Little Girl Lost

by Brian McGilloway

  Fleming came back into the room, opening a box of cigarettes, one of which he offered to the woman. She took it with a nod of gratitude.

  ‘You can smoke,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t, thanks,’ Fleming said, sitting down again, earning a quizzical glance from both women.

  ‘What do you want with Peter anyway?’ Gallagher asked, lighting the fresh cigarette.

  So much for not knowing him, Lucy thought. ‘We think we’ve—’

  ‘It’s a family matter,’ Fleming said quickly. ‘That’s all we can say at the moment. It is important that we speak to him as soon as possible.’

  Gallagher squinted at him appraisingly over the top of her cigarette, as if the smoke was bothering her eyes.

  Lucy took out her card and passed it to the woman. ‘He can call me any time, Miss Gallagher,’ she said. ‘I’m only interested in locating Mr Kent. He’s not in any kind of trouble.’

  ‘I’ll mention it to Kevin when he gets back.’

  ‘Where is Mr Mullan?’ Lucy asked, but Gallagher had already stood up, signalling that, for her at least, their conversation was concluded.

  Back in the car, Lucy looked across at Fleming as he strapped himself in.

  ‘Why do you have cigarettes if you don’t smoke?’

  He shrugged as he put the box into his bag on the floor.

  ‘I quit smoking when I went off the sauce,’ he said. ‘Someone told me that the best way to beat the craving was to carry an unopened packet with you all the time. It makes it easier to resist temptation.’

  ‘Seems a bit sadomasochistic,’ Lucy said.

  ‘Every time I wanted to smoke, I looked at the box and prayed to the Lord to give me strength not to open the packet.’

  ‘But you opened it there now.’

  ‘A few months after I quit, I was questioning someone who wanted a smoke. I gave him my pack; made him much more cooperative. You never know when a cigarette helps someone become a little more helpful. I always carry a pack in my bag for just such an eventuality as today.’

  ‘She didn’t give us much for it,’ Lucy observed.

  ‘No,’ Fleming agreed. ‘But the next time I encounter her, she might be a little more forthcoming. Or the time after that. Or she may not. Either way, it only costs me a cigarette.’

  Lucy lifted her mobile from the pocket beside her seat where she had left it. She realized there were a number of messages and she checked her voicemail. Both airports had checked passenger inventories: none of the Kents were on flights or booked to fly. One of the ferry companies left a similar message. She relayed this information to Fleming as she listened to each message. When she hung up he said, ‘What about Derry Airport?’

  ‘I forgot all about it,’ Lucy admitted. The airport had been so small for so many years that it had never figured in her considerations. She dialled Enquiries, got the number and called.

  The man who answered the phone was immediately suspicious of her enquiry. It was not usual to discuss passenger manifests, he said.

  Lucy explained why she needed the information, but to no avail.

  Sensing her frustration, Fleming reached for the phone and took it from her.

  ‘Chief Superintendent Travers here. I believe there is an issue regarding passenger names, is that right?’

  The man on the other end dithered in his response. It was most unusual, he said, for the request to be made in this manner. How did he know that Lucy was who she claimed; indeed, how did he know that Travers was who he said he was?

  ‘We can come down there now, if you wish,’ Fleming said. ‘I can interrupt a kidnap inquiry to do that, if that’s your choice. To get confirmation of whether or not a woman whose child is in hospital took a flight from there in the past week.’

  There was a moment’s silence on the other end of the line, then the man must have relented for Fleming said, ‘I’ll pass you back to my colleague.’

  ‘What were the names?’ the man asked when Lucy took the phone again.

  ‘Melanie Kent,’ Lucy said. ‘And Alice Kent.’

  She could hear the clatter of the keyboard as he typed. ‘Melanie Kent flew out of here last Thursday,’ the man said. ‘To Majorca. She’s booked on the return flight tonight. It’s due in around eight thirty.’

  ‘What about Alice Kent?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Peter Kent?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was Mrs Kent travelling alone?’

  ‘She booked to travel with a Mr James Miller.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Lucy said, before hanging up. ‘And thank you,’ she repeated, to Fleming this time.

