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

by Patricia Gibney

  Lottie put out her hand to steady the old woman, who brushed away the help and flicked a long plastic flint. As the newspaper in the grate ignited, sparks shot out and a flame took hold. Another snarl of wind sent more soot trickling down the chimney. A gust appeared to shake the house to its roots. Should she ask the question or let it die? It would fester if she didn’t ask.

  ‘One last question,’ she said. ‘You mentioned Tessa was in cahoots with a guard. What were they involved in?’

  ‘Let me think.’ Picking up the poker, Kitty thrust it into the grate, moving the logs about. ‘The two of them eventually signed Carrie’s life away.’

  Holding her breath for a moment, Lottie exhaled as she said, ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Parker, are you sure you want me to answer that question?’ Two crystal eyes shot a look at her.

  ‘Yes,’ Lottie said.

  ‘I think you already know the answer,’ Kitty said and replaced the poker in the companion set. ‘Sometimes knowing is worse than not knowing. Can you understand that?’

  ‘I’m not sure, Kitty. I’m honestly not sure of anything.’

  ‘Well then, my dear, I think I’ve said all that I’m going to say. I’ll show you out.’

  Seventy-Two

  Detective Larry Kirby sucked hard on his e-cigarette, wishing he had never started the thing. A cigar, a nice fat Cuban. Yeah, that would be nice. He thought of Mick O’Dowd and how he had given him one the morning of the fire.

  ‘You know, Lynch,’ he said, ‘I’ve been thinking.’

  ‘You know, Kirby,’ she said, ‘that’s a dangerous thing.’

  ‘This Mick O’Dowd character. I can’t figure him out at all. If he had something to do with the fire or the drugs found there, wouldn’t he have been five hundred miles away at the time rather than reporting it and sitting waiting for us with no alibi other than his blasted cattle?’

  ‘Maybe it’s because he had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘But then Emma is killed on his farm and he disappears.’ He took a deep pull on his e-cig and let the vapour exit through his nostrils. Catching Lynch raising an eye, arching her eyebrow, he said, ‘And don’t even think about telling me to stop smoking this.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to. But I hope Superintendent Corrigan doesn’t arrive,’ Lynch said. ‘Back to Emma. If she went to O’Dowd’s voluntarily, then she thought she was safe there. So there has to be some connection between Emma’s family and O’Dowd, and the only thing I’ve found so far is his name in brackets next to Tessa’s on Marian’s family tree.’

  ‘That and the fact that the cottage he owned once belonged to Tessa Ball. Wait a minute.’ Kirby stood up and rooted through files on his desk. Not finding what he was looking for, he started thumping his keyboard. ‘Here it is.’

  ‘Here what is?’

  ‘There’s a map accompanying the folio number for the cottage.’

  He stood beside the photocopier that doubled as a printer.

  ‘Come on. Come on.’ He tapped his foot on the floor, as if that would speed up the process. ‘Here.’

  At his desk he lined up the pages of an outline property map. Lynch joined him to examine it.

  ‘That’s the folio number for the cottage.’ He pointed to the plot of land where the cottage was situated. ‘And that there is O’Dowd’s farm. We can assume he owns that. So why did Tessa transfer to him the piece of land with the cottage?’

  ‘Maybe because it was next door to him and she wanted a few quid, and he wanted to expand?’

  ‘But he didn’t expand. A drug king from Dublin moved in. Started a cannabis grow house.’

  ‘Perhaps he was fed up with farming. Wanted to branch out.’

  ‘That means he knew about the illegal activities. So why not let someone else report it when it went up in flames? That’s what’s stumping me.’

  ‘He reported it because he didn’t know what was going on. Maybe Tessa maintained overall control.’

  ‘Used him as a patsy?’

  ‘Yeah. Look and see who owned the farm before O’Dowd.’

  ‘I can’t see it from this. I’ll get back to land registry… Wait a minute, Lynch.’

  ‘What now?’

  Kirby pointed to the map on his screen. Dragging the mouse, he zoomed in. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘That there is Lough Cullion. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed,’ Lynch said, sitting forward.

