Lottie sat at her desk with Boyd opposite. He began tidying up her workspace. She shot out her hand towards him.
‘Stop.’
‘What?’ he said.
She stood up and paced the small enclosure. ‘If the girls were killed on Saturday night, who was it in the house last night?’
‘The two boys.’
‘Yeah, I know that. But according to Jim McGlynn, the girls were killed where their bodies were found and had been dead for at least two days. So they were already dead when Freddie and Brian stumbled into the house last night. The lads were attacked by someone who came from upstairs. So who was it?’
‘The killer? Maybe he came back for something he’d dropped.’
‘Or to leave something. The coins?’
‘We have to get an exact time of death and then try to map out a timeline.’
‘First we need those nightclub tapes and any other footage we can lay our hands on.’ She stood with her hands on her hips. ‘I seem to be repeating myself an awful lot and not getting anywhere.’
‘I’ll check with Kirby to see what he’s found.’
When Boyd left the office, Lottie slumped into her chair. If Freddie and Brian hadn’t meandered into the derelict house, how long would the bodies have lain undiscovered? And who was the mysterious person the two young men had disturbed?
Twenty
Lottie found it a pain in the butt having to drive all the way to Tullamore for post-mortems, but she knew it was handier than navigating her way into Dublin city centre.
She took off her damp jacket, robed up in protective clothing and followed the pathologist into the morgue.
‘I haven’t started properly yet,’ Jane said, as she assembled various pieces of equipment so that she could cut and slice and record. Her assistant was busily lining up instruments on a steel tray.
‘I figured that. But I need something to guide my investigation.’ Lottie dabbed VapoRub beneath her nose and pulled the face mask loops around her ears.
‘Well, let’s see if I can help, though I can’t tell you anything officially until I’ve completed my work.’
The bodies of the young women were laid out side by side on two tables. Jane walked around them. ‘You know who they are?’
‘This is Amy Whyte.’ Lottie pointed to the first table. ‘And that’s Penny Brogan.’
‘Ages?’
Lottie exhaled loudly. The two girls reminded her so much of her own daughters. ‘Twenty-five.’
Jane turned towards the first body. ‘Both look normal and healthy for their age. Amy here seems to have suffered the deeper wound. Once I have fully examined her, all will be clearer. I can estimate unofficially that she was held from behind and a knife was stabbed into her throat.’
Lottie knew the pathologist was being cautious. It wasn’t in her nature to offer unsubstantiated information. ‘That confirms what I was thinking. It didn’t look like a slice to me.’
‘It’s a deep stab wound. Her airway would have been immediately cut off. A few superficial cuts around it suggest she tried to struggle. If she had consumed a lot of alcohol, it might have hindered her responses.’ She turned to Lottie. ‘The amount of blood at the scene suggests the artery was severed, resulting in death within seconds.’
Lottie thought that was small comfort. ‘Can you determine the type of weapon used?’
‘Not at the moment, but it was something with a sharp edge. If the weapon was thrust in deep enough to leave a patterned abrasion, then maybe …’ Jane feathered a gloved finger over the wound. ‘I can’t determine that from a visual examination, but I’m hopeful it’s possible.’
‘Were they sexually assaulted?’
Jane leaned her head to one side and opened her eyes wide, as if to say, how would I know at this stage? ‘Their underwear doesn’t appear to have been disturbed and there’s no visible evidence to suggest they were sexually assaulted. I still need to take samples and perform the autopsies.’
‘Jane, I need something. Anything. A clue to guide me.’
The pathologist’s eyes flared above her mask. ‘You’re pushing too hard. I need time to do my job properly. Give me a few hours. I’ll do everything in my power to get a preliminary report to you today.’
Lottie bit her lip, struggling with the consequences of lost time and how the murderer had a few days’ head start on her. ‘Can you process the bodies for DNA and fingerprints first? Then check if they’d been drugged. That might help.’
Jane shook her head. ‘I will do my job. I strongly advise that you do yours.’
