All the Lost Girls

by Bilinda P Sheehan

  “We’re going to have to talk to Evie’s parents.”

  “They’ve been informed,” Ronan said, taking me by surprise.

  “When?”

  “Sergeant Mills knew the family personally, he wanted to be the one to break the news to them.”

  I nodded without saying anything. It made sense and while hearing the news from a friend wouldn’t make it any less cruel, it was still kinder than hearing it from a complete stranger.

  “I’d like to pull Alice McCarthy back in,” I said, suddenly. Ronan jerked his head up and caught my eyes with his.

  “Whatever for?”

  “Well for one thing, Evie was wearing Clara’s clothes when we found her body, not to mention the positive ID we have on the necklace. I want to hear in her own words what happened the night Clara went missing.”

  “It’s in the statement,” Ronan said.

  “Have you read that thing?” I couldn’t quite keep the edge from my voice. “For god’s sake they wrote on the bottom of it that Clara was clearly a runaway.”

  “They didn’t know any better,” he started to say before I cut him off.

  “That’s not an excuse, Ronan. They dismissed Alice’s statement of events because she’d been drinking the night before and they thought she was concocting a story to take the heat off her own behaviour.”

  Ronan said nothing, allowing me to vent. “Show me a teenager who hasn’t indulged in a little ditch drinking in their time, how many of them created violent stories where their sisters disappeared to cover up a little underage indulgence?

  “And they couldn’t account for the scratches and bruising on her arms but they didn’t investigate it further either.” I sucked in a deep breath. “Face it, they screwed up back then and her statement is as good as useless. We need to hear from her, if she’s willing to go back over it, what really happened that night. Maybe then, it’ll give us a way forward because right now, we’ve got nothing.”

  “We’ve got a body,” he said. “Why are you so hung up on the McCarthy case?”

  I sat back against the seat and closed my eyes. Why was I hung up on it? The answer, at least to me anyway, was pretty simple.

  “She’s the first,” I said quietly. “There’s a pattern of behaviour here, you can see it in the photographs and the likeness between the girls.”

  “There’s a similarity in the first two but not the other three.”

  “But the other three, including Joanna all look alike,” I said. He was right of course. Perhaps, the first two girls were an anomaly. I didn’t believe it myself but I couldn’t dismiss it either. I needed more proof and so far that seemed to be pretty thin on the ground.

  Ronan stared out the window once more. “I’m not doubting you,” he said. “But don’t you think maybe we’re scrabbling a little too desperately in the dark here?”

  Scrubbing my hands over my face, I shrugged. “What choice do we have? Until we have more to go on, we have no choice but to scrabble around in the dark, until something shakes loose.”

  The phone in the car started to vibrate making us both jump. I reached for it at the same time that Ronan did, our fingers brushing before I could jerk my hand back.

  He stared at me curiously for a moment before he picked the phone up and took the call. His expression shifted, closing off as he nodded.

  “We’ll be right there,” he said before he hung up.

  “They’ve found another body,” he said.

  “Where?” But I already knew the answer.

  “A few metres away from Evie,” he said.

  “Is it Clara?”

  “Didn’t say but,” he swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “They think there’s more than one.”

  I clenched my hands, my short fingernails biting into the skin of my palms. “Forensics on the way?”

  Ronan nodded.

  “Then let’s go,” I said. “It’s time something started to shake loose around here.”

  31

  Her eyes are closed when I enter the room. Feigning sleep or perhaps unconsciousness. On her stomach, face turned away from me. But it’s just another lie. The tensing of her shoulders tells me that as my footfalls catch her ear.

  The bone of her right arm protrudes through the skin as it lies limply on the sheet next to her. The bloodstain underneath is already drying.

  The skin below my elbow itches where my own scar sits. So faded, I’d almost forgotten it existed until now.

  I don’t waste a second; I don’t have that kind of luxury.

