Hidden ( CSI Reilly Steel #3) (41 page)

‘
I’m not authorized to do that, sir.’

‘Well then, I’ll sort it while you get authorization,’ Chris growled, as he bent down and unceremoniously pulled McAllister’s hands behind his back. The man screamed out in pain as the pellets embedded in his shoulder rubbed against bone.

Chris’s
gaze rested again on Reilly. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’

‘I
—’

Right then, Kennedy
hurried back into the room. ‘Reilly?’ he said, looking perplexed. ‘There’s nobody else here.’

Chapter 43

While all the outbuildings were being searched to try and locate the children,
McAllister was taken to the nearest police station for questioning.

T
he bare walls of the holding cell were painted a dingy yellow, the camera lurking in the corner the only decoration of any kind.

McAllister
barely moved when Chris and Kennedy walked in. His eyes were still red-rimmed, and he had a fierce anger inside.

‘
Where are the children, McAllister?’ Chris sat in the chair across from him, Kennedy in another chair to the side. 

McAllister
considered the question for a moment. ‘I’m thirsty.’ 

‘
The game is over,’ Kennedy said. ‘I suggest you start cooperating. Where are the kids?’

‘
My children are safe; away from prying eyes and wickedness.’

‘
They are not your children,’ Chris shot back angrily. ‘You abducted them, brainwashed them. You attacked a member of the public as well as an officer. You’re in a whole word of trouble, McAllister, so I suggest you start answering some of our questions.’

McAllister
gazed up at the camera. ‘Are we on tape?’

‘All interviews are recorded.
McAllister, where are the girls? For the sake of their families …’

‘
They have a family, I am their father,’ he snapped. ‘You people, in your wisdom, decided that the family they already had didn’t fit your narrow definition of what was acceptable.’

‘Forget the
word games,’ Chris said. ‘Those children have families, real parents who love them, who miss them …’

‘
Don’t talk to me with your foolishness, you don’t know what you speak of.’

Kennedy crossed his arms across his chest. ‘
OK, we have all the time in the world here. We can wait as long as it takes for you to start cooperating, but I’m not sure the children can,’ he said, trying to switch the focus to them.

‘It’s only a matter of time before our people find them,’ Chris said, hoping he was right. ‘
No matter what happens, this is over, there’s no going back now, and once we find them, we will find their parents too. You not cooperating does nobody any favors, least of all the children … their time with you is over. We need to return them to—’

‘Their families?’
  He lifted his head, and spat the word at them. ‘Their families? Do you have any idea what their families were like? Why don’t you ask Lisa about the beatings she got from her father when he was drunk?  Ask Eve about all those “uncles” sneaking into her bed when her mother was passed out on the couch?  Or Julie – running around without a coat in winter, hanging out at the playground instead of going to school because she was too embarrassed about not having a clean uniform to wear?’

He sat up, eyes bl
azing, and stared at both of them. ‘You think I picked these children at random?  You think they were happy little things who missed their mummies and daddies?  I’ve spent my life helping children like that, and my wife and I did great work until people like you decided to take it all away from me.’

Chris met Kennedy’s eye. What was he talking about?

‘I did them a favor, I was called upon to save them, and now you with your self-righteous meddling are trying to take them away from the only happy, safe family they’ve ever had.’

McAllister’s
words had Chris floundering.

He had seen what
he had created. Yes, it was a fantasy built on lies, but it was serene, peaceful, and in any other circumstances would be a wonderful place for kids to grow up.  But when all was said and done, it was not reality, and it could never last.

‘What do you mean, you and your wife? I thought your family was dead?’

There was a flicker of something across his face. ‘My wife was taken from me. We were never blessed with children.’

             
What the …?

Chris stood up
. Kennedy nodded. The background information they’d been given by the locals was wrong. This coupled with what Julius had said about Sarah Forde needed immediate investigation.

‘
Tír na nÓg was a paradise,’ whispered McAllister. ‘Those children have everything they could ever need, and now you’re trying to return them to this cesspit.’  He spat the word out, looking around the bare room, its dirty linoleum floor, and cheap plastic chairs. 

‘
I don’t know what their families are like,’ Kennedy was saying as Chris left the room. ‘But they are not yours to lock away. There is someone else out there who loves them and misses them…’

When
McAllister looked at him, his gaze was one of sadness, tears brimming in his eyes.  ‘There is indeed someone who loves them, someone who misses them, Detective.  And you will have to live the rest of your days knowing that you succeeded only in taking them away from that one, perfect place.’

Reilly had remained in Avoca in an attempt to try and locate the children. She couldn’t believe it when they hadn’t been in the adjoining room of the smelting house. She’d naturally assumed that McAllister would want to keep them close to him.

             
A detailed search was being made of the outbuildings and surrounding area but to no avail.

She was frantically hoping that they could figure it out without having to rely on Chris and Kennedy to get the information out of McAllister. Who knew how long that would take
. Especially when he was so reluctant to give the kids up.

‘I think I have an idea.’

‘What are you thinking?’ she asked Steve Jacobs now. She’d been searching through one of the old outhouses when he phoned her with a possible theory.

‘The driving force for McAllister’s world …’ She heard him flick through some papers back in the trailer.  ‘It’s all based on this mythology, the story of Tir Na N
og. So why should that be different now? Yes, he might have had to move them from the lake house – from the enchanted land if you like – but think about how he did it?’

