Someone You Know (20 page)

One of the kids shouted, ‘Five oh,' quickly killing the conversation. They all turned to look where Lucy stood. She knew there was no way they could have made her out as a police officer so quickly, so guessed the Five-O reference covered all adults. It was hard not to find it more than a little absurd that the kids who used the designation probably had no idea where it came from. Unless they'd caught the remake or
The Wire
, she reflected.

The gathered kids stared from one to the other, as if trying to work out who Lucy was looking for, before turning defiantly towards her again. Gavin was standing with his arm around a thin girl, mid-teens, perhaps, her face, sharp featured, accentuated by the glow of the lights above them. He waited a moment, then pushed himself away from the dumpster and moved towards Lucy, drawing on his cigarette as he did so. The blackness around his eye shone beneath the green exit lights.

‘Is something wrong?'

Lucy turned to see Jackie Logue standing a few feet from her, Tony behind him.

‘It's fine, thank you,' Lucy said, turning towards the gathered group again. ‘Come on, Gavin.'

‘Are you a relative?' Logue asked.

‘I know Gavin,' Lucy commented. ‘Thanks for your concern.'

‘These kids have nowhere else to go, Officer,' the man said.

‘Apart from school?' Lucy countered.

‘We're too old for school now,' Tony muttered, earning a glance of rebuke from Logue.

‘They're not doing any harm here, as you were told,' Logue himself said, turning his attention again to Lucy.

So the woman from the shop had gone out and told him Lucy was police. She could also hear the kids passing along word that she was a cop.

‘What do you want?' Gavin said, standing a few feet from her, defiantly refusing to take the final steps towards her.

‘Robbie's looking for you. Let's go.'

Logue moved a step closer. ‘That's not very helpful. You don't have to go if you don't want to, Gavin.'

‘Yes, he does,' Lucy said, turning to the man. ‘Mr Logue, is it?'

Logue raised his chin slightly but did not answer.

‘Gavin is still young enough that he should be in school.'

‘He told me he was allowed off to go to Mass for his father.'

‘He didn't turn up at that either. His grandparents are worried about him.'

‘I am standing here, you know,' Gavin snapped. ‘Stop talking about me like I'm not here.'

‘Let's go, Gavin,' Lucy said.

Gavin hesitated, as if considering returning to his friends. Lucy shook her head lightly. If he didn't come with her now, it would be worse when a response team arrived for him.

‘Later,' Gavin said, turning to the other kids. He winked at the girl with whom he'd been standing. ‘See you, Jackie,' he added to the stocky man.

‘Mr Logue,' Lucy said, as she passed the man, walking behind Gavin to stop him changing his mind and turning back.

G
avin barely spoke the whole way back to the residential unit, even when Lucy asked how he felt after the beating he had taken.

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It was nothing,' he said.

‘Your grandparents seem very nice,' Lucy said. ‘They seem really keen to have you in their family.'

Again, the boy shrugged.

‘They didn't give you the iPod though,' she added. ‘Did they?'

The boy twisted and glared at her. ‘Are you checking up on me?'

‘I want to make sure you're OK,' Lucy said. ‘Everyone just wants to help.'

‘You can help by not coming for me in front of my friends again. OK?' With that he got out of the car and slammed the door, storming past Robbie where he stood at the unit entrance waiting for him.

T
he night had already thickened across the city by the time Lucy made it back to Maydown again. She'd called in with Sinead Finn after leaving Gavin at the unit, but there was still no word from either the girl or Seamus Doherty. The woman had agreed to do an appeal the following morning, wondering what she should wear.

‘Anything,' Lucy had replied.

The Tactical Support Units had been doing further checks in the area, but it seemed likely that, by this stage, the girl had either been taken by Doherty, or had used his leaving as an opportunity to get away herself, having taken the money from her mother's post office account the day before.

Lucy went up to her office and began typing up the press release for the late evening news. She mentioned both Doherty and Sarah Finn as being missing and encouraged either to contact home or the police as soon as possible. She also included a description of both Sarah Finn and Seamus Doherty and added that they could be travelling together or separately.

