The Forgotten_An absolutely gripping, gritty thriller novel

by Casey Kelleher

  He couldn’t. What could he say?

  Instead he sat there, shaking. Holding his hands tightly around the mug of sweet tea that one of the police family liaison officers had just made him.

  ‘How did you manage to lose her, Grandad?’ Nancy said then, unable to keep the accusation from her voice. ‘How did a four-year-old child manage to just vanish into thin air when you were supposed to be looking after her?’

  Michael mumbled something. Clearing his throat he spoke up, louder, so that Nancy could hear him.

  ‘She was playing in the sandpit, Nancy. I took my eyes off her for probably seconds. I was reading my paper, that’s all. Only when I looked up, she’d gone…’

  Michael was openly crying now. Wracked with guilt that Scarlett had been in his care, that she’d been his responsibility.

  That this was all his fault.

  ‘That was it?’ Nancy shook her head. ‘You looked down at your newspaper and then she was gone?’

  Nancy didn’t believe it. Not for a second.

  She must be missing something. They must all be missing something.

  Scarlett might only be four years old, but she wasn’t the type to just wander off.

  She was a good kid.

  Michael knew that too.

  How his story wasn’t adding up. How they would all find out his guilty little secret soon enough.

  He was simply buying for time. Praying that Scarlett turned up.

  ‘I swear, Nancy, as soon as I realised she was gone I turned the whole place over. I searched every inch of that park, and then I called the police. When Jack turned up, we both raced back here. Thinking that maybe she’d come home. That maybe she’d got bored of… I dunno…’

  ‘Bored of what?’ Nancy said confused. ‘Playing on the swings and in the sandpit? Why would she be bored of that?’

  Michael shook his head, shrugging his shoulders. The pressure of lying to everyone almost too much to bear – only the repercussions of his family finding out the truth would be far worse.

  ‘I don’t know, Nancy. I don’t know.’

  Nancy looked at her nan then. Joanie was suspicious too, glaring at her husband.

  Up until now, she’d been so consumed with worry herself that she hadn’t even realised that Michael wasn’t just crying with worry, the man was wracked with guilt.

  It was radiating off him in waves.

  ‘If there’s something you’re not telling us, Michael, now’s the time to say it. Our great-granddaughter is out there somewhere and we need to find her,’ Joanie said. Trying to control the rage she felt building inside her, as she kept her tone neutral. The last thing Nancy needed right now was them arguing and adding to the drama.

  Michael was hiding something. Joanie knew that look.

  Though fuck knows what it was. But she knew her husband well enough to know when he’d been up to no good.

  ‘For Christ’s sake! Don’t you think if I knew anything else, I’d tell you?!’ Michael shouted then. ‘Don’t you think I feel bad enough as it is?’

  And he did feel bad. He felt awful.

  He felt physically sick that Scarlett was missing and that it was all his fault.

  He should never have left Scarlett alone. Not even for five minutes.

  And he couldn’t shake the awful feeling in the pit of his stomach that he’d somehow been set up.

  That Jess was somehow involved in all of this.

  It was too much of a coincidence, her befriending him over the past couple of days then Scarlett going missing as soon as they were both otherwise occupied.

  And Jess had suggested it, hadn’t she?

  She’d been the one to advocate them both nipping into the toilets and having a few moments together, alone.

  He winced, thinking about how she’d told him that she didn’t have children. That she couldn’t. How she’d have loved one, given the chance.

  Maybe that’s what this had all been about.

  Jess taking her chance. Her one opportunity when the coast was clear, and snatching Scarlett.

  That’s what this had been about all along.

  Jesus! What had he done? He’d never learn, would he? He was just a stupid, worthless, pathetic old man.

  There was no way that Michael could tell his family the truth. No way in the world.

  ‘Will you stop with the dramatics, Michael? Jesus if anyone should be shouting and crying, it should be Nancy. She’s the child’s mother. How do you think she feels huh? Pull yourself together,’ Joanie muttered, irritated at her husband’s snivelling. Michael sitting here acting all sorry for himself was only making matters worse.

  Joanie only had to look at Nancy’s expression to see the worry that was etched across her face. Her poor granddaughter was out of her mind and rightfully so.

