No One I Knew

by A J McDine

  ‘I heard she was having a tough time. I wanted to see if I could help her,’ I said.

  ‘Try the squat two doors down. Tracey might be able to tell you where your friend is. But don’t tell Tracey I sent you or I’ll never hear the end of it.’ The woman put two fingers in her mouth and whistled. The terrier shot inside, and the door slammed in my face before I could thank her.

  I checked the car was where I’d left it before I walked up to the front door of the squat. I should have realised this was the place. The downstairs window was boarded up and an old sheet covered the window above it. The door frame was splintered as if it had once been jemmied open, and a pungent whiff of blocked drains filled my nostrils.

  I knocked, stepping back in surprise as the door opened almost immediately. A woman with heavily kohled eyes and bleached blonde hair pulled back in a savagely tight ponytail stared at me in surprise.

  ‘Who the ’eck are you?’ she exclaimed, plainly expecting someone else. A punter? Her pimp? Her dealer? Frankly, it could have been any of them.

  ‘I’m looking for Niamh.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Not you as well. I told the Old Bill she don’t live ’ere no more.’

  ‘I know. But I need to know where she’s gone.’

  The woman - Tracey - leaned forwards. Her breath smelt of cigarette smoke. ‘You still haven’t told me who you are.’

  ‘Niamh used to look after my little boy.’

  ‘Nathan.’

  My eyes widened. ‘She told you about him?’

  ‘She talked about him now and again, when she wasn’t wasted. She had a soft spot for him, anyone could see that.’

  ‘She did,’ I agreed. ‘And he was really fond of her. We all were. That’s why I want to check she’s OK.’

  Tracey frowned. ‘Well, you’re too late. She moved out weeks ago.’

  ‘You must have some idea where she’s gone?’

  Tracey leaned back against the splintered doorframe, crossed her arms and stared at me with narrowed eyes. ‘And why should I help you?’

  I opened my handbag and reached for my purse. ‘I can give you money.’ I pulled out two twenties and a tenner and offered them to her. ‘Fifty pounds and you tell me what you know?’

  After a beat she nodded, grabbed the notes and slipped them into her bra for safekeeping. She looked over my shoulder to check the street was empty and said, ‘You’d better come in.’

  She led me along the hallway - bare floorboards, blown plaster - to a cramped kitchen at the back of the house. My gaze travelled over the dark brown melamine units, filthy free-standing oven, lurid green and yellow patterned tiles, circa 1970, and the nicotine-stained walls.

  In the corner of the kitchen was a small round table and two white plastic patio chairs. Tracey pulled one out, sat, and motioned me to do the same. She plucked a cigarette from a packet on the table, lit it and took a drag. Blowing a thin stream of smoke out of the corner of her mouth, she said, ‘So, what d’you want to know?’

  I dragged my gaze away from a splatter of red on the wall that could have been blood or tomato ketchup and cleared my throat.

  ‘My little girl is missing. I think Niamh might know where she is.’

  ‘Why the ’eck would Niamh know that?’

  I couldn’t be sure how much Niamh had told Tracey, so I changed tack. ‘How long has she lived with you?’

  Tracey pulled on her cigarette. ‘’Bout a year. I said she could doss for a few nights, but she ended up staying. Truth was, I felt sorry for her. She was a nice kid.’

  ‘Why did she leave?’

  Tracey took another drag of her cigarette. ‘She wanted to get clean and go home.’

  ‘To Ireland?’ I said, surprised.

  Tracey nodded. ‘She was always going on about the place like it was fucking paradise. Kent was a shithole, but County Cork was El bloody Dorado.’ She stubbed out the cigarette in a chipped saucer by her elbow. ‘But she said her mum and dad still thought she was a good Catholic girl, and good Catholic girls don’t use, and they sure as hell don’t work the streets, which is why she wanted to get clean before she went home.’

  ‘Did she? Get clean, I mean?’

  Tracey nodded again. ‘It weren’t pretty, but she did it. I wouldn’t have believed she had it in ’er, to be honest, but she was a determined little bleeder once she got something fixed in ’er head. She left here as clean as a whistle ’bout a month ago.’

