All the Lost Girls

by Bilinda P Sheehan

  “So, tell her to go home,” I said. “We don’t have any new information for her and this is no place for her to be right now…” I trailed off, noting Ronan’s grimace and the way he ducked his head to keep from meeting my gaze.

  “That’s the problem,” he said. “I’d have told her that but she went and got herself arrested and in the process she managed to somehow end up getting hurt and—”

  “What?” The word exploded from me before I could stop it.

  Dorian looked up at me. “If you do not mind, Detective, those of us working here need peace and quiet. If you could take your outbursts elsewhere it would be appreciated.”

  Grabbing Ronan by the elbow, I dragged him away from the entrance to the tent and out into the open. The mist had gotten heavier, the wind kicking the icy droplets up beneath the hood of my jacket.

  “How the hell has she gotten arrested and hurt?”

  “They think she was drinking and tried to run past the Guard on the parameter. When he tried to stop her…”

  “Shit,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose with my thumb and index, an attempt to stall the headache building behind my eyes. This was the very last thing we needed. I could just imagine the headlines now and they weren’t pleasant.

  The officers in charge of this case in the past had already screwed it up four-ways to Sunday. We didn’t need to add assaulting the victim’s family members to the list of mistakes.

  “Show me,” I said.

  Ronan nodded and started back through the trees, before he’d taken more than two steps however, he paused and glanced back at me over his shoulder.

  “How many bodies do they think are in there now?”

  “Still just three,” I said. “That we know of. The latest is in a mess.”

  “Any reason why that might be?”

  I shrugged. “Honestly, I have no idea. I’m hoping it’s just because the body was disturbed from its original resting place and that it was damaged in transit. Otherwise we’re looking at a dismemberment which is a departure from the norm.”

  Ronan nodded and in the harsh lighting cast by the floodlights, I could see how pale he looked. Of course, he was new to all of this. He’d worked one murder before this case and I couldn’t begin to imagine that it had come even remotely close to the horror that this case had conjured.

  I’d worked my share of murder enquiries but never anything like this. It didn’t matter how many bodies you saw, it still couldn’t prepare you for the harrowing experience of standing witness to the discovery of a victim of a violent crime.

  He said nothing and I didn’t try to comfort him. There was no point. I’d learned a long time ago that there was nothing to be said that could possibly bring comfort. There was only one thing we could do that might bring a little peace and soothe the night terrors; bring the monster responsible for these crimes to justice.

  It wasn’t always possible but I’d be damned if I was going to let this go without a fight.

  He’d gone dormant for thirteen years but if it was Joanna in the ground with those two other bodies—and I had a feeling it was—then whoever was responsible was clearly getting warmed up for some sort of final showdown. And whatever plan they had in mind, I knew I needed to catch them before they could finish.

  Otherwise, we were going to need a lot more body bags.

  35

  It’s always hard to say goodbye. No matter the situation, goodbye is just one of those words that tends to stick in the throat.

  Letting Joanna go was no exception.

  She’d been special; there was no doubt in my mind about that. Her determination and spirit had been unique. If I’d had the time, I could have broken her and it would have been glorious to behold.

  But he was always too eager.

  Like a bull in a goddamned china shop, his lust rampaged over their flesh, sating his carnal needs. I despised him for it.

  Girls like Joanna deserved so much more than he could give them.

  Back when I’d been as blind as he was, back when I still believed we could create together, their suffering at his hands meant something. They had carried the burden of his violence as a necessary evil for something greater. Or at least there had been a time when I’d believed that to be true.

  We had worked seamlessly together, two halves of one great machine, creating something perfect.

  And he had ruined it.

  Just like everything.

  I’m not someone to be rushed. My work matters. I’m not driven by some base emotion like him. I have no need to penetrate their flesh with mine. What I give to them and what they give to me in return is beautiful. The antithesis to his monstrous violation.

  But Joanna…

  Even thinking of her now brings a lump to my throat. So much potential wasted.

  Not that I’m not proud of what I’ve accomplished.

  The awe he’d felt when he’d seen what I’d done with her quickly passed, replaced with rage when he realised I’d stolen his plaything away.

  I felt the result of that rage quick enough. But every punch he’d landed had been met by my laughter.

  It was laughable that he thought they were his—that he could do with them as he pleased—when in actuality they belonged to me.

  I chose them.

  I picked them carefully.

  They’re mine.

  But he can’t see it. His short-sightedness makes me despise him.

  He thinks he can hurt me but he’s wrong.

  The bruises he left on me will fade, just as they have done in the past.

  I hold all the power.

  I’m stronger than he is.

  Smarter.

  And when I take Alice, he won’t have a say. I’ll make sure of it. She is mine—always has been—and it’s high time for me to collect.

  36

  It could only have been a couple of seconds before I came around. I was still on the ground, the pain in my shoulder intense enough to seal the air in my lungs. But thankfully, the pressure that had caused the pain in the first place was now gone.

  “Alice!” Declan’s voice carried over the sound of the rain hitting the ground around me.