  ‘They’ll find her, Nancy. Soon,’ Joanie said; worried sick herself, she prayed to God that she was right. That their little Scarlett was safe. That the child would be found soon.

  ‘Is there anywhere you can think of that she might have gone, Nancy? Anywhere at all that Scarlett might have wanted to wander off and look at, or someone she’d want to visit?’ the family liaison officer said then. Trying to calm everyone down. To focus their attention back on the search.

  Only his patronising tone instantly got Nancy’s back up.

  ‘She’s four years old. Who the hell would she want to visit?’ Nancy said, then as an afterthought she quickly added. ‘Colleen?’

  Looking at Jack, wondering if maybe that’s where Scarlett had gone.

  Jack shook his head.

  ‘I rang her already, she hasn’t seen her. She’s on her way here now. She’s beside herself too.’

  ‘We need to go back to the park,’ Nancy said then, pacing the kitchen, unsure what else she could do. ‘I can’t just sit here doing nothing. We need to keep looking.’

  ‘There’s officers there, Nancy. I’m going back there now too. Why don’t you wait here in case she comes home?’ Jack said. ‘Can you make Nancy a cup of tea?’ Nodding at the family liaison officer then.

  ‘I don’t want to sit around drinking fucking tea. I want to find my daughter. It’s getting dark, Jack. We need to find her. If she comes home, Nan’s here. She can call us. I’m coming with you.’

  ‘Sometimes kids simply wander off. They get some crazy notion in their head that they want to go and look at some ducks or something. Or perhaps a family member who lives nearby, and off they go. Scarlett’s probably safe and sound,’ the family liaison officer said, trying to reassure Nancy now. Though he instantly regretted his poor choice of words.

  ‘Probably?’ Nancy said glaring back at the man. Her vision blurred by tears that threatened to fall. ‘But what if she’s not? What if somethings happened to her and she’s lying somewhere hurt? What if she’s lost? What if someone’s taken her?’

  Unable to stop her tears from falling then, as she said the one thing that none of them wanted to say out loud, Nancy grabbed her car keys from where she’d flung them down on the kitchen side.

  ‘Come on, Jack, we need to go.’

  Michael stood up then, heart sorry for the pain he’d caused them all today, as he reached out to touch his granddaughter on the arm.

  ‘If anything’s happened to her, I’ll never forgive myself,’ Michael said, blubbing once more.

  ‘Well, you better start praying to God that we find her then,’ Nancy said, wiping the tears from her face and throwing her grandad a parting shot, ‘because trust me, Grandad, if anything has happened to Scarlett, I’ll never forgive you myself. In fact, I’ll be holding you personally responsible.’

  Twenty-Eight

  Being led into London City’s command control centre, by a fellow officer, Nancy Byrne made her way over to where Jack Taylor was sitting with a CCTV operative.

  After spending hours earlier this evening scouring Richmond Park and all the surrounding areas in the hope of finding some clue as to what had happened to Scarlett, they’d both come
away completely deflated.

  Though no sooner had Nancy returned home to her house, and switched off her car engine, than Jack had rung her mobile phone, summoning her here.

  ‘Have you got something?’ Nancy asked, her voice full of hope that somehow Jack had finally found a lead.

  Up until now they had nothing else to go on. It was as if Scarlett had simply vanished into thin air.

  The officers had questioned all the other parents and passers-by in and around the park, and no one had seen her.

  She hadn’t made her way back to the house.

  Nancy knew that this wasn’t looking good.

  She could see the concern on Jack’s colleagues’ faces. They were thinking the very same.

  The clock was ticking and the longer this went on, the more dire her fears about her child were.

  ‘You better see this. Here, take a seat.’ Jack nodded. Pulling out a chair next to him, before asking one of the junior officers to get Nancy a hot drink.

  She looked awful, her skin deathly pale, the worry etched across her face.

  ‘We’ve managed to get hold of some CCTV footage that covers the corner of the playground. It’s grainy as fuck, and it’s mainly focused on the toilet cubicle. So we don’t really see Scarlett.’

  ‘You’ve got her on camera?’

