Prologue
2015
It was hot.
A real August day when the sun felt relentless and the air was filled with the screaming of seagulls. The landfill site in Essex was busier than ever, with the endless stream of trucks queuing up to unload their cargo. The noise of the gulls amid the constant sounds of earthmovers and lorries was so loud the ground workers had to shout to be heard above it.
But it was the stench that was the workers’ main gripe. The combination of rotting vegetation, the wasted food mixed in with household chemicals and the carcasses of dead animals was even more potent in the burning heat. It never ceased to amaze the ground-force workers what people threw out without a backward glance. Dogs, cats, puppies – even the occasional exotic pet, such as a snake, and once a three-foot iguana – had been found dumped in with the household waste. One of the old-timers remembered finding a newborn baby years before, its tiny foot poking out of a Tesco carrier bag. Oh, there were plenty of gruesome tales to tell in the pubs they frequented. Rubbish had a strange fascination for the people who dealt with it. They might be nicknamed ‘shit shifters’, among other things, but they shared a camaraderie that was well worth the ridicule.
On the plus side, many had found expensive objects over the years too; it was astounding what people inadvertently threw away. Jewellery, bundled-up money and wallets along with designer handbags and expensive electrical items – iPads, iPods, phones – the list was endless. The less scrupulous of the men would quietly pocket their finds while others took them straight to the offices in case people were looking for them.
Today was a Tuesday, a particularly busy day for them as the rubbish accumulated over two weeks in thousands of households was unloaded to be crushed and buried. Among the mass of waste, the rats were as brave as gladiators and the men had long learned to ignore them. Like the gulls they were an inescapable part of the job. Big bastards and all, some of them. Alongside them were often scavengers of the human variety – Eastern Europeans who scoured the place looking for anything of value. They were chased away regularly, but were soon inevitably back looking for stuff to sell or reuse. It was heartbreaking but the men knew they had to scare them off, especially the children – this was no place for kids. It was often a losing battle, as they continued finding them there bright and early, raking over other people’s cast-offs day after day.
Micky Cartwright was one of the oldest men there; he’d been shit shovelling, as he told anyone who would listen, since he left school at fifteen, and he loved it. He had a large skull which still sported a full head of snow-white hair and, as he rolled himself a cigarette this particular morning, he sighed in exasperation. Unlike many of his workforce, Micky was a staunch Britain First supporter, which did not sit well with a lot of the other workers. Especially the men from ethnic backgrounds. There had been more than one complaint about his language and some of his remarks throughout the years. Today, the heat was getting to everyone and tempers were high. He’d thought it best to step out for a bit.
As Micky looked over the site he saw in the distance a figure climbing over the heaped rubbish and wondered how this fucker had managed to get past the others.
Walking back into the Portakabin they used to make tea, he picked up his binoculars – a wonderful find from many years before – and, stepping outside once more into the brilliant sunshine, he looked over to see who this was who’d managed to get in.
As Micky adjusted the binoculars, he wondered if he was actually seeing what he thought he saw. He was so shocked, he continued to watch the shape for a minute or two before running into the site office shouting, ‘Fuck me, lads, you’ve got to see this!’
Putting down their mugs of tea and coffee, the men followed him outside. There was always something going on amid the bustle of a landfill site; it was one of the perks of the job. Micky handed his binoculars to a man called Jeremy Fewster who was the undisputed ganger in charge of the men and their differing duties, depending on his idea of their capabilities. Shovelling shit wasn’t exactly on a par with rocket science but it was a lot more complicated than people on the outside realised.
Jeremy looked at the figure in the distance for a few minutes. Like Micky he didn’t know what to make of it. It was so surreal. All the men on break were now trying to see what had captured so much attention but the sun was glaring down and it was difficult to make out anything from this distance. Jeremy started to give them a rundown on what he could see, as gradually even the men in the earthmovers stopped what they were doing to gawp at the strange sight.
A lone woman of indeterminate age dressed in a patterned sleeveless sundress and a large sunhat, her eyes hidden behind huge sunglasses and wearing a ludicrous pair of bright yellow wellington boots, was gradually making her way to the centre of the tip. She was holding what appeared to be a box or container tightly to her chest as she struggled to get to her destination. Jeremy watched, fascinated, as he could almost feel the power of her determination to do whatever it was she was there for.
When she finally stopped, she stood for a few moments looking around her at the endless sea of rubbish, wiping the sweat from her brow in a very feminine gesture, with the tips of the fingers of her free hand. He knew how difficult it was to walk through rubbish; it wasn’t as easy as you’d think. He watched her steadying herself before she took the lid off the container and started to scatter what looked like ashes all over the refuse around her. He could just make out the satisfied smile on her face as she did it.
