Only when she was out front, by the car, did she let a howl escape her lips, frightening the baby, who joined in her screams.
A flock of birds startled in the trees rose as one and swept across the sky in a black line of doom.
2
It was a mistake. A huge bloody mistake. Lottie spooned granola soaked in goat’s milk – Katie’s latest fad – down her throat. It stuck there, a big gluey lump.
Mark Boyd sat across from her, the wide wooden table between them. His cheeks were beginning to fill out, but his illness still shadowed him. The thing that concerned her most was the shroud of melancholy that hung like chain mail on his bony shoulders. The death of his mother hadn’t helped, and he was worried about his sister, Grace, living alone in the west of Ireland, almost two hours’ drive from Ragmullin. Lottie doubted Grace was worried about Boyd and knew for a fact the young woman was doing just fine.
No, it was the ever-present spectre of cancer that veiled his good humour. The fear that it might return, the damage it might do if it did. All that gave him a haunted look and tormented him even during his sleep. She’d felt his twists and turns and shouts in the dark when he stayed over, which was quite often now, and she didn’t mind that.
Pushing the half-eaten bowl away, she recognised that what she was feeling had nothing to do with Boyd’s illness – she had plenty of experience coping with sickness. It wasn’t even their disastrous wedding, scuppered by their last case. No. It ran deeper than that. It was this cold, creepy house consumed with the horrors of her past. And she didn’t know how to tell him that the move to Farranstown House had been one big messy mistake.
Boxes and bags littered every available space, and Lottie wanted to run out the door, across the field and down the hill, to stand on the shore of Lough Cullion and scream her heart out. Why had she moved out here? Leo Belfield, her half-brother in New York, was still wheeling and dealing their affairs, changing his mind and plans as quickly as the Irish weather. She had agreed to move as caretaker into Farranstown House until he decided how he wanted to proceed. He was taking his bloody time. Nothing ever went to plan where Lottie was concerned.
The turmoil crashing around her brain manifested itself physically and her hands shook. Boyd noticed.
‘Penny for them,’ he said.
‘Feck’s sake, Boyd, you sound like my mother.’
She picked up the breakfast dishes and, turning her back to him, brought them to the cracked ceramic sink.
‘You should invite Rose over for dinner,’ he said. ‘She’d love to see the progress we’ve made on the house.’
Whirling around on the ball of her bare foot, Lottie let fly.
‘Progress? Jesus, Boyd, look around you. It’s a bloody mess. Everything is everywhere. I can’t think straight, can’t even walk from here to the front door without falling over bags of unpacked clothes, and ladders and paint tins and—’
‘You should have hired professionals.’
‘With what?’
‘Look, Lottie, I didn’t mean to upset you.’
He rolled down the sleeves of his white shirt and began fastening the cuffs at the wrist, until he realised one button was hanging by a single thread and the other had disappeared altogether.
A feeling of hopelessness engulfed Lottie. She turned away and wiped down the counter beside the sink with a tea towel, her nails breaking through the thin fabric and scratching against the wood. Crumbs fell to the floor and she heard him fetch the sweeping brush.
‘Leave it,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘I’ll do it later.’
‘Lighten up.’ He came up behind her and kissed her cheek. It had the desired effect. She relaxed into his body and welcomed his arms around her.
‘That’s gross.’ Sean waltzed into the kitchen. ‘Are you not going to work today?’
‘Are you not going to school?’ Lottie said.
‘Mam! It’s the Easter holidays. What planet are you on?’
‘Really?’ Lottie stared at her six-foot-plus son buttering bread and mooching through the refrigerator. Her heart leapt in her ribcage as he closed the door and turned.
‘What?’ Sean said.
‘Nothing.’ In that split second of movement, her son had transformed into Adam, her dead husband. It was like a spear had split open the core of her heart. Adam hadn’t seen his son grow up. Or his two daughters and little grandson.
