LITTLE WITNESS

  TOTALLY JAW-DROPPING IRISH CRIME FICTION

  S.A. DUNPHY

  BOOKS BY S.A. DUNPHY

  DI Tessa Burns Series

  Little Witness

  Only the Children

  Boyle & Keneally Series

  Bring Her Home

  Lost Graves

  Her Child’s Cry

  AVAILABLE IN AUDIO

  Boyle & Keneally Series

  Bring Her Home (Available in the UK and the US)

  Lost Graves (Available in the UK and the US)

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part One

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Part Two

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Daisy Connolly

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Daisy Connolly

  Chapter 32

  Part Three

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Part Four

  Chapter 47

  Daisy Connolly

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Daisy Connolly

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Daisy Connolly

  Part Five

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Daisy Connolly

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Epilogue

  Chapter 81

  Only the Children

  ***

  ***

  Hear More from S.A. Dunphy

  Books by S.A. Dunphy

  A Letter from S.A. Dunphy

  Bring Her Home

  Lost Graves

  Her Child’s Cry

  Author’s Note and Acknowledgements

  Publishing Team

  For Andrew Vachss. A brother in arms.

  PROLOGUE

  LABYRINTH

  1

  Tessa Burns was scared and she knew it.

  For a moment she couldn’t make her legs work and just sat in her battered red 1984 Ford Capri, waiting for her heart to slow down and her breathing to return to normal.

  Of course, that didn’t happen. Not right away anyway.

  Across the street, the crumbling warehouse looked like something the city had partially chewed and then spat out. Weeds and moss sprouted from cracks and crevices in its ancient structure, and most of the windows that dotted its high walls had long since lost all their glass to vandalism or the elements.

  Tessa knew why she was scared. She was terrified of what she might find if she went inside that building. She feared who might be waiting for her in there. And perhaps even more so, who might not.

  But being afraid was something Tessa was used to. She’d lived with fear of one kind or another most of her life, and she knew how to deal with it. This time was no different.

  Darkness seemed to ooze from the empty window frames like dank fog, but there were no sounds or signs of life of any kind. The warehouse stood on its own amid several acres of waste ground, and Tessa could see no movement in any direction. She wondered if she might have misinterpreted the chain of clues that had led her here.

  Could she be mistaken? She’d been investigating this case for three weeks now and was beginning to think her colleagues in the Special Detective Unit might be right: the trail had already gone too cold.

  Tessa couldn’t let it go though. The stakes were too high and the result of wasting even more time simply devastating.

  Ireland’s Special Detective Unit was dedicated to fighting threats to national security. They monitored persons and organisations deemed dangerous on both domestic and international fronts, and engaged in counter-terrorism – particularly targeting dissident Republican groups and Islamic extremists – and counter-intelligence across a number of fronts, including terrorism (political, eco- and cyber-), industrial espionage and keeping an eye on certain minority religious cults that might be a threat in the future if they ever became large enough. The SDU was also Ireland’s main armed-response unit to serious incidents and provided security when weapons, ammunition and large quantities of money needed to be transported; they were in charge of operating Ireland’s witness protection programme, and they provided bodyguards and protection to Ireland’s presidents and any visiting diplomats, dignitaries and celebrities.

  Tessa had performed all of these duties during her time with the unit, but where she excelled was as an investigator, and it was that skill that had brought her to this decaying edifice just outside Donabate, north-east of Dublin City.

  Deciding there was nothing more to be learned from remaining in the car, Tessa, moving with a purpose she still didn’t feel, opened the door to the Capri. Not even pausing to lock her beloved vehicle, she moved with rapid strides to where the rusted gates of the warehouse hung unevenly on their hinges. She could just about squeeze through the gap in the subsided metal structures and then she was inside.

  Continuing to maintain her pace, she struck out for the rear of the building.

  Tessa immediately realised she wasn’t the first person there that day: it had been raining the day before, and something had pulled up the moss and scuffed the dirt that had accumulated on the worn asphalt of the yard, and you didn’t have to be a detective to work out a vehicle of some sort was the culprit. Here and there, tyre tracks could be clearly made out.

  Turning the corner at the far end of the yard, she spied a Transit van and a Skoda SUV parked out of sight of the road.

  They might not belong to the people she was looking for; the team who had abducted five-year-old Bettina Watson, the daughter of the CEO of one of Ireland’s most successful airlines. These vehicles could have nothing to do with the crew who were trying to force Jerome Watson to sell his controlling share of the company at a ridiculously low price.

