The Forgotten_An absolutely gripping, gritty thriller novel

by Casey Kelleher

  ‘Leads? Grainy CCTV footage of some shadowy figure in a park? We don’t even know if it’s a woman or a man!’

  Nancy began pacing the room. Ready to tear her hair out in frustration that they were all just standing around waiting for something to happen. To hear some news. That they were pretty much rendered useless. That the fate of her little girl was completely out of her hands.

  ‘Let me make you a tea, Nancy,’ Bridget said. Feeling useless then too.

  Seeing the distress and fear in everyone’s faces.

  She busied herself as the women sat down at the table, and Jack went off to make a call.

  Handing out the hot mugs of tea, just as Jack came strolling back into the room.

  ‘We’ve got something, Nancy,’ he said, sounding hopeful now. His phone still in his hand. ‘One of the residents just outside the park, over at the Sheen Gate entrance, made a report of a car hanging about, around the time that Scarlett went missing. Said that she’d noticed it because it had been blocking her driveway. The resident didn’t think too much of it, until one of our officers started doing a house-to-house on that street, asking if anyone had seen Scarlett. That’s when the woman mentioned it. She thought the driver had been acting a bit suspiciously. That he’d seemed on edge. Tapping his steering wheel and constantly looking up and down the street. She said that he went into the park, only to come running back out a few minutes later. Followed shortly afterwards by a woman. That they’d both sped off.’

  ‘And Scarlett? Did she see Scarlett?’ Not allowing herself to get her hopes too high. It wasn’t much to go on.

  ‘She doesn’t remember seeing a child,’ Jack said, wishing that he had something more solid. But this was a start. This was something at least. ‘But get this, Nancy. She said that because her car had been vandalised twice last year, she’d invested in some CCTV cameras of her own. She reckons she’s got the car on camera. My officers are there now, seeing if she managed to get the car’s registration number. This could be our lead, Nancy. We might finally have something.’

  ‘Or it could be nothing.’ Not feeling hopeful, Nancy wasn’t convinced.

  Another beep then, from Jack’s phone.

  ‘They got it. The car is registered to a Kyle Boyd?’ Jack said looking at Nancy half hoping that she might recognise the name. Only she shook her head.

  ‘Doesn’t ring a bell.’

  Another beep.

  ‘They’ve got an address for him. He’s clean, he hasn’t got any previous.’

  ‘He might have nothing to do with it,’ Nancy said then, annoyed that they seemed to be just going around in circles. As if they weren’t getting anywhere closer to finding Scarlett.

  Another beep then. This time Nancy closed her eyes.

  What was the point in all of this?

  They should be out there, combing the park and the surrounding streets. Checking every house, every car. Not digging up information on some random bloke who more than likely had nothing to do with any of this.

  They were just wasting precious time.

  ‘This is him…’ Jack held it out for Nancy to see. ‘They managed to get a clear image of him from the woman’s CCTV when he got out of his car.’

  A young man. Nothing untoward, tall and well-built but other than that he was average-looking.

  Brown hair, brown eyes. His face pale and unshaven.

  Nancy had never seen him before in her life.

  ‘Fucking hell!’ Bridget said, almost dropping her cup on the kitchen table, as she leaned in closer to get a better view. Certain her eyes were deceiving her. ‘I know him.’

  Her blood running cold as she got up and snatched the phone from Jack’s hand, staring at the image. Making sure that she was certain.

  And she was.

  ‘That’s him. He’s been in your house, Nancy. He’s the guy from the security company. The fella that we hired to do the alarm system. The first time around.’

  ‘Fuck! Are you sure?’ Jack said then, before grabbing his phone back and making a call to his colleague. Demanding Kyle Boyd’s listed address.

  ‘Hang fire on heading over there,’ Jack instructed his colleague, not wanting any of his co-workers to go around to this fucker’s place of residence and interfere.

  Jack Taylor was going to sort this fucker out personally.

  Chances were that this man had his daughter.

  It had to be him.

  It was too much of a coincidence for it not to be.

