The Lost (29 page)
His face was impassive. ‘Judge not, lest ye be judged, Inspector.’
Guy laid his hands on the table. ‘Do you understand why you’re here, Mr Reilly? We’ve found Majella Ward. Her mother took her away, because Majella was sleeping with an older man. You, she claims.’
Not a flicker on his handsome face. ‘Inspector, you have a daughter yourself. I know Katie well. She’s very troubled, poor girl. Her brother’s death hit her hard.’
Guy’s fists clenched, but he sat still.
‘Girls lie, don’t they? They have so many secrets and problems, all their little dramas.’ Ed spread his thin, feminine hands. ‘These girls come to us, and they have so little self-esteem. They feel ugly, fat, uncared for. We teach them to love themselves – is it any wonder some of them think they love me, too?’ He smiled.
Guy pushed on. ‘Did you have a
relationship with Majella?’
‘Of course. We all have relationships in God’s love.’
‘I mean a sexual relationship.’
‘Ah, Inspector. Back to sex. “Remove the plank from your own eye first”, as the Bible says. You only have the girl’s say that I ever went near her.’
‘What about Cathy Carr? You dumped Majella for her, I believe.’ And Louise, thought Paula. Would he ask about Louise McCourt? There was still no proof she’d been involved with Ed.
No reaction. ‘The girl who died? She may have visited the Mission, I don’t know. Many girls come to us.’
Guy leaned in. ‘We can prove you were with her too, you know. We can get the DNA from her baby, the one that was killed when she died. It’ll tell us who fathered the child.’ Guy watched him. ‘You did know she was pregnant?’
Paula stared at the man’s face. Had he known? Was this the person who’d picked Cathy up on that last Friday, the person in the second car? What had happened after that?
Ed gave nothing away. ‘It’s very sad. That’s why the Mission is here, of course, to try to curb these behaviours.’
‘Murder, you mean?’
He shook his head slightly, as if offended by the cheap shot. ‘Pre-marital sex.’
‘That’s rich coming from you. You’re twenty-five, are you, Mr Lazarus?’
‘I am, Inspector. Good detective work.’
‘Shame you have to sniff round teenage girls then. The older ones not interested?’
Ed gave a high, girlish laugh. ‘Grasping at straws, Guy?’
Guy looked back at the mirror and Paula saw something in his eyes.
Help
. Whatever it was, she didn’t stop to think, just picked up a blank sheet
of paper from the printer and hurled herself through the door. Even Ed Lazarus looked momentarily thrown, before slipping back into his usual smug mask.
‘Sorry, sorry, Inspector, Mr Lazarus.’ She caught a flicker of hate in the man’s gaze. ‘I just wanted to give you this. Notes from Miss Goldberg’s interview.’ She slid the blank paper across to Guy.
Thank God, Guy had picked up on what she was doing. ‘Oh, I see. Well, that’s very interesting, isn’t it? We’ll have to ask Mr Lazarus how it fits with his story.’
Ed’s voice was like a knife. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Nothing, nothing.’ Guy folded the paper and handed it back to Paula. ‘Thank you, Dr Maguire.’
Ed glanced between them. ‘I think there’s been some kind of . . . Look, I’m fond of Madeleine, of course, like a sister, part of God’s family, but – I should tell you, she doesn’t always tell the truth.’
‘Oh?’ Paula looked mock-confused. ‘But she said the same about you. So who can we believe?’
He snapped, ‘I wouldn’t believe the person with scars all up their arms, for a start.’ He stretched out his hands, as if to prove they didn’t shake. ‘Maddy’s very unstable. Just look at her records – she was sectioned three times in her teens. I told our leaders she shouldn’t be working with children, but her parents had put up serious money for her to be let in the programme. Her adoptive parents, I should say. And that’s another thing: what kind of person comes all the way across the world to confront some woman who gave her away in the first place—’ He stopped himself. ‘Just do your jobs, will you? Ask
her
where she was that Friday. I told you I was with ten other people until late in the evening. They’ll all vouch for me. What I didn’t see was Maddy at that meeting. She was ill, apparently. She told me she had a doctor’s appointment.’
Guy frowned. ‘Yet when questioned,
you said all the staff were at the meeting.’
‘I was trying to protect her. I gathered her appointment was something . . . delicate.’
Guy looked at Paula. ‘So you’re saying Maddy’s a liar?’
Ed said, ‘Of course she is. I don’t know what she’s said, but it isn’t true.’
