “It’s my mother,” I said, suddenly feeling self-conscious. “I’ll tell her I’ll call her back.” I answered the call with my one good hand.

  “Mam, I—”

  “Alice?” The female voice on the other end of the line wasn’t my mother’s. My heart lurched in my chest.

  “Yes, who’s this?”

  “This is Fiona Grady,” she said. “With the Gardaí here in Tipperary. I’m a family liaison officer here, working with the division for—”

  “Is it Mam, is she all right? - Where is she? - Is she hurt?” I cut across her. I couldn’t get my questions out fast enough.

  “Your mother is fine, Alice. She’s here with me. She’s just a little upset and wanted me to call on her behalf.”

  Dread coiled in my stomach and my mouth went dry. I could feel the attention of the two detectives in my living room boring holes into the back of my head.

  “I know this is going to come as a shock,” she said, her words echoing from far away, as though it wasn’t an iPhone I had pressed to my ear but a tin can with a string attached.

  Her voice started to fragment. I caught the words, ‘body,’ and ‘identification’. The phone slipped from my hand and clattered onto the Formica counter top.

  I turned away and came face to face with the concerned expression of DCI Radcliff and DS Carter. My knees disappeared from beneath me and the ground rushed up towards me, only DS Carter’s iron grip on my good elbow kept me from hitting the ground.

  Pain screamed in my shoulder but it was suddenly overshadowed by the ache in my chest that was making it difficult for me to draw a deep breath.

  There was a babbling noise and it took me a moment to realise it was coming from me.

  “Who’s Clara?” DS Carter asked. I’d thought she was a cold fish—she’d so obviously been playing the bad cop—but as she guided me over to the sofa, I could see softness in her expression. She pushed a strand of auburn hair behind her ear as she sat beside me.

  “Clara McCarthy,” I said dumbly.

  “Why is that familiar?” DS Carter’s question was directed toward Radcliff, who stood at the kitchen counter with my iPhone pressed to his ear, his expression grim as he nodded and spoke in hushed tones to the woman on the other end of the line.

  What had she said her name was? I couldn’t remember.

  It felt like my brain had gone into complete shut down, a protective mechanism after experiencing a shock.

  Knowing why I was behaving the way I was didn’t make it any easier to deal with.

  “Alic
e, can you hear me?” It took me a moment to register that Radcliff was crouched in front of me, the phone no longer in his hands.

  I nodded, unwilling to speak. The incomprehensible ramblings that were swirling in my head didn’t need to be vocalised.

  “I’ve spoken to the liaison officer and she thinks it’s best if you return to Ireland. I’ve explained the situation here and they’ve asked us to drop you off at the airport. Everything else will be arranged from their end.”

  “Clara,” I said again. It felt strange to say her name aloud after all this time. I hadn’t told anyone here about her, or her disappearance.

  He nodded. “Do you understand what Ms Grady said to you?”

  “They found her body,” I said, my voice reedy.

  “They’ve found a body,” he corrected, “but the preliminary identification suggests it’s the body of your sister. Clara.”

  I shot up onto my feet. My sudden movement knocked Radcliff and he hit the carpet with a soft grunt of surprise. Under normal circumstances, I might have found it funny but right now all I could think about was getting to Ireland.

  “I need to see her,” I said, almost tripping over the rumpled edge of the carpet as I darted for the front door.

  DS Carter was there before me. The sympathy reflected in her eyes brought anger rushing to the surface.

  “We’ll get you to the airport,” she said. “You should pack some things first.” When I stared at her uncomprehendingly, she continued. “To take with you. You’ll need clothes and some toiletries.”

  Her words finally reached some part of me that could understand what she was saying and I turned toward the bedroom, my mind in full autopilot as I dragged a hold all out from under my bed and began piling clothes inside.

  As I grabbed my toothbrush and other toiletries from the bathroom, my mind kept going back to the night Clara had gone missing. Even now, as I stared down at my fingers, I could still feel the brush of her hand in mine as she slipped away from me and I’d kept running, not looking back.

  I’d let her go and now there was a body sitting in the morgue in Ireland. It couldn’t be her… Wouldn’t be her.

  I’d let her go once. I wouldn’t do it a second time.

  16

  The plane ride over had been the usual affair. The only discernible difference between this flight and any one of the other hundreds I’d taken home was that this time I’d ordered myself a whiskey. And then another. And another.

  By the time we’d landed I was nicely cocooned in inebriation. The man who met me in the terminal, who’d said he was from the liaison team, had to steer me by the elbow to the car, just to keep me moving forward.

  Thankfully, I slept for most of the two and half hour car drive. By the time we pulled up outside the house, the whiskey was wearing off, leaving me to feel like I had invited a Mariachi band to take up residence inside my skull. The wash of cold air over my face as I pushed open the car door did nothing to quell the wave of nausea that swept over me.

  I stood on the tarmac outside the two-storey white house that had been my childhood home. The small windows, that only a couple years before had gotten a facelift in the form of brand new white uPVC, sat like tiny eyes in the face of a spider squatting in the centre of its web. The glass reflected nothing of the interior. It reminded me of my parents and their desire to keep family business behind locked doors. I could see the sky stretching away above us, as grey in its reflection on the surface of the window as it was in reality.

  The front door was open and what had once been a welcoming warmth that beckoned me inside during my childhood now threatened to smother me.

  There was a car on the drive that I didn’t recognise and the thought of setting foot in the house when it was full of strangers filled me with dread. I didn’t want to see anyone. I just wanted to go in, wash my face off with cold water, and take the codeine tablets that were burning a hole in the pocket of my jacket.