  Thirty-One

  ‘Let’s get the hell out of here!’ Jess Green ordered as she slid into the passenger seat of her boyfriend’s Ford Mondeo, glancing back towards Sheen Park gates to make sure that Michael Byrne wasn’t following closely behind her.

  A week of buttering up that dirty old git was all it had taken for Jess’s plan to come into play.

  Men! God may have blessed them all with both brains and a cock, but the flaw in the big man’s grand design had been that he hadn’t given them enough blood supply for both to be operated at once.

  And Jess had been counting on that.

  Fuck, she’d made a career out of it.

  Michael Byrne had, just as she’d hoped, taken the bait. Unable to resist her charms, he’d been only too happy to leave his precious little Scarlett unattended for a few minutes, and that was all Jess had needed.

  Shuddering at the thought of Michael Byrne’s grubby hands roaming her body, Jess pushed the memory of their sordid little encounter to the back of her mind. She never wanted to think about Michael Byrne again.

  ‘Come on, Kyle, get a bloody move on.’ Jess looked impatiently at Kyle Boyd then, wondering why he hadn’t even started up the engine.

  He looked awkward. His hands tightly gripping the steering wheel, his eyes fixed straight ahead of him.

  He was avoiding eye contact with her.

  Her heart sank.

  She knew straight away.

  ‘Oh God!’ Jess turned to check the seat behind her, expecting to see little Scarlett Byrne sitting there, under the blanket, just as they’d planned.

  Only the seat was empty. The large blanket they’d brought with them to conceal the child, unused, still screwed up in a ball in the middle of the chair.

  ‘Where the fuck is the kid?’ Jess said, gritting her teeth, glaring at Kyle, confused now.

  She’d checked the playground herself, and Scarlett had definitely gone.

  Jess had even smirked to herself as she’d stepped over the child’s abandoned bucket and spade that had been discarded down on the pathway, before getting her arse out of there quick time too. Not wanting to hang around and witness Michael Byrne’s melodramatics when the dirty old bugger finally waltzed out of the toilet cubicles only to discover that his beloved great-granddaughter had gone on the missing list.

  But something had clearly gone wrong.

  ‘You have got her, haven’t you?’ Desperate now, Jess’s last hope was that maybe the kid had been a pain in the arse, and had kicked off, so Kyle had put her in the boot? Though she couldn’t hear any noise coming from back there. No crying or banging to get out. And the fact that Kyle wouldn’t even look at her told her all she needed to know.

  ‘Fuck! You didn’t get her, did you?’ she shouted then. Smashing her hand against the dashboard with pure rage.

  Typical Kyle. He’d fucked up yet again.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jess… I did what you said, but…’ he started.

  But Jess stopped him in his tracks.

  Her voice high-pitched, laced with hysteria.

  ‘You’re sorry! You’re sorry? Oh please, spare me, Kyle.’ This could not be happening. Not after all the groundwork she’d put in to get this right today.

  And to think that she’d just let that filthy pig, Michael Byrne, paw all over her, for nothing.

  Squeezing her eyes shut, at just the thought of what she’d let that man do to her, the thought of his wrinkly, saggy body pressed up against her. The memory of his shrivelled-looking penis in
her hand making her want to gag.

  Jess had more than done her bit.

  And for what?

  So that Kyle could fuck everything up for her, just like he always did.

  ‘I know you’re not going to believe me, but it wasn’t my fault.’ Kyle Boyd was stuttering now. Knowing full well how much this job meant to Jess; not only that but it had been his chance to make it up to her. To prove that he was up to the job. That he was sorry for fucking up the last attempt he’d had at getting their own back on Nancy.

  He knew that Jess wasn’t going to take the news well.

  He’d been sitting here for a full five minutes preparing what he was going to say to the woman. Only now she was sitting in the car next to him, glaring at him as if she wanted to throttle him, Kyle Boyd was positively shitting himself.

  ‘What do you mean “it w-w-wasn’t your f-f-fault”?’ Jess said, mimicking Kyle as she repeated back his broken, stuttered words, her beautiful face contorted with such anger and venom that she looked almost unrecognisable.