  ‘And there is Dolanstown, O’Dowd’s farm, the cottage.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘And that, on the other side, is Carnmore.’

  ‘I think I see where this is leading.’

  ‘Marian and Arthur Russell lived in Carnmore. And the land backs on to Dolanstown. Not accessed by road because of the new road. But the two are back to back.’

  ‘What’s that?’ With a pen in her hand, Lynch pointed to a square on the edge of Carnmore.

  ‘A big house?’ He zoomed in. ‘Feck this.’ He closed off the screen, brought up Google Maps. ‘That’s better.’ He keyed in Carnmore. ‘Okay. This is what you were looking at. It is a house.’

  Lynch read from the screen. ‘Farranstown House.’

  ‘I recognise it.’ Kirby said. ‘I’d better ring the boss.’

  ‘I’m the boss.’ McMahon strode into the office, wet coat dripping water from his arm. ‘What is it I need to know?’

  ‘With all due respect, sir,’ Kirby said, ‘it’s nothing to do with the drugs angle. Just a little digging we were doing into land ownership. Nothing for you to concern yourself with.’

  ‘That is tantamount to insubordination. You had better tell me.’

  Seventy-Three

  The windows were as old as the house.

  Kitty leaned on the window seat, pressing her face against the glass and looking out at the red hue tinting the darkness until the tail lights of the car disappeared at the end of the drive. As the black veil of night descended again, she withdrew back into the living room. The fire was struggling to ignite, but she wasn’t concerned enough with the cold to bother with it any further.

  With the aid of her stick, she left the room and hobbled down the stone-floored hallway to the kitchen. In the darkness, from memory and by touch, she made her way to the phone hanging on the wall beside the bolted door that led to the old cellar.

  Lifting the receiver, she hit the speed-dial button and waited for the pick-up.

  ‘I can’t lie for you any more. I think the prophet of doom is landing on your shoulders as we speak. I’m sorry.’

  She hung up before there was time for a reply.

  Still in darkness, she pulled back the bolt on the cellar door, flicked on the light switch and stared into the space below. Could she make it without falling head first? But she needed to destroy what was down there. The only evidence the guards could use to make sense of everything.

  Her spine pained her more than her knees. She could make it down, but would she make it back up again? And if she didn’t, there was no one to come looking for her.

  Switching off the light, she locked the door.

  ‘Another time,’ she said, and listened to her voice echoing back at her from the icy walls.

  Seventy-Four

  Lottie entered the office with Boyd behind her.

  Sensing a stand-off, she said, ‘DI McMahon, just the man I need to have a word with.’

  He indicated the office with no door, and she followed.

  ‘What is it you want?’ McMahon said, all pretence at congeniality lost in his tone.

  ‘I wanted to get an update from you on how your side of the investigation is progressing,’ Lottie said.

  ‘I didn’t come down in the last shower of rain.’

  ‘Looks like it from here.’ Why did she have to say what she was thinking?

  ‘Detective Inspector Parker, first your detective out there, the one who badly needs a haircut…’

  ‘Kirby?’

  ‘Yes. First he insults my intelligence, and now you�
��re doing the same.’

  ‘You have a nicer team up in Dublin, do you?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I’m treated with the utmost respect.’

  ‘Well then, why don’t you piss off back up there?’ No going back now.

  ‘What… what did you just say?’

  ‘I said, why don’t you—’

  ‘Stop right there.’ He was out of his chair and standing in her space. ‘I want an apology this instant or I’m on my way to your superintendent.’

  ‘Good. And you might ask Superintendent Corrigan when this refurbishment is going to be completed. I’m itching to get back into my office.’

  Lottie felt the backdraught of hot air as McMahon rushed past her out of the doorless space and through the main office, heading for Corrigan’s.

  ‘You handled that well,’ Boyd said sarcastically.

  ‘Don’t you start,’ Lottie said.

  ‘Can I have your attention for a minute.’ Kirby clicked his keyboard.

  ‘Fire away.’

