She Never Left

A Natalie Amato Short Story

“Ok, let’s circle back to the opening monologue.” Ciaran leaned against the table, tapping a pen against his notebook. The hum of the ceiling vent mingled with a faint bassline bleeding in from the next unit. “You want it smoothed out a bit?”

Natalie reached for her coffee, saw the mug was empty and pushed it to one side. “The story is solid. It’s just about tightening what we already have.

Across the table, Mairead was flicking through her notes stopping on a page thick with edits and arrows. “There’s a line in your monologue where you say, ‘Nothing about the day stands out.’ Is that doing too much?”

“Maybe,” Natalie replied. “What if we switch it to something like, ‘Everything about the day was recorded.’ Keeps it factual and sets us up for the main body.”

Ciaran nodded. “I like that.”

Arjun, seated on a high stool beside the soundboard and sensing a break in the conversation, looked up from his laptop. “You want static on the tape splice again? For the bridge between segments?”

“Yeah,” said Natalie. “Something cold. Maybe let it drag an extra beat.”

Luke, perhaps deciding it was time to offer something, scoffed from behind her. “Dead air. Nothing says gripping audio experience like silence.”

“It’s not silence,” Natalie replied evenly.” It’s pacing.”

“I can drop in a subtle reel-to-reel undertone, if that’s the mood,” said Arjun.

“Perfect,” said Natalie

Luke leaned back in his chair with a grumble. “I’m not feeling this one. Where’s the angle?”

“No angle, Natalie said. “We’re laying out a sequence of ordinary facts and letting the listener sit with the discomfort.”

Luke shrugged. “Depressing.”

“You write for a podcast that specialises in true crime,” Natalie said. “If you want uplifting, I hear the Feel Good Failures people are hiring.”

Luke smirked but said nothing else.

“Okay,” said Ciaran, “Next steps. Natalie, you need to have the cold close recorded by Friday and Arjun, sound polish by Monday.”

Natalie nodded. “Anyone got anything else?” When the murmured replies told her there wasn’t, she glanced at the Breitling on her left wrist. “Break?”

Chairs scraped. Papers shuffled. Natalie stood and stretched, reaching toward the low ceiling and ever-humming vent.

She turned as Patrick, one of the Wheelman Studio guys, opened the door, a brown A4 envelope tucked under his arm. Natalie could see her name had been scribbled across it on black marker. “Delivery for you.”

“From who?” Natalie asked as she took the package. It was heavier than it looked. Solid. Slightly uneven inside.

“Didn’t see.” Patrick was already halfway back out the door. “Came back from a smoke and found it sitting in the tray.”

“Oooh, mail mystery,” Arjun said, stepping beside her. “More inappropriate fan art?”

Natalie turned the envelope over. No other marking aside from her name. She peeled the seal back carefully and opened it. Inside was a cassette recorder. Black plastic. Old and scuffed. A tape was already loaded.

“Retro,” said Mairead, joining her on the other shoulder. At thirty-six, Natalie had a few years on the rest of her podcast crew, but she wasn’t sure how she felt about something widely available in her childhood being described as retro.

“Some kind of press pack?” Ciaran asked, joining the ever-growing huddle.

Natalie turned the recorder over. No branding. Just a worn, matte texture and a cracked corner. The tape inside had a half-peeled label. She held the recorder out to Arjun. “Let’s hear it.”

Arjun took it over to the board, fiddled with a few cables until he found one that connected and pressed play. The machine whirred softly as a low hum of static came over the speakers

A voice. Male.

“...I was there… no one came back... she was already... already gone, I think...”

The voice crackled, dropped to silence, then came again, fainter.

“The flats… outside Ballymena… the old blocks, they knocked them down but... but they never cleaned what’s underneath. That’s where she is.”

A pop of static. Then nothing.

Natalie leaned closer, as if proximity would coax more out of the dead air.

“Staged,” Luke announced.

Natalie turned to him. “What?”

“C’mon. A mystery podcast receives a vintage tape with a vague admission? You’ve got weirdo fans. Someone’s messing with you.”

“Maybe,” Natalie said, more to put a brake on Luke’s contribution to the conversation than an agreement with what he was saying. She turned to Ciaran. “You’re from Ballymena.”

“Don’t hold it against me.”

She smirked. “Old blocks getting knocked down?”

Ciaran thought for a moment. “There was an estate. Proper shithole. Can’t recall the name off the top of my head, got demolished, God, maybe in the early 2000s.”

Natalie nodded, already feeling a pull. Luke might not be excited by an old tape with a vague confession but she and him were different in many ways. This was right up her street. “If it’s a hoax, or staged as my esteem co-writer thinks, it’s a weird one. No branding. No attempt to cash in. No real message.”

Luke tossed up a hand. “It’s a pisstake and you sound as though you’re about to spend the next few weeks chasing down some Reddit loser with a voice mod.”

“I use Reddit,” Ciaran said quietly.

“Arjun,” Natalie said, “Think you can clear the audio up?”

“I can give it a shot, sure,” Arjun replied.”

“Would that make us surplus to requirements while our audio engineer does his thing?” Mariead asked, brow raised expectantly.

Natalie smiled. “Sounds like it, doesn’t it? Yes, everyone else head home. We’ll pick up tomorrow.”

Luke and Mairead didn’t need to be told twice. Ciaran hovered long enough to tell Natalie to, “Shout if you need anything,” and then he too was gone.

Arjun dimmed the fluorescents overhead, leaving the main board lit by the desk lamps and the soft glow of his screens. Natalie sat beside him, elbows resting on her knees.

“This thing looks like it should be in a museum,” Arjun said, plugging the line-out jack into his audio interface.

“It doesn’t look like it’s been touched in years,” Natalie agreed. “You sure you don’t mind staying on when everyone else gets away early?”

“Of course not,” he replied.

Natalie wasn’t surprised at his response. She’d clocked it months ago. The careful questions, the way he laughed half a beat too late at her jokes, the readiness to stay behind with her. A crush. Harmless.

Arjun never crossed the line, never tested the boundaries, never turned the atmosphere sticky with implication. He stayed on the right side of professionalism, as if he understood that whatever he felt belonged to him alone. Natalie found herself hoping, not unkindly, that it would stay that way. That it would burn itself out without confession or awkwardness.

