‘How would I go about finding out where the records are?’ Lottie ignored his query.
‘All very mysterious, Inspector, but leave it with me. I can do some amateur detecting for you.’
Lottie caught a glint of mischief in his eye and thought she saw the boy he once was, before the white collar of Rome shackled him to austere adulthood. She rose to leave, holding out her hand. He seemed to hold it for a second longer than necessary or was it her imagination?
‘You have my number. Let me know as soon as you find anything,’ she said.
‘Of course I will.’
Father Joe searched the diocesan records on the local area network, using his personal password. He keyed in St Angela’s.
Access denied.
Unusual.
He rang Father Eoin.
‘I seem to be having difficulty finding the diocesan records database,’ he said.
‘Bishop Connor engaged a consultant to revamp our intranet. He wanted increased security.’
‘But surely these records are available to us priests.’
‘You can have my password. See if it gets you in. I’m sure Bishop Connor won’t mind.’
‘You’re a lifesaver.’
Hanging up, he entered the new password.
He was in.
He looked at the cursor flashing on the blank screen.
There were no records relating to St Angela’s.
He grabbed for his phone again.
Thirty-Four
‘You what?’ Boyd exploded when Lottie told him where she’d been. ‘Have you lost your mind?’
‘What’s your problem? He’s sure to have avenues we don’t know about.’ Why was she justifying her actions to Boyd?
‘You’re still drunk,’ he said. ‘That’s the only logical conclusion.’
‘Lower your voice,’ Lottie said, looking around to see who was listening to the interchange. Lynch and Kirby were keeping their heads studiously down.
‘He’s a suspect in the Sullivan murder.’ Boyd paced, his long legs carrying him from wall to wall in three strides.
Her headache intensified with each step he hammered on the floor.
‘I didn’t tell him why I wanted the records or for that matter what records I was looking for. I need to know of their existence and current whereabouts.’
‘For argument’s sake, if he is the murderer, he either knows there’s something you want in those records and will destroy them, if they’re not already destroyed, or if he didn’t know before, now he does and will destroy them anyway.’
‘You’re talking pure shite, Boyd.’ She pulled out a chair and flopped down.
‘What do you want with them anyway?’ he asked, standing in front of her.
‘I don’t know.’
She wished she was back in her own office. At least there she could think without an audience.
‘The records may have nothing to do with our case. It’s just a hunch at this stage. Ticking boxes,’ she said.
‘Speaking of boxes, did you take my spare cigarettes this morning?’ Boyd asked, throwing an empty packet in the bin.
Lottie dug the box out of her pocket and threw it at him. He caught it and marched out the door.
‘Lynch?’
‘Inspector?’
‘I’m going out for a while.’
Lottie was convinced Ragmullin Cemetery was the coldest place in Ireland. The icy wind swirled around her and the cold sun cast a shimmering mist through the headstones. Eerie monoliths, standing in the shade of large pine trees, flung deep shadows on the graves, slowing the thaw. Crystallised snow, frosted to Christmas wreaths, added an unlikely mystical feel to the surroundings.
The wind increased momentarily and rustled the plastic wrapping on a poinsettia potted plant. The red head, blackened and wilting under the weight of snow, was a reminder that someone had visited to leave a token for those no longer alive but living on in a memory.
A tall granite cross marked the four short decades Adam had spent in this world. She hadn’t visited for some time, avoided it at Christmas and now, with the solitude of the cemetery wrapping itself around her like a threadbare shawl providing little comfort, Lottie apologised to Adam.
‘It’s too lonely here,’ she told the stone cross. ‘I keep you in my heart.’
She squinted around at the other tombstones with their stories hidden deep within hewn granite. A chime tinkled in the stillness and a chill traversed her spine. Time to go. She had secrets to unearth and a killer to catch.
As she walked out through the open gates Lottie noticed the silhouette of St Angela’s, across the fields about a mile in the distance, shrouded in a soft grey mist. What skeletons lay buried deep within its walls? How many lives had it damaged? She thought of Susan and her baby. She remembered another child who had disappeared a long time ago. Was he dead? Would he ever rest within the grounds of a cemetery? Was that missing boy the real reason she wanted to see the old records? She wasn’t at all sure of her motives. But she knew she could never forget that child. He was missing so long, others may have forgotten about him but she hadn’t. Her constant checking of his file was more than an exercise in memory, it was a means of keeping him deeply planted in her mind. The day she had joined the Garda Síochána, following in her late father’s footsteps, she had promised herself she would find him. So far she had failed in delivering on that promise.
She hurried back to her car before the ghosts of the past rested heavier on her shoulders.
Thirty-Five
Lottie sat with Boyd in front of bank manager Mike O’Brien. She’d taken an instant dislike to the man the moment he’d sat down behind his desk without as much as a hello. But Boyd knew him. They shared the same gym and coached Ragmullin’s underage hurling team. Lottie wondered if he’d ever trained Sean. She knew Boyd had.
‘You have the Brown and Sullivan bank statements,’ O’Brien said, ‘so, what else do you want from me?’
His small eyes reminded Lottie of a ferret her son had once attempted to bring home as a pet. Dark and shifty. She had the feeling that O’Brien was trying to second-guess her, puffing out his chest and desperately failing to make himself look important. Dandruff from his too-long grey hair speckled the shoulders of his black suit. Diamond cufflinks sparkled at his wrists, glittering under the fluorescent lighting. Here was a man trying to look half his age, only succeeding in looking older. Tough shit, O’Brien. But as he had led them into his office a moment ago, she had noticed his quick athletic stride. Hours in the gym paid off for some people. If you had the time, she told herself.
‘Detective Sergeant Boyd analysed the victims’ bank statements,’ Lottie said.
‘We need to know where the money was coming from,’ Boyd said.
‘What do you mean?’ O’Brien’s eyes darted between the two detectives.
‘There are amounts of up to five thousand euro hitting their accounts regularly, over the last six months,’ Boyd said.
‘Almost thirty thousand each,’ Lottie said. ‘Who was giving it to them?’