She stood up and glanced at the hedges, bits of paper and plastic caught in the branches. The bank along the tracks was studded with litter too. Probably the same on the canal towpath.
‘I want the surrounding area searched as well. Seems to me that whoever dumped this body was careless; that’s if it wasn’t intentional.’ She pondered her own musings. ‘Perhaps they threw away something that might help us incriminate them. Where’s Lynch?’
‘I’m here.’
Lottie watched as Maria Lynch struggled with the zipper on her protective suit.
‘It’s stuck. And don’t mention baby weight, because I haven’t got any.’
‘You’re looking great, Maria, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Can’t say the same for Kirby. What’s up with him?’ She watched as the burly detective mooched off to one side, fiddling with his phone.
‘What’s not up with him?’ Eventually Lynch’s zipper shot into place.
‘Good work discovering the hand. If you hadn’t, the wildlife would have had a feast.’ Lottie noticed two members of the SOCO team making their way towards them.
Lynch was bending over the hand, staring at it. ‘It looks like it was wrapped in plastic. Do you think it is part of the torso?’
‘I hope so, otherwise we’ll be dealing with two bodies.’ Lottie crouched down beside Lynch. ‘We have the torso and one hand. I’d like to know where the rest of the body is.’
‘If we have one hand, the other should be around. Who in their right mind would drop one hand?’ Lynch said earnestly.
‘It may have been dropped by accident. We’re not dealing with someone in their right mind,’ Lottie pointed out.
McGlynn arrived beside them. ‘You’re interfering with my crime scene as usual, Detective Inspector Parker.’
‘Looking, not touching. I’m learning,’ Lottie said.
‘Good,’ he said grudgingly. ‘How is young Boyd?’
‘Boyd is doing fine, thanks.’ Lottie grinned at the older man with his inquisitive green eyes. He was like a thorny bush; in among the thorns there had to be some roses, though so far she had been unable to find them.
‘Dear Lord, I’ll soon have the two of you stamping all over my crime scenes again. God give me patience. Now out of my way until I see what we have here.’
‘Will I be able to get fingerprints from the hand?’ Lottie asked.
‘You won’t but I might. I’ll let you know when I know.’
‘Jim, is the body really that of a child?’
‘I think so.’
She left the SOCOs to their forensic work, and she and Lynch walked over to Kirby.
‘We need to scrutinise all our missing persons files,’ she said. ‘Even though we only have parts of a body, this was a human being, a child, and someone out there is missing a loved one.’
Twelve
Faye watched Jeff drive off. She dropped the rancid curtain and looked around. He still refused to tell her where he’d put the skull, saying she needn’t worry her head over it. He’s missing the pun, she thought wryly.
It had to be somewhere in the house.
In the kitchen, she went through the trash can. She searched every cupboard, swatting away flies and spiders, unafraid but careful all the same. If she saw one pebble of mouse dirt, she was out of there.
They’d have to dump the crockery at some stage, she mused as she moved cups and plates around, and the stained cutlery would have to go too. All the mouldy foodstuff had been chucked out ages ago, for fear of inviting in rodents. Faye shivered. She wasn’t afraid of much, but they were one thing she would run a mile from.
The chest-high refrigerator hummed as she opened the door. The light spilled into the kitchen, illuminating the laminate cupboard doors. Frost and ice clung to the bottom of the ice box and its drawer looked frozen solid. She tugged at it but it wouldn’t budge, so it was logical to assume Jeff hadn’t put the skull in there. She glanced around the kitchen. She couldn’t wait to demolish it. Garish colours and dirt and grime. They would need another skip once they got started. Excitement built in her chest as she envisaged what the house would look like once it was renovated.
Jeff hadn’t brought the skull with him when they’d left for coffee, so where could he have put it? She recalled he’d used the toilet. She climbed the stairs slowly. This was the part of the house she hated the most. It gave her a ghoulish feeling right between her shoulder blades. On the landing, she paused and listened. Her heart was drumming in her chest and the baby was fluttering away innocently. All four doors were slightly ajar. Three bedrooms and a bathroom. She reached out a finger and pushed at the bathroom door.
