Little Girl Lost Page 7

  When she followed her in, her mother was already filling black bags with the belongings the soldiers had brought from their house, stuffing them in unceremoniously.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Lucy asked.

  Her mother continued working, pausing only to push back a stray strand of hair from her face. She glared at the girl for a moment.

  ‘Away,’ she replied.

  Within an hour, a black transit van, the windows tinted out, pulled up outside the hotel. By ten o’clock that night, the family were on their way to Antrim. Only as the lights of Derry receded in the distance, did anyone explain to Lucy that, after the attack, bad men had threatened to hurt her daddy.

  He did not see Derry again until well after the ceasefire. In some personal act of defiance to those who had driven him out of his home, he moved back to the same area again. Lucy, on the other hand, had not been able to return until just a month earlier.

  CHAPTER 14

  The road out to Maydown from the hospital was still treacherous. The snow overnight had not been quite as severe as the previous night, but the dip in temperature refroze the slush from the previous day, with the new fall going on top.

  Lucy called Robbie as she drove to check for any progress with the Social Services alert, but nothing had been flagged up. The next step, he said, was for her to release a picture of Alice to the press.

  Tom Fleming was already in the office when she arrived, filling the coffee-maker with water.

  ‘Morning,’ he said. ‘Do you want a cup?’

  She nodded. ‘Please.’

  After leaving her coat in her room, she went back into the kitchenette. ‘Who do I speak to about organizing a search?’

  Fleming smiled at her. ‘Me. What do you have in mind?’

  ‘I was thinking of searching the woods where we found Alice. There’s been no response from her parents. I thought maybe we could get a Tactical Support Unit and a few dogs in.’

  Fleming nodded. ‘I’ll put in a request through the Chief Super. It might be worth getting Police 44 to do a fly-over too.’

  ‘That would be great, sir,’ Lucy said. ‘Thank you.’

  Forty minutes later, the responses to the press release began to filter through. Lucy had deliberately withheld a description of Alice’s pyjama top to help filter out crank callers. Still, there were a few callers who suggested that the girl might be a neighbour’s daughter, which she had to follow up.

  She was working at her desk when Tom Fleming knocked at the door and came in.

  ‘Good and bad news,’ he said, frowning. ‘The Chief Super thinks sending in Tactical would be a waste of time at the moment. We don’t know what we’re looking for and the girl’s tracks will be long covered. He also says that the Dog Unit tells him the dogs would struggle to follow a scent with it being so cold and the snow so heavy. They think we should leave a dog search for a day or two.’

  ‘Is there good news?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘Travers agreed to Police 44 doing a thorough aerial search of the woods. If they spot anything from the helicopter, we can send in Tactical Support then.’

  ‘That makes sense, I suppose,’ Lucy said.

  ‘Plus, Michael McLaughlin is doing a press conference today at three. Travers asked him if you could make an appeal at the end of the conference for information about Alice. It’ll get a load of coverage.’

  ‘That’s brilliant, sir.’

  ‘In return, Travers wants us to interview Elaine Grant, the girl with Kate McLaughlin on the night of her disappearance.’

  ‘Why us?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘Officially, because she’s fifteen, she falls under our remit. That doesn’t usually mean we get involved though. I think Travers is keen to keep you involved with the case. He asked for you specifically. I think my attendance will be optional. She’s coming in at eleven,’ Fleming continued. ‘That should give you plenty of time before the press conference.’

  ‘Thanks for your help, sir,’ Lucy said.

  Fleming waved away the comment. ‘If we don’t get a response from some of her family after that, we’ll have to accept that they don’t want her.’

  Elaine Grant arrived just before eleven, accompanied by her mother. Lucy had spent the morning thinking about how she would approach the interview, how best to lead the girl through the events on the evening of Kate’s disappearance. The girl looked older than her fifteen years; her small ear lobes carried several piercings while her hair, ginger at the roots, was dyed black. She glanced around at the objects on the floor, the toy box and bookcases and raised an eyebrow. Her mother stood beside her, her hand on the girl’s shoulder, likewise glancing around the room, her eyes narrowed behind her glasses.

  ‘Please, sit,’ Tom Fleming said.

  The Grants sat side by side on the small sofa while Fleming lifted the box of toys from beside Mrs Grant’s legs and placed them in the corner.

  ‘We normally interview young children in here,’ he said by way of explanation.

  Mrs Grant smiled nervously.

  ‘First time inside a police station?’ Fleming asked.

  Both nodded.

  ‘It’s very simple today,’ he continued. ‘DS Black will ask you a few questions about your recollection of the night Kate went missing. I’m setting up a camera just to record your statement. Is that OK?’

  Elaine attempted to say yes then simply nodded.

  ‘So, you were at the pictures?’ Lucy began as Fleming worked with the video camera.

  ‘Is that the first question?’ Elaine asked.

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose …’ Lucy said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What was the film?’

  ‘Avatar.’

  ‘Was it any good?’

  ‘S’all right.’

  Lucy glanced at Fleming. One-word answers wouldn’t yield them too much information.

