Taken Read online

  About the Book

  A beautiful woman

  Model and it-girl Tara Parker Trench is famous across Ireland – with her beauty, glittering lifestyle and perfect three-year-old son Presley, she seems to have it all.

  A stolen child

  Until, one cold wet Dublin night, Tara pulls into a service station for petrol, leaving Presley strapped into the back of her car. Five minutes later he’s gone, kidnapped while his mother’s back was turned.

  A hidden world

  Tara, terrified and hysterical, begs DI Jo Birmingham to help her find her child. But why doesn’t Tara want the public to know he’s missing? Soon, Jo is drawn into a dark underworld of corruption and extortion, where sex is a commodity, and life is cheap. Who is really telling Jo the truth about the missing little boy – and who’s got too much to hide?

  A gripping crime novel, with an unforgettable heroine – welcome to the dark side of Dublin.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Foreword

  Prologue

  Monday

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  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

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Tuesday

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  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

  Wednesday

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Thursday

  Chapter 72

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Niamh O’Connor

  Copyright

  Taken

  Niamh O’Connor

  Foreword

  Some stories come to newspaper journalists that are impossible to prove. But sometimes you get a sense that a story that does appear in a newspaper is only scratching the surface of something that is far more sinister.

  How many times do papers make a splash with an interview with a call girl who has sold the story of her night of passion with a footballer or celebrity? It’s almost the norm now for these women to come from privileged, educated, middle-class backgrounds, rather than those of deprivation or desperation, as a reader might expect. It is stories like these that have always made me wonder what it must be like to have the sort of looks that appeal to the very rich, and the brains to make a calculated decision to subjugate the self for cold, hard currency. What are the temptations for very beautiful women who want some of the excesses of the glitzy world for themselves? To whom do the wealthy turn for discretion? And how has the global recession impacted on the sex industry?

  This book is an attempt to tease out some of the answers, and it’s based on a story that couldn’t get into a newspaper; one that keeps coming up through different sources. In essence it’s about the model industry in meltdown, and the very real links in the chain between the celebrity circuit, and the gangland horrors – murder, human trafficking, drug importation – that are required to keep the rich and corrupt in their party bubble of excess and decadence. It’s the story of the oldest profession in the world.

  Because no matter the amount of money that changes hands, or the individuals involved, it’s still a story of what happens when sex is for sale.

  Niamh O’Connor

  April 2011

  Prologue

  Tara Parker Trench pulled up at the only free pump in the petrol station on Eden Quay, and after a long, hard look through the windscreen wipers, killed Beyoncé’s ‘Single Ladies’ and twisted around.

  It was nine o’clock on a Sunday night, and pitch dark, but she wasn’t worrying about what might happen if she left her three-year-old son alone in the car near Dublin city centre. Not when she was only going to be gone for sixty seconds maximum, and especially not when it was lashing rain. Her stomach ached as she turned, and she pressed her hand against it.

  Presley had nodded off, and was purring like a kitten in the back. The Ray-Bans she’d got him had slid to the tip of his nose, his Tommy Hilfiger jacket collar was turned up and the peak of his New York Yankees trucker cap sloped to the side, skateboarder style.

  ‘Such a cool dude,’ she said, giving his Nike runner boot a little squeeze.

  Clicking her seatbelt off, she stretched between the seats and tried to tilt his head back into a more comfortable position, wincing as she did so with the exertion. It flopped forward again, and she reached for the Snuggly Puppy on his lap to see if she could use it as a pillow. But even fast asleep, Presley’s chubby little fingers tightened their grip.

  Tara smiled. She’d only been sixteen when she’d got pregnant, and had had to fight to have, and keep, him. She’d no regrets: she and Presley, they were a team. Despite all the rows with her own mum about the future, she had been able to build a good life for both of them. Tara was never going back to the hardship of a just few years back. Presley deserved the best in life, and so did she.

  A sharp beep from the car behind told her to get a move on. Tara glanced in her rear-view mirror, patting the air to say ‘calm down’. Little Miss Impatient was a Botoxed brunette in her forties with that puckered look around her lips that collagen always gave. She was driving a brand new Jag. Catching sight of her own face, Tara wiped away the smudged mascara beneath her eyes. The sooner she got home and into a hot shower the better, she thought.

  Stepping out of her black Mini Cooper with white stripes down the bonnet, she grimaced. The River Liffey stank the way it always did before heavy fog. Screwing off the cap to the car’s petrol tank, she gestured to the rest of the bays in the forecourt for the Jag lady’s benefit as she began to fill up. They were bumper to bumper and it wouldn’t just be this garage that was full, either. Every motorist in the country with an ounce of sense would be filling up tonight. Tomorrow was Budget Day, and the fallout from the bank bailout and the IMF interest rate meant another round of hard-hitting taxes was on the cards.