  ‘But she never went home,’ I said. ‘I spoke to her mother yesterday. She hasn’t a clue where Niamh is.’

  Tracey lowered her gaze. I couldn’t shift the feeling she was hiding something. I leaned forwards, my elbows on the table. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

  She fidgeted in her chair and then shrugged. ‘Perhaps she started using again.’

  ‘But you don’t think so, do you? Where did she go?’

  Tracey sighed and said, ‘She was going home, yeah. But she said she had some unfinished business to see to first.’

  ‘What kind of business?’

  ‘I dunno. She never told me, all right? She just said she needed to stay in Kent until she’d sorted it.’

  I took a shaky breath. It was obvious what Niamh meant. She wanted her daughter back. The daughter she happily handed over three years ago. Only Immy wasn’t hers to take. She was mine.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ‘Can you show me Niamh’s room?’ I asked, jumping to my feet.

  Tracey took another cigarette from the packet and lit it, sucking so hard her cheeks hollowed. As she exhaled, she shook her head. ‘I’ve got someone coming any minute. You need to make yourself scarce.’

  ‘Just a quick look,’ I said, pulling another couple of tenners from my purse and pushing them into her hand. ‘Please?’

  ‘What’s the point? There’s nothing to see.’ She frowned. ‘Hang on a minute, you said your daughter’s missing. Is that why you’re here? You think Niamh’s got something to do with it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said truthfully. ‘But I have to make sure, do you see?’

  Tracey took another long drag. ‘I suppose you can have a quick look,’ she said, shrugging. ‘But you’re wasting your time.’

  I followed her upstairs, my eyes swivelling left and right. Damp washing hung limply from the bannisters and the floor was littered with old shoes, newspapers and crushed drink cans.

  ‘’Scuse the mess,’ Tracey said, kicking an empty wine bottle out of the way. ‘This was Niamh’s room.’

  She pushed open a door, stepping aside to let me in. It was a tiny room dominated by a large window that looked onto the back garden, although calling the rectangle of weeds, rubble and broken fence panels a garden was an overstatement.

  Apart from a single stained mattress on the floor, a solitary pair of fishnet tights and the remains of a KFC bargain bucket that was green with mould, the room was empty, and the air was fetid, as if it hadn’t been disturbed for weeks.

  My shoulders drooped. There was nothing to suggest Immy had ever been here.

  ‘See?’ Tracey said. ‘You should’ve listened to me and saved yourself twenty quid.’

  I stiffened at a rap on the door.

  ‘Bloody ’ell,’ she sighed, stubbing her cigarette out in the mouldy bargain bucket and yanking her bra strap up. ‘No rest for the wicked. You better go, love, else he’ll think he’s hit the jackpot and a threesome’s on the cards.’ She hooted with laughter and tramped back down the stairs, yelling, ‘All right, all right, I’m coming!’

  I bowed my head as I hurried past Tracey’s caller. I didn’t want him to see my face. My skin crawled, and I had a sudden urge for a hot shower to rinse away the reek of cigarette smoke and desperation.

  I breathed out with relief when the door slammed behind me. As I stood on the pavement waiting for a break in the traffic, any pity I’d once felt for Niamh gave way to a seething resentment.

  How dare she think she could burst into our lives and steal Immy from un
der our noses? She may have been Immy’s biological mother, but Immy was four weeks old when she left, and she had no memory of her birth mother.

  I was the one who combed the tangles out of her hair every morning, who read her bedtime stories, who knew she preferred Paw Patrol to Dora the Explorer. I was the one who made sure she cleaned her teeth properly every night, who paid her exorbitant nursery fees, who knew she was afraid of the dark. Not Niamh. Niamh relinquished all rights to Immy when she pocketed the ten grand I gave her so she could put everything that happened in Corfu behind her and make a fresh start.

  I’d even asked Niamh if she wanted to be involved in Immy’s life - on Stuart’s insistence. But she was adamant a clean break was best for everyone. Immy was ours now, she said.

  Seemed she hadn’t meant it. Because all this time she must have been thinking about the daughter she’d given up and planning how she was going to take her back.

  I grasped my mobile, my fingers itching to phone DC Sam Bennett, to tell her I’d made a breakthrough, that I knew where Immy was. Correction. To tell her I knew who’d taken Immy, because, unfortunately, I didn’t have a clue where Niamh was hiding her.

