‘I said, not a sound.’ She entered a narrow hallway.
High ceilings. Thick pipes snaking along the walls by her feet. Concrete floor. Stopping at a tall door, which seemed to cut the hall in half, she looked up at the strip of stained glass at the top. To her left, the floor sloped away into a dark, cavernous hole. She ignored it and put her hand to the hard wood of the door. It opened inward without resistance.
Stepping inside, she found the wall to guide her, sensing the three detectives behind. Trailing her hand as she walked, she felt an indent. A door. Kept on walking. Twenty-seven steps. Another high door with glass on top. The light they’d seen outside was coming from here. Would this door be locked? She hoped not.
‘On the count of three,’ she whispered.
‘Fuck that,’ Boyd said, and kicked in the door. ‘Armed gardaí!’ he shouted and entered running. He halted immediately. They all did.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Kirby said.
‘What the—’ Lynch dropped her arm, letting the gun fall to her side.
Lottie stared, her mouth opening and shutting, no words coming out. Whirling towards Boyd, she tried to comprehend what she was witnessing.
Windows sheathed with Perspex, solidified blood like a Jackson Pollock reject. White ceramic tiles grouted in blood. Ceiling pebble-dashed red. She lifted her foot from the plastic-covered floor, dark remnants stuck to her boots. Blood and more blood.
At the end of the L-shaped room were two iron-framed hospital beds. One was empty. Not even a mattress. Base springs rusted green under the fluorescent light. From the other bed saturated sheets dripped blood to the floor. Pools of it.
Picking her way slowly, so as not to slip, she inched forward. Slow. Slow. Slower. She reached the bed. Gasped. Swallowed bile back down to the pit of her stomach.
Dan Russell.
Naked, except for navy socks with gold logos. Prostrate on the bed, a wide canvas strap across his chest. He didn’t need restraining. Not any more. The socket of one eye was sunk flaccid in his head. She dragged her eyes to the source of the blood. Stomach sliced open, entrails and intestines hanging out across fatty flesh.
She heard Lynch retching behind her.
‘Don’t contaminate the evidence,’ she said, her voice sounding like someone else’s entirely.
‘It’s like a… like a…’ Kirby stammered.
‘An abattoir,’ Boyd said.
Breathe, Lottie, breathe, she commanded herself. The fetid stench in the room clogged her throat and she thought for a moment she’d be joining Lynch. But she had nothing in her stomach to bring up.
Edging by the beds, gun in hand, carefully avoiding the viscera, she rounded the corner at the end of the room.
‘Boyd!’ she yelled. ‘Quick. Here.’
He joined her. Lottie put out an arm to hold him back. They stared.
She said, ‘McNally?’
Slumped on the floor, knees to his chest, sat Jamie McNally. Black hair streamed greasily around his neck. Face covered in blood spatter, he waved a scalpel through the air.
‘Get the fuck away from me, bitch,’ he snarled.
Lottie leaned in as far as she deemed safe. ‘Where is my daughter? What did you do with her, you piece of shit? Tell me. Now!’
‘Who?’
‘Chloe.’
‘Her? I didn’t touch that little bitch.’
‘I know you texted her. You asked her to bring Milot to you.’
‘Is that the little shit’s name?’ He laughed. ‘I’d a cat once called that. Gutted the little fucker, I did.’
‘Like you did to Russell?’
‘I didn’t do that,’ he snickered. ‘For a detective, you’re mighty stupid, woman.’
With one hand holding her gun, Lottie dug her nails into the palm of the other. She wanted to lash out and shove the weapon down McNally’s throat and pull the trigger. But she remained outwardly calm. Professional.
‘Where are they? Are they safe? That’s all I want to know. That my daughter is safe.’
‘I don’t know where she went. Freaked the hell out when I brought her in here. Fatjon freaked her a bit too.’
‘Fatjon?’ Lottie looked round at Boyd.
‘Russell and O’Hara’s right-hand man. Big dude with a mouth full of crooked teeth. Bastard attacked me after he’d gutted Russell.’
Nice and slow. Unemotional. ‘Where is Fatjon now?’ Dear God, she prayed, don’t let him have Chloe.
‘You don’t give up, do you?’ MacNally pulled at his chin with the hand holding the scalpel. Nicked himself. Smiled crookedly. ‘I’d been watching your house, and when there was no sign of Carter coming out with the boy, I knew your kids had probably called the guards. I couldn’t tell O’Hara I’d fucked up, and my last chance to get the boy for him was through your daughter.’
‘I still don’t understand why O’Hara wanted Milot,’ Lottie muttered.
McNally was still talking. ‘When O’Hara didn’t show up, Fatjon started on Dan the Man. Time is of the essence, O’Hara always said when he was slicing and dicing, according to Fatjon.’ McNally whimpered. ‘He handed me a scalpel. I couldn’t do it. He said he couldn’t waste a good set of kidneys.’
‘So this Fatjon killed Russell,’ Lottie said. Keep cool. I want to rip his heart out.
‘He got the kidneys out and put them in one of those icebox things. Locked it up to wait for the good doctor, but when he didn’t turn up, Fatjon got other ideas.’
‘Like what?’
‘Beat me up, took the product and left.’
‘Where did he go with the… product?’
‘Dublin. Flies them out on a private jet to Greece or Italy. Wherever the highest bidder is.’
‘I think you should come with us now,’ Boyd said, his voice even and calmer than Lottie’s. ‘You don’t need that scalpel any more.’ He reached over and swiped the knife from McNally. Twisting the criminal’s arm behind him, he hauled him to his feet and slammed him up against the wall. ‘You’re the scum of the earth. You know that?’
‘Your wife’s a good ride. Do you know that?’ McNally laughed.
‘Shut your filthy mouth.’ Boyd cracked McNally’s face into the wall.
‘Stop, Boyd. Stop.’ Lottie dragged him off.
McNally fell to the floor, blood spurting from his broken nose. He curled up like a baby, hands clasping his head, shielding himself.
‘Coward.’ Boyd kicked him.
‘Wait, Boyd. Look.’ Lottie bent down and picked up a piece of material that McNally had been sitting on.
‘Maeve Phillips’s blue dress. What are you doing with it?’
‘An incentive. To butter her up.’
‘But you took it from her house. Why?’
‘Thought you lot might track it back to me.’
‘Why did Tracy even let you into her house?’
‘You’d better talk to Tracy, hadn’t you?’
Lottie looked at him quizzically. ‘What do you mean?’
McNally shook his head. ‘You didn’t figure that out, smart-arse detective.’
She noticed his arms then. Long, thin cuts. Knife cuts.
‘I figured out that you’re Lipjan,’ she said, flatly.
‘O’Hara’s idea. He gave me the name. I had to show solidarity with the little wimps. That’s what Tracy said. She wanted to fuck over her husband for money. She’d sell her soul to the devil, that one, never mind her own daughter.’