Damaged

by Martina Cole

  Kate grabbed her hand and said quietly, ‘I know how you feel. It has happened to us all, darling. This is par for the course in our line of work, believe me. I’ve been there and I have been you, darling. It’s not personal, even if it feels like it.’

  Chapter One Hundred and Three

  Patrick was sitting with his son, and they were drinking a particularly nice malt that Patrick had acquired from an old friend in return for a favour he had done him. It had been a particularly violent favour, and the malt whisky had been accompanied by a large fiscal payment. But that was neither here nor there. They both savoured the whisky, and Patrick smiled in contentment as he looked at this big handsome son he had acquired.

  ‘That is a good Scotch.’

  Patrick laughed in agreement. ‘Indeed it is. There’s a story behind it, which I will tell you one day. What I want to talk to you about tonight is completely different.’

  Joseph O’Loughlin had been expecting this, but he didn’t say anything. He was waiting for his father to say his piece.

  ‘Look, Joseph, you know that you wanting Christine here just isn’t feasible. Not just because you have your two children here, but because Kate would nail my balls to the wall – and yours too, probably.’

  Joseph laughed gently. ‘I get it, I really do. I was clutching at straws because I feel so guilty about what happened to Christine. I also feel guilty about Bella, about my kids . . .’ He sighed heavily. ‘I caused all this upset, but I couldn’t have foreseen any of this shit. I mean, who could have?’

  Patrick didn’t answer that because, personally, he thought that anyone with half a brain could have seen the stupidity of Joseph’s little plan to ditch Bella. But he kept his own counsel, and instead changed the subject completely.

  ‘I have a lot of properties, as you know, and I have one not too far from here, so you could be with Christine and also near the children. They will stay here for the time being, and you can see them whenever you want, mate, but you can spend your nights with Christine. I have a couple of fellas on my payroll who will be outside, day and night, so that Christine feels safe until such time as Bella has been dealt with – for want of a better expression.’

  Joseph didn’t say anything for a while. He just looked at Patrick as he took in what was being said to him. It was the answer to all his problems. This man would clearly move heaven and earth to help him, should he need it. He felt such a failure, and so bad about everything that had happened, but his father was right. He had to start making some kind of life for them all, and his biggest fear had been what he would do with the children. Because, as much as he loved his children, he had not envisaged being their sole carer, and the thought frightened him. The reality of looking after them all day, every day was so far different to what he had thought. They were both such great kids, but they were also damaged by what had happened, and he didn’t know how he was supposed to make everything better for them. With what had happened to Christine he had so many responsibilities he didn’t know where to start.

  Patrick watched his son as he digested everything that he had said to him, and he was sad to see that the man wasn’t as strong as he had first believed. Joseph was more interested in his girlfriend than his children, and that was something that Patrick Kelly could not even imagine. Like Kate had said, not everyone was the same as him, but he knew that Ruby would have agreed and would have thought in exactly the same way. Joseph was weak – and that wasn’t a criticism, it was a fact of life. Kate had said the main thing they had to look out for was the children, and he knew she was also looking out for that mad cunt Bella. He wasn’t so sure about that, but Kate was usually right about certain things. After all, she had far more experience with people than he did.

  ‘Look, Joseph, we have Beverley and she is a diamond. And she loves having the kids, as I do. Obviously, I don’t want them to leave – I’m still getting to know them. But they will be safe as houses here, and you can look after Christine and still be a part of the kids’ lives. They are back at school, and we can make sure that they are in a safe and loving environment, and that’s the most important thing at the end of the day.’

  Joseph O’Loughlin couldn’t look his father in the eye. He was ashamed that Patrick Kelly was looking at him and finding him lacking. He couldn’t blame him; he wasn’t strong enough to cope with everything that was going on. It was all so far out of his normal life, and he honestly didn’t know how to deal with it all. He was so glad that he had Patrick and Kate to pick up the slack. He had never thought that he would be like this, until he had been put into such an impossible position. It was amazing what real life could throw at you. And he was even more amazed at how he couldn’t do what he had assumed should have come naturally. He didn’t know how to look after his children any more; he loved them, but he also loved Christine. He couldn’t choose, because he owed them all. And that was the problem; everything that had happened had been because of him.

  ‘I know that I am taking the coward’s way out, Pat, but I just don’t know what I am supposed to do.’

  Patrick Kelly didn’t answer him how he wanted to answer him. He wanted to punch him out of his chair and demand to know why he wasn’t putting his children first, why he was dithering and even had to be asked to make a decision. But he didn’t, because this way he got unlimited access to the grandchildren that he had never even known existed.

  So he kept his peace and he said gently, ‘It will all work out. Don’t worry about it.’

  Chapter One Hundred and Four

  Kate took everything home with her and was thanking the Good Lord for having given her a reason to get out of her own home. She was a realist and she knew that Patrick was going to put the hard word on his new-found son – and that meant they would be left with the children. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.

