‘You can talk to Superintendent Corrigan about that.’
‘I will.’
His voice was deep: a baritone. Or was it a bass? Jesus, she was so exhausted she could cry.
‘Didn’t think you’d be here until tomorrow,’ she said.
He came and sat at Boyd’s desk. She wanted to yell at him to get his arse off her friend’s chair, but she hadn’t the energy.
‘After the fire victim was identified, I knew you wouldn’t have the expertise to handle it,’ he said.
‘What are you talking about? Lorcan Brady is a small-time crook. No need for you to disturb your evening.’
‘Lorcan Brady? No, not that whippersnapper.’
‘Who then?’
But she knew. McMahon had got word before she had. The stabbed and burned man must have been identified through his dental records. Big-time crook, if it brought a detective inspector out of his cushy Dublin office while a biblical storm raged.
‘Jerome Quinn,’ he said.
‘One of the Quinns?’
‘Second biggest drug family in the country. Jerome split from his half-brother a couple of years ago and disappeared from our radar. Interesting to note he’d most probably been living under your very nose here in Ragmullin.’
‘He never came to our attention.’
‘Correct, but it was some haul of cannabis he had growing, wasn’t it?’
Lottie could hear the reprimand in his tone. Wait till he found out about the heroin they’d discovered in Brady’s house.
‘Not to mention the value of the heroin from Brady’s house.’
So he already knew. Unable to think of a suitable reply, she remained mute.
‘You look tired,’ he said. ‘I’ll check into my hotel and we’ll take this up in the morning. Should be an open-and-shut case. I’ll be out of your hair in no time.’
She felt her hand reach up to her straggly locks. A natural reflex. Maybe he wouldn’t be too bad after all.
‘And I want a computer in here, first thing.’ He fetched his coat and was out of the door before she could pull her thoughts together to frame a suitable reply.
‘What the hell?’ she said to the four walls.
Her phone beeped. Katie.
‘I meant to ask when you rang earlier, Mam, will you pick something up from the supermarket for dinner? And a tin of formula for Louis. Oh, and while you’re at it, maybe another pack of nappies. Ta. You’re the best.’
‘Sure,’ Lottie said, and the call died. She leaned over and rested her head on the desk. She didn’t realise she’d fallen asleep until she felt a tap on her shoulder.
‘You’d better go home, Lottie.’ Boyd.
She stretched and glanced at the ledger, still in the evidence bag. ‘I need you to have a look at this.’
‘Tomorrow,’ he said. ‘And there’s no sign of Arthur Russell at the B and B or at Danny’s. No one has laid eyes on him since he was released.’
‘Shit. Surely he didn’t kill his own daughter?’
‘Anything is possible.’
‘I wonder if he knows Marian is dead?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Let’s recap.’ She sat up as straight as her tired spine allowed. ‘Tessa Ball is dead. Marian Russell, her daughter, is dead. Marian’s daughter Emma is dead. Three members of one family. Who benefited from their deaths? What is the motive? And who had it? Arthur? O’Dowd? I can’t get my head around it.’
‘Lottie?’
‘Yes?’
‘It can wait until tomorrow. Go home.’
‘Where’s everyone?’
‘Still at O’Dowd’s. There is a search party out for him and Arthur Russell. But the storm is playing havoc. The town is flooded. The river burst its banks. I had to drive here the long way round.’
Lottie jumped up.
‘I hope my house is okay.’ The river skirted around the side of the estate where she lived. She remembered Katie’s call. Surely she would have mentioned if the house was in danger of flooding? Then again…
‘Will you come grocery shopping with me, Boyd? I haven’t the energy.’
‘What?’
‘Please?’
‘The things I do for you.’
Fifty-Eight
Every night it was the same. Stepping carefully around him, like the floor was covered in sharp shards of glass. And no matter how hard she tried, something invariably tipped him over.
Tonight Annabelle vowed it would be different.
Every last surface in the house was shining. The counter tops were immaculate. The floor – you could eat your dinner off it, and she had, once, with his shoe resting on the back of her neck.
There had to be a way out of this hellhole. Going to a hostel might be an option. But he would find her. And she had to keep her practice going. She had to keep the twins.
Her life had always been boring with Cian, and she no longer remembered why she had married him. At one time she had plugged the gap with affairs, but her disastrous liaison with Tom Rickard had been the final straw for Cian. Something had snapped inside him when he found out. The man she thought she’d been married to for twenty years had altered within weeks into a raging control freak.
It was all her doing, he’d said. She was the one who’d slept in other men’s beds, the one who’d let other men shag her. She was the one who’d deceived her husband with a myriad of lies. She was the worthless one. Wasn’t she? So she deserved every slap and humiliation he threw at her. Didn’t she?
No she did not, she told herself. Annabelle O’Shea was not going to be trampled into worthlessness. She had to do something.
She undressed her burned wrist, tended it with ointment and wrapped a clean bandage over the seeping wound. It should be healing by now, but it wasn’t. She limped over to the stove and, like a robot, stirred the stew.
The twins were in their rooms, finishing their homework. There was no sound from Cian’s study. Come to think of it, she had not heard anything from him since she arrived home from work. She glanced at the clock. He usually visited the kitchen around now, to check on her and call her names.
But this evening there was silence.
She ceased stirring and listened intently. The hum of Bronagh singing along to a tune. The stomp of Pearse’s foot on the floor. Not a sound from Cian’s study.
Opening the back door, she peered through the rain at the raised door of the garage. His car wasn’t there. She never asked where he went or what he did, because she didn’t care. It gave her a few hours of uninterrupted peace. But to go out this early? The clock indicated that it was 19.05.
Slipping off her boots, she climbed the stairs in her Calvin Klein socks. Holding her breath outside his study, she waited. Listened. Nothing. She eased out a breath as her fingers clutched the handle. And then she noticed the coded keypad attached to the door. When had he put that there?
What was Cian involved in that warranted keeping his own family out of his study? She tried the handle anyway. No give. With a sigh of resignation, she was turning to go back down the stairs when she heard, above the cacophony of the storm, the sound of a car screeching up the drive, rounding the gable of the house and entering the garage.
She ran down the stairs and flew into the kitchen, and was stirring the stew when he walked in. Not a word. Not a glance. She didn’t raise her head until she sensed the icy chill as he walked up behind her, eased his arm around her waist and dragged her body to his in a rough embrace. A damp smell of staleness rose from his clothes as his fingers began to probe.
Her long neck, which she had once loved him to caress, froze with the touch of his cold lips on her most sensual spot. And then the pinch, where no one could see. Biting her lip, she willed the scream to lock itself down. To stay silent until she was free to acknowledge the pain.