  Her eyes slide back in her head, her muffled moan trailing off as I roll her quickly and efficiently in the bed, sliding the plastic sheet beneath her body with practiced ease. The sheet is a necessary precaution for what comes next.

  When I finish with her, she stares up at me with wide fever-bright, frightened eyes. I can’t even remember when she stopped pretending to be asleep and I’m too caught up in my purpose to care.

  But she’s different to the others. They broke faster, gave up quickly. Like animals beaten into submission. But not her. Oh, she pretends it’s there, cringes at all the right moments, leaking tears, causing the carefully applied eyeshadow to smudge. At least the mascara is staying put. No one likes panda eyes.

  But despite her obvious agony, the look I crave—a silent plea to end it all—is just not there and I have a dark feeling in the pit of my stomach that she’s not going to give it to me either.

  “Do you want to die?” I whisper the words against her ear and she struggles against the rough rope holding her down. Pain sends a shock through her that stiffens her spine as she moves her broken arm. At least I know she’s not so far gone that she can’t still feel pain. Of course, she will reach a point where delirium will steal even that from her.

  And I don’t want to wait until that happens. What I need from her has to happen soon or I’ll lose my chance.

  There’s panic, the smell of her fear an intoxicating scent that would drive him into a frenzy if he were here in the room with us. But it’s just her and me at the moment and I’m not so moved by the bodies adrenaline soaked response to terror. That’s not what drives me.

  I search her gaze but all I can see is a kind of defiance. Almost daring me to try and end her. It’s something I understand. The drive to survive. I’ve been doing it all my life. Was that what I saw in her when I found her picture? A kindred spirit of sorts? It sounds absurd.

  Placing one knee on the bed, I straighten up. The knots in my back from my time spent working on her fail to loosen.

  “If I walk out of here now, he’ll come back and we both know that of the two of us, you’d prefer me to be in here. I’m by far the nicer…” I finger a braid, running my thumb over the silken strands and she flinches. “But there’s another way…”

  I meet her gaze head on, offering the mercy the others before her craved.

  And instead of gratitude, I see anger light her hazel eyes. She thrashes on the bed, screaming against the gag still secure in her mouth.

  My head begins to thrum, mouth dry as I watch her flail. Sweat beads on her skin as her movements slow. She’ll pass out if she keeps this up.

  She collapses onto the bed, the air sliding out of her body, leaving her on the plastic sheet like a deflated balloon. I don’t have enough time. My window of opportunity is closing, taking with it everything I had hoped for her. Rage boils in my chest as I stare down at her.

  Sucking in a deep breath, I leave the room; ignoring the curious look he gives me as I head for the shed. At least he knows not to go back into her without my permission. And by the time I’m done, she’ll wish she had given me what I needed.

  By the time I finish with her, she’s a masterpiece. Even he looks at me differently when he sees her laid out on the plastic sheet. A mixture of shock and awe.

  I strip off the protective gloves and drop the now empty bottle of caustic soda into the sink. It had been far more effective than even I had anticipated. They
won’t find anything on her now.

  The thought that something I’ve done could have such far-reaching consequences gives me a thrill but it isn’t enough to make up for the disappointment. She died defiantly and for that she has my grudging respect.

  I watch, downhearted, as he wraps her carefully in the plastic sheet. He stole from me what I needed, stole my chance. I’ve given him everything, shielded him from his own idiocy and he repays me like this? By ruining what little pleasure I have left?

  As I watch him, I know I hate him.

  32

  By the time we arrived in the car park, back where I’d originally started with the case, the evening was beginning to draw in.

  Forensics were in the process of setting up several large lights that flooded the area with a bright white glow, illuminating the ground with an eerie cast.

  The plastic sides of the large white-walled tent in the middle of the trees flapped noisily, creating eerie noises that carried and echoed through the trees. The wind that was gradually building around us whipped my hair into my eyes as we traipsed across the gravel.

