Hidden ( CSI Reilly Steel #3) (31 page)

She
looked at the map with the highlighted buildings. McAllister would be running out of places to hide. The fact that he was unwilling to respond was not a good sign. Was there anybody in that place at all?

Kennedy stood with his back flat to the wall of the outbuilding. His team had been detailed with trailing the others who were sweeping the buildings from the outside in case the suspect tried to make a dash for it.

The only sounds they had heard so far were their own and those of the internal team. Then suddenly
, in the distance, Kennedy heard what sounded like a muffled sob. All senses on high alert, he indicated to the team leader beside him, who nodded to confirm he’d also heard it.

‘
Audio confirmed – building E,’ he whispered into the headset.

Building E was a wooden-clad outhouse
near the lake that sat right on the water’s edge. It looked as though it had one time been a standalone shed, but was now connected to the other buildings by a network of cheaply built lean-tos and extensions.

One of the ASU officers
named Hagan moved up beside Kennedy. He squeezed as close as he could get to a window on the side of the boathouse.

‘
Mr McAllister, we need you to acknowledge your position,’ the officer called out. ‘We need you to talk to us, sir, we can hear you. We are police officers and need to ask you some simple questions then we’ll be on our way.’

Again, a faint sob broke the silence.

Finally, a deep voice spoke. ‘Leave us be. You’re not wanted here. By the Wrath of Balor I command you to go now while he allows it.’

Christ, Kennedy thought. This was the place. This was the guy.

Hagen looked at Kennedy with a questioning look.

‘
The guy has built up some makey-up world of fantasy to keep the kids in check,’ he whispered. ‘We’re not sure whether or not he believes it himself. Just keep him talking.’

‘
OK, Mr McAllister,’ Hagan continued. ‘I’m going to tell my men to fall back. We are not here to harm you, but can you please just confirm that the children are OK?’

Silence.

‘Mr McAllister…’

‘
Be gone, snake, do not poison my ears with your venom and lies. Your tricks and spells are no good in this place; no demon can hide its putrid face or mask its slithering voice. Your invasion is a smite to Balor, and you will all pay a dear price.’

With that
, a loud motor suddenly roared to life from within the building, making the wall vibrate behind them.

‘
What the fuck is that?’ Kennedy spat.  The AMU officers stared at each other, nobody quite sure what to do next.

They relayed the information back to
control hoping for some external guidance, but the sound grew louder and Kennedy jumped away, expecting a bulldozer or tank to smash down the wall at any moment.

S
uddenly a loud gunshot rang out above the cacophony, and the two ARU officers dived for cover.

‘
Fall back! Fall back!
’ Kennedy heard Nolan shout over the radio.

Before anyone could say
or do anything, the roaring noise grew deafening and an RIB with a large outboard engine burst out of the building on the lake side.

The full
-throttle engine forcing the nose into the air, the boat started to skip across the water like a flat stone. The team looked on open-mouthed as they saw a tall man at the controls, and alongside him the huddled shapes of two small children clinging onto one another while the third stood sentry, her back against the boat’s only seat for balance, and a shotgun held in the comfortable fashion of a person who knew how to use it.

‘Holy shit …’ Kennedy gasped.

The swans had taken flight.

Chapter 30

It took several minutes for the team to locate the source of the gunfire. An agricultural scare gun used for crop protection from birds had been set up in some bushes to the left of the building. McAllister had obviously spent time planning for such a day.

The initial scramble to pu
rsue the boat had been chaotic.

Squad cars rushed
to the forest road at the opposite side of the lake, but by the time they reached the shore, all they found was an empty boat with a cooling engine. McAllister had evidently moved onto phase two of his escape plan, and they were one step behind.

A further call went out to set up checkpoints on all possible escape roads, but O’Brien already feared the worst.

‘Shit, shit, shit!’ he yelled at himself as much as anybody else, when everyone  reassembled in the CC van. ‘Why the fuck was that forest access road not on the maps we have?’ he demanded.

Nobody answered.

‘Sir, what do you want us to do next?’ Chris asked, anxious to do something, anything to rescue the situation.

O
’Brien snapped out of his daze.

‘
Get on to traffic, I want McAllister’s details run again – see if he has another vehicle registered to his name. Try all variations of his name, and check this address as well.’ He shuffled through the maps. ‘I want a second set of checkpoints in place within twenty kilometers on all roads – this guy is not getting through the net.’ O’Brien was starting to get his thoughts in order. ‘And we need an up-to-date photograph – make sure the GFU know that finding one in the house is a priority.’

‘
I must warn you,’ Chris replied, ‘having been in the house, it’s very olde worlde.  We’re more likely to get a canvas painting than a photograph.’

‘
Just see what you can fucking get,’ the inspector spat. ‘Look for a driver’s license or something; we need to let these checkpoints know who they’re looking for.’

‘
Sir, there were three kids. All redheads. All under twelve, I’d say,’ Kennedy told him. ‘That’s pretty hard to miss.’

‘
True, but this guy has had time to think. Chances are he may well have some means of concealment.’

The GFU team moved slowly and methodically  through the McAllister house dressed head to toe in their white dust suits.

Reilly remembered sitting on the couch at home with Jess watching
Little House On The Prairie
and
The Waltons
, and right now she half expected Laura Ingalls to walk into one of the rooms.

The world McAllister had built up for the children was a simple one
. There were no obvious mod-cons, and Reilly knew she was unlikely to find anything like a laptop or X-box here.

