The Lost (8 page)

It rang a few times, and when she picked it up Pat was breathless, music in the background. ‘Ballyterrin 44520!’

Paula had a jolt; her mother had drummed it into her to answer the phone this way. It was rude to say ‘hello’, apparently. ‘Pat, it’s Paula.’

‘Ah, hello, pet. Just doing my aerobics. On my own today, what with your daddy’s leg.’

‘He does
aerobics
with you?’

‘Oh aye. We like that Davina McCall best.’

‘OK. Eh . . . right. Just
wanted to ask, since you’re doing that history project, do you by any chance know about some youth mission that’s in town?’

‘The Mission? Of course, pet. It opened up in the summer, Flood Street, and all the young ones are off to it. You know wee Sarah that lives next door, she went down a few times and—’

‘Eh, Pat? Do you know where on Flood Street? A big building, I’d have thought.’

‘It’s in the old home, pet.’

Bingo. ‘A children’s home?’

‘No, no. You’d call it a Magdalene home, I suppose.’ Pat lowered her voice fastidiously. ‘For girls that got in trouble, you know. They had their weans and gave them up for adoption. Safe Harbour was the name, there was a whole chain of them.’

‘And when did it close – I suppose years back?’

‘No no, it was open till the eighties.’

‘No way!’ How had she never heard of this before?

‘It’ll all be in my project. It’s very interesting. You see . . .’ Oh dear. Once started on the topic of local history, Pat couldn’t be stopped.

‘Sorry, Pat, you’ll have to tell me all about it one time. I need to run now.’

‘When are you calling in for your tea? Aidan said he saw you at the school.’

‘Yeah, he did.’ What expurgated version of the meeting had he told his mammy? ‘Bye so, Pat. Take care!’

The website took forever to load on the clunky computer. She sighed and tapped her pen as it came through. THE MISSION, it said, in big letters. There were stock photos of smiling teens, and a large image of a cross. The few other pages had waffle about spreading God’s word to the community through song and prayer. It was hard to work out who was behind the parent company. They had offices everywhere: London, America, red dots all over the map of the globe marking the Mission offices. Paula couldn’t help thinking of her own red spots, representing missing people. One dot hovered over Ballyterrin, so she clicked it. Just the address on Flood Street, nothing else. Site of the old fallen-girls home. Who would run a place called Safe Harbour?

But this wasn’t
her job. Recalling the bollocking she’d got for investigating Kaylee Morris, she went to Guy’s office, glass-fronted with slatted blinds.

‘Inspector.’ Guy was sitting at his desk staring at some papers in front of him. ‘Quick question?’

He seemed dazed. ‘Oh . . . sorry.’

‘About this Mission thing, for whoever looks into it.’ She showed him the printed-out screen. ‘I found out a few more things about it.’

He nodded slowly. ‘I’ll pass it on to Gerard. They’re very stretched up there though, with the DCI being off.’

‘Are you OK?’ Because he didn’t look it. His skin was the colour of the plasterboard walls.

‘Yes.’ He sighed. ‘Just got a package.’

She looked at his desk and saw it was covered in photos, slipping and sliding all over – all of the boy from the desk picture, the one with gap teeth.

‘My wife sent it. My soon-to-be ex-wife, I gather.’

‘Oh. You mean—’

‘She wants a divorce, or so she tells me.’

‘I’m sorry.’

He ran his hands through his hair. He was still wearing his wedding ring. ‘I’m sorry too, Paula. Just struggling a bit. You can see we’re under a lot of pressure. And this town – God, does it ever stop raining?’

‘Not really. You know what they say: if the cows are lying down, it’s raining. If they’re standing up, it’s about to rain.’

He didn’t smile. ‘We’re not popular here, are we? The Brits. The police.’

‘Don’t
worry, it’s all in the past,’ she lied. He didn’t look any happier. The words were out almost before she knew. ‘Listen – if you’re still on for that drink after work, I think I could actually make it.’

He looked up. ‘Really? Could we do it later? Katie has a sleepover, so that way I can drop her off first.’

An evening drink was different – more like a date, not like an after-work thing. And he was her boss, and still married. But he looked so lost she hadn’t the heart to say no. ‘OK. See you later – um, the Square Peg, maybe? It’s pretty central.’ An old man’s pub might reduce the danger.

