Little Girl Lost Page 3

  Lucy nodded, unsure whether ‘different’ was pejorative.

  ‘You’d no problem getting a transfer to D District. Anyone shy of work doesn’t want to find themselves here.’

  ‘I’m not shy of work, sir,’ Lucy said, smiling. ‘I’m ready to muck in.’

  ‘And how is your father?’

  The shift in focus unsettled her slightly. Was he implying that her work had been affected by her father’s illness?

  ‘He’s not good, sir. I needed to be closer to home for him, sir. It’s why I applied to come here.’

  Travers nodded, smiled with understanding.

  ‘He’s lucky to have you.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘You went in without support this morning, Lucy,’ he said quickly.

  Lucy shifted in her seat. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have, sir. But I thought it might be best to find the girl as soon as possible.’

  Travers waggled a bony finger at her, the backs of his hands covered with grey hair.

  ‘Ah now – you thought it was Kate, didn’t you? Maybe you thought it would do you a power of good if you got her yourself. That’s OK,’ he added, holding up his hand to prevent Lucy’s inevitable protestations. ‘I’d have done the same. You’re ambitious. I like that.’

  Lucy smiled as if in acknowledgement of the accuracy of his comment.

  ‘I wish all detective sergeants were as keen to impress.’

  ‘I wanted to get off to a good start, sir,’ Lucy said, suspecting it was what he wanted to hear.

  For some reason, though, the smile faded slightly, the expression became pained in a pantomime of regret.

  ‘Which makes this move all the more unfortunate,’ Travers said.

  Lucy’s smile froze to a rictus. Was he moving her because she went in for Alice alone? ‘What move?’

  ‘The assistant chief constable has instructed that, as you found Alice and she seems to have connected with you, you should be seconded to the Public Protection Unit for the foreseeable future.’

  Lucy attempted to speak several times before she was able to formulate her words. ‘But I want to be in CID.’

  ‘And I want you here, Lucy. I need bodies like yours on my team.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Lucy said, while not entirely sure the comment warranted gratitude.

  ‘It’s a pity, now, but it’s out of my hands. You’d be perfect CID material.’

  ‘I’d rather be here, sir, if I’m honest. Working with you.’ She almost stumbled on the last words. Did Travers sense this? Realize he was being flattered? If he did, he showed little reaction.

  ‘Don’t be fretting, now,’ Travers continued. ‘I’ll not let you get too far away. I’ll have a chat with the ACC and tell her just how eager I am to have you stay on my team.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Lucy said.

  ‘Besides,’ he added. ‘Tom Fleming runs the Unit there, down at Block 5. He’s a decent spud. I’ll tell him to keep an eye on you for me. Maybe see if he’ll let you throw a hand in with us over here. PPU are involved in the Kate McLaughlin case anyway.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Lucy said again.

  Travers stood, showing that the meeting was concluded. Still he came towards her, shook her hand, held hers in his for a few seconds, the tips of his fingers rubbing back and forth across the skin of her wrist.

  ‘Don’t you be worrying now,’ he said. ‘I’ll do all I can to have you back here in no time.’

  CHAPTER 7

  Her car still parked at the edge of the woods in Prehen, Lucy had had to get a lift to Maydown station with a Response team who’d got a call out to Strathfoyle.

  As a passenger, she had time to look out of the window at the city. It still shocked her how much it had changed since she had left. Then it had seemed on the verge of destroying itself; two banks of the river, two names, two tribes, the schism so great that at one stage a British prime minister had seriously contemplated running the border down the Foyle, bisecting the city with the Cityside in the Republic and the Waterside in the North.

  Now, though, the place seemed to have found its feet. Red brick still abounded, but one by one bridges literal and metaphorical were traversing the river, drawing the two sides closer. The city that had been the birthplace of the Troubles was now being used as an example of accommodation in the quest to solve the issue of Orange parades.

  Craning her neck as they crested the Foyle Bridge, she could see the city, sprawling either side of the broad sweep of the river, caught in a still grey light. Then, they turned left at the roundabout at the end of the bridge and out towards Maydown.