He slid on his headphones and tapped a few keys. “Okay. I’ll run it straight to a wav, then isolate the channels. Try to pull the noise floor back a bit.”

Natalie nodded, absently clicking her pen. Arjun tapped his keyboard and the reels began to turn. Onscreen, the waveform crawled across the timeline.

They sat in silence as the first part played, the same fragment they’d already heard.

“The flats… outside Ballymena… the old blocks, they knocked them down but... but they never cleaned what’s underneath. That’s where she is.”

“I mean under…,” poured over it…Natalie heard a soft knock, like the recorder had been bumped.

“Wait,” Arjun muttered. “There’s something else there.”

He scrubbed back and soloed the channel. A low-frequency murmur resolved faintly into speech. Arjun boosted the volume, looped it.

“Any chance of picking it up?”

“Sure. Give me half an hour and I can get rid of about eighty percent of the ambient junk.”

“Ok,” she said as she noticed him looking at her expectantly. “Starbucks?”

“Tim Hortons. French vanilla latte, please and thank you.”

“On it.” She stood, lifted her jacket and headed for the door.

“Natalie?”

She turned. “Timbits?”

“Oh, naturally, but I was actually going to ask if you think this is real?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said. “But someone wanted me to hear it.”

2.

Two hours later, she was home. Between picking Dillon up from basketball, cooking dinner and cleaning up, she was only now just getting a chance to see what Arjun had come up with.

Lifting her laptop from the kitchen counter, she headed for the back living room. Dillon had claimed the space as his, without ever really declaring it so, gradually spreading himself through it with a quiet entitlement.

He was there when she walked in, on the sofa, controller in hand, eyes fixed on the screen. He didn’t turn but the hunch of his shoulders told the story. Focused. Not wanting to be interrupted.

Fourteen and already slipping away, Natalie thought. Not in any dramatic sense. His grades were good. He had a healthy social group, busy weekends, plans that no longer required her input. Active, expanding, as teenage lives were meant to. Growing. And growing meant separation, slow and mostly painless, but relentless all the same.

“Will I bother you if I sit here to do some work?”

“No.”

He had never been a good liar. She left him to his game and crossed the hallway to the front living room.

Their house was big. Too big, really, for just the two of them. Natalie had bought it when she moved back to Belfast. Back when she’d imagined more noise, more bodies moving through the space, the possibility of something larger that would take shape. Those ideas had fizzled out over the last eight years, leaving some rooms that were a little too quiet.

She sat on the sofa, laptop balanced on her knees and opened the email from Arjun, downloaded the audio attachment and pressed play.

“...I was there… no one came back... she was already... already gone, I think...”

“Who?”

“The flats… outside Ballymena… the old blocks, they knocked them down but... but they never cleaned what’s underneath. That’s where she is.”

“What do you… underneath?”

“I mean under…” poured over it…

There was a short laugh. Disbelieving. Nervous. A silence. “What are you saying…”

“You wouldn’t….if you didn’t already…”

“But who are you taking about….name of….”

The recording stopped. Natalie brought it back to the start and listened again, and then a third time. Arjun had done what he could with the short conversation but almost half was unintelligible, too faint to make out or lost to the shuffling and bumping of the recorder. Judging by the muted audio, Natalie guessed whoever had recorded the conversation had done so in secret, hiding the recorder in a pocket or behind a cushion.

She opened the browser on her laptop, hit the shortcut to the newspaper archive and typed ‘Ballymena housing estate demolition’ in the search bar.

Half a dozen local news reports came up. An article from 2001 immediately stood out.

CARRICKBRAE CLEARED AS FINAL BLOCKS DEMOLISHED

Maura Brotherson| Belfast Sentinel, July 2nd, 2001

The last remaining blocks of the Carrickbrae housing estate were reduced to rubble this morning, marking the end of a fraught decades-long chapter in local social housing history.

Built in the 1960s, Carrickbrae quickly fell into decline. A combination of poor design, chronic underfunding, and a lack of long-term planning led to worsening living conditions throughout the decades and although regeneration plans were floated multiple times, local council cutbacks stalled meaningful progress.

The estate became increasingly isolated, socially and economically, with antisocial behaviour a regular feature.

Residents were gradually rehoused over the past five years, many expressing mixed feelings as they left behind hardship but a strong sense of community. One of the last tenants to leave, Eileen Carver, 61, said: “It wasn’t all bad. We looked out for each other. But you can’t deny it needed to come down.”

The cleared site is earmarked for phased redevelopment, with council officials promising a “community-first” approach.

Natalie opened a second tab on the archive and typed Ballymena disappearance.

The search returned a few missing persons notices from the local Ballymena papers, all now defunct. Mostly runaways and a few minutes quick of digging told her all were quickly resolved.

She added Carrickbrae to the search and hit refresh.

The search returned a number of articles from the same dead newspapers, but this time with a name attached.

Isobel Grange.

Natalie skimmed the top article. Isobel was sixteen when she disappeared in 1994. Last confirmed sighting was outside a corner shop in the Carrickbrae Estate. Aside from a school portrait of the missing girl, no other details were provided.

The other articles were similarly shallow. The same quotes were repeated, the same photo reused. Natalie scanned for police statements and found little other than a mention of a brief area search.

Natalie tapped her pen against her knee. A demolished estate. A girl who vanished. A tape from someone who’d been carrying a secret for decades.

She reached for her phone and typed a quick message to Ciaran.

Digging into the Ballymena reference and we might have something here. Girl named Isobel Grange disappeared in 1994. Last seen in Carrickbrae estate, which is probably the same place you were thinking of earlier. Demolished in 2001, like you said. Going to follow this one tomorrow.

3.

Carrickbrae did appear not on Google Maps.

The GPS led Natalie to a skeletal roundabout surrounded by uneven pavement and chain-link fencing. Beyond the fence was overgrown grass, scattered concrete slabs, and the rusted curve of a swing set with no swings.

She parked her car just and stepped out, pulling her coat tighter against the brisk wind. The grey clouds overhead carried that specific Irish chill that felt like damp had been woven into the air itself.

