The Missing Ones: An absolutely gripping thriller with a jaw-dropping twist (Detective Lottie Parker Book 1)

by Patricia Gibney

  ‘And you are implying . . . what exactly?’

  ‘You know exactly what I’m implying. Brown envelopes, backhanders, whispered promises in council corridors. Think what you like about me, but I warn you, do not underestimate me.’

  Lottie turned on her heel, snatched up her jacket from the back of the chair and left him staring out the window of his modern office, listening to the mid-morning traffic far beneath his feet.

  She almost skipped to the lift. She felt good. No, not good. Great.

  Rushing through the crowded reception back at the station, she bumped into Boyd. He took her arm, turned and steered her back out the door.

  ‘What’s up?’ Lottie asked, trying to maintain her balance.

  ‘Corrigan. He’s had a call from Tom Rickard. Something to do with you threatening his family.’

  ‘That’s a load of bollocks,’ she said, wrestling her arm free. She spun Boyd round to face her. ‘Total bullshit.’

  ‘Maybe. But a little time out of Corrigan’s line of fire mightn’t be a bad thing right now.’

  He gripped her arm. She relented and walked with him to the car.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked, fastening her seat belt.

  ‘The soup kitchen.’

  ‘Is that a new restaurant?’ she asked, dryly.

  Boyd reversed the car. ‘You know right well it’s where Susan Sullivan did her charity work.’

  Lottie calmed down and Boyd switched on the radio. Some rapper blared and she thought of Sean.

  ‘Am I a bad mother?’

  ‘No, you’re not. Why?’

  ‘Since Adam died, I can’t manage my home life. I’ve thrown myself into my job. I abandon my kids to their own devices. God knows what Chloe and Sean get up to all day. And Katie’s going out with a millionaire’s junkie son. I think I’m losing control, Boyd.’

  ‘It could be worse,’ he said.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Katie could be going out with a junkie without the millions.’

  Fifty-One

  Mellow Grove, a local authority estate of two hundred and ten grim houses, was a short drive through town.

  Boyd parked the car outside number 202, an end, pebble-dashed affair, with a small flat-roofed extension to the side. A young boy, no more than five years old, with dirty blond hair sticking out from under a peaked Manchester United cap, walked up to the front bumper and eyed the two detectives.

  ‘Who you looking for, Mister?’ he asked.

  ‘Mind your own business,’ said Boyd, pushing open the rusted gate.

  ‘Fuck off, you long lank of misery,’ the boy shouted.

  Lottie and Boyd turned, looked at him, then at each other and laughed.

  A lime-green, 1992 Fiat Punto, was parked outside the wall. Two black cats and a German shepherd sat guard on the step.

  The woman who opened the door, her body framing its width, had a head of grey hair curled tight to plump pink cheeks. An unevenly buttoned, knitted cardigan hung over a black polyester midi-dress. Swollen legs in elastic stockings led down to well-worn tartan slippers.

  ‘Mrs Joan Murtagh?’ Lottie enquired. ‘We rang you a few minutes ago.’

  ‘Did you?’ The woman checked their ID and guided them past her, into her home. ‘My memory lets me down at times.’ She shooed the dog down the path. He stretched and walked away, his warm paws trailing footprints in the snow behind him.

  Lottie sniffed the scent of fresh baking inside. Entering the kitchen, she spied brown bread resting on a wire rack.

  ‘Would you like some?’ Mrs Murtagh asked, noticing Lottie’s line of sight.

  Without waiting for a reply, she sliced up half the loaf, placed it on a plate and took the lid off a butter dish. A wooden walking stick hung, unused, from the table edge. She moved surprisingly quickly and Lottie thought she was probably around her mother’s age.

  ‘Eat up,’ Mrs Murtagh said. She poured boiling water from the kettle into a teapot. ‘You both look like you could do with a decent feed.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Lottie buttered the bread and took a bite. ‘Delicious. Try some,’ she told Boyd.

  ‘I’m on a diet,’ he said, taking out his notebook and pen.

  Mrs Murtagh broke into a robust laugh.

  ‘Diet me hole,’ she said. She looked over to Lottie. ‘Dangerous job for a woman, being in the guards.’ She placed the teapot on the table and sat down.

  Lottie fingered her damaged nose. ‘I like my job.’