  The Maydown station was an expansive compound, built several miles out of town and housing most of the major units, with the exception of a few CID teams who operated out of the smaller stations around Derry City itself. In addition, it acted as a training college for new recruits. Twenty red-brick blocks were placed around the complex, as well as accommodation units.

  After the Response team dropped her at the front of the station, she’d had to ask directions to the PPU block. The officer on duty at the gate had pointed across the yard to Block 5, warning her to mind herself on the slippery roads as she went. He smiled at her as she thanked him, rubbing his hands together then placing them behind his back to benefit from a gas heater behind him. He winked at her as she left and she felt sure he would be watching her the whole way across, perhaps half willing her to fall, if only to enliven the boredom of his morning posting.

  She began making her way across to Block 5 which was at the back of the compound. Shuffling across the car parks, trying desperately not to slip on the ice and failing, Lucy twice had to wipe loose snow and ice from the backs of her legs and buttocks while the man at the sentry box made increasingly cursory efforts to hide his amusement at each fall.

  She finally reached the main door of the unit. Not yet having the access codes, she buzzed and waited. Shortly, through the mirror foil of the door, she could discern the silhouette of a figure ambling towards her. She regarded herself quickly in the foil, pushed back a strand of hair that had fallen loose from her ponytail when she’d lost her balance. Her face was thinner than it used to be perhaps, but she was small so she was able to carry it.

  She heard five electronic beeps then the door opened. The man who stood in the doorway, squinting at her against the light, was about five ten. He wore blue corduroy trousers and a white shirt, tucked in at the waistband which did nothing to hide the roundness of his belly. His hair was cut short, perhaps to disguise the fact that it was receding anyway. His shoulders slumped slightly as he stood, as might one defeated. He held what looked like a sausage bap in one hand.

  ‘I’m here to see Inspector Fleming, sir,’ Lucy said, offering her hand.

  ‘You’re seeing him,’ the man replied. His grip was warm and strong. His melancholic eyes held hers.

  She stepped past him, letting him close the door behind her. They stood looking at each other. Lucy smiled expectantly, raised her eyebrows in enquiry as to what she should do.

  Fleming smiled lightly in return, still squinting against the glare of the fluorescent lights overhead, their gentle humming the only noise disturbing the quiet of the building.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I’m Lucy Black,’ she said assuming that the name would mean something to him. The blankness of his response suggested this was not the case.

  ‘Yes?’ He nodded encouragingly.

  ‘I’ve been seconded to your unit,’ Lucy said, a little irritably.

  ‘Have you indeed?’ Fleming asked, raising his eyebrows now, though continuing to smile mildly. ‘I wasn’t told.’

  ‘Chief Super Travers sent me down. I found the girl in the woods this morning,’ she added.

  ‘Ahh,’ Fleming said, as if this made perfect sense. ‘I’ll give the Chief Super a call and see what I’m to do with you, shall I? Come in and have a seat.’

  Lucy stopped Fleming before he turned. ‘I was wondering, s
ir, if I might use the phone.’

  ‘Of course,’ Fleming said. ‘I’ll find you an empty office. It won’t be hard.’

  He led her into a small room on the ground floor. Apart from a desk on which sat a phone and a lamp, and an old swivel chair with the fabric on the seat torn, the room was bare.

  ‘Help yourself,’ Fleming said. ‘I’ll be with you in a moment.’

  Lucy sat behind the desk and the chair immediately slopped to one side as the right-hand castor broke from the bottom casing and skittered across the linoleum floor. She lifted the receiver and dialled.

  ‘Daddy?’

  There was silence at the other end of the line. Then, listening closely, Lucy could make out the shallow breathing of her father, the scrape of his stubble against the mouthpiece of the receiver.

  ‘Daddy?’

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘It’s Lucy, Daddy. Is Sarah there?’

  ‘Who’s Sarah?’

  ‘The lady who helps you. Is she there, Daddy?’