  A wolf whistle rang out, and Tara stiffened. She knew it was for her. Men had been wolf whistling at her since she was twelve years old. Whoever it was had issues with women – it was too drawn-out to be friendly or jokey.

  Pushing her lon
g hair out of her eyes, she kept her head down – feeling self-conscious suddenly about the short, glitzy dress she was still wearing and the six-inch heels. She located the man she thought was responsible for the whistle out of the side of her eye. He was parked at pump number three, sitting behind the wheel of a battered HiAce. There was a white Mitsubishi with flashy hubcaps and a spoiler on the boot between her and him. The bay to her right – the one nearest the road – had a white sheet fluttering from the pump which said it was out of service. On Tara’s left the boy racer in the white Mitsubishi seat rolled down his tinted window.

  ‘Here, I know you,’ he called. ‘You’re that model, right? I’ve got your poster on my wall. You know, the one of you posing like Britney Spears in a school uniform?’

  Tara sighed. She remembered the shot he was talking about – it was for a campaign against illiteracy to try and encourage older people to go back to school. The message it sent out about what men could look forward to if they returned to the education system was a disgrace, but she didn’t object. Money was money, even if a photo call – the bread and butter of a model’s trade – was only worth a pittance. She needed every penny at the moment.

  ‘Looking hot, darlin’. Want to go for a drink?’

  Tara felt a flash of anger. ‘What’s your poison?’ she called back. ‘Lemonade with ice?’

  Two of the kid’s mates, who had the same chunky silver chains around their necks, came out of the garage forecourt with armfuls of crisps and chocolate, and laughed as they heard Tara’s put-down. The boy racer turned red and revved the engine.

  Tara angled the nozzle back in the pump. Stooping, she cupped her hands over her eyes to check Presley through the glass, then straightened up to scan the queue at the till inside which snaked right the way down the aisle. It was definitely best to leave him where he was, she decided. She pointed the key fob at the Mini, but changed her mind in case Presley activated the alarm. If he banged his arm or foot against the window and it went off, he would wake, find himself alone and get upset. The last thing she needed now was him bawling all the way home.

  The woman in the Jag gave another impatient beep, and Tara reached into the car for her Vivienne Westwood jacket, held it over her head so she wouldn’t get wet, and ran towards the entrance, much to the boy racers’ delight. They struck up a round of catcalls, and set off after her, a row of flashing blue lights pulsating along their bumper.

  Inside, she hurried past a long rack of convenience shelves stocked with the kind of foods that just needed boiling water added. The place was a dive, but at least the queue was moving quickly and there were only three people ahead of her. Then they stopped. Tara strained sideways to see what the problem was. A customer with a shaved head and a Staffordshire bull terrier in tow was pretending he didn’t understand the accent of the Chinese man behind the till. ‘What?’ and ‘Can you say it in English?’ he kept saying. Tara sighed. At this rate, she’d be here another ten minutes.

  She turned to try and peer out the shop front glass to check on Presley, but couldn’t see a thing. It was so dark out the fluorescent bulbs overhead had turned the window fronting the forecourt into a virtual mirror.

  She focused on the CCTV screen up over the Chinese guy’s head, willing it to flash up an image of her car. For a second, she recognized the stripes on the Mini’s bonnet but it flashed to another car before she’d had a chance to study it properly.

  Shaved head was being asked to stand aside, and was refusing. A man in a suit, standing directly behind him in the queue, pushed his cash in through the sliding hatch in the counter. ‘I’m in a hurry,’ he said.

  Shaved head jerked the dog’s leash. The mutt started to growl.

  Tara pointed her key fob out the window at where she estimated the Mini was, and pressed the button. Presley’s safety was suddenly more important than him getting upset at the alarm going off. When a set of orange indicators blinked back, she exhaled in relief.

  The dog had started to bark. Behind her in the queue someone pushed up against her in a way that made her skin crawl. She buttoned her jacket all the way up before turning around. A spotty teenager with a white hoodie pulled over his head nudged her with his shoulder.

  ‘Bet ya he’s got a blade,’ he said, nodding at the shaved head guy.

  He looked like a junkie – his eyes were glazed and he had a nasal tone, but his accent was too posh to be from around there. There was something weird about the way he was staring at her; it was freaking her out. She stepped as far forwards as was possible to get away from him without bumping into the old man in front of her. A car alarm went off outside, and Tara turned, squinting to see through the glass. Was Presley crying? Frantic at the queue stretching behind her, she aimed the remote through the window again and jabbed. The alarm stopped.

  Shaved head was dragging his dog towards the exit, still grumbling to himself about the Chinese guy’s accent. Hate had made his face tight. His dog was skidding on its paws, every sinew in its body straining to move in the opposite direction. The Chinese guy shouted back through the Perspex protective glass for shaved head to stay where he was until he’d paid, then bent over to reach some button under the counter.

