Bad Things Happen: when a child goes missing

by K Leitch

  ‘Oh god Trace, I just couldn’t take anymore!’ said Lisa, answering Tracy’s earlier question. ‘On one side I’ve got Mum going on about getting me a job in Daphne’s salon; ha… can you imagine…I would rather poke sharp sticks in my eyes. Or Dad waffling on and on about re-takes, and getting into a good university and making something of myself. What the fuck he thinks I’m going to make of myself I don’t know. I suppose you heard about my disastrous grades?’ Tracy nodded, she had endured an hysterical phone call from her Mum a few weeks earlier; Lisa had barely scraped a couple of C’s, one in art and the other in woodwork of all things, the rest had been U’s. So she could understand her sister’s apathy at the thought of more school work; but on the other hand she could understand her parents wanting her to get some sort of employment. A bored Lisa with time on her hands was not to be contemplated!

  ‘Well then you’ll understand,’ Lisa went on, ‘they just don’t seem to realise that I’m not an academic like you Trace, I’m much more creative and colourful. You are quite happy being stuck in a boring job in a boring village…I need more than that, I deserve more than that.’

  ‘Hang on a minute…’ began Tracy, but she was interrupted by Lisa who was warming to her topic.

  ‘I mean look at you, quite happy to just throw on any old thing in the morning and slob about. You don’t know how hard it is for me, because you don’t have the same high standards. You don’t care if you look good when you go out, why should you? Who’s going to be looking at you anyway, in this tiny village…honestly Tracy sometimes I envy you, it would be so nice just to be invisible you know?’

  Tracy took a long deep breath. ‘Keep calm Tracy, keep calm,’ she said to herself.

  ‘Ok Lisa, but you still haven’t answered my question. What are you doing here, in my house, in this boring little village?’

  ‘I’ve come to stay with you for a while,’ Lisa replied with a kindly smile, as if she had just conferred an enormous treat on her sister.

  ‘Oh lovely,’ said Tracy weakly, ‘and why was I the lucky one? I would have thought that you would have preferred to go to London and stay with Paul and Annie (Tracy’s younger brother and his wife).’

  ‘Well I did think I might do that, but Paul was so rude to me when I asked him, that I decided I would come here instead. Anyway I prefer to come here because I get on so much better with you than I do with that snotty cow Annie; do you know what she had the cheek to say? That after the last time I stayed with them, she would be moving to her mother’s if I put so much as a foot across her threshold. Fucking cheeky bitch, as if I would want to put anything across her precious threshold.’

  Tracy couldn’t help giggling; she came round the table and gave her sister a hug, despite her lack of tact and her enormous ego, Tracy loved the bones of her and she felt a bit sorry for her. Poor little girl who didn’t really fit in with her much older parents and siblings, well she would try and make her feel welcome she decided.

  ‘Bloody hell Tracy you have put on so much weight,’ exclaimed the poor little girl, ‘you’ll have to watch that you know, it’s so much harder to shift once you get past a certain age, and those leggings you’re wearing are doing nothing for you. Remember the golden rule if you are under 5ft, NEVER wear horizontal stripes…looks like I’ve got here just in time doesn’t it?’

  Tracy bit her lip and tried to smile, she had a feeling she was going to be doing a lot of that for the foreseeable future, and she hadn’t even introduced Lisa to Simon yet, that joy still awaited her.

  CHAPTER 32 - CARLA

  The next time Carla and Ted saw Owen Marshall, he had been cleaned up and was lying between snowy white sheets in a hospital bed. All the clothes that he had been wearing at the time he was found had been sent over to the forensic labs; in the hope that they might provide some clues as to where he had been kept for the last week. The most disturbing thing about those clothes was that they were covered in blood; in fact Owen himself had blood on his hands and face. At first it had been assumed that it was Owen’s blood, but that was soon ruled out because apart from his feet, which were badly cut up as a result of his trek through the woods barefoot, there was not a scratch on him. So they could only surmise that it must belong to the girl that had held him captive, Mary Brown, which meant that somewhere, out there, she was either injured or dead.