  ‘There’s no one here. I’m on my own. Lucy’s not here either.’

  ‘I am Lucy,’ she said, exasperatedly.

  ‘I’ve no breakfast,’ her father said.

  ‘I left the stuff on the table for you, Daddy,’ Lucy said. ‘Your cereal is on the table. And your favourite bowl.’

  ‘I can feed myself,’ her father snapped, suddenly angry. ‘I’m not an imbecile.’

  ‘I know, Daddy,’ she said, swallowing back her comment. ‘I’ll phone Sarah.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I love you, Daddy.’

  The receiver clicked on the other end first, then Lucy hung up. She called Sarah three times before the woman finally answered. The weather had made access to Prehen difficult, she explained. She’d had to park her car down at the hotel and walk up to the house. She was on the incline of Sandringham Drive as she spoke, and was clearly finding the hill a struggle for her conversation was punctuated with laboured breaths and half-finished words.

  Satisfied that her father’s help was at least on its way, Lucy hung up, only to realize that Fleming was standing in the doorway watching her. She was unsure how long he had been there, or how much of the conversation he had heard.

  ‘Is everything OK?’ he asked.

  ‘My father’s not well,’ Lucy said.

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ he said. ‘I’ve spoken with Travers and you’re to be here for a while, I believe. Tea?’

  Lucy followed him from the small office, down the corridor and through a door marked Interview Room. She was immediately struck by the size and airiness of the room, afforded by three windows high up on one wall. The furniture consisted of soft seating and, against one wall, an orange sofa. To one side stood a table with a trainset built on top. A beanbag spilled on the floor from beneath it on which were scattered a number of shabby-looking dolls. On a shelf above, separate from the others, were anatomically detailed boy and girl dolls. Below it, Lucy noticed on a tripod, a small video camera.

  ‘Nice room,’ Lucy said.

  ‘We deal with children a lot,’ Fleming explained, standing at a unit in the corner of the room on which sat a kettle and a few mismatched mugs. ‘We interview them here rather than in the main station. Milk and sugar?’

  ‘Both please,’ Lucy nodded, looked around the room. She was aware of Fleming watching her, though not with the same hunger as Travers.

  ‘This used to be the Care unit. Then they mixed a lot of different units together. We deal with domestic abuse, child cases; anything involving vulnerable persons, I suppose.’

  ‘So what have you for me to do?’

  Fleming looked at her expectantly. ‘Chief Super Travers tells me you’re to be involved with the Kate McLaughlin case whenever possible.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And, you saved the girl this morning. Well done.’

  ‘There was nothing to it, sir.’

  ‘Well, we need to get an ID for her pronto. So until I’m told different by the Chief Super, you can work on that.’

  Lucy raised her eyebrows again. ‘So where do I start?’

  ‘Schools and hospitals,’ Fleming said. ‘Where kids are concerned, always start with schools.’

  Lucy was given a small office on the first floor of the building from which to work. One wall showed the bare paint, flakes missing in places where Blu-Tack had been removed without care. A noticeboard on the other wall held nothing but an assortment of drawing pins and an aged poster on the need to destroy ragwort. Two plastic chairs either side of a desk with an old telephone were the only furnishings in the room.

  Sitting, she took out the list of local schools Fleming had given her and began to ring each one. She’d worked out a description of the child: four three, a slight frame, about six stone, sharp-featured, brown hair, blue eyes.

  She asked to speak to the principal of the first school on her list and, when she answered, explained to her that they had found a child, gave the description, wondered if a child of that description was absent from school, or if she might be able to identify the child. She withheld the fact that her nightshirt had ‘Alice’ written on it, for so far they had not been able to confirm that was her name.

  ‘Can you send me a picture?’ the woman asked.

  ‘Not yet, ma’am,’ Lucy said. Pictures would not be released for the first twenty-four hours.

  ‘You’re not giving me much to go on,’ the woman said.

  ‘It’s all we have. Do you have any children matching that description absent today?’

  ‘Have you looked outside?’ the woman asked. ‘Half the school is off with the snow.’