  ‘It’s the only chance I’ll ever have at being a Chief Super,’ he said.

  Lucy had driven to the bottom of the street and indicated to turn at the corner to go back towards the station when Fleming spoke again.

  ‘Do you want to speak to Janet?’ he asked.

  Lucy looked over at him. ‘Of course,’ she said.

  ‘Keep going straight. We’ll find her in the Foyle Street car park. With the street drinkers.’

  CHAPTER 29

  Turning right from the lower deck of the Craigavon Bridge, Fleming told Lucy to take an immediate second right, cutting into the car park along the river. She parked up, facing across at the ruins of the old printing factory that squatted at the end of Foyle Street. Lucy glanced around expectantly.

  ‘Watch over there,’ Fleming said, pointing towards the wooden boards nailed over the doorway into the building.

  A moment or two later, just when Lucy was beginning to think Fleming had it wrong, the wooden board shifted backwards a foot or two and a man, dressed only in jeans and a T-shirt, squeezed out through the gap. The man loped his way along Foyle Street, seemingly impervious to the cold. He made his way up to the arched doorway of a kitchen design shop further along, the front doors shuttered at this time of the afternoon. There, Lucy saw two more figures, a man and woman, huddled together beneath the man’s outspread parka jacket. They were holding cans in their hands. The man in the T-shirt approached them, his hand held out, presumably looking to cadge a drink. One of the figures on the ground lashed out with a sneaker-clad foot, catching the man below the knee, causing him to stumble backwards into the roadway, where a passing car swerved by him with blaring horn.

  The man steadied himself as best he could, shuffling back onto the pavement. His assailant struggled up from beneath his coat and, approaching him, they embraced. The woman who had been huddled under the coat, also stood, a little shakily, and Lucy was shocked to see that she was, perhaps, seventeen years old.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Fleming said, lifting his bag and opening the car door.

  They crossed the road to where the three were gathered together, trying vainly to light a single cigarette, the wind blowing off the river extinguishing the flame of their lighter. The girl spotted Fleming approaching and nudged her partner.

  Lucy assumed they would run, felt herself tensing in preparation for pursuit. Instead, the man turned towards Fleming, smiling broadly.

  ‘’Spector,’ he slurred, raising his hands as if to embrace Fleming.

  The girl moved forward and hugged into her partner as she smiled at Fleming. Close up, she still looked to be little more than a teenager. Her hair was blonde, unwashed, her face full, the scab of a wound across her left cheek ran as far as the bridge of her nose. When she smiled, Lucy could see that she had a number of teeth missing.

  ‘Who’s your friend?’ the girl said.

  ‘Flemin’,’ the second man said in greeting, staggering around to look at them, squinting as he did so, as if having difficulty focusing. He shivered, rubbing one bare arm with his hand. Lucy could see various purpled patches of bruising around the crook of his elbow.

  ‘Folks,’ Fleming said, opening his bag as he approached. ‘We’re looking for Janet.’

  The first man shrugged theatrically, twisting around to the others to seek their response. The girl was watching Fleming’s
hand, which had paused halfway into the bag he held. She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue, tightened her grip on her partner’s arm.

  ‘She might be inside,’ she said.

  Fleming pulled out a pack of cigarettes from the bag and, removing a handful, offered them to the girl who was already approaching, palms outstretched, as if she had been expecting just this.

  ‘Thanks, Steph,’ he said. Then to Lucy, ‘Come on.’

  They left the three squabbling over the cigarettes, the girl holding them above her head in the mistaken belief that this might prevent the others taking them from her.

  Fleming led Lucy back towards the building they had seen boarded up earlier. He rooted in his pockets and withdrew a pair of blue latex crime scene gloves. He looked at Lucy expectantly.

  ‘I used mine,’ she conceded. ‘In Quigg’s. I forgot to get a new set.’

  He handed her the pair he held, then took out a second pair.

  ‘Sometimes you have to double them up,’ he explained.

  He wrenched back the wooden board that served as a door then stepped back and removed a torch from his bag.

  ‘Always be prepared?’ Lucy ventured.

  ‘You soon learn what you need,’ he said, flicking on the light and leading the way in.

