Chapter 33

THIRTY-THREE

Kirby was still hungry. He missed having Maria Lynch around to have lunch with. He should call and see how she was getting on with the new baby. But not now, not yet. He had no idea how to make small talk about stuff like that. He’d spent all morning collating information from house-to-house inquiries in relation to the Whyte and Brogan murders. Nothing unusual had jumped out at him. As usual with this town, no one knew anything.

As he moved to the photocopier, he felt the little box shift in his trouser pocket and his chest tightened. He gripped it tightly, feeling the soft velvet beneath his fingers, and his heart broke all over again. The surprise he’d planned for Gilly. The ring he’d ordered but never got to give her. Just yesterday, the jeweller’s had called to say it was ready for collection. He could have said it was too late; he didn’t need it any longer. But he didn’t. Instead he’d gone in, paid the balance and taken the little blue box home with him. He couldn’t find the willpower to open it up, to stare at the cluster of diamonds on the white-gold band.

She was gone. She’d never known of his intentions. Never got to answer his unasked question. Would never slip the ring on her freckled finger. He gulped back a sob, glad that everyone was out of the office. Working. Unlike him. He needed to do something or he was going to go stark raving mad.

He took his hand away from the box of shattered dreams, found his coat and trudged out of the office and out of the station.

He had to eat.

As Boyd drove back to the station, Lottie leaned her head against the window. When they reached the Dublin bridge, she sat up straight and looked down into the valley of her town. The cathedral’s twin spires, the Protestant church’s single one, and what Sean called the hangman’s crane over the courthouse. They all stood as if holding up the businesses and homes that nestled in their shadows. In a few years, she thought, there might be a little more life in Ragmullin.

‘You didn’t have to be so cynical,’ Boyd said, interrupting her musings.

‘What do you expect? When you have a grieving father lying through his teeth.’

‘Richard Whyte wasn’t lying.’

‘Oh come on, Boyd. He tried to pretend he knew nothing about that phone. But he did. I was studying his expression. He didn’t think we’d find it. And then he got all flustered, saying it must have been Cristina’s. Do you know what I think?’

‘No, but you’re going to tell me.’

‘I think it’s Amy’s secret phone. And now I have it.’

‘And do you think it will lead you to her killer?’

She didn’t answer, just leaned her head against the glass again. The traffic lights turned green and Boyd put his foot to the floor.

‘Lottie, it was in the cupboard with the cleaning products, so chances are it belongs to Cristina.’

‘We’ll have to wait until our technical guys have a look at it.’

‘Right.’

‘What’s eating you now?’ she said.

‘Nothing, and you still have to tell me why you’re avoiding McMahon.’

‘It’s about Bernie Kelly. The media broadcast about her escape. I was accosted by Cynthia this morning. Needless to say, shit from the fan is swirling around McMahon at the moment.’

‘Are you sure you want to go back to the station?’ He was already turning up the street.

‘We now have four murders to investigate, so yes, I have to go back.’

They entered the station through the back door, and negotiated the stacks of box files that lined the narrow corridor.

‘Make sure that door is shut,’ Lottie told Boyd. ‘Don’t want little Miss Nosy Rhodes getting in.’

The media scrum outside the front door had swelled in the couple of hours since they’d left. Avoiding McMahon was going to be impossible.

‘I think you’re better off talking to him now instead of spending the remainder of the day in hiding.’

Boyd was right, she knew that, but the prospect of McMahon’s anger was enough to make her want to avoid him at all costs. It was taken out of her hands when she entered the incident room. McMahon was seated at one of the desks, going over a stack of reports. She noticed a stranger sitting at another desk.

The acting superintendent raised his head. ‘My office.’

By the time he had pushed out past her, she still hadn’t formed her reply.

‘You’d better get it over with,’ Boyd said.

‘Everything might be over by the time he finishes with me.’

‘What are you going to say?’ Boyd said.

‘I’ll think of something.’

She dropped her jacket and bag on a chair and followed her superior.

He’d moved the furniture around in his office again. Where did he get the time? Lottie searched for a chair to sit on, but couldn’t see one. Was this a KGB-type ploy to make her faint at his feet and spill her secrets? Feck you, McMahon. She leaned up against the wall inside the door and waited while he settled himself behind his desk.