  Fleming frowned. ‘Elaine, it might help not to think about this as an interview. We know you are a friend of Kate’s and we just want to know about the night you last saw her. There’s no right or wrong thing to say. Just tell us about your night, who you spoke with, who did Kate see, anything that springs to mind really. We’ll decide what might be helpful from all that.’

  Elaine swallowed, clasped her hands together, pressed between her legs. Her mother sat towards the edge of the sofa, straight-backed, watching her daughter.

  ‘So the film wasn’t great?’

  ‘The boys liked it.’

  ‘Which boys?’ Lucy asked, as she noticed Mrs Grant’s lips purse. Elaine obviously hadn’t told her mother there were boys with them.

  ‘Some college boys. One of them liked Kate. I told her that, but she didn’t believe me. I think he wanted to ask her to the Formal.’

  ‘Does he have a name?’

  ‘Busty,’ she replied, then realized from the expression of the others in the room that the nickname meant nothing. ‘Barry Watson. You can’t speak to him though; he’ll go mental if he thinks I said anything.’

  ‘Did you see Kate with anyone else that night? Anyone stand out?’

  The girl shook her head. ‘We watched the film then headed down the Strand. We’d been asked to a party by one of the boys, but I wasn’t allowed to go.’ The final statement was muttered towards her mother.

  ‘I think she’s too young for boys,’ the woman said, directing her answer towards her daughter even as she addressed Lucy and Fleming.

  ‘So what happened?’ Lucy asked. ‘You were walking down Strand Road …’

  ‘Kate got a text from her dad. He’d told her he’d collect her from mine at eleven, so she was surprised when the message came through.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  ‘Something had come up and he needed to pick her up early. He was parked in Victoria Market car park, up the road from the cinema.’

  ‘What did Kate say?’

  ‘She wasn’t happy,’ Elaine responded diplomatically. ‘She wanted to go to the park.’

  ‘Wha
t park?’

  Elaine glanced at her mother quickly. ‘I meant the party.’

  ‘You said park, though,’ Lucy said. Mrs Grant shifted her body on the sofa towards her daughter. ‘Where was the party?’

  ‘Joanne’s,’ Elaine said irritably. ‘I told you already.’

  ‘So Kate wasn’t happy,’ Fleming asked.

  ‘No,’ Elaine responded, petulant now.

  ‘What did she do?’

  ‘She phoned her dad,’ Elaine said. ‘To see if she could stay out.’

  ‘Did she speak to him?’

  ‘No,’ Elaine said, though she smiled lightly at the memory of it.

  ‘What?’ Lucy asked, sharing the smile.

  ‘It’s stupid,’ Elaine said. ‘Silly stuff.’

  ‘What was it?’ Lucy asked again. Fleming was watching intently, careful not to break Elaine’s flow.

  ‘It was nothing. She said she was going to phone her dad and give him hell and we all stopped to listen. At the same time she phoned her dad, this gimpy guy walking up the street’s phone rang. We all told Kate he was her dad. It was just silly.’ Still, Elaine smiled fondly at the thought even as her eyes moistened.

  ‘Kate walked up to the car park. I offered to go with her but she said she was OK; she didn’t want me to miss the party.’

  ‘The man whose phone rang,’ Fleming said. ‘Do you remember anything about him?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Elaine said.

  ‘Why did you call him gimpy?’ Lucy asked. ‘You said a gimpy guy.’

  ‘He was, you know …’ She struggled to find the word. ‘He walked funny, you know. Like a limp. Like he was a spastic or something.’

  ‘Elaine!’ her mother snapped.

  ‘What? I’m just saying. He limped.’

  Fleming glanced at Lucy.

  ‘Anything else you remember? What was he wearing? What height was he? Colour of hair. Anything?’

  The girl narrowed her eyes as she concentrated. ‘It was too dark to see the colour of anything. He was just normal, I guess. He had on a puffy coat, I think.’

  ‘Did you see his face?’

  Elaine shook her head. ‘He was walking in the other direction when his phone rang.’

  ‘Did he not pass you then as he went by?’

  Elaine considered the question for a moment. ‘I don’t remember. I don’t think so. I’d remember his limp more clearly if he’d come past us. He was behind us when his phone rang.’

  ‘Did you see where he went then?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I think he crossed the road away from us, heading into town.’

  She held her hands out, palms open, glancing from Lucy to Fleming. Neither could think of anything more to ask and a moment later Lucy thanked the Grants for coming and concluded the interview.

  ‘You think he was following the girls, then when she called the phone he had to turn and go the other way?’ Lucy asked Fleming after the girl had signed her statement and left.

  ‘It’s possible. We know McLaughlin’s phone was missing. It makes sense that whoever texted her would want to be close by to see if she took the bait. We’ll check what time Avatar finished in the cinema, then we’ll ask Travers to place a request with the City Centre Initiative for the CCTV footage for the street outside.’

  ‘Why can’t we get it ourselves?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘The CCTV in the city centre is run by the CCI. They monitor it. Any requests for footage have to be made through the Chief Super. They send a feed to the Strand Road station and, if we see anything we need, they’ll make a copy.’

  ‘Why all the hassle?’

  ‘It was the only way the people in the city would accept CCTV in the centre. They were worried it was another form of RUC surveillance. This way it’s run by a local group and people don’t feel like they’re being spied on.’

