The Lost Child: A Gripping Detective Thriller with a Heart-Stopping Twist

by Patricia Gibney

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘In her own home?’

  ‘No, in her daughter’s house. Marian Russell.’

  ‘That’s a relief.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ Please don’t let her want tea, Lottie thought.

  ‘I’ll make tea.’ Rose filled the kettle and switched it on. ‘I thought she was killed at home. She lived alone. I was worried it might be someone targeting older people.’

  ‘Did you know her well?’

  ‘The state of this kitchen.’ Rose started rinsing mugs under the running tap. ‘Do those girls do nothing at all? I’ll come over in the morning for a couple of hours. And I noticed the washing machine is off, but it looks full.’

  Lottie jumped up. ‘I forgot. I put Louis’ clothes in.’

  In the utility room, she heaved a deep sigh. Why did her mother make her feel so inadequate? Barely two minutes into a conversation and she’d already started. She emptied the clothes into a basket and slowly hung them on the airing rack.

  Back in the kitchen, Rose was sitting down, two mugs of tea and a milk carton on the table.

  ‘So did you know Tessa well?’ Lottie asked again.

  Rose sipped her tea. Eventually she said, ‘No. Not at all. Just through the knitting club. She was involved in a lot of religious societies. Eucharistic minister, she was. Bit two-faced, if you ask me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’ Rose fidgeted with the handle of the mug.

  ‘Mother?’

  ‘Well, she was contrary.’

  Lottie kept her mouth firmly shut. She could use that same word to describe her mother.

  ‘Was she violent?’

  ‘Violent? No,’ Rose said. ‘I mean, I don’t know much about her…’

  ‘Any idea if she had a job at any time?’

  Rose looked around the kitchen before letting her eyes drop back to her mug of tea. ‘I think she might have been a solicitor, back in the day.’

  Lottie raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Problem with you, Lottie, is you think us older folk were always old and never had jobs.’

  ‘I don’t think that. You were an excellent midwife,’ Lottie said, ‘back in the day.’

  ‘How’s the investigation going?’

  ‘It might be a domestic. Her daughter, Marian Russell, was missing.’

  ‘Was? Did she turn up?’

  Lottie wondered how much she could say, and decided the less her mother knew, the better.

  ‘Eventually.’

  Rose stared vacantly at her tea. ‘Maybe something from Tessa’s past returned to haunt her.’

  ‘What…’ Lottie stopped and thought for a moment about what her mother had just said. Could it be that? No. Arthur Russell was her number one suspect, with his wife barely alive in hospital. This was a domestic situation that had spiralled out of control. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

  ‘No? You don’t think, do you? You need to slow down and look after those children of yours and your little grandson. You have responsibilities.’

  Lottie cringed. She wasn’t letting Rose get away with that.

  ‘I have a job to do. I’m the only breadwinner in this family. You should understand that. After all, you had to work after Dad died to put food on the table for me and Eddie.’

  Rose got up, washed her mug and dried it. She put it in the cupboard and without turning round said, ‘I know how things can end up, Lottie. That’s all I’m saying.’

  ‘End up? What do you mean? That one of my kids will go off the rails like Eddie did? I don’t think so.’

  ‘I see the signs. Look what happened to Katie. Look what happened to Chloe. To Sean. Need I say more? Think about your family and start putting them first.’ Rose folded the tea towel over and over until she had one neat square. She placed it on the counter.

  Gazing up at her strong, rigid mother, for a second Lottie could see an image of herself standing there in thirty years’ time. She looked away, staring down at her hands, noticing she had been digging her nails so hard into her palms they had left indented crescents. She wouldn’t let her mother bully her. No. She was tougher than that.

  ‘Mother,’ she began, but when she looked up, Rose had gone.

  Lottie went to the counter, picked up the tea towel and unfolded it. Scrunching it into a ball, she flung it across the kitchen, then sank to her knees. Deep breaths. One, two, three. She needed to regain control. She needed space and time. She needed a drink.

