Chapter 17

SEVENTEEN

The sirens wailed as the ambulances carried the two lads off to hospital.

‘Told you something funny was going on,’ Mrs Loughlin said, folding her arms and leaning on the wet wall.

‘So you did.’ Garda Thornton couldn’t get the sickly smell out of his nostrils. He itched to get back to the station and maybe find time to grab a quick shower.

‘Fancy a cuppa?’ she said.

‘That’d be grand, but I have to get back to the desk.’

‘The desk isn’t going to run away, is it?’

‘No, it won’t, but I have a job to do.’ Thornton looked up at the house and was struck by a recollection. ‘Mrs Loughlin, you said you saw two people go in and only one come out.’

‘I did,’ she said. Then she opened her mouth in a perfect O. ‘Someone else must have been in there. Someone who attacked those two poor boys before running off.’

‘Go put that kettle on,’ Thornton said. ‘I’m going to have another quick look inside.’

‘Here, take my umbrella.’

He laughed. ‘I’ll be grand.’

As the old lady headed towards her home, Thornton moved up the footpath to the door of the derelict house. Was this more than two lads falling out over a bag of weed or a can of beer?

Up the stairs he went, and as he climbed, the odour became more pungent and fetid.

He knew it was not just dry rot he could smell. It was something rotting all right, but also metallic. Blood, he thought, though not the blood from downstairs. It was up here, and he wasn’t at all sure he wanted to find the source. But he had to see for himself.

When he did, he plucked his radio from his uniform and, with a trembling voice, called the station.

Lottie zipped up her protective suit and fastened the ties of the mouth mask behind her ears. Then she followed Boyd’s long, lean figure under the crime-scene tape.

‘Why can’t people discover murder victims on a fine day?’ he said. She didn’t bother answering him, knowing it was a rhetorical question. As she passed him, he added, ‘And they could pick warmer and drier places to be found.’

‘Boyd, will you shut up?’

Lottie dipped her head under the lintel, careful not to brush up against the door, which was hanging precariously from a single hinge. The weather-beaten wood bore evidence that there had once been a lock and a handle, but they were no longer there.

‘What were those lads doing in here anyway?’ Boyd continued, his voice like a sharp breeze on the back of her neck. She’d pinned her hair up this morning, disguising the fact that it was overdue a cut and colour. She pulled up the white hood. He was still talking. ‘This is no place for youngsters. What age do you think they are?’

‘Who?’

‘The two lads that Thornton found.’

‘How would I know that?’

She sighed loudly and trudged up the wooden stairs, her protective booties snagging on the worn timber. In the time since Garda Thornton had called in the incident, uniforms had trampled all over the scene, one even vomiting in a corner of the landing, before they had realised the area needed to be preserved and the scene-of-crime officers called in. She would deal with the aftermath of their ineptitude in due course, but first she had to assess everything for herself.

The house was one of a terrace of six. She knew this area had been earmarked for urban development years ago, with plans for retail units and a paved pedestrian area linking to new council offices. The offices, which looked like a giant aquarium, were the only thing that had been built. The terraced houses were slap bang in the centre of the plans, but something had happened to stall the project, and Mrs Loughlin had stubbornly refused to uproot herself.

Lottie paused at the top of the wooden stairs and noticed the activity in the room to her left. She took a step towards it. In front of her was a bathroom with all its fittings plundered and removed, pipes standing forlornly from raised floorboards and the window boarded up. Two SOCOs were hunched over what she presumed was the body, lying where once a bath had stood. The stench of vomit at the doorway rose to her nostrils and she found that perversely it drowned out the smell of putrid flesh. Crime-scene tape hung across the doorway of another room to her right. She squeezed into the bathroom, leaving Boyd outside.

‘Hello, Detective Inspector Parker.’ Jim McGlynn, SOCO team leader, turned his head for a fraction of a second, and in that moment she witnessed the victim. Immediately she sympathised with the uniformed officer who had deposited his breakfast on the landing.

‘Jim,’ she said, barely daring to look at the carnage. ‘Tell me what we have here?’

‘Female. Deceased at least two days. Possibly longer. Good job the weather’s been so miserable, or there’d be more than one officer chucking up his guts.’

