The Child Catcher (A DI Erica Swift Thriller Book 4) Read online

  Erica’s heart went out for them all. How would the baby feel growing up in the shadow of a missing brother? Would he always wonder if his parents had wished it had been him who’d been taken instead? At his age, he wouldn’t have any memory of ever having a sibling, and the missing boy would take on some kind of supernatural figure in their home.

  “What’s his name?” Erica cooed at the baby, wiggling her fingers as she caught his eye.

  “Taylor.” Mrs Ford glanced down at him, as though only just remembering he was there. She bounced her knee up and down a couple of times.

  “How old?”

  “Fourteen months.”

  Erica gave a half smile. “He must be missing his big brother.”

  Her lips pressed to a thin line, and she shot a look at the baby. “We all are.”

  “Can I ask what school Ashley went to?”

  “It was just the local one,” Mr Ford said tiredly.

  “And what about any clubs outside of school? Was there anything else he took part in?”

  “He went swimming on a Saturday morning and did a football club after school on a Wednesday.”

  Beside her, Shawn made a note of them. They’d compare them against anything Ellie Dempsey might have also taken part in. If they shared the same swimming lessons, or something like that, there might be a connection.

  “Is the mother okay?” Mrs Ford asked them suddenly. “She was stabbed, wasn’t she?”

  Erica nodded, aware that she couldn’t say much, though wanting to give the other woman something positive to hold on to. “We’re hopeful that she’s going to pull through.”

  Mrs Ford stared down at the top of the baby’s head. “If she does and you don’t find her daughter, she’s going to wish they never took the knife out of her back.”

  Chapter Nine

  Erica left the Ford household and stepped out into the bright springtime sunlight. She sucked in a lungful of fresh air, purging herself from the depression and grief that saturated the house. She felt as though she’d been inhaling it into herself with every breath while she’d been talking to the parents.

  Shawn came to stand beside her. “That poor family.”

  She exhaled. “I know. I feel for the remaining boy as well. It’s not going to be easy for him to grow up with a missing brother.”

  “Missing Persons still might find him.”

  “I really hope so, but you and I both know that after six weeks, it’s unlikely. I want to speak to whoever is in charge of the case, though, so we can both keep abreast of what the other one is doing. I doubt the two cases are connected, but you never know.”

  “Are we going back to the office?” Shawn asked. “SOCO might have sent those photographs over so we can try to figure out what the attacker dropped from his pocket.”

  Erica nodded. “Yes, but first I want to swing by the Dempsey house and speak to Mae Dempsey’s parents. I know DC Howard said they believed Jack and Mae have a good marriage, but I just want to hear it for myself.”

  “Sure.”

  They drove to the address they had listed for Jack and Mae Dempsey. The block of flats was low-rise and in a reasonable area. They left the car parked outside and went to ring the bell. A flurry of movement responded, and the door flew open, an older couple, who were clearly Mae Dempsey’s parents, standing in the open door, with matching worried expressions.

  “Is it Ellie?” the woman blurted. “Did you find her yet?”

  “I’m sorry, no we haven’t. May we come in? I’m DI Swift, and this is DS Turner. We’re working on your daughter and grand-daughter’s case.”

  Mae’s father frowned. “Yes, though we spoke to another detective last night.”

  “That’s right. DC Howard is a part of my team. There were just a few things I wanted to go over myself, if that’s all right.”

  “Come in.”

  Erica eyed the Dempsey home curiously, trying to learn everything she could about the family from the place. It was a two-bedroom flat, and was small, but tastefully decorated. Family photographs—some of the three of them together, others with Mae and Jack as a couple, and yet more with Ellie alone—filled the surfaces and walls. It reminded her of the Ford home. In six weeks, would this place have that same air of grief about it?

  “I’m Deanna,” Mae’s mother introduced herself. “This is my husband, Robert.”