  Which, as the investigation continued and the child remained missing, he had done, despite the police warning that this might place the child at dire risk. While the kidnappers hadn’t identified themselves, the SDU believed they belonged to an anarchist cell that had a history of similar abductions. In three of the four cases, the child that had been taken had been murdered within days of the ransom being paid.

  Watson had sold his stock two days ago, and there had been no further contact from the people who’d taken her.

  Tessa knew time was running out.

  She pulled her phone from the rear pocket of her jeans.

  ‘Sarge, it’s Tessa. I think that lead might have paid off.’

  ‘What do you mean, “might have”?’

  Sergeant Maurice O’Driscoll was her team leader. He was a gruff man, but Tessa trusted him completely. He was one of the toughest people she knew and cared deeply about those under his command.

  ‘There are two vehicles parked out back of the old Williams storehouse.’

  ‘Which is supposed to have been abandoned years ago.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘You’re sure these aren’t squatters? New Age hippies?’

  ‘In 2019- and 2020-registered motors? I don’t think so, boss.’

  ‘I withdraw the question. Don’t do anything. I’ll send a car out with support.’

  ‘You want me to stand down until they arrive?’

  ‘I do. Return to your vehicle until your colleagues get there.’

  ‘Copy that, boss.’

  The line went dead, and Tessa was about to return to the Capri when she heard a sound that stopped her in her tracks. For a moment she froze all over again, and tears actually sprang unbidden to her eyes.

  What she heard was a child crying: plaintive, lonely, bereft. The soun
ds echoed out of the broken windows of the old building, rising and falling for a moment before they seemed to dwindle away.

  Tessa Burns knew the emotions that cry embodied all too well. She’d felt them at key moments in her own childhood, times when it seemed the darkness would consume her. And she couldn’t ignore the little girl who was being held against her will in that devastated building, alone and afraid. Not for a moment longer.

  The fear came back then in a surge of white-knuckle terror. But now she swallowed it down quickly, and something clicked in her head and she was no longer the day-to-day version of Tessa Burns, the woman who liked bourbon creams and listened to AC/DC at full volume and drank far too much Barry’s tea. When that ‘click’ occurred, she was someone else, someone who felt the fear but was able to set it aside and deal with it later. Now she could do what needed to be done, whatever it involved.

  Reaching inside her leather jacket, she took her Sig Sauer P226 from its shoulder rig and made for the nearest door.

  There was no going back now.

  2

  The door was, of course, locked when she got to it.

  Taking a step back, she aimed her right foot at a spot just below the handle and, using her heel as a battering ram, delivered as powerful a kick as she could. All this achieved was to send jarring vibrations right up her leg and into her hip, causing her to swear under her breath and limp about for a couple of uncomfortable seconds until the limb stopped throbbing and proper sensation returned.

  Tessa was five feet six inches in height and weighed about 130 pounds – a little over nine stone. At first she thought the door had been built to withstand a blow from a much larger person, but then she realised it was a fire door, made of reinforced material, and probably would have held against a kick by the Incredible Hulk.

  For a moment it looked as if this was going to be a completely ineffectual rescue attempt, but then Tessa, knowing there was no other option, pointed her Sig at the locking mechanism and fired three shots directly into it.

  They’ll know I’m coming now, she thought, but they’d know quickly enough anyway.

  The door swung open, carried by its own weight, and she stepped inside.

  The porch widened onto a long, narrow corridor, the floor tiles cracked and dusty, cobwebs that clung to the ceiling billowing in the breeze from outside. Tessa, her gun held in front of her in a shooter’s stance, covered the length of the hall in four long strides. At the other end was an opening – Tessa saw when she got there that the door was missing.

  She hung back, just inside the frame, and called: ‘Hello? This is the Gardai. I am requesting you identify yourselves.’

  No reply was forthcoming.

  ‘I repeat, I am a member of the Garda Síochána – if you have weapons, put them down now. I’d prefer not to hurt anyone. Let’s do this peacefully, shall we?’

  Still no response.

  ‘Okay, I’m coming in. Don’t do anything stupid, all right?’

  Instinctively she squatted and tentatively edged outwards.

  Which was wise, because before she’d gone more than a couple of inches, a barrage of gunfire shattered the silence of the old building and tore up the wood of the door frame above Tessa’s head.

