Until I Find You

Book 1: Billie Carlson

by Anna Smith

Genres: Private Investigators; Vigilante Thrillers

Synopsis

This nail-biting Glasgow-set crime thriller introduces Billie Carlson, an ex-cop turned Private Investigator. Perfect for fans of Marnie Riches and Martina Cole.

WHEN YOU'VE LOST EVERYTHING, YOU'LL STOP AT NOTHING

Billie Carlson left the police force under a cloud. Once a promising young officer she now works as a private investigator, rooting out insurance scams and spying on cheating spouses.

One morning a distraught young woman comes into her office saying that her baby has been stolen. Her story seems unbelievable, yet something about her makes Billie want to help - Billie knows what it's like to lose someone too.

To get to the bottom of the case Billie must rattle some dangerous cages and rely on old police friends for inside help. Soon she discovers a network of crime deeper and far more twisted than she ever could have imagined. But is she in way over her head?

Release date: February 3, 2022

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 304

Sample

I’d read about Jackie Foster and her missing baby in the papers. It had sent shivers through me and gave me a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach. Then I didn’t see it any more. It disappeared. Like everything, life moves on.

In my line of business, you don’t get much time for contemplation, which is probably just as well, given that some of what I do doesn’t bear up to moral scrutiny. When something’s done and dusted, I move on, whether or not it’s a happy ending. I’m a private investigator, not a shrink or a counsellor. I find people who don’t want to be found, and I find things out for people looking into buried secrets. Sometimes I even find people out, and that can be a real revelation. Stories like Jackie Foster’s can bombard my head for a few days, and for good reason . . . Then they slip away. I hadn’t thought about it for weeks – until the day she walked into my office unannounced.

*

I was on the phone to an insurance company who wanted me to look into a widow’s claim on her missing, presumed dead, husband’s wealthy estate. It was shaping up to be my next case. Insurance companies pay well and, unlike some clients, they don’t need answers yesterday. But I could hear Millie out in the front office, telling some woman who’d turned up out of the blue that she needed an appointment to see me. The woman kept insisting, and I heard Millie tell her to take a seat. I wrapped up my call and replaced the receiver. I squinted through the space of my slightly ajar door and caught the woman’s lean, tired face, the hollow cheeks beneath a shock of lush, jet-black shoulder-length hair. There had been no pictures of her in the news, but from where I was sitting, from the little snapshot I had of her, I could see she was haunted, desperate. I looked away from her and out of the window at the steady drizzle on the red-brick building across the street. I was dog tired. I’d had no more than four hours’ sleep, and that was in my car, waiting and watching on an overnight stake-out – the kind of thing I seldom do these days, but sometimes it’s the only way to get the picture. The last thing I needed was an unhinged client making demands before I’d even met them. I can be tetchy like that, which isn’t always helpful in this business, but I’m not about public relations. I’m not selling anything here, except hope. Mostly to people who hope they’ll find some justice or closure, or whatever it is they look for when they turn up at my office and walk through the half wood, half frosted-glass door. Most of the time I am, in fact, their last hope, their last resort. This makes me feel responsible as well as tetchy, if that makes sense. But then again, I also have this sympathetic streak that sometimes bubbles up to the surface. It’s part of my historical make-up, part of who I am. And here it was, bubbling up again. There was something about Jackie Foster’s face that morning, something about that look, that meant I found myself pushing my chair back and pressing the buzzer for Millie, knowing at that precise moment I might live to regret it.

‘Just tell the lady to come in, will you, Millie,’ I said with a sigh.

And so she did. The door opened and Millie came in ahead of her, wearing that kind of resentful bouncer look she sometimes has if she’d told someone I’m not available, and I overruled her. You had to get past Millie to get to me. She’s what you might call my front-of-house lady in what passes for the office I occupy, three floors up in Mitchell Lane, right in the middle of the city centre. It’s a good, discreet address for a private investigator, because of where it’s tucked away. You wouldn’t wander down Mitchell Lane unless you had some specific place to go.

‘Jackie Foster,’ Millie said, a perplexed look on her thirty-fags-a-day face.

I nodded and stood up. ‘Thanks, Millie.’