A faded wooden council sign clung to a post:

REDEVELOPMENT AREA – NO DUMPING

Natalie slipped her hands into her pockets. The grass was high and brittle underfoot, the tarmac cracked and laced with moss. A few patches of exposed foundation showed where buildings had once stood. She could still make out the rectangular imprint of a stairwell on the far side.

Pulling her phone from a pocket, Natalie opened the photo she had found in the Ballymena Past and Present Facebook group the night before. It was a black-and-white aerial shot of Carrickbrae from the early 80’s. Four blocks. A play park. A row of commercial unit. A patch of concrete waste ground, where, according to one post under the image, burned-out cars were treated as landmarks.

She switched to an audio recording app and hit play. Waiting, she let the recording take in the wind threading through grass, the creak of the swing frame, the faint rattle of the chain-link fence.

“Carrickbrae Estate, or what’s left of it. Half a swing set, slabs of concrete choked by weeds, a weather-worn council sign. The housing blocks were demolished in 2001. But erasing buildings is easier than erasing what happened inside them.”

She paused. Let the wind fill the space again and then slowly lowered her phone, thumb hovering over the stop button. Putting the phone away, she approached what, by her reckoning, had once been the back of Block C. A sloped patch of land leading to a drainage ditch. The remains of an old fence had partially collapsed into the ditch.

She crouched, running her fingers lightly over the rusted wire. Something about the place felt heavy. Not in a supernatural sense, just laden with something she couldn’t quite pinpoint. Standing back up she paused to snap a few photos, then turned slowly in a circle, letting the space settle around her.

The voice from the tape whispered, “…they knocked them down but… but they never cleaned what’s underneath…”

She knelt again and gently scraped away at the soil near the concrete edge of the stairwell imprint. Layers of damp mulch, then packed dirt. Nothing unusual. But the words on the tape still gnawed at her. Underneath. Beneath the flats. Beneath the years.

Whoever had made that recording, had thought something had been buried here. Or someone.

She straightened, brushing her hands clean on her jeans. The closest residential area was far enough away that no one had reason to cut through this land. No one watching. No movement. Just the creak of branches and the distant sound of a dog barking. And yet, the place made her uneasy, a creeping dread itched itself over her skin.

Deciding she had seen enough, Natalie was about to head to her when something on the old stairwell caught her eye. Spray paint. She squinted. The letters were nearly gone but were still just about readable.

SHE NEVER LEFT

Natalie blinked. Stepped closer. The paint had aged badly, cracked and washed thin by rain and time.

Her phone buzzed. A message from Ciaran.

Anything interesting?

She stared at the graffiti and typed a reply.

Maybe.

She took one last photo, framing the spray paint beneath the mournful sky, then tucked her phone away and got in her car.

Rain had begun to fall. A low, persistent mist that blurred the windscreen and softened the edges of the road as Natalie guided her car back toward the motorway. Her headlights cut a narrow cone through the greyscale morning. She tapped the steering wheel rhythmically.

SHE NEVER LEFT

She thumbed the button on the steering wheel and waited for the soft ping. “Call Ciaran.”

The car chimed. A few seconds of ringing, then his voice came on, slightly crackled. “Hey, nice cryptic message there.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Well? Don’t keep me in suspense.”

“Just left the site,” Natalie said, keeping her eyes on the road. “Carrickbrae’s a ghost patch. Totally overgrown. Broken concrete, old foundations.”

“You were expecting something else?”

“I dunno.”

“Haunted?” The smile was audible in his voice.

“Not that kind of story.”

“Alright, so what kind is it?”

She took a breath. “I think we focus on erasure. Isobel Grange is not mentioned in any news article past ’94.”

“Perhaps we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves,” said Ciaran. “Could be she turned up and it wasn’t worth writing about.”

“Could be,” Natalie agreed, “We’ll make it job one that we do a bit of research just to make sure we’re not chasing a story that doesn’t exist.” She thought for a beat. “But then who is the tape talking about?”

“Maybe Luke was right, as strange as that sounds. Maybe it’s someone messing with your head.”

“Maybe,” Natalie allowed. “But if it’s fake, it’s weirdly obscure.”

“So,” Ciaran said, “we come at it as... what?”

“I think we dig into why it was so easy to forget her. She was sixteen. Lived in a crumbling estate the council couldn’t wait to knock down. That kind of girl doesn’t make front page news.”

He made a soft, pleased sound. “That’s a strong spine.”

Natalie adjusted her grip on the wheel. “I want to track down someone who lived there. Preferably someone who remembers her. If we can get a first-hand voice, it’ll tie the space to the memory.”

“You want to dish out some tasks?”

“Yeah. You and Mairead see if you can pull tenancy records from the early ‘90s. Look for siblings, neighbours, or failing that, anyone who lived on the estate at that time. Get Luke to do some social media research, see if he can turn anything up about Isobel and ask Arjun to go through the whole tape, just to make sure there’s more conversation we haven’t missed.”

“Got it. You heading this way?”

“No, she said, arriving at the decision as she spoke. “I’m going to make a stop at the local library. See what they have.”

“Okie dokie. Call me if you find anything spooky or scandalous.”

The call disconnected with a soft chime, and the car filled with the sound of tires on wet tarmac and the faint hiss of rain.

The local history room at Ballymena Central Library was warm and still, the overhead fluorescents flickering gently above rows of steel shelves.

Natalie signed the register at the desk and offered a polite smile to the librarian, an older man in a soft green jumper who barely looked up from his crossword.

“Estate records?”

He nodded toward the microfiche cabinet.

The Carrickbrae files were in the third drawer. She pulled it open, flipped through, until coming to the set marked, Carrickbrae – Initial Clearance Survey into the reader.

It took a minute to focus the lens and adjust the backlight. The screen blinked, then filled with the grainy black-and-white text. Surveyor notes. Graffiti removal costs. Rodent complaints. Resident relocation estimates.

Next was a list of tenant move-out dates, scrawled in hasty pen stokes inside typed columns.

Most entries were from 1999 and onward. At the very bottom of the final page was a note.

Block C, Flat 2B vacant since 1994. See council report ref: GRANGE / 94-4.

Natalie leaned forward. Grange.

