The Child Catcher (A DI Erica Swift Thriller Book 4)

by M K Farrar

  “Can you see her?” she asked Shawn, who was watching with her.

  He shook his head. “Not yet.”

  There were a couple of children of Chinese descent, but they were too old to be Ellie Dempsey.

  “Wait.” Erica paused the screen. “Could that be her?”

  A small figure was hiding behind the metal bars of a climbing frame.

  Shawn frowned and leaned forward. “What’s she doing?”

  “I’m not sure. Is she talking to someone?”

  “Another child?”

  “It’s hard to tell. Can we get this from another camera, and a different angle?”

  “Let’s see.”

  Shawn took over, using her mouse and computer to switch frames, clicking between the numerous video streams from across that area of the park. They had several other views, but none of them showed behind the climbing frame clearly.

  “Damn it.”

  On-screen, there was suddenly a flurry of movement, children rushing from one side of the playground to another, parents racing in and scooping their children into their arms, pressing faces to their chests to hide their eyes from the horror happening in front of them. Only one set of parents didn’t race onto the screen. The Dempsey family were in a world of horror of their own, momentarily forgetting about their young daughter as Mae Dempsey fought for her life and Jack Dempsey struggled to understand what was happening.

  “Oh shit, look.”

  A shadowy figure emerged from behind the climbing frame. A bundle was held in the person’s arms, but like with the hooded men who’d stabbed Mae Dempsey, this person’s head was also covered in some kind of blanket or wide scarf.

  Erica’s stomach dropped.

  “Did that person have Ellie Dempsey?” Shawn asked.

  She glanced at Shawn’s face and saw instantly that he’d interpreted events in the same way she had. The five-year-old hadn’t run away.

  Someone had taken her.

  They weren’t done with the footage yet.

  “Can we track the person through the park?” Erica said. “Figure out which exit they left through?”

  They still hadn’t watched the actual stabbing, but if this was an abduction case they were now dealing with, time was of the essence.

  “We need to try.” Shawn pressed his lips together. “Could this be a ransom situation? They took the girl for money?”

  “I don’t believe there have been any phone calls received or notes, but we should get someone in the family home, just in case. They don’t strike me as a family with money, though. Didn’t Jack Dempsey say that they’d been arguing over money because he’s recently unemployed?”

  Erica shook her head in confusion, trying to piece everything together. “But why stab the mother first?”

  “To create a distraction. No one spotted the girl being snatched until later, so it worked.”

  Erica exhaled a long breath and tapped her fingers against her lips. “I don’t know. Yes, it worked, but at what cost? Would someone be willing to be charged with attempted murder, or even murder, on top of kidnapping and conspiracy to blackmail?”

  Her heart twisted as it dawned on her what this could mean.

  But Shawn was the one who spoke her fears out loud.

  “Unless they plan to kill the girl anyway, so if they get caught, it would always be a murder charge.”

  “Shit. She might already be dead.”

  He shook his head. “If this is a kidnapping, the first thing we’d ask for is proof of life. They’d know that. If they’ve already killed her, they’d be doing themselves out of whatever it is they want from the Dempsey family.”

  “If it’s not money, then what?”

  “I have no idea.”

  She threw up a hand. “Of course, we’re just speculating. This could be something completely different. We still can’t rule out the possibility that this might be about custody. If Mae and Jack Dempsey are having marital problems, Jack might have figured the easiest way to make sure he keeps Ellie to himself is by getting rid of Mae altogether.”

  “By killing her?” Shawn raised both eyebrows. “So then why have the girl snatched?”

  “To distract attention from himself?” she suggested, though it seemed like a stretch. She turned her attention back to the screen. “Let’s see if we can trace where they’ve taken her.”

  The person moving across the screen walked awkwardly, the blanket over their head and covering the girl as well. But five-year-olds, though small, still weighed a substantial amount when carried over a distance, and the person had to stop and shift the girl’s weight in their arms before continuing.

  “They must have a vehicle nearby,” Erica said. “There’s no way they got on public transport.”

  “We’ll need to get the licence plates of all the vehicles parked around that area.”

  She narrowed her eyes and leaned closer to the screen. “Why isn’t Ellie struggling? If some strange person suddenly picked her up, you’d think she’d fight.”

  “You think she might have known them?”

  “Either that, or they’d done something to her. Drugged her or knocked her unconscious.”

  Shawn shook his head. “Jesus, poor kid.”

  Shawn clicked between screens, keeping track of the kidnapper as they made their way through the park, moving with an awkward gait, and pausing occasionally to redistribute the child’s weight.

  “They’re heading towards the south-west exit. We’re going to need any street surveillance from that exit. If we’re in any luck, we’ll see them getting into a parked car.”

  She shot him a look. “You think it’s going to be that easy?”

  “We can always hope.”

  Besides, getting a licence plate doesn’t always lead to the perpetrator. Cars could be stolen, or a licence plate replaced, or even partly obscured. But it did create a trail, and trails were things they could follow.

  “I’ll put in a request for that footage right away,” Shawn said, getting to his feet and pressing his phone to his ear.

  Of course, there was a second way to find the girl, and that was by figuring out who’d stabbed her mother.

