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

by M K Farrar

  Muffled calls came back, and she rolled her eyes. They were too caught up with their own thing to come racing to greet her. Headphones on, no doubt, and on some social media app or another. She missed the days when they were tiny and needed her twenty-four-seven. Even though it had been all encompassing and she’d dreamed back then of them having a little more independence, there had been something wonderful about how much she’d been needed.

  “Sorry I’m late. I’ll start making dinner.”

  Unsurprisingly, she didn’t get an answer, and she bet they’d only complain about whatever she dished up.

  Shaking her head, but with a smile of fondness on her lips, she headed into the kitchen to cook.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Yousef waited until he was sure the detectives had driven away, and then he rushed to the front door of the shop, slammed it shut, and drew the bolt across the top, making sure no one else could get in. Then he turned over the small plastic sign from ‘open’ to ‘closed’. It might be the middle of the day, but this was far more important than making sure local customers could pop in for their newspapers or pints of milk.

  The whole time the police had been talking to him, he’d held his breath, his ears straining, terrified they would hear something that would alert them to the fact they weren’t alone in the building. He’d been certain they’d have picked up on the hammering of his heart and read the guilt on his face. When he’d reached for the business card, for a moment he’d visualised his hand covered in blood, and the shop and the detectives had shrunk in his vision, and he’d thought he might pass out.

  What did they know?

  He should have asked more questions about their reason for being here, for wanting security footage of the shop, but it had been all he could manage to make his tongue move and form the words they’d needed as a response. Who was he to start questioning the police about their intentions? He was just a kid.

  A murderous kid.

  No, he hadn’t killed anyone. The woman had lived—he’d seen it on the news—though of course that hadn’t been his intention, and Hashem wasn’t happy that she’d survived. Yousef had failed them and failed himself as well. He hadn’t proven himself. But his time would come, and then he would show his uncles that his existence was important, that he had a reason for being here.

  With the shop empty and the door locked, he hurried to the back and through the rear door to where the stairs led up to the flat above. He hurried up the stairs, through the front door, towards the living room, from where muffled voices drifted out to him.

  “To create the most impact, we need to come from all available directions. After the first strike, they will run, and hide, and we will be waiting for them. We will use our vehicles to—”

  Hashem’s voice cut off as Yousef burst into the room.

  His uncles sat in a circle, their dark heads bent around an old-fashioned paper map spread out across the table, but now they all looked in his direction.

  “The police were here,” he gasped. “Down in the shop, asking questions.”

  Hashem frowned and stood. “What kind of questions?”

  “They want CCTV footage from a couple of days ago.”

  His uncle’s frown deepened. “Why?”

  “They said they want to talk to someone who purchased something at that time.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. They didn’t say.”

  His uncle’s dark eyes narrowed. “What did you tell them?”

  “I told them I only worked here part time, and that I didn’t know how to access the footage. I said I would have to contact the shop’s owner and get him to call them.”

  All eyes turned in Farhad Khadem’s direction, since he was the owner in question.

  Farhad stroked his beard thoughtfully. “They didn’t ask for you to call me?”

  “Yes, she did, but I rang a random number and pretended to leave an answerphone message. Whoever gets it will just assume it was a wrong number.”

  He tilted his head curiously. “She did? A woman?”

  “Yes, a woman detective.”

  Yousef held out the business card the detective had given him, his hand shaking, and Farhad took it.

  Hashem exhaled a breath of irritation. “What else.”

  “They asked for my boss’s contact details, and I said I wasn’t comfortable giving out the number. I-I didn’t know what else to do.”

  Hashem rose to his feet and placed a strong hand on his shoulder. “Do not worry, Yousef. You did the right thing.”

  Something inside him relaxed, but he was still anxious. It wasn’t a good thing to have police asking questions. When the woman detective had walked into the shop, he’d been certain she knew everything and that he’d be arrested and hauled out of there in handcuffs. Then she’d started asking about the CCTV footage in the shop and he realised it had nothing to do with what he’d done in the park. She didn’t know who she was talking to. He’d stumbled over his words, and felt as though he looked guilty as anything, but she’d just seen him as an awkward teenage boy.

  “We don’t know that this has anything to do with us,” Farhad said. “It could be something completely unrelated.”

  Hashem raised his eyebrows. “Do you truly believe that is possible?”

  Farhad pursed his lips. “So, we tell them the footage they are after does not exist. It is recorded over or something. I do not think we should give them this footage. It will not lead to anything good.”

  One of his other uncles, Javad, spoke up. “Isn’t that going to make them suspicious?”

  “They must be after something specific,” Hashem said, “and they know what that is. I say we watch the footage ourselves, and if there is anything on the video that we need to worry about, then we tell them that it has already been deleted.”

  Javad shook his head. “How will we know if it’s something we should worry about? It might not be clear to us, and we hand them something that will help them.”

  Hashem put out both hands. “We will watch it first, and then we will make a decision.”

  Yousef looked between them, his head filled with bright darts of panic. “What if the police decide to search the premises if we don’t give up the footage?”

  His uncle squeezed his shoulder again. “They won’t. They’re just asking questions. They have no reason to search this place.”

