She turned away from the door and walked down the cracked pathway, avoiding the rambling weeds encroaching from the overgrown winter lawn. Glancing over her shoulder, she looked up at the two-storey terraced house that had been Cillian’s childhood home. It was the only house in the line of ten that remained inhabited. The rest were tumbling down around themselves, some with the roofs caved in and others with the bare branches of bushes growing up around the chimney stacks. Most of the windows were boarded up.
Maybe now that Maura was dead, Donal might move out. Ten years waiting for a ghost to appear while the walls crumbled around you was long enough. She would speak with Cillian about it tonight. Maybe he could get his father to see sense.
The rusted gate creaked shut behind her and she made her way under the railway bridge and back into town.
She didn’t see the curtain twitch.
Thirty-Three
Kirby smiled as Garda Gilly O’Donoghue walked towards him. He was standing in the covered smoking area at the rear of the station, which doubled as a bicycle rack. He hadn’t time to hide the cigar he was puffing.
‘Yuck. The smell of that,’ Gilly said, indicating the bin of cigarette butts.
‘Want one?’ Kirby offered.
‘No thanks. I knew I’d find you here.’
‘How so?’
‘Because I was sure you hadn’t fully given up smoking. Did you discover anything enlightening last night?’
‘Last night?’
‘You were working, so you said. You cancelled our date.’
‘Sorry, babe.’
‘Doesn’t suit you.’
‘What?’
‘The American twang. Even if you could do it correctly.’
‘Not making much of an impression this morning, am I?’
‘Try a little harder.’
‘How about this then?’ He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and handed over an envelope, smiling as Gilly’s face lit up.
‘Hey, this is the play I wanted to see. You’re a star,’ she said.
‘It’s for tonight,’ he said.
‘Can’t wait. And we can go for a drink afterwards.’
Running his hand over his stubbled chin, Kirby shook his head. ‘We’ll see. I’m absolutely shattered.’
‘What are you doing here then, if you’ve been working nights?’
‘On my way home.’
‘I’m beginning to think you have another woman.’
‘You’re woman enough for me.’ He stubbed out the cigar and palmed the butt into his pocket. ‘How was your evening with that friend of yours?’
‘Mollie? She never turned up.’
‘That’s a bit Irish, isn’t it? Being stood up twice the one night.’ He grinned.
‘It’s not funny.’ Gilly raised her eyebrows, pocketed the tickets and went to move away.
‘Do I not get a good-morning kiss?’ Kirby said.
‘You won’t even get a goodnight kiss if you keep this up.’
‘Women!’ Kirby said to the empty space Gilly had left in the frosty air. He was debating relighting his cigar when Lynch rounded the side of the building.
‘We have a call,’ she said.
‘No we don’t. I need some shut-eye.’
‘We have to go to the traveller site. It’s urgent. Come on.’
‘Maybe our night-time ventures are paying off,’ Kirby said, and followed her to the car.
* * *
Sitting at her computer, Lottie clicked into her email.
‘What the hell?’ The message in her inbox was from a name she recognised. She blinked and opened a drawer. Had she taken a pill this morning? She couldn’t remember, but she found one anyway and gulped it down. If she wasn’t careful, she thought, she’d end up as bad as she’d been a year ago.
She was about to call in Boyd but thought that maybe this was too personal. Shit, it was personal. Her finger hovered over the mouse. What had prompted this communication? Read it and see, she told herself. With her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, her legs jittering, her hand remained frozen in mid-air.
The door opened and Boyd put his head round.
‘Kirby needs us at the traveller site.’
She stared at him, unseeing. Lowered her head to the computer.
‘Lottie? What’s up?’ He walked round the side of the desk. ‘You have that wild look in your eyes.’
‘What look?’
‘You know. After a night of drinking.’
‘I haven’t been drinking,’ she lied.
‘What has you spooked, then?’
Jerking back to life, she hit the corner tab, minimising her email. ‘Nothing.’
Boyd put his hands on the desk. ‘I thought you couldn’t stand lies, and here you are, lying to me.’
She stood up, knocked the chair out of the way with the back of her legs and sidestepped around him. ‘I said it’s nothing. None of your business. Butt out. Understood?’
‘Loud and clear.’ Boyd stood back, bumping against the wall.
Lottie kept walking. ‘What’s Kirby got himself into this time?’
* * *
‘Hello? Anyone there?’
Mollie listened. Wind? Or was it an air-conditioning unit? She wasn’t sure. But there were no cars or other sounds. Where was she?
It was dark in the room, but a dim light glowed at the edge of the hatch door, high above her head, casting an eerie shadow in a V down to the centre of the floor. She could see the floor was made of timber, well-worn laths. Knots were feathered along the wood. She looked at the strip of light again and decided it wasn’t daylight. It had to come from a light bulb somewhere up above the ceiling.
Her arms were still strapped to her sides, and she badly wanted to pee. Her mouth felt like the internal muscles had swelled, and her throat was constricted with gluey mucus. The hairs in her nostrils were clogged with the fusty, musty smell of the room. And to add to her discomfort, her stomach rumbled with hunger.
A psychotic thought skittered through her brain. What if he never came back? What if he wanted her to starve to death? No. He’d never have gone to this much trouble just to leave her to die. Would he? She knew absolutely nothing about him, and the more she thought about it, the less she wanted to know. She wanted to go home. Now. Before the insane freak returned.
Home. But there was no one there to miss her. She lived alone. Her mother was dead and her father lived in London. She only ever phoned him on Sundays. And today was … Thursday? Wasn’t it? She wasn’t at all sure. But it didn’t feel like much time had passed, unless it was the effects of the drug he’d used on her.
Surely her colleagues would wonder why she hadn’t phoned in to say she’d be absent. But perhaps not. You only needed a doctor’s certificate if you were going to be off for longer than two days. There was the weekend to come, so they wouldn’t start asking questions until Monday.
Gilly! Yes, Gilly would miss her. But how long would that take? They’d been supposed to go out for a drink, but would Gilly wonder at her not turning up? She had no idea one way or the other. All she could do was hope that someone reported her missing.
She tried to raise her head from the rock-like bed. She really needed to pee, but before she could even attempt to wriggle free, warm liquid had seeped down her legs, soaking the mattress.
And that was when she thought she heard a train.
Thirty-Four
The mid-morning sun, casting a blinding light, had tried its best to melt the hoar frost, but in shaded areas the ground was still hazardous. Boyd parked the car inside the gate and they made their way to where Kirby was lounging against the wall of one of the twelve concrete houses. Lynch stood in front of him, fair hair hanging loose beneath a grey beanie. Both of them were obviously trying to keep themselves awake. A small mobile home was parked in the compact yard.
Kirby moved to one side and filled the space between the house and the mobile home. His blue scarf was wrapped like a noose around his neck and his nose was Christmassy red. His bushy hair looked like he’d been hit with a bolt of lightning. A crowd of onlookers huddled on the other side of the site. Women and children in the centre of a circle of angry-looking men. Their hands were shoved warily in their pockets, but Lottie knew they could strike at any time.
She sniffed the frosty air. ‘Tell me about this before I walk into a minefield.’
‘It looks like a domestic,’ Lynch said. ‘But we have to be careful. You know how these situations can be different to how they first appear.’ One eyebrow rose in an arch.
Was there a question there somewhere? Sucking in a draught of cold air, Lottie realised Lynch’s words were a direct reference to a previous investigation. She decided to let it lie.