Sean slapped three slices of cheese onto the bread and took a bite. With his mouth full, he said, ‘I’m painting my room today. Want to help out, Mark?’
‘Sure,’ Boyd said, ‘but it will have to be this evening. Your mother and I have to work. No Easter holidays for us.’
‘Okay, I’ll just spend a few hours on my game and we can paint when you get home.’
‘You might be on holidays,’ Lottie said, ‘but you have to study.’
Sean rolled his eyes and sauntered out, letting the door swing shut behind him.
She quickly gathered her thoughts. ‘Thanks for saying you’d help him with the painting. He really likes you.’
A commotion sounded outside the kitchen door before Katie burst in. ‘I swear to God, I’m going to kill Sean Parker one of these days.’
‘What’s he done now?’ Lottie said.
‘He’s here, isn’t he? In my way everywhere I turn, and I’ve so much to do.’
‘Like what?’
Katie quickly buttered two slices of bread while pouring the remainder of the goat’s milk on a small bowl of cornflakes. ‘I’ve to feed and dress Louis and get him to day care before I head to work. And I’ve hardly time to feed or dress myself. God!’ She folded the bread and with both hands full elbowed the door open. ‘Some of us have to work, you know.’
‘Grand Central Station comes to mind,’ Boyd said as the door shut behind Katie.
‘Some days I feel like I’m in a scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.’
‘I better get my stuff, or someone might think I live here.’
His chair scraped on the concrete floor as he shoved it to the table, and the soft thud of the door was more telling than if he had banged it.
She was aware he wanted to move in permanently. The sensible thing, she knew. They’d been on the brink of marriage, for God’s sake. But still she stalled. Why?
Her dilemma was forgotten about when she received the call from the station.
Boyd let himself into his apartment, picked up the post from the floor and made his way into the living room. He rolled up the blinds. Light flooded the room. The air smelled stale, but he couldn’t leave the windows open as he’d be out at work all day. A change of shirt was needed. No way could he spend the day with a button hanging off his cuff. He rooted in the wardrobe and took out a blue cotton slim-fit with a matching navy tie around the hanger.
After a quick shower, he dressed and glanced in the mirror, noting more grey flecked through his hair. He quickly turned away, ignoring the rest of his scrawny visage.
The night spent at Lottie’s had been enjoyable. He loved being around her kids and little Louis, but he couldn’t deny that Sean was his favourite. They could talk about hurling and cycling and play a few games of FIFA on Sean’s PlayStation. For the first time in ages, Boyd felt he was part of a real family. That made him think of Grace. He needed to give his sister a call. Later. Tonight. Maybe tomorrow. He loved her dearly, but she was hard work at times. Most of the time.
He whistled as he returned to the living room. Picking up his keys, he cast an eye at the post. He flicked through the envelopes, bemoaning the fact that he had never set up online billing. He paused at the sight of familiar handwriting. Shit. His ex-wife. What could Jackie want from him now? Who wrote letters any more? Email, texts and phone calls had taken over, so it must be something she didn’t want electronically monitored. Knowing her involvement with the criminal world, it could be nothing good.
He thought of how Jackie had left him to take up with a party-going criminal who could wine and din
e her with his illegal income. They had fled to the Costa del Sol. Then a couple of years ago, Jackie had appeared back in Ragmullin when she’d followed her boyfriend after discovering his involvement in sex trafficking. She’d been instrumental in having him arrested but had skipped the country before any charges could be brought against her. Boyd wasn’t even sure charges would have stood, but Jackie had been clever enough to flee.
Turning the envelope, his fingers hovered over the flap. Open it now and risk a bad mood for the day, or leave it until tonight and suffer it then? He even toyed with the idea of tearing it up and putting it in the trash. Instead, he slipped it into his inside jacket pocket. Later, then.
As he left his apartment, a little of the zing had left his step.
3
The envelope plopped loudly onto the hall floor.
Curled up in bed, twenty-seven-year-old Joyce Breslin tugged the sheet to her chin, smoothing down her long hair. Another restless night.