  ‘Whose fucking fault was it then, Kyle? Not fucking mine, that’s for sure. I stuck to my side of the deal,’ Jess shouted. ‘You really are a fucking useless moron, do you know that, Kyle!’ Jess Green said then, her temper finally getting the better of her. She struck out and smacked the man hard around the back of his head.

  Which Kyle just took. Just as he always did.

  He knew better than to react. If he made any attempt at trying to defend himself, it would only anger Jess even further.

  He felt ashamed then. Blinking back his tears. Jess was five-foot nothing and tiny compared to his giant form, but the woman was ferocious. Kyle had never met a woman like her. So full of anger and hate, so reactive. She thought nothing about jumping on Kyle and beating the man repeatedly around the head if he pissed her off, and Kyle never fought back. He couldn’t. Not only had he never hit a woman, Jess Green genuinely scared the shit out of him.

  ‘Why can you never do anything right? You had one thing to do, Kyle, one bloody thing.’ Jess spat, carrying on her tirade of abuse as she shook her head at the pathetic man sitting next to her. The bloke was a bitter disappointment. Just like they all were. He may be six-foot tall, and built like a proverbial brick shithouse, but his looks were just about all the charm that Kyle had to offer her.

  The man was as soft as shit.

  If Jess wanted something doing, then she knew that she would have to do it herself. Just like she always did.

  ‘Seriously. Is there anything that you can actually do right, Kyle?!’ she said, biting her lip so hard that she almost drew blood. Her brain working overtime. ‘Go on then, what happened? And please don’t tell me that you let her run off?’

  That wouldn’t surprise her. If Kyle had freaked the kid out and the child had done a runner.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault, Jess. I didn’t do anything. Literally,’ Kyle said then. Annoyed with himself that he sounded so whiney and pathetic. That Jess could have this effect on him. Reducing him to nothing more than a quivering, nervous wreck. ‘I did exactly like you told me. I waited until you and that Michael Byrne went into the toilet cubicles and then I went to get the kid. But someone else beat me to it.’

  ‘You what?’ Jess raised her eyes at that. Wondering if one of Michael’s family members had been hanging around. His wife maybe? Or maybe the child’s mother herself.

  ‘Scarlett didn’t look too happy to go either. She was practically dragged away.’

  Kyle stared at Jess then, letting her know that he was telling her the truth. That this really wasn’t his fuck-up.

  That it had been out of his control.

  ‘I’m telling you, Jess, as God is my witness. I didn’t fuck it up. Someone else got to the kid before us!’

  ‘Get off me,’ Scarlett Byrne shouted, struggling to break free of the nasty woman’s firm hold as the lady tried to force her into the back seat of her car.

  The woman was becoming annoyed now. She hadn’t expected the child to be so difficult and defiant. Nor had she thought that the little brat would try and fight back.

  ‘Your mummy said I need to bring you home to see her right now, Scarlett. She’s waiting for you. So get into the car and be a good little girl, like I told you.’

  She was pushing her again, pinching her flesh between her bony fingers, making Scarlett scream out in pain.

  Scarlett turned, ducking down under the woman’s arm, trying to make a run for it.

  But the woman was one step ahead of her. Blocking the child’s way, she grabbed Scarlett tightly, both arms wrapped around her.

  She felt an almighty pain then, as the child sank her teeth into the woman’s arm.

  ‘You little bitch!’ the woman screamed out, batting Scarlett off her.

  Tired of the games now, her patience worn well and truly thin, she lost it. Shoving Scarlett face down on the back seat of the car, she used all her weight to pin the girl down, despite her convulsing and kicking out.

  ‘I told you to behave, but you just wouldn’t listen, would you?’

  She reached through the gap in the two front seats, feeling around for the bag on the passenger seat. Fumbling around inside, she felt the syringe.

  Her backup plan.

  With one knee digging into the child’s back, she dragged her sleeve roughly up her arm, searching for a vein.

  Ignoring the child’s cries and pleas now, she pushed the needle deep into Scarlett’s flesh.

  Waiting a few seconds for the child’s writhing to stop.

