The Dead Ground

by Claire McGowan

  Bernice patted her shoulder. ‘Listen now. Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll make a follow-up appointment, and I’ll also give you the details of the counsellor. She’ll be able to help you think through the decision.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Up close, the midwife’s face was tired and paunchy, her skin stretched oddly over the bones of her face. But Paula could have hugged her, it was such a relief to unburden herself. The ties of family, home, community – they bound you tight and kept you safe, but they were almost impossible to sever. And she, having done it once and walked away without a backward glance, had let herself almost effortlessly get tied up again.

  Chapter Eleven

  She made it back to the unit as the afternoon briefing was starting. Guy gave her a very quick glance and then a flick of his eyes to the clock. She had to sit on her anger to stop it spilling out.

  He launched right into it. ‘As you know, Alek Pachek was found safe and well yesterday evening. A great result; however, we can’t stop there. Serious Crime will be trying to find the abductor, and fast. Paula thinks there’s a strong chance they will do it again.’ When he said her name, she gritted her teeth. ‘We’ll provide assistance as needed. However, our main case is now Dr Alison Bates.’ He clicked the pointer and the wall lit up, Dr Bates appearing cold and austere in her lab coat. ‘She’s been missing for two days only, but I’m very worried about this one, as she’s been receiving death threats for several months.’ This was Guy in business mood, not the broken man who’d laid his head in Paula’s lap the night they’d slept together, when all this mess had started. ‘Avril, if you could pull any old threats to family planning providers. That should lead us to some likely groups. Oh, and as we’re still looking for Alek’s abductor, Corry would like us to put a rush on digging out those cases of child abduction or attempted child abduction.’

  Avril was typing. ‘I started this, but there’s a lot. Can we add age limits?’

  Guy looked at her. ‘Paula? That’s more your area.’

  ‘Five or under, I’d say. Most likely under two, but you never know for sure.’ She risked a look back at Guy. ‘What am I doing?’

  ‘Corry wants a fuller profile of the abductor. I think she’s imagining you can tell what music they listen to and if they like cabbage or not. I’d also like a risk assessment on Alison Bates, if she went off of her own accord, what could have triggered this, that sort of thing. Where would she go? One angle of interest is her missing laptop with all the patient records. It’s entirely possible someone made a fictitious appointment to see her, and then attacked her outside her office.’

  Paula made notes on her pad, trying not to betray her worry that they’d find out exactly why she’d been there herself that day.

  ‘And I also want us checking out this faith healer further. Officially she’s a police consultant, but she gave us the exact place we’d find Alek. I for one find that suspicious.’

  Gerard said, ‘It was maybe a lucky guess, boss. Somewhere quiet, indoors . . . you know.’

  ‘Mm. I go for Occam’s Razor, myself. If she knew for certain, she must be involved somehow.’

  Gerard raised his eyebrows at Paula over the table. Questioning Corry’s expert? This was a new development. ‘We can’t take her in, boss, surely.’

  ‘Not yet. Let’s look into her – we should get Fiacra on that, she’s mostly been in the South, I gather. Where is he?’

  ‘He’d something to do with his family,’ said Avril, in a tone that implied chummy secrets.

  ‘You make a start then. Find out everything you can about her – was she really married? If so, what was her maiden name? What did she do before the healing work?’

  Paula asked, ‘Is there no forensic evidence from the Pachek scene – either scene?’

  Guy shook his head. ‘No prints were lifted, no fibres, no foot impressions. This person leaves no trace. And the blankets were generic, available in five different outlets in the town.’

  ‘So nothing.’

  ‘Nothing. But let’s be clear that the Bates case is ours to coordinate – we can direct and call upon the resources of the local station, but we’re in charge. That’s it, everyone. Off you go.’

  Gerard muttered, ‘Musta got stung on that baby case.’ A stand-off between Corry and Guy would leave him in an awkward situation, as technically he was employed by the station and not the unit.

  Everyone was getting up, shuffling their papers. Bob shrugged into his suit jacket. ‘I’ll give you a lift up to the station, DC Monaghan.’