  Erica moved the mouse over to her side of the desk and scrolled back through the park’s CCTV footage. She reached the time right before the attack and clicked through the screens to find the best viewpoint of the couple sitting on the bench. The one from the right was better than the one from behind, but she’d watch both in detail. You never knew what clue they might catch. Something as insignificant as the attacker wearing an unusual brand of trainer could be enough to narrow down a search.

  From the viewpoint on the right, Mae was sitting closest to the camera. The couple were clearly discussing something important. The conversation about money. Mae threw a hand up in the air, shook her head, and subtly shifted away. Erica tried to read their body language. Did it seem like that of a happy couple? For a second, she’d have said not, but then Jack Dempsey took his wife’s hand, and Mae visibly relaxed, her shoulders slumping, leaning into her husband for support. They were both focused on each other, and, other than sitting opposite the park, Erica wouldn’t have guessed they had a child playing on the equipment. There was no anxious watching or straining of a neck to try to spot their child. They seemed very much caught up in each other and their conversation.

  Was that normal, though? Erica tried to think how she acted when Poppy was playing in a park. Was she fully focused on her daughter, or did she get distracted by a phone call, or people-watching someone else? She knew the latter was more than likely true, and Erica would have thought of herself a paranoid person, considering her job. Chris would have been different. He’d have been in there, playing with Poppy, not watching from the sidelines or checking his phone.

  She experienced a pang of grief at the thought of her dead husband, and with it came the sickening twist of guilt she’d grown to live with. She’d lost too many people recently.

  Losing her dad had been
a completely different experience to losing Chris. Where her grief over Chris had—and still was—all-consuming, the loss of her dad was more like a steady undercurrent of everything feeling wrong. Like the ground had been yanked out from under her, a solid base that was no longer there for her to rely on, but no one had told her feet. Although his death had come as a massive shock, in a way it had been expected. His health had been deteriorating for years now. It was the natural progression of things, though that didn’t make it any less heartbreaking. It was strange how she’d felt so overwhelmed trying to balance work, Poppy, and going to visit her dad, but now she no longer had that in her life, she often found herself feeling as though there was something she was supposed to be doing. Something she’d forgotten.

  She’d beaten herself up for a long time after the funeral about how she’d neglected to spend those final few days with him. She’d been so focused on a case that she hadn’t managed to see him, and she’d never be able to get that time back again. It broke her heart, and no matter how much everyone tried to reassure her that he would have been proud that she’d stopped that bastard, Tristan Maher, from murdering any more women, it didn’t negate her loss. She hated how much smaller her world was now. Their little family was constantly shrinking, and the possibility of losing anyone else terrified her. Her sister, Natasha, had done her best to absorb Erica and Poppy into her family, but Erica still felt like an intruder there. Natasha was allowed to have their own family time without her sister and niece as hangers-on.

  Erica shook her head, refocusing on her job. She needed to put her sight on the attacker. Eyewitness reports said that there were two of them and that they’d circled the park beforehand. She’d watch that part in a moment, but first she wanted to see the actual attack.

  Knowing the attacker had come from behind, Erica moved her line of sight from the couple on the bench and watched the background instead.

  Sure enough, there in the distance, were two shadowy figures, one shorter and with a slighter build than the other. Despite the warm day, their hoodies were pulled up right over their heads. She’d have to wait until they got closer before she had any hope of getting a look at their faces.

  On-screen, there was a sudden burst of movement. The shorter of the two ran forward, a large kitchen knife in his grasp. She hit ‘pause’ and frowned and leaned closer. Where had the knife come from? He hadn’t anything in his hand a moment earlier.

  She rewound slightly. There! It came from a large pocket across the front of the hoodie. Something else caught her eye. Something small and white, fluttering to the ground.

  Had he dropped something?

  Movement came behind her, and she turned to see Shawn.

  “The additional footage has been requested,” he said.

  “Thanks. Check this out.”

  She rewound and hit ‘play’, then paused at the part that had caught her attention. “Did you see it?”

  Shawn pursed his lips and nodded. “Something fell out of his pocket.”

  “Do we know if anything was retrieved from this area as evidence?” The spot where they’d started was at least thirty feet from the bench.

  “It’s too soon to get any reports back from SOCO. There was a lot of crap around that area, what with the playground being right there, and so many people out enjoying the sunshine.”

  “Humanity is a messy beast,” she commented.

  “What do you think it could be?”

  “Looks like a screwed-up piece of paper to me.”

  “The name and phone number of his friend?” Shawn said hopefully.

  She gave a small laugh. “Wouldn’t that be helpful. Unfortunately, I doubt it, but if we can find it, it might tell us something, at least. Let SOCO know that we’ve seen something that might be of interest.”

  She hit ‘play’, taking in everything. It was the details that could make the difference between solving a case and letting a killer walk. The figure on-screen ran up behind the couple. He lifted the knife high and charged forward. He brought the knife down, and it vanished into the victim’s back.

  Erica clicked ‘pause’ again. “What do you make of that?”

  Shawn frowned. “Which part?”

  “He hesitated before he stabbed her. It was only for a split second, but he brought the knife down and hesitated, then kept going.”