  ‘What are you doing, Mum? Praying?’ Chloe said as she came into the kitchen. ‘I’m hungry. Is there anything else to eat?’

  * * *

  He walked to his car at the end of Windmill Road, phone to his ear.

  ‘She’s at home. The mother just left.’

  He listened, taking further instructions.

  ‘Right so. I’ll follow the old woman to make sure she goes to her own house. And will I continue surveillance back here then?’

  He waited for the reply, then said, ‘Sure, that’s no problem.’

  Snapping shut the cover on his pre-paid phone, he slipped it into his pocket and took out his car keys. Climbing behind the wheel, he folded up the fast-food wrappers, then shifted the car into gear and headed after Rose Fitzpatrick.

  Nineteen

  Alexis put her phone down on the desk. With a freshly manicured nail, she tapped her computer awake, then clicked on the screen so she could see the images in four different squares. One remained black, her own reflection glaring back at her. She turned up her Meryl Streep nose in annoyance and patted her lightly curled grey hair, cut tight at the back with a neat quiff at her brow.

  Why wasn’t that camera working? She pressed a button on her desk phone and asked the question. After a few seconds the square brightened and what she had initially expected to see appeared. All was well in her world, or it would be if people stopped interfering with the past.

  Satisfied with what she’d seen, she powered down the computer, picked up her phone and walked over to the window. It was an expensive office, commanding views of Lower Manhattan. Image was everything for someone in her position. She could afford it. Beyond her reflection in the plate glass, she watched the late-afternoon lights come on and workers head home.

  She turned away and picked up her full-length black coat. Pulling it on over her designer black jersey dress, she buckled it tightly. She liked black. It highlighted her best features – her inky blue eyes. Smiling to herself, she picked up her bag. She knew that some called her the black widow. Didn’t matter that she’d never been married, let alone widowed, but she supposed she was a little like the spider. Dark and dangerous.

  She left the light on. Her secretary could switch it off. Alexis knew the young woman was in awe of her; quite possibly she thought that someone of sixty-six should be retired and joining others of her age in a book club, or even a knitting club.

  She grinned. She knew of one such woman who wouldn’t be going to a knitting club ever again.

  Twenty

  As Rose Fitzpatrick entered her house, she noticed it was pitch dark. She flicked the light switch. Nothing. She opened the drawer in the hall table. Her fingers touched the small torch and she clicked it on.

  The fuse box was above her head. She dragged a chair from the kitchen and climbed up to inspect the trip switches. The one for the lights was down. She flicked it up and the hall light flashed on immediately.

  Throwing the torch back into the drawer, she closed the front door behind her and brought the chair back to the kitchen. Turning on the stove, she idly stirred the large pot of soup, waiting for it to boil. She was getting weary of the nightly soup runs for the homeless. I’m too old for this lark, she thought. But then Mrs Murtagh, who had started the venture, was over eighty and addled with Alzheimer’s.

  When she was happy with the soup, she switched the stove down to simmer and took two chicken breasts from the refrigerator. She placed them on
a baking tray and put it in the oven. One would do nicely for a sandwich when she got back. The other for tomorrow’s dinner.

  It was only then that she realised she had forgotten to take off her coat. She shuffled out of it, and as she hung it up on a hook in the hall, she thought she saw car headlights outside, flashing in through the small V of glass on the front door. She glanced up at the fuse box. Had someone been in her house?

  The lights outside disappeared and she went back to the kitchen, thinking about Tessa Ball. She’d known Tessa years ago, when her husband, Peter Fitzpatrick, was still alive. But that was so long ago it couldn’t have anything to do with Tessa’s death. No, poor Tessa must have been the victim of a burglary at her daughter’s house. That was it.

  She filled the flasks with soup. When she had them all ready, she buttered a couple of slices of bread to make her chicken sandwich.

  Opening the oven door, she stared at the raw meat. She’d forgotten to turn on the oven.

  Not for the first time, Rose Fitzpatrick wondered whether she was losing her mind.

