Detective Lucy Harwin 01-The Lost Children

by Helen Phifer

  Sandra smiled at Lucy as she fastened in the hearing aids. ‘Sorry, I forget to replace them sometimes. I have to take them out because he snores so loudly, and I can’t stand it when I’m trying to read. Isn’t that right, Ian?’

  Mattie was trying his best not to grin. Lucy waited until Sandra had got her hearing aids in, and had turned them down to stop them from whistling.

  ‘Now, that’s better,’ Sandra said. ‘So, who are you?’

  ‘They’re from the bloody police, Sandra,’ Ian Clements said. ‘How many times?’

  Lucy stepped forward and offered her hand. ‘I’m Lucy, and this is my partner, Matthew. We need to ask you some questions about your daughter Lizzy.’

  Ian sat down suddenly, and Sandra’s face paled.

  ‘I’m really sorry if I’ve upset you,’ Lucy said, ‘but we desperately need to ask you about her. Is that OK?’

  Sandra indicated they should take a seat on the sofa. ‘Please sit down, both of you. It’s been such a long time, that’s all. It’s such a shock to hear her name after all this time. We don’t talk about her any more – in fact, we haven’t spoken her name for years.’

  ‘We have a serious incident involving the asylum and some of the staff who worked there,’ Lucy explained. ‘We’re just trying to work our way through a list of patients that were there at the same time as the staff members. We know that Lizzy was on one of the children’s wards, and that she was admitted when she was nine years old. Could I ask for some more information about that?’

  Neither one of the elderly couple spoke. For a while, they just stared at each other, as if they were afraid to say anything out loud. In the end, it was Sandra who broke the trance and began to talk.

  ‘We didn’t know what else to do with her. Where do you take a child after they’ve done something so horrific? You do know that she suffocated our baby, don’t you? Her own brother? You have to understand, we were devastated about John. The doctors had told me there would be no more children after I had Lizzy. It was such a difficult birth. When I fell with John, we’d given up hope, hadn’t we, love?’

  Ian nodded, still unable to speak.

  Lucy reached out, taking hold of Sandra’s hand. ‘We do understand, and I’m so very sorry for your loss. I can’t imagine how devastated you all were. We are hoping to be able to trace Lizzy now, though. We need to speak to her about the incident I mentioned. Only, we haven’t had any luck. Where did she go after The Moore was shut down?’

  ‘As far as I know, they put her into another secure hospital. You can’t speak to her, I’m afraid,’ Sandra said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She’s dead.’

  Lucy was stunned.

  ‘We didn’t have anything to do with her after she was put into that hospital,’ Sandra continued. ‘We couldn’t go and visit her – no matter how much I wanted to, some days. Every time we looked at her we would have been reminded of what she’d done to our baby.’

  Lucy felt a cold chill settle over her. How could they have abandoned their own daughter like that? Yes, what that little girl had done was horrific – but she was nine years old at the time. She likely wouldn’t have had any concept about the consequences of it.

  Mattie took over, drawing the Clements’ attention away from Lucy. ‘When did she die?’

  Ian finally looked at Mattie. ‘Nineteen ninety,’ he said. ‘We weren’t told until after she’d been buried. Can you believe it? We’d gone on our very first holiday abroad since having the children. I’d arranged it as a surprise so we just upped and went, nobody knew where we were. They didn’t have those phones all you youngsters have now. It wasn’t until we came home that we found out that she’d died of a drug overdose.’

  ‘So, I take it that you never officially identified her?’ Mattie asked.

  They both shook their heads. ‘Her next-door neighbour found her, and he was a good friend, apparently, so he did it. We were grateful. Neither of us wanted to see her like that.’

  Lucy thought she knew why. They hadn’t wanted to face the guilt of abandoning their daughter – a daughter who, without the support of her parents, had become a drug addict and died. It was awful. Lucy couldn’t imagine ever doing that to Ellie if she’d found herself in the Clements’ position. The guilt of it would weigh so heavy on her shoulders that she’d end up drowning underneath it all.

  ‘Do you know the name of the neighbour?’ Lucy asked. ‘And I’m sorry to ask, but have you got a copy of the death certificate we could take a look at?’

