Corn Dolls Read online

  “Dinner?” Annie asked the pot plant sitting on the windowsill.

  The plant remained stoic, but she took that as an affirmative. Locking the door to the office behind her, Annie skipped down the stairs and out into the street. The sun was dropping, and the cobbled street shone like amber and steel. The shops were long shut, the bars and cafes were coming into their own with the hustle and bustle of the small city.

  Stepping out of the way of a group of drunken young women as they giggled conspiratorially, Annie scoured their faces hurriedly before they could pass her by.

  Is it you, Mim? Are you here?

  But they passed by without a second glance, and hope escaped from her body like a slow puncture. She sighed and pushed the door to the pizzeria open, the tinkling of the bell above triggering a Pavlovian response.

  “Annie!” A man in chef’s whites and a dusty apron waved at her from behind the counter. “The usual?”

  Annie nodded and waved back. She took up residence in her seat by the window and grabbed her laptop out of her bag. Booting it up, she started to type up her client notes from the last assessment of the day. It had been a busy day, five clients in total. Annie loved her job; the client-centred goal-setting was an important way for her to engage with her probationers, but more often than not they saw her as a chance to have freedom. A means to an end. And ten years in, Annie was finding her tether a lot shorter than when she had started out. Still, anything was better than the six months she’d spent as a police constable straight out of university, carrying an undergraduate degree in Psychology and a naive will to make a difference.

  Another gaggle of women passed by the window, leaning into the tinted glass to check their makeup, not knowing Annie was on the other side searching their faces for Mim. Annie caught sight of herself in the reflection as they left. She could have been her younger sister’s twin, yet there were fifteen years between them. Her regular English roses and cream complexion had taken on a grey hint these last few months. She pinched her cheeks to try and look less like Morticia Addams, though with her coppery autumn ringlets and bright green eyes, she couldn’t be further from the macabre family if she tried. Annie sighed and went back to her notes, feeling them clogging her brain like a mundane chore.

  Maybe it was time for a change. Was it fair to carry on seeing people when it felt like this? Didn’t she owe them more than the bare minimum? Annie snorted a laugh, what else was she going to do? It wasn’t like there were lots of options for someone in their mid-thirties with a work history that consisted of ten years in the same job and a failed police career.

  The smell of pizza drew Annie out of her reverie.

  “Here you go, one deep pan veggie delight, with added mushrooms,” the man in the chef’s whites said, placing her dinner in front of her with a flourish. “And a large glass of Malbec.”

  “You’re a star, Pete,” Annie said, her mouth watering in anticipation. “Thanks.”

  The chef smiled and turned to walk away.

  “Oh, Pete.” Annie stopped him. “I’ll not be in for dinner tomorrow, I’ve got a networking event with the prison service.”

  She shuddered comically at Pete’s grimace.

  “I’ll see you Wednesday then, and you can tell me all about it,” he winked, and left Annie to her pizza.

  Networking was the least favourite part of Annie’s job and she wondered now, as she devoured the pizza, if this was what was causing her work slump. Twice yearly, the prison service held a get-together for its extended work family, and twice yearly, Annie felt like a prune as she shook hands with consultants and psychiatrists who still looked down on what she did.

  Draining her glass, she dropped a fiver on the table as a tip and gathered herself for home. She stepped out of the pizzeria, shouting her thanks to Pete.

  Unlocking the door to the stairwell, Annie headed back up to the office, her heart as heavy as her feet. She pulled down the blinds, blocking out the light from the streetlamps and casting the small room into darkness. Feeling her way through to the kitchenette, Annie switched on the small kettle, then thought better of it and pulled the stopper out of a bottle of red she had stashed in an overhead cupboard. Pouring what was left into a tumbler, she went back through to the office space and pulled out a camp bed and sleeping bag from under the sofa. Grunting as she opened it out, Annie made her bed for the night.

  Nope, definitely not how I was imagining my life.

  Her laptop pinged with an email and Annie grabbed it from her bag and took it over to the camp bed. The springs gave an unholy screech as she made herself comfortable, the bed having seen better days during Annie’s teen years when her numerous friends would pile on to it during sleepovers. When she’d asked her mum for a loan of the old bed, she’d hoped this would be the last thing her mother would picture Annie using it for.

  Hitting the touchpad over the mail icon, Annie’s heart rate smashed through the thatched roof above when she saw the cost of this month’s invoice. She spent a large proportion of her time teaching others how to recognise when people were taking advantage of them, schooling them on their budgeting and life skills, yet here she was paying inordinate amounts of money—plus her whole life savings—to a private investigator who came up empty-handed every month. But as quickly as her anger rose up, so did her frail hope.

  It might happen next time. The next lead might be the one. I can’t give up on Mim now.

  She’d deal with that in the morning; for now, all she had the energy left to do was watch a rerun of Spooks and drink her tumbler of wine. Closing her laptop lid, a story in the news bar caught Annie’s eye. A flicker of recognition ran through her at the familiar face dominating the headline. She snapped the laptop back open and clicked on the link: recognition soon giving way to a cold trickle of fear.