‘No need to be so crass,’ she said.

‘Just telling it how it is. And he should be reprimanded. He could have destroyed evidence.’

‘How did she die?’ Despite herself, Lottie couldn’t keep her eyes off the body lying face down on the floor. A dark hand curled around her spine and clawed into her chest to clamp her heart.

‘Stab wound to the throat,’ McGlynn said.

The words sent a shiver through Lottie. Just last July, young Gilly O’Donoghue had been viciously stabbed in a similar way.

McGlynn continued. ‘A lot of blood. I reckon the killer must have been saturated in it. Unless he came prepared.’

Lottie focused on the victim. Blinked once and allowed herself to print the image on her brain. She struggled to get the words out of her mouth, needing to say them out loud so that it all made sense.

‘Dressed for a nightclub. Jomo’s is just around the corner,’ she said. ‘Maybe she was coming from there and some psycho picked her up.’ A diamond heart stud earring was hanging loose from the victim’s ear, and Lottie had to stop herself from reaching out to twist it back in place. She knew who the victim was. ‘Sexual assault?’

‘Not evident externally. Underwear is intact, but the post-mortem will tell you conclusively.’

Her hands trembled. Recently she’d become more and more affected by the work carried out by the state pathologist, Doctor Jane Dore, in the morgue. It must be my age, she thought.

The victim’s toenails were painted with crimson nail polish and her legs were smeared with fake tan. Lottie could see, beneath the hardened blood, that the girl’s hair was dark brown.

‘Turn her over,’ she instructed McGlynn.

‘We should wait for the state pathologist.’

‘I said turn her over.’ She hadn’t meant to sound angry, but she needed to be one hundred per cent sure.

As McGlynn and his assistant carefully turned the body, Lottie felt a gasp lodge in the back of her throat.

Even though the face had begun to bloat, stark eyeshadow and black eyebrow pencil accentuated the victim’s features in death. Averting her eyes, she scanned the immediate area, looking for the weapon. As she did so, she caught sight of something shiny beneath the girl’s right hand.

‘Stop!’ she said. ‘Don’t move.’

‘What?’ McGlynn held both hands in the air.

‘Tweezers?’

He handed her a pair. She squeezed in beside him and nodded for his assistant to take photos as she lifted the victim’s hand in her own gloved one. On the ground lay a silver coin. Once the photographer had finished, she picked it up with the tweezers and held it to the light.

‘What do you think it is?’ she asked McGlynn.

He shook his head. ‘No idea. It’s not currency.’

‘Just plain silver, no engraving,’ she added. ‘About the size of a one-euro coin.’

She dropped the coin into a clear plastic evidence bag held out for her by McGlynn. With a Sharpie marker, he scribbled a code and details on the bag and handed it over to his assistant.

‘Looks like it was dropped after the girl was killed. No blood on top of it.’

‘Any sign of a phone or handbag?’ Lottie looked around the small room. The space seemed to close in on her as the fetid air clogged her throat.

‘No handbag,’ McGlynn said, lifting the girl’s hand once again to inspect her balled fist. ‘That’s a phone in there. But I daren’t remove it yet.’

‘Why not?’ Lottie asked.

‘Got in trouble before, with you know who.’ He laid the hand back on the ground.

Lottie knew he was talking about Jane Dore. As a result of decentralisation by the government, she was based about forty kilometres away, at Tullamore Hospital, where she conducted post-mortems.

‘Is she on her way?’

‘Later today, hopefully. She’s attending the High Court in Dublin this morning. Giving evidence in a case.’

So much for decentralisation, Lottie thought. ‘The minute you find any evidence, let me know. And give me a call once Jane arrives. I want that phone from the victim’s hand.’

‘Right, and I’ve yet to examine the second body,’ he said.

Lottie stared at the back of McGlynn’s hooded head. She had been so consumed with the discovery of Amy Whyte that she’d forgotten about the second victim.

‘In the other room,’ he said, and kept on working, measuring, lifting and probing.

Lottie edged out backwards and stood with Boyd on the cramped landing. After a moment, she moved towards the crime-scene tape at the entrance to the other room. She looked in and couldn’t stop her hand flying to her mouth to stifle the groan.

