‘He could do with a wash,’ Boyd said.
‘I couldn’t smell him.’
‘I’m not surprised.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Lottie, you’re drinking again. I’m not blind or stupid. What’s going on?’
The concern etched on his face disturbed her. But she didn’t need him to feel sorry for her. She’d fight this her own way. Like she always did.
‘Mind your own business.’ She ran to the car. Got in and slammed the door.
Boyd joined her. ‘I’ll only say this once,’ he began. ‘I’m here if you need me.’
‘Start the car. We need to do the paperwork on Arthur Russell and check out his so-called alibi.’
‘Your wish is—’
‘Start the car, Boyd.’
‘Maybe we should’ve told him about his dead mother-in-law and his missing wife.’
‘Maybe we were right not to. Let’s see what he does next.’
‘Do you think Marian killed her own mother?’
‘When we find her, why don’t we ask her?’ Lottie stamped her feet up on the dashboard and wondered where she could get more pills.
‘Where to?’ Boyd said.
‘Tessa Ball’s flat.’
‘What about Danny’s Bar? To check Arthur’s alibi.’
‘It can wait. We’ll have lunch there.’
‘Might get it on the house.’ Boyd put the car in gear.
‘You’re a mean shite.’ But she had been thinking the same thing.
‘Bet you were thinking the same,’ Boyd said.
Lottie attempted to hide her smile, but failed. She had to listen to him laughing all the way to St Declan’s Apartments.
* * *
Lynch ceased her banging on the door and turned round, coming face to face with a woman, key in hand.
‘Can I help you at all?’
‘I’m the temporary family liaison officer assigned to Emma Russell. Do you know where she might be?’
‘I told the other one that we don’t need… Oh, come on in.’ The woman opened the door and ushered her inside. ‘I’m Bernie Kelly.’
Taking off her coat, Lynch hung it over a heap of others on the stair post. ‘I was ringing and knocking but no one answered. I even went down to check at the Russells’. Where is Emma?’
‘In bed, I should think. I don’t know how she’s going to cope with it all.’
‘Can I check?’ Lynch grabbed the other woman’s arm and steered her towards the stairs. ‘I want to be sure she’s safe.’
‘Of course she’s safe in my house. Why wouldn’t she be?’
‘Please have a look.’
‘Emma? Natasha? Are ye awake yet?’ Bernie sauntered up the stairs. Lynch wanted to push past her and run into every room.
‘What’s up, Mum?’
Lynch assumed this was Natasha. The girl appeared on the landing, a black T-shirt for a nightie and her hair a tangled mess around her shoulders. Both thighs were tattooed with a dark red heart dripping blood from the dagger piercing it.
‘Where’s Emma?’ Lynch almost sent Bernie tumbling back down the stairs as she barged past her.
Natasha squinted through one eye, the other seemingly stuck closed with sleep. ‘Who are you?’
‘Detective Maria Lynch, family liaison officer. I need to see Emma. Where is she?’ She couldn’t stop the panic sharpening her voice.
Emma’s bedroom was empty.
‘Is she in another room?’ Without waiting for an answer, she checked the other rooms. All empty. She whipped out her phone and bounded down the stairs past an open-mouthed Bernie Kelly, tapping her phone for Lottie’s number.
‘Hey, just a minute, you, this is my house.’
Lynch felt her ponytail being tugged, and whirled round to launch an attack just as the back door opened and in walked a teenager, holding a plastic supermarket bag in her hand. The smell of fresh bread preceded her entrance.
‘Are you Emma?’
The girl nodded.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ Lynch shouted, disconnecting the call before Lottie could answer.
Emma shrank back against the door. Tears suffused the whites of her eyes. ‘Shopping.’
‘And you’ve just assaulted a member of the gardaí,’ Lynch snapped at Bernie Kelly.
‘This is my house! You can’t go barging around like you own the place.’ Bernie marched past Lynch into the kitchen. ‘Come on, let’s have a cup of tea and we can all calm down.’
And that made Lynch even madder.
Eleven
Tessa Ball had lived in a modern two-bedroomed apartment complex next door to the disused St Declan’s Hospital. Lottie squirmed as a shiver wormed its way between her shoulder blades. She didn’t like to dwell on her most recent case which had culminated inside the closed-down hospital.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Boyd asked. ‘You look like a rat crawled over your face.’
‘Very funny, Boyd.’ She unbuckled her seat belt. ‘Second floor. Apartment 6B.’
She tried to avoid splashing in puddles. Her boots would never dry out at this rate. In the clean, square foyer, smelling strongly of disinfectant, they were met with the steel door of an elevator. She pressed a button, stepped inside and waited for Boyd to join her.
The elevator trundled slowly up to the second floor. They exited into a corridor lined with doors.
Stepping into the apartment, Lottie felt around the wall for a light switch and flicked it on. They were standing in a living area. Curtains drawn across the window. The room was split in half by a breakfast bar, behind which lay a galley-type kitchen. A couch piled with cushions in knitted covers was pushed up against the bar. There was a single armchair too, and the floor was covered with flowery deep-pile carpet.
‘Like a return to the seventies,’ Lottie said. ‘I thought these were relatively new apartments?’
‘Built about ten years ago, maybe less. She must have decorated it herself.’
‘I wouldn’t call it decorating; not in the modern sense.’ She appraised the acrylic paintings on the wall and sniffed the air. ‘Wintergreen.’
‘To mask the fusty smell, or maybe she had muscle problems?’ Boyd shrugged and lifted up a newspaper from the coffee table. ‘Yesterday’s Irish Times. No Sun for this lady.’ A basket with wool and knitting needles sat beside the newspaper.
Lottie moved to the window and drew back the brocade curtain. It didn’t add much light to the room. One of those days that refused to brighten up. A moth escaped the darkness and fluttered up to the glass chandelier.
The kitchen counter top was clean and the sink empty. One by one she opened the mahogany doors of the cupboards. Pulling out a few pots, she checked there was nothing hidden.
‘What are we looking for?’ Boyd asked, opening the refrigerator.
‘Make sure you check the freezer box,’ Lottie said, recalling how they’d overlooked evidence in an earlier case.
‘Not even an ice cream.’
She walked down the narrow corridor and opened the first of three doors. Bathroom. She searched the cabinet. No prescription medicines. A packet of paracetamol, a brown bottle containing iron tonic, and a tube of wintergreen. Shampoo bottle on the floor of the green-mosaic-tiled shower. The chrome handrail made her think perhaps Tessa was feeling her age.
The next door appeared to be a spare room. Single bed, neatly made up with a white candlewick bedspread. One locker, empty. Free-standing wardrobe, empty. No boxes on top and nothing under the bed.
‘This one must belong to the lady of the house,’ Boyd said, opening the door.
Lottie bit down a sarcastic retort. Her head was pounding and she needed to get out of the suffocating air as quickly as possible.
Mrs Ball’s bedroom was what she had half expected. An old brass bed, made up with a spread similar to the spare room. A picture of the Sacred Heart hung above it, with the requisite red lamp lit beneath. Lottie got down on her knees, scrabbling beneath the double bed. She sneezed. Mrs Ball’s tidiness hadn’t extended to hoovering under here. Her fingers touched a cardboard box – a shoebox. As she dragged it out, another cloud of dust rose up.
Boyd ran his hand underneath the mattress. ‘Nothing.’
‘I thought all little old ladies stored their life savings under the mattress.’
‘What’s in the box?’ Boyd knelt beside her.
Lottie shook it. ‘It’s light.’