Lost Souls

by Jenny O'Brien

  ‘It wasn’t planned but Diane was keen to finish the CCTV footage so I decided to keep her company. The thing is, I’ve come across something that may or may not be relevant to Fry’s disappearance. Remember the Stevens case?’

  The Stevens case. Gaby nearly dropped the phone. How could she ever forget! One of the worst times of her life and the reason why she wasn’t up to full fitness after having her spleen sliced in two.

  ‘Ma’am, are you there?’

  ‘Yes, Marie. I haven’t gone anywhere.’ She slid back down on the sofa, resting her elbow on the arm, her legs tucked underneath her. ‘Go on. You were telling me about the links to the Stevens case.’

  ‘Yes, well, it seems as if the man Ellie met might be Ronan Stevens, the son. Diane had a brain wave and decided to check through the footage from the previous day to see if she could find a clearer image and, lo and behold, she found a couple that show his facial features clearly. I’ve compared them with the ones taken at the time but I can’t be sure. I know you’ve met him so I’ve just pinged them over.’

  ‘Okay, I’m going to put you on loudspeaker while I boot up my laptop.’ She picked up her briefcase from where Rusty had set it on one end of the coffee table and started fiddling with the leather straps. ‘I take it that Diane isn’t with you?’ she said, her voice loud in the empty room.

  ‘No. I told her to go home. I hope you don’t mind me saying but, with her skills and attitude, she’d make a fine addition to the team.’

  ‘Yes. I agree. We’ll have to work on her when we have these cases out of the way.’ She placed the laptop in front of her, propped up the lid and logged on.

  Her inbox had a pile of unread messages. It was a mystery how they built up when she’d made sure to clear them before leaving the office. Ignoring them all apart from the final one, she clicked open the attachment and peered down at the screen, shifting her finger to the zoom button. The image had the same fuzzy clarity she’d come to expect from these sorts of pictures but it was still good enough for her to be dragged back three months and the last time she’d seen the boy, standing beside the open door of his parents’ lounge, the look of hope and expectation dying under the weight of her words. The same finely etched features. The dark hollows crowding his cheeks. The broad-domed forehead partially concealed by his overlong dark fringe and the only part of him that reminded her of his father. She’d thought him a boy then, young for his years. There was no trace of the child in him now. Instead there was a man and, with that thought, her insides heaved as she struggled to keep the contents of her stomach in place.

  ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘Yes, sorry. Just thinking. You and Diane have done a fabulous job, thank you.’

  ‘So, it’s him then?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll have a think as to what I’m going to do about it. It’s certainly a curve ball I wasn’t expecting,’ she said, her attention on the empty coffee mugs. It was a good job she’d barely touched the wine, which had more to do with Conor’s disapproving stare than any problem with the Italian Shiraz his dad had brought. What she needed was caffeine, and lots of it, as the thought of getting any sleep tonight slipped further into the distance.

  Chapter 27

  Gaby

  Monday 3 August, 9.20 p.m. Amy’s house

  Knocking on Amy’s door was the last thing Gaby had envisaged for the end of her evening, not that twenty past nine was anywhere near her bedtime. She’d planned on being tucked up in bed with a cup of cocoa and the latest novel by Victoria Cooke, to bridge the gap between the dream and the reality of her date with Rusty. Now she was huddled in her thin jacket, hoping that Tim hadn’t taken Amy out somewhere after what must have been the most stressful of days. Being a detective was nothing to the pressure that her friend faced in the role of family liaison officer and Gaby couldn’t begin to understand what motivated her to continue in such a thankless profession. At least she had the joy of seeing the odd criminal banged to rights. All Amy got was a shift into the next emotionally charged situation where there was no rulebook and actions had to be tailored to the unpredictable behaviour of the people involved.

  The door opened on the third knock. Gaby lowered her hand and stuffed it into the pocket of her jacket. ‘Sorry it’s so late and sorry if I’m interrupting anything.’

