A Stolen Child--A Maggie D'arcy Mystery by Sarah Stewart Taylor

Author:Sarah Stewart Taylor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Fifteen

I stay outside to avoid being overheard while I get the basics from Roly. He and Fiero are driving north from Dublin and I can hear Fiero talking behind him, probably on the phone with the guards who responded to the scene where Laurel was found.

“A fucking crèche, D’arcy. This fucking sicko left her at a crèche!” Roly tells me.

The Happy Fairies Crèche is a childcare center on the outskirts of Navan, located on a sparsely settled road. A fenced-in outdoor play area wraps around the back of the center and thirty minutes ago, right around lunchtime, one of the carers was watching the children at play when she saw a little girl, dressed only in a toddler diaper and brand-new pajamas and socks, standing on the outside of the fence and talking to some of the children through the chain links. The carer hadn’t been working at the center long and at first she thought one of their charges had gotten out of the fence, but when none of the other staff recognized the little girl, they brought her inside, put her in a lost-and-found coat, and rang the guards. Before the officers got there, though, one of the young women who worked at the center recognized the little girl from the news reports, so that by the time the local guards arrived, they knew there was a pretty good chance it was Laurel Maguire.

“They’re in the process of getting all the kids off the premises and the local guards have secured the area where she was found,” Roly tells me. “But since you’re on the spot, I want you to have a look around and make sure they’re doing it right and see what we can get for CCTV in the area. Whoever dropped her off must have done it in a vehicle. It’s a good distance out of town and there aren’t many houses near. We’re on our way.”

He’s elated, talking fast and in a register he only goes to when he’s happy. She’s alive. These cases almost never end this way, but this one has, and we’ve got a live and apparently unharmed kid.

“I should be there in twenty minutes,” I tell him, keeping my voice low. “I’m still at Eileen Elliott’s. We need to tell her, don’t we?”

“I’d rather keep it quiet, but … tell ya what, I’ll ring Maguire first and then them. But I’ll wait ’til we’re there. We need to make sure it’s her and we need to make sure the news doesn’t get out. In any case, we’ll have to get her to hospital before they can see her. It’s mad, D’arcy, leaving her at a crèche, mixing her in amongst all the other kiddies! As though we might not notice! I’d almost say our fella’s messing with us, like, ya know?”

“Will we interview her?” Interviewing very young children who have been the victims of crime is tricky. Kids are highly suggestible, and one Laurel’s age probably doesn’t even have the words to tell us where she’s been.

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