This female body was also lying face down. At first glance, Lottie could see that the feet had no shoes or sandals, and were filthy. The legs were streaked with fake tan and the black dress was short and rumpled around the buttocks. She couldn’t see any blood on the legs, but as she scanned the outstretched arms and the hands with their long acrylic nails, she noticed the pool of blood beneath the head of matted brown hair. A mobile phone lay beside the body, redundant with a cracked screen.

‘Have you been in here?’ she shouted back at McGlynn.

‘Just did a quick exam. Don’t go in,’ he warned.

‘I need to see her.’

‘And I’m saying wait until the state pathologist gets here.’

Lottie looked helplessly at Boyd. He shrugged and turned back to McGlynn. ‘Jim, give us two minutes. Come on, we need to see her.’

McGlynn grunted and put down his tools, then changed his gloves and moved out to the landing. He was shaking his head as he undid the tape and entered the room.

‘This young woman is around the same age as the other, and was killed in a similar manner. Stab wound to the neck.’ He pointed to the walls. ‘Plenty of arterial spray, so she was standing when he struck. I’d say he was behind her, holding her, and drew a sharp object, possibly a knife, across her throat. One cut. That’s all it took. She died quickly.’

‘And how long has she been dead?’

‘Same as the other girl. Two, maybe three days. But we’ll know more once the post-mortem is conducted.’

‘Can I move her?’

‘No.’

‘But you did,’ Lottie said, crouching down beside the SOCO.

‘I had to determine that she was dead.’

‘Just for a second. I want to see if there’s anything under the body.’

‘There isn’t.’

‘Humour me.’

He sighed and carefully turned the body to one side. Lottie flinched. The girl was not much older than Katie, and that thought sent a shiver down her spine. Her open eyes were brown, but the whites were speckled with bloodied dots and the lips were frozen in a scream.

‘I don’t see any coins,’ Boyd said from the doorway.

Lottie scanned the floor around the girl’s body. Ripped-up floorboards. Broken bottles and dead woodlice. ‘You got a flashlight?’

McGlynn fetched one from his case and shone the beam around the area where the body was lying.

‘There!’ Lottie kneeled down beside him, the boards sharp against her knees, and pointed to a spot directly below where the girl’s hand had been. ‘Two coins.’

‘Tweezers!’ McGlynn yelled, and his assistant rushed in with them. After photographs had been taken, he picked up the coins and held each one aloft for examination before dropping them into individual bags and marking the area with evidence numbers.

‘Same as the coin with the other victim,’ Lottie said. ‘Too much of a coincidence to think they were here prior to the attack on the girls. The killer left them here.’

‘That’s a huge assumption,’ McGlynn said.

‘Look at them,’ she said, pointing to the bags. ‘They’re spotless. No rust or discoloration.’

‘No engravings or markings, though. Some sort of talisman, perhaps?’

‘Maybe the girls had them with them,’ Boyd offered.

‘Possible,’ Lottie said, but she didn’t believe that. ‘I think they’re the killer’s calling card.’

McGlynn interjected. ‘I’ve work to do before the state pathologist arrives. If you don’t mind, I’d like to get on with it.’

‘And no handbags or identification for either victim.’ Lottie ran a gloved finger over her forehead. ‘That seems calculated. Boyd, organise a contingent to do a fingertip search of the surrounding area, gardens, bins and the car park.’

‘Those handbags are long gone,’ Boyd said, folding his arms.

‘Just get it done.’

Lottie gave the victim one last look, then pushed out past Boyd and stood on the landing trying to get some air into her lungs. But they just filled up with the damp, musty air, like a mixture of mushrooms and death.

‘We need to interview those two lads Thornton found earlier,’ Boyd said.

‘I doubt they had anything to do with this, but once they get medical clearance, we’ll see what they have to say for themselves. First off, the victims have to be formally identified.’ She looked around the small space. ‘But you and I both know that those two girls are Amy Whyte and Penny Brogan.’

‘We have to inform the families,’ Boyd said with a groan.

Lottie pictured Councillor Richard Whyte and shivered. It was going to be nasty.

She paused, thinking. ‘This has the air of planning about it. The killer knew about this place. He probably staked it out, so every inch of it has to be examined minutely.’