A tap dripped in the bath, leaving a brown copper trail to the plughole. The ironwork was corroded, and a cracked rubber hose was still stuck to one tap. The shower curtain hung limply, fungus growing up the length of it. The toilet smelled as if it hadn’t been flushed in years, but Jeff had used it, hadn’t he?
With one eye closed, Faye squinted into the toilet bowl. The water was clear. She flushed it anyway. Mistake. The pipes in the attic groaned and rattled as the water filtered noisily from the tank to the cistern. She felt as if the entire room was shaking as much as she was. Edging out backwards, she pulled the door shut.
They’d agreed that the box room would be for the baby and they would use the biggest room because it looked out over the road at the front of the house. The third bedroom, at the back, had a view of the overgrown garden for which they had zero budget.
As she moved to enter the front bedroom, she thought she heard a noise from the box room. She paused, breath held, heart thumping. No, it was just the pipes in the attic. She took another step and heard it again. One hand flew to her mouth and the other to her stomach. Acid rose into her throat and the black spots returned to her vision.
‘Is there anyone there?’ she said, once she had found her voice.
Silence.
What had she heard? Was it the thud of a footstep? Don’t be silly.
‘Hello?’ she said tentatively.
Should she run or stay? Reaching out a hand, she pushed open the box room door. There couldn’t be anyone here. Only she and Jeff had keys, and they’d been in and out most days over the last few months.
She took a step inside and screamed.
The animal lunged at her, scratching her face with one vicious swipe. Its claws caught in her hair, and she flailed at it, trying to dislodge them. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it fled, and she slid down the wall, her body convulsing in tremors. How had a cat got stuck up here? The room was empty, except for an old chipboard wardrobe standing in one corner. She’d joked with Jeff that if they turned it on its side, they wouldn’t get another thing into the room. Now it seemed to glare at her as if it was threatening her, with one of its double doors slightly ajar. Had the cat been in there? Maybe it had kittens and was only trying to protect them. Could that be why it had attacked her?
She really didn’t want to remain alone in the house any longer. But something continued to niggle on the inside of her skin, pushing up the hairs on her arms. And she wanted to find the skull.
Still crouched against the wall, she waited and listened.
There was only the rattle of the pipes overhead and the dripping of the tap in the bathroom. Nothing else apart from her own breathing.
Getting to her feet, she moved towards the wardrobe, its partially open door challenging her to peek inside. She pulled it outwards quickly; too quickly. The handle came away and the nail that had held it in place impaled itself in her hand.
‘Shit!’ She looked at the blood oozing from her hand. She’d need a tetanus injection for sure now. She was about to turn away, to go down the stairs and out into the fresh air, when her eyes were drawn to the shelf at eye level inside the old wardrobe.
The tiny skull.
Eyeless sockets staring at her.
She turned and fled.
Thirteen
‘I really hate school, don’
t you?’ Sean Parker leaned against the canal bank wall and kicked out at his rucksack. The canal skirted around Ragmullin, and he liked this section because it offered seclusion from the school down the road.
From under his too-long fringe he eyed his friend Ruby O’Keeffe. She had a cigarette in her mouth and a lighter in her hand and was trying to look cool, which was difficult dressed in her school uniform. Her hair was styled in a short dark bob and her cheeks had a few acne craters, but Sean supposed she was pretty. He liked her, but not that way. They shared an interest in gaming and had become good friends when his school turned co-ed last year.
‘Want one?’ she said, offering him the packet.
He shook his head as he looked down at her. Ruby was tall but nowhere near Sean’s height. He was almost six foot. He’d turned sixteen in April, though his mother still treated him like a child.
‘You know I hate them. My dad died from cancer and now my mam’s friend, her boyfriend, has leukaemia.’ Sean dropped his eyes to the grass at his feet to avoid Ruby’s watchful stare.
