‘If she’s mixed up with Lorcan Brady, it’s a possibility.’
‘He has a record?’
‘Yup.’ Boyd went back to his desk and brought up the PULSE database. ‘Caught in possession. Not enough to say it was for supply. Suspended sentence. Last March.’
‘Any known associates?’
‘No. He pleaded guilty to possession. Nothing before or since. Keeping his nose clean.’
‘Not clean enough. Did we find out who the registered owner of the car at Brady’s house is, seeing as it was his car at the burned-out cottage?’
‘Kirby got the details.’
‘Where is he, by the way?’ Lottie went to investigate Kirby’s desk. She picked up a computer printout. ‘Registered to Lorcan Brady. So, the lad has two cars in his name. Must be making more than what he gets on welfare.’
‘Fingers in too many pies, I’d say,’ Boyd said.
‘No fingers to put anywhere now,’ Lottie said. ‘Jane said the body at the cottage was stabbed to death. Didn’t die from the fire. Adds another dimension.’
‘Has to be drugs-related.’
‘Seems like it. But murdering someone for a small shed of cannabis? I don’t think so.’
‘The drugs unit lads will be down here so,’ Boyd said.
‘Corrigan will be a mile up our arses.’
‘And theirs.’
‘I need to think about all this. Incident team meeting first thing in the morning. We have to find out exactly what this ungodly mess is all about.’ She stood up and got her jacket. ‘I’m going home.’
‘I’ll do further searches. See what I can find out.’
‘Check with the drugs unit. Lorcan Brady might be on their radar.’
‘And Arthur Russell? Will I bring him in for questioning again?’
‘Yes. The coat and the receipt are new evidence. See what he has to say for himself.’
‘I’ll get Kirby to sit in with me. Enjoy the rest of your evening,’ Boyd said, without looking up.
She didn’t answer, just left him there with the murmur of the radiators cooling down for the night.
Thirty-Five
It was dark and the church bells were chiming seven when Lottie stepped outside. Almost blown away, she gripped the railing to steady herself before heading round to the yard for her car.
‘There you are.’
Lottie groaned. ‘You again.’
Cathal Moroney fell into step beside her, trying to keep hold of a massive golf umbrella.
‘Off the record,’ he yelled against the wind. ‘Please.’
‘You can say please, thank you, kiss my arse all you like, but I’m not making any statement on anything.’ She clamped her mouth shut and searched her bag for her keys.
‘It’s drugs-related, isn’t it?’
‘No comment.’
‘I heard Lorcan Brady is involved.’
‘Where did you hear that?’ Shit.
‘I knew it!’ he said triumphantly as a gust of wind took hold of his umbrella.
Lottie turned and stuck a finger in his chest. ‘You know nothing until you get an official comment. Got it?’
‘I want to speak to you about it. You see, I’m doing my own investigation into drugs in rural towns and I think—’
‘You can stop right there, Moroney.’ At last her fingers closed on the keys in the bottom of her bag. She held them aloft and pointed to the gate with them. ‘This is private property, and if you don’t want me to arrest you, I’d advise you to leave. Right now.’
‘You’re making a big mistake, Inspector.’ Moroney grabbed his umbrella with both hands. ‘When you realise that, come talk to me. I have a lot of information you might be interested in. Historical stuff. Think about it.’
Lottie bent down to open her car. Maybe she should talk to the journalist. See what he had. If anything. But when she turned around, he was running out the gate after his umbrella.
Not meant to be, she thought. But as she drove home, the car swaying through the deserted streets, she wondered if she’d been foolish not to listen to him. As her mother was used to saying, ‘Time will tell.’
Thirty-Six
Arthur Russell sat down heavily on the steel chair and faced the two detectives, listening as they went through the formalities and fiddled with the recording equipment.
‘Any chance of a decent cup of tea?’ he asked. ‘I came in voluntarily without my solicitor. The least you can do is get me a cuppa.’
‘Do you want us to call your solicitor?’
‘Tea with two sugars would be grand.’ He needed something in his bloodstream to keep him focused. Fat lot of good the solicitor had done him so far. He’d listen and keep his trap shut.
The chubby detective with the bushy hair, the one who called himself Kirby, returned with the tea. Russell savoured it, even though it was in a paper cup. At least it was hot. The sugar surged through his brain. More than two, he thought. These boys wanted him alert.
‘Do you have any idea where your daughter is?’
He hadn’t been expecting this. ‘What are you talking about? Didn’t you tell me she was at that Kelly one’s house?’
‘She was. But she appears to have run away from there. Have you seen her?’
Russell went to stand up. The burly detective pushed him back down. ‘What’s going on? Where’s Emma? I’m leaving. I need to look for my girl.’
‘Sit down, Mr Russell. Do you know where she might be?’
Hyperventilating now, he tried to get the words out of his mouth. ‘Try my studio… shed. She sometimes comes round and listens to me play music. I was at work and came straight here when you called. She might be there.’
‘We checked. She’s not there. She took Natasha’s bicycle earlier, and Natasha said she might have gone to her boyfriend. You know about that?’
‘Emma doesn’t have a boyfriend.’
‘You sure?’
Running his hand furiously across his head, he tried to think. No, he’d never heard Emma mention anyone. ‘What’s his name?’
‘Lorcan Brady. Mean anything to you?’
‘Don’t think so.’ His brain was too tired to compute. Lorcan Brady? He thought he’d heard of him, but he wasn’t about to tell these two eejits.
‘Does this belong to you?’ Boyd placed a folded black jacket, in a plastic bag, on the table.
‘I had one like that,’ Russell said. He put down his cup and pulled the bag towards him. ‘Looks too new to be mine. It’s not mine.’
An A4 page was put in front of him. In the centre he could see a photocopy of a receipt.
Boyd said, ‘Do you want to change your story about what you did on the night Tessa Ball was murdered?’
Pushing the page back to the detective, Russell said, ‘Why would I change it? It’s the truth.’
‘You said you went straight back to your digs after your shift ended. This tells us you didn’t.’
Russell tugged at his beard. ‘I had a pint, okay? No crime in that.’
‘Two pints. Who was with you?’
‘No one. I ordered two together. Quicker that way.’ Russell looked from one detective to the other. He knew they were thinking he was talking a load of shite.
The bushy-haired one snorted.
‘What’s so funny?’ Russell asked.
‘I do that myself sometimes.’
‘There. Told you so.’
Boyd said, ‘You never mentioned having a drink. Why?’
‘I forgot. Never thought about it until you showed me the… receipt.’
‘So we find your jacket in the house and your fingerprints on the murder weapon. Can you explain that?’
‘Murder weapon?’
‘Baseball bat. The one belonging to your daughter.’
Thinking that offence was his best method of defence, Russell said, ‘So what if my fingerprints are on the baseball bat. I bought the darn thing!’
‘And the jacket?’
‘It’s not mine.’
‘Your receipt was in the pocket.’
‘I said it’s not mine.’
‘The receipt?’
‘No, knobhead, the jacket.’
‘But you said you had one just like it. The bar manager said it looked like yours when he confirmed to us that you bought the two pints.’
‘It might look like mine, but it isn’t. Go look around my digs and you’ll find mine. It’s older than that and it was wet from all the rain. I hung it up there.’
‘I have an inventory of everything in your room at the B and B. No jacket.’
‘That’s a load of bollocks.’