‘I’ll get McGlynn to switch on the outside light.’ He headed inside.
The rain eased slightly but still Lottie found herself sloshing in and out of puddles as she made her way around the gable of the house. The building seemed to be a converted farmhouse, but the farm was long gone. A wide hedgerow provided the boundary as far as she could see, which in the dark wasn’t far.
As she stepped into the yard, the external wall light blinked on, filling the space with an amber hue.
‘Oh my God,’ she said.
Boyd came out of the back door. ‘What did you find?’
On the ground just outside the door lay a baseball bat, blood draining from it in the rain. Beside it was an old-fashioned black leather handbag, with an open brass clasp on top, its contents spilled out onto the paving stones.
‘The weapon,’ Boyd said. ‘Someone was in a hurry.’
‘And if this isn’t Marian’s handbag, it must belong to the victim inside.’
Lottie crouched down and with gloved fingers carefully turned over a plastic card lying on the saturated ground.
‘Blood donor card. Tessa Ball,’ she said. The name sparked a recognition nerve somewhere in her brain. But at the same time, she was convinced she had never met Tessa Ball.
‘What are you doing to my crime scene?’ McGlynn stood in the open doorway, towering over her. ‘Don’t touch a thing. I need everything photographed first.’ He shouted for a tent to be erected.
‘Okay, okay.’ Lottie stood up. ‘Keep your knickers on,’ she added in a whisper.
As McGlynn approached, she sidestepped him and followed Boyd back to the front of the house.
‘We need to speak to Emma,’ she said.
‘You need to slow down,’ Boyd replied.
‘I will, when I find whoever killed that old woman.’
Four
Emma Russell’s hair hung long and limp over her shoulders. Lottie watched Emma’s eyes following her through plain-framed spectacles. A woman stood behind the girl’s chair.
‘Bernie Kelly,’ the woman said. ‘Please sit down.’
‘Thanks for taking care of Emma,’ Lottie said, sitting on the couch. She introduced herself and Boyd and said, ‘As soon as I can organise it, I’ll assign a family liaison officer. Are you okay to have a chat with us, Emma?’
Emma sat forward on the armchair, her arms hanging between her denim-clad legs, twisting a tissue round and round her fingers. She nodded.
The sitting room was small and sad, stuffed with furniture and ornaments. A coal fire blazed in the open hearth, and it seemed to Lottie as if its heat was pulling the walls in on top of them. An oil diffuser did little to lighten the smell of smoke.
‘I know you’ve had an awful shock,’ she said, ‘but it’s important for us to talk to you as soon as we can.’
‘Okay,’ Emma whispered.
‘First off, do you know a woman called Tessa Ball?’ Lottie asked. Within the last fifteen minutes they had positively identified the victim from the driver’s licence found in the handbag. And the registration plates proved the car in the drive belonged to her too.
‘She’s my granny,’ Emma said, raising her head.
‘Your granny?’ Lottie turned to Boyd. He sat forward.
‘Oh my God!’ Emma gasped. ‘That was her, wasn’t it? Lying like that… on the kitchen floor. Who would do such a thing?’
‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t know,’ Lottie said, mentally kicking herself. ‘Can you tell me what you saw?’
‘I… I don’t really know.’ Tears slipped down Emma’s cheeks. She removed her spectacles and wiped the glass with a piece of the torn tissue, then shrugged Bernie’s hand from her shoulder.
‘Are you sure you’re okay to discuss this? I’m sorry if it seems harsh, but we need to act immediately.’ Lottie felt Boyd nudge her in the ribs. She inched away from him, but there was nowhere to go.
‘You need to find my mum.’
‘We have people out looking for her. Do you have any idea where she might be?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Okay. Emma, I need your help to establish what happened.’
Emma looked up, eyes wide. ‘I don’t know anything.’
‘Tell me about your evening. Start at the beginning.’
‘Do we have to do this now?’ Bernie asked, her hand landing lightly on Emma’s shoulder once again.
‘I’m doing everything possible to find out what happened to your grandmother and to find your mother.’ Lottie directed her answer to Emma. ‘You might remember something you think is inconsequential, but it may in fact help us. You okay with that?’ She lowered her head, trying to see the girl’s eyes.
Emma spoke haltingly. ‘I came straight home after school and went to my room. Did my homework. I heard Mum come in from work around five. She called me for dinner at six. We had lasagne. The ready-made kind. Horrible crap, but I ate it, to keep her happy. She said she needed to work on her stupid course. I took the hint, made a cup of coffee and sat in the sitting room for a few minutes before Natasha rang me and I came over here. Watched the telly. That’s all I did.’
‘What time did you go home?’ Lottie asked, glancing at Boyd to make sure he was taking notes.
‘Mum told me to be home by nine, but I think it was maybe after ten thirty by the time I got back. She’s usually okay if I’m late as long as she knows where I am. I couldn’t find my key. It’s never a problem, because Mum is always at home at night…’ Emma’s voice trailed off and she looked up at Lottie. ‘Where is she?’
‘That’s what we’re trying to determine,’ Boyd said.
‘Why aren’t you out looking for her, instead of sitting here asking me stupid questions?’ Emma hung her head. ‘Sorry.’
‘I know you’re upset, Emma.’ Lottie reached out to touch the girl’s hand.
Emma grasped it. ‘Please find my mum.’
Squeezing her hand, Lottie said, ‘It’s upsetting, I know, but can you tell me what you did when you reached your house?’
Emma pulled her hand away, sniffed and rubbed her nose. ‘I rang the doorbell. No one answered. I went round the back. Looked through the glass in the top half of the door. I saw… I saw…’
‘You’re doing fine,’ Boyd said.
‘No, I’m not! What would you know about it? It was horrible. Seeing a woman like that – on the kitchen floor. And now you tell me it was my granny. Who did that to her? Who killed her? And where is my mum?’
Where indeed? Lottie thought.
‘So you didn’t go inside at all?’ Boyd said.
‘Are you deaf or something? I had no key. I couldn’t get in.’ Emma glared, eyes flashing. ‘I saw the… body on the floor. I didn’t see anyone else around. It was raining and dark. I ran back to Natasha’s. Then I rang 999.’
‘Why didn’t you phone from outside your own house?’ Boyd asked.
‘Didn’t stop to think. I was scared. I just ran.’ The tissue disintegrated into confetti and fluttered to the flowery carpet.
‘When you were at the back of your house, are you sure you didn’t see anything? Nothing on the ground?’ Lottie asked.
‘It was dark. I didn’t see anything.’
‘I know you had no key, but did you try the back door? Check if it was locked?’
‘N… no. I didn’t stop to think. I assumed it was locked but I didn’t try it. Oh God, maybe Granny was alive and I could’ve saved her.’ Emma curled up, arms around her chest, heaving back sobs.
‘There was nothing you could have done, Emma,’ Lottie said, reaching out to the girl. ‘You did exactly the right thing, leaving the premises.’ Now I’ve frightened her even more, she thought. Wild eyes stared back at her. If the fragility of the girl’s mind mirrored her body, she was ready to collapse.
‘Could he have been waiting for me?’
‘No, pet. He was gone. But we need to take your fingerprints and DNA. Just to rule you out of the investigation.’
Emma’s eyes widened to balls of fear. ‘Why would you need my DNA? I didn’t do anything.’
‘It’s procedure,’ Lottie said, then relented. ‘For now, though, I think you need to rest.’
‘How can I rest when all I see is… is…’