  ‘I bet you’re good at it too,’ Mrs Murtagh said, pouring black tea into three mugs.

  ‘When did you first meet Susan Sullivan?’ Boyd asked, looking around for milk.

  ‘You’ll have to bear with me. I’m liable to forget important stuff. Early Alzheimer’s, my doctor thinks. So let me think. It must be five or six months ago.’ Mrs Murtagh munched the bread. Crumbs stuck to facial hairs at the corner of her lips. ‘Susan heard about my charity work with the homeless. I was fundraising for a shelter, wanted to convert the extension at the side of my house into a type of hostel. Did you notice it on the way in? Poor Ned, my late husband, built that himself, God love him. A heap of crap it was.’

  Lottie nodded.

  Mrs Murtagh continued. ‘The council stopped me. Said it wouldn’t be in keeping with the general area. I know the neighbours complained. Got a campaign up and running to oppose me, they did. Didn’t really matter in the end. I hadn’t enough money at the time.’

  ‘What did Susan do?’ Lottie asked.

  ‘She called to see me. Wanted to help. Gave me ten thousand euro straight up. Cash. No questions asked. You don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, do you? I got the extension renovated and installed a restaurant-style cooker. Kitted it out top notch, I did. And we started our own soup kitchen.’ Mrs Murtagh sipped her tea, her face alight with pride. ‘Did I show you?’

  ‘Maybe later,’ Lottie said. ‘How did you operate it?’

  When Mrs Murtagh raised an eyebrow, Lottie said, ‘The soup kitchen.’

  ‘Oh. We cooked up the broth, poured it into flasks and drove around town delivering it to the poor unfortunates. A few of them live on the streets and there’s another crowd down by the industrial estate. You know, along the canal, behind the train station.’

  Lottie knew. Her ribs still ached from the mugging.

  ‘Did Susan give you any idea why she was doing this?’ Lottie buttered a second slice of bread. If Boyd wasn’t going to eat, it was his loss.

  ‘She wanted to help those who couldn’t help themselves. Concerned with children sleeping rough, she was. It’s a national disgrace, what’s going on in this country, so it is. All those houses boarded up and the poor have nowhere to sleep.’

  Mrs Murtagh banged her fist on the table, eyes flaring. Her passion surprised Lottie. Pity there weren’t more like her, she thought.

  ‘Susan ranted on about developers building all those ghost houses. Said it was criminal the way the council allowed them to carry on,’ Mrs Murtagh said.

  Lottie looked at Boyd. He returned a knowing look.

  ‘But she worked for the council,’ Lottie said.

  ‘I know. But she never had the final say. That’s what she told me.’

  ‘Did she ever mention Tom Rickard? He’s a developer.’

  ‘I’m not stupid, just forgetful. I know who he is. With his snooty wife and junkie kid, looking down their noses at us mere mortals. I tell you, I’ve more wealth in my heart than Tom Rickard will ever have in his bank account, Detective Dottie.’ She slammed the lid back on the butter dish.

  ‘Did you have a run-in with him?’ asked Boyd.

  Lottie caught his smirk at Mrs Murtagh’s inaccurate mention of her name. She ignored him.

  ‘Not personally, but I know his kind,’ Mrs Murtagh said. ‘Susan didn’t have much time for him anyway.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Lottie.

  ‘Something to do with him owning St Angela’s. That’s the big empty orphanage place out the road. S
he mentioned one time about him buying his way through the development plan. I don’t know what that means but I can make a fairly good guess.’

  Lottie drained the remnants of her tea. Mrs Murtagh started to refill the mugs.

  ‘How many people are involved in the soup kitchen?’ asked Boyd, declining the tea.

  ‘Just me, now Susan’s gone. I don’t know how long I can keep it going, with no money coming in.’

  Lottie had a feeling that Mrs Murtagh would keep her soup kitchen going until the day she died, money or no money.

  ‘Have you any idea why someone would want to kill Susan?’ Boyd asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ The woman shook her head, sadly. ‘She was a decent soul. Only wanted to do good for people. It’s a mystery to me.’ She wiped tears from her eyes. ‘A lot of things are a mystery to me nowadays.’

  ‘She must have spoken to you about her life. Had she any worries or concerns?’

  ‘She told me she was dying. I’ve never met anyone who accepted a death sentence like she did. Resigned to her fate, she was.’

