‘Their murders might have absolutely nothing to do with the drugs,’ Lottie said when none of her team were forthcoming.
McMahon unbuttoned his jacket, shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and strutted around the perimeter of the room. ‘Marian’s tongue was cut out. Her daughter was in a relationship with small-time crook Lorcan Brady. Was Marian about to squeal? Did someone try to stop her?’
‘Hold on a minute there.’ Boyd was up and out of his chair. ‘We only have it on hearsay that Emma Russell was involved with Lorcan Brady.’
‘Didn’t you find cash hidden in her room, Inspector?’ McMahon said, without looking at Boyd. ‘Didn’t you find a hoodie she may have been wearing?’
‘That’s true, but—’ Lottie began.
‘Wasn’t her body found a few miles down the road from where Brady and Quinn were assaulted and burned?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Didn’t you find unidentified plants hidden at the Russell home?’
Lottie nodded.
‘I rest my case.’
‘Bollocks,’ Kirby said, and jammed his e-cig into his mouth.
Lottie closed her eyes, waited for an arrogant tirade. Deathly silence reigned as she counted. She reached nineteen before McMahon spoke.
‘Have you a more reasonable hypothesis to offer, Detective Kirby?’
When Lottie opened her eyes, McMahon’s suit jacket was once again buttoned up and he was standing at the opposite end of the incident boards.
‘If I was to go along with your scenario,’ she said, ‘which I’m not ready to, tell me why Tessa Ball was killed.’
‘Wrong place, wrong time,’ he offered.
‘Bullshit.’ Boyd.
‘You have the floor,’ McMahon said, and folded his arms. Lottie didn’t dare turn her head, but she could imagine he had a sneer plastered over his closely shaven face.
‘Right,’ Boyd said, and mimicked McMahon’s earlier tour of the room. ‘Marian Russell rang her mother Tessa at 21.07 on the night of Tessa’s murder. We believe Emma left to go to Natasha’s at 18.30 and arrived home sometime after 22.30. We can assume that Marian let someone she knew into her house, as there was no sign of forced entry. Whoever it was wanted Tessa there. That was the reason for the phone call. We could assume the person was Arthur Russell, as he has no alibi from 19.30 on that evening – a domestic situation that got out of hand.’
‘I will indulge this line of thought for the moment,’ McMahon said. ‘Tessa was attacked and murdered. Marian was taken away, in her own car, to Lorcan Brady’s house. There she was tortured and mutilated. The next day she was pushed out of the car at the hospital. It’s been confirmed that was the car found burned out at Lough Cullion the same morning that Lorcan Brady and Jerome Quinn were tortured and burned in a cottage just outside Ragmullin.’
‘That cottage was once owned by Tessa Ball,’ Lottie said. Time to get her investigation back in her own hands.
‘And a criminal was renting it.’
‘She signed it over to Mick O’Dowd.’
‘The farmer on whose property her granddaughter was found murdered. He rented the cottage to Quinn, therefore he may also be involved in the drugs ring.’
Lottie couldn’t dispute his argument. Didn’t mean she had to buy into it. ‘We’re still looking for O’Dowd. When we find him, we’ll get some answers.’
‘Depending on whether he’s still alive or not.’
‘Of course he’s alive.’
‘Appears to me you haven’t been successful in keeping many suspects, or witnesses for that matter, alive so far. Where do you think this O’Dowd character could be? His Land Rover is still at the farm, I believe.’
‘A quad bike is missing,’ Lottie said.
‘Not an ideal getaway vehicle, is it?’
‘He might’ve had—’
‘Enough!’
Superintendent Corrigan moved to the front of the room. Lottie hadn’t noticed him arriving.
He shook hands with McMahon and clapped him on the back. ‘Good to have you in our neck of the woods.’
The two-faced bastard. Lottie planted a smile on her face, careful not to catch Boyd’s eye.
‘Great to be here, Superintendent. I’ll have this solved in a matter of hours. I’m heading to speak with Lorcan Brady once I wrap up this meeting.’
‘Brady can’t speak…’ Lottie stopped. Had she been kept out of that loop also?
‘I was informed earlier that he’s ready to have a wee chat with me,’ McMahon said.
‘I think I should be the one to—’
‘Great stuff,’ said Superintendent Corrigan, cutting her short. ‘Off you go, David, and I’ll have a wee chat with my team.’
Lottie noticed the realisation dawning on McMahon. He’d been outsmarted at his own game. She couldn’t help a grin curling at the corner of her mouth as she watched the Dublin DI shake Corrigan’s hand and leave the room.
‘Shut the feckin’ door,’ Corrigan instructed once McMahon had left.
‘With pleasure,’ Kirby said, dragging himself out of his chair.
‘Now, I want a full update from the senior investigating officer. Inspector Parker, that’s you, in case you had been misled by that Dublin hotshot in a suit. You have ten minutes to consult with your team. Then I want you in my office. With answers. Understood?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Sixty-Three
The relief was palpable once the two men had left. Lottie thought the four walls also breathed a welcome sigh. The air seemed to lift. If only momentarily.
‘I don’t want this going on a day longer than necessary. I want Arthur Russell and Mick O’Dowd found. What are you doing about it?’
Lynch sat up straight. ‘Every officer in the district is mobilised and there’s a manhunt throughout the state for them. Checkpoints are operational since Emma’s body was found. Airports and ports have been notified. Everyone is watching for them.’
‘So what have we got in the line of answers to our overall investigation?’
‘I’ve just received a transcript of the information that was salvaged from Marian Russell’s laptop hard drive,’ Lynch said. ‘I’ll give you a summary as soon as I get a chance to examine it.’
‘Good. Kirby, you look like the dog that got the bone. What’s your news?’
Kirby grinned, and Lottie had to smile back, even though she wanted to tell him to get a haircut.
‘The bones found at the cottage yesterday…’
‘Brady’s missing fingers?’
‘Yes, boss.’
‘The gun we found in Tessa’s apartment,’ Lottie said, moving on swiftly. ‘Any information from ballistics?’
Kirby shifted in his chair, from one buttock to the other.
‘Out with it,’ Lottie said.
‘You might not like this.’
‘Let me be the judge of that.’ Her phone vibrated in her jeans pocket. Ignoring it, she braced herself for whatever it was Kirby thought she wasn’t going to like.
‘The revolver is a Webley and Scott. Used by the Garda Special Branch back in the seventies.’
‘The Special Branch?’ Lottie said. ‘How did it end up in Tessa Ball’s possession?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Kirby said. ‘But the weird thing is…’
‘Go on.’
Kirby took a deep breath and blurted out, ‘Ballistics show it’s a match with the bullet from an old suicide.’
Lottie’s next question died on her lips. She knew where this was leading. She formed a new question.
‘You mean to tell me that the gun we found in a murder victim’s home the other day is the same gun that my father used to kill himself forty years ago?’
Kirby was biting his lip, nodding his bushy head of hair.
Boyd said, ‘That’s… that’s the most far-fetched thing I’ve heard in… in ages.’
Lottie walked around the room, mulling over the significance of this. Had Tessa known her father? How did she come to have the gun? In all the reports she’d read so far in her own private investigations, it was stated that Peter Fitzpatrick had stolen the gun from a secure cabinet in the garda station. She banged her fists against her forehead. Nowhere had she read what had happened to the gun afterwards. Nowhere had she seen any connection to Tessa Ball. But had she? Think, Lottie, she told herself. Think. Then it came to her. Her father’s notebook. The one with the name of the solicitors scrawled across the centre of a page.
‘Oh my God,’ she said.