  Gerard hesitated. Bob had a Skoda and drove it as if leading a funeral cortège. ‘Thank you. I’ll get my bag, sir.’

  Guy was tidying up his papers. He looked up inquiringly at Paula as the others left. ‘You OK? You’ve had a few appointments and things recently, I see.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘Why didn’t you tell me Tess was back?’

  He continued to tidy, movements gradually slowing down. ‘I was going to. You saw her, then.’

  ‘We bumped into each other.’ Paula could hear how bitter she sounded, suddenly full of rage that they’d both been stupid and drunk, but it was her who had to encounter his wife with only a piece of tissue paper covering her bits.

  ‘I’m sorry. I meant to tell you before that happened.’

  ‘What does it mean, Guy?’

  ‘Well, Tess felt Katie needed both parents with her at the moment. She’s here for now, but she and I – I don’t know what will happen. It’s . . .’ He was struggling. ‘It’s difficult. She just arrived back.’

  ‘I see.’ She didn’t.

  ‘We never did get to talk properly, did we? After everything. I thought there’d be some down time, but then there was the Pachek case, and now this doctor is missing too, everything was just so busy. And you were recovering – I didn’t want to burden you with my problems.’

  ‘You should have told me.’

  ‘Yes. I tried. There wasn’t a good time.’

  She said nothing for a moment. ‘There’ll never be a good time, will there?’ She was asking something more than this and they both knew it.

  He ran his hands through his hair. ‘I don’t know. It’s just – the timing. Everything that’s happened . . .’

  ‘And you and me?’

  His face twisted. ‘I don’t know. She came back. What can I do?’

  ‘Right.’ She got up. Her legs were suddenly wobbly. ‘I hope – I really hope things work out for you. For Katie’s sake, as well.’ She was moving to the door when Gerard burst through it, his coat on.

  ‘Boss – there’s been another one. Corry wants you two out now.’

  Guy didn’t get it. ‘Another what?’

  ‘Another baby’s gone missing.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Both Caroline Williams and her husband were wearing his ’n’ her Ugg boots in their detached three-bedroom new-build house. The husband, Shane Williams, had his planted on the floor, elbows on his knees as he sobbed. ‘We only had her a few months! How could someone just take her?’ The noises he made were loud and spluttering.

  By contrast, Caroline could not sit down or stop moving. Grey tracksuit bottoms pushed into her own Uggs, she paced up and down, tearing at her nails, which had been bitten to the quick. ‘You took ages to get here! What’s the point of ringing if you can’t even help us?’

  ‘We came as soon as we could, Mrs Williams. Now, what can you tell us about Darcy, please?’ Guy spoke calmly, but Paula knew him well enough to realise he was not feeling it. ‘It’s important we start looking as soon as possible.’

  ‘I saw on the news some woman was taking babies. I think she came and took our Darcy too. Darcy’s gone.’ Shock seemed to bloom in her voice. She began to shake, wrapping her arms round herself. ‘She’s gone.’

  Shane Williams choked. ‘
God, you have to find her, please, sir, miss, please! Ma’am, I mean. Please.’

  Paula was oddly touched by the ma’am. ‘We’re going to try, but you need to tell us everything that happened. As quickly as you can, please. Were you here, sir?’

  He said, ‘I went into work – I mean, I’d like to be here more with Car and – and Darcy, but you know how it is. I have to work.’

  ‘What’s your job?’

  ‘Insurance.’ Caroline answered for him, tearing at her ragged cuticles. ‘He’s in insurance. Two days, they gave him off, when she was born. Two bloody days.’

  ‘She’s three months old?’ Paula was very carefully using the present tense, as they always did until they knew differently.

  ‘Three months, ten days, four hours,’ said Caroline, resuming her pacing.

  Paula transferred her attention to the wife. Bleached hair, polished nails. One of them had snapped and it was this she was worrying at with her teeth. ‘Can you tell us what happened to Darcy then, Mrs Williams?’

  Muttered. ‘Don’t you say her name.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Paula glanced at Guy.