‘Great.’ He looked better already. Giving herself a stern talking-to, Paula went to write reports. For the rest of the day she read through what they knew on Rachel and Alice (not very much), and highlighted avenues for investigation on Cathy and Majella – possible boyfriends, running away to Belfast or Dublin, accidents. The prospect of forced abduction seemed so unlikely, especially in a town like Ballyterrin, but they’d have to look at that too. She mapped them out, these girls, from their totally different homes and backgrounds.
Where were they?
The unanswered question that drove her on, every time. Again and again she found her eyes straying to the computer screen, where the minimised site of the Mission remained in view.

As she left on the dot of five, copying everyone else’s dash to the door, Bob Hamilton fell into step with her. ‘You’re PJ’s girl, then, I hear. I worked with him.’

‘Did you?’ She wondered was he one of the officers who’d driven her father out.

‘He was a good man, a very good man.’

‘I’ll be sure to tell him that. He still is a good man, I think.’

‘Oh aye,
oh aye.’

She gave him a tight smile and started up the Ford Focus.

What to wear, that was a good question. Perhaps in denial about how long she’d be in Ballyterrin, Paula had brought hardly any clothes, and mainly jeans and jumpers, anticipating the chill nights of Ireland. Nothing for a drink with Guy Brooking. In her dressing-gown after dinner with PJ – her speciality of beans on toast – she stuck her head round the door of her small bedroom. ‘Dad?’

‘Aye?’ He had the football on, sound down low.

‘Can I look in the boxes for a dress?’

Silence. She thought he hadn’t heard, but then he said, ‘Aye, you may as well. They’re only fit for the poor box, otherwise.’ The unspoken words were there:
and it’s not like she’s coming back to get them.

‘You don’t mind?’

‘Tear away.’

The boxes were on the landing, taped up, smelling of damp. She touched the top one gently, but what was the point? It was only possessions. They didn’t mean much when the person was gone. She had a vague idea what she wanted, and after rooting around among books, photos and shoes, there it was – a rust-red raw silk dress with a Chinese neck. Her mother had worn it that last Christmas, to a dinner-dance with PJ, and Paula remembered her going down the stairs in it, clouded in Anais-Anais, her red hair done up in some kind of knot.

She rubbed the fabric; it was lovely stuff, thick and cool. Her mother must have bought it in Dublin, on one of her Brown Thomas shopping trips. Was it weird to wear one of your mum’s old dresses? Of course not, it was probably trendy now. But maybe not when you hadn’t seen her in seventeen years.

A ghost of talc
rose up as she pulled it on. The dress was tight on Paula’s larger frame, and came to halfway up her thighs, but she got into it. She ringed her eyes in liner and attempted something with her hair, pulling it into a plait. She hadn’t her mother’s skill with hair, who had often sent Paula off to school with elaborate French dos that were the envy of her friends. God, it was too dressy for the Square Peg. Maybe boots would tone it down, and her ordinary wool coat. For a moment she considered taking it all off, going in jeans, but something stopped her. She wasn’t sure what. Her other clothes were so plain, and for some reason, she wanted to look nice.

She clumped downstairs, self-conscious, and PJ was wobbling in from the kitchen on his crutches. He’d developed a way of holding a flask of tea under one arm.

‘I’d have made the tea, Daddy.’

‘I’m grand by myself.’ He looked up at her on the stairs. A silence. ‘Jesus. You’re the spit of her.’

‘Ah, no.’ Margaret Maguire had been –
was
? – a smaller woman, slim, fragile-looking, whereas Paula had her father’s height and strength. There was nothing fragile about her – not to see, anyway. ‘I’m away now.’

PJ looked at his daughter. ‘You be careful.’

‘I always am! Dad, I’ve been living in London.’

‘But you never know who’s about.’ The same warning he’d given her every day when she lived at home. Somehow it was comforting, like speaking a charm of protection.

‘I will. You rest yourself, Daddy.’

Guy stood up when she walked in. He was watching her, but so were the dozen or so old men hiding in the recesses of the dark, sticky pub. It was raining again, and she flicked beads of it off her grey wool coat as she crossed the floor to him, horribly self-conscious.

‘Is
this OK?’ she started babbling. ‘I just thought, the others’ll have kids in them tonight, and you might have to bust some for being under-age, and that’d be a bit of a downer, and—’

‘No chance of being under-age here,’ he muttered, looking round at the clientele. ‘And I definitely heard someone say “Brits Out”.’