‘Did your dad smoke?’ She pulled her light jacket around her waist. Sean knew she was self-conscious about her weight, but she looked fine to him.
‘No.’
‘If it wasn’t the fags that killed him, you need to chill out.’ She lit the cigarette.
Sean watched her blowing smoke out the other side of her mouth, away from him. ‘Boyd, that’s my mam’s boyfriend, he smokes.’
‘Does he still smoke even though he has cancer?’
‘He has an e-cig, but I’ve seen him sneak a cigarette a couple of times.’
‘Do you like him?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You don’t think he’s trying to … you know … take your dad’s place?’
Sean couldn’t put his finger on the reason why, but this remark annoyed him more than Ruby’s smoking.
‘No one could ever take my dad’s place. Boyd knows that. He’s a nice guy. He’s good to my mam and to me. He notices me. Do you get that?’
‘Yeah, I do. That’s good, you know; it can’t be easy living in a houseful of girls.’ She grinned.
‘Tell me about it.’ Sean gulped down a breath of fresh air, catching the entrails of Ruby’s cigarette smoke. His two older sisters were crowding him out of the house. Even his little nephew Louis was a pain in the arse at times, now that he was walking and pulling everything from the cupboards.
‘He’ll eventually come to live with us,’ he said.
‘Who?’
‘Boyd.’
‘Have you got a room for him?’
Sean had given this a lot of thought and wasn’t sure he liked it very much. ‘He’ll probably share my mam’s room.’
‘That’s gross. It’s like … disrespecting your dad or something.’
Now Ruby had truly pissed him off, because this thought had plagued him over the last few months. Despite that, he felt he had to stand up for Boyd.
‘It’s five years since my dad died. I think Mam’s entitled to some happiness,’ he said defensively. ‘Anyway, the house we shared with Dad burned down and we’re living in a rental now. All our stuff went up in flames, Dad’s stuff and—’
‘Hey! I was only saying.’
‘Yeah, and everyone else will be saying it too, but I don’t care. I like Boyd.’
‘But … will he die on you too?’ Ruby threw down the butt and scrunched it out with her shoe.
‘Shut up. Come on, we’ll be late back to school.’
‘We’re already late,’ she said. ‘We should have stayed in Pizzaland.’
‘The pizza was gross. Anyway, I’ve computer science now and I don’t want to miss it.’ Sean picked up his school bag and hoisted it onto his shoulder. Ruby’s words bounced around in his brain, knocking at the inside of his skull. She had asked the one question he was terrified to answer.
Death.
When would it come knocking on his door again?
Marianne O’Keeffe closed her laptop. Two thousand words wasn’t bad, even if it was all rubbish. First drafts were universally terrible, she’d heard. Hers were anyway. Perhaps that was why she had yet to have a book published.
He would be here any minute. The appointment had been agreed weeks ago, but she had to be sure Kevin would be at work, so she’d rung the office half an hour ago to confirm the visit could go ahead.
She sprayed a dash of her best perfume behind her ears. Millions. Not like you’ll ever make millions, Kevin had said the Christmas before, when he’d presented her with the expensive perfume in a gift set. ‘I will if I have my way,’ she muttered as she spritzed her hair and down her legs for good measure. She grimaced in the mirror, thinking how Kevin hadn’t even paid full whack for the perfume. The skinflint. She’d found the Boots half-price sticker on the back of the box. She was sure he’d left it there on purpose.
The doorbell chimed and she checked her appearance once more. White cotton blouse with a red silk camisole underneath, skinny black leather jeans, and her two-inch-heel black ankle boots. Rarely in their seventeen-year marriage had Kevin complimented her on her looks or style. But she knew she looked good, so fuck him.
She rushed to open the front door.
‘Hello,’ the young man said. ‘Mrs O’Keeffe?’
Navy suit with brown shoes. Her pet hate, but she supposed it was the fashion.
‘Call me Marianne. Come in.’