  ‘Does that description mean anything to you?’

  ‘It could describe any number of our pupils, officer,’ the principal replied tersely. ‘It doesn’t strike me as any one student though. I’ll ask our senior teachers to keep an eye out; if anything comes up I’ll let you know.’

  Lucy thanked her for her help, scored the school off the list, moved on.

  By lunchtime, a pattern had developed. She was halfway down the list and the schools she’d contacted were either closed because of the weather, or were poorly attended for the same reason, and no one was able to help her. One or two principals suggested names which, in the absence of any further progress, would have to be checked.

  Lucy stood up, stretched and stared out at the snow falling again, marking with damp the metal barricade opposite. Finally, she picked up the phone and dialled the switchboard.

  ‘Assistant Chief Constable Wilson’s office, please?’

  ‘One moment.’

  A click. Then the phone rang three times.

  ‘ACC Wilson’s assistant. Can I help you?’

  ‘This is DS Black,’ Lucy said. ‘I’d like to come up and speak to ACC Wilson, please?’

  Lucy was almost sure she heard a snort of derision from the assistant. Even in Belfast, lower ranks didn’t get near the top floor; didn’t have the codes to get in; you went through the steps: sergeant to inspector to chief inspector and onwards. A detective sergeant would never get to speak with the assistant chief constable directly.

  ‘Excuse me? Who did you say you were again?’ the assistant asked, her tone veering between annoyance and bemusement.

  ‘Tell her it’s her daughter,’ Lucy said.

  The woman’s tone changed.

  CHAPTER 8

  Lucy crossed the yard again, trying to stick to paths cars had taken to prevent a repeat of her earlier slips. The officer at the gate had changed and this one just glanced lazily at her from over the top of his paper before looking down again.

  In the main building, she took the lift to the top floor, stepped out into the corridor and waited at the double doors. A security camera above shifted its angle slightly and she could see the lens retract as the focus shifted onto her. She looked up at it, resisting the urge to make some kind of gesture. There was no need for anyone to ask who she wanted to see, only one person had an o
ffice on this floor.

  Assistant Chief Constable Wilson had kept her own name after she’d married, which, as Lucy had told her more than once, was handy for it meant there had been no need to change it again when she divorced Lucy’s father fourteen years earlier. Lucy, who’d been thirteen then, had stayed with her father. At the time, she’d believed it was her choice; now she understood enough about custody cases to know that if her mother had wanted to keep her, she’d have been with her regardless. That she allowed her to stay with her father told her all she needed to know about the woman and their relationship.

  The one benefit of having a different surname from her mother was that no one would make the connection between them. She assumed that at some stage someone would find out, and then the news would spread, but at the moment no one realized they were related. She’d told one colleague in Belfast during a drunken evening in the Empire. Then, when she got her promotion to detective sergeant, it had been brought up again. No surprises that she’d got promoted. Wasn’t her mother the ACC?

  She did not mention that, ironically, her mother was the person least likely to do her any favours.

  So, upon moving to Derry, she told no one and was grateful that she did not have to carry her mother’s name, nor the attendant weight of expectation that would have brought.

  She heard the beeps of the access code being entered on the other side of the door and it swung back to reveal an anteroom. A middle-aged woman with platinum blonde hair and large hoop earrings swished back towards the desk while motioning that Lucy should go on through the heavy oak door facing her.

  Inside, her mother’s office was almost the size of the complete PPU unit across the yard. The room seemed to have been split into two, then left open plan. As she entered, on her left Lucy could see a large meeting table, around which were placed a dozen leather seats. A water dispenser squatted in one corner. A door near it lay ajar and Lucy guessed it was a toilet.

  Her mother sat at a mahogany desk, with two small windows high on the back wall behind her. Such windows were a vestige of the Troubles when stations used small windows, in case of sniper fire, to reduce visibility of targets and also in case of explosion, to ensure less flying glass. As a result, the office was quite dark, not helped by the fact that through the windows, to the west, Lucy could see slate-grey clouds gathering.