  Pulling her chair across, Lottie inched in beside him and forced herself to concentrate on what he had to show her. But her mind was in turmoil. She’d been out of line, allowing McMahon to rile her. But she couldn’t dislodge the image planted in her brain by Kitty Belfield. A pregnant Carrie King’s terror of Tessa Ball. Had the past caught up with Tessa? Where was Carrie King now, if she was still alive? Where were her children? And did Lottie even believe the half of what Kitty had said?

  ‘Tell me what I’m looking at.’

  Pointing with the tip of his biro, he said, ‘That’s O’Dowd’s farm. The small square is the cottage.’

  ‘How many acres is the farm?’

  ‘According to the land registry, it’s two hundred and fifty acres. But that’s not what I want to show you.’

  ‘I’m waiting.’ Lottie leaned in as Boyd peered over her shoulder.

  ‘That’s Farranstown House,’ Kirby said.

  ‘What is?’ Lottie asked, knitting her brow in a frown.

  He clicked the mouse to zoom in. ‘Farranstown House is situated on another five hundred acres, leading down to the shores of Lough Cullion. Following me so far?’

  ‘I think so,’ Lottie said.

  ‘The land on the other side of Farranstown House is where Tessa Ball lived before she signed her home over to her daughter, Marian Russell.’

  ‘So let me get this straight,’ Lottie said, holding up her hand to halt Kirby. ‘It’s possible that at one time all that land had been part of the Farranstown estate.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘And we didn’t twig how close the Russell and O’Dowd places were, because the land is accessed by two different roads,’ Lottie said, realisation dawning on her.

  ‘Never entered into the equation,’ Boyd said.

  ‘If all this land was at one time owned by the Farranstown estate, when was it broken up and sold?’

  ‘Does it even matter to our investigation?’ Boyd asked.

  ‘Besides the drugs angle being pursued by McMahon,’ Lottie said, ‘we haven’t come up with anything else. But this might be another way to approach it.’

  ‘You’ve lost me,’ Boyd said, stretching and walking back to his own desk.

  Lottie put out a hand to call him back. ‘Whoever owned Farranstown also held all that land. Now, Mick O’Dowd owns two hundred and fifty acres and the burned cottage. The portion of land on the other side of the manor house contains two houses. One was originally Tessa Ball’s, where Marian lived, and the other is where Bernie Kelly lives. Kirby, does Bernie own her house?’

  ‘I’ll find out,’ he said. ‘What difference does it make?’

  ‘We know Tessa signed over the cottage to Mick O’Dowd. What if she owned the land on the other side also?’ Lottie pointed to the screen. ‘How would a town solicitor acquire all that wealth?’

  ‘Kitty Belfield told us her husband inherited Farranstown House,’ Boyd said.

  ‘Right. If the Belfields owned the whole lot, what are we talking about in terms of size? Almost a thousand acres? That’s a lot of land for—’

  ‘A small-town solicitor,’ Boyd said.

  ‘O’Dowd told Kirby that the family who originally owned the farm left for America forty years ago…’ Lottie stopped mid sentence. ‘That’s around the time all the trouble was going on with Carrie King.’

  ‘Who’s Carrie King?’ Lynch asked.

  ‘I don’t rightly know, but I intend to find out,’ Lottie said, shoving back her chair and standing up. ‘Unearth everything you can about that land. Go back as far as possible. I want to know who owned, sold, leased or bequeathed every blade of grass on it.’

  ‘I think you’re a bit spooked after Kitty Belfield’s tale,’ Boyd said.

  ‘I am. Will you get me a list of all St Declan’s patients for the last forty-odd years? I want to see what happened to Carrie King.’

  ‘You’re chasing a shadow,’ he said.

  ‘That may be so, but I need to catch up with it before someone else ends up dead.’

  ‘It’s the proverbial wild goose chase,’ Boyd said, lining up his pens on his desk. ‘We have a direct link to a Dublin drug gang and you have me checking out asylum patients who are probably dead by now.’

  Lottie whirled round. ‘There is not one shred of evidence pointing to Marian Russell or her daughter having anything to do with drugs.’