  She flung herself back the way she’d come, landing on her arse amid the dirt and debris of the floor. Her ears were ringing from the gunfire, and nervous sweat was running down her face into her eyes, and for a terrible instant she was both deaf and blind.

  No, no, no, no, she thought, it can’t end like this. I will not go out like this!

  Somehow, above the echoing thunder of the shooting, she heard steps coming towards her. Using her sleeve to clear her eyes of the perspiration, she brought the Sig up so it covered the opening in front of her. The man who burst into the space was tall, lean and carrying a semi-automatic weapon.

  She saw him raise it to his shoulder and fired instinctively, keeping her shots tightly packed and low, taking out his right knee. The man screamed and convulsed, firing a burst into the ceiling.

  In a trice, Tessa was up, and she scuttled forward, grabbing the Heckler & Koch from the man and, almost in the same motion, clubbing him on the temple with the butt of the weapon.

  This action took only moments, but they were seconds that might have killed her.

  She had just straightened up when she heard a scuffling sound, and then she got a quick glimpse of a broad, dark-faced man in a black T-shirt and jeans who thudded into her, wrapping an arm about her shoulders and pinioning her arms. The force of the collision knocked Tessa backwards, right over his accomplice. For a second time, she landed on her back on the floor, and as well as the concussion, she felt a sharp pain in her midsection, and realised she’d been cut.

  Fuck. He’s fast, she thought and did the only thing she could think of at such close quarters: she drew her head back and headbutted her assailant, catching him on the bridge of his nose with a satisfying crunch.

  He swore but didn’t release his grip, instead shifting his weight so his right arm had more room to move, and there was another sharp pain and Tessa knew she’d been stabbed again. Panicking, she smashed her head forward once more, harder this time, and now she felt a wetness as the man’s nose gave way and blood gushed forth.

  Then he sagged, slumping onto his side.

  Tessa, grunting with the effort, shoved him off her and struggled painfully up, taking a moment to examine her wounds.

  Lifting her Metallica T-shirt, she saw there was a shallow slash across her lower abdomen and a deeper puncture wound just below her sternum. It was bleeding profusely, and she knew she had to staunch it or she wouldn’t be any use to the child she was trying to help.

  She shrugged off her jacket and used her teeth to rip the short sleeve of her T-shirt off, then tore a narrow strip off it. Rolling it into a ball but leaving one strand loose, she gritted her teeth and used her index finger to push the makeshift packing material into the hole the knife had made, as she’d been taught while in the army.

  The pain was so great she thought she might pass out, and the world swam before her, but after a time the nausea and giddiness passed, and she thought she’d be able to remain upright. Taking a breath, she checked both men were unconscious before moving out of the safety of the doorway.

  3

  The room beyond was long and wide, taking up most of the ground floor of the building, and had once been used to store sheet metal. Now it was simply a wide, empty space that stretched into shadow at its furthest extremities. Tessa didn’t like it – it offered no cover whatsoever, though neither could she see anywhere from which to launch a sneak attack.

  So that was something.

  Deciding that if the area had to be crossed, it was best to get it done quickly, Tessa broke into a run and sprinted towards the opposite end, at which she could see three doors and a stairwell that ran up the wall to what looked to be office space. The action caused the raw edges of the stab wound to grind against the packing, and the slash across her midsection stretched and clenched with the movement of her muscles.

  The pain was shocking, but Tessa was in another place now and felt it only as a dull roar at the back of her mind. Her focus was elsewhere, because as she began to run, she heard the child again. This time the cries were even more urgent, and with a final burst of speed, she made it to the stairwell.

  The crying seemed to be coming from somewhere above her, and this was the only access point she could see. Sweat beaded her brow and her T-shirt was sticky with blood, yet she took the stairs three at a time, and when she got to the top had to hold on to the rail for dear life to stop herself teetering backwards as her vision pinwheeled and stars exploded in front of her eyes momentarily.

  She leaned over and threw up a mixture of blood and bile all over her boots, and then felt a bit better.

  Gripping her gun with fingers moist with blood and sweat, she tested the handle on the door in front of her. It opened easily. Inside was the remains of an office – a desk, some empty document trays and an overturned chair.

  Tessa stood in the dusty darkness for a moment, taking shallow breaths. The building had fallen silent, but then the child cried out again, the wail this time cutting out in a strangled gasp, and the detective rushed across the room to a door at the other side.