She called Communications to tell them the release was on its way and to book a press conference for the morning in the Strand Road should Sarah Finn not be located before then. She'd just emailed it through when she heard a thud from the office below. She went out to the top of the stairs and, looking down, shouted, ‘Hello.'

A moment later, Tom Fleming's face appeared from the gloom of the corridor below. ‘I didn't know you were in,' he said. ‘I've called to collect some stuff.'

Lucy came down to him. ‘I'm sorry about the whole ... thing,' she offered.

Fleming accepted the comment with a light nod. ‘It's fine,' he said. ‘I could maybe be doing with a breather from all this.'

Lucy nodded, unconvinced. ‘What are you planning on doing?'

‘Dry out,' he said, without humour. ‘Then, I'm not sure. Bits and pieces.'

Lucy nodded again. She forced her hands into her pockets, wondering why she was struggling to find something to say to this man with whom she had worked for over a year.

‘I hear they found Louisa Gant,' Fleming added.

‘Is it confirmed?' Lucy asked, trying to hide her annoyance that Burns hadn't come back to her to tell her she'd been right.

‘It's on the news so it must be,' Fleming said. ‘On Carlin's farm.'

Lucy nodded. ‘I was there,' she said. ‘We can include Gary Duffy in our list of suspects then,' she added. ‘Along with Kay and Carlin.'

Fleming nodded. ‘All dead.'

‘And I suspect all incapable of having actually groomed either Karen Hughes or Sarah Finn.'

Fleming shook his head. ‘I'll not miss any of this for the next few weeks,' he said. ‘All this grimness and ... and nastiness. All these broken families.'

Lucy nodded. ‘I can imagine.'

‘No, you can't,' Fleming said, smiling sadly. ‘Give it another few years. I've had a lifetime of this. Abused kids and abusive parents. Broken families, dead children. It changes you, you know?'

Lucy nodded again but did not speak.

‘All this shit and filth,' Fleming continued. ‘When did you last deal with a normal family? Apart from your own?'

‘My own family are the least normal I know,' Lucy retorted, laughing.

Fleming smiled again, briefly. ‘I began checking up on estate agents this afternoon,' he said. ‘Before my suspension sunk in. I've not found who handled the sale of Seamus Doherty's house yet, but I can give you a list of all who didn't. You'll need to check the remaining local ones tomorrow.'

‘I know,' Lucy said. ‘The Chief Super has already told me I need to stay on top of things.'

Fleming snorted derisively. ‘Clark in Forensics also came back to us this morning to say that the dog hairs we took from Kay's house didn't match those found on Karen Hughes's body. Apparently they're checking some mongrel they found wandering around Carlin's now.'

‘So Kay might not have been involved at all.'

‘Apart from the collection of pictures featuring Karen found in his shed. Eventually.'

‘There weren't there the first day we searched it, were they?'

Fleming swallowed dryly. ‘I honestly don't know,' he managed after a pause. ‘I didn't see them when I checked, but I wasn't in the best of shape. We both know that.'

‘It seems odd. All of the evidence suggests Kay, but nothing sticks. He was in the restaurant in the shopping centre where we know the groomer was, but we couldn't find anything on his phone to prove he was the one sending the messages. The dog hairs now are a non-starter. And the collection appears after he dies.'

‘Have they found anything connecting him to Carlin's farm yet?'

Lucy shook her head. ‘The first I'll hear about it will be on the news. I spoke with Carlin's shrink. She reckoned that he wouldn't have had it in him to groom anyone. That he was easily led.'

‘Could Kay not have led him?'

‘She said it was possible, but, in her opinion, it was unlikely.'

Fleming shrugged. ‘They're both dead now anyway, so we'll maybe never know for sure.'

‘Burns wants Sarah Finn's mother to speak at a press thing tomorrow. Make an appeal for the girl to contact her.'

‘If you have luck with some of the estate agents and find Doherty with the girl, you might not need her to.'

Lucy nodded. ‘And now Louisa Gant is thrown into the mix.'