When Millie closed the door, I took a long look at the thirty-something woman before I said anything. She looked back at me, then around the room. Big, watery blue eyes. Something of the frightened rabbit about her. A strikingly beautiful frightened rabbit. She was wearing a powder-blue raincoat, a chic, big-collar, three-quarter-length job, the belt unbuckled. The shoulders were splashed with droplets of rain. And she was limping.

‘Hi.’ I stretched out a hand. ‘Take a seat.’ I motioned her towards the faux leather chair opposite my desk.

‘Sorry for coming without an appointment.’

‘That’s all right.’ I looked at her as she hobbled over and sat down. ‘You could have phoned. I’m in the phone book.’

I said it not to be mean, but to demonstrate that though she’d got this far and inside my office, this was my domain. From here on in, I get to make the decisions whether she goes or stays. And I also just said it to see how she would react. Sometimes, the way someone reacts in a moment like that says a lot about them, and in turn how you will deal with them.

‘I didn’t know I was coming until I was almost here,’ she replied, a rapid flush rising in her razor-sharp cheekbones. ‘I mean, I was going to call yesterday, then I decided, no, leave it. You can’t do this. And today. Well. I’m here now.’

Edgy. She might be on the verge of ranting. I was watchful. You never knew in this business. I was once sitting here and a man came rushing into the front office with a baseball bat – a case of mistaken identity. He was looking for Joey Balkan the debt collector on the floor above. And he got him. I heard Joey screaming for a full twenty seconds.

‘Tell you what, Jackie,’ I opened my hands, ‘let’s just start at the beginning. How about that? You tell me what you’ve come here for.’

‘I don’t know where to start.’

‘Well, how about why you need a private eye.’

‘I . . .’ Her voice croaked.

She glanced around the room, up to the ceiling, then down at the floor, as though looking for a way out. I could see it coming with the lip trembling, then her face began to crumple.

‘I want you to find my baby.’

Then the floodgates opened. Jesus! Heaving sobs like she’d been holding it in for ever. So much so that Millie came in the door again to check if I was okay. I waved her away. She came back a minute later with a box of hankies and a cup of tea. Good old Millie. A real softie at heart. I smiled at her as she backed out.

Jackie stopped crying and was now dabbing her eyes with a tissue.

‘You all right?’ I said eventually, but I could see she was far from all right.

‘Yes. I’m . . . I’m okay now, I think. I just get so . . . I mean it’s so difficult for me.’

I said nothing, just watched and waited. It had to come from her. No prompting. But her words ‘find my baby’ had sent a jolt right through me.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you what happened. Well. Firstly, from the moment my baby disappeared. From the accident. The car crash. It was in the papers, on the television and stuff. Did you see it?’

I nodded. ‘I did. I remember seeing it. A crash. But not for a while. There was no name and no pictures.’

‘I know.’ She drew a breath. ‘Well, I was in a crash. My car was forced off the road, into the ditch. Overturned, and I was trapped. I keep trying to remember the moments before it, and sometimes things come back to me, little flashes and stuff, little images of what was going on. But then it’s nothing, and I’m in the crash, and there’s blood and pain, and sirens and all that chaos around me. My shin bone was sticking out of my leg. I remember that. And then I can see in the back seat that my baby isn’t there. I . . . I . . .’

She stopped, and I hoped she wasn’t going to break down again. I kept my patient face on.

I let it stay that way for a long moment, and then I said to her, ‘What about your baby? How old? Boy or girl?’ I wasn’t taking notes yet. Notes were for later, once I’d established if I was in or out.

‘She was two and a half. Elena. Beautiful, blonde. Like a little angel.’

‘And she was in the back of the car as you drove – I mean, before the crash.’ I raised my eyebrows, studying her face.

‘Yes. Of course. We were singing nursery rhymes. “Miss Polly had a dolly . . .” That one. It was her favourite. She always finished every line for me and she was giggling.’ She looked at me. ‘I didn’t imagine it. I’m not making this up. We were singing and laughing.’

While she was saying this, I was picturing the scene, almost hearing the sound of the little tinkling voice singing in the back seat. Just listening to her describe it gave me an ache in my chest. Because I know that sound too well. It comes to me in the night, haunts my dreams, follows me everywhere, reminding me of the gentle slap of tiny feet on a wooden floor, running towards me with outstretched arms. She paused talking, looking at me, puzzled. I snapped back to the moment.