Feck it. Now she’d alienated the one ally who might help her. She had gained nothing by this trip; only succeeded in losing time and sowing the seeds of hostility with the state pathologist. And she still had to catch up with Leo Belfield. Her day was deteriorating fast.
* * *
Louise Gill kept her phone switched off and made good headway with her coursework. She’d try to talk with Amy later. It was a few months since they’d been in contact, even though they both lived in Ragmullin. They’d once been best friends. A long time ago. Back before Conor Dowling went to prison.
In the kitchen, she poured a glass of water and leaned against the antique sink. Her father walked in and Louise put her phone away. She rinsed her glass under the flowing water from the tap, then made to edge by him towards the door. He grabbed her elbow.
‘Where are you off to?’
‘Dad, I have work to do.’ She put one foot over the threshold, but he held firm.
‘You know he’s back in Ragmullin,’ he said.
She stalled. Yes, she knew. He was the reason that fear now stalked every footstep she took. He was the reason she needed to speak with Amy. He was the reason for her life being total shit.
‘I know.’
‘I put him on my payroll where I can keep an eye on him. But that’s not twenty-four seven. You need to be careful.’
‘Why?’ She felt a little braver when his hand dropped from her arm. ‘I’d have thought you were the one who needed to be careful.’
‘You told the lies.’
She couldn’t believe the streak of darkness that flitted across her father’s indigo eyes. ‘I wasn’t even fifteen. Young and impressionable. So, as the saying goes, the buck stops with you.’
He raised his hand so swiftly that she almost didn’t duck in time. He’d never struck her; not once in her life had he even come close. She loved her father with all her heart, but sometimes she hated him just as much.
As if he realised what he’d been about to do, he let his hand fall away and took a backward step. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. I don’t know what came over me.’
Louise rushed out into the marbled hallway, almost colliding with the replica statue of Michelangelo’s David, and was halfway up the winding marble staircase when she shouted back at him, ‘I hate you.’
Shutting her bedroom door, she heard her mother come out of the study, and the pad of her bare feet on the plush cream carpet as she went into her own room and softly shut the door.
‘That’s right, Mummy dearest.’ Louise leaned her head against the robe hanging on the back of the door. ‘Bury your beautiful Botoxed face in a bottle, like you always do.’
* * *
The velvet red curtains seemed to be oozing blood, and the walls were crawling with thorns. Leo Belfield lifted his head from the pillow and immediately dropped it back again. He squinted through one eye. The room was spinning. Round and round.
Reaching out for the bottle of water he had left beside the bed, his fingers swiped clean through the air. No bottle. Suddenly he remembered.
He lurched upright and fell to the floor, his legs caught up in a swirl of white cotton sheets. Where was she? What had she done to him?
Stumbling around the room, he searched the closet, the bathroom, looked out into the corridor. Back inside, he leaned against the door.
Bernie Kelly had disappeared.
He checked his wallet. Cards
okay. Cash gone.
He grabbed his phone and rang Lottie Parker.
Twenty-One
The drive back to Ragmullin relaxed Lottie’s brain a little. The rain cleared and a pink sky lit up the horizon as she sped along the motorway. Her phone buzzed and she was tempted to ignore it. The number came up as unknown, but she knew it off by heart now. She tapped the screen to answer and was glad she’d put it on hands-free mode.
‘Lottie? Is that you?’
‘Who do you think it is, Leo? I’m sorry I missed meeting you today, but work got a little hectic.’ She indicated and took the slip road off the motorway. ‘I’ll be back in the office in ten minutes if you want to give me a call then.’
‘No, no. Don’t hang up. This is serious.’
His voice was frantic, and Lottie clutched the steering wheel, her knuckles turning white. ‘What’s happened?’
‘She’s gone. Bernie. She’s disappeared.’
‘What the hell? Leo, what have you done?’
‘Listen up. There’s no point in taking this out on me. What I did, I did for the benefit of us both. But now she’s gone.’