  I ran through the possibilities. They weren’t at the squat, that was for sure. Perhaps they were holed up on the family farm in Ireland. Perhaps Mrs O’Sullivan had been lying through her teeth when I’d spoken to her yesterday. A lioness protecting her cubs.

  For a moment I considered jumping in the car, driving straight to Gatwick Airport and catching the first flight to Cork.

  But that would be foolhardy. I didn’t know where the farm was. Niamh probably wasn’t even there. Going home to Ireland could have been a line Niamh fed Tracey, knowing the police would come knocking when we reported Immy missing.

  No, I was better off at home waiting for news. And the sooner I was home, the sooner I could tell Sam what I’d learned. My mind made up, I hurried across the road to the car, relieved to see all four tyres were still intact. It wasn’t until I was opening the driver’s door that I noticed the scratches on the paintwork running the entire length of the car. I looked up to see the boy in the hoody watching me from halfway up the street. He must have been a hundred metres away, but I could still make out the rictus grin on his face.

  It was after six o’clock when I drove back over the hump-backed bridge into Fordwich. The adrenalin and cortisol that had surged through me like a tsunami in Chatham had leached away, and I felt strung out and bone tired. I turned into King Street and pulled up outside the house. The police car was conspicuous by its absence, so I put my iPhone on speakerphone and dialled Sam Bennett’s number.

  ‘Sam,’ I said, the moment she answered. ‘I’ve been to Niamh’s squat to see Tracey, the woman who lives there. She told me Niamh was planning to go home to Ireland.’

  ‘I know. She told my mate Tommo as much, and DI Jones has spoken to a colleague in the Garda. They sent an officer round to the O’Sullivan farm this morning. I’m afraid Niamh wasn’t there.’

  ‘That’s because she told Tracey she had some unfinished business here in Kent,’ I said.

  A momentary silence on the other end of the line, then Sam said, ‘Are you sure? Tracey didn’t mention that to Tommo.’

  ‘I’m sure.’ I didn’t mention the seventy quid I’d slipped Tracey for the information. ‘You have to admit it’s suspicious.’

  ‘We don’t know if she was referring to Immy. She could have been talking about anything.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ I said, losing patience. ‘Immy’s birth mother does a disappearing act after telling a friend she has some unfinished business to see to, and then her daughter vanishes off the face of the earth, and you’re telling me it’s a coincidence? Christ alive, I’ve heard it all now.’ I laughed mirthlessly.

  ‘I just don’t want you getting your hopes up.’ The officer’s tone was conciliatory. Did the woman ever get riled? ‘But I’ll pass the information onto DI Jones. I’m sure he’ll send someone to do a follow-up visit to Tracey.’

  ‘Thank you. That’s all I ask.’

  ‘Is that everything?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Good. And one last thing. You could have wound up in all sorts of trouble this evening.’

  ‘I was fine,’ I said, knowing there was no way I could report the keying of my car to the police now. I’d have to pay for the repair myself. What with the parking ticket, it had been an expensive day.

  ‘This time, maybe,’ Sam said. ‘But from now on, please leave the detective work to us.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  CORFU

  FOUR YEARS EARLIER

  The Scottish poet Robert Burns had something to say about the best-laid plans of mice and men, and it was that they often went awry. And he was right. Melanie’s attempt to warn Niamh off Stuart backfired spectacularly.

  Maybe it was out of spite, maybe she thought she’d make Stuart jealous? Who knew how the barely formed brain of an eighteen-year-old girl worked? I sure as hell couldn’t remember. But that night Niamh, dressed in a skimpy emerald-green top and a denim skirt that scarcely covered her arse, turned her attentions to Bill.

  We decided to stay at the villa for the evening and have a barbecue by the pool. Bill and Stuart drove to the local supermarket and bought chicken kebabs, steaks and spicy local sausages, and I whipped up a couple of salads.

  While Stuart put Nate to bed and Melanie laid the table, Niamh waltzed over to Bill.

  ‘Need any help with your sausages?’ she said, a hand on one hip and an eyebrow arched suggestively.