‘The police at the time reported a missing child,’ I said. ‘Then I saw something in the papers a couple of days later that they were no longer looking for it. What does that mean?’

She avoided my eyes.

‘I told them I must have been in shock or something. That I had no baby.’

‘Why did you do that?’

‘Because whoever ran me off the road must have taken my baby. I’ve been scared to make any moves since this happened. And I don’t think the cops can find her. I don’t trust them. I don’t trust anyone.’

I looked at her with a ‘how do you know you can trust me’ expression, which she seemed to read.

‘Well, sorry. I don’t mean you. I was told to think about talking to you.’

‘By whom, if I might ask?’

Now I was curious. It’s not as if I advertised all over the shop. Most of my clients were discreet, and few would admit to ever having hired me.

‘Somebody told me that there was this woman private investigator – an ex-police detective. That you left the force after a shooting incident. Actually, I remember the shooting. It was in the papers . . .’

Her voice trailed off a little, and I stared at her, wondering why she would bring that up at a time like this. The newspaper headline flashed back: ‘Left under a cloud . . .’ I didn’t need reminding of it.

I said nothing. The more I looked at her, and listened to her, I wondered what her background was. Her olive skin gave her a Mediterranean look. Italian or Spanish maybe, but the blue eyes told a different story. Her accent was Scottish, but with the edge off it that people sometimes have if they live in England or further away.

‘Sorry. None of my business,’ she added quickly. ‘But I met a guy I know.’ She shifted in her seat. ‘He’s not a cop.’

I waited, silent.

‘And . . . well, not a criminal, not exactly. But he’s connected. He said I should talk to you. But I still didn’t know if I was doing the right thing.’

I let out a sigh, ran a hand through my hair, pushing it back from my face.

‘Jackie. Let me just recap all this. You tell me you have a missing child. You’ve already told the police at the time and had your story in the papers. That’s how people normally go about finding a missing child. But no. You change your story and apparently tell police that you imagined it or something.’ I paused, leaned forward. ‘I have to say, you’re not endearing me to your case and that’s the truth. Look, I know you’re upset. But if you really do have a missing child, then you need the massive resources the police have to help find her. Okay, they might be wary of you after what you’ve done – changing your story. But it’s the police you need, not me. You must have birth certificates, documents and stuff. You can prove to them you have a child. There must be hospital records – where she was born?’

‘That’s the problem. I can’t prove it. That’s why I can’t do this in the normal way.’ Her voice went up an octave. ‘But please, listen to me. I do have a baby. I did have a little girl with blue eyes singing in the back of my car that morning. And she’s gone. I think I know who took her, or something of what happened.’

Christ! This woman was either mixed up in something dangerous, or just a nutcase. There were alarm bells ringing all over the place. Yet I couldn’t just send her away because I know what it feels like to know that you haven’t tried hard enough. That somebody died, because you looked the other way.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll help you, Jackie. I’ll take your case. But you have to be completely honest with me. I’m telling you right now, and watch my lips: if I find one time that you lie or leave things out anywhere in your story or background you give me, that’s it. I’m out. I walk away.’ I paused. She nodded in agreement.

I explained my fee and upfront payment.

‘Do you have money?’ I asked.

‘I do.’

‘Okay. Then let’s get started.’

She went into her black leather bulky handbag and pulled out a brown envelope. It was unsealed, and she pushed her hand inside it. I was waiting for her to fish something out, but she didn’t. She simply slid the envelope across my desk towards me.

‘There’s a thousand pounds in there. Cash. That’s more than you asked for upfront. But I’d like you to have it.’

I looked at the envelope and placed my hand over it.

‘Hold on, Jackie. You don’t have to give me cash right now. It’s not necessary. That’s not what I meant. You can do a bank transfer or something.’ I pushed it back towards her. ‘And I don’t need that much upfront. We haven’t even gone through your case yet.’

She reached across and pushed it back towards me. ‘But you said you’d take my case. You said you’d help me.’

She looked crestfallen, and there was a twinge of desperation in her voice.