His name tag swung from a lanyard around his neck. Aaron Frost. She had to admit he looked anything but frosty. Steaming hot, if she was honest.
‘The kitchen is the most comfortable place to have a chat,’ she said, leading him down the narrow hallway into the vast bright room with integrated appliances. In truth, she suspected Kevin had bugged the room where she worked. Paranoid? Maybe. ‘Tea? Coffee?’
‘A glass of cold water would be good. Caffeine makes me hyper.’ Aaron laughed. Marianne thought he sounded a bit nervous.
‘Tap water okay?’
‘Sure.’
She filled a glass. Kevin didn’t allow bottled water. Too much plastic ruins the environment, he’d said over and over again. As if he knew all about it. Kevin knew fuck all about anything but liked to give the impression he was an expert on everything.
‘Here, have a seat.’ She guided Aaron over to the centre island, and he pulled out a stool for her. So sweet.
‘Your house is beautiful. The extra-large bay windows at the front are very classy,’ he said. ‘New-build?’
‘It’s about eighteen or nineteen years old. I designed most of it with my father’s help.’ She didn’t need to tell him it was her father’s money too. ‘I had it painted and redecorated last year.’
He looked up at the wall. ‘Wow. Is that a sixty-two-inch?’
Marianne glanced at the flat-screen television. ‘I’ve no idea,’ she laughed.
He ran his hand over the counter top. ‘Granite?’
‘Quartz,’ she said, knowing he was impressed.
‘I can start straight away,’ he said, loosening his tie and undoing the top button of his white shirt. Was she making him uncomfortable? She hoped not.
‘Have you worked with the company long?’ Small talk.
‘Er … I joined after I left college, years ago, when I was twenty-four.’
He didn’t look old enough to have finished school, let alone college, but she supposed he must be in his thirties.
‘Do you like your job?’
‘It’s okay.’ He gulped at his water. ‘Decent wage. But my degree is history and English. I want to teach at some stage.’
‘Why don’t you?’
He shifted uncomfortably on the stool. ‘Applied to a few schools, but when I didn’t even get called for interview, I knew I had to earn a living somehow. So here I am, doing house valuations for my father’s estate agency.’
‘Why could you not get an interview for teaching?’
‘You can’t get a teaching position without experience and you can’t ge
t experience without a job.’
‘Catch twenty-two.’
‘I suppose.’
Gosh, but he was too sweet for words. Marianne leaned over and gave his hand a squeeze. His eyes flashed with something akin to horror. Was she really that old and horrible-looking? She was only thirty-eight, for feck’s sake. She pulled back and pointed to the folder on the table.
Aaron stood and slid a business card across the quartz counter. ‘I’ll leave this for you. Now, where do you want to start?’
Where indeed? Marianne smiled to herself. This was going to be fun.
She watched Aaron work for twenty minutes, measuring from wall to wall in every room, with an app on his phone and a beeping gadget in his hand. She saved her own room for last.
Leading the way across the plush carpet, she said, ‘And this is the master bedroom. Don’t mind the mess.’
There was no mess. There never was any mess in her luxurious home. And yes, it was her home, though Kevin liked to give the impression to anyone who cared to listen that he owned it. The title deeds were in her name. It was her one victory over him. He might think he controlled everything in her life, and she had to admit that he scared the shit out of her at times, but it came in handy to let him think she was a doormat.
‘Nice room. It’s so big,’ Aaron said, and his little machine beeped again. ‘Your house is amazing. It’s worth quite a lot of money. You’ll see once I have the valuation calculated. But there’ll be no problem selling it if that’s what you want.’
He’d taken off his suit jacket downstairs and rolled up his shirtsleeves. They’d settled into a friendly routine as they’d gone from room to room. She had offered to help, and he’d said he could manage. She could see his hands shaking as he held the two devices and spoke into the recorder on his phone. He checked and double-checked that he had everything correct. His steel-rimmed designer spectacles had slid down a little on his nose and patches of sweat had spread under his arms, but all she could smell was a woody cologne.
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