  Inside, the lower floor of the building comprised what had once been the main factory floor, with a number of rooms and offices leading off from the central space. Now, of course, the entire place was dilapidated.

  To the far left, in the corner, a fire blazed against the concrete wall, the scorch marks running almost to the ceiling. A number of figures sat nearby, their shadows stretching and dancing across the ceiling back towards where Fleming and Lucy stood. Some of the figures were seated, warming themselves; one was moving around, seemingly scavenging for something off the others.

  To her immediate left, Lucy glanced into one of the smaller office areas. A couple lay covered with rags of blankets or coats, the woman’s face turned towards Lucy, scowling at the interruption.

  Someone at the fire had spotted them now, for a shout of ‘Police’ went up, and a few of the drinkers scampered away into the rooms to their right. One clambered onto the remains of the staircase in the right-hand corner, scaling the edges of the crumbled steps.

  Then, another man, who had emerged from a room a little further along to the left, shouted to the others as he approached, his hand raised in salute. ‘It’s Fleming.’

  ‘Martin,’ Fleming said, by way of greeting. ‘This is DS Black.’

  ‘DS Black,’ Martin said, offering his hand with a gapped smile.

  Lucy was unsure whether to shake or not, then recalled the gloves Fleming had given her.

  ‘Martin,’ she said, returning both shake and smile.

  Fleming palmed Martin a pack of cigarettes. ‘We’re looking for Janet,’ he said.

  Martin raised his eyebrows in enquiry.

  ‘DS Black wants to speak to her; nothing criminal.’

  Seemingly appeased, Martin nodded towards the uppermost room on the left-hand side.

  ‘She’s not well,’ he said.

  Fleming handed Martin the bag he had carried. Lucy was caught between wanting to go to Janet and wishing to see what Fleming had given the man.

  ‘Bless you, Inspector,’ Martin said, rummaging in the bag and pulling out a plastic-packaged sandwich. ‘Tikka,’ he added, winking at Lucy.

  ‘Give the rest out would you, Martin?’ Fleming said, his hand on Lucy’s elbow, encouraging her to get moving. ‘A member of my Christian fellowship runs a shop. He donates sandwiches he hasn’t sold by the end of the day. I usually drop them off if I get a chance,’ he explained.

  ‘To keep the drinkers cooperative?’ Lucy asked, smiling conspiratorially.

  ‘To keep them alive,’ Fleming replied, holding out his hand, gesturing that she should lead the way.

  The room that Martin had indicated was in darkness save for the shifting of the shadows thrown by the fire outside. Against one wall, a body lay bundled in rags. She wore dirtied jeans and a man’s sweater. Incongruously, on her feet she wore a pair of pink trainers more suited to a child than an adult.

  ‘Janet?’ Fleming whispered, entering the room. Lucy resisted the urge to cover her mouth, for the stench in the room, of sweat and decay, was almost unbearable.

  The humped figure moved beneath the ragged coat someone had placed across her like a blanket.

  Despite the darkness and the brief flickering illumination from the flames beyond, Lucy could see that this was the woman from the arrest photograph. She could also tell the woman was indeed not well. Her forehead glistened with a patina of sweat, and her body shuddered involuntarily.

  ‘Janet?’ Fleming repeated, moving over to the woman. He laid a gloved hand across her forehead, his other hand moving back the coat that blanketed her. The unmistakable smell of infection wafted towards them. Angling his torch, Fleming called Lucy over.

  On Janet’s shoulder, running down the length of her upper arm, ran a gash, perhaps six inches long. The skin around the cut was livid, the wound itself green and slick with pus.

  ‘Get an ambulance,’ Fleming said. ‘She’s dying.’

  CHAPTER 30

  Lucy pulled into the parking bay at City of Derry Airport. She and Fleming had taken Janet to hospital, driving behind the ambulance. None of her drinking friends could tell when or how she had received the injury.

  The doctor who treated her had not been hopeful about saving her arm. She concluded that the wound had grown gangrenous, the infection spreading in her blood. Almost immediately, they had hooked Janet to an IV drip, feeding antibiotics into her system. Even with that, she suggested, the arm would probably have to be removed.