  Deanna clearly shared the same genes as Mae and Ellie Dempsey. Even though, Erica guessed, she must have been in her late sixties, Erica would have placed her as being at least a decade younger. Mae’s father was older and had almost lost all his hair, and his jawline had turned into heavy jowls, but he had kind, blue eyes.

  “How are the both of you coping?” Erica asked. “This must all be a terrible shock for you.”

  Deanna clutched her hand to her chest. “It’s all just so awful. I can hardly believe what’s happened. Are you any closer to finding Ellie?”

  “We’re working on it,” Erica said.

  “And you think the people who took her are the same bastards who stabbed our poor Mae?”

  “We believe that’s the case, though we’re keeping our enquiries open at this point.”

  Robert looked to his wife. “That means they don’t know who took her yet.” He turned to Erica. “That’s what that means, doesn’t it? You still don’t know.”

  Deanna hushed him. “Stop it, Robert, that’s not helping anyone.” She tugged her husband down to sit next to her on the sofa, perhaps worried he was going to get himself worked up. “And what about Mae? Do you know who stabbed her?”

  “Again, the enquires are ongoing,” Erica said. “Have you managed to get in to see her yet?”

  Deanna nodded. “I’ve been in to visit, but they wouldn’t let me stay long. One visitor at a time, they said, and Jack doesn’t want to leave her side. I kept telling him that Mae is our daughter, just like Ellie is his, but nothing seems to be getting through to him. He doesn’t seem to understand that we’ve lost our granddaughter and that our daughter is lying in a hospital bed. Just because she’s a full-grown woman now doesn’t change that.”

  The husband patted her knee. “He’s just being protective of her, Deanna. That’s all.”

  “He doesn’t need to protect her from us. We’re her family.” She swiped away tears. “And poor little Ellie. I can’t tell you how heartbroken we are about her being missing. She’s such a sweetheart of a girl. I can’t believe that people out there are so evil. We’ve been waiting here, hoping and praying that she might find her way home, or that someone might call, but there’s been nothing.”

  “How is the relationship between Mae and Jack? Have they been having any problems?”

  Deanna shook her head. “No more than any normal couple.”

  “Your colleague asked the same thing yesterday,” Robert grumbled. “Is there something we should be worried about? You don’t think Jack is capable of hurting her, do you?”

  “We just have to ask these questions,” Erica said apologetically. “Sometimes a daughter might confide in her parents.”

  “I believe their marriage was fine. They argued about money, and Mae had been stressed about the amount she was working, and worrying about Jack getting a new job, but that’s normal, considering the situation.”

  Erica clutched her hands between her knees. “What about anyone else? Did Mae mention anyone she might have had a run-in with recently? Any ex-boyfriends on the scene, or a fall out with a friend?”

  Deanna appeared even more shocked than when Erica had asked about Jack. “Goodness, no. Mae is so easy-going, she rarely argues with anyone. I always said it’s where Ellie gets her sweet nature from. Mae was exactly like her as a child.” She blinked back more tears and sniffed.

  Erica offered her a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  The other woman flapped a hand. “It’s not you, it’s everything that’s happened.”

  “Of course.” Erica handed them a card. “If yo
u think of anything, however small it may seem to be to you, please can you give me a call to let me know.”

  Robert leaned forward. “Please, just find Ellie. That’s all we ask.”

  “We’re doing everything we can.”

  Chapter Ten

  Yousef approached the shop, his backpack slung over one shoulder. At the doorway, he paused as someone else was on their way out, not wanting for them to collide.

  With a mental jerk, he realised he knew the person exiting the shop.

  The girl saw him, too, and stopped in front of him, offering him a wide smile.

  “Hey, Yousef.”

  His cheeks glowed with heat, and his gaze darted to the ground. “Hi, Amma.”