  “I didn’t know.” The male voice came from somewhere nearby.

  “It’s your job to know these things.” I would have recognized the stern authoritative female voice anywhere.

  I lifted my head and found myself staring into Declan’s concerned gaze.

  “Shit, are you all right?” He reached out toward me, the brush of his hand against my arm sending a warning flash of pain shooting down my arm.

  “Don’t touch me,” I said, my voice croaky.

  He withdrew from me as though I’d physically hit him. Under normal circumstances, I might have felt bad but as I lay on the ground, another wave of pain was building in my shoulder.

  “Don’t try to move Alice,” Siobhan said from somewhere to the side of me, her tone soothing and compassionate. “There’s an ambulance on the way.” I couldn’t see her face but I could see her heavy-duty black boots that were still caked in orange mud.

  Ignoring her command, I slipped my good arm beneath my body once more and pushed upwards. My hand slid and I dug my fingers into the freshly churned gravel and muck. The front of my body came away from the earth with a wet sucking sound, I was soaked to the bone, not that it mattered. The second I lifted myself from the ground, the wave of agony crashed over my head once more. Lights that were too bright to belong to the Garda car parked behind me exploded behind my eyelids.

  The pain passed, leaving a sickening spasm of pins and needles in my arm.

  “Christ help her,” Siobhan’s voice echoed in the silence. Strong hands wrapped around my waist as another pair of arms slipped beneath my chest, hoisting me to my feet.

  I bit back the grunt of pain that hovered in the back of my throat as I found myself face to face with the female detective.

  “Get her a blanket.” Siobhan barked orders as though she’d be
en born to give them and within seconds I was wrapped in the scratchy blue blanket carried in the boot of the Garda car. It wasn’t my first time feeling the rough fabric beneath my finger tips and I pulled it a little tighter around my shoulders, remembering the morning after Clara had been taken.

  The Garda car had halted beside me on the side of the road as I’d stumbled back towards town. They’d spoken to me, asked me for my name, my address, but I’d been so cold, my lungs still aching from the river water I’d inhaled and my brain had refused to piece the information they required from me back together.

  There was just one name on my mind and I repeated it over and over, my voice too hoarse and worn for them to make it out.

  It hadn’t helped that I’d smelled like a bloody liquor shop and although I couldn’t remember everything they’d said to me, every question they’d asked, I could remember the knowing look they’d passed to one another.

  “Alice, what are you doing here?” The question was innocent enough but I’d known enough police both through Clara’s case and my work in the UK that I wasn’t so easily fooled. No matter how innocent, there was always an agenda with these people. They were always working an angle, looking for the slightest crumb of information, no matter how small.

  “This is where they found the first body,” I said, twisting around so I could get a look at the path that wound up into the trees but Declan’s broad shoulders blocked my view.

  “But it wasn’t Clara,” Siobhan said gently.

  “But she could might still be here and when I saw the cars and…” I trailed off. It sounded ridiculous and deep down I knew it was ridiculous. What could I do? I wasn’t a detective. I wasn’t even law enforcement.

  The flash of the ambulance lights lit up the trees as the vehicle drove along the bumpy road.

  “I don’t want to go to hospital,” I said wearily.

  “How about we let the paramedics make that decision?” Siobhan’s words were meant to be kind but they just felt like another kick in the teeth. I’d made a fool of myself, pulled people away from doing their jobs. For all I knew, Clara was up there and here I was flailing around in the mud and crying because my arm hurt. It was pathetic… I was pathetic, perhaps my mother was right?

  I’d always thought her behaviour toward me was borne of her pain. I hadn’t considered the possibility that it was actually borne of the truth. That she could see through me for what I really was. A spoilt little girl throwing a tantrum every time she didn’t get her own way.

  From the corner of my eye, I spotted Siobhan signalling to the paramedics so that they hurried in my direction.

  “You got here fast,” Siobhan said.

  “We were the ones who responded to the initial call here.” The male paramedic who’d reached us first spoke. “There was nothing we could do up there but until the doctor makes the call we’ve got to hang around…” Siobhan nodded and I found myself following their conversation with more than a little interest.

  For an ambulance to get called, whoever they found up there couldn’t have been dead that long. Certainly not for as long as Clara had been missing, anyway. I pushed the thought aside, not wanting to entertain anything so morbid. The childish part of me still wanted Clara to come home to us, alive and well but with every day that passed that part of me grew smaller and smaller. I didn’t think it would ever completely disappear but it was small enough now that I could shut its whisper out of my head.

  “So what happened to you then?” The male paramedic asked, his smile wide and filled with genuine warmth as his eyes swept over me in assessment.

  “I’m fine,” I lied, ignoring the throb of my arm that set my teeth on edge.

  “She took a spill,” Siobhan said, talking over me as though I wasn’t there at all. “The Guard with her said she appeared to have blacked out for a few moments.”

  “Well, we’ll get you looked over, shall we?” The male paramedic said, guiding me back toward the ambulance.

  I shook free of his gentle hold and turned toward Siobhan once more. “Who have you found up there?”