  She had been asked to do seminars over the years, and she decided that she might revisit that option. It would be good for her, and it would get her out of the house. She suspected that she would need something in the future that was hers and that it would give her a much-needed boost, as well as a few nights away now and again.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t care about those kids. She did – and they were wonderful children, considering what had happened to them. But at her age and her time of life she wasn’t relishing becoming a surrogate mother. Not that she wouldn’t do whatever was needed for them, but, unlike Patrick, she wasn’t as emotionally involved. At least not yet anyway.

  She let herself into the house and went to the kitchen as quietly as possible, even though that wasn’t really necessary. This was a big house and the kids were not going to hear her unless she went on screech mode, and that wasn’t going to happen. It was just her natural reaction to having them there. After pouring herself a large glass of cold wine, she sipped it and then, placing the glass against her forehead, she savoured the coolness and the peace.

  She had forgotten just how noisy and dirty police stations were. But for all that, she had still loved every second of being there. Now she was getting involved in the investigation on a deeper level, she wanted to look over everything again in her own time. That was what she had always done, and it felt good to be back in the saddle.

  She laid all the files over the large kitchen table and then placed them in order of time and dates for the interviews. And as she started to read them, she felt herself finally relaxing. This was what she was good at, this was what she missed. As she read through the mountain of statements, she was hit by the same thought every time – that whoever this was had the knack of never being seen.

  She read back through all the girls’ text messages and looked at the copies of their social media accounts, and there was nothing untoward there. In fact, even knowing what she did about the bracelets and the sex circle, she would never have dreamt that these girls were capable of such underhandedness. The man responsible had used horrific torture on these girls, and that meant that they ha
d made him very angry. This was a punishment, and he was meting it out with as much violence as physically possible. But he had held back on little Janet Cross, which told her that he had regretted taking her. He had not tortured her like the other two girls; she was already dead when he started to burn her. That meant that he had known her, that he knew a lot about her, and that he had taken her on a whim. She couldn’t prove it, but she would lay money that he was close to her in some way, and that somehow no one had put the pieces together.

  Like Annie said, these girls were all from the same school, the same year, and were known to each other. Every teacher had been questioned and every person who had worked at the school, or had an affiliation to the school, had been ruled out. But Kate felt sure that this man, whoever he was, knew these girls very well. She finished the glass of wine and poured herself another and then, settling back down, she began reading once again.

  The real red herring here was Todd Richards, because he was male and in a different school year. His body had not been recovered as yet, whereas all the girls had been left out in the open. The man concerned had wanted them to be found, so why not Todd? She looked at all the children who were in the murdered girls’ orbit, and there were a lot of them. She knew that these children and their parents had been ruled out. There had been a lot of legwork on this case, and she knew from experience just how much time and effort that took on a big case like this – especially with the media breathing down everyone’s neck.

  Part of the reason she was now back was because she had the creds needed to satisfy the public that everything possible was being done. That was a compliment to her – even though she knew that the papers would drag up her association with a man who had not only been shot but who was allegedly in the criminal underworld. She knew what to expect – she wasn’t a fool – but she had been here before and survived, and she was sure that she would again. She also was aware that while the papers were wasting inches of print on her personal life, they would not be asking why no one had been arrested yet. Oh, she knew the score better than anyone where the media were concerned.

  She also knew it wouldn’t be long before they dug up her link to Bella and the acid attack. That was a given and, once more, there wasn’t anything any of them could do about it. As Patrick had once informed her, in that way he had of going straight to the crux of a problem, she would have to swallow her knob and get over the public attention. Wise words, even if they were a little crude. But that was all by the by now. She was interested in what she was doing, and that was all she was interested in.

  She began reading once again. She wanted to know everything that there was to know about these girls’ deaths and, if possible, try to find the common denominator. There was nothing on the girls’ social media, and nothing from anyone in their lives who might be capable of shedding some light on whoever they had been in contact with. Even Kate knew that, in this climate, it was not feasible. This generation lived their whole lives in the public eye. It was about looking like you had the perfect life, the perfect looks, the perfect photos; it was sad, but it was what the youth of today had been reduced to. Not that they would see it like that, of course. She had read through the dead girls’ social accounts and it had broken her heart to think that they really believed that they were only worth how many likes their latest picture had garnered. It was a very sad indictment of the times they were living in.

  Kate carried on reading and making notes, even though what she was reading made her feel depressed. After all the years of feminism, these girls still thought they were judged by how they looked. They thought that other people’s opinions were far more important than having a real life. They lived in cyberspace and they needed validation from people they didn’t even know. It didn’t matter how much money social media magnates and their ilk poured into charity research or whatever, playing the big philanthropists, they were still guilty of creating a generation of young people who would never understand real life. Because they didn’t know how to live in the real world, let alone understand the importance of it.

  She was still reading when the sun came up.