She clicked ahead but there was nothing else of note on the document. Cycling back, she allowed herself a quick glance up at the librarian, still engrossed in his crossword, and snapped a photo of the screen with her phone.

Tucking her phone away, she stood and walked over to the oversized local map drawer. It took her a minute to find what she was looking for, a municipal plan from 1992. Printed in thick ink on yellowing paper. She laid it flat across the reading table and traced her finger along the labelled blocks and stopped at Block C. The same foundations she’d stood beside earlier. 2B was marked in the corner of the ground floor. A stairwell adjacent. An alley behind.

She returned to the librarian at the front desk. “Do you have school records?”

The librarian raised a brow. “Only yearbooks.” He gestured to a narrow filing cabinet along the wall. “Try the red binders. Secondary schools first.”

It took fifteen minutes of flipping through the local school yearbooks, before she found her.

Isobel.

Second row, right-hand side. Uniform collar slightly askew. Wide-set eyes, light hair tied back tight. Not quite smiling.

Natalie took a picture of the girl on her phone and carefully replaced the binder. She thanked the librarian who didn’t look up.

The sky had cleared to a cold, pale blue. A crow wheeled overhead, shrieking like the day was theirs alone as Natalie hurried to her car. She had just climbed in when her phone buzzed. Ciaran.

“Mairead came through with a name. Bernard Flood. Lived in Carrickbrae from the seventies up until demolition. I found an address linked to him in Antrim, which I’ll send to you now.”

“That’s some quick work.”

“A post on the Facebook group,” replied Ciaran. “Someone said that Bernard was the man to ask. He was like a handyman for estate. An old phonebook gave up the address.”

The address was about ten minutes up the motorway. The bungalow’s garden was meticulous. Low walls, clipped box hedge, no weeds. A weather-beaten wooden bench sat beneath the bay window.

Natalie walked up the short path and knocked a three-beat tap. breeze tugged at her coat. A few leaves skittered along the path behind her.

The door opened. The man who peered out had a wide, lined face, white hair swept back. He looked wary, but not unfriendly.

“Mr Flood?”

“Aye?”

“My name is Natalie Amato. I’m potentially doing a story on the old Carrickbrae estate. I believe you lived there?”

Flood’s eyes narrowed. “I did.”

“I was hoping to ask a few questions. About the place, the people.”

He hesitated. “Are you press?”

“Depends on your definition. I host a podcast called Miss Gumshoe. We look into true crime stories, mysteries, urban legends.”

Flood opened the door a little wider. “Come in. Don’t like to stand in the cold.”

Natalie stepped inside. The hallway was warm and smelled of tobacco and lemon polish. The old man led her to a small sitting room lined with books and framed black-and-white photos. He waved her toward a high-backed armchair and lowered himself slowly into the opposite one.

“You recording this?” he asked.

“Yes.” She reached into her coat and produced the recorder she had switched on in the car.

Flood looked down at it, and then up at her. For a second she thought he was going to object but then said, “Alright.”

“Carrickbrae. Tell me about it.”

“Which part?”

“Well, was it as rough as they say?”

Flood gave a noncommittal shrug. “Parts of it. Drugs. Thievery. Kids going wild. But people had lives there. Raised families.”

She flipped open her notebook. “Do you remember a girl named Isobel Grange?”

“Block C. Ground floor. Went missing in ’94.” He shifted. “That’s why you’re here.”

No point denying it. “Can you tell me anything about her?”

“Quiet. Smart. Kept her head down. Bad home life. Dad was in and out of prison, mostly in. Isobel lived with her mum. Elaine, I think her name was. She died in ‘95 or so. Drugs.”

Natalie nodded, writing quickly, letting Flood fill the silence.

“Police didn’t do much. About Isobel, I mean. Said she ran.”

“Did you believe that?”

“I didn’t think she was coming back.”

Natalie let that hang in the air a moment. “Did anything strange happen in the days around her disappearance? Anything you remember?”

“Not really.”

“Say for argument’s sake, something happened to her. Was there anyone on the estate you felt should have been looked at?”

Bernard folded his hands. “There was a lad. Maybe nineteen. Hung around that alley behind the block. Tall. Always wore gloves, even in summer. Stopped coming around after she went missing.”

“Boyfriend?”

“No. Seemed a bit of a simple sort, but he had an interest in the girl. I think she gave him the time of day and he latched onto that, you know?”

“You ever catch his name?”

“Keith Derry.” He looked away, toward the window.

Natalie noted it down. “You think he had something to do with Isobel going missing?”

“I don’t know. You asked me who should be looked at, I told you.”

She closed her notebook for a second. “Mr. Flood, someone sent me a tape. A voice talking about Carrickbrae. About a girl. About something being left underneath. You ever hear anything like that before?”

“No never. Look, the buildings were rough, but the people weren’t. The decent people anyway. Things happened, and when they did, no one came running to help.” He stood suddenly. “That’s enough for today, Miss Amato.”

Natalie, surprised by the sudden shift, thanked Flood for his time and let him lead her to the front door. It shut behind her without another word spoken.

4.

Loneliness settled into the room like an uninvited guest. The house felt too big tonight, its quiet corners amplifying the absence of Dillon. He was staying over at a friend’s house and for the first time in a while, it was just her.

She took a sip of the Malbec, let it linger before swallowing. Her eyes wandered across the room, catching sight of Dillon’s abandoned shoes by the door. The weight of the evening hung over her, stretching out in all directions. She could feel it, the quiet tension of a night without anyone to fill the space.

Loneliness had always been something distant to Natalie. But tonight, it was something raw and palpable that slipped beneath her ribs and tugged at her chest. In the years since she’d returned to Belfast, she’d never really given it space to settle. There had always been something to occupy her time, something to focus on. Dillon, of course, had been a constant. The years of raising him from a child to a teenager, one hand steadying him, the other navigating the challenges of being a widowed mother.

Work had always been her solace. The Sentinel had provided her with a steady rhythm when she had returned to the city. The podcast had blossomed into something she could never have envisioned but was now a cornerstone of her life. There were always people to meet, stories to chase, episodes to produce.

And through it all, Dillon was growing up, becoming more independent, which in itself was a strange feeling of transition. A small ache that reminded her, ‘He doesn’t need you as much anymore.’