  Twenty-One

  Emma curled up against the wall and stuffed her fist into her mouth to stem her sobs. What was this nightmare all about? Who could have done that to her granny? And now they said her mum was in hospital. Why couldn’t she visit her? Her stomach hurt and her eyes felt like someone had thrown sand in them. She wanted her dad. And she wanted to go home. But that wasn’t possible, so the detective said. Her stupid mother had destroyed her life. Again.

  She heard the front door open. Chatter in the hallway. Then the door closed. Maybe the detective had left. She rolled off the bed and crept to the top of the stairs. Coming towards her was a young woman in a garda uniform.

  ‘Who are you?’ Emma asked.

  ‘Hi, Emma. I’m here for your protection.’

  ‘You can go away. I can mind myself.’ Emma turned back into the room.

  ‘Sorry, but I’m afraid you’re stuck with me for the night.’ The guard hovered in the doorway. ‘I’ll be downstairs if you need anything, or if you’d like to talk.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk to you. Leave me alone.’

  Lying on the bed, Emma pulled the pillow over her face and listened to the muffled footsteps making their way back down the stairs.

  Her granny was dead, her mother was probably dying and her dad was going to be a convicted murderer. Her life was gushing down the drain. Fast. Too fast.

  She really had to speak to her dad.

  There was something he had to know.

  Twenty-Two

  When everyone else was settled down for the night, Lottie was still pacing her bedroom. Three steps one way, three steps the other. She could do with somewhere other than her room. If she lived in a house like Annabelle’s, she would have plenty of space to think.

  At her window, she looked down on the road below. Rain fell in sheets of grey to the ground. Maybe she could go for a run. Wash the cobwebs out of her brain. Don’t be stupid, she admonished herself. She thought about Tessa Ball. Why had she recognised the name? And her mother had known her. Well, that was nothing new. Rose Fitzpatrick knew everyone over the age of sixty in Ragmullin.

  Leaning against the wall, holding the curtain, she nursed the glass of vodka. Secret drinking. She was back there again and she didn’t like it. But she couldn’t help it. Spying the box sticking out at an angle from beneath her bed, she placed the glass on the window ledge and knelt down. Dragging out the box, she lifted the lid. Files, photographs, notebooks. Her father’s pipe. She lifted it to her nose. It was stale and fusty; it didn’t resurrect memories of the smell of his tobacco. It could have belonged to anyone.

  Her fingertips feathered over a small, square, hand-made wooden box with rusted hinges. She knew what was inside but opened it anyway. Two trays of fly-fish hooks. All created by her father’s hands. He would have got on well with Adam. They had both loved fishing. She closed the box and took up an old notebook. Sitting back against the wardrobe door, she reached up to the window ledge for her glass and started at page one.

  She’d been through it so many times recently, she almost knew the words off by heart. Her father’s notes on cases. All solved, as far as she’d discovered from her covert investigations. Had she seen Tessa Ball’s name in this notebook? It had to be somewhere and it must have been something inconsequential, because she hadn’t followed it up.

  And then, more than halfway through, she found it. Belfield and Ball, Solicitors. Main Street. Ragmullin. Neatly inscribed in her father’s schooled handwriting. In the centre of a page, written over a sentence, between two blue lines. She read back over the script. The name of the solicitor bore no relation to the text. Why had her father written it here? Had he been at his desk, taking a phone call perhaps; opened the first thing to hand, scribbled it down to remember for later? She had no idea.

  Taking another sip, she closed her eyes. For the last few months she’d been asking questions. Interviewing old people in nursing homes. People who had once worked with her dad. Now Tessa Ball had died violently and her daughter, Marian Russell, had had her tongue cut out. It might not be related to her dad, but Lottie couldn’t help wondering if she had opened up a can of worms with her private investigation into her father’s death.

  * * *

  Taking the bobbin from her ponytail, Detective Maria Lynch let her hair hang loose about her shoulders. She was sitting in her car outside her home. It was in darkness except for the hall light. Ben usually got the children to bed early, and when she wasn’t home, he’d retire to bed with either work or a book.