  Bill roared with laughter. ‘Now there’s an offer I can’t refuse,’ he said, handing her a pair of tongs.

  I caught Melanie’s eye and pulled a face as if to say, ‘What the actual fuck?’ but she shrugged and carried on folding napkins. It was understandable. If she reacted, Niamh would know she was getting under her skin. And I couldn’t say anything because I wasn’t supposed to have heard Melanie warning Niamh off Stuart.

  As Bill instructed Niamh on the intricacies of charring good meat to a crisp, I went inside in search of a bottle of wine. As an afterthought, I grabbed a can of Coke for Niamh, but when I offered it to her, she said, ‘I might have wine tonight.’

  ‘Yes,’ Bill cried. ‘Don’t fob the poor girl off with that tooth-decaying crap. Have wine, the drink of the Greek gods.’

  Niamh had necked her first glass and was making impressive inroads into her second when Stuart appeared, showered and dressed in chinos and a linen shirt that showed off his suntan.

  ‘Did Nate go off all right?’ I asked, handing him a glass.

  ‘After much procrastination and six stories,’ he said. ‘He was so desperate to eat with us.’

  ‘And he could have, but we’d have paid for it tomorrow, and it’s our last day. I want everything to be perfect.’

  I sat next to Stuart at the table, sipped my wine and studied him surreptitiously. We’d made love a couple of times during the week but always at my instigation and, if I was honest, both couplings were perfunctory at best. I suppose it was inevitable, this slide from passion to indifference. We were hot-headed teenagers when we met, not much older than Niamh, and we hadn’t been able to keep our hands off each other. Now we were in our thirties, with a small child, busy jobs and innumerable other responsibilities competing for our time and energy. It was no wonder we had little time for each other.

  But tonight, as the wine warmed my stomach and the evening light faded to indigo, I watched him in the candlelight and desire shot through me. My nerve-endings tingled, as if I’d plugged my hand into an electric socket and turned on the switch.

  ‘Hey,’ I said, my fingers walking across the cotton fabric of his trousers. ‘Shall we have an early night tonight?’

  Crack! The sound of shattering glass muffled his answer.

  ‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry,’ Niamh cried, staring at the glistening shards of glass by her bare feet.

  ‘What happened?’ Melanie said, marchin
g out of the villa’s patio doors.

  ‘I was putting my glass down, and it slipped out of my hand,’ she said, her doe-like eyes on Bill.

  ‘No harm done,’ Bill said, waving at Melanie. ‘Get a dustpan and brush, will you?’ He dropped the tongs and scooped Niamh up in his arms and carried her over to us, his feet crunching on the shattered wineglass. I patted the seat beside me. ‘Why don’t you sit down and have that Coke I bought you?’

  She nodded and sank down onto the seat. I turned back to Stuart, but the moment was lost. He’d jumped up to help Melanie sweep up the broken glass, so I refilled my glass and took a slug.

  The crickets were chirping, the mosquitoes were biting, and I was feeling the effects of a bottle of wine on an empty stomach when Bill carried over the platter of meat and we ate. From nowhere he produced a bottle of Bacardi and poured a generous measure into Niamh’s glass of Coke. But I wasn’t about to ruin the vibe by coming over all censorious. Pot and kettle and all that. A giggle bubbled out of my throat and I clamped my hand over my mouth. Shit, I was bombed. I took a long draught from my water glass and tried to focus on the conversations floating around me.

  Stuart and Melanie were reminiscing about our university drama society’s production of Pride and Prejudice. Melanie had been much feted for her interpretation of a feisty but beautiful Elizabeth Bennet. Stuart had hammed it up as a pompous Mr Collins. Funny, I’d forgotten they’d both strutted their stuff on stage while we were students. Melanie had even talked about an acting career until Bill poured scorn on the idea.

  On the other side of me, Bill was regaling Niamh with stories from his one and only visit to Ireland - his stag do in Dublin.

  ‘Oh man, it was the best,’ he said. ‘My main man Stu here organised it. We drank Guinness in The Temple Bar and enjoyed the craic at an Irish comedy club. We went paintballing and go karting and quad biking and clay pigeon shooting. We even went to a lap-dancing club, only don’t tell Mels.’