  She replayed it. “Look. There.”

  He nodded slowly. “Yeah, you’re right. Do you think that might be why she survived?”

  “She’s not out of the woods yet, but it could be a possibility.”

  “It doesn’t tell us much, though.” Shawn shrugged. “So, he lost his nerve slightly. That’s not unusual.”

  Erica picked at a piece of dry skin next to her thumbnail. “Hmm. Maybe, maybe not.”

  It niggled at her, though she wasn’t sure why. She’d think on it. Sometimes things fell into place when she wasn’t even actively focusing on them.

  She hit ‘play’ again. On-screen, the young mother fell, face forward, landing on the path in front of the bench. The knife handle was clearly sticking out from her back. The husband didn’t do anything for a second—just sat there, his hands slightly lifted from his lap—and then he dropped to his knees beside his wife. But Erica’s attention wasn’t on the couple. It was on the attacker.

  He hadn’t turned and run right away, as she’d thought, and as the eyewitnesses had suggested. Instead, he staggered a couple of steps back and glanced over his shoulder towards his accomplice. The other figure pointed in one direction, and that was when the knifer ran. Only a matter of seconds passed, but it was enough to tell Erica something.

  “The second attacker is the one in charge. The first one checks with the other one for guidance.”

  Shawn nodded. “I saw that.”

  “Just like with the stabbing, it was only a moment, but it was definitely there.”

  “What about the child?” he asked. “Could he be checking for some kind of guidance about the kidnapping?”

  Erica frowned. “I’m not sure. It’s impossible to tell from this angle.”

  “They must have a third accomplice because the second person is still behind the bench. They’ve not been near the park.”

  “I haven’t seen any interaction between these two and a third person.” She thought for a moment. “And none of the eyewitnesses have mentioned there being a third person.”

  “We’ve barely spoken to most of the witnesses in depth yet,” Shawn pointed out, “and even if none of them saw anything, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t someone else involved. We know someone took that girl.”

  She let out a long breath and balled her fists on the desk. What was the child doing now? She would be terrified, even if she wasn’t hurt. Going through that situation was horrifying, even as an adult—it was something that Erica had experienced herself, and was still haunted with nightmares because of it—but for a child who didn’t have an adult’s rationale to have to cope in that situation, without any of the comforts of anything or anyone she loved, was unthinkable.

  Chapter Five

  Ellie Dempsey didn’t know where she was.

  Everything around her was dark, so dark that when she lifted her hand and wiggled her fingers in front of her face, she couldn’t even see them. There was a stink in the air, like her towel at home smelled sometimes when she didn’t hang it back up after she’d had a bath and left it bundled up on the floor. Her face was wet, and if she snuck out her tongue, she tasted salt on the side of her mouth. She’d been crying—and was still crying now—though the cries had faded from the frantic wails they’d been at the start and were now hiccupped sobs. The tears still came though, sliding down her cheeks and dripping off the end of her nose.

  She didn’t understand what had happened. One minute, she’d been playing on the climbing frame at the playground, and then someone had come up to her, asking if she’d seen their little dog. They’d said they’d lost it in the park somewhere. But Ellie remembered what she
’d been told by her parents, and at school about stranger danger, but then her mummy and daddy were sitting right over there, on the bench, talking in that weird sad way they always seemed to lately, so it wasn’t as though this really counted, was it? And she hated to think about the poor doggy lost somewhere in the park. The park was really big, like really big. It stretched on and on and on. There was even a lake with actual boats on it. Ellie didn’t like the lake that much, though. It had geese and swans, and she didn’t like how long their necks were, all wobbly and wavy like a giraffe’s. Giraffes were cute and had big eyes with pretty eyelashes, but a swan had beady eyes. Sometimes, the birds looked right at her and opened their beaks, and she was sure she could see teeth. Surely birds shouldn’t have teeth.

  Her best friend at school, Livy, didn’t like swans either. There were lots of things they didn’t like that were the same. That was what made them best friends. Ellie had only first met Livy when they’d started school together last September, but they became best friends right away. Ellie had fallen down in the playground and hurt her knee, and Livy had come right over and helped her up and took her to the teacher. She even sat outside the office with Ellie while the teacher put some cream and a plaster on the graze.

  Ellie suddenly missed Liv with a physical pang that hurt inside her chest. It was the weekend, so she wouldn’t normally even see Livy now, but she still missed her. Would she ever get to see her again?

  She was sitting on what felt like a bed, but it was too low, the spongy mattress directly on the cold, hard floor. Her ankle had a chain around it, with a closed padlock, and the chain was attached to a ring embedded into the concrete floor. She pulled at the metal and yanked the chain hard, but it only dug harder into her skin and made her want to cry.

  She hadn’t wanted to feel around in the dark, to try to see what else surrounded her, so instead remained huddled up in the middle of the mattress, her arms wrapped around her knees, and her knees up to her chest. She kept imagining monsters in the dark, with wrinkled, long-fingered hands with crooked knuckles and clawed nails who reached out to touch her face or snatch at her hair and clothes. The only way she could keep herself safe from them was by keeping as small and still as possible.