  ‘Does it work?’

  Fleming nodded. ‘Surprisingly well.’

  CHAPTER 15

  The press conference was to be held in Strand Road station at three, so Fleming asked that Travers request the feed to be patched through to there immediately beforehand.

  As they crossed over the Foyle Bridge, Fleming pointed out the spires of the two cathedrals. ‘One Catholic and one Protestant,’ he explained. ‘There’s a point on the east bank of the city where the two appear to lie in a line. There’s a painting of it back in the station.’

  Lucy had seen the picture on the way into the canteen. She’d actually thought that the painter had moved one of the buildings to make them fit into the same image.

  They moved up Strand Road at a crawl. The area to the left of the road, along the riverbank, was fenced off, though Lucy could see that almost an entire block was missing from the docks, the brickwork of the building piled in rubble against the fence.

  ‘Was that not where the old docks building was?’ Lucy asked.

  Fleming glanced at her. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘I grew up in Derry,’ she said.

  ‘You should have said. I’ve been droning on about cathedrals and you know the place better than me.’

  ‘I was young when I left,’ Lucy said.

  ‘Not that young if you remember the docks building,’ Fleming countered.

  ‘I just remember it was a beautiful big place, even if it was run down.’

  ‘One of the splinter paramilitary groups blew it up.’

  ‘What?’ It was an absurd idea.

  ‘They planted a bomb along the road. We think it was meant to go off when a convoy went past or something, but it must have gone off early. Took the whole front of the building down. McLaughlin had a pub attached to it that was destroyed in the blast.’

  ‘Was that where his wife was killed?’

  Fleming glanced at her again. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘How did he afford to buy the docks building in the first place?’ Even though she’d been a child when last she’d seen it, she could remember the site stretching a considerable distance along the river. She used to see it when she and her parents would come back into Derry on the train. Coming along the far bank of the river on the approach to the station, the train provided a panoramic view of the Cityside.

  ‘He built himself a fortune in property. And, if rumours are to be believed, he’s about to earn even more. One of the local rags ran a story a few weeks back saying he was close to selling that site for £25 million. Rumour also suggests he’s going to relieve himself of some of it at this conference and offer a reward.’

  ‘Is that wise? It’ll bring out every crackpot in the city.’

  ‘He’s hoping the cash will encourage someone to grass. He’s not even interested in arrests apparently. He just wants his daughter back.’

  They arrived earlier at the station than they had expected and Fleming asked the desk sergeant to rustle them up tea before the CCTV feed started.

  He brought them into a small anteroom off the main reception area where a monitor sat on a Formica desk beside an intercom system.

  They chatted for a few moments while they waited for the feed to begin. The screen flickered into life and they saw a paused image of the Strand Road area immediately outside the cinema. The image was clearly taken at night and the time and date on the screen confirmed that it was the feed from the night of Kate’s disappearance.

  A voice echoed tinnily through the small speaker on the intercom. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello?’ Lucy said.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘DS Lucy Black. And DI Tom Fleming,’ she said.

  ‘You’re looking for footage from Strand Road for the 12th, is that right?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lucy said, aware that she was speaking too loudly into the microphone. ‘We know a group of girls left the cinema at around 9.30. They came down the Strand Road, away from the city. A man with a limp was behind them. He crossed the road, we think.’

  The image fast-forwarded on the screen, the groups of people shuffling quickly past. Finally, the image slowed again at 9.30
and played at normal speed. After three minutes, a group of girls could be seen making their way from the cinema.

  ‘Watch behind them,’ Fleming said to Lucy.

  A number of people were strolling behind the group, many of whom had left the cinema at the same time. However, from the edge of the screen, as the girls passed the Chinese restaurant to their left, a lone figure stepped out into the street and began to follow them. A few seconds later the group stopped and the figure, about twenty feet behind them, stopped too. Suddenly he turned and made his way out onto the road in front of a taxi which slowed to allow him to cross, then drove on again.

  ‘Can you focus on the man crossing the street?’ Lucy asked.

  The image rewound a little on the screen then resumed again. This time, the image enhanced as it focused on the man. The man’s face was difficult to see.

  ‘Can you make his face clearer?’ Fleming asked.

  The image paused and zoomed in further, but the man’s face was still partly obscured.

  ‘That’s the best I can do,’ the voice at the other end of the line said.

  ‘Can we see where he goes?’

  The image resumed again and they focused on the man as he made his way across the road. Sure enough, as Elaine Grant had commented, he seemed to limp slightly as he walked. The quicker he moved, the more pronounced the limp became.

  Finally the man disappeared out of the range of the camera, though he seemed to slow to a halt just at the edge of the frame.

  ‘Can you pick up on another feed to see where he is?’ Fleming asked.

  ‘Wait a second,’ the voice replied.

  Fleming looked at Lucy and raised his eyebrows. There was silence for a few seconds, then the voice spoke again.

  ‘I’m sorry. The feed at the top of the street is the one that covers the car park where the girl was taken from. We’ve checked it already for your Chief Super. The camera was disabled about half an hour before the girl vanished.’