  Jack held his hands up. Not wanting to give Nancy any false hope, he shook his head.

  ‘Barely. The camera angle is off. Forty grand they spent on this system. Monkeys must have installed the thing. It should have been facing the playground and the gates to the park. All we’ve got is the toilet cubicles. Look, down here in the bottom left of the screen. That’s the corner of the children’s sandpit.’

  Nancy nodded. Half hoping that she would get a glimpse of her daughter. As if somehow that would make her feel better. Seeing her on the screen.

  It would make her feel as if they were finally getting somewhere.

  That they were heading in the right direction if nothing else.

  Though now, listening to Jack’s tone, suddenly him summoning her down here, didn’t sound like this was a good thing at all.

  ‘Keep watching,’ Jack said, as he waited for a few seconds and then got the CCTV operative to pause the tape. He pointed then to the screen.

  ‘There. You see her?’

  Nancy stared. Her eyes fixed on the flash of red hair. A bright pink coat in shot. On the screen for just seconds. It was her, Nancy was certain of it.

  ‘Colleen bought her that jacket. Everything that woman buys her is bloody florescent pink,’ Nancy said, her heart beating hard then inside her chest. Her breath shallow, as she stared at the screen as the operative replayed the last few seconds so that Nancy could be sure. ‘That’s Scarlett. A hundred per cent.’

  Jack nodded in agreement.

  He wasn’t disputing that at all. It was the rest of the recording that Nancy needed to see.

  ‘Keep watching,’ Jack said. Not able to bring himself to say anything else. Nancy had told him that she wanted to know every single detail about this investigation, and that he wasn’t to hide anything from her. He had to respect that.

  Nancy watched the screen. The picture blurred and grainy in places, just as Jack had warned her. But clear enough to just about make out the silhouette of a woman walking past the sandpit.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Nancy said, wondering if the woman was even relevant. Unable to catch a glimpse of the woman’s face, her back to the camera as she stepped inside the public toilets.

  Nancy watched as another figure went into the loo then too. This time a male. Reaching the toilet door he looked towards the sandpit, as if he was saying something to the child that was playing there. His face in full view of the camera then.

  ‘That’s Michael,’ Nancy said, narrowing her eyes, as she watched her grandad follow the woman into the female toilets. ‘He told me he didn’t take his eyes off her. What the fuck…?’ The penny dropped then at the reason he’d gone into the toilets in the first place. No wonder he’d kept this to himself. Nancy was furious then.

  ‘He couldn’t lie straight in bed, that man. I’m going to kill him for this…’

  Biting her lip, they waited in silence.

  Anger building inside her as she realised her grandad had left Scarlett out there playing on her own.

  Watching the clock.

  That fucking man. No wonder he was so beside himself back at the house.

  She knew that there had been more to it.

  He was guilty as sin, because sinning is precisely what he’d been up to.

  ‘That lying bastard,’ Nancy said, impatiently, keeping her gaze fixed on the toilet door between constant flickers to the bottom corner of the screen.

  To the sandpit where her baby-girl was playing all on her own.

  Scarlett was barely in shot for most of it, but every now and again, Nancy caught a flash of pink, as her daughter moved about.

  Impatient, Nancy shook her head. Watching as the minutes on the screen passed them by.

  ‘What’s he doing in there?’

  ‘I’ll give you one guess. Looks to me like your grandad is up to his old tricks again. Getting his rocks off with some fucking brass in Richmond Park bogs, while our daughter is left unattended in the fucking playground,’ Jack spat, angry now too. The vein pulsing in his temple. His fists clenched so tightly together that his knuckles had gone white. If Nancy didn’t murder the bastard for this, he personally would.

  Hearing the hard tone to his voice, how angry and upset he was, Nancy knew that this was really bad. Jack had already seen this footage, he knew what happened next.

  ‘Tell me, Jack, what’s happening?’ Nancy said, too impatient to wait now.

  She just wanted to know where the fuck Scarlett was.

  But Jack wouldn’t tell her.

  ‘Keep watching,’ he said. Unable to find the words. How could he tell the mother of his child that her worst fears were about to come true?