  ‘Not a thing. Tim’s working tonight so there’s nothing to interrupt,’ Amy said with a mischievous grin as she tugged her ponytail tight and gestured for her to follow her into the lounge. ‘I take it there’s been a development?’

  ‘You could say that.’ Gaby walked over to the large painting above the fireplace, admiring the bold lines and bright colours. ‘A new addition?’

  ‘Yes. You know what Tim’s like. There’s a new art gallery opened up in Caernarfon, which he dragged me to at the weekend.’

  ‘Well, anytime he’d like to drag me,’ Gaby said, squinting down at the signature. ‘Once I get my lounge finished, I might very well treat myself.’

  ‘I wouldn’t leave it too long. Nathan Jones is up and coming. Anyway, I’m sure you didn’t pop in to discuss my walls.’

  ‘No.’ Gaby headed back into the hall, not bothering to remove her jacket. ‘Come on, grab your bag. I’ll tell you on the way.’

  ‘On the way to where?’ Amy said, not budging from the doorway of the lounge.

  ‘We need to interview a couple of people and I can’t do it without you.’

  ‘Ha, as if I thought it could be anything else. You do remember that I’m getting married in three weeks?’

  ‘How could I ever forget! As soon as we’ve found the girl, I’m all yours. We’ll go out, just the two of us, and tighten any loose ends that need tightening. Your wedding is going to be perfect, Amy. As your chief bridesmaid in addition to your boss I’m giving you my personal guarantee.’

  ‘Thank you. I’m holding you to that. So, who are we going to see?’ Amy said, slipping on her shoes and grabbing her keys, phone and bag from the table.

  ‘Ms Fry and—’

  ‘She won’t thank you for that,’ she interrupted with a frown, pulling the front door closed. ‘Is it really necessary? She was in bits when I left.’

  ‘I can well imagine but it can’t be helped. Finding her daughter has never been a greater priority.’ Gaby opened her car door and settled behind the steering wheel.

  ‘You said there were two interviews?’ Amy twisted in her seat to grab her belt, only to drop it at Gaby’s next words.

  ‘Casper Stevens’s son and, before you ask me any more questions,’ she added, putting up the palm of her hand towards Amy’s unguarded expression of shock, ‘I’m going to get Jason and his team mobilised to meet us around at the house. We need to go in, all guns blazing.’ She dropped her mobile into Amy’s lap. ‘He’s currently on another job but this can’t wait. The odds are that Barbara Matthews is already dead but I won’t believe the same of Ellie Fry until we find her body.’

  It only took ten minutes to travel from Rhos-on-Sea to Colwyn Bay. Not much time to contact the CSIs and plan their strategy but they managed. With Amy’s wedding looming there were plenty of non-work-related topics that were high on their list of priorities. They didn’t detour the conversation to discuss even one.

  It was a warm night with the tail end of a glorious sunset indulging the sky with a faint hint of navy blue instead of the impenetrable black that was to be expected now the nights were closing in. The estate was busy, children playing tag up and down the road on their bicycles, the sound of laughter filling the air as the occupants took advantage of the last few minutes of warmth.

  Number 312 was silent, the curtains pulled tight without revealing even a pale glimmer of light to indicate that anyone was at home. But if Gaby knew anything it was that Ellie’s mother would still be awake, hunched in the corner of the sofa, a box of tissues by her side, a stream of half-filled mugs lined up on the coffee table in front of her. She would be no different to any of the other victims’ families Gaby had gotten to know in he
r police career. If she was innocent of any crime – and there was no point in Gaby carrying on in the job if, at some level, she believed differently – then she was sitting alone, breaking her heart at the thought of her daughter out in the big wild world with no one to protect her.

  Anita opened the door after one knock and, if her look of expectation was anything to go by, Gaby was right in her estimation of her innocence. She was a woman beside herself with worry, the skin pressed deep with dark shadows, her eyelids a pale, translucent, unbecoming red, her hands shaking as she turned away and walked into the lounge, leaving them to shut the door behind them. Now Gaby wished that she’d had the foresight to phone first. A few words on her part would have reduced Anita’s expectation of a happy outcome. The truth was she must know that two officers turning up at this time of night, empty-handed, would only be bringing bad news.