  Ronan lifted the yellow tape and I slipped underneath, grabbing a pair of gloves and plastic covers for my shoes. I eyed the spare coveralls on the table, held down by a large rock someone had scrounged from the edge of the pathway.

  “You’ll have to put one of them on too, if you’re planning on getting a look-see at the bodies,” Rosie’s muffled voice cut through my quiet contemplation and I jumped.

  I wrinkled my nose in disgust as she drew down the mask she was wearing and folded her arms over her chest. She was already wearing the white coveralls, the hood drawn up so that her hair was completely encased. The way the wind puffed the white overall around her, made me think of a toddler wearing a padded snowsuit.

  “Seriously?” I couldn’t keep the irritation from my voice.

  “Pathologist says no one comes in or out of here without one of them on,” she said, pointing one gloved finger in the direction of the pile of coveralls.

  “Fine.” I sighed and dumped my bag and notebook down on the table. Scooping up a coverall I tossed it in Ronan’s direction.

  “You want me to go in there?” He didn’t even try to disguise the surprise in his voice.

  “Of course I do,” I said. “Two sets of eyes in this case, are better than one. And anyway,” I continued, “I trust your judgment. Who knows what wild goose chase I might have us running down if I didn’t have you there to rein me in.”

  He didn’t miss the thinly veiled sarcasm in my voice, which made him pull a face at me before stripping off his black coat. The muscles in his back strained against the thin material of his powder blue shirt as he bent over to pull the coveralls on over his clothes.

  I followed suit, studiously avoiding looking at his broad shoulders. Not that it was an easy thing to do, especially when he swore under his breath and stumbled on the path, almost tipping himself into the bushes lining the pathway as he hopped around on one leg in the coveralls and one leg out.

  He regained his balance without needing any input and finished dragging the coveralls over his clothes. I zipped mine up the front and straightened as Rosie thrust a white mask in my direction.

  “I’m fine thanks,” I said, waving it away. They only ever made me claustrophobic and short of breath. There was something about breathing in the same warm air that sent my brain into overdrive.

  “You’re going to need it,” she said. “It won’t be much protection but it’s something at least.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said taking the proffered item.

  Her lips thinned, an expression that had more in common with a grimace than a smile.

  “You will.” Her words were cryptic and I fought the urge to shake the truth out of her.

  “You said bodies,” Ronan asked, taking a mask of his own from the box of them on the table.

  “Doesn’t miss much, does he?” Rosie said, stepping off the path into the trees. “I can see how he made detective.”

  “Come on,” Ronan said, beginning to argue, he trailed off as Rosie stalked past the tent and entered the dense scrubby brush.

  “Through here,” she said. “Mind the ground it’s quite soft and there’s a lot of roots to get caught in.”

  “Who found the site?” I kept my voice light and businesslike, keeping my mind trained only on setting one foot in front of the next but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop myself from speculating.

  “Dog walker,” she said. “Just like before.” I could sense there was more she wanted to say but she seemed to be holding herself back.

  “Why didn’t we know about this before?” Ronan asked the question that was hovering on the tip of my tongue.

  “Because it wasn’t here then,” she said.

  “So he was back,” I asked, my head jerking up as I scanned the surrounding trees, as though if I searched hard enough I might spot him, lurking, observing our reactions to his handiwork.

  The smell hit me first and I stumbled, my covered boot sinking into the water logged earth.

  “Jesus Christ,” Ronan muttered, sounding every bit as sick as I felt.

  This was no old burial ground. Whatever we were about to walk into, it was fresh…

  Nausea crept up on me, stomach twisting into complicated knots, eyes watering, mouth salivating as I clamped a hand over my lips, struggling to keep my gag reflex in check. The last thing I needed to do was vomit all over the crime scene. It was one thing for a man to do it, to lose his lunch over a decomposing body, but something else entirely if I did it. A male officer would find himself the butt of the station’s jokes for a while and for a while, every subsequent case that involved a body would cause his comrades to regale each other with stories of his rookie mistake.

