Normal service has resumed, Lottie thought.
As she turned to head for the car park with Chloe and Sean by her side, she felt a hollowness lined with a tinge of fear etch into a corner of her heart. It would not dislodge until her family were all back together, whenever that might be.
* * *
She was already late for the team meeting by the time she’d dropped Chloe and Sean at school and returned home to pick up the cold case file. She’d read most of it after returning from the lake last night, managing about an hour’s sleep before she had to get up for the airport. Exhaustion gnawed her bones, which didn’t bode well for the remainder of the day. Outside the incident room, she swallowed half a Xanax and hoped for the best.
McMahon was at the front of the room, commanding the team meeting, when she blustered in the door.
‘At last you decide to grace us with your presence,’ he said, gripping his chin with his thumb and index finger.
Lottie glared at Boyd. Had he not made up some plausible excuse for her absence?
‘I’m here now,’ she said.
Dredging up her confidence, with a buzz in her head from the pill, she marched through the gathered detectives and uniformed officers, stealing a glance at the incident boards. A shadowy photograph of the body found in the woods by the lake had been added.
‘So you are,’ McMahon said. ‘And my arrival in this district has been met with not one but two murders. I’m beginning to believe the media when they say Ragmullin is a nightmare town.’
‘And what media would that be?’ Lottie asked, trying to gather her thoughts.
McMahon glared. ‘I had a visit from the television crime correspondent, Cynthia Rhodes. I believe you’ve met her. She paints a very dim picture of this town.’
‘She must be a damn bad artist then.’ Lottie banged her bag onto the floor and bundled her jacket on top of it.
Kirby snickered, and Lottie couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face.
‘As senior investigating officer, I’ll take over here,’ she said.
She waited until McMahon had stepped to one side with a smirk on his face. What was that all about? Pointing to the first photograph on the board, she began.
‘Elizabeth Byrne. Last physical sighting was on Monday, when she clocked out of her office at 16.00 hours. We have CCTV image from Connolly station placing her there at 17.00. The train departed at 17.10 and arrived in Ragmullin at 18.20. Her body was found on Wednesday morning in the cemetery as a funeral was about to take place. You have the times and details of the relevant interviews. One lead we have is from Bridie McWard, who lives on the traveller site. She claims to have heard screaming at 3.15 a.m. on Tuesday. The post-mortem findings agree that this was the approximate time of death. Bridie has subsequently been the subject of an attack in her home. Unclear if it is connected or not, but a verbal threat was made during the assault.’
She paused to direct her thoughts back to the murder. ‘Elizabeth was more than likely chased through the cemetery, then fell into the grave, breaking her leg, if it hadn’t been already broken. She was buried alive. Perhaps the killer hoped she would be entombed with a coffin placed over her that day, Tuesday. As it was, the funeral was delayed until Wednesday, as the deceased’s grandson had to fly home from Australia. This meant the loose clay dispersed slightly in the intervening time, leaving part of the body exposed.’
‘Do you think any of the Green family was involved?’ McMahon asked.
Lottie had forgotten he was still there.
‘Kirby, you conducted those interviews.’ She turned to the detective. ‘What did you come up with?’
‘All in the clear. Everything checks out. Also, after the media appeal for information by Acting Superintendent McMahon, I scrutinised the statements of those who came forward having attended the Last Hurdle nightclub on Saturday night and also those who were on the Monday evening train. No one saw anything out of the ordinary. No one remembers Elizabeth, or at least nothing stands out as suspicious. A few commuters said she was a regular on the train but don’t recall anything unusual about Monday.’
‘Okay. Go back over the station CCTV. Originally we were only looking for Elizabeth. This time check for anyone who might be acting in a suspicious way, anyone who might already be on PULSE.’
‘Will do,’ Kirby said.
‘The only lead we have is a bundle of clothes found in refuse sacks in the cemetery skip. It is possible the killer dumped them there the same night Elizabeth was murdered. CCTV places a car there for twenty-four minutes. Mrs Byrne has confirmed that this clothing belongs to her daughter. Jim McGlynn says the garments were wet. Are the results of his tests back yet?’
‘Not yet,’ Kirby said.
‘Do Elizabeth’s colleagues check out?’
‘They can all account for their movements and Elizabeth didn’t stay with any of them.’ Kirby shuffled a sheaf of papers back into a file.
‘The question we have to ask ourselves is this. Where was Elizabeth from the last positive sighting at 17.00 until Bridie heard the screams at 3.15 the following morning? Was she taken from the train at Ragmullin? Or did she get off it safely and was subsequently abducted on her walk home? She doesn’t own a car. Have we checked all the town CCTV footage? Businesses along her usual route?’
‘All checked and no sign of her,’ Kirby said.
‘Taxis?’
‘No taxi driver recalls her.’
‘The ex-boyfriend. Matt Mullin. Did Lynch find him?’ Where was Lynch this morning? She couldn’t see her in the assembled group.
‘Called to his house yesterday,’ Kirby said. ‘Met with his mother. She was uncooperative to say the least.’
‘Why?’
‘Refuses to talk without a warrant.’
‘So what is she hiding?’
‘Matt,’ Kirby said. ‘He was let go by the bank before Christmas, so he has to be at home.’
‘Confirm he’s back in town, by whatever means you can. We need to locate him as soon as possible to establish where he was on Monday night. Get his photograph circulated to the media.’
‘Bit soon for that,’ McMahon interjected.
‘He is our only suspect,’ Lottie emphasised. Why did he have to interrupt her train of thought? ‘We can say he’s needed to assist our ongoing inquiry.’ She folded one arm and rested her other elbow on it, hand under her chin. Thinking. She added, ‘Elizabeth’s phone hasn’t been found. Hound the service provider.’
Boyd said, ‘I’m working on it.’
‘We have to assume she was on that train. So, what happened to her when the train pulled up in Ragmullin? Come on, guys. That’s what we need to discover.’
A muffled murmur rippled through the room.
‘Anything else?’ Lottie asked.
Kirby piped up. ‘The assault on Bridie McWard. SOCOs have finished at her home. They’ve collected DNA and fibres. We need to speak with her husband, Paddy, to eliminate him from that inquiry.’
McMahon reared up. ‘Where is he?’
‘Don’t know, sir.’
‘Find him. Get the registration of his van or car circulated. I don’t think Ragmullin is that big a place that you can’t find him. Enough of this time-wasting.’
‘It’s big enough if you don’t want to be found,’ Lottie said. She noticed that Boyd had his hand tentatively raised. ‘Yes, Boyd.’
‘We have to consider the possibility that there’s also another young woman missing.’
‘Who?’ Lottie asked.
‘Mollie Hunter,’ Boyd said. ‘I mentioned her to you last night.’
Shit, so he did. ‘Is she on the missing persons database?’
‘No, not yet. She lives alone in an apartment at Canal Drive. She’s a friend of Gilly’s. Garda O’Donoghue,’ he added for McMahon’s benefit. ‘Gilly spoke to Mollie on the phone on Tuesday but hasn’t been able to contact her since. She has a key to the apartment and checked it twice. No sign of the girl. And this is the interesting bit. She gets the six o’clock train every morning to her job in Dublin and then the 17.10 home.’
‘Have you contacted her employer?’ Lottie said.