  ‘What right have you to say her name, when you never even met her? No one met her. No one will now.’ Her voice was dry and savage.

  Paula kept hers equable. ‘I’m sorry. If you just tell me what happened, then.’

  ‘I was putting the washing out.’ Caroline indicated the neat lawn beyond the French windows of their semi. In the early-evening gloom they could see shrubs in boxes, B&Q decking, a barbecue with a coating of snow. Further back in the narrow lane, Corry’s officers had rigged up lights to search the bushes; dark shapes moving. Paula craned her neck but could see no sign of washing on the line. Caroline was saying, ‘I had her in her pram, and the phone went, so I just – I went in to get it and when I came back she’d gone.’

  Shane convulsed in tears again. Paula spoke carefully. ‘I just need to picture it, if I can, Caroline. You put the washing out in the snow?’

  ‘I needed to air it! I was going to take it in. There’s bloody – look, there’s no space.’ She waved her hands. True enough, every radiator in the room was draped in drying baby clothes, the air close and damp.

  ‘OK. And someone came into the garden?’

  ‘Well, they must have, yeah? She can hardly hold her head up, never mind get out and walk! For God’s sake.’

  ‘OK . . . so you think someone came over the fence?’

  ‘There’s a gate out to the back lane.’

  ‘And where does that lead?’

  ‘Out to the main road. I told him!’ She turned on her husband. ‘I told him it wasn’t safe, me and her on our own all day. Anyone could come in and get us. But he was too busy to put on the gate lock. He’s always too busy.’

  Shane Williams just shook his head, face buried in his hands. Paula saw his wedding ring turned to her. ‘Was the gate open then, when you went back out again, Caroline? Had the person left it open?’

  ‘I don’t know. Yeah. Probably.’

  ‘And were there footprints?’

  ‘What?’ Caroline stared at her.

  ‘In the snow. The snow’s still lying out there, isn’t it?’

  Caroline said nothing for a moment, eyes blazing at Paula. ‘You think I noticed wee things like that? My baby was taken. Some madwoman’s stealing babies, and she’s got my Darcy. I want to know what you’re gonna do about it.’ Her finger stabbed the air. ‘That baby in the hospital, you looked everywhere for him. All over the news it’s been. Some Polish family, coming over here and taking our jobs. Well, we’re just local people, born and bred, so will you do the same for us?’

  Paula passed the floor to Guy with an undetectable shrug. He got it. ‘Of course we will, Mrs Williams. Dr Maguire is right, though. If there are any footprints we can take imprints, do gait analysis.’

  ‘The gate?’ Shane was confused.

  ‘Er . . . the way the person walked, I mean. Have you touched anything in the garden since?’

  Shane shook his head. ‘We called yous right away. Car rang me in a state and I came home, then we phoned you. I mean, we walked on it ourselves – we looked everywhere for her. Was that not right?’

  Guy said, ‘It’s OK. Now here’s what will happen. Search teams are going to seal off the lane and comb it for clues at first light tomorrow. I’m afraid the roads are still quite bad, and it may snow again later, so that slows us up. We’ll also interview all your neighbours and put out appeals for anyone who could have been driving on the main road earlier today.’

  Caroline looked up. ‘Will you do one of those reconstruction things, like on telly?’

  ‘Possibly. I need you to tell us what Darcy was wearing, please, and if you have a picture of her, we’d like that too.’

  ‘There’s loads of photos,’ Caroline said, sucking her nail. ‘He’s never stopped snapping that phone at her since she was born.’

  ‘So what did she have on?’

  Afterwards, Paula thought that Caroline hesitated for a second. Shane jumped in. ‘She’d her wee pink tights on in the morning. Her grey dress with the kittens. Did you put her coat on, love, when—’

  ‘Of course I put her coat on. It’s freezing, isn’t it? She’d her purple dress on, her woolly yellow tights, and stripy mittens. And blue buckle shoes. OK? I had to change her when you went to work. She boked up her lunch. She always bokes.’

