Page 10 of The Trap by Catherine
“There’s a road called Red Lane to the south-east of the Great Sugarloaf. There’s a car park there with a distinctive cement archway over the entrance. Very busy at the weekends with hillwalkers and what have you.” Denise looked from one of them to the other. “Do you know it?”
Lucy didn’t, but she knew that the Sugarloaf was in the Wicklow Mountains, an area otherwise known as everyone’s first guess in a game of Where Are They Now?: Missing Women Edition.
All three had disappeared from places within an hour’s drive of what was arguably the best place to hide a body in the entire country.
Chris squeezed Lucy’s hand. It felt more like tension than comfort.
“We’re talking about a rural area,” Denise continued, “even though it’s only a few minutes off the N11. A narrow road winding through countryside. Stretches of it don’t even have a dividing line.” She paused. “Late last night, there was a road traffic accident near the car park’s entrance. An American tourist driving a rental hit a pedestrian who suddenly ran into the middle of the road. The pedestrian was conscious when the paramedics arrived and was able to say a few words to them, but she was severely injured and is now in a medically induced coma. The prognosis is very much wait-and-see. It was Lena.”
Chris shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
But Lucy was terrified that she did.
“In an ideal world,” Denise said, “I wouldn’t be telling you any of this. It’s just happened, we have a lot to process and we’re still trying to establish the basic facts. But the driver”—the briefest of eye-rolls—“posted about it online, and then one of the tabloids got wind of it, and we expect that it’ll be all over the news by lunchtime. The front pages are already”—air-quotes—“reportingthat something big is coming down the line, even though they’ve no actual information. They can’t have, because we don’t either. Not in terms of hard facts. But what Lena said to the paramedics—”
Lucy felt dizzy and sick. All she wanted was answers, but now, faced with the possibility of actually getting them, she wasn’t sure she was ready for them.
“—is of significant interest to our investigation into Nicki’s disappearance and the others.Ifit’s true. And that’s what we’re working to establish. For all we know, Lena could’ve panicked about being in trouble and made it up.”
What did she say?!Lucy screamed in her head.
“What did she say?” Chris asked.
Denise put her elbows on the table. “Lena told paramedics that on the night she disappeared, she was actually abducted by a man who bundled her into his car and brought her to a house where she was held captive for the last fortnight. Somehow, she managed to escape and took off running, and eventually ran into the path of the car that hit her. And she said that—”
Lucy tensed, braced for impact.
Under the table, the grip of Chris’s hand on hers hurt.
“—she wasn’t the only one,” Denise finished. “She said there were other women being held there too.”
LOST AND FOUND
Angela sat at her desk in the Missing Persons Unit, staring at a Tupperware container full of limp carrot batons, trying to fathom what on earth had made Night-time Angela think that that was what Daytime Angela would want to eat.
For months now, these two parts of herself had been locked in battle. Night-time Angela would carefully measure out a cup of porridge oats and leave them to soak in a pan overnight. She’d poach a chicken breast and put it in a fancy bento-box-thingy she’d ordered online along with a few spoons of (massaged) kale salad and putthatin the fridge, ready to grab. She’d slip her work shoes into a tote bag and leave her trainers and running gear laid out on a chair in her room—she wouldn’t even need to think about pulling them on in the morning—and set her Fitbit and AirPods to charging.
Night-time Angela did things like maintain a skincare routine, keep a gratitude journal, and go to bed early. Daytime Angela would sleep through at least two alarms and wake up too late to have a healthy breakfast—or any breakfast—and with nowhere near enough time to run into work. Instead, she’d hop on the last Luas that would get her there on time and grab an oversized, flavored coffee on her way into the office where, just as she sat down at her desk, she’d remember that her expensive water bottle and fancy lunchbox were both still sitting in the kitchen at home.
At least today she’d remembered to bring the carrots. Now, she just needed to find the motivation to actually eat them.
When the phone on her desk began to shrill, Angela answered it with a “Missing Persons Unit.”
“There’s a woman here in reception who wants to speak to you.”
Before Angela could say,Well, that’s nice, but this isn’t a walk-in clinic, tell her to go home and call us or, better yet, her local station or the Garda Confidential Line, there was a rustling noise and then a woman’s voice saying, “Hello?” uncertainly.
Angela rolled her eyes. They’d handed her the phone.Great.
“Hi,” she said. “How can I help you?”
“To whom am I speaking?” The woman on the other end of the line sounded older, posh, prim.
“This is Angela.”
“Angela???” The caller made the name sound like an affront, and Angela knew why: because there was no title before it. “Well, I need to speak to a guard. A detective, ideally.”
Well, you’re shit out of luck, lady.
