Chapter 23

TWENTY-THREE

Sitting on a bench outside the courthouse, Conor Dowling smoked the cigarette he’d swiped from Tony. From his vantage point he could see the activity in the car park beyond the council buildings.

Guards. Plenty of them.

‘What are you looking at?’

He jumped up at the sound of the voice. Cyril Gill was towering over him. Conor’s reply died in his throat. All the words and sentences he’d concocted during his prison time evaporated into the misty air as just a jumble of letters; nothing connecting; nothing forming even a word, let alone a full sentence. He dropped the cigarette and made to move around his boss.

Gill grabbed his arm and pulled him to his chest.

‘If you so much as look crooked at my daughter, I’ll personally flay you alive. Got it?’

Conor gulped and dropped his chin to his chest. He’d thought Gill wouldn’t remember him. Stupid. Of course the man knew absolutely everything about him. Maybe he’d hired him on purpose. To keep him in his sights. That sounded about right.

When he looked up, he found himself alone. Gill’s car was speeding up Gaol Street. How long had he been standing like an idiot, staring at his mucky boots? Too long. He glanced down at the half-smoked cigarette drowned in a puddle. Shouldn’t have started, he thought, because now he’d have to go buy a pack.

With a backward glance at the guards searching around the recycling banks, he took a deep breath and headed to the newsagent’s. Maybe he’d buy two packs.

Richard Whyte made no objection to a search of Amy’s room. He was dry-eyed and talking on the phone to an undertaker.

‘When will my daughter’s body be released?’

‘As soon as the state pathologist says so,’ Lottie said. ‘Which room is it?’

‘Up the stairs. Third on the right.’ He returned to his phone call.

The Whytes lived on a private estate close to the ring road. The hum of traffic permeated the triple glazing and the house seemed to tremble. The hallway was spacious and the staircase winding, but the decor was soft and soothing. Amy or her late mother must have had some input, Lottie thought, because she found it hard to believe Richard Whyte had a soft bone in his body.

Her feet sank in the plush cream carpet and she wondered if she should have removed her boots. Too late now.

Upstairs she was met with a wide corridor and a line of white doors with brass handles. She tried the first one.

‘He said the third door,’ Boyd offered.

‘I want a quick look at how the other half lives.’ Lottie stepped into a bathroom. ‘This is the size of Penny’s flat. And not a streak of fake tan anywhere.’ She ran her gloved fingers over the white ceramic.

‘Genuine Armitage Shanks.’ Richard stood in the doorway, shoulder to shoulder with Boyd.

‘Oh, sorry, Mr Whyte.’ Lottie stumbled over her words and her feet in her haste to exit the bathroom.

‘That’s okay. I have a housekeeper three days a week. But you should see it after Amy has got herself ready for a night out. I’d say there’s cleaner dressing rooms on Broadway.’

Lottie smiled thinly and edged by him. In Amy’s room she was stunned by the contrast to the bathroom.

‘She doesn’t allow the housekeeper in here. The only room that remains like a pigsty. But it’s Amy’s space, and she loves her privacy. It’s the least I can give her after all she went through.’

He was still speaking about his daughter in the present tense, Lottie noted, but she didn’t have the heart to correct him.

‘What did she go through?’

Richard rubbed his jowly cheeks. ‘That business at Bill Thompson’s. Then the loss of her poor mother to cancer. And now … and now my Amy’s gone too.’ He slumped in a heap of hand-tailored suit and fell against Boyd.

Lottie indicated for Boyd to take him downstairs and began her search. She hated trawling through victims’ possessions, but she knew that the dead spoke to her through the evidence left on their bodies and in their habitat. This was one of the last places Amy had been. Tell me about her, she pleaded silently.

The king-size bed was made up with plain white cotton covers and sheets. Here and there Lottie saw little scratches of tan that had failed to disappear in the wash. She had to pick her way through discarded clothing on the floor until she reached the dressing table under the large window. Venetian blinds helped cast an eerie pattern of lines along the wall as she slipped a finger between two slats and looked outside. Trees guarded the end of the garden, but beyond that she could see the dual carriageway, with traffic travelling along in both directions at speed.

She sat on the small white stool and opened the drawers. Finding nothing of interest to her investigation, she hurriedly closed them again. This part of the job made her feel like a grave robber, but someone had to do it.

She admired the expensive row of perfume bottles on the surface of the dressing table, and thought how her girls would love to possess even one of them. The make-up was all Mac, but the brushes were clogged and well worn. Lights surrounded the mirror, with a photograph stuck under each bulb. She squinted at the images, thinking that most people didn’t get photos developed any more. They were all saved in phones and in clouds, available at the swipe of a fingertip. She detached a photo of a woman in her forties. Amy’s mother, she assumed, then noticed that all the photos were of the same person. Definitely the mother.

As she flicked up each photo, she noticed that one of them had a small envelope taped to its back. She extracted both the picture and the envelope and laid them on the table. Carefully she peeled back the tape and stared at the envelope. Just the name AMY scrawled on the front. No address, no postmark. She lifted the flap and extracted the white page. It was cheap paper, and as she opened it up, she stared open-mouthed.

Four words were typed on the page.

I am watching you.

She tipped the envelope on its side, and a single silver coin slid out.

Richard Whyte claimed he knew nothing about the note or the coin. Had no idea when Amy had received it. He’d shrugged his shoulders and Lottie believed him. For the moment. They’d rushed back to Penny’s flat, but there was no envelope, note or coin to be found.

At the office, Lottie photocopied the note through the plastic evidence bag and pinned the copy up on the incident board.

‘It’s a blatant threat,’ Boyd said.

‘Someone targeted her,’ Lottie said. ‘Was it because of the old court case? The one where she gave evidence against Conor Dowling? We need to bring him in. I want to interview him. Preferably before he gets his hands on a solicitor. Do we know where he is?’

‘I’ll find out from the probation service.’

‘Do it now.’

‘Was it just the one note?’ Kirby asked, joining Lottie at the board.

‘I pulled the bedroom apart. It’s the only one.’

‘And she didn’t tell her father?’

‘He claims he knew nothing about it. But I’ll grill him again.’ Her phone pinged. A reminder. ‘I almost forgot. I have to go collect Chloe and Sean from school.’

‘Why? Aren’t they big and bold enough to walk home?’

‘Don’t ask, Kirby. Just don’t ask.’

She flew out of the office and down the stairs while texting her two children to stay at the school gates until she arrived.

Rose strained the pot of potatoes and fetched the masher. She would put on a fried egg later and that would do for her dinner. She missed having her grandchildren around. Rushing in from school and grabbing plates and cutlery, sometimes eating at the table, but more times in their rooms. She’d never allowed that kind of behaviour when Lottie was young, but now life seemed too short for nonsense rules. She put the pot to the rear of the stove and went to get the frying pan from the shelf.

The doorbell rang.

Lottie had told her not to open the door, but she could see through the glass that it was just a woman in a rain jacket standing on her step.

When she was bundled backwards into her own hallway, she knew she’d made a mistake.

Lottie would kill her.

If Bernie Kelly didn’t do it first.