  ‘Go on then. Tell me. There’s no point in dragging it out. She’s dead, isn’t she?’

  Anita sank down into the sofa, her mobile clutched in her hand, the depressed cushion a telling sign that she probably hadn’t moved far away from her seat for most of the day. She’d been waiting for news and all they had were more questions. Sitting back in the same chair as before, Gaby thanked whatever instinct had made her pick up Amy on the way. It was the only part of the visit that she hadn’t made a mess of. Family liaison officers were better at this sort of stuff. If she thought she could have gotten away with it, Gaby would have sent her in alone. She’d certainly considered it.

  Amy joined Anita on the sofa and, picking up her hand, gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘No. And I’m sorry that our unexpected visit has made you feel that way. I’m going to be perfectly honest with you. The truth is we haven’t found Ellie but we have found something that we do need to discuss with you, something that might be vital to the search.’

  Rather than speaking again, Amy let Anita find her own way back from the emotions ripping through her body and hampering her ability to answer. There was no glancing at her watch, no quick look across the room at Gaby. Anita would only be able to speak when her tongue had repositioned itself in her suddenly dry mouth, her racing heart dropping along with the level of adrenalin coursing through her veins.

  Science had an answer for most things but that didn’t stop the feeling of compassion that caused Gaby to shift in her seat, her own pulse escalating a notch at the sight of Amy reaching for the folder. Science couldn’t give her insight into what was going to happen over the next couple of minutes and it was this that was causing her the greatest difficulty. Anita would either recognise Ronan Stevens or she wouldn’t.

  Chapter 28

  Ronan

  Monday 3 August, 9.50 p.m. Caernarfon

  Ronan couldn’t sleep but that was hardly surprising given the level of stress he was under. But there was nothing else for him to do and certainly nothing he could do in the shadow of darkness. The farmhouse might be isolated and back on to fields but he couldn’t turn on the light and risk being discovered by some intrepid rambler taking a shortcut across private land.

  He lay there, with the musty-smelling duvet pulled up to his chin, trying to ignore the sounds coming through the gaps in the warped window frame. In the cave it had been deathly quiet – too quiet. Surrounded by limestone on three sides he’d also struggled to sleep. The stone floor had been difficult to get used to after the comfort of a sprung mattress and a fat feather pillow. So why couldn’t he sleep here? Okay, so the mattress wasn’t a patch on the one he’d had at home but he was both warm and safe, far safer than the last few weeks on that windswept headland. He was also intelligent enough to rationalise that the sounds were non-threatening. The screech of an owl on his way to find a late-night snack. The sway of the trees in the light breeze that had built up over the evening. The creak of the old house as it settled into its footings. There was an explanation for each and every one of the sounds but that did little to stop his escalating fears.

  In Llandudno, at least he had the vicar to turn to in an emergency and the reality of his mother only a short distance away. He’d thought he’d been clever in taking Ellie here but there was nothing clever in the way he was feeling. They were isolated and alone, cut off from civilisation and he still didn’t have a clue as to the potential terrors that had made her run away from everything and anybody she’d ever known.

  He shifted onto his side, burying one ear into the pillow, the duvet pulled up over his head, his mind returning to the girl. Going through her bags was a wasted exercise. It hadn’t told him anything he didn’t already know. She lived with her mother but the tears sparkling on her eyelashes along with her quivering bottom lip led him to think that it wasn’t this nebulous woman who was the problem.

  Stretching out to his full length, he curled his toes under the wooden baseboard, amazed at how many questions he’d managed to sneak under her radar after the chocolate rush had kicked in. Her innocent answers had told him far more than she’d probably intended. The relentless ballet training that took up most of her spare time, her mother running her to and from classes in her old Hyundai i10. He’d even discovered that she didn’t have a father and had never felt the need to find him. To an outsider, her life was that of a well-adjusted kid. But as soon as he started to scratch the surface to reveal the carefully concealed reality underneath, she shut up quicker than a liar faced with the truth. He frowned at the analogy, for the first time questioning her sincerity. After all, she’d sought him out and had been a constant presence by his side ever since. Did he trust her and if not what did he intend to do about it?