‘I will. Of course. I said I’d take your case and I will.’ I glanced at the envelope but left it where it was. ‘But please, can we have a conversation first? Just take it easy, Jackie. Let’s start at the beginning. I need to know all about you. So don’t start thinking about how much money this will cost or anything else right now. I need you to tell me your story, as calmly and with as much detail as you can. Every detail counts. You understand what I mean?’

She nodded. ‘Yes. Okay. Sorry. I will. I’ll start at the beginning.’

She took a deep breath, and I sat forward, with my hands clasped together on the desk. She was about to start talking when her mobile phone jangled in her bag. Without a word, she reached in and pulled it out. Her face froze, and she seemed to be reading a text. Then, suddenly, she jumped to her feet, wincing in pain at the movement.

‘I’m sorry. I have to go now. I . . . I need to get out of here.’

‘What?’ I looked up at her. ‘What’s the matter?’

But she was already on her way to the door.

‘Please,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘Please. I’ll be back. Just take the money. Hold onto it. I have to go.’

Now I was on my feet and out from behind my desk.

‘But, Jackie, I have no details about you. I need more information. A contact number.’

She grasped the door handle. ‘I’ll be back. Please. I promise. But I have to go now.’

She yanked open the door and fled out, limping as fast as she could past Millie, who looked up from her desk as puzzled as me.

‘Nutcase.’ Millie shook her head.

From what I’d known of Jackie Foster so far, I should have agreed. But I didn’t.

My dad played jazz piano, and he named me Billie on account of his obsession with the jazz singer, Billie Holiday. It’s not a name you want to grow up with in Glasgow – especially if you’re a girl. If you were a boy called Billy in this city of bitter religious divide, you’re most likely a Protestant. The other side, mostly Catholic of Irish descent, would never call their boy Billy. And nobody, but nobody would ever call their daughter Billie.

I learned how to punch early on in life. Because not only was I called Billie, I also looked different from the other kids. My primary school was a sea of pale, ginger-haired kids, or black-mopped kids with dark brown freckles. I was platinum blonde, pale faced with icy blue eyes, thanks to my Swedish father. So kids thought I was some kind of freak show when I showed up. I got laughed at, and pushed around a lot, until they realised I could scrap like a tiger. Billie Carlson was a tough little duker, the teachers said. And I was. Unbreakable. Until my father threw himself off the Jamaica Bridge one icy December night and froze to death in the River Clyde. My world stopped turning. My childhood ended there and then. My mother fell apart like the delicate, beautiful flower she was, and she died six months later. I was twelve years old, shipped off to my father’s sister in Sweden, where I grew up fast and angry and confused. Some of it stayed with me. Billie Carlson was unbreakable, they said. And she is.

*

If I was going to help Jackie Foster find her daughter, I’d have to rely on some old pals. I haven’t been a cop for the best part of two years now, but I still have lots of contacts. Lots of goodwill among the guys on the front line. Plenty of them would have bought me a drink if they could to congratulate me for putting two bullets in the chest of child killer Charlie Provan. It cost me my job, my career, and always the cloud would hang over me, even though I was cleared by the official inquiry. Only I knew the truth of what had happened that afternoon. And my conscience was clear. But then I have a different threshold when it comes to guilt.

I hadn’t clapped eyes on Jackie Foster since she ran out of my office like the place was on fire. That was two days ago. No phone call. No visit. Nothing. She hadn’t even stayed long enough to give me a contact number. I stuck her money in my safe and left it there, while Millie nagged me to not even think about wasting my time on her. There were other, easier cases on the list I could be handling, she moaned, and she was right. But I couldn’t let it go. In my brief encounter with Jackie Foster, she had got under my skin.

