‘That’s not exactly the case,’ Lottie said slowly. ‘You see, Mr O’Donnell, the thing is, we believe your daughter was alive up to at least two weeks ago.’
The transformation was instantaneous. Donal O’Donnell fell to the floor. A loud wail shattered the silence left in the wake of Lottie’s words. Then it was quiet.
* * *
Matt Mullin eyed his mother from under his long lashes. She had her arms folded, leaning against his open bedroom door.
‘I can’t cover for you any longer, Matt. They know you’re here. Please, tell me what you’ve done. I might be able to help you.’
He closed his eyes and curled into the wall, like he used to do when he was nine. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘If you won’t talk to me, call your therapist. Are you taking your medication?’
‘Go away. I want to sleep.’
‘You were out all night. Where were you?’
Her voice screeched through his skull like chalk on a board.
‘Will you shut up with the questions. My head is ready to burst.’
‘Did you do something bad, Matt?’
He blew out a breath, opened his eyes and sat up in bed. A pungent sourness swarmed about him. Was it coming from his body, or from her? Cradling the pillow to his chest, he looked over at the woman who’d given birth to him; who had loved and tended to him all his life. And he hated every bone in her body. She was a stranger. All he’d ever wanted was Elizabeth and she hadn’t wanted him.
Throwing the pillow to the floor, he pulled on his shoes and walked by his mother, nudging her angrily with his shoulder as he passed.
‘Matt? Matt! Where are you going?’
Her voice trailed behind him as he ran from the house.
* * *
Grace tried to blink, but her eyes were still glued shut. She couldn’t move.
Where was she? She tried to remember.
The train. The man.
She tried to scream, but her lips felt like they were taped shut. She wanted to cry, but no tears could escape. She wanted to shout, but her words were snared deep in her chest.
She grappled against her restraints and struggled with her reality as she drifted back to the darkness.
Seventy-Six
A magpie eyed Lottie from a bare branch of a tree before extending its wings and flying off.
She was standing on the step waiting for Boyd to finish his cigarette. She dared not ask for a drag. Too many bad habits already. ‘They’re taking their time.’
‘It’s not gone five minutes since you phoned them. Patience.’
‘I haven’t time for patience. We have a mountain of work and this—’
‘You want a drag?’ He held out the cigarette. ‘Calm your nerves?’
She declined the offer with a lie. ‘My nerves are very calm. I just want to get over to the nursing home to have a chat with Queenie McWard.’
‘Why do you need to do that? She’s already been notified of the deaths.’
‘I’m not rightly sure, but I want to establish if there was a connection between Elizabeth and Bridie. The notebook. Remember?’
‘But what does it matter? It’s not going to solve anything even if they did sit beside each other at school.’
‘You never know.’
‘Here’s the cavalry.’ Boyd threw down the cigarette and ground it out with the heel of his shoe. The sky had darkened and the air held the impending threat of rain.
They waited as four people came through the wooden door in the outer wall.
‘You know he has a bad heart?’ one of the brothers said. Cillian. The clean-cut one.
‘Your father is in shock,’ Lottie said. ‘Otherwise he’s fine.’
‘Fine? Ha, you need to go back to fucking garda school.’ That was the untidy one.
‘Calm down, Finn.’ A dainty little woman in a pink sweater spoke. Her eyes were red-rimmed. From crying, Lottie wondered, or something else?
‘Are you his wife?’ Lottie asked, nodding towards Finn.
‘No, I’m Cillian’s wife, Keelan. Sara there is Finn’s wife.’ She pointed to the overweight woman with hair streeling around the shoulders of a black woollen coat.
‘Jesus, this is a right mess,’ Cillian snapped.
Lottie recalled thinking the exact same thing earlier that morning. ‘Let’s go inside and see what needs to be done.’
The family shuffled through the narrow door and down the short hallway. As Lottie followed with Boyd, she noticed that Keelan had held back.
‘Are you okay?’
‘There are some things you need to know,’ Keelan said quietly. ‘But I can’t talk now. This is my number, please give me a call.’
Lottie took the piece of paper from her and slid it into the pocket of her jeans. Keelan looked up with tired eyes and mouthed a thank you.
‘What was that about?’ Boyd asked once the woman was out of earshot.
‘I have absolutely no idea.’
‘Nothing new there so.’
‘Shut up, Boyd.’
* * *
She had seen one photograph of Lynn on display in the kitchen, but as Lottie entered the living room, she walked into a shrine.
The wall in front of her was covered with photos of the dead woman. All framed, with dust gathering in the corners. She assumed the late Mrs O’Donnell, Donal’s wife, had once kept them pristine and dust-free. But the room appeared not to have been used in months, if not years. The furniture was dated, floral and grimy. The fireplace was empty and a two-bar electric heater blazed from a corner after Cillian plugged it in. The smell of burning dust smothered the air in the room.
She tried to imagine how it might have been at one time. Filled with the happiness of children laughing and playing, or watching the battered old television on the corner table. But no, she didn’t get that image. A shiver scurried up her spine and rested on the crest of the bones between her shoulder blades.
A hideous brown wallpaper with faded flowers was just about visible behind the multitude of photographs, and a pair of thick velour curtains hung over lacy nets yellow with age and smoke. The carpet was threadbare, so she knew the space had been well used, but she felt like it was a Dickensian room. Dark, dank and dusty.
And then it struck her. Among the photos hanging before her, she could not see one of the two boys, or of the boys with their sister. Odd. She scratched her head trying to figure it out.
The seven adults crowded into the small space and Lottie stood with her back to the mantel beside Boyd. Donal sat in an armchair, while his sons squeezed onto the sofa, bookended by their wives. Lottie was glad no tea had been offered or they’d have to ferry it in on a rota. There was hardly room to raise an elbow.
‘Spit it out,’ Finn said, his words laced with bitterness.
‘We found a body on Thursday night. Out on Barren Point at Ladystown lake.’
‘Thursday! And you’re only telling us now?’ Finn tried to stand up but was wedged between his wife and his brother.
‘The body was that of a female in her mid thirties,’ Lottie continued, trying to keep her tone sympathetic. ‘We found nothing on it to allow us to make a visual identification. It was only this morning that her DNA was matched to a woman on the missing persons list.’
‘DNA? What DNA?’
‘Shut up, Finn.’ Cillian nudged his brother in the chest with his elbow. ‘Let her speak. You can ask your questions later.’
Thank God, Lottie thought. Someone talking sense at last.
‘Without the DNA match, we had no reason to believe the body was that of Lynn. As you know, ten years missing usually means that the person is deceased.’
‘She’s deceased now,’ Donal muttered.
‘But it can’t be Lynn,’ Cillian said. ‘She was only twenty-five. You say this woman was in her thirties.’
‘I’m sorry but it is Lynn. We believe she was held somewhere for the last ten years.’
‘Where? Where was our Lynn?’ Finn said.
‘We’re trying to find that out.’
‘Was she murdered?’ He continued with his questions despite the daggers Cillian was throwing at him with his eyes.
‘There’s no evidence of murder. Not from the preliminary post-mortem results. It’s possible she died of natural causes.’
‘Nothing natural about being out at Barren Point on a cold February night.’ Donal was pulling at his chin.
‘It’s early days yet—’
‘It’s a decade too late, that’s what it is.’