  Ian shook his head. ‘He was called David something; I can’t remember the surname. And we never collected a death certificate for her. There was no need to; she’d already been dead to us for fifteen years.’

  ‘Thank you for your time,’ Lucy said. ‘I don’t think we need to know anything else. I’m very sorry to have bothered you.’ She stood up and held out her hand to shake Ian’s and then Sandra’s. ‘Once again, I’m sorry for your loss.’

  She walked out. She couldn’t bear to be in that stifling hot room any longer, absorbing the still-raw grief for their murdered baby that both the Clements radiated from every pore in their bodies. It didn’t matter how long it had been, when you lost a child it still felt as if it was just yesterday. She felt even worse now about her situation with Ellie than she had earlier. She needed to sort herself out and stop pushing her own daughter away from her.

  Mattie broke the silence as they drove away. ‘Phew, that was awful,’ he said. ‘They must have spent their entire lives grieving for their children. I’m surprised that they’re still together, to be honest; normally strain like that finishes off relationships.’

  Lucy nodded, not trusting herself to speak just yet.

  ‘Well, if she’s dead, that blows our theory that she was our killer out of the water, doesn’t it?’ Mattie continued. ‘Now we’re going to have to trawl through the rest of the names on Col’s list. This could take forever.’

  ‘I’m not happy with the fact that they didn’t get to identify her body though, are you?’ Lucy said quietly. ‘I think she could have found someone who looked similar to her and killed them – then got that neighbour to identify the body as hers. I still think she could be out there. She’s a good suspect. For all we know she’s carried on killing since she was released from hospital. She could be an expert at it by now – and when you look at the doctor’s murder, it didn’t look as if it had been done by someone inexperienced. It was too professional, too clean.’

  ‘Yes, but faking her own death, boss? That’s going a bit too far, isn’t it? Then waiting years to seek her revenge… It sounds like something out of a book.’

  ‘Sod off,’ Lucy said. ‘Have you got any better ideas?’

  She pulled her hair from the tight bun she’d wrapped it in earlier. Her head was banging and she felt like shit.

  ‘How could they abandon her like that?’ she asked aloud. ‘Never speak to her again… I can’t get my head around it at all. Wouldn’t they have wanted to ask her why she’d done it? When we get back to the station, I want to see a copy of Lizzy Clements’ death certificate. I want to speak to the officer who dealt with her sudden death, and I want to know who identified her body. We need to speak to whoever it was.’

  ‘It was twenty-five years ago. The officer probably retired long ago.’

  ‘They probably did, but there’s still a slim chance it was one of the older coppers who are still around, waiting to get their thirty years in. I also want to see if there’s anything on record about the death of the baby, John Clements. It was only in 1975 – there should be a record of it somewhere. I don’t want to dismiss Lizzy Clements as a suspect just yet. At the minute, Lizzy Clements and Tommy Wright are all we’ve got.’

  33

  Lucy made herself a mug of coffee and took it to her office, where she shut the door. She’d given Col and Browning the task of searching for every piece of information relating to the sudden death of Lizzy Clements. She needed a bit of tim
e to herself: time to think without listening to the rubbish that they were all chattering about in the office. She felt as if any moment now, everything was going to collide in a spectacular fashion. There was no denying it: she loved her job. Even on the darkest days, when she told herself she hated it, she was still glad that she didn’t work in a supermarket or a school.

  She logged on to her computer and waited patiently for the homepage to load, blowing on the hot coffee. She took a sip, but too soon – it burnt her tongue and fur began to form on it almost immediately. She put the mug down, vowing to wait until it was definitely much cooler, and began to type the log number that Shannon had given to her into the search bar. She had promised the woman she would look into it, and Lucy never broke her promises.

  The blue screen filled with the incident log and a link to the missing person’s report, which she clicked on. An image of Lauren Coates began to load. Lucy was taken aback by how stunning she was. Her pale blue eyes stared out from the screen, her face framed by lots of blonde hair. Suddenly, an image of her lying dead and decomposing filled Lucy’s mind. She had to shake her head to clear it, trying her best not to think bad thoughts. It was difficult, though. This girl, who didn’t look as if she had a care in the world, smiled out of the screen, and Lucy felt her heart fill with sorrow at the idea that something bad could have happened to her.