It was too early for the post. That usually arrived later in the day. But someone had walked up the narrow path and pushed something through her letter box. Even though her thoughts were totally irrational, she felt the follicles on her scalp itch and the hairs on her arms pulse with electricity.
She flung back the sheets and sat on the edge of the bed. This was madness. Of course it was just the postman.
But her antenna for danger was on high alert.
He’d come for her. She just knew it. Flying on shredded wings, torn by her past, she’d fled because she’d been left with no choice but to run. And now she was flightless. Stagnating in this three-bed semi with Nathan, a man she barely loved. The price of freedom had turned into another form of incarceration.
A shiver coursed through her body like an overflowing river, but the dam had yet to break. She could crest this wave and hopefully make it to the other side. That’s it, be positive. Easy to say, but doing it was a whole other ball game.
Inhaling deeply, she floundered around on the floor for her fleece and pulled it over her head. On tiptoes she left the bedroom and stood on the landing.
Not a sound. Her child was still asleep.
Down the stairs carefully, so as not to put pressure on the creaking fourth-last step, she stepped onto the wooden floor. A soft hint of light bled in through the coloured glass at the top of the door. The heating had yet to kick in and she was suddenly cold. Very cold.
Another step forward, her eyes open wide, all sleep banished to the night-time horrors that stalked her.
There it lay. A white envelope. Like a blemish on the polished wood.
She wondered if she had the strength to even pick it up. To open it. To glance inside. She knew it was bad. Nothing came through the letter box this early in the morning. Nothing good, anyhow. Not for her.
Bending down, the legs of her satin pyjamas swimming around her bare feet, she reached out, her fingers floating over the envelope as if they might be burned by whatever lay sealed inside.
She studied it as it lay there. The front was blank. No name. No nothing. Maybe she was imagining it. Was it a mistake? Something for her neighbour, maybe? Something for Nathan? That’s it! She sighed in relief, before deflating again.
No. She’d felt something ominous was on the way. And she had only herself to blame, having put in motion the actions that had surely led to this.
With her heart palpitating outrageously, she scooped up the envelope before she changed her mind.
Tore at the seal. Peered inside.
Her heart stopped beating for a few seconds and she lost her breath. Then the pace ratcheted up in her chest.
She upended the envelope.
A rusted razor blade clinked onto the floor, coming to rest under the radiator, followed by another. Two blades.
Her hand flew to her throat.
‘No,’ she whispered.
It was a warning. A warning that she had to flee. Take her child and run. Then she saw something else inside. A scrap of paper with a typed address and nothing else on it.
No! A small scream escaped from her throat.
They were coming for her. No longer floating out there in the ether of bad memories and haunted nightmares. They were here. And she had brought them back into her life.
‘Dear God, help me,’ she whispered to the ceiling.
Her hands trembled as she picked up one of the blades. She couldn’t find the other and didn’t care either. She stuffed it into the envelope, which she crumpled into her pocket, and took a deep breath.
Joyce was certain this would be the last day of her life.
By the end of the day, she would be wishing that was true.
4
Lottie stood on the threshold of the open door, transfixed in horror. She tried to absorb the scene by sweeping her eyes over the room in front of her. Battling her anger, she straightened her spine and threw back her shoulders, physically and mentally transforming into work mode; becoming Detective Inspector Lottie Parker, not the mother, widow, lover, combatant, but the professional detective.
The victim’s mother, Anita Boland, stood outside, her tears mingling with raindrops, clutching her granddaughter tightly to her chest. Lottie would do her best for Mrs Boland and the baby girl.
She was glad that SOCOs had placed steel plates on the floor to preserve the bloody shoe prints leading from the bedroom. Similar prints led from where the body lay to the baby’s cot. They more than likely belonged to Mrs Boland, but they had to be preserved and analysed because some of them might be the killer’s.