  Lucy wanted to stay with her, but had been warned that if Janet were taken to theatre, she would be in there for some hours. Besides, she knew that Alice’s mother was booked on the flight back from Majorca landing at 8.30 p.m. Fleming argued that Lucy’s priority was to Alice and returning her to her family.

  The flight was fifteen minutes late. Lucy stood at the observation window in Arrivals with Fleming and watched it come up the approach along the river, watched the bounce as it hit the tarmac runway, its slipstream visible along the wings.

  Mrs Kent was definitely on the plane; they’d got confirmation from Majorca that she had boarded. Lucy hoped that she would be able to pick her out.

  She and Fleming made their way beyond the Arrivals area and were waved through to Baggage Reclamation. The airport was small anyway; once passengers disembarked, they walked the short distance to the terminal, entering through the door leading to the baggage carousel.

  They heard the whine of the engines outside die, followed a few moments later by the first of the passengers coming through the doorway. The fifth person through, Lucy recognized as Alice’s mother, her attention focused on her mobile phone, which she was clearly turning on after the flight. She was accompanied by a man.

  Lucy prodded Fleming who was watching the passengers trailing into the building. ‘That’s her,’ she whispered.

  She moved from the wall where they were standing and approached the woman. She raised her head and smiled until she realized that Lucy was a police officer and her smile faltered.

  ‘Mrs Kent?’

  The woman nodded, swallowing. Her companion glanced nervously from Lucy to Fleming.

  ‘I’m DS Black, ma’am. We’d like to speak with you.’

  ‘Is anything wrong?’ the woman asked as Fleming moved to her other side and began guiding her away from the other passengers who were watching the scene unfold.

  ‘Let’s find somewhere a little quieter,’ he suggested.

  ‘Mel,’ her partner said. ‘Is everything OK? I need to get back.’

  Melanie Kent nodded nervously. ‘I’ll call you later. Go on.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ The man glanced again at Fleming. ‘You don’t need me, do you?’

  ‘We might, sir,’ Flem
ing said. ‘Don’t leave until we’ve spoken with Mrs Kent.’

  Melanie Kent sat in the small baggage-handling office, twisting one hand in the other.

  ‘She was wandering in the snow?’ Her accent was English; Midlands, Lucy thought.

  Lucy nodded. ‘In her pyjamas,’ she added.

  Melanie shook her head slowly, tears already breaking on her eyelashes. ‘I warned him.’

  ‘Warned who?’ Fleming asked.

  The woman sat back in the seat, lifted her chin as if counting on gravity to prevent her tears falling. She brushed the lower lid of her eyes with her index finger, sniffed deeply.

  ‘My ex-husband. Peter.’

  ‘Alice was left with Peter Kent?’ Lucy asked.

  Melanie nodded. ‘My new partner was invited to a conference in Majorca. He booked tickets for the two of us, but they weren’t inviting children. So we couldn’t take Alice.’

  ‘This is James Miller,’ Lucy said.

  Melanie looked at her sharply, then nodded. ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘He’s waiting outside. He seems eager to leave,’ Fleming said. ‘Would you like me to bring him in here to be with you?’

  Melanie shook her head.

  ‘Is something wrong, Mrs Kent?’ Fleming asked.

  ‘Jim is … well, he’s married himself. His wife doesn’t know about us. I don’t think he’d want to be stuck in the middle of something like this.’

  Fleming nodded understandingly, glancing at Lucy. ‘I’ll pop out and tell him he’s free to go then.’

  When Fleming returned to the room, Lucy asked, ‘Does your husband have much contact with Alice?’

  Something in the tone of Lucy’s voice prompted Melanie to pause a little before she answered. ‘I’m guessing you already know that Peter has done time.’ She waited a beat to see Lucy and Fleming nod again.

  ‘Obviously, he hasn’t been as big a part of Alice’s life as he’d have liked. I wouldn’t take her to see him in prison. When he got out a while back he asked to see her more often, maybe have her stay over with him. She’d stayed a few nights in his house. He seemed to have found his feet a bit. One of his mates from years back, Billy, had found him a job.’