‘Ah, ignore them.’ She slid into the booth; he looked her over, slowly. She bit down the urge to start babbling again.

‘Horrible weather, isn’t it,’ he said. ‘So dark already.’

‘True, there’s a quare shrink in the nights.’ She caught his baffled look. ‘It just means “very”. Do the Irish expressions get to you?’

‘I’m still lost. My first month here, I couldn’t make out a word anyone was saying.’

‘You’ll be OK with me. Everyone says I’m as English as the Queen now.’

He laughed, a deep, generous sound. ‘Sorry, but you really aren’t. You’re still Irish to me.’ Finally, he looked at her in the eyes. ‘You look very smart.’

‘Smart?’

‘Well, nice. I’m sorry, there are rules on paying compliments to staff.’ He hurried on. ‘Would you like a glass of wine or something?’

‘Here? God, no. It’ll be something the barman brewed up in his garden. I’ll have a Guinness.’

He raised his eyebrows at that, but got up and went to get it. She watched his back as he waited at the bar. Then he was back with a pint. ‘He said would the lady like a glass not a pint. I said she wouldn’t.’

‘She would not indeed.’ She gulped the creamy foam. Guy was still watching her. ‘So, your daughter’s at a sleepover?’

‘Yes. I was worried about her at first, when we moved, but she seems to have made this group of friends. They stay at someone’s house every Friday.’

‘Yours
too?’

‘Not yet. I think maybe she’s embarrassed – you know, just having me and not her mum.’

Paula was thinking of the scene earlier in his office, and he must have been too, because he said, ‘I’m sorry about today. I shouldn’t have told you all that. It wasn’t professional.’

It wasn’t professional to be out for a drink either, but she said, ‘It’s fine.’

‘I suppose I don’t have many people to talk to. Katie’s settled in better than I have.’

‘It’s Ballyterrin. Not so open to strangers.’

‘You still know many people?’

She shook her head, thinking of Aidan. ‘Not really. Some schoolfriends are about, probably, but when I left for uni – well, it was hard to keep in touch.’ Especially when you’d promised yourself you’d never go back.

‘Well, cheers.’ He forced a smile. ‘I’m sure now you’re here the team will gel better.’

‘Cheers.’ She swallowed the heavy stout, feeling it calm her, weigh her down. ‘Sergeant Hamilton didn’t seem too keen on the idea of a drink.’

‘No, he doesn’t really fit the Irish stereotype.’

‘Now that’s a mistake. Don’t call him Irish, that’s a lot more offensive than saying I look nice. British, please.’

‘Oh, dear. I’m a bit clueless, aren’t I? You’ll have to be my guide.’

‘What, like a leprechaun or something?’

He was about to answer, a genuine smile for once stretched on his face, but his phone started to ring. As he dug it from his jeans pocket he was laughing, his face open. From the way it closed so quickly, she could tell something very bad had happened.

‘Can I
come?’

He was already marching out of the pub, phone clamped to his ear. A thin light rain was falling, catching in her hair. Into his phone he was saying, ‘No, I’ve got my car. Only a few sips of beer so far, that’s lucky. Hmm?’ Whoever was on the end had asked him something and he turned to her, thoughtful. ‘Yes. I’ll call for Paula on the way.’ So he didn’t want Hamilton – she assumed that was the caller – to know he was with her.

He hung up and they stood on the high street, looking at each other. A chill wind was blowing in from the docks, and the smokers outside the strip of bars had turned up their collars. Music drifted on the breeze. He said, ‘Sorry, I just didn’t want to—’

‘It’s OK. Can I come, then? I mean, it might be helpful, if I can see it.’

He looked at her. ‘You’ve seen this kind of thing before?’

She thought of the first body, and then the second, back in the nineties; each time someone else dead, not the person they were looking for. ‘I have.’

‘All right then.’ He started walking again. ‘It won’t be pleasant, Paula, I’m warning you now.’

She got in. ‘It never is.’

Chapter Eight

Though Ballyterrin
was a small town, on a bad day it could take you an hour to drive through all the traffic. But on that damp Friday night, with everyone either at home or ensconced in warm pubs, they reached the canal in ten minutes. Here the old flax mill, once the foundation of the town, stood empty by the sluggish waterway. In summer it would bloom poison-green with algae, but now it flowed thick as treacle in the dark. The wind blew hard here, and Paula shivered into her coat as they picked their way from the car over muddy grass, to where blinding lights illuminated the scene of the crime.