  Her lips thinned, practically disappearing as the colour in her face faded.

  “When we know something, Alice, your family will be the first to know.”

  “That’s not what I’m asking,” I said, taking a step toward her. “Please. Please, have you found her up there?”

  She opened her mouth to answer and I knew it would be the same old line the Gardaí had been feeding my family for years. ‘Leave it with us. We know how to do our jobs. As soon as we know something, you’ll be the first to know.’

  And we had done just that. We’d let them get on with their jobs, gave them the space they needed, all the time hoping and waiting for the day to come when we’d get the call. Waiting for them to find her.

  I was so tired of waiting.

  Siobhan hesitated, whatever she saw in my face causing her pause.

  “We don’t know who we have up there,” she said, ignoring the look of disbelief on the face of her male colleague. “We have to wait for forensics to identify them but as soon as I know anything…”

  “Even if it’s not Clara?”

  “I’ll still call,” she said gently, pressing her hand to my good shoulder. “No matter what, I’ll call. I promise.”

  It was as good as I was ever going to get.

  I let the paramedic move me toward the ambulance and away from the flashing lights and cordon tape set up by the officers working the scene.

  I climbed unsteadily up the steps and sat down gratefully on the trolley in the back. Declan hovered uncertainly near the doors, his expression unreadable beyond his obvious concern.

  “Actually, Alice,” Siobhan called after me, hurrying down the path toward the back of the ambulance. She paused at the doors giving Declan an awkward smile as he moved out of the way.

  “When they discharge you, could you give me a buzz?” She held a card out toward me and I took it. “I think it’s about time, you and I had a proper sit down chat about everything that happened the night Clara went missing.”

  “You’ve already got my statement from the night,” I said flatly. I’d been hoping she was going to tell me something after all and now that I knew she wasn’t, I was too tired to hide my disappointment.

  “I know that,” she said. “But I want to hear it from you and it’ll give me a chance to ask questions that might not have been asked at the time.”

  My head whipped up but her expression was inscrutable, her smile polite and professional.

  “What kinds of questions?”

  “We weren’t in possession of all the facts when your sister went missing,” she said. “We know more now. And anything you can add to the picture we’re building of the one responsible for these crimes, the faster we can put a stop to them.”

  Her statement left me with more questions than answers and I realised as she stepped away from the ambulance that it was deliberate. She knew how I felt about the Gardaí and the way they had treated my sister’s disappearance and she had fed me with just enough information to ensure I would call her. It was smart and under different circumstances, I might even have respected her for it. But as the paramedic in front of me shone a light in my eyes, I couldn’t bring myself to summon the energy it would take to care that she was manipulating me.

  Instead, I watched as she jogged back toward the woods and the place where my sister might be.

  Would they look after her?

  37

  “Detective Geraghty.” A female voice pulled my attention back to the scene. “Dr. Whittaker is ready to move the bodies,” Claire said as I reached the edge of the wooded pathway.

  “You can call me Siobhan,” I said with a tight-lipped smile.

  She nodded but I could see the hesitation in her face and I knew without her having to say anything to me that she would never call me by my first name. Had I been too hard on her? Scolded her too much for turning up late to the briefing when it clearly wasn’t h
er fault?

  “Tell him I want a word before he leaves.” As she turned away, I called after her. “Claire, how long have you lived in the area?”

  My question seemed to catch her off guard. Her expression—a mixture of curiosity and concern—let me know that whatever else she thought of me, trust definitely wasn’t top of her list.

  “I’ve lived in Tipperary my whole life,” she said. “Well not exactly this area.”

  “How so?”

  “Well the county was broken into two districts at one point. North and South Riding,” she said. As far as I was concerned, she may as well have been speaking double Dutch. I’d lived in Dublin my entire life and to my shame I’d never really strayed outside the cities limits. Preferring to keep my professional and personal life safely ensconced in what I considered to be my comfort zone.

  “I live in what used to be North Tipperary. Close enough to feel like home,” she said with a small smile, “without having the over familiarity of home.”

  “So you don’t know any of the people from the area then?”

  “No,” she said. “Sergeant Mills is your best bet in that department. He knows this place like the back of his hand. He’s lived here his whole life.”

  That was part of the problem. He knew everyone a little too well and I had a feeling that the kind of knowledge he would bring to an interview would be more of a hindrance than a help.

  “Actually,” I said. “I think you’ll be perfect.”

  Her smile was hesitant. “What for?”

  “I’m going to swing by Mr Donnelly’s house tomorrow for a chat and I’d like you to come with me.”

  The uncertainty in her eyes was palpable. “I thought you were working closely with Detective McGuire,” she said. It took me a moment to realise she was talking about Ronan. When had I become so comfortable with him that I barely recognised his official title when it was used?

  “We are,” I said. “But I’d like you to join me on this.”

  “Fine.” Her ascent was abrupt. I let her stalk away up the path, watching until she disappeared into the tree line. And as I watched her retreating back, I couldn’t help but think I’d misread the entire situation.