Emma shivered beneath the rough blanket and stifled her tears. No point in crying. Her grandmother was dead, her mother was in a coma and her dad was a murder suspect. And it was all her fault. She never should have listened to the big ideas and small-town talk. Some people were just bad news. She knew that now. But things had gone too far. Too much had been covered up. And now her family had paid the ultimate price.
She heard him downstairs, pottering around, making dinner. She wasn’t hungry. Couldn’t eat. Wouldn’t eat. Wanted to die. Serve her right if she died. Why had she even come here? Because she’d been told that if anything happened to her family – if she was ever in trouble – Mick O’Dowd was the man to go to for help. He was supposed to keep her safe. Oh my God! She didn’t even know him. He could rape and murder her and dump her body in his slurry pit, and no one would ever know. Why had she come here? Was it the biggest mistake of her life?
Picking up her phone, she debated putting the SIM and battery back in. If she did, it could be traced. Did she really need to make the call? She knew she had to tell someone about what she’d overheard; what she’d seen. Could she wait another day?
A burst of wind rattled the glass in the window frame. Cans and bins clattered across the yard below. The dog howled. She heard O’Dowd whistling in tune to the gale.
What should she do?
Pulling the blanket up over her head, its musty scent telling her it was years since it had been out of the linen box, she lay in the darkness and listened to the storm blowing outside.
She missed her mother.
She wanted her father.
Emma Russell was terrified. Not of the storm, but of what might happen next.
Forty
Wind and rain crashed against the window pane and Lottie lay awake with the curtains open, staring out at the storm.
She craved the arms of a man. She craved another drink. She craved escape to oblivion.
The glass in her hand shook. She drained the clear liquid and, still in darkness, poured another drink from the bottle in the bed beside her.
There was something wrong with her mother. There always had been. Now it was worse. Had it to do with Lottie snooping into her father’s suicide? But in the few days since Tessa Ball had been murdered, Rose seemed to have deteriorated. Did she know something? What had she said about Tessa’s past?
As the alcohol wended its way through her veins, Lottie felt a light relief in her head. She put down the glass, then the bottle, and fell asleep to the sound of the wind.
Forty-One
Alexis didn’t like using Skype. She didn’t like it when they could see her. And in all honesty, she didn’t want to see them either. Standing to one side of her black glass-topped desk, she hit the connect button.
‘Be short and quick,’ she said.
‘Things are going well…’
‘I hear a but. Tell me.’ Alexis didn’t want any buts. They usually heralded new problems. She walked away from the desk and looked out at the afternoon lower Manhattan skyline.
There was silence from the computer. She was beginning to think the caller had disconnected when she heard the cough.
‘You’re right. There is a but. Nothing we can’t handle at this end, though.’
‘I’m waiting.’
‘It’s to do with the other problem.’
Alexis knew what was being referred to.
‘Go ahead.’
‘Well, I got what you wanted from the old lady’s attic, but the pathologist has accessed the post-mortem file.’
‘The original file?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
Alexis hated that term. She wasn’t anyone’s ma’am.
‘Can you destroy it?’ she asked.
‘Not unless I get it from her.’
‘Her?’
‘The state pathologist.’
Alexis wondered if there was anything in the file to warrant the case being reopened. She couldn’t take the chance.
‘Get it. Don’t contact me again unless you have it.’ She walked back to her desk and disconnected the call.
She had a dinner party to attend. She knew it was one way to dispel any gnawing concern she might have about events in Ragmullin. She had handled it all before; she would do so again. Not even Detective Inspector Lottie Parker was going to stop her.
The Late Seventies
The Child
I don’t know what age I am and they won’t tell me. But I know I’m young. A child. They call me ‘the child’.
Why is everyone here so old?
Shuffling in and out of their ragged slippers. Peeling the paint off the walls with their fingernails. Banging their heads against the iron radiators. Blood pouring unhindered from wounds and sores.
And the noise.
Yelling and screaming. Do they not realise there’s no one to hear? No one to care about them. We’re all alone, together.
Today they’ve put me working in the laundry room.
It’s so hot, I think I might die.
The ceilings are so high, I feel so small. Maybe I am a midget.
The laundry.
Stinking shitty sheets and towels. Hundreds of them. Piled high in baskets attached to trolleys.
My shrivelled stomach turns with the stench. I retch and gag; slam my fist into my mouth to hold in the vomit. The thump to the back of my head knocks me sideways into the sheets already piled up on the floor. If I’m not careful, I could end up in the washer.
I slip my feet back into my slippers that are about ten sizes too big and begin hauling the soiled linen out of the basket onto the floor. Eventually I drag it to the washing machine.
I think I’m going to faint. It’s too warm. Stifling hot. Bubbles of sweat drip down my pale nose and I wipe them away. I have to do this quickly so I can go back to my bed.
I hear the voices.
Calling.
Whispering a name I do not know.
Then shouting a name I do know.
‘Carrie,’ they say. ‘Where is Carrie?’
And I wonder that too.
Where is Carrie?
It is her fault I was brought here. Her fault I’ve been left here. Her fault they’ve all forgotten about me. Carrie, the bitch.
Day Four
Forty-Two
The smell of paint had faded but a scent of newness oozed from the furniture in Superintendent Corrigan’s office. The fact that it was 7.30 in the morning and he had called her in even before she’d had time to take off her jacket didn’t help Lottie’s mood. Nor his either, she thought.
‘Sit,’ he ordered.
She sat. What was going on? She put her hand to her mouth, blew out and sniffed. No smell of alcohol. Good.
‘Where were you at eight o’clock yesterday feckin’ morning?’
‘Here, sir.’ She didn’t like the look he was giving her over the rim of his spectacles.
He wagged a thick finger in her direction. ‘Think very feckin’ carefully before answering, Detective Inspector Parker.’
Lottie sat stock still. What was he talking about? Yesterday morning? Seemed a lifetime ago. She tried hard to think. She had worked the case with Boyd. Talked to Emma. Searched Marian Russell’s house. Lost Emma. Called to Lorcan Brady’s house. Before all that, early morning… Annabelle’s surgery. Surely he couldn’t mean that?
‘I… I… don’t understand, sir.’
‘Let me help you understand, Detective Inspector Parker. You visited Dr O’Shea’s surgery. Remember now?’
Lottie gulped. A visit to her doctor wasn’t a crime, as far as she knew. ‘That was a private matter, sir. Annabelle’s a friend of mine.’
‘Go on.’
‘I had to ask her something about Louis.’ Thinking fast now. Concocting the tale as quickly as the words were leaving her mouth. ‘He’s my grandson.’
‘I know who Louis is!’
She thought Corrigan might explode. His bald pate turned red, his cheeks flushed and his eyes bulged behind his spectacles. He kept tapping a piece of paper with a silver pen, louder with each tap.
‘You’re lying to me. Last chance. Why did you—’
‘Okay, okay, sir.’ Lottie held up her hands. ‘I visited my doctor because I wasn’t feeling well. Thought I was getting the flu.’
‘Flu, my arse.’