world.
‘But even back then surely if she’s been on the mushrooms or something psilocybin would have shown up in the tox report?’ Kennedy continued, playing devil’s advocate as he so relished doing.
MacDonald smiled; this was obviously something he’d considered too. ‘That may well be, but the truth is there are plenty of potions or concoctions she could have taken that would have cleared the system by the time she died.’
He gazed down at the file picture of the girl and sighed. ‘You’ve seen everything in the file. We chased every avenue we possibly could, the eco-warrior angle was the most likely one at the time, still is to my mind. The only problem being we couldn’t prove it – I mean, why else has her body remained unclaimed and her absence unreported? She must have been some sort of drop out or runaway, one of those poor misfortunates who fall through the cracks every now and then.’
Chris nodded. ‘I’m inclined to agree with you.’
But despite the parallels, their discussion with MacDonald didn’t give them anything more to work with on identifying either victim.
And as such, Chris thought as they left minutes later, MacDonald’s case remained as cold as the dregs of the fancy coffee lining the bottom of his cup.
Chapter 12
In the following days, and in an effort to move forwards in identifying either of the tattooed girls, the investigative team widened the net by searching through the database for all redheaded females, tattooed or otherwise, who had been found dead in mysterious circumstances.
And even more painstakingly, by trawling through every female missing person report from the last ten years.
There were dozens of potential matches from the outset, but the finer details had to be checked. While the system worked within certain parameters, the information on older cases was often incomplete or inconsistent. They therefore had not only to check all reported missing children with red hair, but also those in which hair color wasn’t specified or was vague.
Apart from the angel-wings tattoo – which they had to assume had been done after the girls went missing – the only other distinguishing feature on either of the deceased was scar tissue on the radius and ulna of the hit-and-run victim, which Karen Thompson had reported as being indicative of a childhood broken bone.
Going through the files was chilling. Hundreds of children had gone missing in Ireland over the past two decades, and while many were runaways, plenty of other cases still remained unsolved, leaving thousands of parents and families wondering for the rest of their lives what had happened to their loved ones.
Kennedy parked the car beside the aquarium that sat halfway along Bray promenade. Typically, given the recent brief flirtation with spring weather, it had been raining on and off all morning, a persistent drizzle that made it seem as though the very air itself had turned to water.
He groaned as he got out and tried to regain a fully upright position. Zipping up his windbreaker he raised his arms above his head in an attempt to further straighten himself up. He looked over at Chris who was getting out the other side.
‘Do you not have a raincoat?’
Chris shrugged. ‘It’s barely spitting. I’ll be grand.’
The beach along the seafront was stony and stretched from the imposing Bray Head at the southern end to a small pier at the north. The promenade was Victorian in design, Bray having been a bustling seaside getaway from Dublin in the times before two-euro Ryanair seat sales to more exotic destinations.
The wind blew ferociously from the north making Kennedy wrap his windbreaker even more tightly around himself. He and Chris hurried across the road to a pub called Molloy’s, eager to be out of the damp air.
Kennedy brushed the rain off his coat, shook out his thinning hair, and looked around. The pub was quiet on this weekday lunchtime, just a
‘But even back then surely if she’s been on the mushrooms or something psilocybin would have shown up in the tox report?’ Kennedy continued, playing devil’s advocate as he so relished doing.
MacDonald smiled; this was obviously something he’d considered too. ‘That may well be, but the truth is there are plenty of potions or concoctions she could have taken that would have cleared the system by the time she died.’
He gazed down at the file picture of the girl and sighed. ‘You’ve seen everything in the file. We chased every avenue we possibly could, the eco-warrior angle was the most likely one at the time, still is to my mind. The only problem being we couldn’t prove it – I mean, why else has her body remained unclaimed and her absence unreported? She must have been some sort of drop out or runaway, one of those poor misfortunates who fall through the cracks every now and then.’
Chris nodded. ‘I’m inclined to agree with you.’
But despite the parallels, their discussion with MacDonald didn’t give them anything more to work with on identifying either victim.
And as such, Chris thought as they left minutes later, MacDonald’s case remained as cold as the dregs of the fancy coffee lining the bottom of his cup.
Chapter 12
In the following days, and in an effort to move forwards in identifying either of the tattooed girls, the investigative team widened the net by searching through the database for all redheaded females, tattooed or otherwise, who had been found dead in mysterious circumstances.
And even more painstakingly, by trawling through every female missing person report from the last ten years.
There were dozens of potential matches from the outset, but the finer details had to be checked. While the system worked within certain parameters, the information on older cases was often incomplete or inconsistent. They therefore had not only to check all reported missing children with red hair, but also those in which hair color wasn’t specified or was vague.
Apart from the angel-wings tattoo – which they had to assume had been done after the girls went missing – the only other distinguishing feature on either of the deceased was scar tissue on the radius and ulna of the hit-and-run victim, which Karen Thompson had reported as being indicative of a childhood broken bone.
Going through the files was chilling. Hundreds of children had gone missing in Ireland over the past two decades, and while many were runaways, plenty of other cases still remained unsolved, leaving thousands of parents and families wondering for the rest of their lives what had happened to their loved ones.
Kennedy parked the car beside the aquarium that sat halfway along Bray promenade. Typically, given the recent brief flirtation with spring weather, it had been raining on and off all morning, a persistent drizzle that made it seem as though the very air itself had turned to water.
He groaned as he got out and tried to regain a fully upright position. Zipping up his windbreaker he raised his arms above his head in an attempt to further straighten himself up. He looked over at Chris who was getting out the other side.
‘Do you not have a raincoat?’
Chris shrugged. ‘It’s barely spitting. I’ll be grand.’
The beach along the seafront was stony and stretched from the imposing Bray Head at the southern end to a small pier at the north. The promenade was Victorian in design, Bray having been a bustling seaside getaway from Dublin in the times before two-euro Ryanair seat sales to more exotic destinations.
The wind blew ferociously from the north making Kennedy wrap his windbreaker even more tightly around himself. He and Chris hurried across the road to a pub called Molloy’s, eager to be out of the damp air.
Kennedy brushed the rain off his coat, shook out his thinning hair, and looked around. The pub was quiet on this weekday lunchtime, just a
Similar Books
