Chapter 20

TWENTY

Lottie found it a pain in the butt having to drive all the way to Tullamore for post-mortems, but she knew it was handier than navigating her way into Dublin city centre.

She took off her damp jacket, robed up in protective clothing and followed the pathologist into the morgue.

‘I haven’t started properly yet,’ Jane said, as she assembled various pieces of equipment so that she could cut and slice and record. Her assistant was busily lining up instruments on a steel tray.

‘I figured that. But I need something to guide my investigation.’ Lottie dabbed VapoRub beneath her nose and pulled the face mask loops around her ears.

‘Well, let’s see if I can help, though I can’t tell you anything officially until I’ve completed my work.’

The bodies of the young women were laid out side by side on two tables. Jane walked around them. ‘You know who they are?’

‘This is Amy Whyte.’ Lottie pointed to the first table. ‘And that’s Penny Brogan.’

‘Ages?’

Lottie exhaled loudly. The two girls reminded her so much of her own daughters. ‘Twenty-five.’

Jane turned towards the first body. ‘Both look normal and healthy for their age. Amy here seems to have suffered the deeper wound. Once I have fully examined her, all will be clearer. I can estimate unofficially that she was held from behind and a knife was stabbed into her throat.’

Lottie knew the pathologist was being cautious. It wasn’t in her nature to offer unsubstantiated information. ‘That confirms what I was thinking. It didn’t look like a slice to me.’

‘It’s a deep stab wound. Her airway would have been immediately cut off. A few superficial cuts around it suggest she tried to struggle. If she had consumed a lot of alcohol, it might have hindered her responses.’ She turned to Lottie. ‘The amount of blood at the scene suggests the artery was severed, resulting in death within seconds.’

Lottie thought that was small comfort. ‘Can you determine the type of weapon used?’

‘Not at the moment, but it was something with a sharp edge. If the weapon was thrust in deep enough to leave a patterned abrasion, then maybe …’ Jane feathered a gloved finger over the wound. ‘I can’t determine that from a visual examination, but I’m hopeful it’s possible.’

‘Were they sexually assaulted?’

Jane leaned her head to one side and opened her eyes wide, as if to say, how would I know at this stage? ‘Their underwear doesn’t appear to have been disturbed and there’s no visible evidence to suggest they were sexually assaulted. I still need to take samples and perform the autopsies.’

‘Jane, I need something. Anything. A clue to guide me.’

The pathologist’s eyes flared above her mask. ‘You’re pushing too hard. I need time to do my job properly. Give me a few hours. I’ll do everything in my power to get a preliminary report to you today.’

Lottie bit her lip, struggling with the consequences of lost time and how the murderer had a few days’ head start on her. ‘Can you process the bodies for DNA and fingerprints first? Then check if they’d been drugged. That might help.’

Jane shook her head. ‘I will do my job. I strongly advise that you do yours.’

Feck it. Now she’d alienated the one ally who might help her. She had gained nothing by this trip; only succeeded in losing time and sowing the seeds of hostility with the state pathologist. And she still had to catch up with Leo Belfield. Her day was deteriorating fast.

Louise Gill kept her phone switched off and made good headway with her coursework. She’d try to talk with Amy later. It was a few months since they’d been in contact, even though they both lived in Ragmullin. They’d once been best friends. A long time ago. Back before Conor Dowling went to prison.

In the kitchen, she poured a glass of water and leaned against the antique sink. Her father walked in and Louise put her phone away. She rinsed her glass under the flowing water from the tap, then made to edge by him towards the door. He grabbed her elbow.

‘Where are you off to?’

‘Dad, I have work to do.’ She put one foot over the threshold, but he held firm.

‘You know he’s back in Ragmullin,’ he said.

She stalled. Yes, she knew. He was the reason that fear now stalked every footstep she took. He was the reason she needed to speak with Amy. He was the reason for her life being total shit.

‘I know.’

‘I put him on my payroll where I can keep an eye on him. But that’s not twenty-four seven. You need to be careful.’

‘Why?’ She felt a little braver when his hand dropped from her arm. ‘I’d have thought you were the one who needed to be careful.’

‘You told the lies.’

She couldn’t believe the streak of darkness that flitted across her father’s indigo eyes. ‘I wasn’t even fifteen. Young and impressionable. So, as the saying goes, the buck stops with you.’

He raised his hand so swiftly that she almost didn’t duck in time. He’d never struck her; not once in her life had he even come close. She loved her father with all her heart, but sometimes she hated him just as much.

As if he realised what he’d been about to do, he let his hand fall away and took a backward step. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. I don’t know what came over me.’

Louise rushed out into the marbled hallway, almost colliding with the replica statue of Michelangelo’s David , and was halfway up the winding marble staircase when she shouted back at him, ‘I hate you.’

Shutting her bedroom door, she heard her mother come out of the study, and the pad of her bare feet on the plush cream carpet as she went into her own room and softly shut the door.

‘That’s right, Mummy dearest.’ Louise leaned her head against the robe hanging on the back of the door. ‘Bury your beautiful Botoxed face in a bottle, like you always do.’

The velvet red curtains seemed to be oozing blood, and the walls were crawling with thorns. Leo Belfield lifted his head from the pillow and immediately dropped it back again. He squinted through one eye. The room was spinning. Round and round.

Reaching out for the bottle of water he had left beside the bed, his fingers swiped clean through the air. No bottle. Suddenly he remembered.

He lurched upright and fell to the floor, his legs caught up in a swirl of white cotton sheets. Where was she? What had she done to him?

Stumbling around the room, he searched the closet, the bathroom, looked out into the corridor. Back inside, he leaned against the door.

Bernie Kelly had disappeared.

He checked his wallet. Cards okay. Cash gone.

He grabbed his phone and rang Lottie Parker.