‘Where are you? You sound drunk.’
‘I think she drugged me. My head is in bits. The room’s spinning around me …’
‘Where are you?’
‘The Joyce.’
‘Don’t move. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
She hung up.
Called Boyd.
And pressed the accelerator to the floor.
* * *
‘I can do without this shit right now. What a mess.’ Lottie stormed through the lobby of the Joyce Hotel.
‘Calm down,’ Boyd said. ‘You can’t do anything if you get yourself into a state. Let’s see what the man has to say for himself before you explode.’
Belfield was sitting at the bar, a tumbler of what looked like whiskey in front of him. He turned as Lottie strode towards him. The urge to slap him was greater than the fear of what Bernie Kelly might be up to.
‘How could you?’ she said. ‘Why on earth would you want to take her out of a secure facility?’
‘I’m sorry. I wanted to know the truth.’
‘And you thought you’d get that from a lying, conniving, murderous bitch, did you?’
‘Whatever I thought, I know now that I was wrong.’
Lottie stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets. Safer there. God, she needed a Valium, or a Xanax. A crutch on which to lean all her worries. But she’d ditched her habit. New home, new life, new Lottie. She felt Boyd’s hand on her elbow, steering her towards the stool beside her half-brother.
‘Tell us exactly the sequence of events,’ Boyd said.
As she sat up on the stool, she noticed that Leo had aged since she’d last seen him. He was no longer the fresh-faced NYPD cop. He looked like an old man staring back at her, troubled, with something like physical pain etched on his face.
He gulped a mouthful of whiskey and spoke into the glass. ‘I got her released yesterday. She’s due back this evening. No need to go into the technicalities of how I managed it; safe to say I made a mess of things. She was so endearing and persuasive that I was taken in. I reserved a twin room here. I’m not that much of a fool as to let her have her own space. And then … I woke up and she was gone.’
‘But you texted me this morning. Arranged a meeting for one o’clock today,’ Lottie said, incredulous.
‘I didn’t do that. She must have used my phone.’ He pointed to the device on the bar counter.
‘Check if she sent any other texts or made any calls.’ Lottie felt the shift of urgency in her chest, like a sharp pain. This was serious shit. A woman incarcerated by reason of insanity with the blood of God knew how many on her hands, and now she was free. Double shit.
Leo shook his head. ‘Just the one to you.’
‘Did you check with the manager? The reception staff? Did anyone see her leave?’
‘I did, and they didn’t.’
‘Boyd, get them to go over their security footage.’ Lottie’s voice quivered with panic.
‘But we have no idea when she left,’ Leo said.
‘He’s right,’ Boyd said. ‘She could be anywhere now. What good is an image of her back as she runs out the door?’
‘They have cameras on the street. Check those. For the last twelve hours,’ Lottie said.
‘I have no idea how long I’ve been out,’ Leo said.
‘This is going to cause a shit storm.’ Lottie slammed her fist on the bar, shaking the glass. ‘I have two young women lying dead in the morgue and a full-scale investigation to conduct. I don’t need this.’
She caught Boyd’s eye. He was shaking his head, silently telling her to shut up. He was right. There was nothing to be gained by losing her temper. But she had no idea how to handle this.
‘What will we do?’ she said.
‘What will she do is a better question,’ Leo said.
‘Oh shut up,’ Lottie said. ‘We need to find her. Scratch that. You need to find her!’
* * *
The fact that the evil bitch was out and free to roam through her town settled like a black shroud of death on Lottie’s shoulders. She’d sent Leo to search and told him to check in every hour on the hour. They’d made a decision – rightly or wrongly, she wasn’t sure – to keep word of Bernie’s escape between them. For now. As soon as she got her head together, she would think about it. She rang Katie and instructed her to keep the doors locked, and told Rose the same. She hoped Chloe and Sean were safe at school and put a reminder in her phone to pick them up at four.
‘Kirby, please tell me you have good news for me.’ She dropped into a chair in the incident room and stared intently at the detective.
