Someone was looking for him! Exhilaration rushed through him and he strained his body against the ropes. But he was securely bound.
Despair overtook him and he slumped against the floor. If they were in the main part of the building, would they search further into this section? Would they know it even existed? He hoped they wouldn’t give up too easily. He was getting weaker. He strained his ears once again, listening, seeking a sound, however small.
His moment of hope shattered, doom settling into the pit of his stomach where it churned and lurched. To the echo of birds crowing high in the rafters of the roof he vomited over himself.
Eighty-Five
‘Hello there. Sean Parker, is that right?’
Outside the game shop, Sean turned round.
‘What’s it to you?’ He leaned against the shop window.
‘I recognised you, that is all.’
‘So. What d’you want?’ Sean asked and waved at one of his friends, across the street.
‘I know your sister and Jason very well. Do you know he is missing?’
Sean inched back further but there was nowhere else to go.
‘Yes, I know.’
‘This may seem odd, but he is not missing. I actually know where he is.’
‘Why don’t you go to the gardaí then?’
‘Jason does not want them involved. There’s a family dispute or something.’
‘Okay, but it’s nothing to do with me.’ Sean edged closer to the door of the shop.
The man shook his head and took a step back.
‘That’s fine. Sorry to bother you.’ He turned to walk away.
Sean bit his lip, sized the man up and down. He looked respectable, well dressed, clean, even though he had no overcoat in the freezing cold snow. Odd. He looked familiar. Had he seen him somewhere recently? He couldn’t remember. He didn’t appear to be a threat. Just some old guy who knew his sister.
Sean asked, ‘Where is he?’
The man faced him. ‘I cannot break any confidences, but I can show you where he is. That way you can say . . . you can say that you stumbled over his hiding place.’
‘Sure.’
‘Come with me.’
Eighty-Six
Lottie banged the steering wheel. The car wouldn’t start. Snow lay thick on the ground. Not freezing. Not yet.
She continued to turn the key, getting an empty click in reply. With the pendant in a plastic bag in her pocket, she sat thinking. She knew who owned it and thought she knew how it got there. And she had to talk to Rickard about the windows. The anomaly was bugging her, crawling under her skin.
Jane Dore’s number flashed on her phone.
‘Hello, Jane.’
‘I’ve completed Father Mohan’s post-mortem.’
‘You are busy, and quick,’ Lottie said. ‘Same as the others?’
‘Not the same, no,’ the pathologist said. ‘Less force was used by the perpetrator, but then he was an old man.’
‘Do you think it might have been a copycat killing?’
‘I doubt it. Cornelius Mohan has the same tattoo as Susan Sullivan and James Brown.’
Lottie held her breath for a moment. An old priest with a tattoo? What next?
‘It’s like the others, old but more defined. I scanned the image and enlarged it,’ Jane said. ‘The tattoos on the other victims were faded and looked like lines in a circle, but with this one I can actually make out the drawing.’
‘Go on,’ Lottie said, hoping it was something definite.
‘It looks like the Madonna and Child icon, often depicted as a sculpted statue in churches. So Wikipedia tells me.’
Lottie glanced up at the top of the building in front of her. The statue she’d struggled to see through the darkness at St Angela’s the other night with Boyd was the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus in her arms.
‘You could be right,’ she said. ‘But I still don’t understand why Susan and James had it.’ And Patrick O’Malley, she recalled.
‘If it means something, you better find out. Before any more bodies end up here.’
Listening to the dial tone, Lottie knew she had to speak to O’Malley again. He was looking increasingly very important. As a witness to a murder perpetrated decades earlier or was he involved back then, involved now, even? No matter what, he potentially held vital information. She’d have to get him to remember. Her phone interrupted her thoughts.
‘Inspector, this is Bea Walsh . . . from the council.’
‘Hello, Bea. How’re you?’
‘I just wanted to let you know the planning permission for St Angela’s was approved today.’
‘I suppose it’s easy to blame the dead for that,’ Lottie said. ‘So, Rickard can go ahead with his hotel plans?’
‘Not exactly. There’s a waiting period for the public appeal process, though I don’t think there’ll be too many objections. This development will create jobs.’
‘Thanks for letting me know.’
‘And, Inspector, the file wasn’t missing at all. Gerry Dunne, the county manager, had it.’
Lottie mulled over the two phone calls. Attempting to assemble the information in her head, she failed. Intruding on her brooding was the fact that her car wouldn’t start and the cost of getting it fixed.
Longing for a cigarette or anything else on which to concentrate, she scanned the expanse of grounds blanketed with snow. Her eyes rested on a walled enclave sweeping to the rear of St Angela’s. A crescent of snow-covered trees inched above the stone walls. The orchard. An image zoomed through her mind. Young Susan and James, with O’Malley and Brian, whoever or wherever he was, being terrorised by Father Con.
At least three of them were now dead.
Eighty-Seven
‘Do you really know where Jason is?’ Sean asked the man, as he sat into the car.
‘Yes, I do.’
‘That’s some coincidence, isn’t it?’
‘What coincidence?’
‘You knowing me and also knowing Jason,’ Sean said. ‘Can you put the heater on?’
‘Of course I can.’ The man pulled out of the car park into the line of traffic and turned up the heat. ‘It won’t take a minute to warm you up, young man.’
Sean asked, ‘How do you know who I am?’
‘I know your mother too, see, and you are the image of her. I would recognise you out of her, a mile away.’
‘Everyone tells me I’m the spitting image of my dad.’
‘I do not know your dad,’ the man said, waiting for the lights to turn green.
‘He’s dead.’
‘Sorry for your loss.’
‘So how do you know my sister and Jason?’
‘I am a friend of Jason’s father. You could say we are in business together.’
Sean lapsed into silence as the man drove the car carefully through town. Swirling snow slowed their progress. Once Jason was home, Katie would be happy. She’d owe him, like forever. Sean smirked, proud of himself.
‘What are you smiling at?’ the man asked.
‘Oh nothing,’ Sean said, still grinning.
‘Where to?’ Kirby asked, chewing his unlit cigar.
‘This car stinks,’ Lottie said, pulling on her seat belt.
Stale tobacco smoke crawled off the seats into her clothes. She’d had to leave her car until they got jump leads. Kirby didn’t have any.
‘I want to talk to Tom Rickard but first I need to see Boyd.’