  If I did it, the teasing and banter wouldn’t be light-hearted. There would be talk of how I was unfit for duty. They would consider me a liability. Whispers and innuendo would be rife amongst the others. The teasing and jokes would take a sharp turn away from lightheartedness and straight into cruelty.

  People liked to kid themselves that there was no sexism on the job but the old boy’s club was as alive and well today as it had ever been. In this job, if you wanted to keep your place and you were female, you needed to work twice as hard as your male compatriots. Solve twice as many cases, work doubly hard at fitting in. The slightest flicker of emotion on the job would earn you a title of hysterical, a woman incapable of keeping her emotions where they belonged.

  Balling my hands into fists, I sank into the feeling of my nails biting into my palms as I gritted my teeth and shoved aside the roiling of my stomach.

  Ahead, there was another small clearing and the CSIs had set up another round of floodlights. The bright white light bleached the ground, exposing every little detail surrounding the scene. A hunched over figure was crouched next to what appeared to be a pile of rags. It took my eyes a second to make sense of what I was looking at and when my brain finally caught up, I wished for the ignorance I’d initially been afforded.

  The body lay on the ground, face—or what little remained of it—staring up at the sky. The white slip she wore was almost pristine and clung to her swollen flesh. Someone had taken the time to strew wildflowers over her, the purple and blues of the blossoms a macabre parody of the bruises she wore.

  A broken doll carelessly discarded by a child in a hurry.

  “Jesus Christ.” Ronan breathed the words out, the horror conveyed in his voice matching the turmoil churning inside me.

  “Do we know who she is?” My voice was detached, cool even. Ronan glanced at me, his hooded gaze giving nothing away.

  “There’s no ID,” Dorian said, surprising me as he turned around and stared up at me from behind the mask he wore. “No personal effects.”

  I crossed the small space, careful to keep to the edges of the scene. The ground was already soft, the last thing I wanted to do was accidentally slip in on top of the body and de
stroy what little evidence Dorian might be able to recover.

  Halting near the edge of the makeshift grave, I stared down at her. Decomposition had taken a firm hold thanks to all the open wounds. The left arm was swollen. Purple and black bruising stood out along the already discoloured flesh and near the elbow, I could see the bone protruding through the skin.

  Her eyes were open and staring. A grey film clouded the colour of the irises but if I were to guess, I’d have said that at one time they’d been hazel.

  The lower half of her face was a ruined mess of raw meat, the lips and mouth a gaping wound that made my stomach clench painfully.

  “Chemical burns,” I said, more to myself than any of the others standing nearby.

  “Looks that way,” Dorian said. “I won’t know anything definitively until I get her back to the morgue.”

  Her fingers were blackened with death but the gel nails stood out, the bright shell pink colour almost offensive against the backdrop.

  “You’re thinking it’s Joanna?” Ronan asked, cutting through my contemplation, his voice muffled behind the mask he’d clamped over his mouth.

  “She’s missing,” I said. “She fits the type he seems to have. It looks like her but until we get a positive ID, I don’t want anyone breathing a word of this. I don’t want a repeat of the McCarthy case.”

  Ronan nodded and returned his attention to the body.

  “Someone cared for her,” I said, noting the poorly applied make-up and the delicate braids in her hair. “She wasn’t just dumped here, she was placed here…”

  “Where are you getting that from?” Ronan asked, his gaze darting from my face to the body.

  “They’ve taken some time over her appearance,” I said. “She suffered, there’s no doubt about that, but there’s an attempt to hide the worst of her bruises around her face.” I took a breath and regretted it instantly. “The body is clean, even the soles of her feet.” I pointed to her freshly painted toes and the bare clean feet that pointed towards the path we’d just come from. “It almost looks like she’s been laid out. And the flowers…”