Fleming straightened up. ‘Well, any help you need with that one, your mother's the place to start. She led the original investigation.'

I
t was nearing nine by the time Lucy left Fleming in the car park, having locked up the Unit with his help. They embraced quickly, awkwardly, as she wished him good luck.

Once she was on the road, though, she did not feel like going home to the silence. When her father had been there, while it had been difficult on account of his condition, she had, at least, been so occupied with looking after him that she had little time to think. Now though the silence of the house was oppressive.

Instead of driving home, she cut across the Foyle Bridge at the roundabout, and drove across onto the Culmore Road and up into Petrie Way. She parked up on the pavement, a few houses down from where Joe Quigg now lived and, turning the engine off, sat in the darkness, watching the house. Through the uncurtained windows, she could see the couple who had fostered him moving about. At one stage, the mother came into view, Joe hoisted on her hip, her arm cradling his rump, his arms wrapped around her neck.

Lucy recalled Catherine Quigg, his actual mother. The last time she'd seen her alive had been when Lucy had had to break down the woman's bedroom door and try to get her to sober up and get dressed for her children.

Her mobile rang, and Lucy recognized the number as being the CID suite in the Strand Road.

‘Black? Burns here. I was expecting you to call in with an update.'

‘Sorry, sir,' Lucy said. ‘I'm out on a call. I've the press release sent out and we've followed up on most of the local estate agents. We've not located who handled the sale of Doherty's house yet, but I should get it finished in the morning.'

‘I've rescheduled the press conference for eleven,' Burns said. ‘Karen Hughes's funeral is in the morning. Maybe some of the people who knew her might know Sarah Finn too, so I want bodies at the funeral to chat to the younger girls there. Discreetly, obviously.'

‘Yes, sir,' Lucy said. ‘I'd planned on going anyway.'

‘Fine. We've been following up on Carlin,' he said. ‘The black dog hairs that were found on Hughes appear to match a black collie Carlin had around the farm.'

‘So we know she was in contact with
him
at least, if not Kay,' Lucy commented.

‘Indeed,' Burns agreed. ‘We've also spoken to the metal theft crew and shown them Carlin's image. Two of them have confirmed he was the figure they saw at the railway tracks.'

Lucy considered the comment. It had been dark, under tree cover. Their identification of him would be shaky at best if it went to court. Not that it would be going to court. Not now.

‘Plus we managed to pull CCTV footage from along the Limavady Road that picked up Carlin's car on the way to St Columb's Park around the time Hughes was dumped.'

‘Any clear pictures of the driver?'

‘Certainly the figure driving looks like Carlin.'

Lucy said nothing, her breath fuzzing against the receiver.

‘It'll never see court, but we got him, Lucy. And you were instrumental in that.'

‘Thank you, sir,' she said.

‘We've ID'd the remains found at the farm, too, as Louisa Gant.'

‘I heard, sir. On the news.'

‘Well, it looks like Carlin and Kay were in on things together. One of them must have been “Bradley” or “Harris” or whatever he was calling himself. Gary Duffy must have been part of their little group at one stage. Once we can establish that the case is closed. We're looking for the connections now.'

‘I'd thought of contacting the schools of the two girls to see if there were any events or visitors common to both in the week or two before “Bradley's” first contact with them. That might help us find the connection between Kay and Carlin and we can work back,' Lucy added.

‘Of course, what would be really useful would be to find Sarah Finn,' he stated. ‘That's your priority.'

‘Of course, sir,' she said.

‘There is something else, Lucy. I checked up on the Cunningham case, as you asked.'

Lucy straightened. ‘Yes?'

‘Intelligence on the ground in Limerick is saying Cunningham is either home or planning on coming home soon. His mother is dying by all accounts. Maybe keep your ear to the ground. If we get a credible lead we'll get a team organized to see if we can't pick him up for the Quigg killings.'

‘Thank you, sir,' Lucy said.

‘We'll see what we can do.'

‘Yes, sir.'

Lucy ended the call and looked up. Joe Quigg's foster father was standing at the end of his drive, a parcel in one hand, the boot of the car yawning open, his face turned towards her.