Little Girl Lost Read online

  She heard a thudding echo from her father’s room, and his voice. ‘Lucy? Is that you?’

  Lucy prevaricated, reluctant to face him and yet aware that she had no choice.

  She knocked lightly on his door and went in. The room was in darkness, the curtains already drawn, dulling further the weak light that filtered into the room from the distant street lamps.

  ‘Is that you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lucy said. ‘I’m back.’

  As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw his hand extending from the bed, grasping in the air for her hand.

  She moved over and sat on his bed, deliberately keeping her hands in the long centre pocket of her hooded top.

  ‘Are you OK, love?’ he asked.

  She looked at his face in the shadows, at the movements of his lips. Against her wishes, she imagined him forcing himself on a fourteen-year-old girl, imagined the hand now flailing in the air looking for hers, tugging at the young girl’s clothes. She placed her hand over her mouth, turned her face from him.

  ‘Where were you, love?’

  ‘Out,’ Lucy said. ‘I was at the hospital.’

  ‘Are you OK? Were you hurt?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lucy said. ‘I found Janet. She told me.’

  Only the irregular rasping of her father’s breath, as he processed all the meanings in what she had said, broke the silence of the room.

  ‘She was fourteen,’ Lucy stated. ‘She said she was fourteen. Is that true?’

  Even the breathing had stopped now. Lucy held her nerve as long as she could, but eventually turned to look at him, to see if he was still with her.

  A tear ran down from the corner of his eye to his temple, then onto the cloth of his pillowcase.

  She felt his hand moving across the bedclothes, taking hers. She pulled away sharply. ‘Don’t touch me,’ she snapped.

  She got up quickly and went next door to her room. The sounds of her father sobbing could be heard through the wall.

  However, he did not call for her again that evening.

  CHAPTER 40

  She was aware of a pounding on the door. She glanced at her clock; it was not yet 7 a.m. The light seeping in through the high window of her room was grey and still. Again she heard the thudding and the rattle of the letter box.

  Lucy jumped out of bed and moved to the top of the stairs. Through the frosted glass of the panel in the front door, she could see a bulky figure. His face seemed to be partially covered, as if a scarf covered his mouth.

  Keeping to the sides of the stairs, she crept down. She’d left her personal protection weapon in the sitting room. She was just crossing the hallway when she heard the rattle of the letter box again. She turned to see two eyes staring at her through the gap.

  ‘Miss Black,’ the voice said. ‘I’m going to fix your wall. I didn’t want to scare you.’

  Lucy picked up her coat and put it on over the T-shirt she had worn to bed. She opened the door as far as the safety chain would allow.

  A middle-aged man stood on the step. What she had taken for a scarf through the frosted glass was, in fact, a beard. He held a bottle of white spirits in his hand. A tin of whitewash sat on the ground beside him.

  ‘I’m Dermot. I live across the street.’

  Lucy followed the direction he was pointing in. The third house up on the left, an MPV in the drive, and an assortment of children’s toys scattered around the front lawn.

  ‘The missus sent me over to fix your wall. We were talking last night – the neighbours and all – and we’re disgusted at what they wrote. I’ll get it off for you before too many people see it.’

  Lucy widened her eyes to prevent them filling. ‘I don’t … I mean, that’s really kind of you.’

  ‘No bother. Go in or you’ll catch your death. If the writing won’t come off, I’ll have to whitewash the whole gable. Is that all right with you?’

  ‘Fine,’ Lucy said. ‘Look, thank you so much.’

  ‘It’s no problem,’ he said. ‘Just so you know none of us around here hold with this nonsense. And the wife said to tell you to call over for a cuppa if you’ve ever got an hour to kill.’

  And with those words he conferred on her a sense of belonging she had not felt since she was a child.

  She was making Dermot a cup of tea when she heard thudding from above. Her father frequently did this in the morning when she was up and he still in bed, thumping on the floor of his room with a walking stick to summon her. Despite understanding the necessity for it, she could not help being irritated by it, more than ever this morning.