The idea of a lover was ever more a fleeting thought. There had been a few casual dates, a couple of near-misses, but each one had drifted away. Dedication to her work created distance, as did her single mother status, or the weight of the widow label, of the shadow of a life that had never been.

She wasn’t sure if the realisation was only just hitting her about how much of her life had been about filling the space with tasks, with people, with things to do. She’d always been so busy, so occupied by the demands of life and work, that she’d never given herself the time to sit with the emptiness.

The sudden pang of whatever it was that she was feeling was sharp and glaringly present. Natalie took another sip of wine, let the warmth of the alcohol spread through her chest, soothing her in a way only fleeting comforts could.

The buzz of her phone was a timely rescue.

“I have a Keith Derry with an address on the Antrim Road,” Mairead said once Natalie had answered. “Looking at google maps, I think it’s one of those hostels they release sex offenders to.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Found a BBC article about it. A voyeurism conviction from two years ago. Pleaded down, but the judge made a point of noting a sizable criminal history, including a sexual assault.”

“A charmer then,” said Natalie.

“Certainly sounds like it,” agreed Mairead.

The stillness of her house pressed in. “Give me the address.”

The hostel had once been a grand townhouse. Now its paint peeled in long curls. The buzzer looked as though it hadn’t worked in years, but the communal door was unlocked.

Uncollected mail in the pigeon holes told her Keith Derry lived in flat five. Natalie took a flight of stairs and stopped at the first door, one hand tightening around the recorder in her coat pocket, thumb pressing record before knocking twice.

She waited and wondered if she should have come alone. She knew the answer already, had known it since she made the decision in her kitchen and was all too aware this was a foolish endeavour at best, utterly irresponsible at worst. But she had needed to do something, anything, to escape the malaise in her house. Mairead had probably assumed Natalie would follow-up the address later, and with company, not drive straight there.

The door creaked open.

The man was thinner than she’d expected, in a threadbare jumper and slippers. His eyes were pale and restless, his hair thin and combed straight back. There was something hunched about him, as though his shoulders hadn’t relaxed in years.

“Keith Derry?”

He didn’t answer, just looked at her warily.

“I’m not police. My name is Natalie Amato. I work on a podcast about unsolved disappearances.”

That got a reaction. A flicker of panic.

“I’m looking into Carrickbrae. 1994. A girl named Isobel Grange went missing—”

He stepped back to close the door.

She raised her voice, not loud, just urgent. “I know you used to hang around her block. I know you stopped coming around after she vanished.”

“I didn’t touch her.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

“She was kind. She used to give me her tea bags. Brought ‘em out in her coat pocket. Her ma didn’t know.”

Natalie’s voice softened. “Why did you stop coming around after she disappeared?”

“Because the man who took her… he saw me watching.”

“You saw who took her?” she asked quietly.

“He didn’t grab her. She went with him.”

“Voluntarily?”

“Not like that. Like a rabbit goes still before it’s caught.”

Natalie’s mouth felt dry. “You told the police?”

He laughed, brittle and sharp. “They already had their version. Said she ran off. They didn’t want the trouble. Just another girl off the estate.”

“Do you know the man? His name?”

“No. He was some sort of social worker.”

A social worker, Natalie thought. Someone with access. Someone who had reason be around a vulnerable girl.

“I wasn’t the only one who saw him,” Derry said quietly. “The caretaker saw more.”

Natalie’s looked up sharply. “The caretaker? You mean Bernard Flood.”

Derry, perhaps realising he has said too much, was already backing into the dark flat. “No more.”

“Keith -”

His hand shot out suddenly and closed around her forearm.

Natalie’s body stiffened. Fear seized her and she fought against the slight tremble in her knee.

“Keith,” she tried her voice even. “Let go of my arm.”

His fingers dug in harder. For a moment he didn’t seem to hear.

“I said let go.” She yanked her arm back, using the momentum to step out of his reach. Derry stumbled forward half a step, blinking like he wasn’t sure how the space between them had widened so quickly. He stared at her for a long, terrible moment. Then, as if realizing what he’d done backed into the doorway, eyes dull with fear or shame, Natalie wasn’t sure.

The door slammed. A second later, the bolt clicked shut.

Natalie stood there for a few moments longer, the chill creeping up her arm before backing away. Once she made it safely outside, she took out her recorder and stopped it with a shaking finger.

Her phone buzzed as Natalie climbed into the car.

“Hey,” Mairead said.

“Hey,” Natalie replied, puffing a steadying breath. “What’s up?”

“Just letting you know Arjun had a closer look at the tape.”

“The actual physical tape,” Arjun cut in on the other end of the line. “There’s a partial label.”

“What, you’re both still at the studio?” Natalie checked her watch. “You guys know there’s no OT, right?”

“You have a pen handy?” Mairead asked, ignoring her.

Natalie said to give her two seconds while she retrieved a pen from her coat pocket. “Go ahead.”

“YMS–ENG94, and then beneath that, B’mena CBR.STEP.”

Natalie took the details down carefully. “YMS. Youth Management Service?”

“Maybe,” said Mairead. “But where are you getting that from?”

“A hunch,” said Natalie. “And ‘ENG94’?”

“We’re not sure on that,” said Arjun. “I think the lower half is more obvious.”

“1994, is the year the tape was issued,” said Natalie. “B’mena is obviously Ballymena. And CBR…Carrickbrae?”

“That’s what we’re thinking,” said Mairead.

“No name on the tape?”

“Nope,” said Arjun. “Just that partial code.”

She tapped her pen against the notebook. “If this came from a youth service, it would have gone through the council”

“If the ‘Y’ stands for youth,” said Arjun.

“That’s a point,” Natalie admitted, but it might give us somewhere to start. Someone had to have used that tape.”

“And if that someone was working Carrickbrae in ‘94…” said Mairead

“Then they might be on record,” Natalie finished. “That’s good work, guys. “I’ll head back down to Ballymena tomorrow morning. See if there’s anything in the council records about the youth services or programmes involved in Carrickbrae. Maybe a name tied to a report.”

5.