  Like him, Amma worked part time in the shop. He and Amma had been in the same school year as well, though he’d hardly been during his final year. Truant officers chased him up, and then he’d make the effort to go back for a short while, just long enough to get them off his back again, and then he’d stop going. He had more important things to learn than the British National Curriculum. None of it was important, and it wasn’t as though he’d go on to need pointless things like his GCSEs. He had a different future ahead of him.

  Sometimes, it frightened him to think of it, this other world to the one he’d grown up in, but then he forced himself to think of everything his uncles had told him, and he was filled with such righteous anger it was as though the emotion turned him into someone else. He felt himself get physically bigger, his spine straightening and lengthening, his shoulders growing broader, his muscles stronger. Then, he wasn’t just some sixteen-year-old kid who’d grown up in a broken home and who never had any money, and who witnessed his father’s violence towards his mother every single day until the day she’d left. He was someone better, and that was the person he strived to be.

  “What are you up to?” she asked. “I just grabbed some snacks.” She held up a can of Coke and a giant bag of Doritos.

  He shrugged and struggled to think of something to say. “Oh, not much.”

  Amma was so pretty. Her black afro was in tight curls, the ends bleached a lighter colour—not blonde but a kind of reddish brown. Like him, she didn’t fully fit into either side of her family. Her dad was black, and her mother was white. But it didn’t seem to bother Amma in the same way it did him, however, or if it did, she was good at hiding it.

  Like everything in his life, he had mixed feelings about his father. He’d watched how he’d treated his mother, but she was a Westerner. He didn’t understand how his father could feel so strongly towards Westerners, yet he’d come here and married one. She’d converted to Islam and come to the mosque with them, but that hadn’t been enough for him. When his father spoke the truth about the Western world and the damage it had caused their homeland, and talked about the things that needed to happen for the world to change, his mother had grown angry and frightened. His father hadn’t liked that. Yousef had hidden behind doorframes, wincing each time his father had slapped his mother, blocking her cries with his hands over his ears. Eventually, she’d left, and Yousef didn’t blame her. There was no way his father would have allowed Yousef to go as well. If she’d taken him, his father would never have stopped hunting her down. At least, with him staying, she’d have had some possibility of his father letting her go.

  Yousef had missed her, though—missed her horribly. He’d never dared say so to his father, or let him see his tears. When he cried at night, he did so with his face buried into the pillow, smothering the sound with the fabric and feathers.

  Then, one day, his father had disappeared as well. Yousef didn’t know what had happened to him. Had he just left, like his mother, or had something else happened to him? The tension around the flat had increased during the weeks and months building up to his disappearance. Yousef had overheard conversations spoken in a tongue he didn’t understand, where his father’s tone had grown increasingly angry. The conversation had frightened him, his father gesturing wildly at some unseen person on the end of the line, pacing their tiny living room, occasionally stopping to kick at a wall or knock something from the sideboard. Then the uncles had started to show up more, and Yousef would often come home to find them sitting in the living room with their heads together, speaking quietly and falling silent when they realised he was home.

  He’d never been able to get a straight answer from the uncles about what had happened to his father, but they’d told him everything would be all right and had pretty much just slipped into the position his father had filled. If it wasn’t for his uncles, he’d most likely be in care. He’d loved his dad, despite everything he’d done and knowing he was responsible for his mother leaving, too, but he didn’t dare question these men. Over time, he’d just fallen into the same routine, and then they’d started to give him jobs to do—nothing big, just delivering letters or sending a message to people. It had made him feel important, as though he had a reason for existing. Even if his own parents didn’t love him enough to stay around, maybe there was something else he could love more. At least he could trust that his faith would never leave him.

  Amma frowned at him then leaned in closer. “Hey, what’s happened to your face?”

  She stretched out her hand and lightly touched the spot on his cheekbone where Hashem had struck him, the big gold rings leaving three indented red marks. But he didn’t care about that. The touch of her fingers on his skin was like fire, an alarm blaring in his head that this was dangerous.

  Danger, danger, danger.