‘Well, lads, she’s obviously scattering her old man’s ashes. All I can say is, he had to be some kind of cunt to get this treatment!’
The men were laughing, some not as heartily as others, as guilt and the thought of something like that happening to them was hammered home. But it was definitely another crazy story for the shit shifters to reminisce about as the years rolled on.
Chapter One
‘See, this is when you are glad to have a pool here. For about five weeks a fucking year it earns its upkeep!’
Patrick Kelly’s voice was jovial but Kate knew that it galled him that their beautiful pool didn’t get much use in Grantley. Still, they had a stunning villa in Spain if they needed the sun and they had also purchased a condo in Florida, as Patrick liked the golf courses out there. Florida was also where George Markham had died – the man who had murdered Patrick’s daughter, Mandy – and she knew that he liked being close to where that evil bastard had met his end. It gave him a small sense of satisfaction. They had a very luxurious lifestyle and Kate enjoyed it more than she thought she should. She couldn’t shake the feeling that it was too opulent, but it was part of Patrick’s make-up. He needed to feel that people could see and admire his success and, in a way, she understood that.
After all these years together, she knew she was lucky to have him; they were growing old together these days, but they were happy. He still had it in him to give women the ‘glad eye’, as he called it, but his roaming days were over. At least she hoped so. She knew he still had his fingers in a lot of dirty-looking pies – Patrick Kelly was never going to be able to go completely straight – but she was retired from the force now, and she had decided that ‘what couldn’t be cured had to be endured’. One of her mum’s old sayings; even now Kate still missed her.
Beverley Collins, their housekeeper, walked out to them where they were sitting on their terrace, smiling as usual. She was a confirmed spinster in her forties with a soft Cork accent and a face that Patrick once said was what his mother would have called ‘unfortunate’. Meaning that she wasn’t exactly a raving beauty, but she was wonderful at her job and that was all that mattered. Also, she had an endearing personality and wasn’t even remotely intrusive. She loved her little independent flat on their property and fitted in with their set-up perfectly.
‘There’s a gentleman here to see you, Pat – won’t give me his name.’
Patrick stood up, scowling. As he dragged on a robe, Kate followed suit. She hoped this wasn’t trouble coming to their door. But after years with Patrick Kelly, Kate suspected that there’d likely be more to this than met the eye. Patrick still loved what he called ‘a bit of skulduggery’.
Unfortunately, that sometimes came back to haunt him.
Chapter Three
Patrick walked into his spacious hallway and saw a man standing there. He was in his late thirties, and he had a powerful air about him, dressed in a well-cut suit and expensive shirt. He was taller than Patrick by a few inches, and he had dark hair and blue eyes. He was what Patrick would describe as ‘well set up’.
In his robe and bare feet Patrick felt at a disadvantage somehow, and that came across in his voice as he barked out, ‘And you are?’
Kate watched silently as the younger man held his hand out in a gesture of friendliness, a small smile on his handsome face.
Patrick ignored the hand of friendship and stood there silently, his eyebrows raised. He opened his arms and said with quiet intensity, ‘Well?’
The man dropped his hand and, shrugging slightly, he said, ‘Do you remember Ruby O’Loughlin?’
Patrick was perplexed at the younger man’s calm tone of voice. He clearly wasn’t in the least intimidated by Patrick and he found that disconcerting, as he did the question.
Kate said gently, ‘Shall we go out to the patio and I’ll get us some tea?’ She had a feeling that the man wasn’t here to cause outright trouble exactly – but she had a sneaky suspicion he was going to cause a lot of consternation.
‘Thank you. That would be lovely.’
The man smiled widely at Kate, and she felt an uneasiness rushing over her. He was smooth all right, she would give him that.
Unable to do anything else, Patrick had no option but to walk back through his opulent home and out on to the patio area. They all sat down on the terrace, and Beverley went off to make the tea.
‘Look, Mr Kelly, I asked you something. Do you remember Ruby O’Loughlin?’
Patrick was bewildered by the younger man’s question. Of course he remembered her – every bloke on his council estate would. ‘I do. A crowd of us grew up together.’
The young man took a deep breath and said quietly, ‘She died last month. Liver cancer.’
‘Well, I’m sorry to hear that, son, of course. But I’m fucked if I know why you are telling me about it.’ Patrick was genuinely baffled.
‘I’m her son, Joseph. And before she died she told me that you were my father.’
The shocked silence was broken by Beverley’s soft Irish brogue as she said hurriedly, ‘I’ll just put the tray here and be off out of it.’
Chapter Five
‘I beg your pardon? Is this some kind of fucking shakedown?’
Joseph O’Loughlin just looked at him calmly, and that seemed to inflame Patrick even more.
‘Do I look like I’ve got “cunt” tattooed on my forehead, you cheeky little fucker!’ Patrick was visibly getting more and more angry.