  ‘What?’ she called up.

  She heard the soft mumbling of her father’s response, but could not discern the words.

  ‘I’ll be up in a minute,’ she said, not caring if he heard.

  When she’d finished making tea for herself and Dermot, she carried it out to him. He had given up trying to clean off the paint and instead had begun a first coat of whitewash on the gable end.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he said as he explained it to her.

  ‘I’m sorry you’re being put to this hassle. Your wife is very kind. You both are,’ she added quickly. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t made more of an effort to meet my neighbours.’

  The man nodded towards the upper storey of the house. ‘You have your hands full. Everyone understands that.’ He placed the tea on the windowsill and dipped the roller into the tray again. ‘Besides, it means I’m missing feeding time at the zoo over there. Given the choice …’ He laughed, then set to painting again.

  Lucy went back into the house and mounted the stairs slowly to her father’s room. She was dreading this morning more than last night, knowing she would have to face him in daylight. Worse still, she would have to do so with them both aware of the shared knowledge of her father’s crime.

  She pushed the door open, recognized the familiar warm smell of her father’s room. She moved across and drew the curtains, opening the window on tilt to let in some fresh air.

  ‘Morning, love,’ her father said, watching her motionless from the pillow, following her progress around the room only with his eyes.

  ‘Daddy,’ she said, busying herself with lifting his clothes and sorting out clean from dirty.

  ‘Who was at the door?’

  ‘The man across the street.’ She hesitated, unsure whether to remind him of the events of the previous night. However, she knew that if he saw the man working on their wall, he’d demand to know why. ‘Someone painted on the wall last night. He’s covering it.’

  ‘Who?’ he asked loudly.

  ‘Dermot somebody.’

  ‘Oh, him!’ her father commented, his mouth pinched.

  ‘He’s fixing the wall for us,’ she said, stopping what she was doing and looking at him for the first time. ‘You should be thanking him.’

  He stared at her, guilelessly. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it.’

  Of all the responses she had expected, this was the one she had not counted on. Her father was behaving as if nothing had happened, as if she had not told him that she knew about Janet.

  ‘What are you doing today?’ he asked, pushing back the covers as if to get up. He stopped suddenly and blushed, quickly pulling the duvet back over himself.

  ‘Will you give me a minute, love?’

  Lucy glanced at him suspiciously. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I … I’ve had an accident.’

  Lucy moved across to him and pulled back the covers again. His pyjama trousers were sodden, the sheets almost transparent with damp, the pattern of the mattress beneath visible.

  ‘Get up and I’ll change it,’ Lucy said irritably, pulling up the lower edge of the sheet from beneath the bottom end of the mattress. She heard a subdued sob and looked up at her father. He sat, staring at the patch on the bed, his face smeared with tears.

  ‘I’m sorry about that, love,’ he said. ‘I … I’m sorry.’

  He pushed at his legs ineffectually with his hands, as if trying to peel
off the trousers.

  Lucy struggled to stop herself from offering him words of comfort. ‘Get up and I’ll change it.’

  He shifted off the bed and stood looking at her. ‘Are you angry at me for this?’ he asked, placing his hand lightly on her back.

  She shuddered at the touch and moved away from him to the other side of the bed to remove the sheet.

  ‘What do you think I’m angry about?’

  She stared at him standing slumped before her. His pyjama jacket hung open, the fine wisps of grey hair visible above his shirt, the shapes of the bones of his neck and upper chest protruding through his pale skin.

  ‘I … I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know?’ she repeated quietly, aware that Dermot was still outside and the window open.

  Her father shook his head, his mouth hanging slightly open.

  ‘Janet,’ she said, balling the sheet up on top of the bed. She looked up at him expecting to see a flinch, some acknowledgement of his guilt or remorse.

  ‘Who’s Janet?’

  She stopped what she was doing, placed her hands on her hips. ‘Don’t give me that, Daddy. We talked about her last night.’

