‘Did he touch you? So help me God, I’ll kill him if he did.’
‘He tried to kiss me. I got away. No harm done.’ Chloe rubbed a hand along her arm.
‘When was this? Did he know where Maeve was? Are you sure you’re okay?’
‘Mam! Stop it!’ Chloe cried. ‘It was a few days ago. It was awful but I’ll be okay.’
‘Where did you meet him?’
‘In the town park. Mam, what if he took Maeve?’
Chloe broke down in sobs. Lottie held her to her chest and soothed her, running her fingers through her long hair. She wanted to hear more, but she knew her daughter had had enough trauma for one night.
Seventy
Lottie sat on the side of the bed and watched until Chloe eventually fell asleep. She recalled how only two days ago she had looked at the body of the second murder victim, with its evidence of self-inflicted wounds. What had she said then? ‘Surely someone close to her would have known.’ Right.
Her daughter needed help. The child was suffering. Chloe had been too strong over the last few years. Ironic, then, how it had been Sean’s ordeal that had broken her.
With a weary sigh, she kissed the girl’s forehead and went to her own room. She stripped off and had a quick shower but was unable to wash away the mental strain of the last hour, the day, the last week. She pulled on an old T-shirt of Adam’s and a pair of leggings. In her bare feet she padded down to the kitchen, found her iPad and switched it on. Sitting at the table, she entered the word ‘Lipjan’ into Google. Tapping open the first line of articles, she began to read.
Lipjan – a town in Kosovo. She sat up straight, hand trembling on the iPad. After a few minutes, she jumped up.
The chicken farm? Something Dan Russell had mentioned when she’d been to see him at the barracks. He had said the mice reminded him of the chicken farm. Now here she was, reading about it on an online article. The chicken farm was based outside the town called Lipjan.
‘Got you, Russell,’ she cried, clapping her hands together.
* * *
‘Come again,’ Boyd said. ‘What hashtag are you on about?’
Lottie poured two cups of tea. Boyd had arrived ten minutes after she rang him. Patiently she explained what Chloe had told her.
‘And Maeve was using it too?’ he asked.
‘According to Chloe, yes. We need to trace everyone who uses it. Warn them.’
‘That’s a big job.’
‘It might save a life.’
‘This Lipjan, who do you think he is?’
‘Because it is in Kosovo, I think it has to be either Russell, who worked there, or Petrovci who is from there.’
‘What reason would either of them have?’
‘A means of luring in vulnerable girls.’
‘I hope your Chloe isn’t one of them.’
Lottie could feel tears searching for release. Her shoulders sagged with exhaustion but her brain was wide awake.
‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Chloe will be fine.’ Boyd reached out to touch her hand. She pulled it back and gripped her mug.
‘She better be, Boyd. I’m not letting her out of this house until we solve this.’
‘That’s wise. So what do we do now?’
‘We have to figure out Dan Russell’s role.’
‘That email he sent you? What was it about?’
Toying with the handle of her mug, Lottie considered how much she could tell him. Silence lingered in the air. She lifted her head and found him staring at her.
She picked her bag up from the floor and took out the photograph she’d found in her mother’s attic and the badge she’d got from Mimoza.
‘According to Russell, that girl there, the little one, is Mimoza. And that is Adam’s army name badge. Russell insinuated that Adam had something to do with illegal organ harvesting in Kosovo.’
Boyd’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head. ‘Back up there a minute. Surely you don’t believe that?’
‘I don’t know what to believe any more.’
‘Lottie, you knew Adam better than anyone. This isn’t true.’
‘If it’s not true, why is Russell threatening to expose it?’
‘He’s fucking with you. Twisting the truth.’
Lottie stood up and walked around. She looked at her wedding photo gathering dust on the wall.
‘You’re right. I’m stupid. Russell is trying to compromise me with lies. He’s diverting me from the truth.’
‘And Petrovci is slap-bang in the middle of it all.’
‘I can’t figure it out. That’s the awful thing.’
‘You know what you need?’
‘A good night’s sleep?’
‘Exactly.’
‘I’m not so sure I’ll manage to sleep, Boyd, but I’ll try. Thank you.’ She gave him a tight hug.
After he had left, Lottie knew there was no way she could sleep and opened up her laptop. Following hours of research into the night, she discovered something that caused her jaw to drop. Hurriedly, she sent off an email, hoping the reply wouldn’t take long. It might just help solve her case.
Mimoza stared up at the sky and shivered. The stars blended into each other. One big blinding light. She wanted to shield her eyes but her arms were tethered to her sides with thick rope. Then she realised the light wasn’t the stars at all but a flashlight. Beaming straight down into her eyes through the darkness.
She tried to speak but her mouth was bound with a rough cloth. The light turned away from her and she tried to follow its glow. He was shining it onto the other silent bundle.
She wondered where Milot might be. She hoped he was being treated better than she was.
Against the sound of shallow waves lapping against a distant shoreline, she cried silent tears under the starlit sky.
And she wished she had never left her homeland.
Kosovo, 1999
Images flitted behind his closed eyes. Lights, colours, shapes. Then voices.
He screamed. ‘Mama!’
No one answered him. Slowly he opened his eyes. Mama was dead. Papa and Rhea too. He wished he was dead. Pain. Searing red-hot pain shot through his belly, around his back and down his legs. He tentatively moved his fingers along his skin. A clear plastic tube protruded from the back of his hand. He found the source of the pain. Low on his side, a series of bandages curving around his hip. What had the doctor done to him?
He tried to remember.
A room with bright lights. A trolley. He’d been made to lie down on it. The doctor had put a needle in his hand and the last thing he recalled was the boy he’d seen in the corridor approaching him with a scalpel.
That was it. Now he was here. Where? He turned his head. A small room with paint curling in the corner of the ceiling. A memory fought to gain control of his brain. Scratching away like the mice in the chicken farm. Mama and Rhea, screaming in pain as their bodies were sliced and their life organs torn so easily from them. With quivering fingers he eased back the bandage and felt beneath it. He touched the rises and bumps. Stitches. Pulling his fingers away, he held his hand up in the air and saw a smear of blood.
The door opened. He squeezed his eyes shut.
‘Wake up.’ The voice was that of the doctor.