The Youth Services Department at Ballymena Town Hall looked like it hadn’t changed since the late ‘80s. The walls were a dull cream, the floor a lino of the most awful shade of brown. Faded posters about safe spaces and after-school clubs peeled at their corners.

The receptionist looked up at the sound of Natalie’s approach. She exuded the guarded helpfulness of someone used to being asked for things they couldn’t give.

“Hi,” said Natalie offering her best disarming smile. “I’m trying to track down some documentation on community engagement initiatives from the early ’90s. I was hoping you would retain the paper archive.”

The woman raised an eyebrow. “Early ’90s?”

“I know,” Natalie said, leaning slightly forward, voice warm and conspiratorial. “I work on a documentary series, Miss Gumshoe. We’re doing a piece about an old housing estate. Carrickbrae?”

“Never heard a good story come out of it.”

“I’m not here to sensationalize it. just looking for some info on how the local kids were supported there, or not. I think I have the names of a couple of programmes. YMS and STEP?”

“YMS would be the Youth Mentoring Service.”

Natlie felt the flutter of satisfaction at how close her guess had been. “And STEP?”

“Strategic Tenancy Engagement Programme. Long defunct.”

“Do you have any of the original staff records or visit reports?”

“Well, those are internal documents, not public record. Unless you’re doing this through a formal inquiry…”

Natalie hesitated for exactly the right amount of time, then said softly, as if pulling the woman into a shared secret. “I don’t need confidential notes. Just names. Job roles. Who worked where.”

The woman tapped her pen against the desk, clearly drawn in. She thought for a few seconds and then said, “Archive is in the basement. Our department is in the far-left corner The boxes are marked by year. If anyone asks, you’re looking for community engagement templates.”

Ten minutes later, Natalie sat in a low-ceilinged room with fluorescent tubes buzzing overhead. She flipped through laminated dividers, scanning page after page of neatly typed weekly reports.

She found Carrickbrae listed under CRK-B and pulled the first of a pile of grey folders. The front pages were routine schedule templates, blank expense logs and training checklists. Natalie flicked on and found nothing of note.

Setting the first folder to one side, she returned her attention to the box. The next folder was unlabelled but a faded sticker read:

YMS - STEP FILES (Inactive - CBR/OUTREACH)

Inside were a dozen slimmer folders. Case notes, school logs, incident memos. She went through the pages quickly and stopped on an entry dated Thursday, 28th April 1994.

Concerns re: female child in Block C. Quiet, unresponsive. Located at play park under influence of alcohol by D. Nolan. Attempted engagement unsuccessful. Escorted back to home address, Flat 2B.

Natalie’s pulse jumped.

Flat 2B. Isobel.

No name. Just scrawled initials: J.H.

She read on.

Returned with D.N on Monday. Door answered. Girl present, appeared wary. No obvious concerns, but tone of interaction subdued.

Engagement log. Recorder used. Session archived as CBR-INT B

CBR-INT B. The same label fragment Arjun had noted on the cassette.

She turned the page over.

Filed by: James Hewitt, YMS Liaison

Witnessed by: D. Nolan, Engagement Lead

Natalie took a photo of the page and pushed on. The next section was the STEP staff rotation log for Carrickbrae.

Each week listed names were assigned to each block for check-ins or informal drop-ins. Her finger traced the columns for Block C. The same name appeared almost every week.

D. Nolan. They were on rotation at Block C the week before Isobel Grange disappeared. And the week of. And the week after.

She flipped pages quickly. In November ‘94, the name vanished.

Coverage reassigned

Natalie cursed and kept going. A few pages later, she found a Youth Intervention Debrief Form for the year 1994. The document was signed but illegible. She could just about work out the scratchy writing to reveal a summary of youth engagement challenges at Carrickbrae. It was a short paragraph that caught her attention.

Senior Lead Nolan placed on gardening leave and reassigned. Concerns raised informally regarding rapport boundaries. Addressed internally.

Natalie’s pulse ticked up another notch. She returned to the cabinet and began her hunt through the earlier years of boxes.

She found what she was looking for in an internal YMS newsletter from 1991. A full page dedicated to the new STEP programme rolled-out in the Carrickbrae estate. Beneath the spread was a black and white photo of a young man, younger than Natalie had been picturing. Tall, thin-faced, with wire-rimmed glasses and a neat crew cut.

Lead Mentor, Declan Nolan, the caption below read.

Natalie took a photo of the page and zoomed in.

It wasn’t much. But it gave the man shape.

She rang Ciaran and told the team to meet her at the Wheelman in an hour.

*

Natalie stood and moved to the board, gesturing to the first name, Bernard Flood. “Flood is the entry point. Retired caretaker from Carrickbrae. He remembered Isobel. Confirmed she lived in 2B. Said she was quiet, withdrawn, polite. Turbulent home life. He also described a young man who used to loiter near Isobel’s block. This leads us to Keith Derry, Natalie said, circling the name in the middle column. A man with a record for voyeurism and sexual assault. I confronted him at his flat last night.”

“You fucking what?” said Ciaran.

Natalie held up a shooshing hand, “Derry admitted he knew Isobel. Claimed he saw her leave with a man the night she vanished.”

“Didn’t try to stop it,” Mairead said.

“No,” Natalie replied. “Said Isobel went like a rabbit before it’s caught.’ That’s our tone-setter. That’s who Isobel was in that moment.”

She moved to the final two names “Declan Nolan comes up in old STEP program records. He was working in Carrickbrae in 1994. His name appears on multiple logs, most notably several sessions with an unnamed girl who is clearly Isobel. In November 1994, Nolan was removed from the programme due to some unspecified impropriety.”

“Six months after Isobel disappeared?” asked Arjun.

Natalie nodded her confirmation before continuing. “Nolan was accompanied by a second man, James Hewitt. It was Hewitt who recorded and catalogued the meetings.”

Luke tapped his pen on a notebook. “And we believe Hewitt was the one who sent the tape?”

“I’d say it’s likely.”

“Why?” Arjun asked

“That’s the question I intend to pose,” said Natalie.

“We haven’t found anything to track down Nolan yet,” said Ciaran, “but obviously we haven’t had much time. But I believe we have a strong match for Hewitt living down in Portrush. Is he your next stop?”