‘Explain yourself,’ he said at last.

‘Sir?’

‘Don’t play the innocent with me. I know your type.’

‘What type might that be?’ As an afterthought, she added, ‘Sir.’ Best not to irritate him, though she suspected he was about to explode at any minute.

‘The type who protests their innocence knowing they’re guilty as hell.’

Unable to trust the words that might flow from her mouth, she remained silent.

‘I’m going to ask you a couple of questions and I want straight answers.’ He shifted a solitary pen from one side of his desk to the other. Then he leaned across and glared. ‘Are you related to Bernie Kelly?’

‘Sir, let me explain?—’

‘Answer the question!’

‘Yes, I think so.’ Feck him, she thought, he was going to screw her.

‘Did you know that fact at the time of the investigations you were conducting last October into the murders of Tessa Ball and Marian Russell?’

‘No, sir, I did not.’ Lottie squirmed against the wall. She’d discovered back then that Marian Russell too was her half-sister.

‘When did you become aware of your relationship to Bernie Kelly?’

‘After the case closed.’

‘The truth.’

‘That is the truth. I uncovered a little information during the course of the investigation, but when I was recovering from my stab wound, I confronted my mother and she told me what she believed to be the facts.’ Lottie felt like sliding down the wall and sitting with her hands around her knees like a child. But she remained standing, her head held high.

‘That’s a crock of shit.’

‘It’s the truth. Ask my mother.’

‘If I’m to believe Cynthia Rhodes, your mother died in a lunatic asylum.’

A gasp caught in her throat. He was nothing other than a grade-A shithead. ‘She might not be related by blood, but Rose Fitzpatrick is the only mother I’ve ever known.’

McMahon moved the pen to the other side of the desk again. ‘I’ll park that for the moment. When did you become aware that Kelly had escaped custody?’

Time for fudging the truth. She crossed her fingers. ‘When Cynthia doorstepped me this morning.’

He snorted. ‘You’re in serious trouble over this.’

Lottie copped the hint of a smirk curling his lips. Don’t say the wrong thing, she warned herself. That was what he wanted.

‘So what are you going to do about it?’ she said, lobbing the responsibility back into his court. She wasn’t going to make this easy for him.

‘You’ve compromised a historic murder case. You’ve put this whole district under the spotlight. I can’t have you pissing all over another investigation, especially with your half-sister on the loose.’ He still hadn’t said what he was going to do, but she read between the lines.

‘You can’t take me off the current cases. I’m senior investigating officer. I have suspects, and clues to follow up. Two more murders discovered this morning, and I?—’

‘You need to shut up. I know I can’t take you off the case immediately. I have assigned a detective from Athlone to your team. Sam McKeown. Be nice to him.’ He paused, and Lottie held her breath. She knew what was coming. ‘This is a formal warning. One step, one bloody step out of line, and you’ll be suspended.’ He held up a hand to stop her saying anything else. ‘You’re not off the hook. When you find this Bernie Kelly – and you will find her – I will know the whole truth of the matter.’

‘You think she’ll tell you the truth? You’re delusional, if you don’t mind me saying so.’ She couldn’t stop herself talking. She pushed away from the wall, leaned both hands on his desk and stared down at him. ‘Bernie Kelly was bred on lies. She lives in a world of her own making. She doesn’t know right from wrong. She couldn’t stand trial for the murders of Marian Russell or Tessa Ball or any of the others, on grounds of insanity. And you’re going to believe her over me? Come on! She’s threatened me already. My family and I need protection, not suspension or suspicion.’

‘Are you finished?’ he said.

She was breathless, so she nodded and took a step back as he stood. All the resolutions she’d made since moving into her new home – to be a good mother, to be the best at her job, to stop being dependent on pills and alcohol – suddenly seemed to dissolve into this single moment, and she felt totally lost. All she could see through the haze was one fact. She could not lose her job.

‘Threatened you? How?’

She could tell him about the seeds on her front step, but he wouldn’t get it. She should tell him about the coin, but she didn’t want to. She was in a bind. Before she could open her mouth, he continued talking.

‘You bring me the killer or killers of these young women without alienating Richard Whyte and Cyril Gill, two upstanding gentlemen of this town, and I will have a think about what I’ll do with you. Dismissed.’

Bollocks, she thought as she closed the door.