  Tara wrung her hands together, and was giving serious consideration to going back out to the car and bringing Presley in with her, when a Muslim guy in a skullcap burst out of a door behind the counter and asked what the problem was.

  Shaved head was parallel to Tara now. Picking up a can of Red Bull from the open fridge, he threw it hard at the till. It bounced off the Perspex, and landed on the floor, the contents spraying up in a high arch. The youth behind Tara whooped in delight. The other customers looked either worried or pissed off. The old man was oblivious. Either he’d seen it all before, or was half-blind with cataracts. Tara had to get out.

  Shaved head reached for another missile, his arm blocking her exit. Tara ducked under it and bolted as the second can was catapulted to the top of the shop.

  Out in the forecourt, she could see that the can of Red Bull had connected with the head of the man in the suit at the top of the queue, who stumbled, then hit the floor with a crash. The dog jumped free of the leash and leapt straight towards him. Tara covered her mouth and ran to her car.

  Ducking to look at the back seat, she saw Presley still snoozing his head off. Tara felt weak with relief. ‘Sorry, sweetheart,’ she whispered, turning the key in the engine, pressing the clutch with her foot and putting the car in first gear. But a hard rapping on the window made her jump, her foot slipped off the clutch and the car did a bunny hop before cutting out.

  The Muslim guy was pressed up against the window, and was rubbing his thumb against his first two fingers to signal that she needed to pay for her petrol.

  Tara swung the door open, forcing him to step back. ‘I’m only moving it,’ she shouted, pointing to the air-and-water area. But the bloke in the HiAce had just swerved out of the bay he was in so hard his tyres screeched. He stalled and blocked her exit, and by the look of things had broken down. His van belched out black smoke. One or more of the plug points had gone, she reckoned. Her ex – Presley’s dad, Mick – was a mechanic, and some of what he knew had rubbed off. Tonight, after what she’d been through, she wished they were still together.

  The HiAce man was turning the engine over, trying to restart it. It sounded to Tara like he was flooding it, but she wasn’t going to get involved. The engine stopped slipping, and he suddenly took off, leaving a trail of dirty exhaust fumes in his wake.

  Starting up again, she pulled up twenty yards away, parking alongside the door of a toilet with an ‘Out of Order’ sign taped to it. She could hear a siren getting steadily louder as she headed back inside the garage to settle the bill.

  Miraculously, in spite of all the commotion, she made it to the till within less than five minutes of entering. The dog had been called off, shaved head escorted out of the shop, and by the time the paramedics arrived to tend to the suit, the Muslim manager had mopp
ed up the Red Bull and erected yellow ‘Wet Floor’ signs around the offending area. As Tara handed over her credit card, she saw the dog being locked in the toilet and a garda pushing the shaved headed guy towards a waiting squad car.

  Turning away from the till, Tara nearly collided with the Jag lady, whose mouth was pursed in disapproval. Dressed in a pink cashmere cardigan with stern shoulder pads and gold buttons, and wearing a pair of shades, she looked Tara up and down like she was dirt. Much as Tara wanted to ask what the hell her problem was, she wanted to get back to Presley a whole lot more.

  Double-checking her till receipt to make sure she hadn’t been short-changed, she pinched open the pack of white chocolate buttons she’d bought along with a packet of painkillers when she’d paid for the petrol, and hurried back to the car. If Presley woke, these would keep him pacified for the rest of the journey home. They weren’t good for him, she knew, but she couldn’t face any more drama, and anyway she never could resist a chance to spoil him.

  Opening the driver’s door, she leaned towards Presley, smiling and whispering his name. But Snuggly Puppy was on the floor. And Presley was gone.

  Monday

  1

  Detective Inspector Jo Birmingham was trying to adjust the telly on the wall bracket of her brand new office so she could see the screen. The glare of the winter sun was making it impossible to watch the DVD which had arrived in the post that morning. Not that the sounds were leaving much to the imagination. It was clearly a sex tape of some description.

  She stretched to try and swivel the bracket around. If she’d had the man who’d stuck it up that high in the first place here in front of her now she’d have given him an earful. Even at her height – five foot ten – she could barely reach it. And the bracket was at such an inconvenient angle. She’d enough problems with migraines recently to know that focusing on anything at an awkward position would invite them back.

  She was also doing her best not to look through the glass partition that separated her from the rest of the detective unit, where a clock said ten to nine. Jo’s darkening mood had more than a little to do with the fact that her ex-husband and present boss, Chief Superintendent Dan Mason, was just back from a weekend in the sun, and was holding court in the open-plan office, recounting some story or other. He always did have the gift of the gab, she thought sneaking a quick glance. He looked good, his face and hands were tanned, and his hair had grown a bit, too. There were slashes of grey in the sides. The older he got, the more she thought he looked like Jason Statham in the Guy Ritchie films.