Jackets hung from the back of the door, jeans jumbled up on the floor. Lottie flicked through the hangers in the wardrobe. School shirts, skirts and a few blouses. Right at the end, a dress, hanging in a clear zipped cover, appeared out of place. Extracting it, she held it up.
‘Bit fancy for a seventeen-year-old.’ Boyd raised an eyebrow at the garment swinging in Lottie’s hand.
‘Seventeen-year-olds have unusual tastes,’ she said, thinking of her own girls’ multicoloured clothes. She unzipped the plastic.
‘Wow,’ Boyd said, stepping closer.
The fabric flowed out of the wrapping, blue silk, bling-studded bodice, halter neck.
‘One hundred and fifty euros,’ Lottie said, inspecting the label swinging from the waist.
‘How could she afford that?’ Boyd flicked through the remainder of the clothes.
‘Perhaps someone bought it for her.’
‘Or she stole it.’
‘Boyd, you don’t even know the girl. How can you make such an assertion?’
‘I’ve seen the mother.’
Lottie shook her head. ‘Maeve might have a part-time job. I’ll ask when we go downstairs.’ She hung the dress back in the wardrobe, but first she plucked off the label, put it in a small plastic evidence bag and popped it in her pocket.
She found the laptop under a pillow on the bed. It was a cheap model, charging.
‘Dangerous,’ she said, unplugging it from the socket. She put the small computer into her bag.
‘You can’t take that,’ Boyd said.
‘I’ll ask the mother.’
A chair piled high with clothing revealed a stack of paperbacks beneath. Wedged halfway down, Lottie noticed a card sticking out. A birthday card. To Maeve, love Dad.
‘Her father’s still in contact with her,’ she said.
‘I reckon she’s with him,’ Boyd said, shutting a drawer noisily. ‘I’d fly the coop to escape this hellhole too.’
‘This hellhole, as you call it, is her home and is probably preferable to a life of crime with her dad.’ Why was she defending Tracy?
‘Come on,’ she said, placing the card in a plastic evidence bag. Just in case. ‘I want to ask Tracy about that dress.’
* * *
Lottie nudged Tracy Phillips.
‘Wha’? What d’ya want?’ Tracy squinted. ‘Oh. It’s you. Still here?’
‘Can I take Maeve’s laptop to have a look at it?’
‘Why’d you want it?’
‘Just to run a check on it. Might tell us where Maeve is.’
‘Suppose it’s okay so.’
‘There’s a new dress in her wardrobe. Any idea where it came from?’
Tracy sat up straight, looking from Lottie to Boyd. ‘Dress? She must’ve bought it.’
‘It’s expensive. Where would she get the money? Her father? Has she a part-time job?’
Tracy seemed to struggle with what Lottie was saying. Too many questions at once?
‘She hasn’t got a job, but maybe I don’t know my girl very well.’
‘I’ll need to talk to her friends.’
‘What friends?’
‘Maeve’s friends. Do you have any names?’
‘Emily… something. Works in the Parkway Hotel after school.’
‘Do you want me to assign a family liaison officer to stay with you?’ Lottie asked.
‘I’m fine on my own.’ Tracy rested her head on her folded arms on top of the greasy table and promptly fell asleep.
Shutting the door behind them, Lottie wondered how long it would take for Tracy Phillips to self-destruct.
Twenty-Five
Lottie dropped off Maeve’s laptop at the station for analysis and instructed a trace to be put on the girl’s phone. She wasn’t sure if Maeve was actually missing, but at least they could put a report out on social media. Someone might know where she was. She printed the photo from her phone and enlarged it on the photocopier. Holding it up to the death-mask photo of the murder victim, she squinted to see if there were any similarities.
‘She didn’t have her kidney removed,’ Boyd said, standing at Lottie’s shoulder.
‘So her mother says. But anyway I don’t think Maeve is our dead girl.’
Lynch appeared with a one-page printout. ‘This is all the history I can find on Dan Russell. It’s not a lot. Just gives his army service and the date he left, and the year he set up his company, Woodlake Facilities Management. All above board.’
‘We’ll see,’ Lottie said. ‘Will you have a look at this too?’ She handed Lynch the tag from the dress. ‘Check the barcode to see if there’s any way of tracing where it came from.’
‘Sure.’
Drawing Lynch to one side, out of Boyd’s earshot, Lottie said, ‘Get on to the lads in the new Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau and try to establish where Frank Phillips is hiding out. I need to speak to him about his daughter.’
Making her way back to her desk, she wondered if Jamie McNally had anything to do with Frank Phillips. If he had, Kirby would find out. It seemed too much of a coincidence, McNally being back in town. A girl gets murdered and another goes missing. She didn’t like coincidences.
Her thoughts were interrupted as she read through the sparse data on Dan Russell. Something had caught her eye. Grabbing her bag, she made for the door. ‘I’m going to see Russell again.’
‘Want me to come?’ Boyd asked.
‘No. You process the information on Maeve Phillips. Circulate her photo to the media and see what comes back from her computer. Follow up on the murder interview transcripts. See if you can spot anything I might have missed. Grab some lunch. I’ll be back in less than an hour.’
Kirby blocked her escape at the doorway. ‘I called the security company Bob Weir employs to carry out nightly checks when his yard is closed.’
‘And?’ Lottie hauled her bag onto her shoulder.
‘They only do a drive-by on alternate nights. According to their logs, there’s nothing to report.’
‘Great. So whoever knows about the nights the van patrols has a free run to do whatever they like.’
‘The search of the yard is complete. Nothing else turned up.’
‘Follow up with ballistics on that bullet hole in the wall and see if they have anything yet on the bullet from the dead girl.’
‘Will do.’ Kirby stood back to allow her to leave.
This time Lottie got out before anyone else could halt her progress.
* * *
Flashing her ID, she asked to see Dan Russell. The security guard let her through the door at the main gate and phoned Russell to announce her arrival.
This time, she took in her surroundings. A barren square, once the ground for army transport, was flanked on three sides by four-storey accommodation blocks and offices. A glass-walled cookhouse skirted to her left. It looked empty. To her right stood the chapel and gym. Adam had once told her that two men were executed behind the chapel in 1921, the bullet holes in the wall a reminder of a volcanic time in Irish history. She hoped that it was indeed history. She didn’t fancy finding any recent bullet holes there. The thought jolted her back to the present and the scene at Weir’s yard. As she looked around, an uneasy feeling of disquiet lodged in her breast. What was she missing?
She entered Block A, climbed the flight of wooden stairs and knocked on Russell’s door.
‘Inspector Parker. What can I do for you?’ Russell brought her inside and smiled.
Too nice, Lottie thought. She’d have to be careful.
‘Mr Russell—’
‘Call me Dan,’ he interrupted. ‘And please sit.’