  ‘Did she ever tell you where the cash came from?’

  ‘Cash?’ Mrs Murtagh was silent, thinking for a moment. ‘Yes, she said it was owed to her, from a long time ago. “Everyone pays in the end.” Susan said that. Funny how I can remember these things and not others. You know, I have a feeling there’s something else I need to be telling you. But I can’t remember for the life of me.’

  Lottie digested the information.

  ‘Did anyone have a grudge against her?’ asked Boyd, tapping his notebook impatiently.

  ‘Susan was a quiet soul, just wanting to help people. I don’t know why anyone would want to harm her.’

  ‘Did she have a boyfriend or partner?’ Lottie asked.

  ‘Not that I knew of.’

  ‘Did you know she had been in St Angela’s as a child?’

  The older woman was silent for a time, nodding away to herself.

  ‘She told me it was a terrible place. No child should be abandoned by a mother the way she was. Said she was one of the lucky ones, if you could call being scarred all your life lucky. The Catholic Church has a lot to answer for in this country.’ She shook her head wearily.

  ‘What did she tell you about the search for her child?’ asked Lottie.

  ‘Broke her heart it did, them taking away her chisler. She was never sure what actually happened to her baby.’

  ‘So, she’d no luck tracing it?’

  ‘She went through every avenue available and got nowhere. The biggest obstacle was the Church. She even met with the bishop. Fat lot of good that did her.’ Anger flashed in the old woman’s eyes once again.

  ‘She met Bishop Connor?’ Lottie nudged Boyd on the elbow. The bishop had denied knowing Susan and now it appeared he’d actually met with her.

  ‘Yes, she did. Let me think for a minute.’ Mrs Murtagh closed her eyes, then said, ‘When she came back here afterwards, she was very upset. So I couldn’t understand why she returned a second time.’

  ‘A second time? When? Why?’ asked Lottie, itching now to have another go at Bishop Connor.

  ‘I don’t know. I told her not to go back, but she was adamant he had information.’ Mrs Murtagh dropped her eyes. ‘Poor soul. That man told her she was nothing only a slut and said that’s why she must’ve been put in St Angela’s. He’s a bastard. God forgive me.’ Mrs Murtagh blessed herself again.

  Lottie digested this information. Why had Bishop Connor lied?

  ‘When was this second meeting, Mrs Murtagh?’

  ‘Christmas! Yes, it was before Christmas.’

  ‘Any idea when, exactly?’

  ‘Susan was on annual leave from the council. Christmas Eve. That’s it! We had three pots boiling on the big cooker. Did I show you the cooker? Of course I didn’t. Remind me before you go. Normally one or two pots would be the maximum. Funny how I can remember that when there’s so much I can’t. It was snowing like the dickens and the weatherman said it was going to be minus twelve or something ridiculous like that. So yes, I’m fairly sure it was Christmas Eve.’

  Boyd made a note.

  ‘How did she get on at the second meeting?’ Lottie asked, taking another bite of bread. She hadn’t realised how hungry she was.

  ‘I don’t think I even asked her. When she came back we filled the flasks, loaded my car and off with us, through the blizzard.’

  ‘Had her mood changed?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘After her visit with the bishop. Was she troubled or upset?’

  ‘I imagine she was the same Susan as always. Troubled, very troubled.’

  Lottie thought about Bishop Connor and felt an increasing sympathy for Susan Sullivan. She had been wronged throughout her life and the more she learned about her, the more determined she became to afford Susan some sort of justice, albeit too late.

  ‘When did you last see Susan?’ Boyd asked.

  ‘The night before her murder.’ Mrs Murtagh wiped another tear from the corner of her eye. ‘We did our soup runs every night over the Christmas.’

  ‘She was off work,’ Lottie said, ‘so what did she do during the days?’

  ‘I don’t know. Susan kept to herself.’

  ‘She lived at the opposite end of town. But her car looks like it hasn’t been moved in weeks. Did she walk everywhere?’

  ‘She liked her exercise. Always had that music thing in her ears. What do you call it?’

  ‘An iPod.’

  ‘Loved her music, she did,’ Mrs Murtagh said wistfully.

  ‘Anything else you can tell us?’ Lottie asked.