  To have her touch him. To feel her silky-soft skin on his. It was stupid. A dream. A dangerous dream, and he had to put it out of his head right away. He couldn’t imagine the disgust in his uncles’ eyes if they even got a hint of the thoughts going through his head right now. There must be something wrong with him to experience this surge of longing. He wanted to grab her hand and hold it against his cheek, to kiss her palm and link his fingers through hers.

  Instead, he jerked away, snatching in a breath. His face burned with humiliation and other confusing emotions he couldn’t quite place. He was always so self-conscious, from the way his skin was too light to be fully Asian and too dark to be Caucasian, to how, including the mole above his lip that he felt like looked like a beauty spot but clearly wasn’t. He didn’t want her to feel sorry for him.

  He wasn’t supposed to have any feelings towards Amma. Despite the colour of her skin, she was part of the Western world and embodied all those things he was supposed to hate. Like him, she was only sixteen, but she acted older. She had a gold ring through her nose, and he’d never seen her without makeup on. She favoured cropped tops and loads of jangly bracelets on her slender wrists and big hoop earrings. He was fully aware that she’d go down to the park and sit around with others their age—and some older kids as well—and drink alcohol. She probably did other things, too, things that made him squirm inside and feel uncomfortable in a way he didn’t quite know how to explain.

  He shrugged, trying to hide his discomfort. “Got into a fight, didn’t I? The other bloke came off worse.”

  She raised her eyebrows, and he noted that she’d drawn some of them on with a pencil. What was the point in that? She had perfectly fine eyebrows.

  “Really?” Amma said. “The other bloke came off worse?”

  He gave a nonchalant shrug. “I’m tougher than I look.”

  In his head he was screaming. I stabbed an innocent woman in the back just to prove I could. You have no idea about me. You think punching someone is a bad thing to do.

  For a moment, bizarrely and stupidly, he wanted to crumple. To cry and tell her everything, to beg for her to make it go away, to allow him into her far more simple world. A world where he didn’t have to hate everyone, but he couldn’t. He didn’t want to see her face when she realised what he really was. She would hate him, and he wouldn’t blame her. He’d end up going to prison, and everyone knew what they did to young men in prisons. He’d die before that happened, and he’d be
happy to die, too. If he died for the right reasons, he’d join the others who were shahid—a martyr—and go to paradise. He wasn’t going to kid himself that he was going to grow up and live a normal life. Even if he wanted it, marriage and children and a regular job weren’t going to be in his future. He’d been told since his early teens that he had a far bigger destiny ahead of him. He would change things for his people.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked him.

  “Of course. I’m fine.”

  “I’m going to go and hang out at the park for a bit. You want to come?”

  In that moment, he did. He wanted it more than anything, but it was impossible. He wasn’t a part of her world and she wasn’t part of his, and even thinking about merging the two was a bad idea. Besides, the thought of going back to the park sent shudders through him. He couldn’t bring himself to do it, not yet. Maybe not ever.

  Anyway, she didn’t actually like him. A girl like Amma wanted older boys, not dropouts like him. She was probably just feeling sorry for him.

  “Nah, you’re all right. I’ve got to work.”

  She shrugged. “Okay. Well, you know where I am if you change your mind.”

  She brushed past him and walked down the street, her hips swaying. He watched her go, filled with such a strong longing, he could hardly breathe.

  Chapter Eleven

  Erica ate lunch at her desk and went through the photographs SOCO had sent her. She studied each one, searching for clues.

  The first image was a shopping list.

  She never liked to assume anything, but she thought she could probably determine that the shopping list probably hadn’t been written by the attacker, considering it contained the items ‘milk’, ‘nappies’, ‘bread’, and finally, underlined several times as though to mark its importance, ‘wine’. She didn’t need to be a detective to see that it was most likely the list of a mother, or even a father. But did that mean it wasn’t a parent who was responsible for the stabbing, or even the kidnapping of the child?