‘How long has the body been here?’
‘I’m waiting for the state pathologist,’ McGlynn answered, sharply.
‘Prick,’ Lottie said, under her breath.
Jane Dore breezed on to the site suited up in her protective gear and acknowledged Lottie with a swift shake of her head.
‘Someone must think I’ve nothing to do, they keep supplying me with bodies.’
‘Agreed,’ Lottie said, standing to one side while the pathologist carried out her preliminary examination.
‘Appears to be strangulation,’ Jane said. ‘There’s a ligature mark on his neck. On initial observation I can determine frozen snow under the body. It’s quite possible he was killed within the last week. The arctic temperatures have preserved him in perfect condition.’
Perfect condition, except he is dead, thought Lottie. She felt like puking, her hangover unrelenting.
‘Do you think this is the crime scene?’ she asked and realised that if the body had been here a week, the man had been killed prior to the Sullivan and Brown deaths.
‘I’ll know more when I get him on my table.’
‘And you’ll inform me if he has a tattoo?’
‘Of course,’ the pathologist said and, with short, careful steps, left the scene.
Lottie’s headache intensified. The body count was rising. Corrigan was boiling. The press were baying. The public were terrified and her team were no nearer any explanation for all or any of the murders. Welcome to La La Land, Inspector Parker. She scratched her head. Fucking hell.
‘You okay?’ Boyd was at her shoulder.
‘Who is he?’ she asked.
‘How do I know?’
She bit back a retort and looked at Boyd. His face seemed thinner, if that were possible. ‘It was a rhetorical question. The victim was more than likely killed before Sullivan and Brown.’
With the body turned over on to his back, Lottie looked at the bloated, blackened face.
‘I’d estimate mid-thirties,’ she said and watched patiently as the SOCOs bagged the body and removed it from the scene.
McGlynn held up a small plastic evidence bag.
‘Blue fibre,’ Lottie noted.
‘From around the neck,’ he said.
‘Thanks,’ Lottie said. Similar rope to that wound round James Brown’s neck.
‘No wallet or identification but there are two cigarette ends here,’ McGlynn said, picking up one with tweezers.
‘Belonging to the victim?’
‘Possibly. Or his killer.’ He dropped it into an evidence bag.
Lottie watched McGlynn at work for a few minutes before going into the house.
‘That body isn’t a million miles from the description we have of Father Angelotti,’ Boyd said, trailing her inside.
‘The face is unrecognisable and we’ve no record of distinguishing marks to check for,’ Lottie said. ‘We’ll have to wait for a formal identification. Otherwise, it’s down to DNA analysis.’
‘Whoever he is, someone has to be missing him.’
‘There’s no car,’ Lottie remarked, looking out the front window. ‘How did he get out here?’
‘Maybe the killer drove him or he got a taxi,’ Boyd said. ‘Why was he here? That’s another question.’
‘And did Brown know him?’
‘We have too many questions and not enough answers,’ Boyd said.
‘Find out what you can.’
‘He could’ve been Brown’s lover. He drove him here and killed him in a jealous rage,’ Boyd ventured.
‘I suppose now you think Brown killed this man, strangled Sullivan, then hung himself?’ Lottie shook her head in annoyance.
Boyd said nothing, pulled out another cigarette and went outside to light it. Following him, Lottie stepped into the slushy yard. Her brain was a muddle.
She could do with a drink.
She settled for one of Boyd’s cigarettes and told him about the conversations with Doctor Annabelle O’Shea and her mother.
Thirty-Three
At the station they added the unknown victim and details from the scene to the incident board. Lottie supported the theory whereby visually interpreting data was more productive than information in databases which could be missed or forgotten. Not that they had much to interpret.
She assigned the task of resurrecting information on Sally Stynes aka Susan Sullivan to a detective and wondered where she could get her hands on St Angela’s records. Discovering more about the institution just might reveal something about Susan Sullivan. Lottie returned her attention to the latest victim.
‘If it hadn’t snowed so heavily,’ she said, ‘the body might have been found—’
‘A week ago,’ Boyd interjected.
‘Yes. Unless the killer was following the weather forecast, he wanted that body found.’
‘And there was no attempt to cover it up.’
‘Just the snow.’
‘If it hadn’t snowed . . .’ Boyd began.
‘But it did. Was it an attempt to point the finger at—’
‘James Brown? When the body wasn’t found, for some reason, the murderer had to kill Sullivan and Brown.’ Boyd paused then continued, ‘Brown could still have carried out this murder though.’
‘Oh, this conjecture is pointless.’ Lottie sighed with exasperation.
Looking at the board, she noticed they had no photograph of Father Angelotti. She made a quick phone call, grabbed her coat, and sidestepping Boyd, hurried out of the building.
‘Hello, Sister. I’m here to see Father Burke. He’s expecting me.’
The nun directed her to the room where she’d sat the first day. Lottie walked around the mahogany furniture looking at the large portraits of long-dead bishops hanging on the walls. They’d put the fear of God in you, she thought.
‘Wouldn’t they put the fear of God in you?’ Father Joe said, walking in behind her.
‘I was thinking the exact same thing.’ She grinned at him. Synchronicity?
‘Tea? Sister Anna will oblige.’
‘No, thank you.’
‘How can I help? It sounded urgent on the phone.’
‘I need a photograph of Father Angelotti,’ Lottie said. She didn’t really need it, they had the hairbrush for DNA comparisons.
‘You haven’t found him yet?’ He went to a computer in the corner where he printed a photograph. She could have done that herself. Wasn’t it just an excuse to see him again? She shouldn’t have come here. Her logic and emotion were contradictory. So was she.
Studying the photo, she wrinkled up her nose. It was possible he was the body in Brown’s garden.
‘Does Father Angelotti smoke?’ she asked, recalling the stale tobacco smell in the priest’s room and the cigarette butts at the scene.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Hold on.’ He phoned someone, listened and hung up.
‘According to Father Eoin, Bishop Connor’s secretary, he did smoke. Why do you need to know?’
‘Gathering as much information as possible.’ She switched the conversation. ‘What do you know about St Angela’s?’
‘St Angela’s? Not a lot. It ceased operating as a children’s home in the early eighties. I think it was a retirement place for nuns before it closed permanently. It was sold a few years ago.’
‘What happened to the records?’
‘I presume they were archived,’ he said. ‘Why the questions about St Angela’s?’