Hidden ( CSI Reilly Steel #3) (32 page)

‘
That’ll be your next port of call. Steel, any helpful forensic trace from the house?’ O’Brien asked, rubbing his bloodshot eyes.

‘
My team is currently working on that, sir. We’ve also ordered cadaver dogs to search the property.’

And while Reilly guessed the dogs would find
the corpse they’d dug for once before, she sincerely hoped that was all they’d find.

I heard them
plotting their invasion. The children knew this day would come, that evil wasn’t to be kept from our door eternally. Once one had fallen for Kelpie’s charms the seal of paradise was broken, and soon the festering waters of that pitiful world beyond our borders would pour in, their stench preceeding them.

It is the turning of the season, when the winds blow and the
trees begin to blossom, and all God’s creatures feel the earth moving beneath them; restlessness is in the air. We have left our sanctuary but together we are strong, the bells have not yet tolled.

This is merely an interlude
. I must protect the flock and I must grow them too – for strength lies in numbers.

Change
is in the air, the herd is restless. Our paradise may be lost but another awaits …

In the GFU lab, Reilly and the team stood around the trays and bags of evidence they had collected from the McAllister place.

‘OK, priority goes to anything that might give an indication of where McAllister could have gone with those kids. Let’s see if we can outsmart him.’

She tasked Gary with going through the mats from the van, hoping to isolate material common to the house
, and then see what they were left with: natural or unnatural, plants, minerals, rocks, soil or any chemicals/synthetics.

‘
No problem, boss, I’m on it.’ He sprung to action with surprising gusto for a person who’d had little more than a couple of hours’ sleep.

‘Rory,
I want you to process the prints and partials – check if they happen to match what’s already on file.’

‘
Will do.’

In the hope of identifying the children McAllister had with him, Reilly then tasked Lucy with cross-checking anything found in the house with the current missing children files. It would be a painstaking and likely fruitless process but they had to try.

For much of the morning, t
he team busied themselves collecting various evidence bags and equipment to launch into what seemed from the outset a mammoth task.

Reilly went over to where Julius was sifting through the books
. She thought about the complexities of McAllister’s brainwashing and how he had created an elaborate belief system to keep the children in check. However, he had not accounted for the fact that childish fear was not a lifelong fear. Children grew into adulthood and began to question everything, no matter how sterile and controlled the situation around them.

But t
he question now was what would McAllister do next?

She was startled back to reality by her phone ringing
.

‘
Hey, Chris.’

‘Some
good news. We just got word on a registration on that van in Clondalkin.’

It took Reilly a moment to figure out what he was talking about.
‘The attempted abduction?’

‘The very one. A neighbor reported a blue Volkswagen van cruising their street right around the time that Jade Carney’s mum called us. One of our guys here checked the CCTV cameras and managed to pick up a plate.’

She sat forward.
‘You have an address?’

‘Yes, we’re headed straight there now. With any luck that’s where we’ll find McAllister, and hopefully the kids too.’

‘
Well, if it is the place, we’re ready to move.’ She looked up as Gary entered the room, a thoughtful look on his face.

             
‘Great. Will keep you posted.’

Hanging up the phone, Reilly
shared this latest piece of news with the team.

‘Did Detective Delaney happen to mention where the house is?’ Gary asked, reading from a report.

Reilly
recognized his tone.

‘
No – why?’

              ‘Pegasus has just thrown up a strange result from the mats, and I was wondering if McAllister might have been spending time in Eldorado.’

She frowned, completely confused.
‘Eldorado?’

‘
Yes, you know …  the city of gold.’

Chris and Kennedy waited patiently while the locals jimmied the front door of the house that matched the registration of the van.

‘There you go. You’re in,’ said the officer with the crowbar and stood back.

The front door swung open and
Chris poked his head inside. ‘Gardai. Anyone home?’ His voice echoed in the empty house. 

The hallway contained nothing but a pair of
wellington boots and an umbrella – no photographs on a sidestand, no pictures on the walls, nothing.

‘
Cozy,’ muttered Kennedy, following him inside.

There was an archway through to a dining room with similar décor, which
then led on to the kitchen. Chris opened the fridge – all it contained was half a packet of stale butter and some out-of-date eggs.

Kennedy rummaged in the cupboards – tins, packets, simple no-recipe food. 
‘Not exactly homely ...’

‘
Let’s check upstairs.’

The
stairs creaked slightly as the detectives ascended. The upstairs of the house was as devoid of personality as the downstairs.  There was a small bathroom – avocado bathroom suite, no shower – and two bedrooms. One contained a double bed, neatly made, and a wardrobe of obviously charity shop clothes. The other was set up as an office – a desk against the wall, bookshelves and a small radio, though no computer or other electronic equipment.

‘
This is beyond spartan,’ Chris said, shivering. He didn’t think he had ever seen a house so austere. ‘It’s downright creepy. If it weren’t for the lack of dust, you’d think no one had lived here in years.’

‘
Whoever does live here doesn’t like to move with the times, that’s for sure,’ Kennedy agreed. He shook his head.  ‘No sign of McAllister here anyway. I’ll go get the forensics, see if they can dig anything up.’

As Kennedy clomped back down the stairs
Chris gazed around at the bookshelves. They were mostly empty apart from a few books including
Salem’s Lot
by Stephen King, another nameless novel with a torn cover, and a couple of textbooks on physiology and anatomy.  Something about them sent a fresh shiver down Chris’s spine.