Kate grabbed his hand and squeezed it, saying, ‘Let’s calm down, shall we?’
Looking at the man sitting opposite her, she had to admit that he did look a lot like Patrick – and that was making her wonder if there was some credence to this man’s claim.
‘Fucking calm down! He earholes his way into my house – my gaff – and tells me he’s my long-lost son, and you expect me to just swallow it? No way.’
Joseph sighed and said reasonably, ‘Mum said you wouldn’t be too thrilled. And to be frank I’m just here because I was intrigued.’
‘Intrigued, my arse!’
Patrick was staring at the younger man and Kate knew he had to be seeing a younger, fitter version of himself. Because she was.
‘Easy enough to find out.’ Kate’s voice was low, and both the men looked at her as she poured the tea from a silver Georgian teapot. ‘DNA test.’
‘If that’s what you want, I have no problem with it.’ Joseph produced an envelope and pulled out some pictures, which he placed on the table. ‘My mum, God bless her, she was a good old girl.’
Kate saw one was a photo of an attractive woman. On her lap sat two children; both had dark hair and blue eyes like their father. But it was the little girl that Patrick was staring at – it could have been his Mandy at the same age. The same crooked smile and innocent eyes, only his Mandy had been blonder.
‘That’s my son, Joey Junior, and Amanda, my daughter. Bit older now, of course, but I always loved that photo of my mum with them. She doted on them.’
Amanda, Mandy. Patrick felt as if his head was going to explode. He picked up the picture with a shaking hand, and Kate could feel the waves of emotion coming off him.
‘That could be my daughter, Mandy.’ Even all these years later he still couldn’t talk about her without becoming emotional.
It wasn’t just her dying, but the way she died at the hands of the Grantley Ripper. Kate had been the detective in charge of the case and it was how they had met and eventually come together.
Joseph O’Loughlin sipped his tea; he didn’t exactly know how to respond, so he said kindly, ‘She’s seven now, and my boy’s twelve.’
Despite himself Patrick had to ask, ‘What do you do? What’re you into?’
Joseph puffed up as he said proudly, ‘I’m a barrister. I deal with corporate stuff.’
There was a stunned silence for a few moments and then Pat laughed suddenly, saying, ‘Thank fuck for that! That was all I needed – a son who’s a criminal prosecutor.’
The tension broke and they laughed. Then they all became quiet once more, the incongruity of the situation making them realise that there was some serious shit to be considered with this revelation.
‘Why didn’t she ever tell me?’
Joseph shrugged. ‘You know what she was like, self-contained to the last. I also know she could be a bit of a girl when the fancy took her.’
The last remark was said with defiance, and Patrick admired the man’s loyalty to his mother.
‘I wanted for nothing, and she put me through school and university by taking on any jobs she could. She was a wonderful woman – a good laugh – but, Christ, could she be determined! I think I inherited her work ethic, you know? Then, when she knew the end was coming, she told me who my father was. I asked her if she was sure and she said yes. She also said you had been married to a lovely woman called Renée and she could not have upset your home life at the time as it would have been unfair. Said your wife was a nice person who she knew slightly. So, here I am.’
Patrick was aware that Kate’s eyes were boring into the back of his head and he didn’t have the guts to look at her. Instead he was remembering a certain summer when his wife was first ill, and how he had been struggling to cope when Ruby had walked back into his life. It had only lasted a few weeks and he had been glad when he had ended it. The guilt had eaten away at him. That was why the name Ruby had not hit home at first. It had all been so long ago and he had wanted to forget it had ever happened. Now it seemed he had left her with more than a few hundred quid and a promise to keep in touch.
‘Fucking hell.’
Joseph shrugged again. ‘I don’t want anything from you, Mr Kelly. Like I said, I was just intrigued.’
Patrick stared down at the photograph once more; she had aged well, had Ruby. But then she had always taken care of her appearance. She had liked a bit of the other and all, there was no denying that. But it was the children that drew him in here. They could be his flesh and blood, could be his actual family.
It was as if he was being given a second chance somehow. It was too much to take in. Patrick looked into Joseph O’Loughlin’s eyes and wondered if he could really be his son – and what the consequences of such a thing would be on life as he knew it.
Chapter Six
Dana Barlow and her husband, Eric, stared down at the table. Both were in terrible shock, and Annie Carr could understand that. But she needed to talk to them straightaway.
‘Have you any idea where she could have gone?’
Dana, a small woman with high cheekbones and long dark hair, shook her head vehemently. ‘Like I said before, she just went to school as usual.’
