Lost Souls by Jenny O'Brien (android e book reader txt) 📕

at the station as to what was happening. That’s what Gaby would have done in his shoes.

She turned her attention to Ronan who looked worse than she’d ever seen him, his jaw covered in a straggly mess of what might pass for a beard in a few years. His eyes were red-rimmed, the whites bloodshot, his skin dry and coated in dark shadows. There was also a smell, the smell that accompanied the homeless whether they were aware of it or not. But underneath the grime, he was still the scared little boy she’d met all those months ago. A boy who’d had his world torn up into tiny shreds only to find it impossible to match up the pieces and all because of one vital missing part: his father.

‘Hi Ronan.’ She would have liked to add that it was good to see him. In truth, she meant the sentiment perhaps more than anything that had gone before. Instead all she said was, ‘I need to speak to Ellie. You can stay if you like?’

He met her gaze, his own hardening, his meaning clear.

‘I’ll go easy, I promise.’

Ronan eased his arm out from behind Ellie’s shoulders, rotating his own, which must have been aching from the time spent crushed under the weight of her body. ‘Ellie, come on now. We need to find your mum. The detective here is going to help us but you do need to speak to her.’

Gaby crouched down beside the open car door, feeling the strain against the seam of her trousers and hoping against hope that she wouldn’t be left with her knickers on show.

‘Ellie, I know this is hard for you but we need your help. Will I tell you what I think, then all you have to do is nod or shake?’ she said, her voice continuing in a soft whisper at the slight inclination of Ellie’s head. ‘We think that, as it’s the school holidays, your mum couldn’t always find someone to mind you and that sometimes she took you with her when she went to work. Is that right, sweetheart?’ She only continued when Ellie nodded a second time. ‘We also think that during one of those times you saw something. It must have been boring trying to stay out of your mum’s way?’

Gaby was no expert in the interview of child witnesses. The truth was, she knew she should wait for the assistance of a police social worker before even attempting any kind of questioning. But there wasn’t time.

‘I’d finished my book.’

‘Exactly. You’d finished your book and wanted to find something else to do?’

‘There was a large shed in the back garden …’ Ellie stopped, her mouth quivering, her eyes filling with tears. Gaby noticed Ronan tense but all he did was place his hand over hers and squeeze gently, his face deathly pale under the grime.

‘I thought I could sneak an ice cream as there were no toys, only rusty old tools. But when I pulled the door open to the freezer …’ She scrunched her eyes closed, a stream of tears pressing their way under her lids before starting a relentless trail down her cheeks.

‘Go on, sweetheart, you’re doing fine. There was something in the freezer that shouldn’t have been there?’

‘A row of heads. Their eyes open and bulging out through the plastic—’

Chapter 52

Gaby

Tuesday 4 August, 2.10 p.m. Colwyn Bay

The arrival of Amy on the scene was fortuitous. She quickly took charge of the sensitive dynamics between Ellie, Ronan and his mother and, within minutes, had them agreeing with her suggestion of accompanying them to the station to await news.

Gaby and Owen sat in the front of the car, where it only took a couple of minutes for Owen to shift the pieces in her mind into place. His hands clenched and unclenched as the story came out in fits and starts. A missing girl. A missing octogenarian. A handful of prosthetic hips when there should only have been a maximum of two. A distraught parent trying to scrabble together an existence by taking on cleaning jobs that paid well simply because of no one else wanting them. Three cases and one link: Anita Fry.

‘That bloody pen. I should have known from the start that it was out of the ordinary. All shiny black and flashy gold – too good to be true just like her. It even had the f’ing school crest on the lid. If only I’d looked at the list before rather than after visiting the farmhouse, we might have been able to prevent …’

‘Now now, Owen. No good can come from blaming yourself. How were we to know that Ms Fry’s main source of income came from providing a cleaning service to undertakers? It’s more than likely that she got her clients word of mouth and who do undertakers talk to mainly? That’s right. Other undertakers. It makes a strange sort of sense, as I’m betting it’s not the most popular of places in which to work,’ she added, restraining the shudder careening across her skin.

‘Yes but I still can’t in a million years think that Hayley Prince is involved.’

‘Owen, you’ve been on the exact same courses as I have. You know the drill,’ she said, buckling her seatbelt and adjusting the sun visor only to realise that she was still wearing his daft hat, which she flung in the back with far more force than was warranted. ‘No matter how stupid and unlikely you might think the clues are, if they fit then you are duty-bound to follow their lead to the ultimate conclusion. Did you manage to get her home address?’

‘Of course.’

‘Hold on, ma’am. Wait up a second.’

The sight of Jax racing towards them had Owen shift the car out of gear and pull up the hand brake.

‘What is it. We don’t have time to …’

‘J-j-just that I questioned the next-door neighbour. She was peering out the lounge window waiting for her Tesco order and she saw Ms Fry