There was definitely something off about this place.

The man raised the binoculars and scanned his front garden. One of the cops had come back out – there were also several others in uniform, and then two figures in white suits entered with bulky toolboxes.

Forensics. 

He watched as one of the cops, in a crumpled jacket and tie, called them in. They would violate his house, their dirty shoes on the carpet, their sticky fingers in every corner. It was no longer his. It was time to move on.

Again.

He lowered the binoculars, slipping them away in the daypack he wore, and walked quickly to his van, taking the keys from his pocket. 

He would have to disappear, cover his tracks.  He had stayed out of sight for too long to allow them to catch up
with him now.  He would have to be more careful though.

Two close calls in a few days was cutting it fine
.

He slid into the driver’s seat and
cranked the engine. It purred into life.  He had maintained the van himself, kept it running perfectly, but like everything else, it was now expendable.

He knew exactly where he was going, had planned for every eventuality; there was nothing left to chance.  Everything would go exactly as he had foreseen it.

When he was back in control, he would build another world in which to fulfill his desires and fantasies. Where he would go and who he would become he had not yet decided. What he had decided, though, was that he would go for blonds; not your trashy peroxide types, but pure Aryan blonds.

Hard to find but worth the hunt.

The roads were quiet, but he drove carefully, exactly at the speed limit as he always did.  He couldn’t help but smile as he passed a squad car racing the other way, lights flashing, on its way to some petty crime, the officers unaware of what they had missed, and who they had passed, his nice new number plates unnoticed.

A little while later, he rolled to a halt, then climbed out, taking care to avoid the puddles. He lifted
a broken latch and slid the gates open.

Inside was an abandoned warehouse – it had stood deserted for many years, just another empty building on a quiet country road, another anonymous place that no one ever visited.

He drove in through the gate, then stopped to close it exactly as it was, before driving the van in through the open loading bay and all the way to the back of the warehouse.

He climbed out
and looked around.  No one in sight, but he couldn’t take any chances.  He stood very still and listened – not just for ten seconds, as an amateur might, but for a minute, two minutes, three minutes. 

The only sounds were the ticking of the engine and the exhaust as they cooled, a branch from an overgrown tree worrying
the wall of the building.

Satisfied that no one was around
, he opened the back of the van. 

Stacked inside were three large cans of petrol. He lifted them out, set them on the floor, then walked around and op
ened all the doors. There could be no trace, nothing to link the vehicle to him.

One by one
, he emptied the cans of petrol over the van, thoroughly and meticulously, making sure to cover all the surfaces, soak the seats, the steering wheel … and the floor in the back where he had scrubbed so assiduously to remove the bloodstains.

When all three cans were empty
, he placed them back inside the van, and pulled the box of matches from his pocket.

He paused, took a moment to analyze his feelings –
they were a mixture of something he was familiar with. Fear and excitement, horror and delight? Yes, he was used to mixed emotions. On this occasion though, it was satisfaction at executing his plan so competently, as well as regret at having to give this one up and start over with a new one.

Then just as quickly he kicked back into action – lit a match, dropped it into the box, watched as the whole box flared up into a large flame, then tossed it into the van.

Poof
. The petrol lit instantly, almost sucking the air out of his lungs as the flames roared into life.  Blue and yellow, they raced around the van, inside and out, like a starving animal searching for food, and within seconds the entire van was alight, the flames dancing, devouring.

Then
the man turned on his heel and walked calmly away, the smell of burning petrol and rubber in his nose, his plan becoming clearer in his mind.

It was time to assume a new name, move into his new kingdom,
which was already prepared and waiting for a day such as today. 

It was time to begin again.

Chapter 32

Chris, Kennedy and Reilly took seats in front of O’Brien’s desk for a debrief.

Chris spoke first. ‘We followed up on the van from the attempted aduction in Clondalkin. It was registered to a house in Whitestown in the name of Martin O’Toole.  Turns out he’s been dead for eight years, although he has somehow managed to drive the van and keep drawing disability benefit, which is quite a trick.’

‘
How does this still happen in this day and age?’ O’Brien said, rolling his eyes. ‘The left hand never seems to know what the right hand is doing …’

Kennedy looked at his notes.
‘He had a co-signatory on the disability benefit. His carer is listed as Clive Farrell. He’s come up a blank though – doesn’t seem to exist, so it’s likely to be a scam.’

‘Anything linking the place to the Wicklow house?’

Reilly sat forward.
‘No, sir, the place is clean, too clean. We think it was used as a safe house. However, my team’s initial examination was only preliminary; we would like to have a closer look, but the order initally was to fall back and keep surveillence in place.’

‘
Which begs the question, if this place is indeed McAllister’s safe house, why didn’t he use it?’

‘
Maybe it wasn’t remote enough or wasn’t suitable to prolong the Tir Na Nog fantasy,’ Chris suggested.

‘
Or maybe he just abandoned the kids – or worse – before taking off alone,’ said Kennedy gruffly.

‘
I doubt it,’ Reilly argued. ‘Based on what we already know about McAllister, he seems to care for these kids.’

‘
Or maybe it’s just the fantasy he cares for,’ Kennedy  replied. ‘The guy is off his rocker. The stuff he was sprouting yesterday when we tried to talk to him … Personally I wouldn’t be surprised if he believes everything he’s told them.’