  My head and arm had joined forces against me. The pain in both had grown to a fever pitch, so much so that I couldn’t tell anymore if the whiskey had soured my stomach or if it was the pain seeking to claw its way out.

  The wind carried with it the promise of rain and instead of heading into the house, I followed the path that led up the side toward the sloped lawn at the side of the house. Our tyre swing still hung from the old oak tree in the corner of the lawn and it was there my legs carried me, as though they had a will of their own.

  I ran my fingers over the frayed rope and down over the tyre, the weather worn rubber blackening my fingers. Part of me had believed the memory of Clara might be clearer here. That if I stood and pressed my fingers against the swing, I might suddenly have a clear vision of her. But I didn’t.

  Of course, if I closed my eyes I could still see the terror in her eyes from that night. That had never left me, probably never would, but she had been so much more than that one memory.

  Funny, and clever, she could make a game out of anything. She’d always had time for me. We’d shared secrets, and dreams and yet… My mind refused to conjure even one of those memories from the depths. Instead, it replayed that night over and over as if by reliving it, I could somehow change the outcome.

  “Alice?” The male voice cut through my thoughts and I turned to find myself staring at Liam Donnelly, Clara’s boyfriend from all those years ago. “Jesus,” he said, shoving his hand up into what had been a crop of dark curly hair but was now streaked with grey. “It’s been a while.”

  “Why are you here?” There was venom in my voice and it surprised me. I’d always kept my feelings tightly under wraps where Liam was concerned. Perhaps it was the whiskey or maybe—like the body they’d found—my feelings refused to stay buried.

  He took a step back as though I’d physically hit him. His shoulders hunched and he wrapped his arms around his body. And suddenly he looked just like he had all those years ago, the same awkward teenager who’d turned up on our doorstep three days after Clara had gone missing. Eyes red-rimmed and haunted, nose running, and hair greasy. Stinking of B.O.

  “I came ‘cos I heard they found a—” his voice broke off and he swallowed hard, making me think the word ‘body’ was somehow trapped in the back of his throat.

  “What, and your guilt dragged you over here?”

  “I know what you must think of me…”

  “Do you?” The words were heavily laced with sarcasm, the anger I’d been holding onto spilling over into my voice. “What did you argue about that night, Liam? What was so terrible that you could let her go off on her own, to walk home in the dark?”

  “This was a mistake,” he said, turning away.

  He made it two feet before he stopped and whirled to back to me, his face a furious mask. “You can blame me all you like but I wasn’t the reason she was out that night.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” The words came out in on a strangled whisper.

  “She wasn’t feeling well. She didn’t even want to go out but you did.” He jabbed his finger toward me accusatorially. “Little Alice couldn’t stay in,” he said. “Oh no, you just had to go to that bloody disco. You had to go to that bloody disco and get pissed out of your mind.” He leaned in toward me and sniffed the air. “Clearly, time has passed but you haven’t changed a bit. I could smell the booze on you from the moment you arrived.”

  “I wasn’t. I’m not—”

  He laughed, a bitter sound that tore out of the back of his throat. “If you want to blame me, Alice, then fine. Go right ahead. It’s nothing I haven’t done myself. But I wasn’t the one who ran away and left her behind. I wasn’t the one who let her go.”

  With that, he stalked away, his long strides eating up the lawn, taking him down to the tarmac and out of the driveway. As though all the air had been knocked out of me, I took a stumbling step backward, my feet tangling with each another before they dumped me on the lawn with a dull thud.

  I sat there, the cold damp earth soaking up through my
jeans. He was right, of course. I was the reason she was out at all. The annoying younger sister in need of supervision. As though hitting the grass had jolted the memories loose, I could suddenly remember Clara’s grimace as Mam had insisted she go with me.

  “She’s too young to go herself, Clara.”

  “Mam, I don’t feel good, my feet are killing me and my ankles are—”

  “We don’t ask you to do much around here,” Mam said. “So for once just do as you’re bloody well asked.”

  “Please?” I batted my lashes and did my best to look adorable, which at thirteen, in that awkward place between childhood and becoming a woman, wasn’t exactly easy.

  “Fine.” Clara sighed. “But you owe me.”

  “Yes!” I pumped my fists in the air before I turned and darted for the stairs.

  “Alice!” My aunt’s voice cut through the memory sharply and I stared up at her. Imelda’s dark hair was scraped back from her face into a high ponytail. Being Mam’s older sister, there was a resemblance in the two women around the eyes, something they’d gotten from my maternal grandmother but standing over me, she suddenly looked like she’d aged fifty years in the few months since I’d last seen her.

  “What are you doin’ sitting on the grass? Your mother’s been goin’ out of her mind, wonderin’ where you’d gotten to.”

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, climbing unsteadily back onto my feet. “I just needed to…” I trailed off, suddenly unsure what I was supposed to say.

  “I know. It’s fine,” she said, her eyes misting a little. She blinked away the threatened tears and her eyes fell on my arm. “What happened you?”

  “I was… uh—” I cut myself off abruptly. Now was not the time to go telling them I’d been shot. Even at the best of times, my mother wasn’t overly fond of the idea of me working in the UK. She’d always complained it was too far away. Too dangerous. For the first six years when I’d moved there after college, she used to send me snippets and clippings from newspaper articles she’d read about the violent crimes in the UK. As though Ireland was so much safer and if I would only just move back, nothing bad would ever happen to me.