Natalie rested her hands on her hips, taking the board in. “Not yet. We don’t have a full picture yet. I’d like to know more about Nolan.”

“Makes sense,” said Ciaran.

“There’s also something else bothering me. Flood points me to Derry, Derry points me to Flood.”

“One telling the truth,”said Mairead. “One trying to drop the other in it.”

“I think so.”

“Well,” said Ciaran. “Who did you believe?”

6.

Bernard Flood didn’t seem surprised to find Natalie back on his doorstep. “You again.”

“Me again. May I come in?”

He hesitated. “I’m just about to make my dinner.”

“I won’t stay long,” Natalie said, stepping forward, making Flood’s decision for him.

They sat in the same chairs as before. The little clock on the mantle marked the minutes like slow metronome ticks.

“I’ve been digging through old council records,” Natalie said. “There was an outreach programme. STEP. There’s a couple of names that appear, and I was wondering if you might remember them.”

“I’d doubt it.”

“Well, let’s see. The first was James Hewitt.”

She watched for any tell from the old man but the moment he took to consider the name and then shake his head seemed genuine enough.

“How about Declan Nolan?”

That got a flicker. “Nolan? No, I don’t think so.”

She leaned forward. “You know who I’m talking about.”

Bernard shook his head. “No.”

Natalie let the silence hang and then said, “He escorted Isobel Grange home a week before she disappeared. He logged the visit.”

“A week before she even went missing?” Flood’s tone was dismissive.

“He was also reassigned a couple of months after Isobel disappeared for some sort of impropriety.”

“And they named the girl?”

“No, but I think we both see how this story goes. A man in a position of power. A vulnerable girl. Tale as old as time.”

“If you say so.”

“You saw him take her.”

Flood looked up sharply.

“Keith Derry told me.”

“I-” Flood’s mouth moved around words that weren’t forming.

“Why did you give me his name?”

“What?” Flood snapped himself back. “You-you asked me.”

“That’s right and you gave me the name of the local weirdo. Were you intending to send me off on some wild chase.”

“I-”

“- But you didn’t know he saw you.”

“I didn’t kill her!”

Kill.

The word hit like a slap. Natalie felt her throat tighten. “I never said anything about killing.”

Flood could not meet her eye.

“Bernard,” Natalie said his name softly. “Tell me what happened.”

At first her words didn’t seem to register and then, “I’m old, Miss Amato. So long ago.”

“Not long enough that this can be forgotten.”

His jaw tightened. “Sometimes forgetting is the only way to sleep.”

Natalie said nothing. She thought back to her first meeting with Flood. What were the odds out of everyone he had named Keith Derry, the person who happened to see Flood and Isobel? Was it his bad luck or did he know? Did he want to get caught?

She leaned in closer. “Bernard. Look at me.” She waited until wet eyes met hers. “When I was down in Carrickbrae, I saw a bit of old graffiti. She never left.”

“Jesus.”

“Was it you? Was it your way or letting someone know?”

“Christ, I forgot all about that. Last night on the estate. I was the last one out. Block C had already been knocked down. I walked over and sprayed it on one of the walls. Not sure what I was expecting to happen. I can’t believe it’s still there.”

“Tell me what happened. You know you want this off your chest.”

“I can’t.”

“Bernard.”

“Not now. I can’t face it. Give…give me a day.”

“A day?

“I need to get myself right. Then I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything.”

Natalie fought to urge to press. He was on the edge but he needed to take the leap himself. She stood slowly, took a business card from her coat pocket and set it on the table. “I’ll give you a day, no more.”

Flood didn’t see her out and Natalie wondered if this was a miscalculation. If Flood got in contact with a solicitor he’d clam up and the solicitor would probably dare her to go to the police with the what she had.

It was too late to turn back now. She had made her play, now she needed to see how it finished.

7.

The call came at eight that night. Unknown number.

Natalie picked her phone up, thumb hesitating over the answer button before pressing it.

“Natalie Amato.”

“It’s Bernard Flood.”

“Okay.”

“This is something I’ve been carrying a long time. I want to tell you. All of it. In the place it happened.”

She frowned. “Carrickbrae?”

“Meet me at the wall.”

Natalie hesitated. Glanced toward the living room where Dillon was playing some sort of cowboy game. “What changed?”

“I’m tired of being quiet.”

Natalie glanced at her watch. “Give me an hour.”

She made it in a little over thirty minutes. Parked where she had before. Her headlights caught tufts of brown grass and the crumbling outline of a low wall. Beyond was broken concrete and dark silence.

Flood was already there. He stood by remaining few bricks of what had been Block C. Natalie checked her recorder was ready and placed it in her pocket before getting out.

“I’ve been walking round the edges of it since it happened,” he said as she approached. He put a hand to the wall. To the faded paint bearing the forgotten clue. “This used to be the back stairwell of C block . Flat 1D. Empty for the last few years. Junkies sometimes. Rats.”

He gestured toward the ground near the wall. “We hid her under the floorboards first. When they began to tear the building down, I came back. With him. We dug a pit right here. Right under the stairwell slab.”

“You helped-”

“-I didn’t kill her. But I saw what he did. Saw him walking her away, half out of it from whatever he’d given her. And I didn’t stop him. When I found them, he said she died suddenly. That it wasn’t supposed to happen. That if people found out…” His voice cracked. “I said nothing. I helped cover it. Like it would keep the estate from burning down.”

“I’m going to tell her story,” Natalie said quietly. “I’m going to tell the world what happened. You understand that, don’t you?”

Flood stepped back from the wall. “I needed for someone to hear me, that’s all. I won’t stop you.”

Then, without another word, he walked away. Quiet. Slow. Swallowed by the dark.

Natalie stayed where she was, beside the cracked foundation slab of Block C. Carrickbrae was sinking back into itself, shadows thickening in the tall grass, the wind picking up that damp, iron-tinged scent of old soil. Natalie shifted her weight, thinking it was time to go.

The hand clamped over her mouth.

Before she could shout, a second hand locked across her chest and yanked her back into the shadows. Her breath caught. The sheer sudden fear made her legs weak.

“Easy,” a voice growled low in her ear. “Let’s not make this worse.”