Paula couldn’t stop herself. She said, ‘I guess you do prefer little girls then, like Majella says. Or is she a liar too?’
The man’s face was smooth as marble, and then suddenly he was out of his chair and she was backing into the corner and he was right in front of her, hands on the wall beside her head. Guy scrambled up and tried to pull him off but Ed didn’t move. He watched Paula from those cool eyes, and lifting one hand, passed it in front of her face. In the background, dimly, she heard Bob shouting into the main station: ‘Lads, a bit of back-up here!’
‘You’re damned,’ Ed said softly. ‘Whatever you do, however many you find, you’re damned, Ms Maguire. Because of what’s in
here
.’ For a second he rested his finger on her chest, between the second and third buttons of her shirt.
Then, with a wrench, Guy had dragged him back to his chair. ‘Sit! You’ll be in the cells for this.’ Paula leaned gasping against the wall, sucking in air as if the man’s hand had been made of stone.
Ed Lazarus didn’t turn a hair as Guy gripped him in a restraint hold. He just watched Paula with his green eyes. ‘Your heart’s eaten up, Paula. You think everyone’s the same, but it’s you who’s damned. You can never put the past behind you. You can never get away from it.’
She felt strong arms. ‘Come on.’ It was Gerard Monaghan, surprisingly gentle, moving her out of the room and shutting the door behind them.
‘You all right?’ He watched her
keenly as she drank down a strong cup of tea.
‘Yeah. Yes. I mean, it’s happened before.’ As part of her doctorate Paula had spent a year working in a high-security mental hospital, a fact she reminded herself of now, as she tried to calm her breathing. She’d been through much worse. So why could she not stop shaking?
‘You’ve had a shock. Sit down.’
She found herself obeying Gerard’s gruff order, legs folding under her. Jesus. Those green eyes, staring into hers . . . Nothing in them, no humanity. She felt cold even though the creaky ceiling was spewing out heat.
‘Thanks, Gerard. And I’m sorry – I’m sorry I did it again.’ Was there any point in apologising when she actually didn’t think she could stop being this way?
He shrugged it off. ‘It’s good you brought her in, the Goldberg girl. She definitely knows something. You should get home, you’re in a state.’
She shook her head. ‘There’s too much to do. We’re getting close now.’
They both looked up; Guy was standing over them. ‘Are you OK?’ His expression was unreadable. ‘Gerard’s right, Paula,’ he went on. ‘You should go home. I can’t have you around Lazarus after that.’
‘You’re not going to let him go?’
‘We might have to. We don’t have much. Even the phone records – the number he gave Majella doesn’t match the one Cathy was calling when she went missing. Likely he’s been using pay-as-you-go, then switching sims. Smart bastard. Even if we show he fathered her child, it’s no proof he’s behind Cathy’s disappearance.’
He wanted her out of the way, she understood. She was annoying too many people. ‘I can’t go home,’ she said after a moment. ‘I have to do something. Is there nothing to do?’
Guy thought about it. ‘Go back to the school and see what you can get from Cathy’s friends. There’s a good chance Majella Ward isn’t the
only other girl he slept with. Find out who else.’
‘OK. Thank you.’ She tried to read his face again, but he was turning away, shoulders stooped with worry.
Paula stood at the entrance to the gym,
looking in at the girls. ‘What are they doing?’
Beside her was Sarah Kenny, the English teacher, her face hidden by the cloud of curly hair that fell over it. ‘They’re rehearsing a play for the prayer concert in town, on Hallowe’en. Is something wrong, Ms Maguire?’
Paula tried to smooth out the frown that puckered her face. ‘It’s just . . . I assumed the concert wouldn’t be going on, after everything.’ She was astonished, if she was honest. A girl who’d gone there had been murdered, another was claiming she’d slept with the leader, and the Mission was still allowed to operate in local schools?
The teacher seemed to choose her words very carefully. ‘We did consult with Cathy’s family. She’d have played a lead role in the performance, so of course we asked them.’
‘And?’ She was aware the question was rude, but couldn’t help asking.
‘They asked for it to go ahead. The Mission was very important to Cathy, they said, and she’d have wanted it to happen, and help other young people who felt . . . lost. There’ll be a dedication read out to her before the concert. It would have made her happy.’
‘I see. Miss Kenny – do you mind if I ask – it was you who brought the Mission to the school wasn’t it?’