  His mouth opened and closed wordlessly. ‘Last night? I … did we talk last night?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lucy said in exasperation.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Janet.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, simply, more in acceptance than recognition.

  ‘Do you remember Janet?’

  The old man stared at the floor. Finally he shook his head. ‘Is she a friend of yours?’

  Lucy moved towards him, holding his stare, trying to read the sincerity of his responses.

  ‘Who’s the prime minister, Daddy?’ she asked.

  His eyes glazed, the reflected light from the windows sparkling across their surface. Finally his gaze lowered. ‘Prime minister,’ he repeated to himself over and over. ‘I can’t … I don’t … I don’t.’ He sat on the bed, his arms hanging by his sides, the tears running freely down his cheeks. He stared up at her bewildered. ‘Where’s Lucy?’ he asked.

  The doorbell rang downstairs.

  ‘Get out of your pyjamas,’ Lucy said. ‘I’ll be up again in a second.’

  She went down and opened the door, expecting it to be Dermot saying he was finished. Instead, Sarah King stood on the doorstep.

  ‘I’ve slept on it,’ she said. ‘I’m here to work.’

  CHAPTER 41

  The mid-morning traffic on the road to Strabane was quiet. She had called Fleming and explained that her father had taken a turn for the worse. She needed to find a care home for him. He had told her to take as long as she needed. Neither of them mentioned the discussion in Travers’s office the previous day.

  If she were honest, she felt a degree of relief in her father’s deterioration. Even if he did not recall Janet, she could not forget her or what she had said. This way, she was putting her father into care because he needed it, rather than because she could not countenance living in the same house as him. She considered telling Fleming what he had done; he was a child abuser after all. But if his state that morning were any indication, it would be a futile exercise. He would never face trial, would probably not understand what was happening to him anyway. What justice would that serve? she reasoned. She even half convinced herself that she was right in that assessment.

  The first place she contacted had given her an appointment for one o’clock. It gave her time to return Alice’s teddy bear first.

  She switched on the radio and caught the start of the ten o’clock news. Travers was speaking at a press conference, updating the media on the state of the Kate McLaughlin case. They were, he insisted, very close to finding her and had indeed located two different spots where she had been held. He named Peter and Alan Cunningham as the two men in custody who were helping police with their inquiries, which Lucy read as a euphemism for them knowing nothing but were being held to convince the public that the police were on the job.

  She was able to find her way to the house unaided this time, though she did take a few wrong turns along the way. Melanie Kent opened the door, still dressed in her bedclothes, her hair hanging in wet straggles as if she had just showered.

  ‘Yes?’ she asked, her head held sideways, clearing her ear of water. Then she recognized Lucy. ‘Oh. It’s you.’

  Lucy held out the teddy bear in offering. ‘The hospital asked me to return this.’

  Melanie Kent took it, muttered a thank you. ‘You’d best come in,’ she said, standing back to allow Lucy past.

  Alice was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV when she went in. The girl looked at her when she entered and, for a moment, Lucy feared that her memory of her was a bad one. Instantly though, the child beamed and ran across to her, hugging her legs lightly, then resumed her position on the floor. A blue character on the TV, speaking in squeaks and grunts, waved a red blanket at the viewer. Alice returned the wave.

  ‘Will you have tea?’ Melanie Kent asked.

  ‘Only if you’re making it,’ Lucy replied. ‘How has she been?’

  ‘Fine.’ The woman stood with her back to Lucy, filling the kettle. ‘She still isn’t saying anything. The psychiatrist has seen her since. She says your story must have triggered some memories of the night her fath … Peter died.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  She dismissed the apology with a light wave of her hand. ‘She said it would be good. It might help her begin to process what she saw. Help her deal with it.’

  ‘I was so annoyed with myself,’ Lucy said. ‘I didn’t want to do anything which might hurt Alice.’

  Melanie nodded with understanding. ‘I never thanked you for saving her in the wood,’ she said awkwardly. ‘Milk or sugar?’

