All the Lost Girls Read online

  “The man tried to kill his wife and child,” Gerald said, his voice losing the gentleness it’d had just moments before. “Shit like that doesn’t just happen. There are signs and it was your job to see them.”

  “How could I see it when Rachel was keeping things from me?”

  “Blaming others, Alice. It’s not exactly admirable. You screwed up and now there’s a man lying dead on a slab down in the morgue and your arm is strapped to your body because you were shot.” He sighed. “Just admit you’ve been off your game for a while and this one slipped through the cracks.”

  I opened my mouth to answer him but the words wouldn’t form. He was wrong, so very wrong. I hadn’t missed anything. Zoe’s painting of her father crying filled my head.

  “I did my best,” I said. “I’m not a mind reader.”

  He smiled at me and raw, unbridled hatred rose in my chest. I wanted to hit him, to punch him until the smile slipped from his face. Instead, I clenched my fist in my lap.

  “And no one is saying you need to be,” he said. “We’re just worried about you is all…”

  “Bullshit.” I pushed open the car door and stepped out.

  Gerald started to follow me but I ignored him, ignored him as he called after me, asking me not to overreact, not to be so emotional.

  Of course, it was easy for him to say that. He wasn’t the one being hung out to dry. It was always the same in situations like this. When the shit hit the fan, they needed a scapegoat, someone to pin it on. And apparently, I’d spun the wheel and hit the jackpot.

  I fumbled in my handbag, pulling my keys free before I jabbed them in the lock and let myself into the flat, leaving Gerald outside on the road to stare after me.

  13

  When we got back to the Garda Station, Ronan showed me into the office I would be calling home for the duration of the case. The walls were cement blocks painted a glaring white so bright that it hurt my eyes. There was a small desk in the corner, already piled high with files and boxes. The swivel chair in front of it was old and one of the casters sat at an odd angle on the brown utilitarian carpet underfoot.

  Against the back wall sat a large whiteboard. A picture of the site I’d visited just a short while ago sat in the centre, with the date the site had been discovered written underneath in neat script.

  “It’s not what you’re used to,” he said. “But it’s all you’re going to get here.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, eyeing the chair distrustfully. It spoke volumes about their feelings on having me here. A less paranoid person might have assumed it was representative of the lack of funding in the areas outside the capital but I’d noted the sideways glances as I’d trailed through the station after Ronan. There wasn’t one person out there who looked happy to have me here.

  I could suddenly understand why my predecessor had been so quick to jump at a chance of moving to Limerick, one step closer to returning to Dublin.

  “Who else is working the case?”

  “Everyone is,” he said. “We all chip in around here. Especially on something like this.”

  “Aren’t there other cases that need attention?”

  He started to laugh and then noting the look of confusion on my face cut off abruptly. “Shit, you’re serious…”

  “Are there no other crimes to investigate?” I raised a questioning eyebrow in his direction.

  “Course there are other cases,” he said. “But come on, this is a biggie. Murder trumps everything else so everyone takes a crack at it.”

  I shook my head. “I appreciate that everyone wants to assist but I think it would be better if we had a defined team. That way, nothing gets overlooked or mislaid.”

  I tried to say it in the most diplomatic way I could but my anger was beginning to spill into my words. I couldn’t help it. So far, everything was a giant cluster-fuck of epic proportions. If it turned out just like the last time I’d been put in a position of trust, then I could kiss goodbye to ever having a solid career.

  He sighed. “Fine. You’ve got me and—” he said. I tried to keep my expression neutral. I hadn’t seen him in action and my parents had always said you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Even if that cover seemed to indicate the contents were nothing but a shallow imitation of a classic.

  He poked his head out of the door. “Claire!” His shout rang out through the Garda Station and a couple of seconds later a tall, lean young woman appeared in the doorway. Her navy blue uniform made her instantly recognisable as one of the Guards.

  “Yeah?”

  “You’ve been assigned to the murder enquiry,” he said.

  “But I’ve got—”

  “Pass it to someone else,” he said. “You’re on this full-time now. And it’s, ‘yes, sir.’” He turned away from her and I watched as something akin to anger flickered in her eyes.

  “Yes, sir.” She gritted the words out and started to leave when I spoke up.

  “I’m Detective Siobhan Geraghty,” I said, holding my hand out toward her.

  “Garda Claire Mulcahy.” She took my hand in a grip that was firmer than some male Guards I’d met over the years.

  “I’m looking forward to working with you,” I said.

  “Pity it’s not under better circumstances.”

  I nodded thoughtfully and let her go. She hurried from the room, leaving me alone with Ronan once more.

  “That’s all you’re going to get as a team,” he said. “The place here isn’t big enough to solely dedicate anymore to it. The others will chip in as they can.”

  I didn’t say anything else. There was no point. I knew I was lucky to get what I’d already been given. Of course, if the case grew, then I would get more resources but not until then and the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t shake the feeling that the recently missing girl and the body were somehow linked.

