Sister Immaculata hurried down the steps. She took the blanketed bundle and ushered the girl to walk beside her. Without a hug or kiss, the tall woman – he assumed she was her mother – rushed from the girl to the car and drove off quickly.
He stood there, listening to the wind, which used to frighten him before he came to realise there were more terrifying things in St Angela’s than blustery corridors. He wondered about the new girl and her bundle, her baby. He knew it was a baby; her baby.
He’d witnessed many such arrivals here, but this girl’s stunned eyes had unsettled him. Some remained only a short time. Not all though. Not like him. He thought he’d been here forever. He supposed that many years ago, he was like the wrapped-up bundle – a dark secret hidden deep in swaddling. Was his mother like this girl? He didn't usually allow himself such reflections but her face, painted with such uncertainty and fear, touched him. This was his home. He knew no different. Would this be her home now? What was her story and where would it end?
‘Patrick, get out of that window. How many times do I have to tell you? You’ll catch a cold,’ Sister Teresa said, as she passed by him.
He stretched his twelve-year-old legs to the floor and welcomed the pat on his head from her old hand. He liked her. Not the other nuns. They had changed when that last priest arrived. The one with the black eyes. No, Patrick did not like him at all and the nuns were wary. Afraid? He decided he didn't really care one way or the other as he walked along the black and white mosaics to the stone carved staircase. Sister Immaculata, coming from the nursery, stood in front of him.
‘Tea time, Patrick,’ she said, her forehead bulging beneath the wimple of her long black veil. He shrugged.
She walked ahead of him, down the stairs in a wave of black skirts. He smelled mothballs and followed in silence.
What would she look like at the bottom, if he tripped her? This was not the first time he’d wondered that. He smiled to himself and went to wash his hands before tea.
DAY FIVE
3rd January 20
Thirty-Nine
The townspeople of Ragmullin were wide awake and wary. News of another murder had filtered through the gossip lines. They were saying a priest was dead. Lottie frowned. The grapevine was proving very fruitful, even in the depths of winter.
Snowy icicles hanging from drainpipes dripped slowly as temperatures struggled to rise. A murky grey fog enveloped the morning. Lottie looked away from the incident room window. Extensive searches had failed to uncover the whereabouts of a phone or laptop belonging to Susan Sullivan.
‘She could have used an internet cafe,’ Boyd suggested.
‘She could have been on Mars for all we know,’ Lottie snapped.
She felt bloated, having scoffed a McDonald’s breakfast on her way into work. Junk food. She binged when the urge for alcohol threatened to become something more than a desire. The investigations would drive a saint to drink altar wine. Lottie knew she was no saint but she’d endured the night without alcohol or indeed much sleep.
The technical team had searched the relevant Facebook pages and found nothing. It was like driving around a strange city without GPS or any knowledge of the local language. They were lost.
Glancing out the window again, she noticed around a dozen heavily jacketed journalists, armed with cameras and notebooks, assembled in huddles below. She turned to the sparse incident board. She felt like the murderer was an invisible man or woman. But he was out there. She turned to Boyd.
‘We have to join the dots soon, and when we do the picture is going to get complicated very quickly.’
‘It’s complicated enough,’ he said.
‘We’re due a break, otherwise the two of us will be working cold cases for the rest of our lives. And this one will be the coldest of all.’
‘Sometimes you speak in the riddles of Egyptian gods,’ Boyd said.
‘Egyptian gods?’ Lottie studied the prints on the incident board.
‘Like hieroglyphics. You know, language of symbols,’ he offered by way of explanation.
Lottie sighed. At this stage, she’d settle for any sign pointing them in the right direction. Something to fill the glaring, empty spaces. She studied the photocopies of the tattoos on Susan Sullivan and James Brown.
‘I wonder if these could be ancient symbols.’ She compared both the Brown and Sullivan tattoos.
‘They’re crosses in circles,’ Boyd said.
‘No, they’re not crosses,’ she said. ‘Perhaps they’re linked to a ritual or a sect. I wonder if victim number three, who is really victim number one, also has one?’
She dialled Jane Dore’s private line. The pathologist answered immediately.
‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that our latest victim also had the tattoo?’ Lottie asked.
‘I did a thorough visual and haven’t come across one,’ Jane Dore said in her no-nonsense voice. ‘I’m commencing the autopsy soon. I’ll send on my preliminary report when I’m done.’
‘Any word on the DNA analysis?’ Lottie asked. ‘I need to confirm it is actually Father Angelotti.’
‘I told you it could be weeks for DNA comparisons. Don’t pin your hopes on it. Get someone to ID the body.’
Another dead end. She hoped it was him otherwise she’d be in deep shit after telling the bishop it was his missing priest.
She looked at the tattoo again. Maybe Father Joe could make sense of it. Unorthodox behaviour to be eliciting help from a potential suspect, but what the heck. Just digging herself in a little deeper.
She punched the bell a second time. Eventually the crooked little nun answered the door.
‘I’d like to speak to Father Joe, please,’ Lottie said, finding herself bending to the nun’s level.
‘I’m not deaf you know,’ the nun said. ‘And he is called Father Burke.’
Lottie imagined the old nun in her prime, beating the life out of terrified youngsters in a classroom.
The nun kept the door closed over.
‘Sorry, I should say Father Burke.’ Lottie added, ‘Is he here?’
‘Not any more,’ the veiled woman said, closing the door.
Lottie put her booted foot in the gap, hoping she wouldn’t get crushed bones.
‘What do you mean by any more? I spoke with him yesterday.’
‘He’s not here. He’s gone,’ the nun said with cold authority.
‘Is there someone I can speak to about why he has left?’ Lottie asked, dread inching up her chest. Father Joe was one of their people of interest, though she herself didn’t believe he had done anything wrong.
‘I can’t help you. You’ll have to speak to Bishop Connor.’
Lottie jumped back as the wooden slab of a door smashed against the jamb and a bolt slid into a lock. She stepped into the bitter wind and headed down the path, away from the wizened old woman.
Boyd will have a field day with this, she thought. Done a runner, that’s what he’ll say. Instinctively Lottie knew there was more to this. She tried Father Joe’s mobile. Switched off. She desperately had to find him.
Blowing warm air on to her cold hands, she craved a cigarette and thought of Katie smoking weed. She needed to do something constructive. Like sorting out her daughter.
Forty