  Police are on the hunt for the father of a missing child. The young girl went missing from her family home sometime yesterday evening. Police believe that she may have been abducted and are appealing for those who were in the area to get in contact with them. They are also very keen to get in contact with the child’s father. Anyone with information to call local police on…

  Ignoring the sensationalised writing of the red top press, Annie scanned the screen, jotting down the contact number on her phone, freezing at the forlorn picture of a heavily pregnant woman and the indented addition of the missing girl. The photograph of the father in question, the photo that had caught her attention, was a skinny-faced man with eyes sunken from the effects of years of drug abuse. Tim Barclay, a man she had been working with up until four weeks ago when he’d been a no-show, and she hadn’t seen or heard from him since.

  Three

  Tuesday

  It was a Tuesday morning. Yet the whole of the city seemed to be congregating around the entrance to the police station.

  “Excuse me,” Annie said, breathing in to squeeze between two very vocal women with large placards that were threatening to take her eye out.

  They glared at her as she pulled open the glass doors and fell through into the reception. It was quiet in here. The gentle tap of a keyboard and the smell of coffee rose to greet her like an old friend. Though it was only once a month that Annie set foot in the city headquarters for work—the main police building having been relocated to the outskirts of the ever-increasing city over ten years ago now—she always felt comforted that nothing much had changed here.

  The receptionist glanced over, double-taking at Annie, and smiled.

  “Annie, thank goodness,” she said, waving her hand to call Annie over. “I thought maybe the mobs had broken the invisible barricade and stormed the building. How are you?”

  Annie smiled.

  “Oh, you know, Rose,” she said, not really wanting to go into how she was sleeping in her office, hating her job, and generally feeling pretty crap about life to the poor woman, who always seemed so upbeat. “What’s with the crowds?”

  Rose rolled her eyes. “They’re protesting. They’ve be
en here for the last couple of days. Thing is, they’re not very organised, they just turn up at eight, stand at the door, then go home again at tea time, every single bloody day!”

  “What are they protesting?” Annie asked, turning back to look at the crowd milling by the entrance.

  “Don’t make eye contact with them,” Rose hissed lightly. “They’ll try to accost you on the way out, then you’ll be stuck there until teatime too.”

  They both laughed.

  “They’re protesting the cuts,” Rose continued. “The cuts to the services that the government deem non-essential. You know, the allied health, advocates, mental health workers, day services.”

  Annie screwed up her face. “Maybe I should go and join them.” She shrugged.

  “We all disagree with the cuts, but they’re protesting in the wrong place. They need County Hall, or Ten Downing Street, not their local cop shop.” Rose shook her head. “Anyway, you here for your supervision? Shall I get Marion?”

  “God no!” Annie blurted, very much not wanting to see her boss, and Rose burst out laughing. “As much as I’d love to be grilled on my workload and ethic at nine on a Tuesday morning, I’ll be seeing Marion tonight at the networking thing, so I’ll prolong that joy until then. No, I’ve got a meeting with DI Joe Swift.”

  Rose raised an eyebrow. “I’ll let him know you’re here. Take a seat, love. And I’ll see you tonight if I don’t see you before. Yay.” Her enthusiasm for the event mirrored Annie’s.

  Annie took a seat under a poster board advertising neighbourhood watch and translation services dotted between lost cats and bikes for sale. The station was a weird mix of old and new. Blue plastic seats, flooring that felt tacky underfoot, yet the doors leading to the inner sanctum were shiny glass and electric and opened only at the scan of a pass card. Annie studied her nails as she waited for DI Swift to appear. She was nervous. Normally she would meet with Marion in her office, discuss concerns about clients, possible new referrals, then head off into the city for a proper coffee to take the taste of police station coffee out of her mouth. This time she was here to meet with actual police and not just a paper-wielding civil servant whose sole purpose in life was to make people miserable.

  “Ms O’Malley?”

  DI Swift was tall, and broad, and very attractive.

  “Miss,” Annie replied, standing and offering her hand. “But please, call me Annie.”

  She heard Rose stifle a snort from behind her desk.

  “DI Swift,” he replied, smiling knowingly. “Please follow me.”

  Annie waited until DI Swift had turned away, then she shot Rose a look.

  Oh my god, she mouthed to her old friend, who started making a lewd gesture behind the DI’s back.

  Annie followed DI Swift through the fancy new doors and into the corridors behind. The coffee smell grew stronger and the noise of keyboards, printers, and chatter grew louder.

  “Just in here,” he held a door open and Annie walked past him into what must have been an interview room.

  “Ooh,” she gasped, her nerves making her brain feel like porridge. “I hope I’m not in any trouble.”

  She nodded at the tape recorder and the one-way glass, which were giving off a heady scent of stereotype.

  “Please take a seat,” DI Swift laughed politely at her joke and now Annie felt like she really was in trouble. “Can I get you a drink? Tea, coffee, water?”

  “I’ve tasted the coffee here. So no, thanks. I had one before I came out.” Annie shook her head.

  “Wise move,” DI Swift laughed properly this time. He sat down at the table opposite Annie, rolling his shirt sleeves up as though he was about to set himself to task. “We appreciate the call, Miss O’Malley. So, what can you tell me about Orla Finch’s father?”