  So now Carla had a new search to concentrate on; Owen was not well enough to tell them where he had been kept, even if he had been talking, which he wasn’t.

  Not even when Susan and Gordon Marshall had rushed sobbing into the hospital room and gathered him into their arms, or when his little sister had been put up on the bed beside him…not a word had passed his lips. He held onto his mother’s hand with a painful grip though, and would not let her leave his side.

  It would be a while before they would be able to properly interview the little boy, he had contracted a nasty chest infection and was very ill, so it was still a mystery as to why he, in particular was taken. Of course it could be just as simple as the fact that this Mary was a nutter, who had fixated on Owen when she had been in the Marshall household, but Carla didn’t think so. There had to be another reason why Owen, out of all the 5 year olds in Kenley village had been targeted. But she wouldn’t know that until she found Mary, so that must be her priority, that, and finding out how all of this was connected to the shooting of Terry Dobson in the Glory Woods.

  She called her team back to the station, and set up a new white board in the briefing room. Still at the top was the picture of Owen Marshall, despite the fact that he had been found Carla was convinced that everything revolved around him. Underneath that picture, was one of Terry Dobson smiling and giving a ‘thumbs up’ to the camera, and the one of Mary with Duncan’s grandparents. Next to that was the photo fit image that the police artists had come up with, of the stranger that Duncan had spoken to on the evening before Terry had been shot. He had said that he had been a tall, smartly dressed man, probably in his forties who spoke with an Irish accent. Carla needed to try and find him; surely someone else in the village had seen him at some point, it wasn’t like it was a big place!

  As she was briefing the team, Mandy came in and gave her a message; the Garda headquarters in Cork had tried to call her and a Detective Sergeant Farrel had left a message for her to get in touch. Carla wrapped things up. ‘So Frank can you get on to the forensics team again and find out if they have managed to get anything from the clothing yet, also if they have any DNA matches. Ted any news on the shotgun?’ at Ted’s negative she went on, ‘Well can you get another couple of bods out there searching those woods, it has to be there somewhere, also can you ask around the camp about Mary, maybe some of them knew her better than others, she might have mentioned the Marshalls at some time…I know I’m grasping at straws, but you never know.

  ‘Sam, you and Carol, door to door I’m afraid,’ at their groan, ‘I know, I’m sorry but someone had to have seen this man and that’s got to be our best way of finding out more about him.

  Right you all know what you’ve got to do, it is wonderful that little Owen has been found safe and sound, but a man has been killed and the girl that kidnapped that child is still out there…this is not finished yet I’m afraid, so let’s get cracking.’

  Carla went into her office and shut the door. She dialled the number she had been given for Detective Sergeant Farrel, it was answered immediately, ‘Hi Detective Farrel, this is Detective Inspector Carla Right…um you asked me to call?’

  ‘Oh yes, hi there…um you made some enquiries a couple of days ago about a woman called Mary Brown?’

  ‘Yes that’s right, have you got anything for me?’

  ‘Well I think I might have, only the name I have for her is different so I’m only going on the likeness in the picture you emailed me, but I’m pretty sure this is a girl that is known to us as Mary O’Bruin. The O’Bruin family is a large one and we have had dealings with most of them at some time over the years.’
/>   ‘What kind of dealings?’ Carla asked

  Detective Farrel let out a short laugh. ‘Oh well now, everything from petty crimes, like shoplifting or setting abandoned cars on fire, to aggravated burglary, GBH you name it. They’re not what you’d call a functional family; and there’s not one of them that wouldn’t sell his granny if the price was right, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘They sound charming,’ said Carla, ‘but that doesn’t seem to fit in with what her employers said about Mary; they were under the impression that she came from a strong catholic family, ruled with a rod of iron by the grandmother.’