  She read through the notes on the case. There was a long list of actions on the report that the sergeant had put on; most of them had been completed. Lucy noticed that no one had done a full search of Lauren’s house. Lauren’s parents were out of the country on holiday. Maybe she’d flown out to be with them? It was a very possible likelihood. She decided to ask Shannon to check. If it wasn’t there, they could get hold of passport control and ask them to check if it had been used recently. She copied the contact details for Shannon into the phone box on the computer screen, and dialled her number.

  ‘Shannon? It’s DI Lucy Harwin. Have you actually been into Lauren’s address and checked to see if she was there? No? Have you got a key? Do you know if any of the officers have been inside to have a look?’ There was a slight pause. ‘No, OK, that’s fine. Leave it with me. I’ll ring you when we have some information.’

  Lucy ended the call. She had a feeling that she needed to go in and check the house herself. Lauren didn’t look like the sort of girl to just up and leave without telling anyone. She had a good job at the local doctors’ surgery. No criminal record, wasn’t on the system for anything. What if, somehow, she’d seen something she shouldn’t have on the night Audrey Stone had been killed? It was a long shot, but she only lived a few doors away from the nurse. And they both worked at the same doctors’ surgery – they were connected.

  Mattie knocked on her office door and walked inside without waiting to be invited. He had two cardboard cups – the smell of fresh coffee filled Lucy’s nostrils. He placed one cup in front of Lucy, then sat in the chair opposite her desk and lifted the lid on his own cup to cool it down. Lucy looked at her mug of almost cold coffee and pushed it to one side.

  ‘You know me so well,’ she said. ‘The way to my heart is fresh coffee, and cakes with lots of buttercream and jam inside.’

  ‘You don’t say?’ Mattie grinned. ‘Well, I’m sorry about the lack of cake, but have you seen my six-pack lately?’ He patted his stomach. ‘It’s not so much of a six-pack any more. So, what’s going on?’

  ‘I’m looking into something from this morning. That woman who approached me on Audrey Stone’s street. Her friend has gone missing.’

  ‘Pass it on to uniform; they love a good missing person.’

  ‘It’s already been dealt with, but there’s something not right. I have a bad feeling about this,’ Lucy said. ‘It all seems a bit too much of a coincidence that this girl, Lauren Coates, has disappeared off the face of the earth on the same night Audrey Stone was murdered.’

  ‘Argh, there you go,’ Mattie said. ‘Why did you say that out loud? Well, that’s it then: she’s a definite goner if you have a bad feeling. We all know your bad feelings are the equivalent to the kiss of death.’

  ‘I think that she’s involved somehow,’ Lucy said. ‘She might have witnessed something.’

  ‘Or maybe she’s our killer?’ Mattie asked. ‘What about that?’

  ‘Bugger off; I don’t think she’s the killer. She’s far too young to have been involved with the asylum; I think we’re looking for someone much older. We need to go and search her house though, like, now. There’s a chance she might be in there and unable to get to the phone.’

  Mattie sipped at his coffee. ‘If I’d known you were going to spring that on me I wouldn’t have brought you a coffee. Honestly, have we got time for this when there are two bodies up at the mortuary, and we’re still no nearer to catching who put them there?’

  ‘Trust me, I didn’t want to get involved, but we can’t just ignore it,’ Lucy said. ‘Print me off the log whilst I go and find someone who’s door-entry trained and not tied up. If we can’t find a key, I’m not waiting around: we’ll put the door in so we can do a search.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’ Mattie left to unlock his computer, while Lucy headed to the parade room.

  A few minutes later, he appeared at the doorway. ‘Boss, I’ve had a brilliant idea,’ he said, as he handed her a sheaf of paper warm from the printer.

  ‘Well? Don’t be shy,’ she said.

  ‘You could give this one to Browning,’ Mattie said. ‘It will keep him busy and not tie us down.’

  Lucy shook her head. ‘I’m going to pretend that you didn’t just say that. If I wanted him involved, I’d have asked him already.’

