The Lost (27 page)
‘You know before she went, our Maj, the night before she . . . went away.’
‘Yes?’
‘They were fighting the bit out, her and Mammy. Screaming. Mammy called her a wee slapper. That’s not like our Maj, you know, she’s a right Holy Joe normally. And Dad wasn’t there, and he didn’t meet the matchmaker last night neither. But if our Maj was getting wed, Dad have to be there. You see?’
‘I think so. Why didn’t you mention this before?’
‘Didn’t want all me family business in the paper. Never thought it mattered till you
said to keep an eye out. And missus, when the matchmaker went, I had a wee look in Mammy’s special drawer. She keeps her housekeeping money and that in there, but sure the key’s only under the doorstep, we can always get it open.’
‘And?’
‘The phone was in there. Our Maj’s phone.’
‘Majella’s phone is in your mum’s kitchen drawer?’
‘Yeah.’
‘OK.’ Paula took a deep breath. ‘Never mind, Theresa, you did the right thing. Do you know where your auntie lives?’
‘I only went there one time. It’s a big caravan place. Like, it’s near Limerick, but not
in
Limerick. Where travellers stay.’
Paula thought hard for a moment. ‘Is there somewhere you can go, Theresa? A neighbour, a friend? Just for a few hours?’
‘Can’t leave the wee ones, I’m minding them.’
It was 11 a.m. on a school day, but Paula let it go. ‘Well, stay inside. See if you can lock the door and keep the kids in.’
‘Missus? Are you coming to lift Mammy? She’s away to Dunnes now for the messages.’
‘How long since she went?’
‘Dunno, not long.’
‘OK. I have to hang up now. You stay with the kids. Listen, Theresa, if we find your sister – if we find Majella because of this – I want you to remember, it was because of you. OK?’
‘Ah, away on,’ said Theresa, with the world-weary scorn of someone four times her age.
As soon as she put the phone down, Paula went over to Fiacra and tapped on his desk to arouse him from Solitaire. ‘Rathkeale. You know it? It’s near Limerick, right? Isn’t that what they call the traveller capital?’
He looked startled. ‘It is. Eh – I went there on my holidays one time.’
‘Can you ring the station there? Ask them if they know a big caravan park.’
He was already lifting the
phone, such was the force of her voice. ‘How come?’
‘Because I think we’ll find Majella Ward there.’
Afterwards, Paula saw it on the news like everyone else. The Gardaí Land Rovers sweeping in, whipping dust in the wind and flapping laundry on lines. It was shown over and over. The large white caravan, bushes tended round its door. The scrum of Guards surrounding. And wrapped in a blanket, led out by a policewoman, was a skinny girl with chestnut hair, visibly weeping and wailing. She looked familiar, even if you’d never met her before. After all, her face had been staring down from
Missing
posters for nearly a month now.
‘I can’t believe it.’ Guy stilled the image on the screen. The team was gathered in the meeting room, watching it on playback.
‘So – it was her mother all along?’ Avril was clearly stunned by this development, and in fact they all were. What did it mean if you couldn’t even trust the grieving parents of the lost?
‘It does happen,’ said Guy unhappily. ‘There was that case in Leeds, of course, where the mother wanted money. This time we’re not sure. We think Majella’s mum just wanted to get her away from something, but was afraid to tell her husband what she’d done. She did try to put us off investigating.’ He paused. ‘I suppose that should have been our warning.’
‘Will they charge the mother?’ Gerard’s face was unreadable, still bearing the scars of his trip to the site. Looking for a girl who wasn’t even lost.
‘We don’t know yet. If she can
prove she was under duress from her husband, well . . . It won’t stick.’
‘And why did she want Majella gone?’ Paula could guess, but she was trying to behave, not go haring off like a dog after clues.
Guy didn’t meet her eyes. ‘That’s what we need to find out.’
Majella Ward was still crying when they brought her into the new police station the next day. After a night in hospital, it had been ascertained that she’d suffered nothing worse than an enforced stay at her aunt’s.
Her mother was in the custody suite on the other side of the building, where she also hadn’t stopped crying once in four hours. The interviewing officers didn’t know what to do with her. ‘You tell me, mister, what was I meant to do? She comes to me and says, “I’ve a boyfriend, Mammy, and I’ve had sex with him” – so what choice did I have? Her daddy’d have thrown her out if he knew, and nobody’d marry her once she was ruined. I’d no choice. Her life would’ve have been over. How was I meant to know he’d get the peelers in? Sure he can’t stand the sight of yis normally.’ Mrs Ward had a lurid yellowing bruise over one eye.