Reilly frowned, impatient. ‘In a boat … how is that significant?’

‘I’ve been going through the text again and according to the legend, you can only travel to and from Tir Na Nog over water.  If you touch the ground, you will immediately wither and die, or like Oisin, become an old man. So I’m thinking,’ Jacobs continued, the words coming quickly, ‘that McAllister’s hidden the children somewhere their feet won’t touch the ground.’

Reilly’s brain raced. Won’t touch the ground? But where could …? Then it hit her, and she raced out the door and headed straight for the haybarn.

Chapter  4
4

For the second time in as many weeks, Chris knocked on the door of the Forde household in Navan. Mrs Forde answered, her features ghostly.

‘Mrs Forde? You got my message.’

She nodded and looked and down the street as if her husband would arrive home any minute.

‘Would it be better if we went somewhere else?’

‘No. It’s OK. Pat has his poker game on a Thursday night. He’s usually not back till after midnight. We won’t be disturbed.’

She shuffled through to the living room, and Chris followed, closing the door behind him.

He’d since heard from Reilly that the kids had been located. Three young girls of various ages, approximately six to eleven, had been hidden away in a nearby barn, huddled together up in the old hayloft.

According to her, they seemed in good health, but were understandably very frightened and asking for  their ‘father’
.

As much as he disliked the man, Chris had to give credit to Steve Jacobs for figuring that one out.

But now there was one more puzzle to solve.

He looked up as Sarah Forde’s mother sat across from him, her hands fidgety. He had refused the obligatory cup of tea, this time ignoring one of his own rules. This was not a time for relaxing; he wanted to get straight to the point.

‘Mrs Forde …’

‘Please
, it’s Rita.’

‘Rita, like I said on the phone, I believe you haven’t been exactly truthful with us about the circumstances surrounding Sarah’s disappearance.’

She refused to meet his gaze. ‘I’m sorry … I didn’t mean—’

‘Your brother David was just arrested in Wicklow. He’s in a lot of trouble. You need to tell me what was going on, Rita. Are you involved in these abductions?’

She looked genuinely shocked. ‘Abductions? What are you talking about?’

Chris wasn’t giving anything away. ‘He’s been arrested for abducting and holding three young children at his farm in Wicklow, a place he refers to as Tir
Na Nog.’ The mention of this meant something to her, he thought. ‘We were working on the assumption that your daughter Sarah had been one of abductees, but recently escaped. However, we now have reason to believe otherwise.’

She rubbed her sweaty hands on
her thighs. ‘I don’t know anything about any other children, I swear. I haven’t seen David for years. I haven’t been able to … ’

‘Mrs Forde, Rita – your brother told one of my colleagues that you asked him to take care of Sarah some years ago, that you wanted to get her away from her father. Is that correct?’

Like Reilly, Chris had been gobsmacked by the revelation and had no idea what it could mean. Had Rita Forde lied about her daughter’s disappearance to not only the authorities but her husband too? And if so why?

Granted
, on his recent visit, he’d suspected that there was more to the family dynamic than met the eye, but he could never have anticipated something like this.

Tears filled Rita Forde’s eyes. She had the defeated look of a person who’d been carrying a heavy burden for a very long time. ‘It was when Miriam was alive,’ she said with a sob. ‘Pat was …’ She took a deep breath, struggling, ‘I didn’t want to believe it, but Sarah came to
me one day and told me what was going on. I didn’t want to believe it. I talked to David and Miriam about it, probably because they had experience with this kind of thing …’

Chris frowned. ‘How so?’

‘Well, with all the kids they used to take in … many of them were abused, some mentally, others physically … like Sarah.’

‘I don’t understand. Are you saying that your brother and his wife used to act as foster parents?’ Chris asked
, bewildered. Why hadn’t this come up on McAllister’s background search? But thinking about it, they’d only checked with Land Registry and motor records. Tax records were minimal because of his artist’s exemption, and there was nothing of a criminal nature in the system. Notwithstanding that such information would have been with the Health Service Excecutive, a completely different department. Good old public service records. Like O’Brien had said, the left hand never seemed to know what the right was doing …

‘They were so good at it’ Rita Forde continued, ‘and so good with the kids. It was such a shame they’d never been able to have any of their own…’

Chris was baffled. ‘But I thought your brother lost his wife and kids in an accident many years ago?’

‘No, it was only Miriam. None of the kids were in the car at the time, the foster kids I mean. Although I’m not sure if they had any with them at the time. There was a bit of a problem after Ellie and the tattoo…’

‘Who’s Ellie?’

‘She was one of the girls who used to come to them on and off.  She was the oldest, and was definitely David’s favorite too. He used to tell her all his stories, the ones about Oisin and Tir
Na Nog.’ She smiled. ‘He was always fascinated by them, even as a child, and he passed a lot of it on to Ellie over the years. But then one day she turned up with this huge set of wings tattooed onto her back, and the social services people weren’t happy. They blamed David for it, and wouldn’t let Ellie go back to them after that.  The poor child, she was devastated. I don’t know what happened to her; if they got her another family or something. I doubt she’d have settled, she adored Miriam and David and the place in Wicklow.’

Suddenly the pieces were beginning to click. Chris reali
zed he knew exactly what had happened to Ellie.

And once again he reali
zed that they’d got it all wrong. Ellie – their cold case – hadn’t been trying to escape from Tir Na Nog; she’d been trying to get back, despite the authorities.