‘So?’
‘How was school?’
‘Boring as usual.’ The boy replaced his headphones and waited for her to leave.
Pulling the door behind her, wondering if she should have checked what he was up to on the computer, she poked her head round Katie’s door. Her elder daughter appeared to be asleep. Leaving her, Lottie glanced into Chloe’s room. Chloe was sitting at her small desk, buds in her ears and a stack of school books in front of her. Lottie waved a hand in front of her.
Without raising her head, Chloe said, ‘I’m studying.’
Leaving her alone, Lottie returned downstairs to see if there was anything left in the cupboards worth cooking. Nothing.
Slumping into the comfort of the kitchen armchair, she noticed the paint peeling above the cooker. The house needed redecorating. She lowered her eyes to avoid the sight of grease gathered in small black dots along the wall just below the ceiling. The day had drained the energy from her body. Maybe a sleep would energise her enough to clean up the mess. She closed her eyes.
* * *
Chloe locked her bedroom door, wrapped up her ear buds, put away her books and took her noise-reduction headphones from the wardrobe. With the window open, she let the night breeze flutter over her body as she tapped the Spotify app on her phone.
After she’d run from the canal, she’d spent most of the day in the library, listening to music, staring out of the window. At 4.30 p.m., she had strolled home, knowing her granny would have left by then.
A knot of anxiety gripped her chest and she tried to catch her breath. She wanted to tell her mother how she felt. How this fear of helplessness threatened to overwhelm every thought she had. But any time she tried to say something, the words wouldn’t form. And there was no talking to Lottie now that she was back at work. As for Katie, God only knew what was going on in her mind since Jason had been murdered. She’d refused to go back to college and spent her days moaning.
Looking over the fresh cut on her upper arm, Chloe wondered what her mother would do if she found out about that. The panic rose in her throat and she tried to control her breathing. In. Out. In. Out. She needed the blade. Yes, the physical pain might ease the thoughts swamping her brain.
A message alert flashed up on her phone screen. She tapped it. A new post on #cutforlife. She opened it up and engaged on the forum, breathing a sigh of relief. She wouldn’t need to use the blade tonight.
A deserted street at midnight was probably not the most sensible place for a jog, especially with a killer about, but after waking up in the armchair, Lottie needed air and exercise to clear her head and help her sleep that night.
Deliberate, methodical steps, counted in her head. Her iPhone was equipped with a step counter, but she couldn’t be bothered setting it up. Anyway, she’d heard it chewed up battery life. With the phone nestling in her bra, she slowed her pace as she made her way uphill by the county council offices. Her breath came in sharp gasps. Unfit, she thought, even though she’d been jogging daily while off work.
Taking a right at the top of the street, she suddenly stopped. Froze. Drawing in a breath, she turned around. Her body trembled as her heart palpitated. No one. Slowly she started jogging again. Imagining things, she thought.
Monday nights were quiet in Ragmullin. No stragglers heading from the pubs to nightclubs; even the taxi rank outside Danny’s Bar was desolately tranquil as a lone driver leaned against his cab, smoking a cigarette.
Unable to cast off the feeling of being followed, she decided against short-cutting through the town park and headed up by Friars Street instead, where the duo of ancient monks cast in bronze appeared watchful with their solid eyes.
The jog wasn’t working in terms of clearing her head. Images of the girl’s body decomposing beneath the street and the tiny baby on the stainless-steel table in the Dead House refused to wane.
Glancing to her left, towards Bridge Street, she noticed the crime-scene tapes hanging limply, blocking off the road. She walked across the deserted street to stand outside the tape.
At the corner, the SOCOs’ tent flapped, forlorn in its solitude. A uniformed garda stood beside a squad car parked at the gated entrance to the apartments. He saluted her. Lottie acknowledged him with a nod, hands on hips, getting her breath back.
‘Quiet night?’ she asked.
He shrugged: What do you think?
She knew it was necessary to guard the site until everything was checked. Anyone could interfere with it. The killer might even return, though she supposed he was more than likely far away from Ragmullin at this stage. At least she hoped he wasn’t hanging around town, ready to strike again. But wherever and whoever he was, she would catch him. The image of the unborn baby girl flashed anger into her heart. No one was getting away with this murder.
There it was again. She swung around, sure that someone had been at her shoulder.
‘Did you see anyone just there?’ she asked the garda.
‘No, Inspector, I did not.’
‘Okay. Thanks.’
Deciding she’d had enough of the murky night air, she ran by the unlit community college and headed for home. The thought of a cool shower and bed stimulated her tired limbs.
It was getting bad when she started to imagine things.
Eleven
The room was too small for so many. Two bunk beds, a locker and a wardrobe with no doors. Floorboards worn and bare, cracked paint, and cobwebs claiming the dusty corners of the ceiling.
Two girls slept soundly in the beds opposite Mimoza Barbatovci, their soft snores breaking the silence. They had stepped out of their clothes, dropping them on the narrow floor space in the middle of the room, and crawled naked beneath thin sheets, falling asleep immediately.
The unlit light bulb swayed above Mimoza’s head. Night-time didn’t come as quickly here as in her homeland. The evenings dragged through a slow dusk. Even then the dark never fully succeeded in pulling down the night.