  ‘Two cups of wholemeal flour, teaspoon of yeast, tablespoon of butter, a pinch of salt and twenty minutes in the oven.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t bake,’ said Lottie. ‘And even if I did, I don’t think I could ever make bread as delicious as this.’

  She wondered if the old woman was changing the subject. She dreaded the thought of her mother ever getting Alzheimer’s. Or maybe it might be a good thing. Hard to know with Rose Fitzpatrick.

  ‘You’re trying to flatter me. I’ll get some tin foil and you can bring the rest of the loaf home with you.’

  Lottie began to protest, but decided it was too good an offer to refuse.

  Wrapping the bread, Mrs Murtagh said, ‘And you, young man, you could do with a slice or two.’

  Boyd smiled and remained silent.

  Lottie returned to the conversation.

  ‘I’m led to believe St Angela’s was a brutal place. What did Susan tell you about it?’

  ‘She told me something one time. Said she’d never told a living soul. A baby was murdered there and a young lad was beaten to death.’ Mrs Murtagh made the sign of the cross, forehead, chest and shoulders, slowly and deliberately. ‘She called it the baby jail; all them little mites in cots with iron bars. And she wasn’t sure if it was her baby that was murdered but she convinced herself it wasn’t.’ She paused, tears damp on her cheeks. ‘Not knowing, that was the worst. The poor tormented soul. Do you know, she bought the newspaper every day to look at the photographs? Thought she might recognise her child, all grown up now.’

  ‘We saw the newspapers in her house,’ said Boyd.

  ‘Obsessed she was. As if she could recognise someone she only saw as a baby. I tried talking to her. But she said if she saw a picture, she would know.’

  Dismissing the futility of Susan’s newspaper quest, Lottie said, ‘Patrick O’Malley. Did you ever hear of him?’

  ‘Of course. A demented man. One of our soup clients,’ Mrs Murtagh said. ‘Susan was very kind to him but never spoke to me about him. Detective, I only knew Susan for the last six months of her life but it felt like I knew her forever. It’s so sad. Why do these things happen to the good people and the bad bastards walk around scot-free?’

  Lottie and Boyd said nothing. There wasn’t much they could add to that.

  The woman rose, gathered the three mugs, pla
ced them in the sink, turned on the tap and rinsed them under the flowing water. Leaving them to dry on the draining board, she picked up her walking stick and pointed to the side door.

  ‘Come on. I’ll show you our soup kitchen. We were so proud of it.’

  Lottie hadn’t the heart to refuse.

  All four wheels intact and the foul-mouthed little boy was nowhere in sight.

  ‘That’s some set up,’ said Boyd, starting up the car.

  ‘Wherever Susan got the money from, it seems she put it into the soup kitchen.’ Lottie placed the bread at her feet. ‘I hope whatever Mrs Murtagh can’t remember to tell us is nothing too important.’

  ‘We need to go through Susan’s phone records again.’

  ‘For sure.’

  ‘Where to next?’ asked Boyd. ‘Or can I guess?’

  ‘Bishop Terence Connor,’ said Lottie. ‘He has some explaining to do.’

  Fifty-Two

  ‘I see you have brought the cavalry with you, Inspector.’

  Bishop Connor indicated two chairs in front of his desk. Lottie and Boyd sat.

  ‘When are you going to release Father Angelotti’s body?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s up to the pathologist,’ Lottie said. ‘Is there anything you can add to our investigation regarding his murder?’

  ‘I am devastated,’ he said. ‘To think he was only here a few weeks, then this abomination happens.’

  ‘Why was he at James Brown’s home?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Did he ever mention James Brown or Susan Sullivan to you?’ Lottie pressured.

  ‘He never mentioned anything, Inspector. He barely communicated with me.’

  ‘Did he have access to a car?’

  ‘I am sure he could have got one if he needed it.’

  ‘But there was no car at Brown’s house. How did he get there?’

  Connor hesitated. Imperceptible eye movement, but Lottie caught it.

  ‘A taxi?’ he said. ‘I’m sure you can check with the local companies.’

  ‘Doing it as we speak,’ Lottie said, making a mental note to follow this up.

  ‘You told me you’d no knowledge of Susan Sullivan. Is that correct?’ she asked, flicking through her notebook, for effect rather than substance. The intense green eyes that had tried to intimidate her on her first visit were now eyeing her with suspicion.