  ‘Both,’ Lucy answered. She glanced in again at Alice. The programme had ended, the blue man sailing into the darkness in a small boat.

  Melanie handed her a mug of tea, laid a plate of biscuits on the table.

  ‘It is hard to know what it must have done to her to find that girl in his basement, isn’t it?’

  Lucy nodded, her mouth was dry when she spoke. ‘We think Alice let Kate McLaughlin out of the basement, into the woods. I think your husband died because his associates thought he was trying to cheat them. Kate was missing and he didn’t know where she was. The only way he could have saved himself was to blame Alice …’

  Melanie Kent placed her tea on the table. ‘And to save her, he needed to take the blame himself.’

  Lucy nodded. ‘I don’t know if that helps.’

  Melanie smiled sadly. ‘I think it makes me feel worse.’

  Lucy was about to apologize when she noticed that the children’s programme had ended. A news bulletin was showing the press conference. Two pictures, one of each of the Cunninghams, were displayed on the screen. Alice was watching the two, without reaction. Considering how she had reacted to the story of Little Red Riding Hood, Lucy considered it strange that the child should show no reaction to the images of the two men believed to have been involved with her father.

  ‘Do you know those men, Melanie?’ she asked.

  The woman leaned forward in her chair to get a clearer view of the television. She shook her head. ‘Should I?’

  ‘They weren’t friends of Peter’s, were they?’

  Again she shook her head.

  Lucy had a thought and excused herself. She went out to the car and, opening the passenger door, found the files Fleming had been looking at the day they had found Janet. She shuffled through them until she found a picture of Kevin Mullan. She took it back into the house. Melanie Kent stared at her suspiciously.

  ‘Do you recognize this man?’

  She laid the picture on the table. Melanie Kent glanced at it once, then shuddered.

  ‘Kevin Mullan,’ she said. ‘A bad animal.’

  ‘Do you know where I might find him?’ Lucy asked.

  Melanie did not get a chance to answer,
for they were interrupted by a stifled cry from Alice. She was standing to Lucy’s left, looking at the picture of Mullan, shuddering.

  ‘What’s wrong, love?’ Melanie Kent said, moving to comfort her.

  Alice stared at the image of Mullan’s face.

  ‘Are you OK, love?’ Melanie Kent repeated.

  ‘Do you know this man, Alice?’ Lucy asked.

  The girl stared up at her, then nodded, once.

  ‘Did you see him with your daddy? At the house?’

  Alice nodded again.

  Lucy put the picture away, then hunkered down to Alice’s level. ‘Was he the wolf, Alice?’

  Alice glanced across at where the folder lay, then returned her gaze to Lucy.

  ‘Is he the wolf?’ Lucy repeated.

  Another nod.

  ‘It pretty much confirms that she saw Mullan killing her father,’ Lucy said.

  ‘It doesn’t actually,’ Fleming countered, taking a seat behind his desk. ‘It confirms that she saw him at some stage during her time in her father’s house, not that he killed Kent himself.’

  ‘We know she saw her father before he died. She had expirated blood on her clothes,’ Lucy said. ‘That means he was alive when she was with him.’

  ‘I can read evidence, Lucy,’ Fleming commented.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ Lucy said. ‘The shrink in the hospital showed me a picture Alice drew. It looks like a doorway and inside was blood red and at the centre was an animal. A wolf.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I think Alice arrived back from hiding Kate and saw what happened to her father. When we were in the house, I could see clearly into the kitchen from the turn on the stairs. I think Alice was in her bed and heard what was happening. I think she came down and saw her father being tortured. I’ll bet if you ask Tony Clarke he’ll find her prints around that section of the staircase. Then I think she went into him as he died.’

  ‘And?’ he repeated.

  ‘It’s just that, if she saw the killer and he learns Alice was there, he’ll go after her. She didn’t know either of the Cunninghams. Mary Quigg gave Alan Cunningham an alibi. They don’t have Kate.’