As she walked slowly down the stairs, she was still trying to catch her breath.

‘You okay?’ Boyd said behind her.

Shaking her head, she jumped down the last two steps and stepped out through the front door. Outside, she pulled down the hood of her suit and gasped in a lungful of fresh air. The rain had eased to a misty drizzle.

A crowd had gathered beyond the front wall; among them she glimpsed Cynthia Rhodes, a crime reporter with national television.

‘She’s all I need,’ she croaked.

‘Want me to have a word with her?’ Boyd asked.

‘It’s okay. I’ll give her a no comment.’

‘Perhaps you should be polite and make an appeal for witnesses?’

Lottie ignored him. Beyond the inner cordon, she pulled off her protective clothing, bundling it into a brown paper bag held out by a SOCO, and marched over to the wall. The feeling of unease that Cynthia always generated in her knotted her shoulders together. The reporter had a way of causing her to spout the wrong words, so she silently warned herself to form her sentences fully in her head before she spoke.

‘Detective Inspector Parker,’ Cynthia shouted, pushing a damp microphone under her nose. ‘Can you tell us what’s going on here this morning?’

Seeing the camera being swung in her direction, Lottie squared her shoulders. She had to make herself look in control of the situation while her mind was whirring in a myriad of directions.

‘Thank you for coming out in this terrible weather. Two bodies have been found in suspicious circumstances in the house behind me. I’d like to ask the public if they have any information in relation to this crime to contact our helpline or phone Ragmullin garda station. All information will be treated with the utmost confidentiality.’

Even as she spoke, Lottie didn’t believe her own words. It was impossible to keep anything confidential in Ragmullin.

‘Can you tell us anything about the victims? Who are they?’ Cynthia persisted.

‘As I said, I welcome the public’s help in this matter. If anyone is aware of any inappropriate activity in the area over the last week or two, they should contact us.’

‘Do you think one of them could be Councillor Whyte’s daughter? She’s been reported missing. I read an alert before I arrived here.’ Cynthia’s black curls clung damply to her forehead and her dark-rimmed spectacles were misted.

Lottie fought an urge to thump the reporter. Cynthia was always one step ahead of her. Perhaps it was her own fault for allowing Kirby to go ahead with the social media appeal for information on the missing girls.

‘This is no time for speculation, Ms Rhodes.’ She forced steadiness into her words. ‘Think of the families who have yet to be informed. Thank you.’

She caught up with Boyd at the car. ‘Let’s get out of here before I slap the puss off her.’

‘She’s only doing her job.’ The tyres skidded on the greasy road as he drove up to Main Street.

‘You have a soft spot for her, don’t you?’ Lottie sniped.

‘I’m not even going to grace that comment with a response.’

She looked out of the rain-smeared window at the shops. Boyd sped up the street and in two minutes had parked at the rear of the station. She was out of the car before him and rushed inside.

Kirby was slouched over his keyboard.

‘You could have held off on the social media appeal.’ Shit, why had she said that?

Kirby looked crestfallen. ‘What? You ordered me to go ahead. How was I to know they were already dead?’

‘Sorry. It’s just an awkward situation. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.’

Once she was in her own office, she hung up her damp jacket and sat at her desk musing over the problem of Kirby. She had to get him involved in this case but she needed him focused. With Maria Lynch on maternity leave and no one to replace her, Lottie’s resources were limited. And now she had two murders to investigate.

She glanced up as Boyd divested himself of his own jacket before sitting at his desk. There was a history of infrequent liaisons between them and he had once asked her for a commitment she couldn’t give. Her mother thought she should. But then Rose was old-fashioned and didn’t see how Lottie could sleep with Boyd now and again without any formal arrangement. Ah well, Rose would have a long wait if she thought she was going to be walking her daughter up the aisle any time soon. And anyway, Lottie wasn’t even her biological daughter! That made her think of Leo Belfield. There was no way she could leave now to follow up on a matter that was strictly private.

Her computer pinged with an email containing photos from the crime scene. Something to start on. Kicking herself into action, she jumped up. ‘Incident room. Let’s get this investigation up and running.’

And then she remembered they had yet to tell the parents.