  ‘She has this condition, they said,’ Shane tried to explain. ‘Reflux or something. They said she might need an operation – Caroline couldn’t breastfeed her, see—’

  ‘I don’t think they want to hear that, Shane. Anyway, she had on yellow tights and a purple dress. And her coat and hat and that. OK?’

  Guy was writing. ‘Thank you. We’ll get an appeal out as soon as we can. And perhaps if we need to, in a few days, you would consider doing a press conference, both of you? They can be quite effective – Alek Pachek was returned after we held one.’

  ‘You wouldn’t make Car do that, would you?’ said Shane anxiously. ‘She’s not fit.’

  ‘I am too fit,’ she said agitatedly. ‘I’d do anything to bring Darcy back. Anything.’

  Paula wouldn’t leave it. ‘So you didn’t see anyone in the lane, or out the window, when you went to answer the phone – where’s it kept?’

  Caroline pointed. A cordless phone on its cradle, it was beside the fridge, which had a clear view of the garden and back fence. ‘It was in the living room,’ Caroline said, catching Paula’s look. ‘He never puts it back on the hook. I had to go into the living room to get it.’

  The living room, attractively decorated in purple wallpaper and scatter cushions, looked out on the road, the wrong direction for the back garden. Caroline glared at Paula. ‘I know what you’re thinking – why did I leave her? But it was only a minute. Less than a minute, and no one was there, and we were waiting on the bank ringing, we need to talk to them, and I just went in. It only takes two seconds, when there’s mad people about.’

  ‘Of course,’ Guy said. ‘No one is suggesting anything, Mrs Williams. Now, I’m afraid we may need to get in here, search the house.’

  Caroline jerked. ‘What? She went from the garden. You’re not even listening to me.’

  ‘We are, Mrs Williams. It’s just standard procedure. Forensics.’ Guy made a ‘stupid me’ gesture. ‘Who knows what they get up to?’

  ‘I don’t want people walking snow through the house.’

  ‘We’ll be very careful.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘It’s OK, Car.’ Her husband fumbled for her hand. ‘We’ll go to Mam’s. You won’t have to watch. They won’t wreck her things.’

  Caroline’s hand lay dead in his. ‘I got her nursery all nice.’

  ‘That’s right. You have it lovely. Da
rcy loves it, doesn’t she?’ He chafed her hand in his, tears glinting. ‘We’ll get her back, love. They’ll find her. They found the other baby, they’ll find her too.’

  Caroline would not be comforted. ‘You didn’t catch the person who did it.’

  ‘No,’ admitted Guy. ‘But, Mrs Williams, there’s no proof yet that this is even the same person, you know.’

  ‘It must be!’ she snapped. ‘Who else could it be?’

  ‘One last thing,’ Paula asked. ‘You didn’t notice anyone trying to befriend you, maybe, while you were pregnant, or at the hospital? Or did you go to any childcare groups?’

  ‘The Little Monkeys group.’ Shane grasped at it. ‘You didn’t like it there, did you?’

  ‘No.’ Caroline went back to chewing her ruined nails.

  ‘Was that why you never went back, was someone funny to you, or—’

  ‘No! For Christ’s sake. I just didn’t have time. I’ve got a wee baby to mind and the house to run and I’m working nights in the nursing home. I don’t know how all these mums get the time to run about to baby groups.’

  ‘Little Monkeys, you said?’ Guy made a note. ‘Where was that based?’

  ‘In the family centre, wasn’t it, love?’ Shane again. ‘You think maybe that’s it, someone from there, or—’

  ‘We don’t know, but we’ll look into every angle, as we said.’ Guy shut his notebook. ‘Thank you very much. We’ll be leaving a liaison officer with you to keep you updated on everything we do.’

  Caroline pointed at them, shaky. ‘You two. Have you any children?’

  They exchanged a quick glance. Paula’s stomach turned over. Guy said, ‘I do, yes. A daughter.’

  She knew what it cost him to say he had only one child. Caroline looked at Paula and she did a blank shake of the head. ‘Well, you can’t imagine it,’ Caroline was saying. ‘You can’t imagine what I’m feeling right now.’ I, she said, not we.