  Crossing the room, I pulled the lid off the box closest to me. “What are these?”

  “Everything we have from the original investigations into missing persons from the area,” he said, moving up next to me. “These were the interviews, not that much came out of them…” He paused and I could tell there was something he wanted to say to me but he was holding back.

  “What is it?”

  “They made a bit of a balls out of it to be honest,” he said. “Initially anyway.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Go on.”

  “Well, from the preliminary ID of the body, we think it’s this girl here,” he said, pulling a thick case file across the desk toward us. From inside it, he fished out a picture of a smiling young woman with striking blue eyes and sandy coloured hair. Her eyes were alight with laughter and she appeared to be grinning at someone just out of view of the camera.

  “Clara McCarthy,” he said. “She went missing Friday the 18th of October, 1996. Or at least that’s what her sister alleges.”

  Something clicked in the back of my mind. “Her sister said they were walking home after a disco when Clara was taken,” I said. “She was already gone three months before it hit any of the papers…”

  He nodded, looking somewhat chagrined. “That’s what I mean about the screw up,” he said. “Initially they believed she’d run away.”

  “Why would they assume that?” I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I stared down at the smiling girl in the image.

  “She was pregnant and people in the area were cruel,” he said. “A few of the locals were interviewed at the time of the disappearance, you know to see if they could make any connection between the sister’s story and Clara’s disappearance, but they were all of the same mind.”

  I waited for him to continue and when he didn’t, I turned on him. “Just spit it out already.”

  “There was talk of her going off to get an abortion,” he said. “A friend of hers said she’d mentioned it and, well, she’d been forced to drop out of school and…”

  “Why would she have to drop out of school?”

  He star
ed at me for a moment and I had the distinct impression that he was checking to see if I was being serious with my question or not.

  “Times have changed round here,” he said. “There’s not the same kind of stigma attached to a young seventeen year old turning up pregnant, at least not the way there was back then…”

  “You’re telling me she dropped out because she was forced out?”

  He nodded. “She was attending the convent at the time. It’s gone now, closed down a few years back, but I heard some of the stories out of that place and it would put the hairs on your head standing.”

  “They wouldn’t let her go to school? Wasn’t that a crime?”

  He shrugged. “People think Ireland back then was really different to how it was fifty years ago but the church still had a hold on the local communities. And if they didn’t want you, then you were out…”

  “But she was a local herself right? I’d have thought they’d have looked after their own.”

  “But they weren’t really locals,” he said. “The mother’s family came from the area but not the father’s. They moved into their current home when Clara was ten.”

  “So she’d been there seven years and you’re telling me she wasn’t considered a local?”

  He shook his head. “Round here, if you’re not born and bred in the area then you’re an outsider, no matter how long you’ve lived here. It’s messed up but it is what it is.”

  I stared back down at the picture of the missing girl. How could they have been so cruel? So completely callous?

  “So what have they got that suggests the body and this girl,” I said gesturing to the picture once more, “are one and the same?”

  “The clothes match and there was a single piece of jewellery recovered from the body that matches what the sister says she was wearing the night she disappeared.”

  Pursing my lips, I nodded as I sifted through the papers. I scanned the pages quickly. From the looks of things, the witness statements weren’t much to go on.

  “What changed everyone’s mind?” I asked, suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Why did they change their minds about her disappearance? You said they thought she’d run off but something must have changed their minds.”

  He grabbed another box and tugged the lid off, pulling out another file that was much thicker than the one on Clara McCarthy. “This girl went missing only three weeks later,” he said, flipping it open and pulling another photograph out. “On the 9th of November.”

  My heart stalled in my chest as I stared down at the photo, there was no denying the striking resemblance between Clara and this new girl.

  “Was it a Friday too?”

  He shook his head and glanced down at the notes. “No, it was a Saturday evening. She was last seen at the cinema in Waterford.”

  “That still doesn’t explain how they linked the cases.”

  Ronan looked down at the file and I could tell he was avoiding meeting my gaze.

  “Well they didn’t,” he said. “Clara’s sister went to the papers when the third girl went missing. She forced the hand of the Gardaí at the time and they noticed some similarities between the cases. By that time, Clara’s trail was well and truly cold.”

  “Christ,” I said, staring at the picture of the two girls side by side. “Do you have a picture of the third girl?”

  He nodded and took it from another thick file. I picked the pictures up and carried them over to the board, hanging them up one by one until all three girls stared down at us. There was no denying the similarities between the first two girls but the third looked nothing like Clara.

  “We’re missing something,” I said, staring up at the photographs.

  “What?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know what it is yet but I know there’s a bigger picture at play here. Wait, do you have a photo of the girl that recently disappeared?”

  “I told you they’re not connected. Her boyfriend—”

  “Humour me.”

  Ronan sighed and headed for the door. I continued to stare up at the photographs, wishing the girls could spill their secrets.

  He reappeared a moment later, carrying a photograph in his hands.