She kicked backward, felt her heel clip something, maybe a shin, but the grip only tightened. The man spun her, roughly pushing her back against the brick remnant of what used to be the stairwell wall. One hand still over her mouth, the other reaching into her coat.

The thin face had filled out, the glasses were gone and the hair had thinned, but Declan Nolan was still recognisable from the staff photo she had found in the youth department archives.

“Recorder?” he muttered. “Snoop like you must have one.” He began to feel for a pocket while keeping his attention on her. “Flood said he was bringing you here. Said he wanted to clear his conscience. Didn’t care he was going to fucking bury me with it. You should’ve left her where she was.”

Natalie twisted, dropped her weight, and bit hard into the flesh of his palm.

Nolan shouted in pain and his grip faltered just enough.

She broke free, stumbled forward, ducking under an outstretched arm. Made it two steps before he caught her arm, tried to drag her back.

Natalie swung wildly. Her wrist caught Nolan just below the eye, the solid face of her stainless-steel Breitling smashed into his cheekbone with a sharp, wet crack.

Nolan reeled back.

Natalie ran, heart hammering so hard it blurred her vision. She could hear him behind her, an animal sound of fury, boots tearing up the same ground. Gaining.

Fingers clamped around her collar. A vice that snapped her momentum dead. Natalie screamed. Her voice tore through the cold air, echoing across the flattened estate, as she swung at Nolan again.

She missed, hitting air and suddenly she was weightless, hurtling through a dark void.

The breath left her lungs as she hit the stairwell wall with a jarring thud. White lighting flashed across her vision as the back of head struck crumbling concrete.

Her knees buckled.

The last thing she saw was the sky spinning sideways and then darkness.

A dull ringing in her ears.

Pain blooming at the base of her skull.

Weight.

Nolan was on her.

She didn’t move.

Didn’t blink.

She kept her body as limp as a marionette with its strings cut.

Nolan was breathing heavily. “She wouldn’t stop crying. That was the problem. People always think it’s the taking that’s hard. But it’s the after. The noise.”

Natalie let an eye crack open a fraction. Nolan held a hand to his cheek where her watch had left a raw, bloody welt.

“She wasn’t supposed to matter,” he whispered, as he ran a hand slowly up the leg of Natalie’s jeans, stopping as he reached the pocket and feeling inside.

Her fingers moved slowly over the cold dirt. Her hand brushed something rough. Broken concrete? No. A rock.

She curled her fingers around it.

Nolan had stopped searching her pocket. A rough hand squeezed her chin. Natalie let her head roll limply to the side.

“Stupid bitch.” Nolan’s hands moved to her coat. Rifling through the outer pockets. His breath was shallow now. Panicking. He grabbed her shoulder, began to flip her over.

Natalie’s eyes snapped open. She surged up with the rock gripped tight in her right hand.

She struck with everything she had.

The rock took Nolan square across the temple.

He jerked back with a strangled sound, falling sideways into the dirt.

Natalie jumped to unsteady feet as Nolan groaned, one hand to his head, the other trying to push himself up.

She kicked him hard in the balls. He flopped to the grass and began to retch as she ran for her car.

8.

The building was quiet. Mid-afternoon sunlight slanted through the narrow windows of the senior housing block in Portrush. Pale walls. Carpeted halls. That faint, institutional scent of antibacterial spray.

Natalie stood outside the door and knocked. She waited, then knocked again, softer this time.

Footsteps shuffled inside. A lock clicked once. Then another. The door opened a few inches.

The man on the other side looked like he’d been shrinking for years. Gray hair, liver spots along the crown of his head, eyes sharp behind thick glasses. A cardigan zipped high.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Hewitt?” Natalie asked. “Jim?”

He didn’t answer, but she saw the recognition flicker across his face.

“I think you sent me something.”

His mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. “I didn’t put my name on anything,” he said. “That was the point.”

“May I come in?”

Another pause. Then, slowly, he opened the door. Jim showed her to a worn sofa.

“I recognise your voice,” Natalie said as she sat. “Where was the recording taken?”

“A retirement do. At the youth department office. Nolan was drunk, tried to get the truth out of him.”

“You knew what he had done?”

“Not for certain. I knew he was too careful. And I knew the girl didn’t smile when he was around.”

Natalie let the silence hang.

“I found some of my old tapes when I was moving flats last year. I had almost forgotten the conversation, then I played it, and I heard it all again. He never named her. Never said what happened. But it’s there. In the way he talks. In what he doesn’t say.”

“You didn’t go to the police?”

Hewitt sighed. “There’s not enough there. You know that.”

“But you thought there was for me?”

“I listen to your show. I know how much you care.”

“Not enough to actually reach out. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a hell of a hook but if it’s a choice between podcast numbers and a dead girl getting justice, I’ll go with the dead girl.”

“And will she get justice?”

“Police picked Nolan up three days ago. He was bailed pending further enquiries but they have a witness who helped Nolan move Isobel’s body. Who’ll testify to what he saw. They’ve started excavating a site at Carrickbrae this morning They’ll find Isobel. Yes, she’ll get her justice.

Hewitt nodded. “I had faith you’d figure it out.”

Natalie leaned back into the sofa. “So, this was what, penance?”

He gave a tight, joyless smile. “This was me doing what I should’ve done when it mattered.”

“Better late than never.” Natalie watched the shame wash over the old man’s face. She stood wearily, still bruised from Nolan’s attack. “I’m not here to punish you. But I am going to tell Isobel’s story. And your silence is part of it.”

“I know.”

She reached the door, then turned back.

“You did something by sending me that tape,” she said. “Now you get to see what happens when it’s heard.”

It was forty minutes later when she pulled up to Carrickbrae for the final time. Police had marked a cordon with blue and white scene tape but aside from her, there was no one to keep back. No gawker, no press. It was somehow fitting for the forgotten girl.

A digger sat idling close to a white forensic tent. This part was being done by hand. Thirty years reduced to inches of earth.

Natalie stepped back from the cordon and reached into her coat pocket. She took out her recorder.

Wind in the mic. The low mechanical hum of equipment. A distant voice issuing instructions.

“Carrickbrae Estate. Block C. Isobel Grange was sixteen. She was failed. She was forgotten. Today, the ground is being open. Today, she is being found.”