The
room she was examining now had obviously been the main family room. At its center was a solid oak table with six matching chairs. Set into the wall beyond was a large open fire and two boxes with cushioned folding lids that acted as storage for fuel as well as a place to sit by the fire.

On e
ach side of the fireplace were shelves covered with books. There was quite a collection but they were old and tatty.

A
glance at the nearest shelf suggested considerable insight into McAllister and the life he had created here. There were titles Reilly had never heard of, but names like Cu Chulainn and Fionn mac Cumhail jumped out at her as being related to the same mythology that McAllister had used to brainwash his captives with.

Reuben would have a field day here
, she thought, fighting the urge to take down some books and start reading through them, knowing there were far more pressing issues at hand.

She looked over at Gary and Lucy as they slowly worked their way through the room, collecting and tagging items of interest as they went. She had been impressed by Lucy’s strength. When the news came through about McAllister’s escape
, and that it looked as though he had only very young children with him, she knew that whatever faint hope the young tech might have had for finding her sister here had been very quickly dashed.

Given her emotional state of mind, Reilly had given her the opportunity to sit this one out. But no, Lucy  had
insisted that it was business as usual as she collected trace for DNA analysis and any evidence to cross-reference with all those missing children cases that included her own sister.

‘
Hey, boss,’ Gary called out, startling Reilly from her thoughts. ‘I’m pretty much finished with this room now, want me to start on the kitchen?’

‘Just
make sure Rory is done dusting in there first. Anything interesting?’

‘
Well, it’s certainly a nice change from the usual mess; not a drop of blood anywhere. Plenty of hair though, mostly long red strands but some gray ones too, possibly animal, and belonging to those, I’d imagine.’ He indicated out the window to the driveway where McAllister’s van was parked. Inside were two nervous-looking collie dogs that had begun chewing and clawing the glass angrily when the team had first parked up. McAllister must have had another form of transport waiting at the far side of the lake.

‘
We’ll get the ISPCA in to secure the dogs before we sweep the van,’ Reilly said, picking up a pair of knitting needles and some wool that looked to have been hurriedly tossed into the corner.  

‘
Reilly, you might want to take a look at this…’ Rory called out from the kitchen, and she went to join him. ‘I was just checking the back of this,’ he pointed to one of the kitchen cupboards. ‘There seemed to be a lot of fingerprints there,’ he said, standing aside to let her see. ‘I gave the back cover a little nudge, and it came loose.’ Behind the false back were two shoeboxes filled with invoices, receipts and other documentation.

‘Excellent.
This could tell us something about McAllister’s movements and, with luck, give us some clue as to where he’s heading next,’ she said, examining an invoice for a Celtic cross headstone, listing the address and phone number of one of McAllister’s clients.

She flicked
through the papers to see if there was anything of interest from a forensic point of view.

Next
, Reilly moved on to the bedrooms. As she did, she spotted something through the bay window overlooking the lake. On a grassy area beside the water was a large erratic rock standing up in the earth. It looked to have some sort of carving on the front, and at the base grew an array of small shrubs and spring flowers.

She stopped in her tracks as the thought dawned on her, and  quickly unzipped her coveralls to find her phone.

Chris answered immediately. ‘What’s up?’

Reilly pulled her facemask away from her mouth, as she quickly explained what she’d found.
‘Looks like we’re going to need our friends with the grave excavator again.’

Later that evening, back in Dublin, the meeting with O’Brien was stormy to say the least.

‘
We should have had the Water Unit in support – it was pretty obvious that McAllister wasn’t going to just ask us in for tea,’ Kennedy said, looking tired and dejected.

‘
Yes, well, you know what they say about hindsight, Detective,’ O’Brien said, sitting back in his swivel chair, as they dissected the events of a very long day. ‘But  let’s move on – there will be plenty of time for post mortems later; the Park have already been on looking for explanations,’ he added, referring to the Garda HQ in the Phoenix Park. ‘Let me worry about that, you lot just concentrate on finding this guy and getting those kids back, whoever they are.’ He turned to Reilly. ‘Anything from the house that will help track McAllister down?’

‘We found a passport for him amongst the documents, none for the kids unsurprisingly. The photo is old though, as the passport was issued several years ago, but it’s the best we’ve got. Chances are he’ll lose the beard in the meantime.’

‘
Any clues as to where he might be hiding?’

‘
We have all hands on deck going through the two boxes concealed in the kitchen,  but nothing jumps out just yet.’

‘
This guy may sound cuckoo but he’s certainly not stupid,’ Kennedy put in. ‘He planned his escape with the boat, so no doubt he’s also planned his next move.’

The door opened, and
O’Brien’s secretary appeared carrying a tray of coffees, a little jug of milk and a bowl of sugar cubes.  She hurried in, set them on O’Brien’s desk, and scurried out.

Reilly reached for a cup, blew on it to cool it, and
took a quick sip. ‘If I were him I’d be looking to get as far away as possible as fast as possible, or I’d have another place to hide.’

Chris
sighed.  ‘Well, the ports are covered, his Scottish background might make fleeing the country an option for him. Other than that, we have to hope  the vehicle check or the evidence collected from the house yields something.’

‘
There were some invoices related to his stonework issued in McAllister’s name,’ Kennedy said. ‘He seems to have carried out regular work for one company in particular, called Mount Leinster Memorials.’