  ‘Ha! Well they have the rod of iron bit right; old Orla O’Bruin’s never spared the rod as long as I’ve known her, nasty bit of work she is. The number of times we’ve had to get social services involved when she’s been reported for knocking those kids about…’

  ‘Where does Mary fit into the family?’ interrupted Carla.

  ‘She’s Dougal’s daughter, Orla’s second son; he was the worst of the lot of them, vicious bastard. He had two children Mary and a son called Craig, who was a right chip off the block, even nastier if anything. Even Orla didn’t mess with him too often. He was heavily into drugs and prostitution; he ran a string of girls that he kept in a house just outside Cork. It was registered as a boarding house, but everybody knew it for what it was…at one time I think Mary was one of those girls…’

  ‘What! His own sister?’ interrupted Carla shaking her head in disgust.

  ‘Oh yes, like I said they would sell anything and everything for money, including their own family. We raided the house a few times, arrested some of the girls and a few punters but nobody would ever testify against the O’Bruin’s. So they would just lay low for a while, wait for the dust to settle and then start up again. Craig O’Bruin is probably known to you guys over in England as well; he has a couple of aliases he goes by…um John O’Leary and Declan O’Shay are a couple that we are aware of. You might be able to get more on him under those names.

  Why are you interested in Mary? She was probably the least offensive of all of them, I seem to remember her being mixed up in some sort of tragedy, and I think she lost a baby or something. Last I heard she’d managed to get away from the family, went over to England to find work…um Birmingham I think.’

  ‘Oh I didn’t know she had been in Birmingham; but she did find work, looking after an old couple in a gypsy camp. She left there about 18 months ago and moved here to Kenley in Surrey. We are enquiring about her because we have reason to believe that last week she broke into a house, and kidnapped a five year old boy.’

  She heard the detective’s sharp intake of breath, ‘Are you sure it’s Mary you want? That doesn’t sound like her at all.’

  ‘Well we are pretty certain, we’ve got CCTV pictures and a witness that saw her that night carrying the child, so yes, I think she did it. The child has been recovered thank goodness, but we still need to find Mary, not least because it looks as though she may have been injured in some way. The boy’s clothes were covered in blood, none of it his own, we can only assume that it belongs to whoever was holding him. But also because it looks like she may have been involved in the death of a Terry Dobson, one of the gypsies that lived in the camp that Mary worked in.’

  ‘My god she has been busy hasn’t she; well I haven’t got much on Mary herself, like I said she was more of a victim than anything else, but I’ll send all that I have over to you Detective. And I can only wish you good luck, sounds like she’s got herself mixed up in something really nasty this time…oh well what can you expect from a family like that!’ he finished with a sigh.

  ‘Thank you Detective Farrel, um I don’t suppose you happen to know where she stayed in Birmingham do you? Could be useful in case she decides to try and make her way back there.’

  ‘I don’t I’m afraid; but I might be able to find out for you, leave it with me, and I’ll see what I can do.’

  Carla thanked him and rang off. He was as good as his word and within seconds he had emailed through file upon file to do with the O’Bruin family; including a picture of Mary taken a few years ago and, even though she looked younger, there was no doubt that this was the same girl. So Carla settled back in her chair and started reading.

  While she was reading Mandy popped her head around the door of her office, ‘That Duncan McKinny is on the phone Ma’am, says he’s managed to get Mr Finny out of his van and he needs to speak to you urgently!’

  CHAPTER 33

  ‘There are no words to describe the joy and relief that we feel to have our little boy safely returned to us. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the police for their hard work, and also the people of Kenley for the many hours of searching that they did, even when there seemed little hope left. Owen is doing well although he will have to stay in hospital for a few more days. Susan and I are counting down the days until he can finally come home.’