‘We got their computer devices from their parents and McGlynn dropped off both girls’ phones. Tech guys are going through them now. So far there’s nothing to suggest they were targeted online.’
‘And?’
‘And what?’
‘Give me something, Kirby. It’s been a shit day.’
‘Is that my fault as well?’
She jumped up and paced the room, coming to a stop in front of the boards. Someone had pinned up photos of the girls beside their victim photos. She traced a finger over the outline of first Amy’s face, and then Penny’s.
‘Two young women with their lives ahead of them, cut down like meat in an abattoir. Why?’
She leaned her head against the board, thinking. Trying to dispel the image of her evil half-sister on the loose. Hopefully she was somewhere they could find her easily. Maybe she should send out a search team? But this was Leo’s mess. Let him deal with it. Until it went tits-up. She pressed her fingers into the palms of her hands and squeezed her eyes shut. She’d made a mistake, she was sure of it, but she had two murders to solve. They took priority. She just hoped she could keep her family safe.
‘The coins are home-made, according to McGlynn. Edges appear smooth but are rough to touch. There’s no engraving so it’s impossible to trace them,’ Kirby said.
‘Who’s organising interviews?’ Lottie sat down again, facing him.
‘We need more staff, boss.’
‘I’m working on it.’ She made a mental note to follow up with McMahon.
‘I drew up a list. Penny was unemployed, but she did manicures and gel nails, whatever that is, based at her apartment. SOCOs are there now. She might have a customer list.’
‘I doubt her killer has gel nails,’ Lottie said, ‘but I’ll head there and have a look around. What else?’
‘Amy’s colleagues have to be interviewed again. I’ll do that myself.’ Kirby ticked an item on his list.
‘Good. Check your notes and cover anything you missed at the pharmacy last time.’
‘Will do.’
She caught a glance from the detective. ‘What?’
‘Were the victims sexually assaulted?’
‘No evidence to suggest it.’
�
��That’s one small mercy in this brutal world we live in.’
She stood and squeezed his shoulder. ‘Keep at it, Kirby. Keep busy. It helps.’
Leaving him scouring a list of people who had to be interviewed, she went to find where Boyd had disappeared to. Anything to keep her mind off Leo Belfield and what he’d done.
Twenty-Two
Penny Brogan’s apartment was situated in a three-storey block on Columb Street, just down from the car dismantler’s yard and across from a coal depot. The road was black from the tyre tracks of trucks pulling in and out of the fuel yard. Lottie gazed over at the mounds of coal and briquettes, shielded beneath a struggling Perspex roof.
‘First floor,’ Boyd said.
‘I’m coming.’ She followed him into the small courtyard.
The garda technical van was positioned in front of the terrace of apartments. She entered through the open door. Two SOCOs were dusting and searching. She could do with ten minutes on her own in here, but they had their work to do too.
Boyd said, ‘It’s like a shoebox.’
‘You can talk. Yours isn’t much bigger.’
‘I suppose she was happy to have her own place, though I’d say it was tough trying to pay the rent in today’s economy, especially as she had no job.’
Lottie spied a small table in the corner of the room and made her way around a settee that she guessed doubled as a bed. On the table sat all the equipment needed to run a little black-market business in nail care. A wooden shelf held baskets filled with bottles of varnish, polish and cleansing products.
‘Penny must have worked on Amy’s nails.’ Lottie picked up a see-through container no bigger than a matchbox and shook it. The rhinestones glittered as they slid around.
She opened a drawer in the small bedside-type cabinet pushed beneath the table and drew out a black plastic-covered appointment book.
‘This might help us,’ she said.
‘It’ll give us a bigger headache,’ Boyd said, ‘leading to a ton of interviews and no doubt nothing of interest to our investigation.’
‘Ever the optimist,’ Lottie mumbled as she flicked through the pages with her gloved fingers. Nothing jumped out at her, so she bagged the book and glanced around.
Final Betrayal Page 10