The teacher looked surprised. ‘I set up the link with them, yes. My little discussion group, it’s all girls who’ve gone there since the start. The inner circle, I call them.’
‘And you think
it helps them?’
‘Of course. It does wonders for their self-esteem. And isn’t it better than hanging out round street corners, going about with boys?’
The teacher’s face was earnest, watching the girls with pride through the glass of the doors. Sarah Kenny had been Cathy’s form teacher, and she was involved with Maddy Goldberg in a way Paula was sure the church wouldn’t approve of. Maddy had been close to Cathy, she said. How did it all fit together?
‘You think it’s a good place, the Mission?’ Paula asked. ‘Is it judgemental, I mean, if someone can’t live up to the high standards they set? If someone has sinned, say?’
Sarah Kenny did not look round. ‘We all sin, Miss Maguire. Sometimes, what we need is to know we’ll be forgiven.’
‘Hmm. Would it be all right if I watched them for a moment, before I go in?’
‘Of course. It’ll do them good to get used to an audience, before the performance.’
‘Thank you.’ Once Sarah Kenny had loped away on her flat sensible shoes, Paula surreptitiously took out her phone. Hiding behind the glass doors of the auditorium, she punched in Guy’s direct dial. Luckily, he answered right away. ‘It’s me,’ she hissed.
She heard his voice tighten, his usual way of talking to her. ‘Why are you whispering?’
‘I’m in breach of school rules. Listen, I’m up here now, and the teacher says this prayer concert is going ahead!’
‘I’m afraid it’s true, yes.’
‘What? How?’ They had the leader in custody, and still this?
‘Paula. We had to let him go for now. We couldn’t get enough on him. It’s his word against Majella’s, and she’s already said it was consensual, and – well. The PPS aren’t too inclined to trust her family at the moment. Statutory rape isn’t enough to bring a murder charge. Plus his alibi’s rock-solid, we checked.’
Her heart felt
leaden. ‘So he’s going to get away with it. Again.’
‘Maybe not. You’re at the school, right? Well, see what the girls will tell you. They’ve got to trust you, Paula. Everything’s resting on this. Get them to trust you and you’ll find something to hang him with. I’m sure of it.’
She tried again. ‘But surely – surely Cathy’s family can’t want this going ahead? I mean, if there’s even a chance he might have been involved in her death – if we can prove he fathered her baby . . .’
Guys sigh was like a gust of desolate wind down the line. ‘Paula. Eamonn Carr was the one who got him out. He came down here half an hour ago, all lawyers blazing. I’m sorry. The family are backing the Mission all the way. Unless you get something off those girls, there’s nothing we can do.’
On the stage, a figure moved forward into the light. The curtains were closed against the weak October daylight, and the gym was almost transformed. Under Paula’s feet were ghostly hoops and swirls that marked out courts, like a dance diagram. Or a crime scene.
‘You’re here to be judged.’ Paula jumped for a second, before realising it wasn’t addressed to her. The play had started. ‘You haven’t lived by God’s rules. You’ve sinned.’ The figure on the stage was revealed to be a girl, dressed in a white robe. She spoke clearly and confidently.
‘But everyone else was doing it!’ Another girl stood in the middle of the stage, also robed. From a distance, hooded, you could only tell them apart by their height. Her voice was more stilted, as if she’d memorised the lines whole.
‘If you want to be loved by God, you have to give yourself up to Him. You have to renounce sin.’ The first girl thundered the words. ‘Do you give yourselves?’
‘I give
myself.’
‘I give myself.’
‘I give myself.’
They came forward – seven more girls, bringing the total on stage to nine. The one who had sinned knelt down in front of them and in a circle they surrounded her. Cathy, who would have been the tenth, had been buried under a granite stone in the local graveyard. Paula kept back in the shadows, feeling prickles along her neck. What was she seeing? Amateur dramatics, or something worse?
‘We give ourselves.’ They spoke perfectly in unison, though there was no teacher leading the chorus. The girls moved in and out in patterns. Each one knelt down in a line, and put back their hoods. The sinner was isolated, alone with her head bowed.
She saw the moment when they saw her. The invisible chain that linked their rise and fall, which almost seemed to glisten in the air, suddenly ruptured. They looked up, frightened to see an observer, and murmurs broke out.
She was standing by the door, and she hit the panel of lights by her head, watching them blink. ‘Sorry, girls. I’m afraid I need to talk to you all again.’