  Susan switched off the TV; she’d seen that interview so many times and she hated looking at it. Gordon looked even fatter and smugger than ever, and she just looked dreadful. They had been caught by the TV cameras as they had left the hospital a couple of nights ago. Susan had spent the day there holding Owen’s hand. He still hadn’t spoken a word, but the way he just stared at her spoke volumes. He was begging her to keep him safe, make the nightmares go away. He wanted her to promise him that nothing like that would ever happen to him again. She didn’t know what her son had been through, and her imagination was not her friend at the moment, but she was determined that he would recover from this. She would spend the rest of her life making sure of it.

  She got up wearily from the sofa and headed for the kitchen, it was getting dark outside and she still hadn’t thought about what to make for tea. Gordon would be back soon; he had just gone to pick up Hannah from his parents. She had elected not to go with him; relations between her and Millicent were as bad as ever, despite giving in to Millicent’s demands and letting them have Hannah for the last week. Really that woman, she was getting worse! Even during the most horrific weeks of their lives, when Owen could have been lying dead in a ditch somewhere for all they knew, she had to bring up all her old gripes about not having anything to do with the children. How she had missed them being born, how Susan’s mother had “emotionally blackmailed” Susan into going over to stay with her while she was pregnant, so that she, Millicent, had missed out on all of it. And how, even now, the kids saw more of Fiona than they did her…oh my god woman, change the record!

  She had no idea of how hard it had been back then, how much they had suffered in order that Millicent and Bernard got their perfect family… stupid cow, sometimes Susan wished she could tell her.

  She took some sausages out of the fridge and began separating them to put in the oven. It would have to be sausage and mash tonight, that was all that there was in the fridge. She found some old slightly soft potatoes and had started peeling them when the door bell rang.

  ‘Bloody hell Gordon, how many times have I told you…’ the words dried on her lips as she opened the door and stared into a face that she had hoped she would never see again.

  ‘Hello Susan,’ he said, ‘long time no see.’

  She tried to push the door shut but he had put his foot against it and he pushed it back open with his shoulder, forcing her back into the hall. Susan stared up at him in disbelief.

  ‘What…um I mean… what are you doing here, how did you know where I lived?’ she spluttered, hanging onto the door frame for support, as the blood rushed to her head.

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask me inside? That’s not very polite is it? Especially as I’m an old friend,’ he pushed past her and went through to the living room, Susan followed panic rising up inside her.

  ‘No!…No you can’t come in…I mean what do you want? My husband will be back any minute so please leave.’ She was babbling now, her brain didn’t seem to be working properly. He just smiled at her and sat down.

  ‘Cup of
tea would be nice…no sugar,’ he said looking round. ‘Nice place you’ve got here Susan; must be worth a few quid, good part of town, large garden out back, you’re not going to get much change out of half a million I’m thinking, am I right?’

  Susan just stared at him, she seemed to be rooted to the floor and her mouth had stopped working. Just when she had got through what had to have been the worst week of her life, she was looking into the smiling face of the man that could bring her whole world crashing down around her all over again. She felt sick with panic.

  ‘Please,’ she begged, ‘please don’t do this…I’ve only just got my baby back…please,’ she was crying now, she sat down opposite him her head in her hands, ‘please,’ she said again.

  ‘Oh come on Susan there’s no need for all this drama, I’m sure we can come to some sort of arrangement…after all you seem to be doing well and I’m not a greedy man…fifty thousand should cover it.’

  ‘Fifty thousand! You must be mad; I could never get my hands on that sort of money. You don’t understand all of this,’ she spread her arms out to indicate the house, ‘is mortgaged to the hilt, Gordon’s business hasn’t been doing as well as it could have just lately, we just haven’t got it!’

  ‘Oh I’m sure you’ll find a way Susan, you always were very resourceful as I recall…shall we say… um a week. That should be long enough for you to get the cash…just think about what you’ll be losing if I talk, that should be incentive enough I should think.’ He stood up, pulling himself up to his full height in front of her. ‘Well I’m obviously not getting any tea, so I’ll be on my way… but I will be back you can be sure of that.’

  ‘No no wait, please… you don’t understand…I really haven’t got it, I can’t just find £50,000… please listen to me…’