  Gathering her phone into her bag, she took the keys from the ignition and wondered about Lottie Parker. During the last two big murder cases they’d investigated, Lottie had made a lot of errors of judgement. Lynch didn’t like being on a team that made mistakes. Okay, everything had worked out in the end and they’d caught the killers, but did that make how they’d reached those positive conclusions correct?

  This case was probably a domestic dispute that had gone south, but Lottie Parker was on edge. And Lynch knew that that was when mistakes were sure to be made. Perhaps it was time to have a word with Superintendent Corrigan. One thing was certain: she was not going to sink on Lottie Parker’s ship.

  * * *

  Boyd had a quick shower after his nightly workout on his turbo bike. Once the rain cleared, whenever that might be, he’d be back on the road with his racer. Pounding tarmac to exorcise the torment of his work.

  Lottie Parker was at it again. He feared for her when she was in this state. She never knew when to stop. He half expected to find her curled up on his doorstep, or for his phone to ring with her babbling incoherently.

  Dressed in a white T-shirt and baggy jogging pants, he sat on his couch and took out his phone, scrolling to Lottie’s name. He wanted to talk to her. To make sure she was sober. But maybe she’d be asleep. He glanced at the time on the phone. 10.22 p.m. No way Lottie Parker was asleep.

  The apartment walls were swallowing him up. He pulled on a pair of trainers and plucked a jacket from the hall stand.

  There was only one place Boyd could go dressed like this, at this hour of the night.

  Twenty-Three

  Lottie opened the door and stood back to let Boyd in.

  ‘The state of you. What do you look like?’ she laughed, then, seeing the serious lines etched on his face, she added, ‘Something wrong?’

  ‘I need a drink,’ he said.

  ‘You’re driving.’

  ‘One won’t kill me.’ He hung his jacket on top of a multitude of coats on the stair post.

  She ushered him into the kitchen, filled the kettle and switched it on.

  ‘Wait here,’ she said.

  ‘Where are you going?’ He leaned against the refrigerator, and she noticed his eyes travelling the substantial length of her legs.

  ‘To put on some clothes.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that. The view is quite good as it is.’

>   She thumped his shoulder and made for the door, glad she’d only had the one drink. ‘I’ll be back in a moment.’

  She returned after a few minutes wearing a hoodie and pyjama bottoms, and carrying a sheaf of papers.

  ‘What’s all this?’ Boyd asked, handing her a mug of tea.

  ‘My father’s stuff. I want to show you something.’

  They sat at the table and she passed over the notebook. ‘See that line there?’ She pointed.

  ‘Belfield and Ball, Solicitors. Right. Are you going to make a will?’

  ‘Belfield and Ball.’ Lottie emphasised each word. ‘You don’t get it, do you?’

  ‘Ball,’ he said. ‘Any relation to our Tessa?’

  ‘Well, my mother told me she used to be a solicitor.’ She put down her mug. ‘Why are you here anyway?’

  Boyd sipped his tea. ‘Missed you.’

  ‘Don’t be an ass.’

  ‘If this Ball solicitor was Tessa, or someone related to her, has it any bearing on what happened to her, or to your father, seeing as the name is in his notebook?’

  ‘I don’t know, and answer the damn question. Why are you here?’ Seeing the look that crossed his face, Lottie wished she could take back her words.

  ‘I just wanted to have a chat with you, that’s all.’

  Lottie bit the inside of her cheek. ‘What you mean is you wanted to check if I was drinking. Boyd, I don’t need a minder.’ She glanced up at her wedding photograph hanging on the wall. If Adam was still around, she wouldn’t be in this situation. She missed him, but she had to let him go. She could live with the memories but not with the ghost.

  ‘Sorry,’ Boyd said.

  ‘And while you’re being personal, you need to sort out your situation with Jackie.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about my ex-wife.’

  ‘You have to proceed with the divorce.’