‘So where’s his mother?’
‘Wish I knew. He was crying and he hadn’t his toy rabbit with him. Something’s happened to Mimoza, I think, and Milot escaped – ran away.’
‘Don’t be so melodramatic. How did he know the way to your house?’
‘Like I said, someone probably brought him, or maybe he remembered the way and came alone.’
‘It’s dark. I don’t think he’d remember.’ He gulped his water noisily. ‘Has he been reported missing?’
‘I rang the station. No reports. Something’s not right with all this.’
‘I agree, and something’s not right with you. Get the boy placed in care. Tonight.’
‘I can’t. Not tonight.’ A yawning silence sprung up between them before she changed the subject. ‘I spoke briefly with Jane Dore this evening, about the second girl we found.’
‘And?’
‘She’s doing the PM in the morning, but she said the body has a similar scar to the first girl.’
‘Missing a kidney?’
‘I’d imagine so but we won’t know for sure until Jane completes her work. It’s getting very scary.’
‘Jesus, someone is going round Ragmullin taking out organs and then shooting the victims. Unbelievable.’
‘I know.’ Lottie drained her water and stood up. ‘I’d better go.’
Boyd wiped the damp ring on the table with his hand. She smiled.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘You.’
‘Glad you feel that way because I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes when Superintendent Corrigan finds out you kept a lost boy in your house overnight.’
‘Who’s going to tell?’ She went towards the door. ‘You know the history with that agency. I can make him see my point of view. By the way, I meant to ask you—’
The doorbell rang. Lottie glanced at the time, then at Boyd. He shrugged. She opened the door.
‘Hello, Jackie,’ she said.
Jackie Boyd smiled coldly, took a long drag from the cigarette in her hand before dropping it to the step and crushing it with the heel of her stiletto. Long legs, clad in leopard-print jeggings, edged inside.
Stepping around her, Lottie headed for her car. She’d been about to ask Boyd what he’d been doing at Hill Point that afternoon. Maybe now she had the answer to her unasked question.
Forty-Two
For the second night in a row, he’d raped her. But he hadn’t broken her. No way. He’d only succeeded in strengthening her resolve to get the hell out. Somehow.
When he was done, he tied her hands behind her back and pushed her into the room. Maeve dropped to the floor, her body numbed from the rape, and banged her head against the concrete. The man had his balaclava on, but she had already seen his face. She knew what that meant. She’d read about these types of abductions online, never in a million years thinking she could be one of the statistics.
‘Bastard,’ she cried. ‘Let me go.’
‘Feisty tonight, missy,’ he sneered as he dressed himself. ‘Not so brave when I put this down your neck.’ He cupped his penis beneath his trousers. ‘Not so brave when you saw my slaughter room.’
‘If you were going to kill me, why haven’t you done it yet? You prick.’ She stared at his eyes gleaming through the knitted slits. ‘Untie my hands, I need to pee.’
‘Use the bucket.’
‘Fuck you and your bucket.’ She spat at him, kicking out.
He pulled a knife from the back of his jeans and flicked it beneath her chin.
‘What do you want with me?’ she whimpered, her bravado dissipating.
‘Soon. You will find out soon. Your time is almost up.’
He turned and left, slamming the door behind him.
Lying on the ground, resting her head on the rough concrete, Maeve vowed she would get out alive. Surely by now her mother had raised the alarm. Unless she was drowning in one of her drunken stupors.
But Maeve knew in her heart that Tracy Phillips really only thought of herself.
A fist smashed into her face. Mimoza screamed.
The woman, Anya, was standing over her. Another smack. Bone crunching. Blood flowing. Wrenched out of her bed, she fell to the floor.
‘Bitch. Get up. You leave. Now.’
Dragging herself to her knees, Mimoza crawled to the open door. A kick to her buttocks sent her crashing into the small corridor. A polished black boot nudged at her nose. Pulled to her feet, she squinted through her unbruised eye into the face of the man with the crooked teeth.
She found herself being twisted around and a blanket thrown over her head. Hauled up onto his shoulder, she was carried down the stairs, out the front door and down steps. A car engine revved. Flung into the back seat, she fell to the floor when it screeched in a turn and sped off.
The policeman must have found the note and begun asking questions, she thought wildly. And that had scared her captors.
A cold reality dawned on her. Now that they were moving her, the policeman wouldn’t find her.
And she would never see her son again.
Lottie knocked on Chloe’s door. She thought she’d heard her crying when she returned from Boyd’s.
‘Go away. I’m trying to sleep.’
Lottie put her head around the door. ‘You sure you’re okay?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Okay, goodnight, pet.’
‘Goodnight.’
Lottie closed the door and peeked into Katie’s room. The little boy was curled up with her daughter’s arm resting lightly over him. Tomorrow she would have to sort him out with the social services agency. She prayed Corrigan wouldn’t find out that she’d kept him here overnight.
‘Turn off that game,’ she said to Sean’s closed door.
‘Five more minutes.’
‘It’s a school night.’
No reply.
In her own room she undressed without switching on the light. Pulling on a long T-shirt, she lay on the bed and closed her eyes. Sometimes all she could do was pray to a God she didn’t believe in to spare her family from the horrors she had to witness in her job. Two girls without names and an unborn baby were lying tonight in Jane Dore’s Dead House. Maeve Phillips was still missing. A frightened young boy was sleeping across the landing. She had no idea where his mother was.
And Jackie was back in town, stalking Boyd.
Kosovo, 1999
It wasn’t very clean inside. Not for a clinic. But there had been a war. That must be the reason, the boy thought.
He followed the captain though a swing door into a narrow corridor. At the end, an open door.
‘Ah, thank you.’ A man in a white coat rose from behind the desk and shook the captain’s hand vigorously. ‘You never let me down.’
‘Take a blood sample, Doctor. See if he’s any good to you. The lads at the chicken farm have seen him. He can’t disappear. Not yet, anyway.’
The boy watched as the doctor took a syringe from a steel tray and pinched his arm. When a vein rose, he jabbed in the needle. The boy scrunched his eyes until the implement was extracted. When he looked, it was full with his blood. A plaster was applied and his elbow bent upwards.
‘What now?’ the captain asked.
‘A few days. Come back with him then.’