Helen Corry had been watching through the window when Paula arrived, arms folded, wearing a black suit, face inscrutable. ‘You’re here to help with the girl, then?’
Paula once again felt awkward in Corry’s presence, aware of the scuffs on her suede boots and that her grey jumper had a loose thread in it. ‘Inspector Brooking wants me to observe.’
‘Hmm. Does Inspector Brooking realise we’re a police station? As in, we do actually know how to conduct interviews ourselves?’
‘I – I think he just wants to understand her state of mind. In case it helps us with other cases, if they’re linked maybe.’
Helen Corry gave the same smile again, the one that totally wrong-footed you. ‘I’m sure you’ll do an excellent job, Paula. After all, we have to use you while we have you. We’ll get what we can out of Mammy here. Now, what do you say to helping me
prepare for this interview?’
‘They didn’t lock her up or anything?’ Paula was now watching Majella through the two-way mirror, as she sat on the sofa of the nice interview room, the one they used for children and the especially vulnerable. Although she was fifteen, Majella was hugging an oversized teddy bear to her chest, rocking slightly. Her hair hung like curtains over her face.
Corry shook her head. ‘Seems not. She’s grand, except she won’t stop crying. Shock, the doctors said.’
‘OK. You want me to listen in?’ They’d gone over various strategies to get the most from Majella; though Paula still felt nervous suggesting things to the other woman.
‘Yes. If you think I’m getting nowhere, give me a shout.’ Corry welded on a smile and went in. ‘Hello, Majella, how are you feeling?’
‘OK,’ the girl said in a very small voice.
‘Good. My name’s Helen. I’m here to let you know you’re not to worry, we’re going to sort all this out.’
No reaction.
‘Can you tell me what happened to you, Majella?’
‘Mammy took me phone off me, it wasn’t fair. Me cousins were standing over me all the time. Never let me out of the caravan.’ Her voice was slightly whiny.
‘No one recognised you? It was on the news a lot, that you were gone.’
The girl shrugged. Quite probably the whole camp had known, but they looked after their own. She seemed healthy enough, if skinny. In this case, the offence they could possibly charge her mother with – kidnap – meant rather enforced house-arrest. Or caravan-arrest.
‘Tell me what happened when you
left school that day, on the Friday.’
‘I went out, and I was walkin’ home, like, and this car came up beside me, and I recognised it was me Auntie Jacinta’s car. And Mammy was inside with one of her brothers, me Uncle Danny.’
‘So then what happened?’
She bit her nail. ‘They said I had to get in and then we went down to Auntie Jacinta’s, in the South. Then I just stayed there till yous came.’
Corry changed tack. ‘Are you worried about your mum, Majella?’
The girl jerked, then nodded suspiciously.
‘They’ve told you she could go to prison?’
She did a sort of twisting shrug and chewed on a hangnail.
‘You must have been cross with her, when she sent you away.’
Majella’s eyes flickered. ‘She never had to take me phone. She said Daddy’d skin me if she didn’t get me away.’
‘Skin you why?’
That was when the girl clammed up, like a blank screen coming over her face. ‘Dunno.’
Paula waited outside, watching. ‘
Go easy with her
,’ she muttered to herself. They didn’t have the facilities for an earpiece, so Corry wouldn’t be able to hear her.
Corry went on, ‘Your sister said the matchmaker was over the night before you went away.’
A flush came over the girl’s face. ‘She’s nosy.’
‘But you didn’t want to get married – you already had a boyfriend, is that it?’
More silence.
‘Your mum told us you’d lost your virginity,’ Corry said as gently as she could, and Paula saw the girl’s head go up at the unfairness. ‘She said that’s why she had to send you away, before it was too late to get you married.’
‘Wha-at?’ Majella gaped.
‘So who was he, your boyfriend?’
Down went the head and
the curtains of hair.
‘You know you need to tell me. Or else your mum might really go to jail. Kidnap is a very serious crime, but if we can show you were in danger . . .’
‘I’m not meant to tell.’ Tears were dripping down her pale skin. ‘He said I’d get in trouble.’
Outside, Paula closed her eyes for a second. How many times had she heard those exact words from children, young girls? Did they give the abusers a manual or something?