Before she moved fully into the bedroom, Lottie stared at a large wedding photo hanging on the wall in the hallway. The husband, Jack Gallagher, was tall and broad-shouldered. His bride, Isabel, only reached his shoulder. Her demeanour was mouse-like, but the hint of a smile added light to her face, and her fair hair glistened in the sunshine glowing behind them.
Lottie steeled herself before looking at the body.
Twenty-nine-year-old Isabel Gallagher lay face down on the wooden floor, her white cotton pyjamas now reddish brown in colour, torn and slit with a multitude of cuts. Short fair hair sticky with matted blood, her face invisible for the moment. That was good, wasn’t it? That she didn’t have to look at the woman’s last expression. Enough to know Isabel was dead.
But what got to her were the pink fluffy bed socks on the woman’s feet. The simple things, the mundane little things, found in a room of horror were what penetrated her professional veneer and broke Lottie’s heart. She imagined Isabel slipping out of bed with her fluffy socks on to keep her feet warm on the cold floor, and now here she was, cold and dead, lying in her own blood.
Lottie made her way over to Jim McGlynn, SOCO team leader.
‘It’s not pretty,’ he said redundantly.
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
A white, wooden-barred cot stood in the corner of the bedroom. The baby had been taken outside by the victim’s mother, but how long had she been left here screaming and crying? Apparently untouched physically, but what damage had been caused psychologically to the little mite? Lottie shook her head to dispel the image.
‘I take it Isabel didn’t die quickly,’ she said. There was too much blood pooled on the floor, spread out in an arc away from the body. The pastel wallpaper above and around the bed was spattered with red pearl drops.
‘I’ve counted five wounds on her back. I’m not turning her over until the state pathologist gets here.’
‘Might be a robbery gone wrong,’ Lottie said. ‘The kitchen is ransacked. Maybe someone thought the house was empty.’
‘That’s your job, Inspector.’
‘Can you find any evidence of who … did it?’ She clenched her hands, desperately struggling not to choke from the smell of death suspended above the body. It was so intense, she could taste it glued to the back of her throat through her mask. It made her think of her granola breakfast, and she gagged.
‘God almighty, give me a chance, woman,’ McGlynn
said.
‘Any sign of the murder weapon?’ Lottie persisted.
McGlynn glared. She held his stare. The house hadn’t been fully searched yet. The body was his priority for now. She knew all that, but still …
‘The baby,’ she said quietly, ‘was here when … Christ, Jim, this is too horrific even for my strong stomach.’
The older man glanced towards the empty cot, shaking his head wearily before returning to concentrate on his work. He tried to remain detached from the human side of the crimes he dealt with, assessing things forensically, but sometimes she saw the glimmer of sorrow deep in his green eyes. He had to work up close and personal with the horror.
Leaving him to his grim task, she sidestepped Gerry, the photographer, and made her way through the bungalow. A wine-coloured faux-leather handbag lay sideways on the kitchen table among the detritus of breakfast dishes and open drawers. She bent over it and peered inside, leafing the flaps open with her gloved fingers. A set of keys, including a car key; a black wallet with a few till receipts sticking out of it. If it was a robbery, wouldn’t the bag have been taken?
‘Did you photograph this, Gerry?’
‘I did. I’m videoing the house room by room. The kitchen is the only place I can find evidence of disturbance.’ He paused before adding, ‘And the bedroom, of course.’
‘Of course. Thanks,’ she added, taking out the wallet.
No cash or bank cards. Maybe they’d been taken then. A photo of the baby but none of the husband. Everything would be bagged, tagged and analysed later. Like the body. Taking a closer look inside the bag, she spotted the creased spine of a thin paperback peeking out. Mills & Boon. Something about a duke and a commoner. Was Isabel craving romance in her life, finding it only between the covers of a paperback? A Credit Union book showed an account in her husband’s name. Not a joint account, then. Two thousand euros in shares and five thousand outstanding on a loan.
Little Bones: A totally addictive crime thriller Page 2