  ‘You don’t even know anything about this Lauren, though. In fact, do you know Shannon? I could understand if this was some kind of favour you were doing for a friend.’

  ‘No. I’ve never seen either of them before in my life.’

  Mattie rolled his eyes in the most exaggerated fashion Lucy had ever seen.

  ‘I’ve told you,’ she said. ‘It might all be connected. So now I feel responsible for her. If I were you, I’d just shut up and follow me. The quicker we get on with it, the quicker we can move on to the next thing.’

  Mattie sighed, following Lucy and the two uniformed officers she had found out to the police van that would take them to Lauren Coates’s house.

  34

  NOVEMBER 1975

  Lizzy and Alice were in the playroom – well, that was the name that was hand-painted on the door in big blue swirls. It was actually just a spare room that contained a couple of broken dolls and toy cars, a knackered old easel with a wonky set of legs and some dried-up paint pots. They liked it here, though. They could pretty much stay in here all day and be left alone. The nurses knew there was nothing in there to damage, and it meant the pair of them were out of the way, making the nurses’ jobs much easier.

  Lizzy had done a grand job of picking the peeling paint off the lower part of the playroom wall. She would sit picking at it for ages, until her nail beds began to bleed. It was one of her favourite things to do – that and draw, but Nurse Stone had taken it upon herself to hide all the decent pencils and the sharpener. All that were left were a few crayon stumps.

  Alice was busy writing in her diary. She kept it hidden in here, along with the one pencil that still worked. Lizzy had begged and begged her to let her use the pencil, but Alice wouldn’t hand it over to her.

  ‘Alice?’ Lizzy asked now. ‘When are you going home?’

  Alice looked up from her writing. ‘I don’t know. Why?’

  ‘Because you said if we were good, we’d go home, and that was ages ago. I think we’ve been pretty good, and no one has been to see us or to say we can go home.’

  ‘Lizzy,’ Alice said, ‘you won’t be going home, so stop asking. It’s annoying. Let’s face it: your parents have never even come to visit you. You’re as dead to them as that baby.’

  As Lizzy listened to Alice’s words and tried to comprehend th
e meaning of them, the playroom door opened and Nurse Stone stepped inside.

  Lizzy felt a red-hot rage fill her chest. She began to scream, which made Nurse Stone jump back. Lizzy didn’t stop screaming. She ran at the woman, knocking her to the ground and pummelling her small fists against her chest. With some effort, Nurse Stone managed to throw Lizzy off her. While the girl was recovering on the floor, the nurse stood up, drew her foot back, and kicked Lizzy as hard as she could on the leg.

  All of a sudden, Alice leaped forward and attacked the woman, tearing out large handfuls of her hair. The nurse fell back and slammed her hand against the red emergency button, bringing a flurry of nurses running to her aid. The nurses tried to drag Alice off, but she was far too strong. The doors banged open and in ran Dr Wilkes with two male porters.

  Lizzy, who was still lying on the floor, watched as the men dragged Alice away from the stunned nurse. They managed to manhandle her onto a metal trolley and strap her down, although she was still fighting against them. The doctor was passed a syringe full of liquid, which he jammed into her arm. The ward went silent as Alice lost control of her voice and the rest of her body.

  The doctor, who looked frightened, turned around. ‘Nurse? What just happened?’

  Nurse Stone, looking more than a little bedraggled, pointed her finger at Lizzy.

  ‘That little bitch started it. She attacked me for no reason, and when I pushed her away the other one came at me.’

  The doctor’s cheeks were flushed. He ran his hand through his thinning hair. ‘I can’t have any more carry-ons like this. We’re already under scrutiny. The board have being asking all sorts of questions.’

  ‘Well, if you want my opinion you should take her and lobotomise her now,’ Nurse Stone said. ‘What’s the point in waiting any longer for the inevitable? We’ve tried all the medication you’ve prescribed, and none of it is having any effect. You have no idea how hard it is working with these vile children. They look so innocent, yet we know full well that they’re monsters. She could do this again; it isn’t the first time. And she keeps asking where Tommy is. Do you want her asking the wrong person?’