  “Hang it up next to the third girl,” I said.

  Silently, he did as I’d asked and as he stepped away from the board, I felt my stomach drop into my boots.

  Ronan sucked the air in through his teeth, emitting a harsh whistle of sound, his eyes trained on the board.

  “Do you still think they’re not linked?”

  The third girl with her dark eyes and serious expression stared out at me and from the new picture Ronan had hung on the board, a fourth girl, practically a carbon copy of the third, watched us with a dark, almost accusatory stare.

  “The sergeant isn’t going to like this,” he said, quietly. “The boyfriend is a solid suspect.”

  I said nothing but I could feel it in my gut, the cases were linked. The more, I stared at the images on the board, the more convinced I became.

  “We need to look for others,” I said, “and it’s going to take more than the three of us working this to get to the bottom of it.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m not saying anything, yet,” I said. I wasn’t a fool. Committing to something without the proof or evidence to back it up was tantamount to career suicide but the more I stared at the board, the more certain I became. There was a serial killer at work and I had a feeling that before we would finish, there would be a lot more than four faces staring out at us from the board.

  14

  September 4th 1996

  I wish I was better at keeping this diary. I’ve always been shit at writing my thoughts down but I’ve got to get this out of my head.

  Ever since Liam found out I was pregnant he’s been acting weird. We’ve broken up more times than I can count. I don’t want to feel like this anymore, I’m so tired of him making me feel like I’m this massive burden to him.

  It’s like he forgets there was two of us involved. Like I did this on purpose to ruin his life when that couldn’t be further from the truth.

  He told me he’s been seeing another girl from Rockwell. I wanted to laugh in his face, tell him he was welcome to whoever he wanted but his father came along before I could say anything. And Daddy dearest has certainly changed his tune on our relationship since they found out I was pregnant. He told me Liam needs to broaden his horizons.

  “Liam needs to sow his wild oats, Clara. He’s got his whole life ahead of him. I don’t want him getting tied down by fatherhood too soon.”

  I wanted to scream at him, what about my life but he didn’t care. He thinks I’m just a millstone round his son’s neck. Maybe that’s all I am?

  Liam said he’d drive me home and I told him I didn’t need anything from him, that I’d manage just fine on my own.

  I started the walk home and he came after me. Trailing me in his Dad’s van, begging me to get in. I told him to shove it and he got so mad. I’ve never seen him so angry. He frightened me if I’m honest and my arm hurts where he grabbed it.

  I can’t let Mam or Dad see the marks his fingers made or they’re going to hit the roof. But all I want to do is cry, to tell them the truth and let them sort it out for me… But I’ve hurt them enough and it’s time I stood on my own two feet. I got myself in this mess, I can get myself… and the baby…out of it all.

  Alice almost caught me today. I swear she knows more than she lets on, like she can see through the lies. I want to talk to her, to tell her truth but I can’t. She’s too young to understand. She still has this naive view on relationships. She seems to think that Liam and I will get married and we’ll all live happily ever after. It’s so daft it’s almost laughable. But I wish it were true…

  I’ve started looking at courses I can do at night. Mam said she’ll help me with the baby, give me a chance to go back and try for my Leaving Cert and I really want to. I don’t want this to be my
life. I want more. I need to be more for this baby.

  I need to—

  15

  Sitting on the edge of the sofa in my tiny ground floor one-bedroom apartment, I tried to plug my iPhone into the wall socket with one hand. I hadn’t had my charger in the hospital and the phone was now as dead as a dodo.

  The little battery flickered to life on the screen, bringing with it a sense of accomplishment. Weariness fought to keep me on the comfortable couch cushions but I pushed onto my feet and headed into the small kitchenette to flick on the kettle.

  The place was freezing and I stared longingly at the thermostat as I contemplated my meagre bank account. If I couldn’t work, how the hell was I supposed to pay my bills? Gerald had said there would be other cases but the feeling of unease in my gut suggested he had no intention of letting me come back.

  There would be questions, an investigation. I was the caseworker in charge. It wouldn’t matter that I’d done my best, nor that I’d genuinely wanted to help Rachel and Zoe. All they would see was that I’d allowed a precarious situation to spiral dangerously out of control. That I’d missed something in regard to Dan and a life had been lost.

  The doorbell rang, the shrill sound echoing through the apartment so loudly I jumped. The kettle started to boil as I headed for the door. Tugging it open, I met the steady gaze of the man and woman on the doorstep. They were neatly turned out, him in a suit and striped tie, she in a pants suit with a cream coloured blouse. They regarded me coolly and I knew instantly they were police. I’d worked with enough of them through the years to recognise them on sight.

  However, what I hadn’t expected was for two of them to appear on my doorstep.

  “Ms McCarthy?” The woman asked, her London accent clipped and curt.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Can I help you?”

  The male officer smiled and held out his hand toward me. Then noted the strap keeping my arm pinned to my body, chuckled, and changed hands. “Sorry to intrude.”