Annie knew that the girl had never reached the school, but that didn’t mean the perpetrator had picked her up that morning. If Kylie was prone to taking days off to be with friends, that could eliminate a lot of possibilities from their enquiries. Give them a starting point, other than ‘stranger danger’, a term Annie loathed. It was rarer than finding a diamond growing on a Labrador. Most children were taken by people they knew and trusted, someone the child had no reason to fear. Like with most rapes, it was rarely an opportunist responsible. It was someone close – either family or family friends.
‘Did Kylie ever play truant?’
They both shook their heads in absolute agreement. ‘No, our Kylie is such a good girl – she’s no trouble. Was no trouble . . .’
Annie heard the pain in their voices; she hated seeing people reduced to this – reduced to talking in the past tense about a loved one. Especially when it was a child.
‘Was there anyone she talked about lately, someone new in her life? Maybe a friend, or even someone she might have come into contact with through you?’
Eric Barlow looked up at her then, as if the enormity of the situation was finally dawning on him. ‘What are you trying to say exactly?’
Annie met his eye as she said seriously, ‘I know this is hard for you both, but you must be honest with me. Have any new people come into your orbit recently? Was Kylie having trouble with anyone, or did she seem worried? I know this is hard, but I really do have to ask these questions.’
Dana Barlow shook her head in anguish. ‘If we knew anything, don’t you think we would tell you?’ She started to cry again.
As Dana’s husband comforted her, Annie sighed heavily and left the room as quietly as she had entered it.
Like most people they had no real idea what their child got up to when she was not with them. That, unfortunately, was real life.
DC Margaret Dole was busy looking through Kylie Barlow’s online accounts. The girl was just fourteen but, judging by her selfie profile shot and the photographs she posted online at regular intervals, she could easily pass for eighteen or older. But that wasn’t unusual these days. Girls had so much access to everything, from cheap clothes to online make-up tutorials, that they were far more sophisticated than anyone really gave them credit for. Parents who weren’t computer literate couldn’t police what their kids were doing. But, from what she had accessed so far, Kylie was the typical teenager, trying to be older than she was, desperate to be accepted by her peer group and obsessed with Justin Bieber and the Kardashians.
Boys were also a big priority, as was hanging out with her school friends. All in all, though, there was nothing untoward that Margaret could find. She had even looked through every deleted post and Kylie’s Instagram and her Snapchat. To all intents and purposes Kylie was your average fourteen-year-old girl. Bit stupid, hated school and anything to do with homework, and she liked pictures of cute pugs and cats. In many ways she was as normal as they came.
Annie Carr listened begrudgingly as Margaret Dole updated her on the girl’s online presence. There wasn’t a great deal of love lost between the two of them. Margaret was still a bit of a loner among the team, with a natural ability to rub people up the wrong way. She’d been identified early on in her career as a ‘computer whizz-kid’ and both Kate and Annie had put her to good use over the years. The trouble was Margaret knew she was good – and she didn’t trouble to hide it.
‘Usual. Nothing. No red flags. Sorry.’
Annie had expected as much. ‘I’ll go and talk to her friends. While I do that, you can have a poke around on their Facebook accounts, see if there was anything interesting happening. Then I’m making my way over to see Megan McFee. Did you pull up the CCTV?’
Margaret nodded. ‘Got a team going through it now. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.’
Annie nodded briskly, her glance swept around the busy office, and she wondered at the change in the place. More than ever, they were becoming reliant on the tech-savvy Margaret Doles of the world rather than old-fashioned policing and she wasn’t sure how much she liked it. Grantley Police Station was still a dump but it was gradually catching up with the rest of the world.
Maybe not before time.
Chapter Eight
Joseph O’Loughlin had left, but he had let Patrick keep the photograph. Kate watched as he stared at it and she knew he was seeing his Mandy all over again. They were due to fly to Florida in a few days and she had a feeling that was now going to be put on hold. She wasn’t too bothered about that – she was more concerned about the appearance of this young man, and his ready-made family. He seemed genuine enough. It was actually the knowledge that Patrick had done the dirty on the Sainted Renée that truly bothered her. She had really thought she knew him, and that little piece of information had thrown her off-kilter. Why something that happened over thirty years before – and before she’d even met him – was troubling her so much, she didn’t know.
She walked to the wine fridge, took out a bottle of Sancerre and, pouring them each a glass, she sat back at the kitchen table with him. He sipped his drink gratefully as she said, ‘Well, that was certainly a turn-up for the books.’
Patrick ran a hand over his face and, laughing softly, he said genuinely, ‘You can fucking say that again. I can’t believe it. Old Ruby, eh? I would never have believed she could keep her trap shut like that. Just shows you, don’t it? You never really know anyone. Ruby could talk for England – in fact, if talking was an Olympic sport, Ruby could have taken the gold. She definitely had an eye for the lads too.’
Kate looked at him sharply. ‘She seems to have a done a good job with Joseph.’
Patrick smiled his agreement.
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