  Annie thought for a moment. It had been just over a month since her last session with Tim Barclay. She was sure the police would already know everything she was about to say, and felt, all of a sudden, childish for having made the call.

  “Look, I’m sure there’s not a lot I can tell you that you don’t already know,” she said, staring at the blank mirror behind DI Swift’s head, hoping the room on the other side was empty. One person hearing her spout useless information was enough to contend with. “I worked with him as a therapist as part of his probation under the MHTR, the Mental Health Treatment Requirement, after he was given a custodial sentence for common assault and ABH. Tim was given 15 months but was out in seven with his conditions. I think he was also under the Drug Rehab Requirement too. I can’t go into what we talked about because of confidentiality. But I can say that he didn’t turn up to his last appointment with me. Of course, I let Marion know, but I didn’t chase him. That’s up to the probation officer.”

  Swift dipped his chin.

  “Sorry, Marion Farmer. She’s Regional Offender Manager. My boss!”

  “Yeah, I know who she is, she’s based in our station and rather infamous,” he said wryly.

  Annie felt herself blush. Of course he knew Marion, everyone knows Marion. “Yes, sorry. Um… so that was a little over four weeks ago. He just never showed. And it surprised me, to be honest. He’d seemed keen to atone for what he’d done. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong batch of drugs. I never felt he was just there to tick a box, and I get that a lot.”

  DI Swift shifted in his seat, leaning forwards towards Annie.

  “You’re right,” he said, propping his head up on his elbows. “We do already know all of that. Is there anything you can tell me that we don’t know? What he was like as a person. How he felt about his daughter. How he felt about his now-ex. Things like that.”

  Annie chewed the inside of her cheek. She wasn’t sure if telling DI Swift more about Tim Barclay was breaking her client confidentiality pact, but getting a warrant took time, and Annie didn’t want to be the reason between the life and death of a four-year-old girl.

  “He was a nice guy,” she said, eventually. “Like, I’d happily have a conversation with him in the pub. He was funny and intelligent. But when he had been using, I couldn’t get a coherent sentence out of him, let alone a story. It was like he was two different people. But that’s often the case, isn’t it? When someone turns to drugs. And he doted on that little girl, and his partner. I didn’t know things had gone wrong between him and Maggie Finch.”

  “So he did talk about Orla then?” DI Swift asked, sitting up a bit straighter.

  Annie nodded warily. “Yes, he did, but not in a way that would indicate he was going to steal her away from her life. More in a remorseful what have I done kind of a way. Look, I’m not sure I should be saying more without his consent, but I don’t think he would have it in him to harm his own child.”

  “Even if he was using?”

  Annie shrugged. Truth be told, people were capable of anything when they were high. She should know.

  “Can I ask you one more thing?” DI Swift said, running his hands through his hair.

  “Sure.”

  “Did you ever get the impression that Tim was into weird stuff?”

  Annie almost laughed, but the look on DI Swift’s face stopped her.

  “Weird stuff?” she asked.

  “Yeah, you know, weird stuff.”

  “You’re going to have to elaborate. You can’t just throw weird in off the bat and expect me to have a clue what you’re on about.”

  DI Swift rubbed his face hard enough to leave his skin pink.

  “Do you know Maggie Finch, the mum, well?” He was changing tact.

  “I met her briefly a couple of times at the very beginning of my work with Tim. But otherwise, not really, why?”

  “I think you’re going to be useful, I need all the help I can get on this. I’m going to bring you in,” DI Swift said, as though he had already asked Annie and got her permission.

  “What?” Annie was overwhelmed at the very idea she could be just brought in on a case, let alone thinking about her clients and the backlog of paperwork she was
already sitting on, and that’s not even mentioning her failed police career. But she couldn’t deny the little flame of excitement that had just ignited in her. “Are you allowed to do that?”

  DI Swift looked Annie right in the eyes.

  “I’m SIO on this case, pretty sure I can bring in a consultant,” he said, pulling his chin up before dropping it again quickly and pleading instead. “Look, being totally transparent, I did a background check on you and I know you were in the force previously, plus you’re already working for the probation service and you’re DBS checked. You’d be doing me a favour, Miss O’Malley, Annie. There are things about this case that are unsettling. Maggie Finch has clammed up, I need your help in bringing her out again. You can get people to talk, can’t you?”

  “I’m not the CIA!”

  DI Swift laughed, dropping the tension in the room by a few notches.

  “I was thinking more AC12, as long as I can be Hastings.”

  “Does that mean I’m Steve Arnott?”

  “You can be H as far as I’m concerned, as long as you can get Orla’s mum to talk. We’re over twenty-four hours into a child abduction case and we have no leads, and everything we’ve tried has been a dead end.”

  Annie felt the temperature drop by a couple of degrees with the DI’s words.

  “Okay Detective Inspector Swift, I’ll help as best I can. But you’ll need to agree it with my boss.”

  “Consider it done.” DI Swift stood up from his chair. “I’ll see you out. And I’ll be in touch as soon as I have confirmation.”