Luckily, Corry was handling her well, speaking reassuringly. ‘Majella, you can’t get in trouble. You’re only fifteen. Whatever’s happened isn’t your fault. But your mum might go to prison if you don’t let me help you.’
The girl sobbed.
‘You had a boyfriend?’
She nodded slowly, tears streaking her cheeks. ‘He said I wasn’t meant to tell.’
‘That’s OK. Just give me his name.’
‘Ed,’ she said finally. ‘His name’s Ed. From the Mission. He was my boyfriend and we did it and I told Mammy and she went mental.’ Wobbly lip, more tears. ‘Miss, I just want to see him. She wouldn’t let me say bye to him! And he had some other girl, and Mammy wouldn’t let me see him to get him back. Can I see him, can I?’
‘Who was the other girl?’
Majella shook her head. ‘I just want to see him.’
‘Majella. You have to tell us.’
A fresh burst of tears welled up. The girl covered her face. ‘It was that Cathy. Her. He liked her. Now
please
, miss, can I see him?’
The best Corry could manage was a tight-lipped, ‘We’ll see,’ as she struggled to keep her face neutral. Paula saw her look up to the corner
of the room, where the video camera had its red light on, to show this interview was indeed being recorded. She wondered if Corry was thinking the same as her:
Got you, you bastard.
The tension coming off the team was
palpable. Guy looked round at them. ‘I’m sure you don’t need reminding how serious this is.’
It was the day after Majella Ward’s taped interview, and the girl was now being cared for by Social Services. Her mother was still in custody at the police station, but the charges against her had taken something of a back seat, since Majella had accused the leader of the Mission of what amounted to statutory rape. Paula was back at the unit building, where they were deciding on their next move after all they’d learned.
‘Is it enough, sir?’ Fiacra was tentative. ‘I mean . . .’
‘It’s enough to get him fired, at least. But you’re right, we’ve only Majella’s word that Ed was Cathy’s boyfriend too. We’re going to have to tread carefully. He had an alibi for the day she disappeared, after all.’
Paula was clenching her hands under the table. Why were they still talking? Wouldn’t Ed realise, wouldn’t he see on the news that Majella had been found? Was he so arrogant he imagined girls never talked? She was trying to keep her rage under control. What if that smug bastard was leaving town as they spoke?
‘Right.’ Guy snapped to business. ‘Gerard, you go in one car. Myself and Sergeant Hamilton will go on ahead and meet DCI Corry and the Tactical Support team. They’ll be taking records, files, anything that might help us bust these guys. We’re going to interview Lazarus here, if he’ll come quietly – keep him away from the scrum at the main station. It seems increasingly likely there may be some link to Cathy’s case.’ He didn’t meet Paula’s eyes. ‘Avril’s searches have thrown up several convictions for indecent assault relating to an Ed Reilly from
Birmingham. We need to confirm it, but it looks like this could be Ed Lazarus’s real name, making our missing girl Rachel his mother. As to why he’d come back to Ballyterrin after all that time, we don’t know.’
Paula found her voice. ‘Can I come?’ They all looked at her. ‘Please?’ She telegraphed the words to Guy:
It was my theory. Please let me come.
He hesitated. ‘OK. Go with Gerard. Come on, it’s time.’
Paula saw Gerard’s face. Oh well, she wasn’t too keen on going with him either. But there was no way she was going to miss this.
‘Fecking traffic.’ Gerard swore as, once again, the Hill Street box junction exacted its dues. Traffic snarled up the main road and the police car sat, fixed. As they waited, Paula looked him over. Muscles tensed in his forearms. His tie worn loose and eyes deep blue. Shame he spoiled it all with a face like a slapped arse.
He caught her gaze. ‘I suppose you’re pleased with yourself.’
‘No more so than usual.’
He turned on her. ‘No one else would get away with your carry-on. Going off to Dublin on your own, lying to the boss, upsetting families of victims . . . But all you have to do is make eyes at him and you’re like a pig in shite.’
She raised her eyebrows but kept quiet. Gerard slammed into second gear, swearing under his breath. He turned, and she saw the flash of scar tissue under his chin, still red and shiny from the petrol-bomb attack.
‘How’s your neck?’
He muttered, ‘Never mind my neck. It’s grand.’
‘I’m sorry about what happened down there. It wasn’t my fault, you know.’