  “You can’t know that for sure.”

  “What time and date did the police tell you?”

  Yousef rattled off what the detective had said, and Farhad left the room to go and retrieve the CCTV footage. He returned with a laptop and logged in to where the CCTV was stored to an online cloud, then he brought up the footage. It was black and white, and grainy. The camera was positioned behind the counter, giving a view of anyone who approached. Nothing unusual was happening, people were coming and going, approaching the counter to pay or browsing the shelves nearby. Behind the counter, their weekend girl, Amma, was chewing gum, a bored expression on her face.

  At two forty-eight, one of the uncles, Javad Persi, walked across the shop.

  “There.” Hashem pointed at the screen. “Is that what they’re looking for? They want footage of Javad?”

  “Why would they want footage of me?” Javad said. “And how would they know I was there at that time? Didn’t Yousef say they wanted to talk to someone who’d made a purchase?”

  Hashem jerked his chin. “Keep going.”

  Yousef’s gaze was fixed on the screen, his breath trapped in his lungs. Did he somehow already know what he was going to see? Because it wasn’t even that much of a surprise when he saw himself walk into view on the screen. He stopped at the rack near the counter that held the selection of chocolate bars—the Mars and Twirls and Bounty and Twix—and selected the Mars and a Yorkie. He threw a couple of quid onto the counter, and Amma picked up the money and rang it through the till, before giving him the change nestled within the receipt. He shoved his purchase, together with h
is change, into the front pocket of his hoodie.

  The same hoodie he’d been wearing the day he’d tried to prove himself.

  He sucked in a breath, not daring to make eye-contact with his uncles. Did they see that, too?

  Hashem twisted towards him. “You were there, Yousef.”

  “Yes, I was, but so was Javad,” he said defensively.

  Farhad narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “Why would the police care about Yousef buying chocolate?”

  Yousef’s head grew dizzy with fear. Had he screwed up again? “That might not be what they’re after.”

  Javad agreed. “If they were looking for Yousef, why did they not recognise him when they spoke to him?” He frowned at the boy. “Did you give them your name?”

  Yousef’s stomach sank like a stone. “Yes, I did.”

  “But they didn’t react to hearing it?”

  He shook his head, hope blooming inside him. “No, not at all. They were more interested in speaking to Farhad.”

  Javad shrugged. “Then they must not know who they’re looking for.”

  “But they’re interested in someone,” Farhad said.

  Hashem threw up his hands. “So, what do we do about the police? If we try to get rid of the footage, we could be protecting someone who has nothing to do with us, and we might be giving the police a reason to suspect us.”

  Farhad let out a growl of anger and paced the room. “We do not need this right now. Not when we are so close.”

  “Sit down, Farhad,” Hashem instructed. “You’re not helping anyone by losing control.”

  “I’m not losing control, Hashem.”

  “Maybe we need to bring our plan forward. If the police are sniffing around, we need to act before they do.”

  Yousef’s stomach churned. Bring things forward? He’d thought he had more time. Fear clutched at his heart, but he tried not to let it show on his face. Even more terrifying than the prospect of bringing the plan forward was the possibility of being left behind. If he didn’t have this family, he had no one.

  Javad spoke up. “But even if we bring our plan forward, we’re still going to need to give the police something to prevent them from poking around. What about the cameras from another angle? Is there some footage we can give them where you cannot see either mine or Yousef’s faces?”

  Hashem pointed a finger at him. “That is an excellent idea. If we hand over footage from the other side of the shop, they will be able to see the counter, but only the backs of heads, and it won’t be clear enough for them to make anything out. We will appear as though we are cooperating.”

  Farhad nodded. “That is the plan then. I will contact this woman detective and give her only that.” He reached out to the computer and hit delete on the file that showed both Yousef and Javad.

  Yousef let out a breath of relief and prayed the problem had been dealt with.

  He thought to the photograph of the little girl the detective had shown him. Why hadn’t he mentioned it to his uncles? The child’s face burned on his mind, but he pushed it away.

  That wasn’t his problem, was it? He had enough to worry about.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Erica got the call on the way back into the office to say Mae Dempsey was finally awake.

  She’d been unconscious for more than twenty-four hours.

  Before going into the hospital room in ICU where Mae was recovering, Erica and Shawn stopped to speak to one of the surgeons who’d worked on her.

  “She’s a very lucky woman,” he said. “An inch to the left, and the blade would have punctured a lung.”

  Erica gave a rueful smile. “I’m not sure how lucky she’d consider herself. Her daughter is missing.”

  The surgeon’s eyebrows pulled down in a frown. “Yes, of course. How terrible. I hope you find her soon.”

  “So do we. Do you know if someone has told her about Ellie?”

  “Yes, her husband broke the news to her. Understandably, she was extremely distressed.”

  With every passing hour, the chances of finding Ellie Dempsey grew less. It was still far too soon to lose hope, but even so, she was concerned they didn’t have anything more solid to go on.

