‘No tea,’ Lottie said. ‘I need to go to bed. We’ll get a takeaway.’
She looked around. No handbag. The mugger had fled at the screech of the car brakes but had not got away empty handed. He wouldn’t get rich on the contents of her bag. Thank God she hadn’t been foolish enough to bring the cash from Susan Sullivan’s freezer. Small mercies and all that, she thought.
‘There might be enough change in the kitchen jar,’ she said, gingerly rising from the armchair.
Slowly, she climbed the stairs to her bedroom, ignoring the clutter of clothes covering the floor and hanging on the open door of the wardrobe. After undressing tentatively she stepped into the shower, allowing the hot spray to ease her pain and cleanse her cuts.
Towelling down her warm flesh, she appraised her wounds. At worst she had a broken rib, at best bruised ribs. A deep cut lacerated the bridge of her nose. No break. Another fainter cut had settled beneath her left eye. She’d be some sight tomorrow, she figured, when the bruising erupted.
Her arms ached and her throat was raw, the skin on her neck already turning purple. He’d almost succeeded in strangling her. She consoled herself – she had fought back. Desperately. Why had Susan Sullivan not fought to save herself? Jane Dore had reported little or no defensive wounds. What kind of person has no instinct for survival? Lottie could not understand it.
She threw her clothes from the bed to the floor and eased her head on to the pillows. Needing someone to talk to, besides Boyd, she scrolled through her phone contacts for the number of her long-time, occasional friend. Lately, she hadn’t seen much of Annabelle O’Shea, one of her oldest friends and the exact opposite of Lottie. Gym, yoga and whatever other fancy exercise you could think of – Annabelle engaged in it. Lottie couldn’t be bothered wasting so much time on herself. Voicemail instructed her to leave a message. She didn’t. Hanging up, she pulled the duvet over her aching body and wished for sleep.
She lay awake a long time, her hand on the Argos book, thinking of James Brown with his pornographic bedroom walls and Susan Sullivan with a sitting room full of newspapers, a fridge with frozen money and a house depicting nothing of her life. And her own faceless attacker. All the time, reverberating in her brain, were the words ‘think of your children’. She had been targeted. Why?
For the first time in years, Lottie felt fear itching beneath her skin.
Boyd worked late, reading the pathologist’s report to the sound of the cathedral bells signalling the dawn of a new year.
He opened the online planning files and began cross-referencing details against the ghost estate files. Methodical, painstaking work. Work he was good at. It kept his mind off other things. Off other people. Off one person in particular.
Succeeding in finding nothing, he went home and powered up a sweat on his turbo bike. His frustration helped pump adrenaline until his chest almost caved in.
He gave up, lit a cigarette and sat on his stationary bike, smoking. Intermittently, the room lit up from the effervescent fireworks in the night sky. And he was alone.
At four a.m. Lottie’s mobile phone binged. She squinted at it on the locker. The number was unfamiliar.
A text.
May the New Year bring you peace.
She texted back. Who is this?
A few seconds later, a reply popped up.
Father Joe.
She smiled and fell into a fitful sleep; dreamed of blue eyes, crosses in circles and a rope tightening round her throat until she awoke bathed in a cold sweat. She dragged herself into the shower, stood beneath hot water, then, wrapping a towel loosely about her bruised body, she lay on the bed.
Sleep did not return.
January 1st 1975
The girl woke up with a terrible pain in the bottom of her stomach.
She dragged herself out of bed and screamed as the agony increased in waves.
‘Holy Mother of God. Oh, Jesus Christ,’ she shouted.
Her mother ran into the room.
‘What’s all the commotion about?’
She stopped at the sight of blood and water pouring down her daughter’s legs. All of a sudden she knew what was going on. She blessed herself then went to the girl. She put her lying on the bed.
‘What have you done?’
The girl screamed. And screamed again.
Her mother looked on in horror while her daughter produced her one and only push and her grandchild entered the world.
The baby cried.
Both of them cried.
Neither of them knew what to do.
So they cried some more.
‘I’ll get a midwife,’ her mother said. ‘And the priest. He’ll know what to do.’
‘No!’
The girl screeched, a shrill and terrified wail of terror.
DAY THREE
1st January 2015
Twenty-Three
‘Happy New Year to me,’ Lottie said as she raised the kitchen blinds.
With the darkness outside she stared at her bruised image reflected in the glass. She ran her fingers through her hair, thinking she needed to get it cut and coloured. The chestnut dye was growing out and a thin grey line was beginning to appear on the top of her head. But she had more to worry about than looking like a badger. Shit, she looked like she’d gone ten rounds with Ragmullin’s Olympic boxer.
Checking her phone, she read the night-time text from Father Joe Burke. She hadn’t replied. Just as well. He’s a suspect, she thought.
Busying herself tidying the kitchen, she squashed up empty Coke bottles and folded the pizza box into the recycling bin. Two nights in a row her children had eaten junk food. It wasn’t good enough. She had to go to the supermarket. She hoped Tesco would be open, it being New Year’s Day and all that shite. She opened cupboard doors making a mental note of what she needed. Everything.
Then she remembered she had no wallet, no cards, no nothing.
Placing the last two Weetabix in a bowl, she sat at the table thinking of her attacker. Could he be the one who murdered Sullivan and Brown? Was he trying to kill her? She shook off that notion. She had to think of her children.
Her children. Chloe was under pressure at school. Katie struggled with continuous college assignments and had locked her out mentally since Adam’s death. And Sean, spending all day long on his PlayStation. Lottie despaired. How could she cope with them and her job? Maybe she should ask her mother to look in on them. But their last row was still too raw.
Sighing, she poured coffee into a mug and milk on her cereal. It plopped out in thick lumps. Gagging at the sour smell, she sipped black coffee. A cigarette would be nice, she thought, as the pain in her head intensified. She searched a drawer for painkillers, found a Xanax, so she swallowed it instead. Hugging her aching sides, she wished her pain away.
Her children would probably sleep until midday. A rude awakening awaited them next week. Back to school.
For her – work.
By the time she reached the station, Lottie’s mood was as cold as the icy wind whipping her face on the walk into work.