  ‘A hoodie that Emma might have been wearing was found in Lorcan Brady’s house,’ Boyd said. ‘He was shacked up with Jerome Quinn before they were burned. And Marian Russell had her tongue cut out. It all points to criminal involvement in… in something or other.’

  ‘Boyd, you talk pure shite sometimes. Get me an update on those searches for O’Dowd and Arthur Russell.’ As she grabbed her bag and jacket, she heard Superintendent Corrigan’s footsteps hammering down the corridor. ‘And cover for me. I’m out of here.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘To look at land.’

  Running out of the door, she ignored Corrigan’s roar behind her and fled down the stairs and out of the station.

  Seventy-Five

  On impulse, Lottie found herself driving towards O’Dowd’s farm. She wasn’t about to hang around to get a bollocking from Corrigan. McMahon would’ve painted a dim enough picture without her adding to its bleakness. She needed air and time to clear her head. She grabbed at her bag to search for a pill and immediately thought of Annabelle. After she was finished here, she’d call her to see what she’d been ringing about. She threw the bag back on the seat.

  The wind had stolen the crime-scene tape from the gates at the entrance to the farm – it now swung from the bare branches of a tree. She parked up and stepped out carefully, avoiding the mucky puddles. Listening, she found the only sound was the downpour and the wind roaring across the barren fields. The house stood like a lost icon from a museum. Curtains drawn over the grey windows; stonework black from the rain; door tightly closed against the elements and intruders. Too late now.

  Walking around the side of the house, she wondered how Emma was related to O’Dowd. It had to be the reason she’d come here. And where the hell was he?

  At the rear of the building she looked over at the barns and sheds. The SOCOs had completed their work and departed, leaving a trail of evidence easy for the trained eye to see.

  Glancing into the milking shed, she noted the empty stalls, machinery hanging limply. She remembered standing here with O’Dowd as he busied himself with his animals, a raw anger burning beneath the surface of his skin. Why hadn’t she probed deeper? Somehow the O’Dowd she’d met was hard to marry with the younger version she’d learned about earlier. Had his dalliance with Carrie King and her subsequent fate forced him to exile himself to a solitary life with animals?

  ‘They were taken to the mart.’

  Lottie turned round, her heart stopping its beating for a second.

  ‘What the…?’ She took a step back as the tall figure of McMahon loomed out of
the shadows and stood at the open barn doorway. She hadn’t heard his car. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Same thing as you, I imagine,’ he said. ‘Trying to figure out what brought young Emma here.’

  ‘I thought you were convinced everything was drugs-related?’ She stood her ground.

  He stepped closer and leaned one arm on the railing. ‘That’s my theory, but the only thing not fitting in nice and neat is Emma.’

  ‘Thing? You’re a cold-hearted bastard.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  She moved closer to him, deciding to fight this out. ‘If Emma was in a relationship with Lorcan Brady, which I must say I doubt, then there’s your link.’

  ‘That may be so, but I just don’t buy it.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Lottie conceded.

  ‘Will we have a look through the house?’ he said. ‘This place gives me the heebie-jeebies.’

  Lottie caught him eyeing the slatted floor. ‘Not a farm boy, then?’

  ‘City slicker, that’s me.’ He smiled.

  Lottie was no fool. She could see his smile was forced. Despite her misgivings, she led the way to the rear door, digging around in her handbag for the evidence bag containing the key. Putting it in the lock, she glanced over her shoulder. McMahon had moved towards the other shed.

  ‘Are you coming in?’ she asked.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ He indicated the large machine with rotors.

  ‘An agitator,’ she said, recalling O’Dowd’s words.

  ‘Used for what?’

  ‘Stirring shit.’

  He followed her into the kitchen.

  The CCTV monitor had been taken away, as had the accounting books. Specks of dark brown on the table and floor were circled and numbered. They were the only remaining evidence of the trauma suffered by Emma before she was forcibly submerged in a barrel until she drowned.

  ‘Did the killer have help?’ Lottie wondered aloud. ‘If Emma was attacked in here, she’d be a dead weight. She had to be carried outside and then put in the barrel.’