  Erica drew in a strengthening breath. This wasn’t going to be an easy interview. Not only was Mae Dempsey recovering from being stabbed, she was also having to deal with the news that her daughter was missing, most likely snatched by the same people who’d stabbed her. Erica knew that if she was the one in the hospital bed, she’d rather deal with recovering from a stabbing than knowing her daughter was missing. How she must be torturing herself, imagining the worst, and picturing poor Ellie alone and frightened, and possibly hurt. Erica considered herself fairly hardened to most things she came across in her work, but when children were involved, it was hard not to let your heart get drawn into the case.

  “Ready?” she asked Shawn as they hovered outside the hospital room.

  Shawn would take notes, while she did most of the talking.

  He lifted his chin in a nod. “Ready.”

  Just as Erica was about to open the door, it pushed open, and Jack Dempsey stepped out.

  “I thought I heard voices,” he said, looking pale and exhausted. “You can come in now.”

  He stepped back as though to bring them through, but Erica stayed where she was. “Mr Dempsey, we’d like to speak with your wife alone.”

  He wrung his hands. “You think she might need to say something about me that she wouldn’t say if I was in the room, don’t you?”

  He wasn’t wrong.

  “She needs to be able to speak freely.”

  He glared between them. “She can speak freely with me there. I didn’t have anything to do with this. How many times do I have to tell you? I love my wife and my daughter, and I’d never do anything to harm them.”

  “I understand that, Mr Dempsey, but this is protocol. I need to interview her alone.”

  “You’re going to upset her. You’re going to put thoughts in her head and make her doubt me.”

  “Not at all. We’d never give your wife reasons to doubt you. We simply need to ask her some questions. Please, Mr Dempsey, just let us do our job.”

  “Your job should be finding Ellie and arresting the bastard who’s torn our family apart.”

  “That’s what we’re trying to do.”

  “Fine,” he relented, though it wasn’t exactly his choice anyway.

  “Thank you.” She offered him a smile. It wouldn’t help any of them to get the family working against them instead of with them.

  She and Shawn entered the room.

  Mae Dempsey was half propped up in bed, a swinging table partly over the bed, containing a drink, a magazine—which Erica assumed would remain unread—and the standard issue bunch of grapes. There was a graze on her cheek and forehead which she’d sustained upon falling forwards onto the path when she’d been stabbed. Her complexion was washed out, even her lips were pale. The only colour was in the violent purple smudges beneath both eyes that were red and swollen from crying. Her black hair hung in bedraggled strings around her face.

  “Mrs Dempsey?” Erica said softly. “I’m DI Swift, and this is DS Turner. We’re the detectives working on your case.”

  “I don’t care who did this to me,” she replied, her voice faint and raspy. “Please, just find my daughter.”

  A tear slipped from her eye and slid down the side of her face. She didn’t even seem to notice or else didn’t care.

  “That’s why we’re here.

  “Do you have any children?” Mae asked.

  Erica nodded. “Yes, a girl just a bit older than Ellie.”

  “Then you can imagine how I’m feeling, Detective. This is the worst thing that ever happened, even worse than being stabbed. If she’s not found, I’m going to wish they’d never pulled that knife out of my back—” Her voice broke, and she collapsed into herself in tears.

  Erica remembered Ashley Ford’s mother saying something similar.
She wished she could say ‘don’t worry, we’ll find her’, but the truth was she couldn’t make that promise.

  “We’re doing absolutely everything we can,” she said instead. “We’re following some leads, and the good thing is that there were plenty of witnesses. This happened in the middle of the day, and someone is going to have seen something.”

  “Tell me.” She looked between them. “I want to know every detail.”

  “I can’t give you every detail, I’m sorry. But know that we’re working tirelessly on finding Ellie.” She took a breath. “I am going to need to ask you some questions as well, though, Mrs Dempsey, just to get a better idea of the reasons why this might have happened.”

  She nodded, suddenly appearing even more exhausted than before, her shoulders sunken, her face haggard. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Just find my baby girl.”

  “Can you think of anyone who would want to take Ellie?”

  “No, of course not. If I’d had any idea, I would have told you already.”

  “What about arguments you might have had with anyone recently? Any fall outs with people?”

  “Unless I upset someone without realising it, no, but even if I had, surely that wouldn’t be enough for someone to stab me and steal my child.”

  Erica gave her what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “Sometimes it’s hard to understand the reasons that people do things.”

  Mae lifted both hands from the bed, helplessly. “I wish I could tell you something substantial, I really do.”

  “That’s okay. What about family? How do you get on with them?”

  “It’s only my mum and dad. I’m an only child. We’re a small but normal family.”

  Erica nodded. “And your husband? What about his family?”

  “He doesn’t really have anyone. No one he’s close to, anyway. He had a couple of cousins at our wedding, but we haven’t really seen them since.” She held up her hand in a stop sign. “And no, before you ask, none of them would want to kid”—she hitched a breath—“kidnap Ellie.”

  Erica was aware her next question was going to be sensitive, so she relaxed her posture further, dropping her shoulders and angling her head to one side. “Mae, right before you were stabbed, witnesses say you and your husband were having a discussion that grew heated. Can you tell me what that argument was about?”