I knew it would involve me digging around in certain areas that would require the help of old mates in the force. But in the Glasgow police they weren’t all mates, especially the ones who’d seen me as a fast-track hotshot destined for the top whose fall from grace had been swift and emphatic. But I could still rely on some guys. And Danny Scanlon was one of them – the salt of the earth. We were partners in uniform for the best part of two years as rookies, and detectives together for the next eighteen months in a stint on the drugs squad. It was during that time that I was approached by some shadowy figures from MI5 telling me that I was being earmarked for great things. In fact, I’d been approached before, in my last year at university where I got a first class honours degree, knowing that I’d probably never use it. But if I had any ambitions to enter the world of spooks, the mockers were put on it after the shooting. Maybe it’s just as well, because I’m not sure I could have coped with all those clipped accents in the world of Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

*

Danny was already waiting for me in the sandwich shop at the top of the city centre at Port Dundas, far enough away from Stewart Street police station where he worked as a detective. As I said, it’s not every cop who would want to be seen openly associating with me, far less helping me on a case. But Danny was too much of a loyal friend, bullish enough by nature, and wouldn’t kowtow to the bosses. When I’d called him about Jackie Foster’s story, he’d told me no problem, he’d find out everything from the police reports that he could without leaving his fingerprints on the police computer.

‘Hey, Billie. How’s it going?’

He looked up from his mobile as I walked in, a smile spreading on his handsome face.

‘I’m good, Danny. All good.’

It was a bit of an exaggeration, but I’m a great believer that if you say it often enough, you can make it happen. I sat down opposite him, my eyes drawn to the way his neat, pale blue polo shirt strained a little around the biceps on his suntanned arms.

‘Look at you, Danny boy. All bronzed and gorgeous. And still working out, I see.’

He shrugged. ‘I have to. You know what it’s like. This job can kill you by the time you’re forty if you don’t get out and keep fit. I’d go nuts if I didn’t work out.’

I caught him glancing me up and down, in my tight black jeans and jade green T-shirt.

‘And you’re no slouch yourself.’ He grinned.

We’d been flirting like this since we were in police college, where we formed an instant bond. But that’s as far as it went. Danny would never get mixed up with a mixed-up girl like me, and I would never have wanted to jeopardise our friendship for a fling – even if the idea had always kind of appealed to me.

‘Well, one of the perks of being self-employed is that I make my own hours.’ I sat back and shrugged. ‘However, the drawback is that I don’t have access to all the information I used to have.’

‘Which brings us to Jackie Foster.’

‘Exactly.’

The waitress came up and I ordered a coffee. White, no sugar.

‘I had a good look through the files on the computer,’ Danny said, reaching for his jacket over the back of his chair. He pulled out a white envelope from the zipped bomber. ‘I printed some off, but I’ll email you more later when I get the chance to go back on. But the gist of it is in there. The accident happened out towards Milngavie, as you know, so they were the ones dealing with it first off. In the ambulance, she kept talking about her baby, but she didn’t give a name. So when they thought there was a missing baby, HQ was brought in. Then when she came round a day or so later, this woman suddenly says she must have been in shock – that there was no missing baby.’ He looked at me, puzzled. ‘So now she’s telling you there was?’ He screwed his eyes up. ‘Is she a headcase? How does she come across?’

I sighed, partly because I didn’t even know the answer to that myself, and partly because I knew I was only at the foot of whatever mountain I was going to have to climb on this case.

‘I honestly don’t know, Danny. But I took her on, well, because my gut tells me that she’s telling the truth.’ The waitress arrived with the coffee and set it down. ‘I get the impression though that there is something wrong with her. I have to say, it sounds like she’s telling the truth. But what bothers me is that it might be that she believes this actually happened, you know, that there was a baby.’

I didn’t want to tell him that I’d run a cursory check with the births register for a child named Elena Foster who would fit the age profile of Jackie’s kid, but there was nothing. I was glad when he didn’t ask.

He nodded. ‘That’s kind of the impression we got, from what I can see from the reports. And she actually didn’t tell our guys too much about herself at the time – only that in her mind there was a baby. But we have nothing else. Maybe she was just in shock.’

‘She did say that’s what she told police – that she was in shock.’

‘But why do that?’ He shrugged. ‘Then, of course, she disappeared. Nothing.’

I’d decided not to tell him about her vanishing act from my office, seconds after asking for my help. I didn’t want to look stupid.

‘She says she doesn’t trust the police to find her baby.’ I shook my head, frustrated. ‘I know it’s screwed up, but that’s what she said. I just need to look into every aspect of this to see what I can find. I don’t imagine, once she told police that there was no baby, that they did much more to find out. Why would they, I suppose, if she’s not making an official complaint about a missing baby?’

‘I know. I think that’s what’s happened.’

‘What about forensics? Did Foren. . .