  The long walk while carrying the weight of the world on his back finally caught up with him, his eyelids winning the argument and sweeping him into darkness, his thoughts scattering as dreams pressed.

  Ronan wasn’t a great dreamer and come morning he could never recall anything useful about his time asleep. Images passed through his mind but gained no purchase, glittering pictures that held no bearing on his current situation. His breathing deepened and his lids flickered as he shed his worries along with his fears. He still had to find out the truth, whatever that might be – there’d be time enough in the morning.

  The scream when it came wrenched him from his cocoon of duvet and had him stumbling to his feet. The room was pitch, the sheet of black at the window as telling as the illuminated dial on his watch that he must have drifted off to sleep. Disorientated for a second, he took a moment to gather his thoughts as memories swept in from all sides. The Great Orme. The girl. The train journey. His grandparents’ house.

  Now instead of the scream, there were panting gasps punctuating the air in a staccato of grief. With a suppressed curse, he switched on his torch and crossed the couple of paces to her bedside, dropping to his knees as he tried to think of the kind of things his mother might say. The kid had obviously had a nightmare, which was hardly surprising after the day she’d had in addition to all that chocolate, he remembered, and then felt guilty at the thought. It was a good job she wasn’t throwing up as well. That would be all he needed – having to act as nursemaid to a kid and a girl at that. It wouldn’t be so bad if it had been a boy. He was used to having to deal with his brothers. But an all-boys’ school and a dearth of sisters added to his current feeling of woeful inadequacy.

  ‘It’s all right, Ellie. It’s only a dream. You’re safe. Completely safe,’ he said, his free hand reaching out and patting the top of her head very much in the way he would a dog, not that he’d ever had much to do with animals. Despite the persistent nagging over the years, his parents had always been too busy to allow them to keep pets.

  ‘I’m not safe.’ She paused, dragging the back of her hand across her cheeks in an attempt to mop up her tears, her eyes two large pools of dripping sorrow in the dim beam from his torch. ‘You don’t understand and I can’t tell you. It’s bad enough that I know. If they ever find out … It’s a secret that I have to keep.’

  ‘What secret? What is it, Ellie? I’ll help, I promise.�
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  But all he got for his troubles was a rod of spine as she turned to face the wall, her slight frame shaking as her tears kept falling. He continued to kneel beside the bed, watching over her as her gulping breaths slowed, the shape beneath the blanket relaxing as her breathing regulated and sleep carried her off into a world where he couldn’t protect her.

  For the second time in his life Ronan was helpless as to what to do. But there was no running away from the situation. She’d chosen him; he didn’t know for what purpose. The only thing he did know was that he wasn’t about to let her down. He’d been let down too many times in the past not to have learnt from the experience.

  He didn’t let his mind wander any further as he maintained his silent vigil, the carpet doing little to prevent the hard floor from piercing his bony knees. He had problems, too numerous to count and none of his own making. Perhaps he’d overreacted in running away because he was quick to realise that leaving home hadn’t changed anything. It had only delayed the time when he’d have to make some sort of decision about his future.

  A tear fell and then another, tracking down his grubby cheeks but, instead of wiping them away, he let them fall. He hadn’t cried when the bullies had done their worst and he certainly hadn’t cried when the headmaster had expelled him. He’d felt cold to emotion when his father had been arrested, inured somehow from the horrors that had overtaken his family. Now when he didn’t know what to do or who to turn to, he wept.

  Chapter 29

  Gaby

  Monday 3 August, 10 p.m. The Stevens’s property

  When Gaby and Amy arrived at the house, Jason was hunched over the steering wheel of the CSI van, his eyes glued to his phone.

  ‘Hi there, apologies for keeping you up so late.’