  Chapter One Hundred and Five

  Liam Leary was not a big lad for his age, but what he lacked in stature he made up for in loudness. He was also a pretty good fighter if he needed to be, and that was because of his older brothers, who were all bigger and harder than him, and who also had a different father. He knew that they loved him and that he was seen as the baby of the family, and he didn’t have any qualms about using that to his advantage.

  He had been working on this paper round for eight months, and he wasn’t particularly enamoured of it, but he liked the money that he was paid. He wanted to earn his own wages, because that was how he had been brought up – unlike his so-called father, who couldn’t hold a job down if his life depended on it. He was more like his older brothers, who were all out on the earn and who were very vocal about that fact. But he knew that they were right about what they said; it was important to make sure that you earned your own living. Liam took notice of what his older brothers said, and he appreciated that they were so good to him. He was the runt of the litter but his personality and his humour went a long way towards endearing him to them.

  As he rode his bike from the shop, he thought about the headlines in the papers that all seemed to be about Grantley. He understood that it was a really fucked-up situation, because his older brother had talked a lot about it; he was avidly following every social media update he could find. His older brother Jake was the designated intellectual in his house, and Liam hung on every word he said.

  As he cycled through the woods that would let him cut ten minutes off his journey, he was a happy bunny. He had this round off pat. He knew who ordered what paper and who liked certain other papers, such as the Sun and the Daily Mirror, as well. He wrapped those papers inside whatever other newspaper they ordered. He was enjoying the early morning, because it was such a nice day and, as he cycled through the woods, he was feeling good about himself and about his life in general. He had a lot to look forward to over the summer months.

  He stopped his bike by a huge oak tree, for a cigarette; he loved smoking, and he always stopped in the same place to have ‘a quick drag’, as his mum had always referred to it. He didn’t remember too much about his father, but what he did remember was that he always had the aroma of tobacco. His brothers had verified that for him, so he knew that it wasn’t something he had dreamt up. His father had been a smoker, as well as a complete piece of shit and an unreliable tosser, which was how his brothers had described him. He could only assume they were right as they were older and they had known him better, so he couldn’t disagree with them even if he wanted to.

  As he lit his Marlboro Light, Liam felt himself relax. He enjoyed the whole ritual of smoking, from lighting the cigarette and taking the first pull on it to the eventual stamping it out. It made him feel good about himself, made him feel like a real adult, as if he was finally growing up. And, unlike his brothers, he didn’t mind being like his dad in this respect. He thought that maybe his dad had got a bad press, because his mum didn’t like him at all. She had made that quite clear to anyone who would listen to her – especially his brothers. They all seemed to agree with his mum, and that hurt him. Because unlike all of them, he had never known the man whose name he had and who had left them all when he was so young. He pushed the thoughts from his mind, because he knew that it would just upset him. He loved his mum and his brothers very much, but his dream was to one day meet the man who had sired him, and hopefully hear his side of the story.

  As he crushed the cigarette underfoot, he sighed. And, as he looked around him at the thick undergrowth, he stopped in his tracks. Getting off his bike, he laid it gently on the ground and, taking a deep breath, he walked over to where there was a lot of greenery and also where he thought he could see a bare leg. He was sweating, because he feared he knew exactly what he was going to find and, even though he knew that he didn’t
really want to see anything so shocking, he still made his way over there.

  When he saw that the leg was real and not an optical illusion but was attached to an actual body, he knew that he had to scroll through the numbers on his phone until he found his oldest brother’s number. He rang it three times before it was answered, and when his brother Damien finally answered, he broke down and through his tears he told him what he had found. Then he lit another cigarette with shaking hands and waited for the police and his brothers, in that order.

  Chapter One Hundred and Six

  ‘We searched these woods again yesterday, Kate. There was nothing to be found. If there was anything, don’t you think we would have seen it?’ Annie Carr was completely outraged; she really couldn’t understand how this could have happened.

  Kate had her own thoughts about that. But she didn’t air them, as this was not the time or the place. She was angry though, and when she had Annie Carr alone she would give her both barrels. This was a complete abortion, and that was obvious to everyone who was involved in this investigation. It was a fucking joke, and everyone needed to be reminded that they had fucked up, and fucked up big time. Kate was tired, and she wasn’t in the mood for any of this, because this was a spectacular fuck-up. No matter how you looked at it, this was just bollocks. It was an embarrassment that no one would be living down any time soon.

  ‘I know that this looks bad, Kate, but we have been all over these woods and there was nothing of value to be found.’

  Kate didn’t say a word, but she was fit to be tied. At least this was the first body that she could look at, and that was important to her. Everything she had on this case was second-hand. And now Annie Carr – who she had brought through the ranks and who she had always respected – was going to be questioned about how this boy had been left here without anyone even fucking noticing. It should never have been allowed to happen. Even before she had been brought on board these woods had been a big part of the investigation. Annie had assured her that they were being watched and that there was a constant police presence. What Annie had not made clear until now was that the police presence was not actually in the woods. The so-called police presence was no more than squad cars keeping an eye out on the periphery.