  For Scarlett to go completely still.

  She quickly scanned the street then, making sure that no one was watching.

  Why would they? she thought.

  From a distance she looked like any other mother struggling with a difficult, tantrumming child.

  The kid was quiet now.

  Anaesthetised.

  The woman took her chance to rearrange Scarlett’s posture. Propping her into a sitting position, leaning her head against the windowpane, so that she looked as if she was simply taking a nap.

  Then tightening the seatbelt around her, not taking any chances for anyone to pull her over now. She ran around to the driver’s side and started the engine.

  Looking down at the red welt on her arm. The tiny teeth marks that had pierced her skin.

  The smear of blood.

  She shook her head.

  Oh, the little brat was going to pay for this.

  But first, she needed to get out of here before she was seen, and fast.

  Driving around to the front gates of Richmond Park, Kyle Boyd scanned the streets in search of the woman that he’d seen just five minutes earlier. If Kyle was right, then she couldn’t have got very far, not with a struggling young child in tow. The chances were that she was probably still in the area. And if she was, then Kyle needed to find her.

  This was his one and only chance to redeem himself. To prove to Jess that he really hadn’t fucked up. That he could put this all right.

  ‘Stay down,’ he ordered, scouting the park’s main entrance, relieved that there was no sign of Michael Byrne there, before putting his attention back onto the road.

  Eyeing the pedestrians walking down the footpath.

  The mothers walking hand in hand with their children. A big group of teenagers all messing about and laughing as they walked. An elderly couple, walking slowly past them, intimidated by the noise and scuffling.

  Carefully observing the road, desperate to catch a glance of the woman and Scarlett.

  Nothing.

  Then finally, he spotted her.

  ‘There!’

  Jumping in the driver’s seat of a blue Peugeot 205, the woman pulled out into the oncoming traffic as if she hadn’t even bothered to look. Almost crashing head on in to another car that had been coming the opposite way.

  She screeched to a halt in the road, before steering around the shocked driver and speeding off.

  ‘Bingo! That’s her.’ He grinned. ‘Yo
u can sit up now. We’ve gone past the park. There’s no sign of Michael Byrne, but I’ve got eyes on your woman.’

  Doing as she was told, Jess looked ahead on the road, trying to work out which car in front of them they were now following.

  ‘That blue one, two cars in front,’ Kyle said, as if reading her thoughts. ‘I thought we should stay back a bit, out of sight. So we don’t arouse her suspicions. She’s already driving like a headcase as it is. We don’t want to lose her.’

  Jess nodded. For once, Kyle seemed to actually be on the ball.

  Both of them glued to the car as they made their way through the London streets.

  Following the car up Hill Street, before turning left onto Bridge Street, and crossing the bridge across the Thames.

  ‘Where the fuck is she going?’ he muttered, following the car through the streets of Twickenham.

  Making sure he kept his distance. Several cars back, until they finally made it to George Street, where ahead, the blue Peugeot came to a stop.

  ‘Stay back,’ Jess said, ordering Kyle not to go any further. They pulled up at the side of the road and watched as the woman parked outside a block of flats further down.

  Abandoning the car on double yellows, the woman got out.

  Going to the back of the car, she stood scanning the street once more. Checking to make sure that there was no one around, before leaning into the back seat and picking Scarlett up, holding her against her body, like any woman carrying her sleeping child. She hurried inside the flats.

  ‘What the fuck did she do to the kid?’ Kyle said, suspiciously.

  He’d seen Scarlett kicking and pulling to escape from the lady, now she was fast asleep? It didn’t add up.

  Jess couldn’t agree more. Something definitely wasn’t right.

  ‘I’m going to follow her, and see what flat she goes in. Wait here,’ Jess said, going for the door handle, ready to jump out of the car.

  But Kyle quickly pulled her back. Holding her by her wrist, he shook his head.

  ‘You can’t go on your own, Jess,’ he said then, a concerned expression on his face. ‘We don’t know who the fuck she is. For all we know she might be delivering that poor kid to some fucking paedophile ring or something. We don’t know what we’re dealing with…’