  So they stared at the screen in silence. Both continuing to watch the footage play out, the silence in the room palpable. The only noise, a loud hum of the monitor playing the CCTV imaging; the occasional click of the keyboard as the operator paused the footage hoping to get a better view of Scarlett, every time the child came into shot.

  Jack hated to put Nancy through this, but he knew Nancy well enough to know that she needed to see for herself. First-hand.

  ‘There. Pause it,’ Jack instructed the CCTV operative. ‘Go back a bit. There.’ Pointing down towards the dark shadowy figure at the bottom of the screen.

  Nancy looked closer.

  The operative pressed play again.

  A flash of pink again. Scarlett’s jacket.

  So sudden that if Jack hadn’t pointed it out, Nancy would have probably missed it.

  Then another figure. Moving quickly.

  ‘No, please God, no!’ Nancy wailed. Her hands over her mouth, her eyes fixed on the screen in front of her. Unable to shift her gaze from the figure standing over her daughter.

  ‘Pause it,’ Jack instructed.

  They both stared at the screen.

  The operative zoomed in.

  The only image in front of them, of someone’s hand wrapped around Scarlett’s arm.

  Too dark to make out if it was a man or a woman.

  Too grainy to see any features.

  Just a shadowy silhouette, reaching down for Scarlett.

  The bucket and spade are thrown down on the floor beside the sandpit.

  Then as quickly as both figures had come into view, they were gone; the camera still focused on the now empty sandpit.

  ‘Please, pick it up. Pick it up,’ Nancy muttered to herself, transfixed on the bucket and spade that Scarlett had just been playing happily with.

  But she wouldn’t pick it up, would she?

  Because she wasn’t there anymore. She was gone.

  ‘Oh my God, Jack. Someone has taken her, haven’t they?’ The words that left he
r mouth were spoken in barely a whisper now. As if saying them any louder would somehow make them too real.

  Only this was real.

  Clasping a hand over her mouth so that she wouldn’t scream with anger and fear, or worse, throw up.

  ‘We don’t know anything yet, Nancy, so don’t jump to any conclusions. We need to keep watching. We have to keep our wits about us, Nancy,’ Jack instructed. Knowing how hard it was to watch, how hard it was to take in the fact that their daughter may have been abducted. Determined to stay professional and calm, so that he wouldn’t lose his head too. ‘Keep watching, Nancy. It’s important.’

  Nancy saw another movement then.

  The toilet cubicle door opening.

  Jack Taylor tapped the screen.

  ‘Watch. She comes out first, shortly followed by Michael. Seven minutes they’d been in there in total,’ Jack said, talking Nancy through it. Keeping her focused. ‘She looks in the sandpit, and sees Scarlett is gone, but she just keeps walking,’ Jack said, convinced that the woman may be involved. ‘Don’t you think that’s strange? She must have known that Michael had left Scarlett to her own devices, yet she doesn’t seem worried not to see Scarlett there. Maybe she expects it?’

  Nancy stared, narrowing her eyes.

  ‘Hang on a minute. Go back,’ she said, as the woman stepped out of the cubicle. Her face visible to the camera now too.

  Not a hundred per cent clear, but Nancy could just about make her out.

  Sensing something familiar about her.

  ‘You know her?’ Jack asked, scrutinising the image himself.

  ‘I don’t know, maybe. I think I recognise her,’ Nancy said, shaking her head. Unsure then; the image was hazy. She’s probably just clutching at straws. Trying to see something that’s not even there. ‘She looks familiar, but I can’t place her. I don’t know. Play the rest of it.’

  A few seconds later Michael steps out of the toilet cubicle too.

  The panic on his face evident as he eyes the empty sandpit. The discarded bucket and spade. Standing for a few seconds, completely still, before he moves quickly out of shot.

  ‘That’s it,’ Jack said then, turning the CCTV footage off. ‘That’s all we’ve got so far, Nancy. We’ve checked for cameras along the main road leading into Richmond Park, but so far, this is our only lead. But at least we’ve got one. We just need to get back to the house now and find out what the fuck your grandad’s been up to, and who the fuck this woman is. She’s part of it. I’m sure of it.’