Page 134 of The Guilty Girl

Lei climbed the stairs quickly and took Sharon from her arms, talking into his radio simultaneously. Sharon’s pink runner with no laces fell off as he carried her down the stairs. Lottie slumped on the top step trying to make sense of what had happened. She prayed the injury wasn’t serious. Prayed the little girl hadn’t been abused. Shocked tears stung her eyes at this thought. No way. The gang were into drugs. That was all.

She heard Garda Lei soothing the child and silently thanked him for his gentleness. Sharon must have come out of her faint; Lottie heard her crying, the sobs disappearing as they went out of the door below.

The damaged and the damned. Coiled up in the bones of one so young.

Lottie picked up the lone shoe and wept.

63

Terry Starr pulled up outside the Goldstar boxing club. He was half afraid of leaving his new Range Rover in the back yard, in case some little bastard robbed it, but he wanted to punch someone and a punchbag would have to do. The door was locked but he had a key. This was where he had first learned to box, so it was like coming home.

He shouldered his kitbag and slipped inside the building. He was glad Barney wasn’t around or he’d punch him too. He’d phoned Albert, asking for a meeting, but the grieving father hadn’t turned up yet. They really needed to talk about Lucy.

He pulled his training gloves from the bag, slipped them on and fastened the Velcro. He would box to rid himself of the pent-up pressure. Only then would he be able to think of what he wanted to say to Albert.

* * *

Having composed herself, Lottie put Sharon’s shoe in her pocket and was about to go down the stairs when she stopped. Why had Sharon been up here? There was no one else around, was there?

Back in the room where she’d found the child, she looked upwards. Part of the ceiling had caved in and she couldn’t see how anyone could gain access to the void above. Not from this room.

Moving next door, she was rewarded when she saw a ladder leading up to a loft. She thought she could smell weed. A guitar stood forlornly in a corner, two strings broken. As she climbed the ladder, she asked herself again why Jake Flood had been murdered.

At the top of the ladder she peered inside the cavern.

She’d found the gang’s lair.

Sleeping bags and upturned crates. A box of Red Bull in the middle of the floor. A miniature fridge in one corner, which was strange as there didn’t seem to be any electricity in the building. Or maybe she just assumed that because of the state of disrepair.

As she hauled herself into the space, a wave of claustrophobia enveloped her. A shard of light streamed through a hole in the roof and her airways were quickly clogged from the insulation fibres floating in the air. Once she had balanced her knees on a wooden beam, she crept towards the nearest sleeping bag and reached out a hand. Before she could touch it, it moved.

Her body went rigid, hand poised in the air. Her vermin phobia paralysed every muscle and sinew. The sleeping bag was moving again, rising from the floor. A hand appeared from the folds of the nylon covering. It was attached to an arm inside a blue sweatshirt. Then the dazed face of a teenager was revealed as he emerged from his makeshift bed.

She fell backwards, almost tumbling through the hole, stopping herself just in time. The boy flung himself against the wall behind him. His face, initially masked in pale fear, was quickly replaced with a red-hot anger.

‘How the fuck did you get up here?’ he shouted.

‘It’s okay,’ she said, struggling to regain control. ‘I’m not here to hurt you.’

‘You won’t get a chance. I’ll get you first.’ His voice was high-pitched, as if it hadn’t yet broken, but he looked about fourteen or fifteen. Was this the evil kid Sharon had mentioned? Oscar? In his hand he held a bicycle chain, and he began to wrap it around his fist, ready for attack.

‘Put that down,’ she said.

‘Who’s going to make me? You and whose army?’ he sneered, not an ounce of fear in him. ‘Fuck off.’

Lottie gambled on him being Oscar, the boy Sharon had mentioned. Had he hurt the little girl? She might just have struck lucky, because Jake’s body had borne signs of having been beaten with a chain. Maybe this was the break she needed to wrap up his murder.

‘It’s cold up here,’ she said. ‘Why don’t we have a chat downstairs?’

‘Why don’t you fuck off and leave me alone?’

‘I can’t do that, Oscar.’

‘How do you know …?’

‘Listen, Oscar, I’m going back down the ladder, and you’re to follow me.’

He remained silent. Good sign? Maybe not. Feck it.

---